Highs and lows of a musical career

Handel: The Man and His Music by Jonathan Keates

Since 1985, when Jonathan Keates first published this exhilarating critical biography of Handel, there have been enormous advances in the study of the composer and his oeuvre — not least the publication of two major volumes by the doyen of Handel scholars Winton Dean — and the establishment of the Handel Institute.

Such developments, along with a continuing increase in the public’s appetite for his music and the 250th anniversary of his death next year, more than justify this substantially revised edition of Keates’ book. For the paid-up Handel fan — and those like me who sometimes still need persuading — the result is an 18th-century mix of pleasure and instruction.

Most popular

Katy Balls

How much trouble is Rachel Reeves in?

We know relatively little about the personal life of Handel (properly Händel, and therefore often referred to in Georgian London as Hendel).