Giving audiences and performers a window into the past

OU Music academics’ extensive research into George Frideric Handel's life, career and music is helping musicians perform and record the celebrated Baroque composer's works with a greater understanding of his intentions. 

“Handel often changed his works between composition and performances, sometimes resulting in several different versions of the same piece. Through decades of research involving the close examination of eighteenth-century sources, Professor Donald Burrows has produced world-leading editions of the musical scores of several of Handel's works”, explains Burrows’ colleague Dr Helen Coffey. “These editions enable performers to understand the various versions of Handel's compositions and how works such as the opera Imeneo and the oratorio Samson were performed during Handel’s lifetime.”

Burrows’ work has enabled professional and amateur musicians worldwide to accomplish historically informed performances of some of the composer's works for the first time since the eighteenth century. These include the first recording, by Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante, of the concert version of Imeneo prepared by Handel for performances in Dublin in 1742.

Over the past 15 years, Burrows, Coffey and OU colleagues have collected and transcribed all known sources about Handel from his lifetime to compile six volumes of George Frideric Handel: Collected Documents. These books are the most comprehensive collection of evidence concerning the composer’s life and career. For example, drawing on records of Handels’ performances of operas and oratorios, the researchers were able to identify how singers performed their solos in different versions of the movements. This work has enabled performers today to reconstruct authentic performances.

Most recently, Burrows and Coffey’s painstaking research inspired a new album of Handel’s harpsichord music. Recorded by Bridget Cunningham, Artistic Director of London Early Opera and OU Music PhD Candidate, the album launched in November 2021 as part of a series of Handel recordings to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the first publication of the works in 1720.

“Our research charts the life and career of one of the world’s most celebrated composers. Still, it’s talented performers such as Cunningham and her colleagues in London Early Opera who bring his music to life.”, Coffey remarks.