Handel, George Frideric orig.
Feb. 23, 1685, Halle,
Brandenburg—d. April 14, 1759,
London, Eng.) German-born British composer. Born to a barber-surgeon in Halle, he showed a marked gift for music and studied organ, violin, and composition. He moved to Hamburg in 1703 and played in the opera orchestra under Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739), and his first opera was produced there in 1705. A Medici prince invited him to Florence; there and in Rome, patronized by cardinals and nobility, he wrote oratorios, can¬ tatas, and more operas. Hired as kapellmeister by the elector at Han¬ nover (1710), he asked permission to visit London before assuming his responsibilities. There his opera Rinaldo (1711) immediately made his name; forsaking Hannover, he remained in England for the rest of his life. In 1714 the German elector was made George I of England; any annoyance at Handel’s defection dissipated, and the king became one of his patrons. Handel was appointed musical director of the new Royal Academy of Music, an opera house that thrived until the public taste shifted away from Italian opera. In 1732 he revised his oratorio Esther for a public performance, the first public oratorio performance in England. Its success was followed by many more English-language oratorios, including his great Messiah (1741); by this time he had made oratorio and large-scale choral works the most popular musical forms in England. He was renowned as virtually the greatest organist and harpsichordist in the world. Handel wrote about 45 Italian operas, including Giulio Cesare
(1723), Orlando (1733), and Alcina (1735). His oratorios include Israel in Egypt (1739), Saul (1739), and Jephtha (1752). His church music includes the Chandos Anthems (1718) and Coronation Anthems (1727). Though the bulk of his music was vocal, he composed a number of great orchestral works, such as the famous Water Music (1717) and Royal Fire¬ works Music (1749).
handicap In sports and games, a method of offsetting the varying abili¬ ties or characteristics of competitors in order to equalize their chances of winning. Handicapping takes many, often complicated, forms. In horse racing, a track official known as the handicapper may assign weights to horses according to their speed in previous performances; the presumed fastest horse must carry the most weight. In golf, two unequal players may have a close match by allowing the poorer player a handicap, a cer¬ tain number of uncounted strokes based on earlier performances. In sail¬ boat racing, dissimilar boats compete under handicapping formulas that add time to the faster boats’ actual elapsed time for a race; thus, the win¬ ner of a race may not be the first to finish but rather the boat that per¬ forms best in relation to its design. See also bookmaking; gambling.
Handke Vhant-koV, Peter (b. Dec. 6, 1942, Griffen, Austria) Austrian writer. He studied law before beginning to write seriously. He earned an early reputation as a member of the avant-garde with plays such as Offend¬ ing the Audience (1966), in which actors analyze the nature of theatre and alternately insult the audience and praise its “performance,” and Kaspar (1968). His novels, mostly ultraobjective, deadpan accounts of characters in extreme states of mind, include The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1970) and The Left-Handed Woman (1976). A dominant theme of his works is the deadening effects and underlying irrationality of ordinary language, everyday reality, and rational order.
Handsome Lake See Ganioda'yo
Handy, W(illiam) C(hristopher) (b. Nov. 16, 1873, Florence, Ala., U.S.—d. March 28, 1958, New York, N.Y.) U.S. composer, cornetist, and bandleader known for integrating blues elements into ragtime, changing the course of popular music. Handy worked as a soloist and conductor with several bands around the turn of the century and became active as a music publisher in Memphis (1908) and later New York (1918). Handy’s com¬ positions, including “St. Louis Blues,” “Beale Street Blues,” and “Mem¬ phis Blues,” became favourites of singers and instrumentalists in the 1920s, helping to codify the blues as a framework within which to impro¬ vise.
Hanfeizi Vhan-'fa-'tsoN or Han-fei-tzu Vhan-'fa-'dziA (d. 233 bc, China) Greatest of China’s legalist philosophers. Much about his life is unknown; it ended when he was sent on a diplomatic mission to the court of the first Qin emperor, who had admired his writings; he was impris¬ oned and forced to drink poison. His works are collected in the Hanfeizi, presumably compiled after his death. In 55 sections of varying lengths, it presents a synthesis of legal theories up to his time. To Hanfeizi it was axiomatic that political institutions must change with changing historical circumstances and must be adapted to the prevailing pattern of human behaviour, which is determined not by moral sentiments but by economic conditions. Rulers should not try to make people good but only to restrain them from doing evil.
hang gliding Sport of flying in unpowered aircraft that are light enough to be carried by the pilot. Takeoff is usually achieved by launching into the air from a cliff or hill. Hang gliders were developed by the pioneers of practical flight. In Germany, starting in 1891, Otto Lilienthal made several thousand flights before a fatal gliding accident in 1896. In the U.S. collaboration between Augustus Herring and Octave Chanute resulted in successful flights of a biplane hang glider in 1896. Modern hang gliding emerged toward the end of the 1960s. In the early 1960s enthusiasts in California were gliding down coastal dunes on homebuilt delta-shaped wings they had adapted from kite designs developed by Francis and Ger¬ trude Rogallo. The Rogallos’ kites had attracted attention because of NASA’s interest in using them for spacecraft retrieval. By the early 1970s the sport had spread throughout the U.S. and into Europe. World cham¬ pionships in hang gliding have been held and records kept since 1975.
Hangul Alphabetic system used for writing the Korean language. The system, known as Chosdn muntcha in North Korea, consists of 24 letters—14 consonants and 10 vowels. The development of the Hangul alphabet is traditionally ascribed to Sejong, fourth king of the Choson (Yi) dynasty. Hangul was made the official writing system for the Korean lan-
Georg Friedrich Handel (b.
George Frideric Handel, detail of an oil painting after Thomas Hudson,
1756; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
836 I Hangzhou ► Hanson
guage in the mid-1440s by one of Sejong’s decrees. Because of the influ¬ ence of Confucianism and of Chinese culture, however, Hangul was not widely used by scholars or Koreans of the upper classes until after 1945, when Korea ceased to be under Japanese rule.
Hangzhou or Hang-chou \Tiaq-jo\ conventional Hangchow Vhaq-'chaiA City (pop., 1999 est.: 1,346,148), capital of Zhejiang prov¬ ince, China. It lies at the head of Zhejiang Bay and is the southern ter¬ minus of the Grand Canal. Its buildings and gardens are renowned, and some of China’s most famous monasteries are located nearby. As Lin’an, it was the capital of the Song dynasty c. ad 1126-1279. A prosperous cen¬ tre of commerce with an estimated population then of 1-1.5 million, it was visited in the late 13th century by the Italian traveler Marco Polo, who called it Kinsai. Its importance as a port decreased as the bay silted up, but it remained a commercial centre and was opened to foreign trade in 1896. In addition to its cultural importance, it is also the centre for an industrial area.