Who doesn’t love a good story? Stories can distract, enlighten, entertain, baffle, and stimulate your senses. Stories transport you to another place, a welcome and necessary diversion from everyday life.Stories weave their way through love: Handel 2019, as The Brook Street Band guides you on a musical journey through Handel’s world
Acquaint yourself with Handel and his music, from his cradle in Halle, to his grave in Westminster Abbey. Meet young Handel, exploring early musical ideas in Halle, taking his influences from esteemed German musicians a generation older than him.Follow Handel on his travels to Italy, a young man in his twenties, eager to experience all that Rome, Florence, Naples and Venice had to offer, incorporating Italian fire and flair into his music. Hear the stories not just behind the composers, but about the music itself, about the instruments it was performed on, and the players who played them.
London forms the backdrop to some of our stories about Handel, the city he first visited in 1710, making it his permanent home from 1714 to his death in 1759. We also focus on music-making in East Anglia, highlighting some of Handel’s English contemporaries, and exploring how Handel’s music fitted in.
We end love: Handel 2019 with one of the greatest Stories, that of Acis and Galatea, bringing a cast of vocal stars to Norwich to perform Handel’s great masterpiece.
The Stories we weave through the music bring to life a complicated man, publically adored but highly private, scrupulously fair to working musicians but not above a bit of professional rivalry, financially astute and rich beyond most musicians’ dreams, an entrepreneur, an innovator, a loyal friend and generous benefactor. He remains above all one of our greatest composers, and we hope that the Stories we bring you in love: Handel 2019 will help you fall in love with Handel too.