The Guide to Current Handel Research

If you wish to correspond with one of the musicologists listed below, please address your enquiry to info@gfhandel.org. You must state your institution, supervisor/tutor, project, and please also summarise the current state of your research and give examples of bibliographic sources you have consulted.

We do not claim that The Guide to Current Handel Research is complete, but we would like it to be as comprehensive as possible. If you are eligible to be featured in this directory please e-mail info@gfhandel.org with your contribution modelled on the following entries. Please notify us if you have an existing entry in the directory that requires updating.

The social, political, literary and historical context of Handel's Semele (1744) and other secular oratorios, including reference to Handel's English contemporaries and the theatre music of London from 1700-1750.

DPhil. "Opera and Nationalism in mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford, 1999). Forthcoming publications: "'Fam'd Handel breathing, though transform'd to stone': the composer as monument", JAMS (vol. 55/1); "Ariadne's Clew: Politics, Allegory, and Opera in London (1734)" (awaiting acceptance). Work in progress: Book on opera and nationalism in 18th-century Britain, which will include material on Handel. Articles on "Performance and Identity on London's Operatic Stage: Faustina Bordoni vs. Francesca Cuzzoni"; and companion article on Senesino and satire.

Currently working on a PhD exploring the creative process of Handel's Messiah. Also working on an edition of Handel's Dettingen Anthem and Dettingen Te Deum for the HHA.

Currently working on a dissertation entitled "The Comedies of Opera Seria: Handel's Post-Academy Operas," which considers quasi-comic moments in Handel's operas of the 1730s and early 1740s and their relationship to other forms of theatrical entertainment at the time. The dissertation will focus primarily on the late operatic works, including Giustino, Berenice, Serse, Imeneo, Deidamia, and the English-language Semele.

Editing Cannons anthems for Novello, editing Chandos Te Deum for the HHA (Hallische Händel-Ausgabe).

Current research: Handel's borrowings and self-quotations; Cataloguing of borrowings and self-quotations, and studies on terminology and various works (Athalia, Il Trionfo... and other works)

Joint Chief General Editor, Hallische Händel Ausgabe (HHA). HHA edition of Deidamia just published. New revised HHA edition of Organ Concertos Opus 4, and a Practical edition of Complete Violin Sonatas due by the end of 2001. Currently re-editing Serse for the HHA. New Bärenreiter edition of Oboe Concerto HWV 287 in preparation (this concerto was considered a spurious attribution, but in recent years research has suggested that it is an authentic early Flute concerto adapted for oboe by a later arranger).

Editing and investigating Handel's Italian librettos (pasticcios included) and their original sources. Volume 1 (1707-25) of their project "I libretti italiani di Georg Friedrich Handel e le loro fonti" was published in 1992 by Leo S. Olschki (Florence). Volume 2 (1726-33) is due to be published in 2003/04 by the same publisher. The Bianconis, who are teachers of Musical Dramaturgy and Music History at the Dipartimento di Musica e Spettacolo of the University of Bologna, are currently preparing Volume 3 (1734-41). Together with Alan Curtis, they are on the programme committee of the conference "Georg Friedrich Handel e il dramma per musica", to be held in Siena, Accademia Musicale Chigiana, on 7-9 November 2002. The proceedings will be published as part of the annual of the Accademia, "Chigiana" (Olschki, Florence).

PhD was on Handel and the Chapel Royal (Open University, 1981), and continues to research this subject and plans to publish book (not likely to be before 2004). Revised edition of his Master Musicians volume on Handel in preparation. Forthcoming editions of Imeneo (HHA), Wedding anthem "This is the day" (Novello), and 9 German Arias (Breitkopf). Future plans include editions of Ariodante (HHA) and Samson (Novello).

Xavier Cervantes

University of Toulouse, France

PhD dissertation on "'The Universal Entertainment of the Polite Part of the World': Italian Opera and Its Reception in England, 1705-44" (1995, c. 800 p.). Several articles published in Händel-Handbuch, Göttinger Händel-Beiträge, Early Music, and elsewhere.

Current research: Italian-English cultural and artistic interactions in the 18th century: opera, music, painting, aesthetics.

Dissertation: "Early Reception of Handel's Oratorios, 1732-1784: Narrative - Studies - Documents" (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 2004), xiii
+ 1626 pp.; available through UMI (http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/search)

PhD on Handel's 'Conducting' Scores. Editing Floridante for the HHA. Researching Handel's compositional process.

University Organist and Principal Lecturer in the Department of Music, University Of Huddersfield. He has published on Handel and Opera in Music & Letters, Early Music, and the Händel Jahrbuch. He is currently editing the opera Poro, Rè dell’ Indie for the Hallische Händel Ausgabe, and has acted as music text consultant for performances of this opera at the festivals in Halle (1998), Göttingen (2006), and the London Handel Festival (2007).

PhD recently published on rhetorical and thematic aspects of Handel's oratorio librettos. ("Haendel et ses oratorios: des mots pour les notes." Paris : L’Harmattan, 2001.) Various articles on the celebration of music in texts set by Handel.

Current research: Translation of opera librettos; representation of opera in fiction.

Doctoral research on the social, political, religious and historical contexts of Maurice Greene's theatrical works with reference to the careers and works of Thomas Arne and Handel. Also the lives and works of their respective librettists. Due for completion in 2006-7.

MMus "Love and religious feelings in Theodora: an oratorio by G.F. Handel". PhD thesis (due 2004-6): "Faramondo de G.F. Handel sur un livret d'A. Zeno : étude des sources et confrontation au modèle métastasien" ("G.F. Handel's Faramondo: its libretto, sources, and Metastasian model"). Editing Faramondo for the HHA.

Todd Gilman

Yale University, USA

Ph.D. thesis The Theory and Practice of English Opera and Related Genres in London, 1675-1745: John Gay, George Frideric Handel, Their Predecessors and Contemporaries (University of Toronto, 1994), co-wrote entry on Thomas Augustine Arne in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians with Peter Holman, and is planning various books related to Thomas Augustine Arne, including Our English Amphion: The Theater Career of Thomas Augustine Arne, 1732-78. He co-edited John Parkinson's book manuscript Thomas Arne: Master of a Scurvy Profession with Stephen Parkinson. Currently writing a book titled Handel and London Theater, and his article "Handel's Hercules and its Semiosis" was published in The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 81.3 (1997), pp. 449-81.

Current project is a long-overdue review of editions of the Eight Great Suites. Also plans to revise some papers read long ago, including material about borrowings in Samson and Messiah. Continuing research on the organ concertos (e.g. forthcoming HHA edition of Opus 4, revised by Terence Best). Plans a collaboration with a Charleston music scholar about the "coronation organ" used by Handel supposedly sent by George II to St. Philip's Church, Charleston.

Handel's cantatas (history, analysis and context): an edition of 16 alto cantatas has just appeared from Oxford; forthcoming book on the cantatas to be published by Harvard University Press. Ellen has also been carrying out archival research on Handel's "legatees", including some people in Handel's will who were otherwise unknown; an article was published in the 2000 Handel-Jahrbuch on James Hunter; a smaller piece this year in the American Handel Society Newsletter on Mrs. Donellan and Mrs. Mayne. Ellen is also carrying out research on Handel's bank accounts, and has discovered a new stock account for Handel in the Bank of England. The preliminary findings were reported at the American Handel Society meetings last May.

Editing La Resurrezione for the HHA, and working on a complete reconstruction of Comus.

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1989, on opera and song books published in England 1703-1726. Current research: Aspects of Handel's life as portrayed by his biographers, including the audiences for his performances in London and Dublin, the alleged opposition to his operas and oratorios, his size, eating habits and health, his alleged poor relations with publishers, the alleged attendance of Jews in large numbers at Judas Maccabaeus, and other such myths. In short, I am assessing the accuracy of claims concerning Handel's friends and enemies.

PhD recently published as Handel's Muse: Patterns of Creation in his Oratorios and Musical Dramas, 1743-1751 (Oxford University Press). Currently editing Hercules for the HHA and Solomon for Novello. Preparing a paper on compositional revisions to Theodora, and researching non-Handelian operatic careers of Handel's oratorio singers during the Middlesex period and beyond. He is also examining Handel's oratorio arias: their form, style, and dramatic characteristics.

Recent publications: critical edition of Rodelinda for the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe (2002); ‘Staging a Handel Opera’, Early Music, xxiv/2 (May, 2006); ‘Handel’s Amore uccellatore cantata’, Händel-Jahrbuch, 52 (2006); ‘The Composer as Dramatist: Handel’s Contribution to the Libretto of Rodelinda’, Music and Letters, 88 (2007). Preparation of a biennial production of a Handel opera for the Cambridge Handel Opera Group (2007: Imeneo). Current research: preparation of a critical edition of the continuo cantatas for the HHA.

PhD in Classics, University of Michigan. Current research on early operas about Scipio Africanus the Elder, by Minato/ Cavalli, Zeno, Piovene, and Rolli/Handel's Scipione.

Ph.D., Brandeis University, 2005. Dissertation: "Handel's Israel in Egypt: A Three-Anthem Oratorio. An Analytical and Interpretive Study of the Original 1739 Version." Currently revising the dissertation for publication.

Editing Alessandro for the HHA. Cataloging the Schoelcher Collection at the Biblothèque Nationale, Paris.

Forthcoming M.A. Thesis "Besetzung und Ausführung des Generalbasses in den Concerti grossi Händels"

The reception history of Israel in Egypt. Currently editing Esther (1732 version) and the Funeral Anthem "The Ways of Zion do Mourn" for the HHA. Plans to edit Teseo for the HHA.

Currently writing book Woodwind Instruments in Britain, 1660-1740: Social History, Repertoire, and Performance Practice. This will include two chapters on Handel's woodwind music: the instrumental music, and his use of woodwinds in his vocal music.

In the autumn of 2001, Lowell Lindgren has three items in press: Nicola Haym, COMPLETE SONATAS, 2 volumes, A-R Editions; "An Intellectual Castrato [Gaetano Berenstadt] at the End of the Medicean Era," to be published in a Florentine collection, Olschki; and "Oratorios Sung in Italian at London, 1734-82," to be published in an oratorio collection, Olschki.

Completed Ph. D. Dissertation, "Story and Representation in Handel’s Operas," which explores seven of Handel's operas from the perspectives of both traditional "dramatic" representation (i.e., mimesis), and "para-dramatic" expression (such as, for example, the orchestra's role in imparting information to the audience, or the meaning of adherence to or departure from opera seria conventions).

MA Thesis "The Instrumental Variation Sets of Antonio Vivaldi: Old Forms in New Genres" (University of Victoria, Canada, 2004, ix, 155, app.) provides a catalogue and close examination of large-scale structural issues in variation sets by Vivaldi, Corelli, Rameau, and Handel. A book and several related articles are in progress. Current research continues to expand upon the issues raised in my thesis and examine additional repertoire from the 18th-20th centuries.

Writing a book on opera, politics, and satire in the age of Handel, Walpole, and Pope. Studying the cultural, social, and political context of Italian opera in Britain, and out archival research on opera and opera patronage.

Michael Marissen

Swarthmore College, USA

Bach scholar turning also to Handel research. Working on a short book for scholars and general readers about Messiah and theological anti-Judaism, entitled "Handel's Messiah and Christian Triumphalism."

General Editor of the Göttinger Händel Beiträge (published every 2 years). Author of "G. F. Händel" entry in new MGG2 (due 2002). Forthcoming publications include:

Recent publications include an article in Goldoni and the Musical Theatre and a paper on Handel's early Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. She is the author of G.F. Handel: a Research Guide and the editor of the Alfred Mann Festschrift. Her articles and reviews have appeared in the Händel-Jahrbuch, JAMS, The American Choral Review, MLA Notes, Göttinger Händel-Beiträge, and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. She recently completed the second edition of the Handel Research Guide.

MPhil (Open University, 1996) on aspects of the libretto and music to Theodora

PhD will be on 'The wordbooks to Handel's Joseph and his Brethren and Hercules as commercial and literary artefacts' (Birmingham University ).

Handel's English-language works for theatre performance (oratorios and 'oratorios'); their librettists; their intellectual, religious, political and cultural contexts.

MA dissertation was on the revival of Handel’s operas in Britain 1925-1985 (Open University, 2005). Currently registered for an MPhil/PhD at the Open University, researching Handel’s singers from the season of 1734/35 to the 1750s.

Independent researcher whose book George Frideric Handel: A Music Lover's Guide to His Life, His Faith & the Development of Messiah & His Other Oratorios was published June 2007, aimed primarily at an audience of intelligent non-specialist music lovers. Continuing work on a textual guide to a select number of Handel's biblical oratorios.

MMus thesis on Mozart's tenor roles. Currently a PhD scholar sponsored by the Gerald Coke Handel Foundation. Forthcoming PhD on Partenope, Esther (1732), Deborah and Arianna. Editing Partenope for the HHA.

Forthcoming article in "Händel Borrowings aus Johann Matthesons Oper Porsenna (1702)" to be published in Göttinger Händel Beiträge 10.

Dr. Willner explores Handel's phrase rhythm by culling plot archetypes common to many Baroque instrumental pieces from the repertoire at large, by differentiating rhythmically between the norms of the high, middle, and low styles of the late Baroque, by finding norms of pacing and displacement in each of the meters used at the time, and by interpreting the temporal relations of the counterpoint between each composition's outer voices. Dissertation: "Durational Pacing in Handel's Instrumental Works: The Nature of Temporality in the Music of the High Baroque" (City University of New York Graduate Center, 2005).

MA (Hamburg): "Maurice Greene (1696-1755) und die Tradition des englischen Oratoriums im 18. Jahrhundert". PhD (Hamburg): "English oratorio after Handel: the London oratorio series and its repertory (published by Tectum Verlag, 2001). Current projects: edition of Thomas Arne's Judith for Musica Britannica (with Simon McVeigh); German musicians active in London in the eighteenth century; Thomas A. Arne; J.C. Smith and his collaboration with Handel.

The Guide to Current Handel Research

(A-Z by surname of researcher)