George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780393088953)

During his lifetime, the sounds of Handel's music reached from court to theater, echoed in cathedrals, and filled crowded taverns, but the man himself--known to most as the composer of Messiah--is a bit of a mystery. Though he took meticulous care of his musical manuscripts and even provided for their preservation on his death, very little of an intimate nature survives.

One document--Handel's will--offers us a narrow window into his personal life. In it, he remembers not only family and close colleagues but also neighborhood friends. In search of the private man behind the public figure, Ellen T. Harris has spent years tracking down the letters, diaries, personal accounts, legal cases, and other documents connected to these bequests. The result is a tightly woven tapestry of London in the first half of the eighteenth century, one that interlaces vibrant descriptions of Handel's music with stories of loyalty, cunning, and betrayal.

With this wholly new approach, Harris has achieved something greater than biography. Layering the interconnecting stories of Handel's friends like the subjects and countersubjects of a fugue, Harris introduces us to an ambitious, shrewd, generous, brilliant, and flawed man, hiding in full view behind his public persona.

Author: Ellen T. Harris
ISBN-10: 0393088952
ISBN-13: 9780393088953
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 09/29/2014
Pages: 496
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.10lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 1.70d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 06/01/2014 pg. 21
Publishers Weekly 06/23/2014
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2014
Library Journal 09/01/2014 pg. 108
Choice 03/01/2015 pg. 1155
Choice 10/01/2015