In this biography, the man who would later compose some of the world's most beautiful music is shown to have once been a stubborn little boy with a mind of his own.

An introduction to the life and music of the eighteenth-century German composer.

This program from the Famous Composers series introduces the life and music of George Frideric Handel, beginning with his childhood and early musical development in Halle, Germany. The film follows Handel to Italy, where he cultivated his serious interest in opera, and contextualizes the religious conditions that the Lutheran composer faced in the Roman Catholic country. Handel then moved to England where he enjoyed great success and the Royal Academy...

Handel always knew how to succeed. His Italian operas took London by storm, but when the public rejected music in foreign languages he gave them the oratorio in English. And when the Royal Academy of Music folded, Handel revived it under a scheme of subscriptions and box-office receipts and modern theater was born. This program traces Handel's distinguished career, focusing on his great output of operas and oratorios, the most famous of which is his...

Relates how a determined aunt and a boy who swallowed a knife made it possible for young George Frideric Handel to study music despite his father's strong objections.

An illustrated edition of the libretto for Handel's popular choral work.