Handel In London

by Jane Glover

A rich and evocative account of the life and work of one of the world's favorite composers―from the acclaimed author of  Mozart’s Women . In 1712, a young German composer followed his princely master to London and would remain there for the rest of his life. That master would become King George II and the composer was George Freidrich Handel.  Handel, then still only twenty-seven and largely self-taught, would be at the heart of music activity in London for the next four decades, composing masterpiece after masterpiece, whether the glorious coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, operas such as Rinaldo and Alcina or the great oratorios, culminating, of course, in Messiah.  Here, Jane Glover, who has conducted Handel’s work in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world, draws on her profound understanding of music and musicians to tell Handel’s story. It is a story of music-making and musicianship, but also of courts and cabals of theatrical rivalries and of eighteenth-century society. It is also, of course the story of some of the most remarkable music ever written, music that has been played and sung, and loved, in this country―and throughout the world―for three hundred years.  16 Pages of Color and B&W Illustrations

Genres: Music, Biography, History, Nonfiction, 18th Century

430 pages, Hardcover

First published September 20, 2018

About the author

Jane Glover has been Music Director of the Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Artistic Director of The London Mozart Players, and has conducted all the major symphony and chamber orchestras in Britain.

Reviews

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

With great regret I heard the news that the upcoming performance of Handel’s Esther, by The King’s Consort under Robert King that was to take place in a couple of weeks has been cancelled due to the travel restrictions imposed by Covid. Let’s hope that the Giulio Cesare in Egitto that will be sung in May (by La Cetra from Basel), and for which I also have tickets, will push ahead.

Apart from the Messiah, it is not easy to be able to attend a performance of an opera or an oratorio by Handel. Whenever they are scheduled I jump to procure my tickets. So far, I have been able to attend an Agrippina and a Semele (both by the NYC Opera), a Giulio Cesare (The Met), a Rodelinda (Teatro Real) an Alcina (in concert format at the Madrid Auditorium), a Tamerlano (La Scala) and a Giustino (Theater an der Wien). All unforgettable. I have also watched in cinemas a few broadcasted operas, such as Rodelinda and the recent Agrippina from the Met. Anyway, all this is just to support that I consider myself a Handel buff.

This book has received a good musical press coverage here since it has been translated recently, so it was on my list but what impelled me to read it Pronto (!) was Jan-Maat’s excellent review--although I read it in the original. I do not wish to add much more J-M's. Just a couple of comments.

The reading made it much more clearly to me why Handel felt so quickly so comfortable in London. When he arrived in London in 1710, Anne was still on the throne, but he did not decide to settle there until a couple of years later. Anne’s new theatre had been finished in 1704 and his arrival with a couple of Italianate operas under his arm gave a welcome impetus to the new venue. She soon awarded him with a generous pension for life. But before his London trip, Handel had been the Kapellmeister in the Hanover court of the future King of Britain, George I. No surprise then that Handel felt completely at home in a court that had been extirpated from Germany and grafted onto London. Handel’s conception of court music was rooted in the same ground as that of his patrons, even if the performances of his music were not performed strictly at court but in private theatres which had nonetheless a clear support from the court.

And yet, Glover presents Handel as an outsider, but a genteel and astute one, since he succeeded in being always in excellent turns with this royal family in which fathers and sons did not get along at all. And even if for a while Prince Frederick ostentatiously supported the rival theatre, the Opera of the Nobility, and troupe, eventually he also acceded to attend Handel’s productions.

Following Handel’s career, it also becomes patent how music, at least the one intended for entertainment (for even very few of Handel’s oratorios had a religious theme or were performed in sacred venues) was Italian in its DNA. The European courts, including Russia, were hearing the notes of Italian musicians, or of non-Italian musicians who trained in Italy, and the human voices had Italian names. In 1719 Handel went on a tour trying to hire new singers – he went to several courts in various countries where the Italians were singing. And we cannot forget that even the opera genre of the time was the very resilient opera seria that often used stories from Italian literature or were adapted by Italian librettists. Handel’s move towards the Oratorio in English in his later career proved to be a very innovative and successful path (although I still prefer to hear sung Italian to sung English).

Another aspect that became very clear to me in Glover’s account was how the performance of vocal music depends to a great extent on the performer – the human performer. We now don’t appreciate the extent to which all these works were composed to fit the vocal abilities of any particular singer. This book is then excellent at tracing how the history of many of these compositions followed the lives of their singers. Being such a fine artist, these scores were fitted to the vocal cords like haute couture, adjusted to compensate weaknesses and to enhance natural brilliances. Any change of singer entailed further adaptations.

But history always presents its own irony and we now blink our eyes when we realize that the best composer of baroque operas did not produce a single aria for the greatest singer of the times, the fabled Farinelli.

[Jan-Maat]

A vivid picture of Handel as theatrical impresario.

I looked forward to reading this book - which I got for Christmas and is by no means the book which has been waiting longest for my eyes and fingers to ruffle it's pages - because the author, Jane Glover, is a regular conductor of Handel and I hoped that she would bring her professional experience of performing Handel to her book. I had not anticipated, though, the way in which she would do this.

So it is fair to say that the book is not a biography, and it may be that a biography of Handel would not be very revealing, Glover makes it clear that he was a very private person and even his personal letters don't give much away, late in his life the gossipy press in London this is very much a plus ca change book announced that Handel travelling through the Netherlands had been involved in a traffic accident when his carriage overturned, however there is no mention of any such accident in his own correspondence. So did the accident happen, and Handel didn't think it worth mentioning, or has celebrity gossip always been unreliable but wait, that is a tautology, sorry ?

The book begins in a conventional biographical mode with Handel's birth and childhood, Glover is not a fan of the first Handel biography; John Mainwaring's Memoirs of the life of the late George Frederic Handel (1760) and so presumably no longer widely available in bookshops be they good or bad) she finds Mainwaring unreliable and she dismissed the stories that I was familiar with - of the young Handel practising secretly on a clavichord at night because his father disapproved of his studying music, and that Handel had fallen out with the future George I and had to worm his way back into royal favour.

In Glover's view Handel was persistently a good manager of his patrons - chief among them the Hanoverian Royal/ducal family whose support was manifested in direct cash grants, publicly attending performances of his music, engaging him to provide music for royal events (coronations, funerals and so on), and employing him to tutor Royal Princesses in music kept him in the eye of the fashionable (and gossiping) parts of the London public, and potentially most valuable - a grant of copyright which was not to become a standard privilege for creative persons until the nineteenth century.

Glover's Handel is also a Green Handel - a great recycler as was his near contemporary, the ever so slightly younger J.S. Bach music from a royal coronation could find its way into an Oratorio, chunks of one opera could be reused in another, or arias might be moved from one opera to another. Roles were altered and adapted to fit the singers he had available - and this might include gender blind casting - since the higher voices were the heroic ones at this point in opera history a role might be performed by a woman in one season and a castrato the next, and so on, and Handel amended music to suit the changes in a singer's voice - if they could no longer manage the highest notes, fine he would accommodate that. This was also true for his work with musicians too, I got the impression that for Handel a even a finished composition was a contingent thing, if he did not have on hand the musical forces that he needed for a piece of music, fine, he would change the music, but he might also coach the performer - or do both.

Glover tries to tell a story of a simple shift from Italian opera to English Oratorio, driven by public demand, to be the narrative of London's musical history in the first half of the eighteenth century. But reading her book it seemed that things were a little more complex than that - Handel's first English Oratorio, Esther was first performed in 1720 in the midst of his success as a composer of Italian opera, but it was not performed again until 1732 and it was only after Handel's first stroke in 1737 that he composed a string of Oratorios to be sung in English. Glover argues that the public eventually got tired of Italian opera (which was sung in Italianyou could buy a bilingual word-book presumably a libretto without the musical scoreso you could follow along with the singing and the story even if your Italian was not so fluent ), but I wondered if simply the market for it was over-saturated.

In any case Handel and others were drawing upon the same group of singers - Italians the principals among them and one of Handel's tasks was to travel Europe during the international transfer window to hire the foremost voices where-ever they were performing in Europe - and fascinatingly there was much gossip in London over the merits and talents of singers performing in Italy and Germany and most of those who Handel brought to London for enormous sums of money were already famous among London audiences most of whom can never have heard them sing before. I can only imagine that regular flocks of letters from travellers reporting on the opera performances that they had seen in Dresden or Venice stirred up huge anticipation for these superstars.
Typically for this era, Handel's house at 25 Brook Street Jimi Hendrix later lived in a flat next door, both are now a combined museum https://handelhendrix.org/ was his workplace, in the cellar was a kitchen, on the ground floor worked his copyist - this also became a sales-room for his sheet music, the first floor was a rehearsal space , while the second floor was Handel's bedroom and had a small private office for him, in the attic was accommodation for his servants.

In return for their superstar wages, these opera singers were expected to flex their throats and work, the performance schedules and the number of new works (or amended older pieces) was prodigious. Glover regularly describes Handel as a workaholic which seems to soft pedal the situation.

I found this a fascinating book, more intensely about opera and Oratorios in London than I had imagined, at times Handel seemed to be just another busy figure in a hectic landscape rather than being the centre of the book, and there was far more in this book about different singers and the rivalries between them - possibly the pure invention of the media rather than a reflection of any actual quarrel - than would have drawn me to this book. And while it is true that this book did not convert me from a Bach-fan into a Handel-fan, in truth that would always have been a very unlikely outcome.

This book shows the reader Handel as impresario, manager and musical whirlwind in the context of, chiefly the sung part, of London's musical life in the first half of the eighteen century.

[David Wineberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Handel in London is a showbiz tour of the 1700s, far more than a biography. Jane Glover has filled a book with details of operas and concerts and especially their stars. Readers get profiles and the inside poop on endless Italian singers, English impresarios, and of course all the trashy goings on in the royal family. Handel – not so much.

Glover has all the experience in the world to write an appreciation of performances, and she doesn’t disappoint on that level. She examines every aria in Handel’s operas and oratorios. She notes key changes and their significance. She finds great significance in the mix of instruments employed in different acts. She reviews nearly every work, every venue and every performance. She takes prices, box office, subscriptions, politics and even the weather into account. There is also much on the importance of stardom, how much different singers were paid, and how London sought to make itself the entertainment capital by buying out stars from Dresden to Rome and everywhere in between. The evolution of the set, the evolution of the audience, and (especially) the length of the run are the backbone of Handel in London.

There is not very much on Handel, however. He was a teenage success in his native Hanover, and from that early start, managed to have people in power pay his way around Europe and to England. He had a large stipend from Hanover, even for the first year he lived in London. But he didn’t need it, as he was offered a job right off the boat. His life was one success after another. He even managed to sell his shares in the South Seas bubble before it popped.

There were lots of connections to royalty, as the Electors of Hanover took over the English Throne when Queen Anne died, leading to an unimpressive series of King Georges, who were difficult people. They provided scandals and food for gossip, and paid Handel with even more in English pounds after they cut off his Hanover stipend. The fact that Hanoverians were running England was a crucial ingredient in Handel’s ascent and network. By the time he was 30, he was set for life, even if he never wrote another piece.

He wrote over 70 major works. He was endlessly inventive and creative. And fast. He wrote so fast some thought he was lazy. He knew every nuance of every performer’s talents, and adjusted his works every year, to account for who was playing in them. He justifiably became a national treasure of Great Britain.

After 20 years, London finally tired of a German writing Italian operas for an English audience. Handel’s productions began to fail and his star began to fade. At the age of 52, he suffered a massive stroke, and it changed his approach. He bent to the fashion and began producing in English. But the decline, though gentle, continued. The real end was total blindness, which plagued him until his death six years after it was confirmed.

Late in the book, Glover tells us that someone was part of Handel’s “small circle of friends”, the first mention of such a thing, but she never tells us more. Handel apparently had a short temper and an “imperious and extravagant will”. He had an “essential humility and generosity that belied the bluster of his outgoing, confident personality.” Near the end, now blind, he hired the son of his oldest German friend to help him, because he knew Handel’s methods and his “foibles”. But Glover never tells us what those were. That’s about all the detail there is on George Frideric Handel for all his 74 years.

Handel was single all his life. He never had really close friends. He didn’t bring relatives over from Hanover. He didn’t entertain at home. He wasn’t a social butterfly or a post-show partier. At least, not that Glover recounts. His personal life goes unexplored, compared to all the performers he engaged, whose lives get the full gossip treatment. The book is thorough, but as a collection of liner notes rather than a biography of a genius.


David Wineberg

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5)

This is going to be the best high-end Christmas book ever. From the joyful cover to the fact that the font isn’t too small, from the canny summaries of every opera and oratorio Handel wrote to the insightful but not distractingly detailed musical analysis, Handel in London might well have been tailored specifically for the genteel-music-lover market, and their Christmas needs. It’s also fun to read about the various difficulties involved in putting on operas in England in the early eighteenth century: they’ve always had an image problem, apparently, as they were generally considered to be too “exotic” and fancy for honest, simple English tastes. (That they were sung in a foreign language seems to have been the primary problem.) Singer drama, meanwhile, takes up a large portion of Handel’s time. (There is that glorious story about Francesca Cuzzoni refusing to perform an aria, to which Handel replied, “Madam, I see that you are a true devil – but I am Beelzebub, chief of devils”, and then threatened to fling her out of a window. Glover also recounts the weirdly manufactured rivalry between Cuzzoni and another soprano, Faustina; the two women appear to have mostly gotten along just fine, until nascent celebrity culture and the press whipped up a story about their being bitter enemies.) If I have one complaint, it’s that, although we get a great sense of what Handel was doing at any given moment in his life (and he was always doing a lot), it’s much harder to imagine what the inside of the man’s head might have been like. But then, his letters just don’t seem to be very revealing, and it’s obvious that he was both brilliant and almost obsessively hard-working. Highly recommended.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jane Glover, a British conductor, has written a very readable popular biography of Handel for the general reader, focused mainly on the performances of his operas and oratorios. This was not intended as an original contribution to scholarship, and there is a minimum of references and a very short bibliography. There is no technical analysis of his music. Despite its length it was a quick and enjoyable read.

[Jason Pettus]

2021 reads, #59. DID NOT FINISH. The little I read of this biographical look at German Baroque composer George Handel's time as a court musician in 1700s London was pretty interesting; but what I've come to learn is that I'm just not that interested in the detailed minutiae of his life, and so after having the 400-page library book in my possession for literally four months now and still finding myself only at page 50, I'm reluctantly giving up and turning it back in. Don't let my abandoning of it make you think that it's bad, because it's not; but sister, make sure you really, really want to know about the day-to-day life of Handel before you pick it up yourself.

[David Jacobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography of the Baroque giant weaves together the stories of Handel the composer, of Handel the producer of music performances, and of the broader politico milieu in which both figures found themselves. While today we think of Handel as the great genius who wrote Messiah, it is fascinating to read about the contingent way in which his great works emerged as a consequence of the tastes of his audiences and of the available singers he has to work with. As shocking as it is for us to imagine today, Handel frequently rewrote his most famous works to suit the talents of individual singers appearing in later revivals! What would the classical concert hall sound like today if we felt similarly free to rearrange and were similarly desirous of new compositions?

The book is generally a pleasure to read; although, it does drag in describing the plots of too many minor oratorios and listing out the names of too many singers. It might have been better to focus just on those who specifically affected Handel's development.

I picked up this book after seeing Jane Glover lead the Philadelphia Orchestra in performing Messiah this Christmas. I know this isn't what she was going for, but I also would have enjoyed reading a different book, one containing her insights into Handel as one of his foremost interpreters in the present day.

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Handel and thought I had heard a significant number of his compositions performed, but reading this book, I quickly realized that I have only experienced the tip of the iceberg. Handel was incredibly prolific and maybe this is what gives the book a little bit of a repetitive quality-- as someone said just below, "This is a showbiz tour of the 1700s, far more than a biography."

Glover goes through each and every piece of music with great attention paid to the singers and performers, as well as the collaborators to each piece. Unfortunately, not only is there very little about Handel himself, but there is not even a lot of time or space given to musical analysis--which given Glover's esteemed career, that would have been very welcome!

His personal life is hardly alluded to at all. And while he never married and was a bonafide workaholic, still, there should have been material enough both his relationship to the Hanoverian monarchs, as well as his competition with Porpora. About the latter, hardly any attention was paid to this at all--nothing on the castrati or music at the time, nor on his supposedly difficult personality.

I recommend Ellen Harris' book.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 2 out of 5]

More like 2.5 stars. Come with me and let me tell you why.
As a history of 18th century London opera, its imported Italian talent and, surprisingly, as a history of the Stuart eclipse and Hanoverian ascension, this is an excellent book. As a biography of Handel, it is far more wanting.
Handel haunts the above goings-on like an elusive specter, but it isn't really the author's fault. Handel famously left virtually nothing personal behind and little is known of his actual day-to-day life. He never had a family or kids, though there were apparently amorous adventures here and there, we know little to nothing about them. His presence in this work, then, is little more than a kind of anonymous, if highly-talented behind-the-scenester. What I'm trying to say is, if you're looking for Handel, you won't find him here, or anywhere else, but the book is a nice history of those other things.
I'm moved to warn the reader, "Handel with care". Bwahahahahahah!
Wait...come back!

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very readable and so interesting. Well done Jane Glover for presenting an excellent portrait of an astonishing composer and his amazing work, as well as providing the historical and political context in which it was written. I had no idea of the sheer scale of his output - ‘over 70 dramatic works (opera and oratorio), and impressive lists of sacred music, secular cantatas and keyboard music.’ And he worked so hard to produce music which was perfectly adapted to the musicians who would perform it. There is so much of his music for me to enjoy - and as I do so I’ll return to this book to reread Glover’s wonderful descriptions of individual pieces.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Right at the end of Handel In London: The Making of a Genius, its author, Jane Glover, seems to belittle her achievement, almost apologizing to those who corrected mistakes, offered edits or assisted along the way. She admits that the book might have been completed eight years before its 2018 publication. Now it has to be said that Jane Glover is not only an accomplished writer, she is also a teacher and acclaimed conductor, so it might just be that other professional commitments got in the way.

The fact that this particular reader continued to read beyond the end of this monumental work into the acknowledgements, is itself evidence that this is no run-of-the-mill biography. Sure enough, there have been many books about the life of George Frederick Handel, but this one is written by a practicing musician who has directed performances of many of the works described from the conductor’s podium. Thus, the insight that the author brings to this musical biography is truly enlightening. What Jane Glover has provided is nothing less than a listening guide to Handel’s major compositions.

Not that this book is only, or even primarily aimed at the musical enthusiast. On the contrary, it is interesting on so many levels that a general reader would appreciate its content. This book is therefore a monumental achievement of scholarship, and, despite its title, it is nothing less than an artistic portrait of eighteenth-century London.

So let’s not start with the music. G F Handel was born in Halle, Germany. He was already in London when George, Elector of Hanover, was invited to become King of England on the death of Queen Anne. Throughout his life, Handel received financial and moral support from the rich and powerful. George the First and his son, the succeeding George the Second, contributed generously to the composer’s coffers throughout his life and royalty were often present at performances he presented. Eighteenth-century history therefore plays a crucial role in this text. It provides a context for Handel’s achievements, and indeed, his royal connections played a fundamental part in his lifetime work.

So clear is Jane Glover’s grasp of the history that this reader truly understood for the first time on reading this book exactly how the monarchy proceeded from James II to George I. Sections on Queen Anne, the War of Spanish Succession, the war of Jenkin’s Ear, the Stewart uprising, and the War of Austrian Succession were both vital to the narrative and thoroughly enlightening. The section on the financial crash that was the South Seas Bubble is more than relevant to the story of Handel’s time in London and Jane Glover describes the process with clarity.

Equally enlightening were the descriptions of eighteenth-century London’s theatrical life. This ran far from smoothly. Whenever does art not bump along from success to failure and back again? Particularly interesting was the rivalry that developed between opposing supporters of Handel’s two principal sopranos, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. Descriptions of the rival fans actually cheering and booing during performances are reminiscent of contemporary football matches.

Rivalries, disagreements, births, deaths, marriages, amorous escapades, and other diversions that afflicted the royal household are also centre stage, because often it was royal family politics that became national politics and that determined exactly what Handel composed and performed, and exactly who it was that he would hire to perform.

What comes across vividly is how the cultural life of the capital was driven by royal taste. Or perhaps it should be said how little these royal tastes influenced what the mass of people actually attended. Handel’s achievements are undeniable, but Jane Glover puts these into context, recording clearly where the audience was more numerous. And that was usually for less demanding experiences offered by deliberately more “popular” tastes. Anyone who has visited London during the last fifty years will know that, apparently, little has changed when it comes to the preferences of the theatre-going audience. The fact that we still listen to the music, operas and oratorios of G F Handel, whereas Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, and the other lightweight, mass appeal productions are forgotten, is perhaps due to enduring quality, and perhaps a comment on the original quality on offer. Little, therefore, has changed over the years. It might be argued, on the other hand, that Handel existed because of royal support, and that his enduring success is a result of continuing elitism.

Jane Glover’s Handel In London is not just a book for music lovers. This superbly written text is actually a social and artistic history of England in the first half of the eighteenth century. As such, it will surely captivate many a general reader.

[Elizabeth]

Since I'm an amateur as a classical music listener, I won't rate this biography since Jane Glover includes many musical details that went over my head. (Please note that I still found this very readable and accessible with some judicious skimming.) I enjoyed reading this very much and felt emotional at the end when Handel died. For being a native-born German, he was such a titan of the London music scene for decades. He really found his niche as testified to by the 3,000+ individuals who attended his memorial service. Handel was close to the King Georges and came over to London early in the 18th century with George I. His connection with the Hanoverians lasted until his death and gave him a lot of stability in income and popularity for composing his incredible oeuvre. I particularly enjoyed his relationship with Princess Anne, who was the eldest daughter of George II. Anne was very musical and took lessons from Handel.

Jane Glover weaves history into the narrative in a subtle but helpful way. I don't know much at all about 18th century history, but now I feel more grounded in it. It was also fascinating to learn how much of Handel's early career was about opera and using singers from the Continent (especially Italian singers) and how that shifted over time into oratorios that covered a wide range of subjects, from martyrs to Old Testament stories, mythology and history. There was a LOT of drama around Handel's singers, especially the Italian ones: the war of the divas. It was rather amusing to read about.

I did not realize that the Messiah was originally performed in Dublin! I loved read about that. There were lots of fascinating details in this chapter and Handel was very well received in Dublin amongst a music-loving public. I also enjoyed reading about Handel's contributions to various charities including the Foundling Hospital that was founded by Thomas Coram. (It was fun to see Handel pop up in Tom Jones, which was written in the 1740s when Handel was still a loomingly large figure in the London music scene.) I definitely got more of a sense for Handel as a composer and musician than as a person. The biography is very much focused on his music and the rise and fall of its popularity in London during his adult life. He truly was a genius and I am glad I picked this up!

[Hana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Handel in London ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(and a half)

This book is one those rare non-fiction books that not only describes the past but transports you there. I really felt the buzz of 18th century London throughout this book.

There was a vast inclusion of contemporaries and critics of the times’ articles and comments which was nice and added to the rich atmosphere of the book. The anecdotes described had me laughing till I was crying at points - Prima Donnas Faustina and Cuzzoni having serious beef and making me think of mods and rockers of the 60s, Handel threatening to throw someone out of the window, the list goes on.
(At one point, a famous - and demanding - singer was halfway through an aria when a piece of set fell on him and he started crying).

As a fan of Handel and classical music in general this really catered to me and a large demographic of people. It had references accessible to everyone from casual listeners to professional musicians. Handel was famously a very private person so don’t expect too much in-depth description of his personal life, however I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend.

[10wagner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un libro que termina siendo engañoso con su título, se trata más de Londres en época de Haendel que un libros sobre el compositor barroco. Se sabe poco sobre el gran compositor alemán nacionalizado británico y el libro no revela mucho más, El personaje siempre está detrás de un cristal velado, se ve su silueta y sus movimientos, pero sigue siendo una gran incógnita. Tal vez siga siendo más revelador oír sus obras, que leer este libro. Está bien escrito y fundamentado, pero termina siendo más académico que una biografía vivencial, que era lo que buscaba.

[Andrew Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I have read about Handel or indeed any classical composer written by a true artist who has lived with and conducted many of his works (several of which I have been lucky to see her do). Jane Glover brings Handel - a man from Europe who came to the UK - and his works to life and her excellent and vivid descriptions of his works made me want to explore the ones I don’t know and re-explore the ones I do. Highly recommend this brilliant portrait of one of the most important composers of opera, oratorio and orchestral works - a prodigious output from a profound man! Brava!

[Andrea Engle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Glover, an astonishing conductor and skilled interpreter of Handel’s work (she conducts “The Messiah” as though she’d written it herself), constructs the engrossing story of Handel’s amazing career in London ... the joy of reading a talented musician’s analysis of this creative genius is unparalleled ... the breadth of her professional knowledge adds greatly to the exceptional scope of this remarkable book ... a music lover’s delight ...

[Susanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and scholarly but it needs a CD of all the music that is described to truly appreciate the author's scholarship. Well done and well written.

[The Lost Dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I'm an avid lover of Baroque music and Handel's operas, my knowledge of music, especially classical music, is very superficial. Also, I must admit, I haven't read many biographies in my life. This makes my opinion, obviously, rather uninformed. But I felt a deep interest in this book and I started reading it quite enthusiastically.
Jane Glover's biography on Handel is curious because after I finished it, I feel like I know much more about the London of the 18th century, the first members of the Hanover dynasty, and the tricks of the s opera showbiz of that time. I've even learned a lot about Handel's operas: when they were written and released, the changes they were subject of, and even who sang every last role or who attended to the first representations. But after hundreds of pages, I barely know anything about the subject of the book: Handel. And that feels odd.
Glover points out several times how little of his personal affairs Handel wrote about in his life. But her research about Handel's body of work and the careers of those who were in his range of influence is too large for the absolute lack of personal insight she provides. It's not that I have any morbid need for gossip or that I started reading this book with any expectations to get to know in deep Handel's personal life and personality. But as the pages went on, I found more and more puzzling that among the ton of data about Handel's musical business, absolutely nothing about him as a human being living in a society surfaced.
Jane Glover, of course, provides splendorous insights on every single aspect of Handel's career. The book really flows as she describes the social and political circumstances that surrounded the development and performance of his operas and oratorios. Her detailed explanations of the vocal challenges that each aria involved are magnificent, even for those who, like myself, have little knowledge about lyrical singing or harmony. But the constant enumeration of every single vocalist who played a role, almost in every revisit of every play, is simply tedious and gives the impression of being reading a meticulous catalog of performances of Handel's works that took place in his lifetime and a biography.
In the end, the book is only half satisfying. Glover's passion for Handel is contagious but leads to exaggeration or even blind adoration in too many passages of the book. There are many parts of the book that take you back to the streets of London, to the very same theaters where Handel and his collaborators crafted immortal pieces of music. But they always lead to neverending lists of people who were around there at that time and sang that little role never to be known in History again. And that's pointless if you're not a scholar. This is a great book for those who want to take a seat, a good version of any opera or oratorio by Handel that they like, and give themselves the treat of reading Glover's insights of that piece because that's really fulfilling. But, once read completly, one feels that there are too many things missing from this book and wonders why such extensive research leaves so many things in the air.

[Khoreutees · Rating 1 out of 5]

It would be fair to say that I am not the target audience for this book. I am not on the whole musical, have no particular love of Handel, and this is not a period of history I am particularly interested in. The interests that lead me to read this book were firstly curiousity about the evolution of tropes in opera and in the role of women singers - how people reacted and the circumstances surrounding having male parts sung by women (and to a lesser extent the ways that society did or did not react to having castrati as the main male roles), as well as the ways in which artistic works reflect the society they are produced in. Unfortunately this book had little to say to any of those interests although it touched on relevant points in passing.
My main criticism is the style, in particular the need to see Handel as protagonist and genius. This leads to a tendancy to describe all of his works in gushing terms. It also, in my view, means that Glover sells others short. In her determination to show Handel's genius she appears reluctant to acknowledge that anyone else might have made an important contribution to the success of a venture or come up with an important, interesting or popular innovation. I got no sense of an artistic or intellectual community or exchange. This may be an accurate reflection of Handel's lack of enagagement or exchange with his peers or with writers, theatre or artists, but it also seems to play into the determination to see his as a solitary genius. Reading this book one would believe that Handel's music was the only major artistic work to come out of the century. Moreover, there is a tendency to frame anyone chosing not to work for Handel - particularly those who had previously worked for him and chose then to work for or set up an alternate opera company - as betraying him. As I said, I do not know the period, so maybe this is an accurate reflection of the situation, but I was rather left with the impression that people who were simply making rational choices for their own lives and careers were being vilified for not gloriying Handel or sacrificing themselves to his "genius". I lost count of the number of times mention was made of the intensity of the seasons Handel chose to put on and of how often his signers fell ill. I could not help wondering if these two were connected, although Glover does not touch on the posibility except as regards Handel himself.
The myopic focus on Handel might be easier to cope with if one got any sense of him as a person, but this too was lacking. This may be a consequences of the sources, but also seems a weakness in the presentation. I do not feel having read the book that I have any better sense of what Handel was like as a person to interact with than I did at the start - all the book offered were guesses and assumptions that his music was autobiographical or that he would have reacted to events in the world. Here again, the uncritical tone of the book makes it less interesting. There is no acknowledgement of the fact that it takes very little reading between the lines to see that Handel was a propagandaist of the Hanoverarian monarchs - and I would have been fascinated to see more discussion of why and how that impact broader reception and relations, particularly in a context where satire, including in the theatre was growing in popularity.

[Tony Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane Glover has written a comprehensive survey of Handel's musical life whilst he was living and working in London, from about 1712 (when he was 27) more or less until his death. It is very much focused on his music - you will find little in here on Handel as the man, his likes and loves, and his social life. Instead we get a portrait of a composition machine or work-horse, turning out very quickly, and in rapid succession, a huge number of Italian operas and then oratorio, year in year out. The book paints a very appealing portrait of the cultural life of the capital at the start of the 18th century, and of the singing "stars" of the period. The historical backdrop and the various factions of the new Hanoverian Royalty were also well covered. Reading about music, as opposed to listening to music, I find hard and the narrative descriptions of the actions and music of the operas were often difficult to follow, but I nevertheless found it a very interesting read. My only disappointment was to discover that the oft repeated folklore about George II's reaction to the Hallelujah chorus in the Messiah is apparently not true (he was supposed to have stood up in joy, which is why we all continue to do so to this day).

[Kidlitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full confession, I don't know very much about the Hanoverian patronage of Handel, but I do know London. The latter's presence is still very much felt with constant performances of his music in churches and concert halls, blue plaques celebrating his various physical habitats around town, and the Handel Museum, which I would recommend to anyone who wanted to learn about the Georgian period. This book celebrates all of that but most of all, the incredible amount of music Handel produced while living in London and how that music came to represent the glories of the period, while masking some of the very real ills that abounded in that time. Even now Handel casts a rosy glow of satisfied genius and this tome provides a ton of informed, gossipy anecdotes about how he came to be the Composer of the Time. I learned quite a bit about music, but also about how fluid cultural relations were at that time and how ever changing the political scene was - how sad things feel less open and flexible in this current land of Brexit!

[Paul Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess most biographies are written because the author admires the subject, and is therefore less than objective in her treatment of said subject. The subtitle of this biography, "The Making of a Genius", should have warned me that "Handel in London" would be one of those books. I put the book aside after growing tired of the fawning language describing Handel, i.e., "For, once again, Handel had excelled himself"; "And the heraldic sinfonias for brass instruments are more than glorious indications of a composer at the height of his energies and power"; "and the calm sagacity with which he did so won him great respect and increased popularity"; "Handel's supreme professionalism is shown in the facility with which he adopted and revised the opera for new singers". This is just from two pages. I can only recommend this book to someone who is really into the history of opera. And I have some advice for Ms. Glover: cut down on your use of adjectives and adverbs. They're really superfluous to the story.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book on George Frederick Handel, as he is known in England. I read this book as background for a presentation on an opera by Handel, “Partenope”, which is being presented by San Francisco Opera in Summer 2024. I wanted to know how this comic opera fit within his body of work. Jane Glover summarized his early life and how his career intersected George, the Elector of Hanover, who became George I of England.
Handel remained in London, with King George I and King George II as his patrons. For them, he created monumental works memorializing great events in their lives, and he was a musical tutor for young royalty. In addition he had a large company of singers and musicians with whom he created operas, shorter pieces and the great oratorios such as “The Messiah”. Glover is a conductor and she describes how Handel created tremendous musical effects using his musicians. She also captures the musical rivalries and scandals of the time. It is a fascinating book.

[A J HOOPER · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense interpretive account of most of Handel's life. The author Jane Glover is a conductor who is particularly familiar with Handel's works. If you are as passionate about his music as she is, the book is a delight.
If however, like me, you only know a limited amount, page after page of operatic explanation is too much. I found myself skipping tracts of the material and instead seeking out the sections on London and on the Royal Family events during Handel's career.
The early 1700s were a truly thrilling time to be living in the English capital, an age of great creative expansion that accompanied a great architectural expansion. Some of London's most beautiful buildings went up then. And Glover's descriptions make you wish you could go back into the past and see it all. London life seemed to be lived in a much more intimate manner than in our own heavily overpopulated time.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and and engaging from beginning to end. Just the right mix of biography, musicology and history, explaining the political events of the time. What surprised me:
1) the amount of international travel. Handel was forever popping back to Germany or getting top opera singers brought over from Italy, not to mention the famous trip to Dublin with the world premiere of 'Messiah'.
2) the extent to which he wrote and re-wrote music for specific soloists, choirs and instrumentalists, to show off their particular strengths to best advantage.
3) that Handel was so 'in' with the royals and celebrities of the time. Music master to George II's daughters, for example - he wrote the 'Kings' daughters were among thy honourable women' section of one of the Coronation Anthems specifically for them.

[Adam Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a detailed account of Handel's compositions and performances made whilst he was resident in London which was most of his adult life. He moved to London initially in 1710 aged 25 and remained until his death in 1759. Rather disappointingly there is very little biographical detail in this book and Handel himself remains an unknown, shadowy figure. The book is more an exhaustive catalogue of his compositions complete with full details of who performed each role in the many operas and oratorios. As such it gets rather wearying. The high quality of the writing does sustain the book somewhat but it is rather hard work.

[Mary Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and brisk read for the music lover. Glover deftly analyzes Handel's major dramatic works and weaves the cloth of his busy live, filled with friends, musicians, nobility, librettists, copyists . numerous performance seasons and locations, and historical events. I certainly learned a lot about London in the first half of the 18th century! I do wish a list of the works discussed in the book had been appended to help me now pursue listening to many of the wonderful operas and oratorios. But I took notes!

[Nigel Ewan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read any other books on Handel, but this ended up being a wonderful introduction. It's not a biography of Handel. I'd actually characterize it as a biography of Handel's musical output during his English career (from his mid-twenties until his death) with accompanying background on Handel and other principal characters. The book is delightful: easy to follow, informative, charming in its voice and regard for Handel, AND really comfortably typeset. It was a treat to read.

[Barbara Phillips-Farley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a blow-by-blow accounting of Handel’s operas, important instrumental music, and oratorios, told chronologically. As such, it’s wearying after a several chapters. I would have enjoyed some actual musical quotes, rather than just descriptions. One does glean some historical and political context for the time, as well as some notion of the business of presenting these works. It seems to me that, contrary to the subtitle, Handel was already a genius.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting combination of the history of England, and London in particular, in the early 18th century and a musical analysis of Handel's works of the time, particularly his operas. It was interesting to see Handel not only composing the music, but also finding, coaching and training the soloists and putting on entire performances/ productions. It is a really detailed account of Handel's life under the Hanoverians in London.