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My Problem with Handel

My Problem with...: Handel

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Handel

My Problem with...

BBC Radio 3 - My Problem with..., Handel

Mahan Esfahani seeks help from Dame Sarah Connolly for his problem with Handel.

Mahan Esfahani confesses he doesn’t care for, or even respect, the music of Handel and asks singer Dame Sarah Connolly to show him the path to enlightenment.

Harpsichordist and broadcaster Mahan Esfahani confesses he doesn’t care for, or even respect, the music of Handel. A composer whose music brings joy to so many, whose music oils the wheels of hundreds of choral societies and makes the careers of greater singers and conductors. Who in their right mind would have a problem with him? 

You’ll be pleased to hear that Mahan is seeking professional help, from a musician who will try to show him the path to enlightenment. This week, his guest is singer Dame Sarah Connolly, a leading global exponent of Handel’s music on stage; she’s also been there at the battlefront making a case for his music and re-inventing a composer whose operatic work only recently came back to the mainstream.

Together they chew through the issues of Handel’s need to always be liked and to be popular, sometimes at the expense of being good; why his music is so repetitive; why he steals melodies from other composers and Mahan’s biggest bugbear, the bloated national quality of his music.  

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell 
A Reduced Listening Production for BBC Radio 3

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.

Discussion & Talk

Music: Classical

Mahan Esfahani asks what's wrong with saying you don't like some of the 'great composers'.

Harpsichordist and broadcaster Mahan Esfahani throws down the argument that some of the so-called 'great composers' maybe aren't that great.

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