With clarity and with admirable simplicity, keyed to the understanding of children, Opal Wheeler has traced the many-sided career of George Frederic Handel, whose restless nature vied always with his tremendous ability as a composer and director.Handel?s strange boyhood, clouded by the fact that his father did not want him to become a musician, and the later years when, thanks to the patronage of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, his music was played before the greatest music lovers of Europe ? all this makes absorbing reading. The selections of Handel?s music included here are those best understood and most apt to be mastered by young musicians. One evening, back in 1691, conservative Doctor Handel was shocked and dismayed to find his small son carrying the torch at the head of a band of singers wandering through the little town of Halle. The good doctor never quite understood the all-consuming love of music which drove his son from childhood on and on to the great heights he eventually attained as the beloved Father of the Oratorio, the composer of the magnificent MESSIAH. Opal Wheeler has given us here the most finished, most completely satisfying book on her list of fine music biographies. Handel at the Court of Kings should be a favorite of all children who love music, whether they are young musicians themselves or not.

Intended to complement Opal Wheeler classic Handel at the Court of Kings. Packed with timelines, maps, reading comprehension questions, character quality highlights, and extra tidbits of information about Handel's life and his music. Written for children in grades K-6, this study guide makes a great addition to any study of master composers.

In 1712, a young German composer followed his princely master to London and would remain there for the rest of his life. That master would become King George II and the composer was George Freidrich Handel. Handel, then still only twenty-seven and largely self-taught, would be at the heart of music activity in London for the next four decades, composing masterpiece after masterpiece, whether the glorious coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, operas such as Rinaldo and Alcina or the great oratorios, culminating, of course, in Messiah. Here, Jane Glover, who has conducted Handel’s work in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world, draws on her profound understanding of music and musicians to tell Handel’s story. It is a story of music-making and musicianship, but also of courts and cabals of theatrical rivalries and of eighteenth-century society. It is also, of course the story of some of the most remarkable music ever written, music that has been played and sung, and loved, in this country—and throughout the world—for three hundred years.

Discusses the life and career of the eighteenth-century German composer.