Music with Ease > Classical Music Quotes > George Frideric Handel Quotes

He is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel before his tomb.
-- Ludwig van Beethoven, quoted in Percy M Young, Handel (1947)

Handel is so great and so simple that no one but a professional musician is unable to understand him.
-- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

Handel was the Jupiter of music;... his hallelujahs open the heavens. He utters the word 'Wonderful', as if all their trumpets spoke together. And then, when he comes to earth, to make love admidst nymphs and shepherds (for the beauties of all religions find room within his breast), his strains drip milk and honey, and his love is the youthfulness of the Golden Age.
-- Leigh Hunt, 1851

Handel understands effect better than any of us -- when he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt.
-- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, quoted in Percy M Young, Handel (1947)