Water Music he could carry out gestures even grander than his son's. Legend has it that Handel composed "Water Music" to regain the favour of King George I. Handel had been employed by the future king George while he was still Elector of Hanover, before he succeeded to the British throne. The composer supposedly fell out of favour for moving to London during Queen Anne's reign. This story was first related by Handel's early biographer John Mainwaring; although it may have some foundation in fact, the tale as told by Mainwaring has been doubted by some Handel scholars. Another legend has it
Early music of the British Isles in religious ceremonies, and secular music for use from royal and baronial courts, celebrations of some religious events, to public and private entertainments of the people. Our understanding of this music is limited by a lack of written sources for much of what was an oral culture. In the early Middle Ages, ecclesiastical music was dominated by monophonic plainchant. The separate development of British Christianity from the direct influence of Rome until the 8th century, with its flourishing monastic culture, led to the development of a distinct form of liturgical Celtic chant. Although no notations of this music survive, later