BIOGRAPHIC DETAILS: HALLE
1685
24. Februar: Baptised in Market Church Halle. George Frideric Handel was born on 23 February 1685 in Halle in the house "am Schlamm", the present Handel House, 5 Große Nikolaistraße. He stems from his father's second marriage. His father was Georg Händel (1622-1697), official surgeon of Giebichenstein and the personal surgeon of the Saxon dukes and Elector of Brandenburg. He married Dorothea Taust (1651-1730), daughter of the priest Georg Taust of Giebichenstein on 23 April 1683.
1693/1694
Handel went with his father to the court of Johann Adolf of Saxony-Weißenfels who used this
opportunity to arrange a musical education for his son. We assume he started lessons with Friedrich
Wilhelm Zachow soon afterwards. His stay in Weißenfels cannot be dated exactly. According to
Mainwaring, who was the first to report it, Handel was not even seven years old at this time.
Chrysander however says "we must think of him as a bit older". Percy Robinson dates this trip in
1696.
1697
11 February: Death of his father1698
A manuscript book from the young Handel dated 1698, in which he signed himself G. F. H., containing snippets of compositions from Zachow, Froberger, Krieger, Strungk and others, and probably used in connection with his lessons, was kept until the beginning of the 19th century; but since then it has been lost without trace. (cf. William Coxe p. 6, Victor Schoelcher, p. 9)1699-1700
Earliest surviving datable composition (Sonata for 2 violins and B. c. in G minor HWV 387, unsigned), in the Manchester Central Public Library with a note from Ch. Jennens: "composed at the age of 14".1701
First meeting with Georg Philipp Telemann in Halle. Telemann was on his way to Leipzig to take up a course of study in law. So began a life-long friendship between the two composers (cf. correspondence from their later years).1701-1714
The Spanish War of SuccessionEngland, the Netherlands, Austria as well as other states in the realm fight against Louis XIV's attempts to push through the hegemony of France by a dynastic unification with Spain.
1702
10 February: Registration at Halle University which was founded in 1694 (no details as to the faculty as these did not exist in Halle at the time).
13 March: Engaged as organist in the reformed cathedral in Halle.
1702/1703
Trip to BerlinMet Attilio Ariosti and Giovanni Bononcini at the court of King Frederick I of Prussia (until 1701 Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg). The trip itself as well as the time that it could have occurred is in dispute. At first Mainwaring dated this trip as 1698 contrary to facts that had been handed down to him. Chrysander (Vol. I p. 52) dates it as 1696, Percy Robinson as 1703. Ariosti came to Berlin in 1697, Bononcini did not come until 1702/1703.
