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Bach and Handel: Their Music in High Baroque Culture
This course compares and contrasts the lives and music of the two composers of the High Baroque who best capture the period’s expressive aims, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. We will examine their contrasting life experiences and musical pursuits within the larger social and cultural framework of the period: Bach as a provincial composer, servant to minor German aristocrats and the Lutheran Church, virtuoso organist and pedagogue; Handel as a cosmopolitan celebrity and entrepreneur, creator of operatic and instrumental entertainments for both the Italian and English nobility and the paying public. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti and B-minor Mass, and Handel’s Water Music and Messiah are just a few of the works to be explored and enjoyed.
