Handel: The Man and His Music by Jonathan Keates
xIn the two decades since Keates published his magisterial life of the German composer who made his home in Georgian London, there has, he says, been a “sea change in Handel's operatic fortunes”. Almost all his operas have now found their way into professional recordings, joining his better-known oratorios. In this updated edition, published to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Handel's death, Keates appraises his works with passionate scrutiny, capturing superbly the increasing solitude of Handel's English years, and his “shrewd entrepreneurship” in tracing London's shifting taste from opera to oratorio. What remains inscrutable, however, is his subject's romantic life. Keates gives short shrift to speculation about Handel's sexuality - homosexual? celibate? - arguing that his “vagabond life” made marriage impractical and claiming that the composer's capacity for sexual passion is evident in the “acute psychological penetration and glowing sensuality” of his 1724 opera Giulio Cesare.

Corvus: A Life With Birds by Esther Woolfson
Woolfson's elegant memoir of the birds that her family has adopted in the past 20 years features a charming protagonist called Chicken. Descended from a long line of rooks who nest in the woods near Crathes Castle in Aberdeenshire, Chicken has a dislike of computers and almost anything electrical. She enjoys Gouda but not Camembert. She can abide Bach but not Britten. She caws loudly if Woolfson oversleeps, though when she sleeps herself she snores. It's not hard to see how Woolfson fell in love with the clever, characterful birds of the corvid family, including rooks, crows, and magpies, all of whom she has kept in her home. Each year, she watches Chicken build a nest beneath the dining table, but still cannot fathom how this canny rook knows when she's taking her favourite food, butter, out of the fridge. Nature writing at its best, Woolfson's book succeeds thanks to decades of close and affectionate observation of her fascinating house guests.

Handel by Jonathan Keates
The Bodley Head £25 pp352
Corvus by Esther Woolfson
Granta £16.99 pp288

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