Handel tended to return regularly to the works of certain composers as sources for his borrowed materials, notably the operas of Reinhard Keiser. Handel would have become familiar with Keiser's music through listening, performance, and presumably study of the scores during his years in Hamburg (ca. 1703-5). A table of the ten Keiser operas from which Handel borrowed is included. Roberts theorizes that Handel was often inspired to borrow by a textual similarity. Handel generally subjected the musical material extracted from another piece to extensive reworking, which leads Roberts to speculate that the composer's creative process may have required the stimulus of outside ideas.

Index Classifications: 1700s

Contributed by: Rob Lamborn, Nancy Kinsey Totten