Classical Music For Dummies

The following sections help you get a handle on Handel.

George Frideric Handel

Concerto for Guitar in D major, RV 93
Concerto for Two Trumpets in C major, RV 537
Sonata for Two Violins, RV 60
Gloria (oratorio for three solo singers, chorus, and orchestra), RV 589
Concerto for Two Cellos in G minor, RV 531
Double Orchestra Concerto, RV 585

Like so many aspects of the Renaissance, opera was an attempt to re-create the glories of ancient Greece.

Giovanni da Palestrina, one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance.

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Some of the greatest choral and orchestral works ever written have been masses.

(You may remember Julie Andrews paying homage to Guido in The Sound of Music when she sang, “Doe, a deer, a female deer; ray, a drop of golden sun …”) This system of singing standard syllables on certain notes of the scale, a centuries-old skill practiced by opera singers and music majors worldwide, is called solfège

If you close your eyes and listen to Gregorian chant, all your daily cares seem to float away.

Over the millennia, music became more complex. Man invented musical instruments to produce the sounds he couldn’t sing.