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Music Composition In The 17th And 18th Centuries: A Historical Analysis Of How Georg Frideric Handel Participated In “Borrowing”, Nicholas Mueller, Oscar Peterson-Veatch, Russell Schmidt

2020 Festschrift: Georg Frideric Handel's "Messiah"

The primary focus in this research paper is borrowing; this means borrowing from other composers, and self-borrowing from a previous composition. It is widely accepted in scholarship that Georg Frideric Handel participated in the action of borrowing. However, there is significantly more contention among scholars surrounding both the extent of Handel’s borrowing, as well as what the appropriate modern perspective is for these actions. In this research paper our primary focus will be on Handel’s borrowings, the benefits he received from these actions, and the historical lens of borrowing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.