Händel is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel on his grave.

Händel ist der Größte und Fähigste aller Komponisten; von ihm kann ich immer noch lernen.

Ich sage ihnen vor Gott, als ein ehrlicher Mann, ihr Sohn ist der größte Componist, den ich von Person und den Nahmen nach kenne: er hat geschmack, und über das die größte Compositionswissenschaft.

Händel is the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him I can still learn.

Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name: He has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition.

Händel is the unrivalled master of all masters. Go and learn from him how to achieve vast effects with simple means.

By this time Mozart had been dead for almost fourteen years and Haydn was too weak to compose. Beethoven was unchallenged throughout Europe as the greatest living composer of instrumental music. Even more, he was generally recognized as having surpassed his famous predecessors. This, of course, did not prevent critics from greeting each new work as a disappointment after his by then acceptable achievements of the previous years.

I repeat what I said to you back in Russia: you are, in my opinion, the greatest composer of our time.

Many of the greatest creations of man have been inspired by the desire to make money. When George Frederick Handel was on his beam ends, he shut himself up for twenty-one days and emerged with the complete score of Messiah – and hit the jackpot. Few of the themes of Messiah were original; Handel dredged them up from his unconscious, where they had been stored since he heard them in other composers’ work, or since he had composed them for his own forgotten operas.

Händel ist der unerreichte Meister aller Meister. Gehen Sie und lernen Sie von ihm, wie gewaltige Wirkungen mit einfachen Mitteln zu erreichen ist.

As far as Bach is concerned, I never came close to liking him [-] My favourite composer is Scriabin -[and] his Fifth sonata, in my mind, the greatest piece of music ever written.

If I had to vote for what is the greatest piece of music ever conceived by the human mind, I'd have a hard time choosing between the Chaconne that ends Bach's second partita for unaccompanied violin or the his Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue for the piano.

I've always ranked the Brahms as the Mount Everest of all concertos -- and the Beethoven, of course.

Handel is so great and so simple that no one but a professional musician is unable to understand him.