Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/151

 HANDEL 303 child, and this he used to keep hidden in the garret, creeping away to play it in the night-time, when everyone was asleep, or whenever his father was away from home doctoring his patients. But, at last, when George Frederick was seven years of age, the old man was compelled to change his views. It happened in this way. He set out one day on a visit to the court of the Duke of Saxe -Weissenf els, where another son by a former marriage was a page. George Frederick had been teasing his father to let him go with him to see his elder brother, whom he had not yet met, but this was refused. When old Handel started by the stage- coach the next morning, the persistent little fellow was on the watch ; he began running after it, and at length the father was constrained to stop the coach and take the boy in. So, though at the expense of a severe scolding, the child had his way and was allowed to go on to Saxe-Weissenfels. When there, the chapel, with the beautiful organ, was the great attraction, and George Frederick, as indomitable then as he was in after-life, found his way into the organ loft, and when the regular service was over, contrived to take the organist's place, and began a performance of his own ; and strange to say, though he had not had the slightest training, a melody with chords and the correct harmonies was heard. The duke had not left the chapel, and noticing the difference in style from that of the ordinary organist, inquired as to the player, and when the little boy was brought to him he soon dis- covered, by the questions he put, the great passion for music which possessed the child. The duke, a sensible man, told the father it would be wrong to oppose the inclination of a boy who already displayed such extraordinary genius ; and old Handel, either convinced, or at any rate submitting to the duke's advice, promised to procure for his son regular musical instruments. Handel never afterward forgot the debt of gratitude he owed to the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels for this intercession On his return to Halle he became the pupil of Zachau, the organist of the cathedral there. This man was an excellent teacher and a sound musician. Be- fore the pupil was nine years old his instructor used to set him to write fugues and motets as exercises, and before long the boy was allowed to play the organ at the cathedral services on Sunday, whenever the elder musician was inclined to linger over his breakfast or to take a holiday. At last, when young Handel va? nine years old, the master honestly confessed that his pupil knew more music than he himself did, and advised that he should be sent to Berlin for a course of further study there. Thither he accordingly went in the year 1696. In Berlin the boy of eleven years was soon recognized as a prodigy. There he met two Italian composers of established reputation, Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti, both of whom he was to encounter in after-life, though under very dif- ferent circumstances, in London. Bononcini, who was of a sour and jealous dis- position, soon conceived a dislike for the gifted little fellow, and attempted to