Handel's Hallelujah from the Ashes

By 1741, George Frideric Handel was a broken man. Four years earlier, a stroke had paralyzed his right arm — doctors declared he would never play again. Though he recovered against all odds, his operas continued to fail. Creditors circled. London audiences abandoned him. At fifty-six, the once-celebrated composer sat alone in his Brook Street flat, drowning in debt and despair, convinced his life's work had come to nothing.…