The world of music is occupied by both the memory and the current life of the musical equivalent of Albert Einstein. These musical geniuses are often grouped together based on their style, where they come from or even their personal life. An unfortunate example of this grouping is Bach and Handel. An author named Paul Henry Lang delves into why these two very famous composers were mistakenly grouped together in his two articles, Handel: 300 Years On and Bach: 300 Years On. Lang's articles are very intelligent and give notable and valid reasons on this specific topic. He discusses musical styles, their successes, their personal lives, and how often the composers traveled. By comparing the two composers Lang brings to light a historical misunderstanding that went unnoticed for years. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The grouping of Bach and Handel is a very unkind grouping for these two composers. As Lang says, “the hyphenation Bach-Handel, which we owe to the Germans' claim to Handel as a national composer, is one of the most unfounded. Handel lived for almost half a century, that is, his entire mature life, in England, became a British subject naturalized by law of Parliament, composed all his important works in and for England, recognized his loyalty to his chosen homeland expressis verbis, and is buried among the greats of England in Westminster Abbey” (Lang). To say that Handel is to Bach what Germany is to England is absolutely incorrect because the two countries at the time were in completely different cultural spaces and the two composers were demonstrating different musical styles and musical creations specific to where the composers lived. Handel, for example, was a man on the move, moving from place to place picking up new musical styles and creating his own from what already existed. Handel began as a young church organist and then quickly moved to Hamburg, Germany, to devote himself to the theater where he quickly rose from humble musician to respected opera producer. This led to Handel's first opera entitled Almira. From Germany Handel moved to Italy where he remained for four years. According to Lang, “within a year he was back at the top, hobnobbing with princes and cardinals, and after the great success of his opera Agrippina in Venice (1709) a career opened up for him that would put the major Italian composers in the shadow ” (Lang). However, Handel was not interested in this career and decided to move to England instead. At the time, England was the most advanced country, so Handel believed it was the right place to realize all his ambitions. Handel remained in England for much of the rest of his life. It was here that Handel began to move away from what was considered normal and began to create his own rules for music. It began with the ceremonial music loved by all and to this day the coronation anthem composed by Handel for George II has been used for every English monarch from then on. Handel began to "borrow" the music of his past compositions and recreate them for new purposes. However, when people began to find out, Handel faced a lot of backlash and was even considered a plagiarist at one point. Handel was not fazed by this and continued to work in the world of opera. Handel composed and debuted many operas and often incorporated the use of deus ex machina, which was considered unusual at the time. As he continued to mature in the art of opera, one began to notice how “particularly attractive and expressive the interruptions and substitutions are;he burst into the aria with recitatives or ariosi, or even replaced the da capo section with something completely different, or suspended it and entered immediately into the next number... his dramatic figures come to life through the intensity and psychological insight of the music, which goes far beyond what is written in the text” (Lang). Handel had the ability to compose music that truly encompassed all the personality and humanity of the characters he wrote for. He could go from sultry to heroic in the blink of an eye without the change being overly drastic. Once Handel left opera, he developed the English Oratorio entirely on his own. Compared to the Italian Oratory, there are many evident differences. Most notable is how in the Italian Oratory, the choir plays a minor role while, as in the English Oratory, the choir is the star. Through this Handel created the action chorus, where the chorus becomes the protagonist. Towards the end of his life, and his musical life, Handel uses his music to explore complicated and subjective ideas. As Lang says, “Both Teodora and Jefta Händel seem to have opened a new and final chapter in his creative life. It seems to contemplate the meaning of life and the afterlife, and there are some deep spiritual issues surrounding these works. These problems are hidden [and] difficult to explain… perhaps they are philosophical and religious, perhaps autobiographical. The local color, even the action, and all the details seem superfluous, only the soul speaks…it was while working on Jephtha that blindness struck the composer and he had to put down his pen” (Lang). When looking at Handel's instrumental works many try to use his keyboard fugues to demonstrate his inferiority to Bach, when in reality these fugues demonstrate that "although his contrapuntal skill was formidable, he rarely used it consistently throughout a composition, not even in fugues, for the simple reason that a dramatic composer cannot think in strict counterpoint; it needs a flexibility that can cope with constantly changing situations and conflicts…Händel's polyphony is closer to the Italian one than to that of northern Germany” (Lang). Handel found that thinking with a linear mindset would get him through difficult times, and he became extraordinarily skilled at avoiding these points in a stately manner. Handel was able to use ensembles in an extraordinary way thanks to his ear for balance, color and his talent for composing complex and beautiful melodies. All in all, Handel's musical abilities far surpass those of other composers in both choral and instrumental settings. His comparison with Bach is unfair in the sense that he was much more worldly knowledgeable and much more exposed to musical ideas than his fellow composer Bach. However, neither composer is better than the other, both have their own strengths and weaknesses. Bach and Handel both lived in Germany early in their lives, however Bach never left Germany, he simply moved from one place in Germany to another. For this reason Bach was able to establish himself in the musical traditions of Germany. Bach started out as an organist, but remained in that position until his death. As Lang says, “Bach belonged to the ranks of craftsmen, church organists” (Lang). Bach was a pupil of his older brother and then moved to Lüneburg where he was strongly influenced by Georg Bohm, one of the most important composers of the time. In 1703 he was appointed organist in Arnstadt and was again under the influence of another musical giant. Then, in 1722, when Kuhnau, the cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, died, Bach sought and eventually obtained that position which he held until his death. However, according to Lang, "only after JohannFriedrich Fasch, Telemann and Christoph Graupner... refused the invitation and turned to Bach, concluding that in case of unavailability of a good modern musician they would have to settle for an old style" (Lango). According to a widely believed and very incorrect myth , when Bach died his music died along with him until it was rediscovered almost a full century later However, this is highly incorrect because according to Lang “the date of this rediscovery, and with it the beginning of Bach's rebirth, is assigned. to March 11, 1829, when the young Mendelssohn performed the St. Matthew Passion as director of the Singkakademie in Berlin. Bach was celebrated during his lifetime as the greatest keyboard virtuoso of the time and for his experience in building organs" (Lang) .Bach was a sacred composer and focused mainly on church. Although he wrote mainly choral music, he was considered an instrumental composer. However, he was able to write in different styles. According to Lang “Bach had a fantastic ability to reconcile and fuse his German heritage with Italian and French music in a markedly individual style, an ability he shares with Lassus, Handel and Mozart” (Lang). Bach developed the ability to write unprecedented chamber music, without accompaniment, which literally left audiences speechless. This was a technique that Bach was known for and that he invented himself. The melodies of these pieces were woven together but remained clean. As Bach continued his musical creations, he wrote the Goldberg Variations which were different because he moved away from the traditional figured bass and wrote a very detailed harpsichord part which he called the concerted harpsichord. Bach also began to "borrow" his violin concertos and completely rewrite and rework them for harpsichord. Bach is known for his instrumental music, but especially for his organ music. Where Handel wrote nothing for the organ, Bach wrote pieces that remain coveted to this day. As Lang describes them, “the stylistic range is phenomenal, from the type of counterpoint of the Ockeghem era to the bold modern language of the toccatas beginning with Frescobaldi... it is this spirit that we find in Bach's great organ works with their booming pedal strokes, dramatic harmonic surprises and tights. These works surpass everything in organ literature and will remain unchallenged forever” (Lang). Bach had the ability to write pieces that made the organ show characters that people didn't know it could show. Because Bach was so closely associated with the church, he also wrote choral hymns and developed a new style for them. “The artistic aim was to keep the choral melody intact or almost intact, at the same time exploiting it in the most sophisticated melodic, rhythmic and contrapuntal ways” (Lang). This was one of Bach's greatest contributions to choral music. He was able to take these pieces and write them to the point where you would think he did everything he could, but then he added something more. As Bach continued to compose, he began to use symbolism in his music. He would use sacred numbers and assign a number to the notes. This was not apparent to the listener, but was simply for the composer's amusement. Above all, Bach's skills were of otherworldly proportions and his ability to create what he did was astonishing. The two major differences between Bach and Handel is that unlike Handel, Bach never lived anywhere other than Germany, whereas Handel lived in many places. The other difference is that Handel never composed for the organ while Bach was known for his organ compositions. Both composers have made enormous contributions to the world of music, which without them would not be what it is.