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If there's a composer who knew how to party (musically speaking), it's Handel. He was not only involved in most of the significant British national celebrations of his time, his music in many ways defined them. Our own familiarity with 'Zadok, the Priest' (for George II's coronation) and the Fireworks music testifies to his success. So, Handel would undoubtedly be casting an eye over the programme for the coming year with enthusiasm, and with a fine sense of critical judgment.

I think he'd see a lot to excite him. As someone who works on Handel's music (and that of his contemporaries), I can certainly see a great deal that I will want to hear. I'm an opera specialist, so Thursday afternoons will have to be bookmarked for the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s 'complete operas' series. I'll also be on the look out for live opera, of course. There are various productions in 2008 and 2009 in Copenhagen, London, Ferrara, Vienna ...); on 30 March the London Handel Festival will stage Alessandro, a work named for Alexander the Great, but infamous for launching the rivalry of two of Handel's star sopranos (a topic I'm writing about at the moment). It's appropriate, too, that the Royal Opera are doing The Beggar's Opera at the beginning of the year, given the impact that work had on Handel's operatic career.

It used to be said that The Beggar's Opera helped push Handel out of opera and into oratorio, and there's certainly a feast of oratorio on offer in the coming year. Inevitably, there are numerous Messiahs - the broadcast live from Westminster Abbey on 14 April, the anniversary of the composer's death, will be particularly worth listening out for. The Proms also offer Samson, which includes (among its many beautiful arias) the famous 'Total Eclipse', the tragic irony of which made audiences weep towards the end of Handel's life, when they saw the blind composer sitting by the organ, unable himself to play. The London Handel Festival will bookend its season ('from Birth Day to Death Day') with the two last oratorios, Theodora and Jephtha.

I'm glad to see Handel's first 'Composer of the Week' slot is 12-16 January, just prior to the start of a new term at Oxford, so I'll be able to do much listening to fortify myself for a busy teaching schedule. But of course, one of the beauties of Handel's oeuvre is that it's so varied, so even when I'm working at full stretch, I should still be able to fit in some of Radio 3's breakfast-time 'HandelBars' - favourite works chosen by listeners. I imagine this blog will also keep me up to speed with listeners' thoughts on Handel and the programme for the year ahead; I'll very much look forward to receiving your contributions, and to discussing some of the issues around Handel's music with you.

And what would Handel go to? Well, he was a fine self-publicist, so he'd not be at all shy about supporting performances of his own works. I suspect he would be most curious about modern performance of his operas, if only because they weren't designed as repertory 'works' (perfect, fixed objects, repeatable in the same form down the centuries) but were tailored around specific singers - and rewritten by him for a new cast the next time they were sung. But I think he would also be very interested in hearing the works of this year's other featured composers - Purcell, from whom he cleverly learned so much in the English church tradition; Haydn and Mendelssohn who learned so much from him. As a happy musical 'recycler' (living in an age when borrowing other people's ideas wasn't a problem, provided you returned them with interest) I think he'd be picking up quite a few ideas.