George Frideric Handel

Born in Halle in 1685, Handel moved through Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He launched three opera companies to feed the English nobility's appetite for Italian opera, channeling both middle-German choral tradition and Italian Baroque into a high style that brought the form to its peak. In 1737 a physical breakdown forced a creative pivot: he turned from opera to English oratorios, courting the middle class instead. After Messiah in 1742 he never wrote another Italian opera. One of his coronation anthems, Zadok the Priest, has opened every British coronation since 1727; his Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks never left the repertoire. He died in 1759 at 74, respected and rich, and was buried in Westminster Abbey - a composer who'd reshaped a nation's sound and lived to enjoy it.