The Composer God Refused to Let Stay Silent

George Frideric Handel's father despised music. A respected barber-surgeon in Halle, Germany, he forbade instruments in the house and insisted his son would become a lawyer. But someone had other plans. Young George smuggled a small clavichord into the attic and practiced at night, muffling the strings with cloth so his father would not hear. At age seven, the boy accompanied his father to the court of Duke Johann Adolf.…