Handel's Testament

Synopsis

When most people hit 65, they’re anticipating their first social security check, but on today’s date in 1750, when George Frederick Handel turned 65, he was making out his will.

To John Christopher Smith, Handel left, “my large harpsichord, my little house organ, my music books and 500 pounds sterling.” John Christopher Smith, born Johann Christoph Schmidt, was an old friend of Handel’s from his university days in Germany. Handel persuaded Herr Schmidt to give up the wool trade and come to England. As Mr. Smith, he established a famous copyists’ shop in London, became Handel’s business partner.

Seven years later, Handel modified his will, leaving his larger theater organ to John Rich, whose Covent Garden Theater had staged Handel’s most recent operas and oratorios. To Charles Jennens, who had arranged the Biblical verses for Handel’s Messiah, the composer bequeathed some paintings.

To the Foundling Hospital, a charitable institute that had performed Messiah as a successful fundraiser, Handel left “a fair copy of the score and all parts” for that famous oratorio. Shortly before his death, Handel bequeathed 1000 pounds to the Society for the Support of Decayed Musicians, a charity in aid of musicians’ widows and orphans, and directed that 600 pounds be used to erect his own monument in Westminster Abbey.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Frederic Handel (1685-1759): Air, from Water Music; St. Martin’s Academy; Neville Marriner, conductor; EMI 66646

On This Day

Births

• 1653 - Baptismal date of Baroque composer Georg Muffat, in Megève (Savoy)

• 1771 - Italian composer Ferdinando Paër, in Parma

• 1804 - Russian composer Mikail Glinka, in Novospasskoye (now Glinka), near Yelnya, Smolensk District (Julian date: May 20)

• 1929 - Canadian-born American composer Yehudi Wyner, in Calgary

Deaths

• 1639 - German composer Melchior Franck, 60, in Coburg

• 1909 - Italian composer Giuseppe Martucci, 53, in Naples

Premieres

• 1853 - Liszt: Fantasy on Themes from Beethoven’s Ruins of Athens and Fantasy on Hungarian Themes for piano and orchestra, in Budapest

• 1869 - Smetana: opera The Bartered Bride (third of four versions), in Prague at the Provisional Theater

• 1925 - Bloch: Concerto Grosso No. 1 for strings and piano, in Cleveland, with the composer conducting

• 1932 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 12 (Collective Farm Symphony), in Moscow, by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, Albert Coates conducting

• 1988 - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Symbolon for orchestra, in Leningrad (USSR), by the New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta conducting

• 1991 - Peter Maxwell Davies: Ojai Festival Overture, in the Ojai Valley north of Los Angeles, by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with the composer conducting

Others

• 1723 - J.S. Bach is formally inducted as cantor at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig

• 1728 - The Royal Academy of Music folds in London following a revival performance of Handel’s opera Ademto (Gregorian date: June 12)

• 1750 - Handel makes out his will, leaving to John Christopher Smith (the elder) “my large harpsichord, my little house organ, my music books and 500 pounds sterling” and the rest to his niece Johanna Floerken. On August 4, 1757, Handel modifies his will, leaving his theater organ to John Rich, some paintings to Charles Jennens and Bernard Granville, and “a fair copy of the score and all parts” of Messiah to the Foundling Hospital. In of April 1759, Handel bequeaths 1000 pounds to the Society for the Support of Decayed Musicians, and directs that 600 pounds be used for his monument in Westminster Abbey. These dates are all according to the Julian calendar still in use in England, but not in the rest of Europe, in Handel’s day (add 11 days to convert to the Gregoian calendar).