the rank of a lackey or some form of vagabond, than which a musician at that time hardly seemed any better. The barber-surgeon fully shared the prejudice of the average “strong man” against the artist. Rolland describes the bourgeois middle class German attitude of the 17th Century on the subject of music: “It was for them a mere art of amusement, and not a serious profession. Many of the masters of that time, Schütz, Kuhnau, Rosenmüller, were lawyers or theologians, before they devoted themselves to music.” And old George Handel is supposed to have threatened: “If that boy ever shows any further inclination towards music or noises disguised as such, I will kill it!” There was, indeed, one way in which the boy could with a certain impunity satisfy his craving for music—in church, by listening to the organ and the singing of the choir. Such enjoyment supplanted to some extent the games and childish pleasures of ordinary boys. He was, it appears, a somewhat lonely child, who made few friends and whose “playground” was a dismal courtyard opposite his home.

The father settled on the law as a fine, honest and lucrative profession for his son. Jurisprudence was to rescue Handel from the snares of music, just as in time it was to be the “salvation” of Schumann, as school mastering was by paternal decree to be the destiny of Schubert, and medicine that of Berlioz. Here, too, it was quite as ineffectual! All the same, the youth was not to escape his share of legal study; and by the time he reached 16 he entered the University of Halle as “studiosus juris.”

About eight years earlier, however, fate in the paradoxical shape of Father Handel himself took a hand in George Frideric’s future. He had his son accompany him on a journey to nearby Weissenfels, the residence of the Duke of Saxony. That personage asked the lad to play something on the chapel organ and was so stirred by what he heard that he counselled the obdurate father not to thwart the child’s ambition. From an ordinary person the hard-boiled parent would have taken such advice in very bad part; coming from the mouth of a prince it acquired the force of a command. So he decided to allow his son to study music with the unspoken reservation, however, that he must belong first and foremost to the law. Actually, these musical studies might be said to have begun in Weissenfels, for here young Handel had a chance to hear some of the works of the Nürnberg master, Johann Krieger; and in this same town, a mere stone’s throw from Halle, he had his first taste of opera, which was to thrust deep roots in his soul.

The boy was now entrusted to the care of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, from Leipzig, who at an early age had become organist of the Halle Liebfrauenkirche. Zachow appears to have been an uncommonly gifted teacher and Handel’s devotion to him never wavered. As we read Romain Rolland’s words we are strangely reminded of the ideals and methods of Theodor Weinlig, Wagner’s unique master of composition: “Zachow’s first efforts were devoted to giving the pupil a strong foundation in harmony. Then he turned his thoughts towards the inventive side of the art; he showed him how to give his musical ideas the most perfect form, and he refined his taste. He possessed a remarkable library of Italian and German music, and he explained to Handel the various methods of writing and composing adopted by different nationalities, whilst pointing out the good qualities and the faults of each composer and in order that his education might be at the same time theoretical and practical, he frequently gave him exercises to work in such and such a style.... Thus the little Handel had, thanks to his master, a living summary of the musical resources of Germany, old and new; and under his direction he absorbed all the secrets of the great contrapuntal architects of the past, together with the clear expressive and melodic beauty of the Italian-German schools of Hanover and Hamburg.”

Around 1696 George Frideric is supposed to have gone to Berlin, though about this and possibly a subsequent trip a short time afterwards the chronicles give no clear account. Father Handel was seriously ill and, as it is unlikely that the 11-year-old student went to the Court of the Elector of Brandenburg alone, the assumption is that he made the journey in Zachow’s company. Be this as it may, the artistic enthusiasm of the Electress, Sophia Charlotte, stimulated musical activities at the electoral court and attracted thither outstanding Italian composers, instrumentalists and singers. And it may well have been here that the youth was first brought into contact with the music of the South. He played on the clavecin before a princely audience and stirred it to such enthusiasm that the Elector wished to take him into service or at least finance a trip to Italy, to complete his studies. But if we are to believe Mainwaring, Father Handel did not wish his son “tied too soon to a prince.” Furthermore, the old man’s health failed so alarmingly that he knew his days were numbered and wished to see the boy once more before he died.

Hardly was George Frideric back in Halle when the barber-surgeon went to his account. The youth wrote a memorial poem which was published in a pamphlet and proved to be the first time his name ever appeared in print. After settling her husband’s affairs Dorothea Handel went about carrying out his wishes regarding her son’s legal studies. In a spirit of duty he continued them a while; but soon after his completion of his college classes and his entrance for the Faculty of Law at the Halle University music gained the upper hand completely. He was religious without sentimentality but as little as the youthful Bach did he have any sympathy with Pietism (of which the Faculty of Theology was a hot-bed at the time) and was violently opposed to the Pietist antagonism to music. And when the post of organist at the Cathedral “by the Moritzburg” fell vacant by reason of the dissolute habits of a roystering individual named Leporin, Handel was made his successor, though the church was Calvinist and the young newcomer a staunch Lutheran.

There was now an end to all thoughts of jurisprudence. Music claimed him solely. Handel was only 17 but seems already to have exercised a strong musical authority in Halle. He assembled a capital choir and orchestra from among his most gifted pupils and let them be heard on Sundays in various churches of the town. Like Bach and other masters of that astonishing period, he composed an incredible number of cantatas, motets, psalms, chorales and devotional miscellany, which had to be new every week. It must not be imagined that he allowed them to wilt or evaporate. Handel’s mind was a storehouse, whence nothing ever escaped and in which was always stocked away and held in reserve for future use.

In the summer of 1703 he left his native city; not, indeed, forever, but only for occasional visits to relatives and friends, when professional business allowed him time. From Halle he turned his steps toward Hamburg, which had suffered little from the wars of the 17th Century, and grown rich, gay and artistic in consequence of enviable business prosperity. Commercial benefits were, of course, reflected in a musical expansion which raised the Hanseatic port above the level even of Berlin and made it the operatic city of the North. In Hamburg, notes Rolland, “they spoke all languages and especially the French tongue; it was in continual relationship with both England and Italy, and particularly with Venice, which constituted for it a model for emulation. It was by way of Hamburg that the English ideas were circulated in Germany.... In the time of Handel, Hamburg shared with Leipzig the intellectual prestige of Germany. There was no other place in Germany where music was held in such