George Frideric  Handel

Handel was born in 1685 at Halle in Germany and died in  1759 in London.

Unlike his great contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach, who came from a family of musicians, Handel was the son of a barber-surgeon who disapproved of music and wanted him to become a lawyer. On a clavichord which a friend smuggled into an attic of the  house, Handel aged only eight, practised behind the closed door and by his persistence later succeeded in persuading his father to allow him to pursue music. After he had already established himself as a distinguished composer of operas, Handel visited England several times after the age of twenty-five and met with such success and appreciation  that in  1726 he became a naturalised Englishman. Some of his greatest oratorios, including the Messiah, were written in England.

The popular idea that Handel's style is easily recognisable comes from  the fact that he over-shadows all his predecessors and contemporaries except Bach. Actually Handel's style is the  apotheosis of  the  typical  Italian  style  of  the  18th century. The effects of Handel's original inspiration upon   foreign  material are really the best  indication  of the range of his style and the facts of his influence on the great musical geniuses who followed  him,  such  as  Beethoven.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach in 1665 and died in Leipzig in 1750.

Since all the members of Bach's family were musicians by long tradition, his musical education came first from  his father at Eisenach and subsequently from 'his elder brother with whom he lived on the death of his parents.

At 15, he left school to become a chorister. at Luneburg and later a violinist in the ducal orchestra at Weimar. At the age of 18 he took an organist's post at Arnstadt. A passion for wider musical knowledge distinguished him from the rest of his family, driving him to undertake uncomfortable journeys to centres like Hamburg. His prowess as an organist soon became renowned. The reception accorded to him by King Frederick the Great on a visit to the Court of Potsdam was the highlight of his career. Failing eyesight eventually necessitated an operation which was not successful and he died soon afterwards.

Bach's influence in the history of western classical  music was amazingly powerful. His was the most subtle and universal force in the development of music particularly of such great Masters' as Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Mandelssohn, Schubert, Brahms and Wagner.

Bach's place in music is far higher than that of an inventor of new forms or a reformer of old ones. He is like a spectator of all music, time and existence, to whom it is not of the smallest importance whether a thing be new or old so long as it is true. Bach has been recognised by posterity as the bringer of polyphonic age to its greatest, final glory.

Source : Information Folder issued by Indian Posts & Telegraph Department, Government of India