During his lifetime, George Frideric Handel’s music reached from court to theater, echoed in cathedrals, and filled crowded taverns, but the man himself is a bit of a mystery.
Handel—known to most as the composer of Messiah—took meticulous care of his musical manuscripts, but very little survives which would reveal the man. One document offers us a narrow window into his personal life: his will. In it, he remembers not only family and colleagues but also neighborhood friends. MIT Professor Emeritus, Ellen T. Harris went in search of the private man behind the public figure.
She spent years tracking down the letters, diaries, personal accounts, legal cases, and other documents connected to these bequests. In her new book “George Frideric Handel: A Life With Friends” Harris layers the interconnecting stories of Handel’s friends like the subjects and counter-subjects of a fugue, introducing us to an ambitious, shrewd, generous, brilliant, and flawed man, hiding in full view behind his public persona.
