From the Library: Handel & his Contemporaries

This day in 1685 saw the birth of Georg Frideric Handel, one of the best-known composers of the Baroque era, and today we'll be featuring his music - including the famous Water Music and Fireworks suites and the Messiah - along with some carefully-chosen late Baroque contemporaries, such as Thomas Arne, John Blow, William Boyce, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Domenico Scarlatti and Georg Philipp Telemann, and a touch of earlier music of the Baroque from Purcell and Scarlatti. J S Bach, born in the same year as Handel, really deserves his own programme - which he gets from time to time, so we trust his shade will not be particularly upset by the fact that his work does not appear today.

Handel was born in Germany and received a musical training in Italy before he moved to London and became a British subject. He was influenced by the Italian Baroque and German composers, but his own work was to impact many who came after him including Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart. He died in 1759. His music has remained popular until the present day, and particularly so during the Victorian era, when regular Handel festivals took place at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, South London.

You can read more about Handel and his life in this Wikipedia article.

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with our friends at the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme in-world now at http://main.radioriel.org, or simply click here to start your player, if your browser is configured to do so. Listeners in the United States are encouraged to tune in using this link: http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in

For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.