Page:Romain Rolland Handel.djvu/11

 George Frederick Handel was born at Halle on Monday, February 23, 1685. His father was then sixty-three years, and his mother thirty-four.

The town of Halle occupied a singular political situation. It belonged originally to the Elector of Saxony; by the Treaties of Westphalia it was ceded to the Elector of Brandenburg; but it paid tribute to the Duke Augustus of Saxony during his lifetime. After the death of Augustus in 1680, Halle passed definitely to Brandenburg; and in 1681 the Grand Elector came to receive homage there. Handel then was born a Prussian; but his father was in the service of the Duke of Saxony, and he retained relationship with the son of Augustus, Johann Adolf, who moved his court after the Prussian annexation to the neighbouring town of Weissenfels. Thus the childhood of Handel was influenced by two intellectual forces: the Saxon and the Prussian. Of the two the more aristocratic, and also the more powerful was the Saxon. Most of the artists had emigrated with the Duke to Weissenfels. It was there that the genial Heinrich Schütz was born and died: it was there that Handel found his first impetus, and where the calling of the child was first recognized. The precocious musical tendencies of the little George Frederick were somewhat curbed by the formal opposition of his