From one of the suites of G.F. Handel's Water Music. The recording goes back some 20 odd years in my collection, and is the first all-digital recording I owned.
John looks exactly like Handel if he stuck one of those silly wigs on his head. He also, probably, has another thing in common....
Handel never married, and kept his personal life very private. Unlike many composers, he left a sizable estate at his death, worth £20,000 (a rather enormous amount for the day), the bulk of which he left to a niece in Germany, as well as leaving gifts to his other relations, servants, friends and favourite charities.It's called "Water Music", because it is.. literally.. music for the water..
The Water Music is a collection of orchestral movements, often considered as three suites, composed by George Frideric Handel. It premiered in the summer of 1717 (July 17, 1717) when King George I requested a concert on the River Thames. The concert was performed by 50 musicians that joined King George I on his barge. King George I was said to have loved it so much that he ordered the exhausted musicians to play the suites three times on the trip.There.. your cultural lesson for the day.. enjoy..
/update
Oh... apparently the whole "gay" question has been raised before.
The most striking example of the latter is provided by Paul Henry Lang (1966), who after recognizing Handel's sexuality to be a "problem" which has "puzzled his biographers for two hundred years" is able to assure us, virtually without evidence, that the composer, although lacking "time for serious engagement with women" was a man of "normal masculine constitution".Believe it or not, most gay people I know, and I know a lot, have a "normal masculine constitution".
So there you have it.. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, composers in human history was more than likely gay..
"Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived.
I would bare my head and kneel at his grave"
-- L.v. Beethoven (1824)
4 comments:
Well of course they have a masculine constitution - they wish to look hot for their men. And that extra muscle does wonders for squeezing the cheeks, I am sure.
You seem to know a lot about that Rick.. and you were in the Navy..
It all makes sense now..
Oh.. and still waiting for your thesis on the "rules of engagement".
No thesis. It is simple. If the enemy has an intent to harm, and you sense that intent based on visual evidence and your past experiences as a soldier, you respond. Current rules require the soldier to wait until fired upon. In this case, you will be dead before you get a shot off. Poor rules of engagement, if you ask me. And don't talk like you know what the fuck you are talking about. You, I doubt, have ever looked down the barrel of a weapon poised to kill you, nor will you ever (unless, of course, your kind gets its wish and lets down America's defenses - then you may face such a situation in your own town).
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