Bach, Handel, and Scarlatti Born

1685

Three composers who would define high Baroque music were all born within weeks of each other in different parts of Europe: Johann Sebastian Bach in Eisenach, George Frideric Handel in Halle, and Domenico Scarlatti in Naples. Music history does not often cluster its masters so obligingly, and the coincidence would produce a generation of genius that reshaped Western music entirely.