Handel

Readers cannot go wrong if they choose Keates’s account, which is always thoughtful and well-informed, and simmers with an unashamed passion for the music itself * Sunday Telegraph *
An 18th-century mix of pleasure and instruction… As well as having magisterial critical judgements, this is a book rich in dry humour and telling anecdote * Spectator *
The music is the thing and Keates gives it full volume * The Times *
Keates appraises his works with passionate scrutiny, capturing superbly the increasing solitude of Handel’s English years * Sunday Times *
This expanded edition of a book Keates published 23 years ago takes in a wealth of new knowledge, and combines biographical and musicological analysis in a way that will appeal both to the general reader and the aficionado… With its astute commentaries on the operas, this book makes a brilliantly lucid guide to Handel’s evolving art * Independent *
His creative engagement sympathetically draws out Handel’s motivation as a composer – Tom Sutcliffe * Guardian *
Keate’s study has been skilfully updated in tribute to today’s thriving Handel industry through which the composer has risen * Herald *
A good book has become a better one * Contemporary Review *

Jonathan Keates is a prizewinning biographer and novelist, well known as a reviewer and as a writer on Italian culture and history. He teaches at the City of London School and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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