# Is Handel beginning to be.. underrated?



## souio (Dec 31, 2019)

It's weird considering his Hallelujah chorus of Messiah is still up there with most iconic pieces of classical music and Messiah itself is played in almost every big city during the holiday season. It's like he's a name that everyone knows but nobody listens to.

One of the things though is that his compositions are rarely mentioned anywhere outside of Messiah, Water Music (and Joy to the World lol). You see Baroque compilations on Youtube and even discussions on classical forums and it seems his name rarely comes up apart from rare moments. He is always overshadowed by Bach or Vivaldi when it comes to Baroque composer.

I got into him about 6 years ago (actually got me into classical music as a serious listening experience) and I was going through his compositions and realized that he is up there with Mozart, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky when it comes to creating beautiful melodies (to me, at least). Even some of his early operas have funky sections lol. 

Outside of his most known operas I find his instrumental work especially underappreciated. Anyone else notice he is getting less recognition these days?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Well, he sure isn't a favorite here on TC; then again, baroque music is not very popular here either.

Handel is probably one of my top ten composers, and there are tons of Handel recordings on the market.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I think Handel has always been a bit under-appreciated, and I tend to put it down to the fact that so much of his work is opera and oratorio, dictating a limited number of public performances and a limited number of private hearings via recordings (because of the time investment in listening to a whole work). The explicit religious connection of _Messiah_ makes it a special case. I've told people that if they like the music, as opposed to just the message, of _Messiah,_ they'll probably find much else in Handel to enjoy.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm not really sure how much discussion has focused on Handel compared to Vivaldi. Certainly Bach dominates any other Baroque composer. If you look at our composer polls (examples are here, here, and here), Handel is thought of fairly high (#9, #9, #18). Looking at our lists of top TC compositions, Handel seems to also be represented well.

I would agree that Handel gets vastly fewer comments than Romantic or Modern composers in general. I suppose for someone who is clearly viewed as one the greatest composers, he may get less discussion on TC than might be expected. If that's so, I'm not really sure why.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

If you're looking for Handel appreciation, I can direct you to a discussion forum another place where the moderator is so in love with Handel that he puts him above Bach and practically insults you if you disagree. 

As far as the music, there isn't much of Handel that isn't just plain fun to hear. His counterpoint is easier to follow than Bach's, and his organ music is less dense than Bach (because of the English organs). And the fact that most of his vocal music is in English is a big plus. 

If memory serves me correctly, Handel's style of vocal writing inspired Mozart's last masterworks (The Ave Verum, the Requiem), and Beethoven said, "Go to him to learn how to achieve great effects by such simple means."


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I don't think he's going away; every year it seems there are new recordings of some operas and other music. And Messiah still is widely performed, even in this ant-religious age we're in. It's hard to perform Handel nowadays. If a modern group uses a modern edition with 20th c instruments, tuning the HIP people lambaste you. Using an inauthentic edition will cause an uproar. Doing the original Messiah is the preferred one, you can get by maybe with Mozart's edition. Prout is getting iffy. Goossens (the best!) - forget it. Another issue is that some newer printings of the old, original versions are really expensive for small groups. I can't say I'm a huge Handel fan, but then I don't care for Baroque music in general. But when I do happen to catch a live performance, it's always rewarding - especially when they use the old instruments.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

As far as I'm concerned Handel is one of the greatest of all composers. He wrote in many different styles and different genres. His operas are marvellous music even though the libretti are usually pretty awful. The Messiah is of course iconic but it's by no means the only great work.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2019)

He is rated just as he should be.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

What are your go-to Handel pieces outside of Messiah and the Water Music, for those of us who want to explore more? I would love to find an organ recording of the Op. 4 concertos, as I liked the piano versions.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2019)

The Messiah and Water Music are my least favorite Handel. The Concerti (especially Op 3) are my favorite Handel. I also enjoy some of the opera, especially Giulio Cesare.


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## souio (Dec 31, 2019)

Organ OP4 concerti are some of my favourite pieces.






My favourite performance is from Karl Richter. Has almost Beethoven-like passion put into it.






Op4. no.4. (especially the second slower movement starting around 3:50) is has one of my favorite beautiful melodic moments from Handel.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

bharbeke said:


> What are your go-to Handel pieces outside of Messiah and the Water Music, for those of us who want to explore more?


I probably listen to his solo keyboard suites more than any other Handel works.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

What to say? He is probably baroque master no 2.

As far as 18thC though he is in Mozart and Bach's shadow.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Handel's inventive chamber music, instrumental and vocal, is always a joy to hear.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I hardly ever listen to Handel, but I used to, and this is one I remember liking


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Handel's "Dixit Dominus" is a brilliant choral work written early in his life. I've never heard a poor recording of it.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> I'm not really sure how much discussion has focused on Handel compared to Vivaldi. Certainly Bach dominates any other Baroque composer. If you look at our composer polls (examples are here, here, and here), Handel is thought of fairly high (#9, #9, #18). Looking at our lists of top TC compositions, Handel seems to also be represented well.
> 
> I would agree that Handel gets vastly fewer comments than Romantic or Modern composers in general. I suppose for someone who is clearly viewed as one the greatest composers, he may get less discussion on TC than might be expected. If that's so, I'm not really sure why.


I love Handel. If he had written nothing else than the Water Music, I would still think that he was one of the greatest ever.
He also had a distinctive voice. Many later Composers wrote works that are described as Handelian. Try the Beethoven Consecration of the House Overture, for one. Telemann and J.S. Bach wrote music that sounds a lot like conscious homage to their great contemporary.
I have been listening to an Emma Kirkby collection that has introduced me to a lot of great Handel. I do think that a lot of his greatest music is off the radar, being contained in Oratorios and Operas that didn't travel well, particularly in the nineteenth century. The recorded industry has done a great service by making so much of this music accessible.


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## souio (Dec 31, 2019)

Triplets said:


> I love Handel. If he had written nothing else than the Water Music, I would still think that he was one of the greatest ever.
> He also had a distinctive voice. Many later Composers wrote works that are described as Handelian. Try the Beethoven Consecration of the House Overture, for one. Telemann and J.S. Bach wrote music that sounds a lot like conscious homage to their great contemporary.
> I have been listening to an Emma Kirkby collection that has introduced me to a lot of great Handel. * I do think that a lot of his greatest music is off the radar, being contained in Oratorios and Operas that didn't travel well, particularly in the nineteenth century. *The recorded industry has done a great service by making so much of this music accessible.


I definitely agree.

I'm not really a fan of vocal music, but I find some of his best instrumental work and melodies are some of the introductions/accompaniments to the vocals and the themes that play between sung passages. Some of those themes are so unique and interesting thatI'd love to see sonatas made from some to play with them and explore their potential.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I agree with Woodduck that the central position of opera in his art is a reason for Handel seeming less popular than he should be. The trouble is that most of the operas are flawed as dramas even though many of them are filled with wonderful music. Handel wrote marvelously for the voice whether the language is Italian (as with the operas) or English (as with the dramatic oratorios) and his best from each genre should be recognised as among the greatest music ever written. Many of the lesser works are somewhat uneven but contain many gems.

I suppose it is also true that many members of this forum - and perhaps the classical music listening public in general? - do not listen to a lot of opera or tend to avoid works that are much longer that 90 minutes. Or that's how it seems to me. 

Then there is the misunderstanding that comes from comparing him to Bach when he was a very different animal, almost an aesthetic opposite. If you are expecting Bachian music from his pen then you will be a little disappointed. His music is more grounded, emotional and human and was perhaps a more obvious forebear of what was to come (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) than was Bach or Telemann or even Vivaldi.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I've just recently been thinking about other Handel pieces I might enjoy and I like vocal music. If there are any good recordings of other oratorios as opposed to operas I'd be interested in exploring.

I happen to think Messiah is glorious and the religious text doesn't matter one way or another. The text is the text and it's a brilliant creation of words and music.

But like many others, I collected a few famous works decades ago and stopped. I have the Pinnock Water Mucic disc, and the concerti grossi. And two Messiah recordings. Nothing else save the Harmonious Blacksmith on a harpsichord compilation CD.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

starthrower said:


> I've just recently been thinking about other Handel pieces I might enjoy and I like vocal music. If there are any good recordings of other oratorios as opposed to operas I'd be interested in exploring.


My introduction to Handel outside of the best-known works was a sampler of Harmonia Mundi's opera series, given away with BBC Music Magazine. Actually that opened my ears to Baroque vocal music generally.

There are plenty of excellent singers who have recorded albums of arias or duets from the operas or oratorios, which I think would be a good place to start.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

starthrower said:


> I've just recently been thinking about other Handel pieces I might enjoy and I like vocal music. If there are any good recordings of other oratorios as opposed to operas I'd be interested in exploring.


There are many good recordings of the major dramatic oratorios but if you are expecting them to be like Messiah (I'm not saying you are) you may end up disappointed as Handel never really attempted to do anything like Messiah again. He turned to the form when operas in Italian fell out of fashion and both tastes and official approval moved towards the puritanical. His concern was to write music dramas (even though they could not be staged) and presenting biblical and Christian stories was his answer. Samson, Saul and Belshazzar are all very good but perhaps the greatest is Theodora. As for recordings, Paul McCreesh has recorded all the four I have mentioned and William Christie's Theodora is also excellent. There are doubtless other recommedable recordings of these works - a lot might depend on how you like your Handel.

While on the subject of Handel, I notice that you do not name the Op. 6 concerti grossi among the works you like. If you don't know them give them a try - the set stands as a major masterpiece of the Baroque. Harnoncourt's recording is quite special and Marriner's first recording is also quite special ( I say this even though he is not a conductor I respond positively to all that often).


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## iconoclast (Jan 1, 2020)

handel is overrated.there are only three composers whom i consider great--bach, chopin and scarlatti.


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

Go-to Handel works for me would be the following:

1. *Recorder Sonatas, especially the HWV 265 in C major* - try the BIS recording with Dan Laurin, and Hidemi and Masaaki Suzuki (BIS CD 300955)
2. *Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, HWV 74*, especially "Let rolling streams their gladness show". I find the choral refrain at the end of this one to be one of the most uplifting pieces of music ever written. I recommend the Academy of Ancient Music (with Simon Preston) recording on Decca. (Decca Double 458 072-2)
3. *Organ Concerto in B Flat, Opus 7 No. 1. HWV 306*. I like the Ton Koopman recording with The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Erato ECD 88136 or Apex 462 760-2), but the Bob van Asperen with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is also good (Erato (Virgin) Veritas 50999 9125612)
4. *Violin Sonata in A, Opus 1 No. 3. HWV 361.* Andrew Manze with Richard Egarr on Harmonia Mundi is ok (HMX 2907259), and for an alternate version with organ continuo try Hiro Kurosaki with William Christie on Virgin (628 626-2).


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

The thing that puts me off with Händel's operas is the period's fetish for Castratti. Modern original instrument performances substitute countertenors (and I have never, ever heard a countertenor I'd prefer to an alto). The end result, to me, is that all Handel's operas like a bunch of women and with a very concerned, high-pitched man running around. The heroes, the youthful men of Händel's operas, sound like, well, they've had their balls removed. Could you imagine the Messiah with nothing but women and glass-scrapingly high-pitched men?

Back before the original instrument movement, performances used to substitute tenors or baritones for the castratti. I have a recording of Imeneo by Horst-Tanu Margraf (1966) that is pure blasphemy by today's standards, but I love it. Modern recordings of Imeneo, with their adolescent-sounding Imeneos, make me want to remove his balls a second time (self-defeating, I know).

In the meantime, conductors like Gardiner and Suzuki have stuffed their Bach recordings with countertenor choruses and soloist. They're like a plague of locusts.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

vtpoet said:


> The thing that puts me off with Händel's operas is the period's fetish for Castratti. Modern original instrument performances substitute countertenors (and I have never, ever heard a countertenor I'd prefer to an alto). The end result, to me, is that all Handel's operas like a bunch of women and with very concerned, high-pitched men running around. The heroes, the youthful men of Händel's operas, sound like, well, they've had their balls removed. Could you imagine the Messiah with nothing but women and glass-scrapingly high-pitched men?
> 
> Back before the original instrument movement, performances used to substitute tenors or baritones for the castratti. I have a recording of Imeneo by Horst-Tanu Margraf (1966) that is pure blasphemy by today's standards, but I love it. Modern recordings of Imeneo, with their adolescent-sounding Imeneos, make me want to remove his balls a second time (self-defeating, I know).
> 
> In the meantime, conductors like Gardiner and Suzuki have stuffed their Bach recordings with countertenor choruses and soloist. They're like a plague of locusts.


Hilarious as this is, I think you're onto something. I have the highest regard for much of the music Handel wrote for the human voice, but I can't get involved in the operas and would rather hear individual arias well sung. I'm repelled by the convoluted Baroque plots - everybody in love with someone else's lover and dressing up like the opposite sex and contending for the throne and seeking revenge - as much as by the scarcity of male voices other than countenors, most of whom can't equal the expressiveness of the female altos they sound too much like. I gather that countertenor phobia is quite common, and what the castrati were like we can only surmise based on descriptions from the time (hopefully we'll never find out). In any case, Baroque opera is and always will be a niche interest, and Handel, who wrote over 40 of them, will never get quite the appreciation he deserves.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> I'm repelled by the convoluted Baroque plots - everybody in love with someone else's lover and dressing up like the opposite sex and contending for the throne and seeking revenge....


Great. Thanks. Now I'm imagining Game of Thrones as realized by Händel: the Ice King sung by a Soprano and Bran Stark by a Castratto.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

This contains hours of pure Handelian pleasure, and I rarely say things like that... state of the art baroque performances...


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

philoctetes said:


> This contains hours of pure Handelian pleasure, and I rarely say things like that... state of the art baroque performances...


Agreed. Listened to the whole collection on Spotify. Am going to have to buy the CDs I'm afraid.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> While on the subject of Handel, I notice that you do not name the Op. 6 concerti grossi among the works you like. If you don't know them give them a try - the set stands as a major masterpiece of the Baroque. Harnoncourt's recording is quite special and Marriner's first recording is also quite special ( I say this even though he is not a conductor I respond positively to all that often).


I did mention the concerti grossi. I have a Trever Pinnock CD Op.6 1-4. Haven't listened to it since the 80s.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

vtpoet said:


> The thing that puts me off with Händel's operas is the period's fetish for Castratti... The end result, to me, is that all Handel's operas like a bunch of women and with a very concerned, high-pitched men running around.


The alternative is mezzos or contraltos in trousers which was the usual choice of Alan Curtis who recorded many of the operas... I like them a lot but prefer the above cantata recordings as the small scale casting allows the stars to shine... and they don't tax my patience as much... have to admit I get tired of the arias that are sung as if they are instrumental soloists, that ha-ha-ha-ha style of the times..


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

iconoclast said:


> handel is overrated.there are only three composers whom i consider great--bach, chopin and scarlatti.


Well, you certainly clasted a few icons there.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I listen to Op.6 more than any other set of baroque instrumental pieces... certainly more than the Brandenburgs... Hogwood and Harnoncourt being the most distinctive...


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Personally, my own opinion is that Corelli's Op.5 (which, after all, were the musical inspiration for Händel's Op. 6) were not exceeded by Händel's concerti, but remain their equal. I'd be happy with either/or on my desert island.

I also find Telemann's Oboe Concerti to be far superior to Händel's, and I don't say that as one of those cranks who's always touting some third rate composer as Mozart's better, but seriously, Telemann's Oboe concerti are superior to Händel's in every respect. Händel does feel, sometimes, like he's just mailing it in, especially in his organ concerti. They frankly bore me at times, though a recent recording on the piano (a mixed success) breathed some life into the concerti.

When Händel really gets cranking though, nobody can touch him.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Hilarious as this is, I think you're onto something. I have the highest regard for much of the music Handel wrote for the human voice, but I can't get involved in the operas and would rather hear individual arias well sung. I'm repelled by the convoluted Baroque plots - everybody in love with someone else's lover and dressing up like the opposite sex and contending for the throne and seeking revenge - as much as by the scarcity of male voices other than countenors, most of whom can't equal the expressiveness of the female altos they sound too much like. I gather that countertenor phobia is quite common, and what the castrati were like we can only surmise based on descriptions from the time (hopefully we'll never find out). In any case, Baroque opera is and always will be a niche interest, and Handel, who wrote over 40 of them, will never get quite the appreciation he deserves.


Have you seen Acis & Galatea? And Theodora? Preferably the Peter Sellars production.

Has there ever been a Klingsor sung by a countertenor? I mean, it would kind of fit the story. When I produce it that's what I'll do.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Just found this, which unfortunately I missed.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2005/Jan-Jun05/glastonbury2503.htm


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

vtpoet said:


> Personally, my own opinion is that Corelli's Op.5 (which, after all, were the musical inspiration for Händel's Op. 6) were not exceeded by Händel's concerti, but remain their equal. I'd be happy with either/or on my desert island.
> 
> I also find Telemann's Oboe Concerti to be far superior to Händel's, and I don't say that as one of those cranks who's always touting some third rate composer as Mozart's better, but seriously, Telemann's Oboe concerti are superior to Händel's in every respect. Händel does feel, sometimes, like he's just mailing it in, especially in his organ concerti. They frankly bore me at times, though a recent recording on the piano (a mixed success) breathed some life into the concerti.
> 
> When Händel really gets cranking though, nobody can touch him.


All you say is true I just don't quite hear as much variety as the Corelli... and Corelli isn't Handel's only source of inspiration, don't forget A Scarlatti, who wrote similar cantatas and concertos, and Lully, for the French overtures... the Op.6 is one of those international fusion things... which highlights the fact that Handel was a very international composer... more than many composers, even in modern history.

But yeah Telemann kicks butt when it comes to the wind parts, which I love, and Vivaldi too. Telemann's overtures are a big part of my baroque diet for that reason. Handel seems to have been more of a string and vocal guy...


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Handel's "Dixit Dominus" is a brilliant choral work written early in his life. I've never heard a poor recording of it.


I've sampled _many_ different recordings of the final Gloria and these two are my favorites.
I like how different they are in sound and tempo, but both are wonderful in their own way.






Starts at 3:32


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Have you seen Acis & Galatea? And Theodora? Preferably the Peter Sellars production.
> 
> Has there ever been a Klingsor sung by a countertenor? I mean, it would kind of fit the story. When I produce it that's what I'll do.


I've never actually seen a Handel opera. Theodora is an oratorio, so I'd have to wonder how it was staged. But then Baroque opera tends to be static anyway with all those da capo arias.

I've read that Wagner actually thought of casting a castrato as Klingsor, but by that time there were only a few left, castration for musical purposes having survived, on a diminishing basis, only in the Church of Rome (where else?), finally being outlawed around 1861. The "last castrato," Alessandro Moreschi, made a few recordings that are pretty dismal.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm not sure about this, but I believe that people think that Theodora is really an opera, but he had to call it an oratorio to get it through the censors! It looks and feels like an opera, there is some action (I mean -- as much action as in Parsifal,. . . let's not discuss whether Parsifal is an opera, that'll just confuse things even more!)

Acis & Galatea is fun.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

............................................


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I'm not sure about this, but I believe that people think that Theodora is really an opera, but he had to call it an oratorio to get it through the censors! It looks and feels like an opera, there is some action (I mean -- as much action as in Parsifal,. . . let's not discuss whether Parsifal is an opera, that'll just confuse things even more!)


That is kind of true but it applies to all of Handel's dramatic oratorios. The theatre and opera were not approved of and Handel - at heart, perhaps, an opera composer - responded with musical dramas that were sung but not acted and that were biblical. Theodora is probably the greatest of them.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> http://www.gfhandel.org/handel/anecdotes.html
> _Mozart is said to have remarked,
> "Handel understands effect better than any of us -- when he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt... though he often saunters, in the manner of his time, this is always something there."_


The little that we know of Mozart's opinion of Bach and Händel suggests that Händel was easier for Mozart to absorb into his own musical lexicon, but that Mozart had greater respect for JS Bach. There's always that anecdote about Mozart's first hearing of Bach's motets and his request, from his father, for JS Bach's fugues.

The thing that I've never read elsewhere, and that to me is a neon-sign of obviousness, is that the Magic Flute is Mozart's stylistic homage to Händel *especially*, and Bach (whose cantata he quotes in the opera). In the years leading up to the Magic Flute, he had been re-orchestrating Händel's Messiah, Acis, and St Cecelia, and had been studying Bach. Mozart's vernacular in Magic Flute is reminiscent of Händel time and again, and echoes passages in the works of Händel he had been orchestrating. For example, when the angels appear in the Magic Flute, comforting Papageno and Pamina, it's almost a mirror image of the chorus comforting Galatea in Acis & Galatea. Scholars always wonder at the inspiration for the unique "Singspiel" quality of Mozart's operatic writing in the Magic Flute. Well, that's it. The Magic Flute was Mozart's transformation of Händel's "speaking" and "singing" music (discussed in the Boston Baroque's performance of the Messiah) into his own vernacular. That new, in my opinion, Händelian, "naïve", deceptively simpler "singing" style also shows up in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and last Piano Concerto. If Mozart had lived another 20 years, I think you would have seen the continuation of this transformation, almost the very opposite of the way Beethoven eventually took music.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Handel would hardly make my list but for Messiah, which is one of my all time favorite works. Other than that, the Chandos Anthems are very good, as is the Music for Chapel Royale. And I like a few of the operas but rarely listen because Baroque opera takes a special mood that does not come often for me.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Handel would hardly make my list but for Messiah, which is one of my all time favorite works. Other than that, the Chandos Anthems are very good, as is the Music for Chapel Royale. And I like a few of the operas but rarely listen because Baroque opera takes a special mood that does not come often for me.


Yeah, I've always thought that the Chandos Anthems were some of this finest works, and Music for Chapel Royale. Glad to hear someone else thinks so. I think most prefer his more "dramatic" works.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I don't think Handel is being forgotten but there is a change in classical music performance worldwide that makes it seems that way.

It used to be everyone played Messiah at Christmas; now that isn't happening anymore. Most orchestras have yielded to the temptation (and cash register) by serving up purely Christmas concerts at Christmas. Most of them have ditched classical music altogether at these venues. They've found people will pay to hear that.

Take away Messiah and what do you have left with Handel? A lot but nothing nearly as significant. My choral society used to perform Israel in Egypt occasionally at Easter. It was appropriate since it is the Passover story but let's face it, Israel In Egypt for all its greatness is hardly a classical music hit like Beethoven's 5th or the Brahms violin concerto.

There was a time in the distant past when an orchestral society could put together 100 or so woodwind players and perform the Royal Fireworks Music the way Handel led it on London Bridge in his day -- when 500 woodwind players showed up to perform. I doubt anyone in today's classical music market would have much interest in it. Not even a single one of the period practice bands have recorded it; the last one was Johannes Somary in the 1970s.

In my view Handel is one of the more prominent composers paying the price for the decline of classical music worldwide. It's often said a good economy lifts everyone's boat. So too does a thriving musical environment full of new compositions that turn on everyone. It still happens in popular music and musical theater but it hasn't happened in classical music in at least a lifetime, maybe two.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Underrated is such an overrated word....

In the current composer ranking based on the personal preference of 56 TC members who participated by sending in 15-30 favourite composers, Handel came out as 21. A decent result, but indeed I have the feeling that years ago, he would have scored higher.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^ It _is _an overrated word!

For the rest, though, some have asked why I am almost anti ranking games on TC. The main reason is that the results then get held up as having some sort of validity in themselves and in measuring trends. For me they can never be more than a measure of the decisions made at the time by those who participated in the game.


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## Rik1 (Sep 22, 2015)

Maybe it depends where you are. In London Handel is frequently performed and his operas are on regularly.

But amateur music is changing a bit. I've noticed choirs are getting braver and choosing to tackle Bachs Passions and Christmas Oratorio more and other Christmas works outside of handel. I assume paying audiences are changing and maybe younger people don't want to go to another messiah.

But outside of vocal works it's very rare to hear him performed. I think it's partly because period instrument groups have lead to the demise of modern instrument orchestras playing baroque music. But over time, period instrument groups are increasingly playing unusual repertoire apart from bach. This leaves a gap, with no one playing handels orchestral music any more.


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## DBLee (Jan 8, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> For me they can never be more than a measure of the decisions made at the time by those who participated in the game.


I don't believe Art Rock used those results as anything more, either.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

DBLee said:


> I don't believe Art Rock used those results as anything more, either.


I even made it clear in the title of the thread.


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> The main reason is that the results then get held up as having some sort of validity in themselves and in measuring trends. For me they can never be more than a measure of the decisions made at the time by those who participated in the game.


Of course they have some sort of validity. They are a valid account of the preferences of the participants at the time of participation. The fact that some might seek to claim some other validity (eg "greatness") does not render such polls invalid.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

vtpoet said:


> The little that we know of Mozart's opinion of Bach and Händel suggests that Händel was easier for Mozart to absorb into his own musical lexicon, but that Mozart had greater respect for JS Bach. There's always that anecdote about Mozart's first hearing of Bach's motets and his request, from his father, for JS Bach's fugues.


I don't think there's evidence to suggest Mozart regarded one specific composer to be the greatest of all. It seems more like he admired and held several in high regard equally, and recognized good things about each one of them. For many times he praised Bach, he mentioned Bach and Handel at the same time:

On 20 April 1782 he wrote to Leopold:
[ _"If Papa has not yet had those [instrumental] works by Eberlin copied, so much the better, for in the meantime I have got hold of them and now I see (for I had forgotten them) that they are unfortunately far too trivial to deserve a place beside Handel and Bach. With due respect for his four-part composition I may say that his clavier fugues are nothing but long-drawn-out voluntaries..."_ ]

[ _"Through Swieten, Mozart became more aware of Bach's music and that of other Lutheran masters. He was not unaware of them before. In an excess of enthusiasm about Georg Benda's melodramas he wrote in a latter to his father, dated Mannheim 12 November 1778, that this composer was his favorite among all the Lutheran Kapellmeisters."_ ]

[ _""Bach ist der Vater, wir sind die Buben" ("Bach is the father, we are the children") is one of Mozart's most quoted sayings. But it was not the figure Mozart called "Old Sebastian", the by-this-time grandfatherly and half-forgotten JS Bach, of whom he was speaking. He had in mind JS's second-eldest son, the trailblazing CPE Bach (1714-1788)."_ ]

Wolfgang asked Leopold for Handel's six fugues (which Wolfgang himself had studied from youth) and Michael Haydn's. The reason he didn't ask for Sebastian's fugues from Leopold is probably because Leopold (like Michael) stayed in Salzburg the whole time and did not have greater access to Bach scores than Wolfgang did. I believe Wolfgang obtained most of his Bach scores through von Swieten in Vienna.
Wolfgang heard the Bach motets and said "This is indeed something one can learn from!" when he visited St. Thomas Church in Leipzig during his Berlin journey of 1789. (While Leopold died in 1787)

Mozart wrote to his father around 1782:
[ _"Send me the six fugues by Handel. I go every Sunday at twelve o'clock, to the Baron von Swieten, where nothing is played but Handel and Bach; and am now making a collection of the fugues of Bach, - not only of Sebastian, but of Emmanuel and Friedemann Bach; and, besides these, a collection of Handel's fugues, towards which I want these six. You have probably heard that the English Bach is dead. - What a loss for the musical world!"_ ]

(btw, although Emmanuel is generally regarded more highly than Christian on TC, I don't think Christian is really bad either. I consider Christian's Missa da Requiem more significant than Emmanuel's Magnificat.)



vtpoet said:


> The thing that I've never read elsewhere, and that to me is a neon-sign of obviousness, is that the Magic Flute is Mozart's stylistic homage to Händel *especially*, and Bach (whose cantata he quotes in the opera). In the years leading up to the Magic Flute, he had been re-orchestrating Händel's Messiah, Acis, and St Cecelia, and had been studying Bach. Mozart's vernacular in Magic Flute is reminiscent of Händel time and again, and echoes passages in the works of Händel he had been orchestrating. For example, when the angels appear in the Magic Flute, comforting Papageno and Pamina, it's almost a mirror image of the chorus comforting Galatea in Acis & Galatea. Scholars always wonder at the inspiration for the unique "Singspiel" quality of Mozart's operatic writing in the Magic Flute. Well, that's it. The Magic Flute was Mozart's transformation of Händel's "speaking" and "singing" music (discussed in the Boston Baroque's performance of the Messiah) into his own vernacular. That new, in my opinion, Händelian, "naïve", deceptively simpler "singing" style also shows up in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and last Piano Concerto. If Mozart had lived another 20 years, I think you would have seen the continuation of this transformation, almost the very opposite of the way Beethoven eventually took music.


Mozart sometimes referenced music by various composers in his operas. Since the stage works by nature require setting up of various situations and use of music fitting for those situations in a 'objective' manner. For example, in the dining scene of Don Giovanni, Mozart quotes one of his colleagues and rivals, Vicente Martin y Soler's opera Una Cosa Rara (1786), to create an atmosphere of "popular music", even though Mozart doesn't really seem to have admired the Spaniard himself.

However, there's a couple of instrumental works (his more 'personal' works) with a strong connection to Bach.

*K475 & K457:*

<W.A. Mozart's Fantasy in C minor, K. 475, And the Generalization of the Lydian Principle Through Motivic Thorough-Composition> by John Sigerson

Pg. 68: _"....From this standpoint, let us take yet another look at one of the works which Mozart studied intensively, the six-part Ricercar from Bach's A Musical Offering. Focus on the end of the opening statement (measures 9-11 in Figure 5.4): As the second voice enters, the first voice continues with a sequence of ascending fourths...."_

Pg. 69: _"....The first movement opens with a simple ascending C minor arpeggio, played forte, followed by a contrasting piano sequence consisting of a descending fifth G-C (inversion of a fourth), and a descending diminished seventh A˛- B˝-the same interval which marks the opening motivic statement of Bach's A Musical Offering (Figure 5.6)..."_

_"....The first voice descends in half-steps: G-Fˇ-F˝-E˝-E˛-D-again an explicit reference to the descending line in the opening of Bach's A Musical Offering. And, as with Bach's work, it is introduced as a mezzosoprano voice...."_






*K426 / K546:*

_"Mozart seems less willing or perhaps was less able to reconcile the old world of learned counterpoint with more modern musical sensibilities in the Fugue in C minor for two keyboards, K. 426. This work, dated December 29, 1783, is the most ambitious of his independent fugues and, as such, has elicited a range of strong responses over the years, virtually all of which note its stylistic debt to Bach. The detailed accounts of its Bach-like features include many of the techniques and style characteristics mentioned above in connection with the K. 394 Fugue plus a few more. Warren Kirkendale's list, to take the longest of the lot, includes the "strict maintenance of linear part-writing throughout and the pungent dissonances which result ... the retention of the subject in its original length, the full exploitation of contrapuntal devices, and finally the combination of the subject with its own inversion (m. 73) which may possibly have been prompted by the Art of Fugue." But upon close examination, only one of these features of style can be traced with confidence to Bach alone. Some of Mozart's earlier fugues have arguably just as much dissonance (K. 401) and linear coherence (the K. 168 finale, which features the complete subject in most entries). The hypothesis that Mozart learned (presumably in 1782) from his study of the Art of Fugue how to combine a fugue subject with its own inversion ignores the composer's earlier experimentation with rectus and inversus combinations in the revision of the K. 173 finale and in the K. 401 keyboard fugue; there is, moreover, no firm evidence linking Mozart to The Art of Fugue. The only item left on this list, the "full exploitation of contrapuntal devices" in K. 426, is the one aspect of this work that is so atypical - for Mozart, his contemporaries and most of his predecessors - as to suggest the influence of J. S. Bach and no one else."_


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Art Rock said:


> Underrated is such an overrated word....
> 
> In the current composer ranking based on the personal preference of 56 TC members who participated by sending in 15-30 favourite composers, Handel came out as 21. A decent result, but indeed I have the feeling that years ago, he would have scored higher.


If Handel is 21 in these parts then yes I'd say he's underrated. However there is a stronger contingent of more modern classical music fans on this forum than other classical discussion boards in my opinion, so perhaps that explains such a low ranking. Personally I don't believe you can talk about baroque music without talking about Handel, and I don't believe you can even conceptualize western classical music as a tradition without grounding it firmly in the baroque era - not before and not after. But those are just my opinions.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I like Julius Caesar, Solomon, the Occasional Oratorio, Israel in Egypt, Judas Macabee, Jephtha, and Joshua.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

It seems like all Baroque composers outside Bach don’t get talked about as much on here. Handel is a composer who’s always taught in music appreciation courses, etc. but who doesn’t often make peoples’ lists of favorites. That’s a crying shame! The concerti grossi are some of my favorite music in the world, while I haven’t heard anything else by him I’ve disliked. He’s definitely one of the greatest “pick-me-up” composers I know.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

bharbeke said:


> What are your go-to Handel pieces outside of Messiah and the Water Music, for those of us who want to explore more? I would love to find an organ recording of the Op. 4 concertos, as I liked the piano versions.


His other oratorios like Solomon, Israel in Egypt, and Theodora.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Handel may have been the most influential composer of all time. That became more obvious to me when I learned more about Handel's keyboard music and its influence on Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. In Handel's choral music you can catch a lot of things later echoed in Beethoven. Handel's greatest music is said to have been his operas, but that's the part of his catalogue with which I am least familiar.


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## sstucky (Apr 4, 2020)

Not by me. He is in my opinion second only to J.S. Bach.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

Funny coincidence: I was just now listening to a couple of CDs of Jory Vinikour playing Händel’s harpsichord suites, HWV 426-433, when I logged in to TC and noticed this re-upped thread. I thought, “Whaaat?” Reading through it, I saw a lot of interesting commentary and agree that Händel being underrated is only conceivable if we think of the whole of CM. I don’t think that the underrated idea would occur to anyone with an early music orientation. For example, I pay a lot of attention to several HIP ensembles: Koopman, Pinnock, Harnoncourt, Brüggen, Hogwood, Norrington, Jacobs, Antonini, Gardiner, Goebel, Savall, Springfels. I like to listen to virtually everything they play(ed) and record(ed), and a lot of it is Händel. In this musical milieu, he’s definitely not underrated.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Unlike Bach and Vivaldi, Handel has no "cool" factor. Most Handel is stately and opulent. Also the pro-Handel opera affectionados left the forum a few years ago.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

I would say that Handel's stock has definitely declined in recent decades, while that of Vivaldi and many other Baroque composers has appreciated. Back in the pre-HIP days, Bach & Handel were clearly out in front as the big two. Most people rated H a close second, but preferring him to Bach was also a respectable opinion. I don't think many people would say that now.

Imo he has indeed become underrated (certainly relative to Vivaldi). Normally I wouldn't put it that way, as it just means that I rate him more highly than most other people seem to. In Handel's case, though, he featured prominently in Van Swieten's Viennese circle, and both Mozart and (especially) Beethoven rated him very highly indeed. That has to count for something.

Part of his problem has been the massive expansion of the Baroque repertoire since the HIPsters got going. Previously, only Vivaldi had much of a discography, while most other composers were known only sketchily, if at all. The tougher competition hasn't done Bach any harm, but it does seem to have taken it's toll on Handel. It's not that he's lacked for new recordings, as seitz points out, rather that some of the love that used to go his way from ordinary punters seems to have cooled. 

I was interested in the comments above on Baroque opera. Yes, the plots are tiresome and the librettos often of zero literary value, but after all these are just vehicles for the music. I've never had any compunction about raiding these things to extract the gold, and many of Handel's operatic arias do show him at his very best. At least in this area (which is such an important part of his oeuvre), he reaches parts where Bach never ventured. As to counter-tenors, I confess that for a long time I also found them very hard to take (occasional exceptions like René Jacobs notwithstanding). Happily, I find that many of the more recent crop - people like Iestyn Davies and Philippe Jaroussky - manage to sound a lot more natural than their predecessors. Entirely listenable, anyway.


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## Caesura (Apr 5, 2020)

caracalla said:


> Most people rated H a close second, but preferring him to Bach was also a respectable opinion. I don't think many people would say that now.


I've felt like a minority in that regard for awhile (preferring Handel over Bach), but I don't know if anyone would actually say preferring H over Bach is a disrespectable opinion.



caracalla said:


> Yes, the plots are tiresome and the librettos often of zero literary value, but after all these are just vehicles for the music.


This is pretty much the way I think about most opera. For me to consider an opera good, I have to like the music. For me to consider an opera great, it has to have a good plot too. There are some cases for Handel operas where I don't even bother with the plot and just listen to the music. I'm wondering if I'll have to do that more in the future when I eventually get around to listening to more Handel opera.



caracalla said:


> As to counter-tenors, I confess that for a long time I also found them very hard to take (occasional exceptions like René Jacobs notwithstanding). Happily, I find that many of the more recent crop - people like Iestyn Davies and Philippe Jaroussky - manage to sound a lot more natural than their predecessors. Entirely listenable, anyway.


Same here! Early in my Handel journey, I can definitely say that I didn't like counter-tenors a lot, but now I can tolerate or love listening to most of them.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

Caesura said:


> I've felt like a minority in that regard for awhile (preferring Handel over Bach), but I don't know if anyone would actually say preferring H over Bach is a disrespectable opinion.


Sorry, poor wording, I didn't mean to suggest that. What I did mean is that your preference was much more widely shared, so while you would still have been in a minority in (say) 1975, you would probably have felt less out on a limb. As I recall, it was then quite natural to divide Baroque fans into Bachians and Handelians.

But then the CM world was a very different place in the 70s. In the following decade, the Baroque managed to reinvent itself as the new and exciting place to be in CM, ushering in a golden age for those of us who are crazy about this music. The main beneficiaries have been composers who were previously little known, but Bach too has thrived in this new environment. Handel hasn't exactly been short-changed, but I do feel he has been much less successful than his old rival in riding the wave of prosperity.

Perhaps Couchie hits the nail on the head when s/he says 'unlike Bach and Vivaldi, Handel has no "cool" factor'. It think that was certainly true when the Baroque boom reached lift-off. He'd always been around, mum and dad thought he was the bees' knees, and the Messiah had been a Christmas staple for as long as anyone could remember. Plus there was way too much opera and state ceremonial - impressive maybe, but cool? (I've always loved the trumpets & drums stuff, but then I'm not cool either).

Still, no need for Handelians to despair. He may be down, but he's not down all that much, it's relative rather than absolute, and he's certainly not on the way out. I would say that the stock of the Romantics generally, and Tchaikovsky in particular, has also fallen over the same time scale. And in other arts, especially literature, we take this kind of thing as par for the course. Where are DH Lawrence and Aldous Huxley now compared with 40 years ago?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

If Handel had not written Messiah, I would have little left of his to enjoy, perhaps a couple of operas and the Chandos Anthems. The rest I don't listen to.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

I don't know if he's "beginning to be underrated", at least here in England. Last year I went to the Proms to see his Music for the Royal Fireworks, and at my sisters' graduation the year before they played a suite from Water Music. You can probably count the amount of composers on one hand who still have that amount of consistent exposure with the ordinary public, where at events one reaches to his great orchestral pieces. 

If there's anything Handel is unfortunate in, it's that so much of his great music is tied up in Baroque operas and oratorios which are still out of fashion. But it's a measure of how great a composer he is that his music is still so revered. Let's be honest, in discussing "underrated" we're not talking about Tallis or Telemann here.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

Gallus said:


> You can probably count the amount of composers on one hand who still have that amount of consistent exposure with the ordinary public


Yes, that's undoubtedly true. Messiah, Water, Fireworks, Zadok are all very much alive and well in the wider culture - and Ombra mai fu is the sort of thing you'd expect to find some kid bashing out on "Britain's Got Talent" to general appreciation. After 300 years, it's pretty remarkable, and on this measure I'm not sure that Handel doesn't top Bach (certainly in England, maybe not in Germany).

But in the CM rating stakes, I suspect this very popularity with the musical hoi polloi doesn't do Handel any favours. At any event, I do think it very likely that his enduring appeal to the great unwashed contributes heavily to the lack of 'coolness' noted by Couchie. Liking Bach may earn you some bragging rights (at least among people who aren't into CM), but Handel offers none.

Of course, you can argue that the same applied 40 years ago. Maybe we've just grown more snobbish since.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

If we talk about underrated English baroque composers, I would nominate Purcell before Handel for the title. 

I do like Handel's music a lot, Concerti Grossi op 6, Keyboard suites (thanks to Sviatoslav Richter and Andrei Gavrilov) and of course the warhorses: Messiah, Watermusic, Fireworks, Coronation Anthems.

But in the end I prefer Purcell, as he digs deeper and sounds like the more creative composer of the two. King Arthur, Dido & Aeneas, a virtually endless series of 'royal music' (maybe also a reason for the decreased popularity of English baroque composers).


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

One of the greatest composers for the human voice and a great composer of operas and dramatic oratorios (essentially operas with a Christian story for a time when the theatre and singing in Italian was despised in England). And his Op.6 set is one of the greatest masterpieces of its genre. And he is quite unique, representing a very different strand of music-making than his contemporaries. Is he really becoming underrated? It does seem to be the case on this forum but in the outside world? I am less sure. I think a lot of people go to him wanting something like Bach and do not find it.


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

I've lost count of the number times I've read 'baroque' in this thread. Handel was not strictly speaking a baroque composer. Although born the same year as JS Bach, he was years ahead stylistically and an innovator of the galant style. To those who think he's overrated, I should remind you that he was Beethoven's favourite composer. Something to think about...


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

Handel is top 3 for me, but I have to admit it is a slog getting through many of his operas and oratorios. Just my opinion obviously, but you often have to endure 4 to 5 perfunctory, autopilot arias for every moment of striking brilliance. He famously composed fast and it can sound like it at times.

Going through it all was worth it to me because I'm a fanboy for him, but for someone who isn't it is probably a Wagner-tier challenge. Granted, it is a sizable playlist of golden music you end up with even if each oratorio/opera only yields 3 things you like.

I think Haydn has a similar issue. I've found things in the pre-Paris symphonies that deserve to be iconic, but it took me around 6 years, during which Haydn was my favorite composer, to work up the energy to find them.


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