Handel’s »Messiah«

What must it be like for a master of his craft to suddenly realise that his predecessors were extraordinarily good, but did everything quite differently from him? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at any rate, was utterly captivated when Baron van Swieten introduced him to the works of George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach. And yet the direct comparison seems to have unsettled Mozart somewhat. He now wanted to hone his own style by learning from these great predecessors. Together with the wealthy baron, the composer also sought to win over the critical Viennese public to these older masterpieces. And so he produced numerous arrangements.