THE world of classical music is dominated by about a dozen truly great composers.
Among those composers, some personalities can be conjured up in a single visual image: Beethoven, cut off from the world by his deafness, taking a solitary walk in the countryside near his home; the precocious boy Mozart, in powdered wig and satin suit, astonishing the nobility of Europe with his brilliance; Schubert, chubby and bespectacled, playing his songs to an admiring group of friends or, perhaps, the romantic figure of Chopin, terminally ill but summoning up the last of his strength to captivateaudiences in Paris and London with his uniquely poetic piano music.
The personality of George Frideric Handel is rather more elusive and less easily defined in pictorial terms. We see a portly gentleman looking serious and remote, but the image tells us very little about the man himself. We do know, however, that he was a larger-than-life character, much talked about during his lifetime, whose gruff sense of humour, great kindness and quick temper were the source of many amusing anecdotes.
From a very early age, he also showed two more characteristics which would remain very much in evidence throughout his life: a fierce independence of mind combined with a thorough understanding of his own great gifts and their value to the musical world.
Handel was born in 1685 at Halle, a town in the area of North Germany then known as Saxony. His father, already in his sixties when Handel was a young boy, was determined that George Frideric would become a lawyer, and, noticing that the boy showed a remarkable talent for music, he did everything he could to obstruct and suppress his interest in the subject.
This made the thought of music even more desirable, particularly to such a strong-willed boy as Handel. He managed to get an elavichord (a portable keyboard instrument) placed in a room at the top of the house, and when the rest of the family was asleep, he spent many hours contentedly practising.
Some years later, when Handel was about eleven years old, he was allowed to go with his father to visit a relative at the court of an important prince. One morning, after a service in the chapel, the boy was improvising on the organ when something about the authority and fluency of the playing attracted the attention of the prince.