Eminence.

The wrong picture I think we get is that somehow there was incredible rivalry and that the other parts of the musical establishment active in England during Handel’s long career somehow spent their lives complaining about the overshadowing or sniping at this man. I do not think this is at all borne out by the evidence. There was great activity. There was great admiration. Handel certainly was a complete industry to himself. He had certain things he did extremely well and took over: Italian opera being one of them; the devising of the oratorio being another; closeness to the Royal Family being a third great advantage. But it was very rare in the eighteenth century to be considered a classic in your own lifetime. Normally, you had to be dead to have a statue put up, and it is rather noticeable that, when they devised the three statues to stand in the Grand Walk in the Vauxhall Gardens, they picked three important people: Homer, Milton and Handel, and they were on plinths. You can still see the cast of the Roubiliac statue that was the effigy of a very relaxed looking Handel. Interestingly, all three of them were blind, and Handel is the great exception, that he was still living and still regarded as a classic. So, far from having a stifling effect, I think he was the classical eminence under whom a lot of other varieties of musical activity took place.

Professor Christopher Hogwood's lecture, "London: Under the Shadow of Handel" ...