Every Valley The Desperate Lives And Troubled Times That Made Handels Messiah Charles King by Charles King 9780385548267, 9780385548274, 0385548265, 0385548273 instant download after payment.

"A delicious history of music, power, love, genius, royalty & adventure." — Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World

"A book of power & glory, brimming with emotion & dazzling in its reach." — Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra and The Revolutionary

George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is arguably the greatest piece of participatory art ever created. Adored by millions, it is performed each year by renowned choirs & orchestras, as well as by audiences singing along with the words on their cell phones.

But this work of triumphant joy was born in a worried age. Britain in the early Enlightenment was a place of astonishing creativity but also the seat of an empire mired in war, enslavement, & conflicts over everything from the legitimacy of government to the meaning of truth. Against this turbulent background, prize-winning author Charles King has crafted a cinematic drama of the troubled lives that shaped a masterpiece of hope.

Every Valley presents a depressive dissenter stirred to action by an ancient prophecy; an actress plagued by an abusive husband & public scorn; an Atlantic sea captain & penniless philanthropist; & an African Muslim man held captive in the American colonies & hatching a dangerous plan for getting back home. At center stage is Handel himself, composer to kings but, at midlife, in ill health & straining to keep an audience’s attention. Set amid royal intrigue, theater scandals, & political conspiracy, Every Valley is entertaining, inspiring, unforgettable.

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Charles King is the author of 8 books, most recently Gods of the Upper Air, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award & winner of the Francis Parkman Prize & the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.&nbs