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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Composer of the Week: George Frideric Handel (1685-1759): Episode 4: Much Ado About Not Much

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Episode 4

Episode 4: Much Ado About Not Much

Much Ado About Not Much

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), Much Ado About Not Much

Donald Macleod focuses on the death of Handel's friend and supporter Queen Caroline.

Donald Macleod focuses on the death of Handel's friend and devoted supporter Queen Caroline, plus a venture into publishing and a work he wrote for a military victory in Germany.

This week, as part of the BBC's Eighteenth Century season, Donald Macleod explores the music Handel composed for the Georges, I and II, and to commemorate major events in their reigns.

Today, Handel bids a musical farewell to his friend and devoted supporter Queen Caroline, dead within ten years of her coronation. Had she survived longer, she would doubtless have joined the long list of royal subscribers to her favourite composer's Concerti Grossi, published in 1739. Four years on, her husband George II became the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle ? at Dettingen, south-east of Frankfurt, where his makeshift army defeated the French. Handel seems to have mistaken this minor skirmish for a major victory, and decided to mark it with a grand Te Deum. He conceived it for the enormous spaces of St Paul's Cathedral, but in the event it was performed in the much more intimate surroundings of the Chapel Royal ?a musical quart in an architectural pint pot.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

With music Handel wrote for Kings George I and II and to mark major events in their reigns

Donald Macleod explores the music Handel composed for Kings George I and II and to commemorate major events in their reigns

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Episode 4: Much Ado About Not Much

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