The Composer Who Saw Heaven Open

In the late summer of 1741, George Frideric Handel locked himself in his London apartment on Brook Street and barely ate for twenty-four days. Friends who checked on him found the German-born composer weeping over sheets of manuscript paper, scribbling notes at a furious pace. When he finished the "Hallelujah" chorus, Handel reportedly told his servant, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself."…