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656. How Handel Got His Mojo Back by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

656. How Handel Got His Mojo Back

from Freakonomics Radio

by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Published: Fri Dec 12 2025

Show Notes

When he wrote Messiah (in 24 days), Handel was past his prime and nearly broke. One night in Dublin changed all that. (Part two of “Making Messiah.”)

  • SOURCES:
    • CharlesKing, political scientist at Georgetown University.
    • Chris Scobie, curator of music, manuscripts, and archives at the British Library.
    • Ellen Harris, musicologist and professor emeritus at MIT.
    • MarkRisinger, teacher at St. Bernard's School.
    • Philip Rushforth, organist and master of the choristers at the Chester Cathedral.
    • Proinnsías Ó Duinn, conductor and music director of Our Lady's Choral Society.

  • RESOURCES:
    • Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah, by Charles King (2024).
    • "Arnauddu Sarrat and the international music trade in Halle and Leipzig c.1700,"by Tomasz Górny (Early Music, 2023).
    • George Frideric Handel: A Life with Friends, by Ellen Harris (2014).
    • Handel(Composers Across Cultures), by Donald Burrows (2012).
    • "GeorgHändel (1622–97):The Barber-Surgeon Father of George Frideric Handel (1685–1759),"by Aileen Adams and B. Hofestädt (Journal Of Medical Biography, 2005).
    • Handel'sMessiah: A Celebration: A Richly Illustrated History of the Music and Its Eighteenth-Century Background, by Richard Luckett (1995).
    • Handel'sMessiah The Advent Calendar, podcast series.

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