A fully revised, expanded and updated edition of Keates’ magisterial 1985 biography of one of the world’s favourite composers.

Though unquestionably one of the greatest and best-loved of all composers, George Frederic Handel (1685—1759) had received little attention from biographers before Jonathan Keates’ masterful Handel: The Man & His Music appeared in 1985.

Published to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death, this updated and expanded edition charts in detail Handel’s life from his youth in Germany, through his brilliantly successful Italian sojourn, to the opulence and squalor of Georgian London. Keates writes with sympathy and penetration about this extraordinary genius whose career abounded in reversals that would have crushed anyone with less resilience and willpower, but whose influence was to be deeply felt by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

Interwoven with the account of Handel’s life are commentaries on all his major works as well as many less familiar pieces by this most inventive, expressive and captivating of composers.


From the Hardcover edition.