Page 38Page 39
Page 38
Handel,” she recalls. “Classical music was calming, Jimi liked the rhythms,” said his biographer, Harry Shapiro, “and though it probably didn’t infl uence what he wrote, it certainly helped his mood”.It is a trick of fate that two iconic musicians from such different parts of the spectrum came to live in side-by-side houses two centuries apart. Handel’s house, No. 25, was acquired by the Handel’s House Trust and restored, opening as a museum in 2001.Now Hendrix’s tiny fl at at the top of No. 23 has been restored by the Trust to the way he knew it at a cost of £2.4m, with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund and opened in February. The homes have now been combined as Handel & Hendrix in London, the museum’s new name. Georg Friedrich Händel was born in Halle, Germany, in 1685. He came to London to seek his fortune in 1712 and was already a success when he moved into the newly-built fi ve-storey townhouse in Brook Street in 1723, at the age of 38. Although he had anglicised his name to George Frideric Handel, he was still an alien and as such not allowed to own property. He became a British citizen in 1727, but continued to pay an annual rent (some £50 in 1742) for the home in which he lived for the last 36 years of his life, dying here in April 1759. It was even then a well-to-do part of London.It was at 25 Brook Street that Handel composed most of his fi nest works, including Messiah (1741), Zadok the Priest (1727) and Music for the Royal Fireworks (1748). He made use of the whole house, with his servants sleeping on the third fl oor (in space now used for the Jimi Hendrix display about the rock musician and his circle, next to the corresponding rooms at No. 23 where Hendrix and his partner were to make their home two centuries later). On the second fl oor was his bedroom and dressing room, and on the fi rst he composed, rehearsed and held informal performances. From the ground fl oor (not currently connected to the museum; it and the basement will be integrated into the museum at a later date) he sold music and tickets to his concerts. ➤Above: The houses at 23 (white) and 25 Brook Street, with their blue plaques (shown above right)Right: Handel’s bedroom38 NADFAS REVIEW / SUMMER 2016 www.nadfas.org.ukHANDEL AND HENDRIX