Georgian splendour

摘要

His father, a well-connected doctor in the east German town of Halle, had wanted young Georg Friedrich to become a lawyer. But when the Duke of Saxe-Weis-senfels chanced to hear the ten-year-old playing the organ, he was so impressed that he persuaded Mr Handel to allow the boy to train as a musician. By the time the organ-player died in London on April 14th 1759, aged 74, he had become "the great and good Mr Handel". Since then, Handel has enjoyed 250 years of uninterrupted posthumous fame.rnTo mark the anniversary of his death, the musical world has been getting the bouquets ready. Britain's bbc is planning to broadcast all 42 of his operas during this year. The seven-week London Handel Festival is already in full swing, and festivals in Halle and Goettingen will follow in April and May. A season of the composer's opera "Alcina" (pictured above) has just begun at La Scala in Milan. The Handel House Museum in London's Brook Street, where he lived for the last 36 years of his life, is putting on an exhibition about him next month.