George Frederic Handel
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia.
“Pull the other one! It's got bells on it!”
~ Oscar Wilde on Handel
George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) was a famous German or English composer (which one will depend on your own nationality). His real name was actually Georg Frideric Stiel, but when he emigrated to England he translated his name (misspelling it in the process) because the English pronounced it like "Style” which he didn’t like.
In 1709 he moved to England. He arrived on a boat which sailed down the river Thames with an orchestra playing the Water Music. The King was very pleased to see him and forgave him his past misdemeanors (that's another story as the Irish say).
Handel wrote all sorts of music: The concerto (invented by Brahms), the fugue (invented by Handel's contemporary Bach), and the oratorio (invented by Cicero). His forays into the genre of opera, however, were those which especially made him famous. In those days there were two kinds of opera. One sort was in English and based on political satire, such as “The Beggar’s Opera”, written to a text by John Gay. Handel, however, was batting for the other side, i.e. Italian opera. It was not only his job to compose operas, but also to headhunt Italian singers and get them to sign contracts for his opera house in London. Thus Handel made several journeys in which he circumcised Italy to get castrati to come to England.
After many successful years in the opera an earthquake put a stop to his run of luck and he turned to oratorio. His English was still not very good and, since oratorios were settings of English words (cf opera which was in Italian) most of the numbers in his oratorios use just one word, e.g. “Alleluya” (from “The Messiah”). The oratorio “Samson” was dedicated to the memory of his father who was a barber.
Handel was responsible for the greatest traffic jam that London has ever experienced. The people were all going to the park to hear Music for the Royal Fireworks which Handel had written to celebrate the end of the Trojan War. The brass players thought it would be funny to stuff fireworks up their instruments. All went well for a few bars until the brass started to play. There was a great display of pyrotechnics, the stage caught fire, the brass players lost all their teeth, and the orchestra, with blackened faces, hastened to a safe corner of the park where they tried to play some cool music. It was the first experiment with jazz, but proved too hot for the great composer to handle. A violinist from the orchestra called Bartolomeo Christoforo collected up the teeth and went home where he invented the piano.
Handel, who never married, always worked right through the night, ignoring the meals that his housekeeper (Mrs Care) kept bringing him. When he died it took the pest control a fortnight to clear the room of half a century of food.
Handel's best works are generally considered to be his six concertos for hurdy-gurdy.
There are also rumors that Handel was the brainchild behind the Sex Pistols.
