Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah Audiobook

Quotes

• “This work of popular history by Charles King reveals a movie-worthy backstory.”

  — Parade

• “A delicious history of music, power, love, genius, royalty and adventure."

  — Simon Sebag Montefiore, #1 New York Times bestselling author

• “A work of vivid social and cultural commentary…but also of the unstoppable spigot that was Handel’s musical imagination.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “Will appeal to a broad range of listeners. Stevenson’s voice isn’t melodic, and it’s toughened with age. But few narrators are as attuned to the rhythms and nuances of a narrative, or closer to its heart. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”

  — AudioFile

• A New York Times Notable Book

• A work of vivid social and cultural commentary, it functions also as an in-depth study of artistic creation, how ‘Messiah’ came to be, but also of the unstoppable spigot that was Handel’s musical imagination.

  — John Adams, The New York Times Book Review

• [C]ompelling. King transforms Handel's world into a place we can all recognize and understand as the foundation for our own.

  — The Washington Post

• Smartly written . . . In explaining the social and biographical background of the story of Messiah, King brings the masterpiece to life — and keeps it alive.

  — The Washington Examiner

• King takes his cue from the oratorio’s ability to convey, era after era, ‘a transporting sense that something cosmic and profound was at stake,’

  — The Atlantic

• A ringing history of George Frideric Handel's Messiah and its turbulent birth. . . King writes winningly of the history surrounding Handel's life and times . . . A swiftly moving, constantly engaging portrait of a beloved masterpiece.

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred)

• [T]his work of popular history by Charles King reveals a movie-worthy backstory.

  — Parade

• By revealing the murky circumstances in which it was created, Charles King’s fascinating history of the oratorio shows it in a new light.

  — The Guardian

• King’s writing is readable, well researched and rich with detail. . . . When it comes to the music, he consistently grasps the right end of the stick and uses no empty words – indeed, his jargon-free attempt to explain not just what Baroque music does but what it actually sounds like is full of understanding, setting a good example for any who would write about music.

  — Gramophone

• Charles King explains the enduring appeal of Handel’s Messiah since its premiere in London nearly three hundred years ago.

  — The New York Review

• Ecstatic, affecting, entirely weird, Handel’s Messiah indeed seems — as a listener wrote after its 1742 Dublin debut — 'a species of music different from any other.'  With brio, Charles King pulls aside the curtain behind the work, to reveal the scandal and intrigue, opportunists and thugs, deep pain and soaring optimism, that Handel transmuted, in less than a month, into a sublime 130 pages.  A book of power and glory, brimming with emotion and dazzling in its reach.

  — Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra and The Revolutionary

• A delicious history of music, power, love, genius, royalty and adventure. A study of creativity and humanism, beautifully told, filled with charm and worldliness, deeply researched and as compelling as a symphony with a full choir of amazing characters who sing their songs around the central figure of Handel himself. Unforgettable.

  — Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity

• "A lovely story, beautifully told—and featuring a veritable Who’s Who of the Georgian era. An absolute delight.

  — Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

• Vividly depicting life in Britain during the turbulence of the 1700's, Charles King celebrates Handel's Messiah as a glorious beacon of hope.

  — Elaine Pagels, National Book Award-winning author of The Gnostic Gospels

• Charles King takes his readers on a mesmerizing journey of musical genius. There is only one Handel, and only one Messiah, and to understand how each was created is to become immersed in one of the most fascinating and creative moments in human history. King's lyrical writing resonates long after the final note fades away.

  — Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire "Charles King's erudition is remarkable but never obtrusive, for he is a wonderful story-teller. Every Valley is eighteenth century history as page-turner, evoking both tears and laughter.

• Charles King explains the enduring appeal of Handel’s Messiah since its premiere in London nearly three hundred years ago.

  — The New York Review

• "You’ll never hear this oratorio the same way after reading this.

  — The Cleveland Plain Dealer

• Ecstatic, affecting, entirely weird, Handel’s Messiah indeed seems — as a listener wrote after its 1742 Dublin debut — 'a species of music different from any other.' With brio, Charles King pulls aside the curtain behind the work, to reveal the scandal and intrigue, opportunists and thugs, deep pain and soaring optimism, that Handel transmuted, in less than a month, into a sublime 130 pages. A book of power and glory, brimming with emotion and dazzling in its reach.

  — Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra and The Revolutionary

• Charles King takes his readers on a mesmerizing journey of musical genius. There is only one Handel, and only one Messiah, and to understand how each was created is to become immersed in one of the most fascinating and creative moments in human history. King's lyrical writing resonates long after the final note fades away.

  — Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire "Charles King's erudition is remarkable but never obtrusive, for he is a wonderful story-teller. Every Valley is eighteenth century history as page-turner, evoking both tears and laughter.

• A work of vivid social and cultural commentary, it functions also as an in-depth study of artistic creation, how ‘Messiah’ came to be, but also of the unstoppable spigot that was Handel’s musical imagination.

  — John Adams, The New York Times Book Review

• [T]his work of popular history by Charles King reveals a movie-worthy backstory.

  — Parade

• By revealing the murky circumstances in which it was created, Charles King’s fascinating history of the oratorio shows it in a new light.

  — The Guardian

• Charles King explains the enduring appeal of Handel’s Messiah since its premiere in London nearly three hundred years ago.

  — The New York Review

• "You’ll never hear this oratorio the same way after reading this.

  — The Cleveland Plain Dealer

• "Charles King evokes the sacred upswell of the “Hallelujah Chorus” and other songs in his spirited, pitch-perfect Every Valley.

  — The Minnesota Star Tribune

• Ecstatic, affecting, entirely weird, Handel’s Messiah indeed seems — as a listener wrote after its 1742 Dublin debut — 'a species of music different from any other.' With brio, Charles King pulls aside the curtain behind the work, to reveal the scandal and intrigue, opportunists and thugs, deep pain and soaring optimism, that Handel transmuted, in less than a month, into a sublime 130 pages. A book of power and glory, brimming with emotion and dazzling in its reach.

  — Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra and The Revolutionary

• "Masterfully interlocks the stories of the people and events that inspired and influenced the creation of Handel’s glorious Messiah. The serendipitous composition of the music for George Frideric Handel’s most famous work has been told many times, but maybe never so engagingly as in Every Valley... King has opened a dazzling skylight above Handel's time.

  — The Christian Science Monitor

• Much closer to the teeming panorama of a novel like War and Peace than the narrow focus of most books about music history... a rare blend of scholarship, ingenuity and empathy.

  — The Times [London]