A GREAT THIEF

Today we’d call it “borrowing,” but older writers loved the word “theft.” This anecdote claims George Frideric Handel was unusually bold about reusing other composers’ material—scholars have pointed to parallels with Stradella, Carissimi, Corelli and others across works like Israel in Egypt and Samson. In the Baroque era, recycling themes was common; the difference is that Handel’s craft could transform what he borrowed into something that sounded unmistakably like him.