Hallelujah Handel! Montreal Baroque Festival salutes most popular composer of his era

Beethoven adored him, calling him "the greatest composer that ever lived," while Tchaikovsky dismissed him as "fourth rate."

Despite those mixed reviews, George Frideric Handel lives on as one of the Baroque period's great composers — and for four days, he will be the centrepiece of the 16th edition of the Montreal Baroque Music Festival.

"Tchaikovsky may have been jealous," says Karim Nasr, an instrument maker and performer of 17th- and 18th-century wind instruments. "Handel appealed to the everyman."

In that spirit, the Baroque Music Festival wants everyone to join the party with an opening parade where all instruments are welcome — everything from plastic recorders to pots and pans.

The festival calls Handel a "corpulent fellow" with a "serious case of gout," on its website's main page.

"He was a fat, lugubrious, heavy-drinking, heavy-eating, a very lustful man," Nasr said. "He is said to be ill-tempered at some point."

Nasr alludes to the story of Handel threatening to throw one of his sopranos out of a window for refusing to sing a part.

Many link Handel's bad temper with his taste for wines laced with lead — which may have taken its toll on his physical and mental health.

Less rigid musical period

Baroque music was created between about 1600 and 1750 and is remembered as being far less rigid than the periods which followed.

"The attitudes we have in the world of early music are far different than the conventions we have which are quite restrictive, I find, in the modern world," Nasr said.

"There isn't a hierarchy in the orchestra. There isn't a chain of command you have to go through to ask things."  

Nasr plays flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons from the Baroque period and will perform with the Montréal Baroque Oboe Band on Saturday and Sunday in Phillips Square.

The festival starts with the grand opening parade at 6:30 p.m. in Place Jacques Cartier.

Other events will take place in public squares, churches and cafés around Montreal.

The full program is available here.