Handel | Page 2

family of Handel belonged originally to Breslau. The name is
found in various forms; it seems originally to have been _Händeler_
signifying trader, but by the time the composer was born the spelling
_Händel_ had been adopted. This is the correct German form of his
name; in Italy he wrote his name Hendel, in order to ensure its proper

pronunciation, and in England he was known, for the same reason, as
Handel. The Handels of Breslau had for several generations been
coppersmiths. Valentine Handel, the composer's grandfather, born in
1582, migrated to Halle, where two of his sons followed the same trade.
His third son, George, born 1622, became a barber-surgeon. At the age
of twenty he married the widow of the barber to whom he had been
apprenticed; she was twelve years older than he was. In 1682 she died,
and George Handel, although sixty years of age, married a second wife
within half a year. Her name was Dorothea Taust; her father, like most
of his ancestors, was a clergyman. Her age was thirty-two. Her first
child, born in 1684, died at birth; her second, born February 23, 1685,
was baptised the following day with the name of George Frederic.
The town of Halle had originally belonged to the Dukes of Saxony, but
after the Thirty Years' War it was assigned to the Elector of
Brandenburg. George Frederic Handel was therefore born a Prussian.
But Duke Augustus of Saxony was allowed to keep his court at the
Moritzburg in Halle, and it was this prince who made George Handel
his personal surgeon. After Duke Augustus's death in 1680, Halle was
definitely transferred to Brandenburg, and the new Duke, Johann Adolf,
took up his residence at Weissenfels, twenty-five miles to the
south-west of Halle. At the time of George Frederic's birth, Halle had
relapsed into being a quiet provincial town. The musical life of
Germany in those days was chiefly centred in the numerous small
courts, each of which did its best to imitate the magnificence of Louis
XIV at Paris and Versailles. But the seventeenth century, although it
produced very few musicians of outstanding greatness, was a century of
restless musical activity throughout Europe, especially in the more
private and domestic branches of the art. The Reformation had made
music the vehicle of personal devotion, and the enormous output of a
peculiarly intimate type of sacred music, both in Germany and in
England, shows that there must have been a keen demand for it in
Protestant home life.
George Handel, the surgeon, seems to have hated music. There is no
evidence that either his wife or her sister, who shared their home after
her father's death in 1685, was musically gifted, but the mere fact of

their being the daughters of a Lutheran pastor makes it probable that
they had had some education in the art. We may safely guess that the
composer inherited his musical talents from the Taust family. He
showed his inclination for music at a very early age, with such
insistence indeed that his father forbade him to touch any musical
instrument. There is a well-known story of his contriving to smuggle a
clavichord into a garret without his father's knowledge in order to
practise on it while the rest of the family were asleep, but for this tale
Mainwaring is our only authority. It is very probable that old Handel
was irritated by the sound of his son's early efforts and regarded music
as a waste of time; his wife may perhaps have encouraged the child's
obvious abilities, taking care that he made music only in some part of
the house where he would not disturb his father.
At the age of seven he was sent to the Lutheran Grammar School, and
he may very likely have had some instruction in singing while there. In
any case there can be no doubt that he was taught more than the mere
rudiments of music in childhood, however severe his father's opposition
may have been. He was between seven and nine when his father took
him to Weissenfels, where he was required to attend on the Duke. It is
quite probable that the child may have been taken there several times,
especially as a relative of his was in regular service in the Duke's
establishment. One day he was allowed to play on the organ in the
palace chapel; the Duke happened to hear him, made enquiries as to
who the player was, and at once urged on the father the duty of having
him properly trained for a musical career.
Old Handel remained obstinate; he was determined that his son should
have a liberal education and become a lawyer. By his own efforts he
had raised himself to a position of some distinction and affluence; it