The Man & His Music

Handel

A fully revised, expanded and updated edition of Jonathan Keates' magisterial 1985 biography of one of the world's favourite composers.

Readers cannot go wrong if they choose Keates's account, which is always thoughtful and well-informed, and simmers with an unashamed passion for the music itself

An 18th-century mix of pleasure and instruction... As well as having magisterial critical judgements, this is a book rich in dry humour and telling anecdote

The music is the thing and Keates gives it full volume

Keates appraises his works with passionate scrutiny, capturing superbly the increasing solitude of Handel's English years

This expanded edition of a book Keates published 23 years ago takes in a wealth of new knowledge, and combines biographical and musicological analysis in a way that will appeal both to the general reader and the aficionado... With its astute commentaries on the operas, this book makes a brilliantly lucid guide to Handel's evolving art

His creative engagement sympathetically draws out Handel's motivation as a composer

Keate's study has been skilfully updated in tribute to today's thriving Handel industry through which the composer has risen

Jonathan Keates is a prizewinning biographer and novelist, well known as a reviewer and as a writer on Italian culture and history. He teaches at the City of London School and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Jonathan Keates original biography of Handel was hailed as a masterpiece on its publication in 1985. This fully revised and updated new edition - published to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composers death - charts in detail Handel's life, from his youth in Germany, through his brilliantly successful Italian sojourn, to the opulence and squalor of Georgian London where he made his permanent home. 
 
For over two decades Handel was absorbed in London's heady but precarious operatic world. But even his phenomenal energy and determination could not overcome the public's growing indifference to Italian opera in the 1730s, and he turned finally to oratorio, a genre which he made peculiarly his own and in which he created some of his finest works, such as Saul, Messiah, Belshazzar and Jephtha. 
 
Over the last two decades a complete revolution in Handel's status has taken place. He is now seen both as a titanic figure in music, whose compositions have found a permanent place in the international repertoire, and as one of the world's favourite composers, with snatches of his work accompanying weddings, funerals and television commercials the world over. 
 
Skillfully interwoven with the account of Handel's life are commentaries on all his major works, as well as many less familiar pieces by this most inventive, expressive and captivating of composers. Handel was an extraordinary genius whose career abounded in reversals that would have crushed anyone with less resilience and will power, and Jonathan Keates writes about his life and work with sympathy and scrutiny.

The Siege Of Venice

A detailed, vivid and passionate account of the glory and sacrifice of Venice in 1848. Illuminating, exciting and profoundly moving.

A beautifully paced and meticulously detailed narrative... unlikely to be bettered

Brilliant and profoundly researched

A wonderfully vivid evocation of genuine heroism and pathos

Keates has a dry humour that is very modern and I loved his relish for the subject

A fast-moving, well-researched and readable account of a dramatic slice of European history

The siege of Venice in 1848 is one of history's most thrilling and tragic episodes. After half a century of Habsburg imperial rule, the Venetians drove out the occupying army and established their own republic. Led by the Jewish lawyer Daniele Manin, a man of immense courage and personal integrity, they embraced the lofty values of the Risorgimento, Italy's struggle for national unity, freedom and justice. When the Austrians returned with a massive army, intent on recapturing Venice, Manin rejected their surrender demands. The city braced itself for a siege lasting more than a year, ending only when bombardment, cholera and starvation made further resistance impossible. 
 
This epic story, in Jonathan Keates's gripping and meticulously-researched account, embraces the wider world of the revolutionary Italy of Garibaldi, Mazzini and Pope Pius IX, warrior priests, militant actresses, death-or-glory poets, a Mata Hari-type siren spy and a rebel princess. At the centre of the whole crowded canvas, however, stand the truest heroes of all - the people of Venice. Their grit, humour and endurance, under a hail of bombs and a tide of blood sweeping across their once peaceful lagoon, make The Siege of Venice a profoundly touching and unforgettable book.

Jonathan Keates

William III & Mary II (Penguin Monarchs)

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