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Thanks to kleines_c for pointing me to in The Independent. Composers' reputations change over time, of course, but it's funny how each age seems to latch onto just one or two aspects of a persona and recreate a figure in that light. In the 19th century, Handel stood for God, Queen and Country, being almost exclusively associated with his oratorios. The twentieth-century reappraisal, much of which aimed to topple pompous religious certainties, replaced this idea with a vision of a profoundly human - and Humanist - artist, an earthy and commercially astute man.

This, in turn, became a stick with which to beat Handel: , in his 2005 Oxford History of Western Music, damned the composer with faint praise for just these commercial sensibilities, singling out Handel's musical word-painting in to illustrate the depths he was willing to plumb in order to create cheap belly laughs for a supposedly xenophobic British audience. Cheap laughs were turned into cheap shots. Taruskin's narrative (like Jessica Duchen's) contrasts commercialised Handel with the saintly (the kind of composer comparison of which music history is, unfortunately, all too fond), and does neither a favour in the process.

Although, of course, in musical surveys (like journalistic essays?) it's hard not to go for the colourful anecdote and pithy stereotype, I think musicology more generally is moving away from such simplistic pictures of artistic figures. In large part this is because we're growing up as a discipline, but undoubtedly increasing interest from top-flight musicians in composers such as Handel plays an important role. Just listen to 's interpretation of 'Tra le fiamme' (broadcast this morning at 8.30 and available on Listen Again), to get a sense of the vitality of modern Handel performance. Or 's electrifying performance of the brief cavatina, 'Sommi dei', that opens Radamisto, this week's Handel opera on Thursday - its unaccompanied, leaping opening line seems to encapsulate Polissena's heartache, and catapult you right into the middle of the drama. (I'll have more to say about Radamisto anon.)

I think it's only possible to dismiss a composer out of hand when one doesn't know his (or her) work too well - when you really get down to studying (or listening) to the music in detail, that dismissiveness has to be tempered at least with respect. (So , the famous late-eighteenth-century music historian, found when he began to examine Handel's scores.) Of course, what's terrific about this year is that we will get the opportunity to steep ourselves in the music of Handel, as well as Purcell, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. I know that many of us will be taking full opportunity of that.

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