Handel in London
by Jane Glover,
Macmillan, 448pp, £25, $29.95
To begin on a carping note, Jane Glover’s subtitle, The Making of a Genius, surely claims too much for London. Handel’s genius had been blazingly evident before he ever thought of working in England. In particular, during his years in Italy (1706-10) he had stunned audiences with his work for the Roman clergy, notably Dixit Dominus (1707) and La Resurrezione (1708). For all his Lutheran background, Handel established his reputation in the heart of Catholicism.
