The Life and Career of George Frederick Handel

Research Proposal: The Life and Career of George Frederick Handel
This paper will attempt to illustrate and elucidate the life and career of George Frederick Handel, one of the most celebrated and influential composers of the 18th century, in his sojourn-turned-residency in London. One of the regarded cornerstones of Baroque music, Handel is known as a prolific composer of chamber music, operas, oratorios and organ concertos, as well as being a virtuoso organist himself.
Handel is of German descent, originally named Georg Friedrich Händel, before being naturalized as a British citizen. While he has already displayed potentials in his youth in hometown in German and eventually in Italy where he developed his talent in weaving operas, Handel only gained widespread and international fame while he is in London. London became the womb of many of Handel`s most successful works, specifically Messiah, Water Music Suite, Acis and Galathea, to name a few. Handel was at the peak of his career and life`s work while he is in London, one of the bustling urban centers in the Western world during his particular lifetime.
This paper would then attempt to accomplish four things throughout its execution, basically by asking some questions: first, what are the particular points in which Handel and the general English population and its nobility have intersected and may probably have contributed to the successes and recognition of his works; second, how does Handel`s Italian predilections meshed with the singular conditions of English (London) society; third, what musical developments and trends were developed and expounded by Handel and how did the externalities of London as a society affected or spurred it; finally, what are the economic, political, historical and cultural state of affairs during Handel`s time and how did these contributed to the advancement of Handel`s career?
The analysis will be giving a brief picture of pre-London Handel, his works (mainly operas) and their reception within the non-English audiences in which he first presented his compositions. This brief analysis will provide a sturdy ground for us to take off from, especially if we are to comprehensively analyze and contrast Handel`s masterpieces crafted in London. Many important documents are available in achieving this goal, for instance John Dennis` An Essay on the Opera`s on the Italian Manner, Which Are About To Be Establish`d in the English Stage¸ a sharp critique of the Italian opera trend during Handel`s time. These important polemical articles and other historically-significant artifacts were outlined and analyzed in Veronica Faust`s "The Cultural Politics of British Opposition to Italian Opera, 1706-1711."
Immediately we will proceed to picture out 18th century London, its political-cultural peculiarities, especially in terms of musical production, reception and patronage, More crucially, we will navigate in Handel`s timeline through the eyes of his biographers and other historians, most notably John Mainwaring`s seminal work Memoirs of the life of the late George Frederic Handel (the first biography of Handel) and attempt to make sense of the both the most radical and the minutest changes in his works. Knapp (1986) and Brewer (1997) will contribute a lot for this end. An analysis will also give ample discussion to Handel`s radical move to abandon chapel and nobility services and pursue a freer and considerably more independent career through his initial attempts at the Royal Academy of Music and his own travails in creating his own musical company and pools of musicians (Burney).
While being apparently not musically-related, his religious tendencies, political and artistic connections and temperament will also be sifted and scrutinized in order to create a holistic analysis of his works grounded on the artistic trends of his time (Clark 2000).
Mos...