Handel gay

The Italian and German courts in which Handel served during his early 20s were populated by princes and cardinals whose homosexuality was an open secret. Music historian Ellen Harris leads on the case for Handel’s homosexuality, arguing that his cantatas exhibit a clear homosexual subtext in her book Handel as Orpheus. There is a surprising dearth of information on relationships that the famed German composer engaged in, but the book Handel as Orpheus by musicologist Ellen T.

Harris lays out the case. My curiosity grew out of a comment made by a classical music critic on the radio that "Händel never married and led a very private personal life. His closest friends, however, were known to be gay." Note: I'm not sure whether this question is on topic here. Feel free to closevote it if it isn't. It has been claimed that Burlington House and Cannons, the homes of the Earl of Burlington and the Duke of Chandos, were homosexual or homoerotic settings and that Handel's presence in these environments suggests that he was ‘gay’ or influenced the secular works he composed there.

Handel's father discouraged his early interest in music, and he studied law for a time. His first two operas were produced in , and in he travelled to Italy, producing sacred music and operas. In he became house composer at Cannons in Middlesex , the home of the Duke of Chandos , for whom he composed the Chandos Anthems. Many of his operas and oratorios were first performed at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket now Her Majesty's Theatre or at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden , but his most famous oratorio, Messiah , using words from the King James Bible , was first performed in Dublin in Handel wrote the very popular Water Music for the king in In Handel wrote the coronation music for the king's successor Georg II; The anthem Zadok the Priest has been performed at every coronation since then.

In the king commissioned Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks : over 12, people attended its public rehearsal in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, causing a three-hour traffic jam. Handel never married, and there is no firm evidence that he ever had a romantic relationship with a man or woman. George II is said to have asked him about his "love of women," to which Handel replied evasively that he had no time for anything but music.

There have been speculations that he might have been gay, but this can never be proved one way or the other.

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Dr Ellis maintains that, as he got older, Handel became part of a homosexual circle that encouraged his work on the sexually ambiguous cantatas. Lord Burlington and the Duke of Chandos, his two principal British patrons, were both homosexual, she claims, as was Prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli, one of his Italian benefactors. Jump to: navigation , search. Categories : Composers deaths Selected articles births.

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