BACH and HANDEL

COMPARED
 Lives
 Personality
 Kinds of Music
 Musical Styles
 Lives

BACH
Provincial, that he spent his entire life
within geographical area
 a family man, who from two wives
had 20 children
 concerned with small ventures and
commonplace problems
HANDEL
Cosmopolitan, spending large part of
his life in Germany, England and Italy
 Handel never married
 centered around bigger ventures
Bach had a long line of Handel had virtually no
musical ancestors musical ancestry
 Ended his last year in  Ended his last years in
blindness blindness too
 Personality

Bach Handel
Religious Religious too but more
 Willful, was generally mundane
more humble and even  Pompous and lordly
obsiquious
 Kinds of Music
Bach
Chiefly church music
 his music is utilitarian for the
most part, written for specific
function or occasion.
 great in his organ music
 Bach’s music is of an
impersonal nature.
Handel
Dealt in large dramatic forms
 he wrote on a grand scale and not
necessarily for a particular function.
 altough an organist, he wrote little
organ music
 first composer to reveal his
personality through his music.
 Differences of Musical Styles
Bach is predominantly polyphonic, while Handel is
predominantly homophonic.
 Bach’s vocal music shows a tendency toward
instrumental idiom, whereas Handel displays a more
idiomatic vocal writing.
 Bach has stronger more driving rhythm than Handel.
 Bach’s harmony is richer and more ingenious than that of
Handel.
 Bach’s styles
His contrapuntal ingenuity has never been surpassed or
equalled.
 driving rhythm
 harmonic richness, variety of progression and
considerable chromaticism
His instrumental music in general is unidiomatic and
rather uncolorful.
Uses pictorial and symbolic expression in his music.
 Bach’s summary of works
Vocal church music: 300 church cantatas, St. Matthew
Passion, 4 short masses, B Minor Mass
 Harpsichord music: 15 two- part invention, 15
symphonies, 6 suites, 48 preludes and fugues, Goldberg
Variation.
 Organ music: 6 trio sonatas, preludes and fugues,
toccatas, fantasias and passacaglias
 Chamber music
Orchestral music: 1 concerto grosso for harpsichord, flute
ad violin, 6 Brandenburg Concertos, etc.
 Handel’s styles
Mixture of national themes, Italian, German, and English.
his harmony is more conventional than that of Bach,
making use of more diatonic- dominant progression and
first inversion chord.
Rhythms are generaly strong.
 Cantabile melody, often beginning with long sustained-
note
 in his choral works, he often gains special effect by
writing tenor and bass parts higher than sopranos and
altos
 Summary of
Handel’s Works
 43 operas mostly Italian styles
 27 Oratorios
 Instrumental music: 17 harpsichord suites,6
fugues for harpsichord of varying nature, 15
solo sonatas for violin,oboe, flutes, and recorder
all with figured bass accomp.
 6 trio sonatas, for two oboes, Water Music,
Music for Royale fireworks