Story-Lives of Great Musicians. Francis Jameson Rowbotham

      n a garret choked with lumber of various kinds, to which the dust of years had imparted the greyish hue of neglect and decay, a little fair-haired boy was seated before a spinet, fingering its yellow keys with a tenderness that betokened his fondness for the instrument. The level rays of the setting sun streaming through the dimmed casement lighted up the child's head with its clustering curls, as he bent over the keyboard. The little spinet was almost dumb, and the voice which had cheered so many lonely hours spent in its companionship was hardly more than a whisper. Yet even so the boy loved to listen to it, for the spinet could speak to him as no living voice could speak; its sweet, faint sounds stirred the heart within him as nothing else in the whole of his childish world had the power to move it, awakening and creating fresh sounds that grew ever stronger as the hours flew by unheeded. To him the greatest joy of existence was to steal away to his garret next the sky and whisper his secrets to the friendly spinet.

      George Frederick Handel, as the boy was named, was the son of a surgeon of Halle, Lower Saxony, in which town the child was born on February 23, 1685. Even before he could speak little George had shown a remarkable fondness for music, and the only toys he cared for were such as were capable of producing musical sounds. With this love for music, however, the father showed no sympathy whatever; he regarded the art with contempt, as something beneath the serious notice of one who aspired to be a gentleman, and that his child should have expressed an earnest desire to be taught to play only served to make him angry. He had decided that George was to be a lawyer, and in order that nothing should interfere with the carrying out of this intention he refused to allow the boy to attend school, lest his fondness for music should induce some one to teach him his notes. Poor George was therefore compelled to stifle his longing whilst in his father's presence, and content himself with 'making music' in the seclusion of his own chamber. It may seem strange that Handel's mother should not have interposed in order that her boy should be taught music, but there is no doubt that the elderly surgeon ruled his household with a firm hand, which not even his wife's intercession would have made him relax. Moreover, Dorothea Handel was by nature far too gentle and submissive to seek to turn her husband from his decision. 'Meister Görge,' as he was styled, had been twice married. Dorothea, his second wife, was much younger than her husband, and possessed a gentle disposition that served to win her a place in the hearts of all who knew her, and that little George Frederick had his mother's sympathy in his love for music we cannot doubt.

       Handel's birthplace, Halle, Saxony. ToList

      From Photo Rischgitz.

      Handel.ToList

      Handel was about five years of age when the wistful glances which he bestowed upon other children who were more fortunate than he in being permitted to learn music aroused the active sympathy of a kind friend, who procured for him a dumb spinet—a small harpsichord having its sound deadened by strips of cloth tied round the strings. The instrument was secretly conveyed to a lumber-room in the surgeon's house, where a corner had been cleared for its reception, and thither would Handel delightedly repair at such times as he could do so without attracting notice. Hour after hour would pass whilst thus enrapt, until the shades of evening fell, or the moonbeams creeping across the instrument aroused him from his reverie. Often when the house was hushed in slumber the child would leave his bed, and steal away to the garret in order to commune with his beloved art. Day after day he laboured thus, mastering his difficulties one by one, his love and his genius preventing him from feeling the hardest work a drudgery.

      For some time this secret practising continued without arousing suspicion

---

Скачать книгу