Handel's temper, his blindness, and his gout were caused by the lead used to improve the flavour of the wine he drank copiously - a mild version of the psychosis and physical debilitation that led to the downfall of the Roman empire. At least, that's David Hunter's new theory, which you can read about in a new exhibition at the Handel House Museum in London. We always like to read these humanising facts about composers' lives: poor grumpy old Handel, threatening to throw sopranos out of windows; it wasn't his fault, guv, it was the wine. Thing is, lead or no lead, Handel didn't do badly by the standards of the early 18th century, making it to 74, albeit with eight crippling years of blindness at the end of his life.
The more interesting question, though, is how all this affected his music. Because Handel isn't a romantic composer, we're far less confident about making connections between his life and his music. That's a good thing: it means Handel has escaped the curse of the conventional composer biography - making direct connections between supposed psychological states and the music composers write; the idea that if someone is bereaved, filled with grief, or suicidal, this will automatically be reflected in their music. (A couple of quick examples that immediately disprove this connection: one of the first pieces Mozart wrote after his father died was A Musical Joke, the theme-tune for BBC show-jumping; and when Beethoven poured his heart out in words, questioning his own existence in the so-called Heiligenstadt Testament, he was writing his Second Symphony, one of the most vital, fiercely joyful pieces ever composed.)
But if, as Hunter suggests, the lead poisoning theory really is more than an anecdotal detail – and let's face it, they're not going to dig up Handel's grave in Westminster Abbey to find out if he's right - surely you would be able to look for clues in the manic intensity of Handel's creativity, or its wild mood swings, or its unerring dramatic energy.
Or perhaps not. With all of these details of composers' lives, we're really looking for excuses to explain the inexplicable. But in reality nothing solves the riddle of how Handel composed his astonishing operas or oratorios. Whether it's lead in the booze, the revelation of a doomed love affair, or speculation over his sexuality, none of it gets us nearer to the music. The decidedly unsexy truth is that Handel was an obsessive workaholic, someone completely committed to making the most of his talents, and getting his hands on as much worldly success, and money, as possible.
The Handel House Museum will tell you more, and it's a good musical day out - for everyone, not just Handel nuts. It's a place of pilgrimage for Hendrix fans as well: in one of those coincidences that only London could create, Jimi lived at 23 Brook Street (Handel was at 25) between 1968-69; no. 23 is now part of the Handel museum. Hallowed ground, indeed.