George Frideric Handel

HANDEL, George Frideric. b. Halle-an-der-Saale, Saxony, 23 February 1685; d. London, 14 April 1759. Handel received his early musical training under Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, the organist of the Marktkirche in Halle, and since many of Zachow’s surviving keyboard compositions are based on German chorale melodies we can assume that this area of hymnody was a fundamental part of Handel’s early musical experience. The services at the Marktkirche no doubt involved congregational chorales as well as more elaborate cantata-style performances. The terms of the contract at Halle’s Domkirche where Handel held his short-lived (and only) professional appointment as an organist required him only to...