Cultured Learning

This week marks the 250^th anniversary of the death of baroque composer George Frideric Handel. Born in 1685 in Germany, he trained in Italy, but spent most of his life in England. His famous works include: Messiah, Water Music, Zadok the Priest, and Music for the Royal Fireworks.

His house, 25 Brook Street, in Mayfair, London, is now a museum, and to celebrate his 250^th anniversary, they have put on a special exhibition called Handel Reveal’d. This new exhibition brings the composer’s personal story to life. It examines how he survived the eighteenth-century ‘credit crunch’, his appetite, his blindness and his love-life.

If you want to see this interesting exhibition, tickets cost £5, and more information can be found at the Handel House Museum website: http://www.handelhouse.org/

Vocabulary

• To mark (vb) – to show, to represent
• Composer (n) – a person who writes / ‘invents’ music
• To train (vb) – to study something professionally
• Works (n. pl) – a collection of music that someone has written
• Put on (phrasal vb) – to organise and produce
• To bring a story to life – to tell a story in an interesting way
• Credit crunch – money problems
• Appetite – hunger / wanting to eat
• Blindness – not being able to see

Text adapted by Cultured Learning from http://www.handelhouse.org/

We use lots of interesting music idioms in English. See if you can guess what these mean.

1. When Jane and Mark broke the window playing football in the sitting room, they knew they would have to face the music when their parents came home.

1. When my boss said that we were going to get a bonus, it was like music to my ears.

1. Even though my grandfather is 85 years old, he’s as fit as a fiddle, and goes jogging every day.

1. I thought you hated pop music, so why do you want to go to the Michael Jackson concert? You’ve changed your tune a bit, haven’t you?

1. There’s no need to make a song and dance about it, I only ate a bit of your cake. I can get you another slice if you’re so upset about it!

Match the idioms in bold above with their meaning below.

a) To make you feel very happy.

b) To be in perfect health, with no medical problems.

c) To change your mind / have a different opinion from the one you had before.

d) To accept negative / bad comments and reactions because you know you’ve done something wrong.

e) To make a big fuss about something.

Answer key

1. d
2. a
3. b
4. c
5. e

Worksheet by Cultured Learning