very few musicians of outstanding greatness, was a century of restless
musical activity throughout Europe, especially in the more private and
domestic branches of the art. The Reformation had made music the vehicle of
personal devotion, and the enormous output of a peculiarly intimate type of
sacred music, both in Germany and in England, shows that there must have
been a keen demand for it in Protestant home life.

George Handel, the surgeon, seems to have hated music. There is no evidence
that either his wife or her sister, who shared their home after her
father's death in 1685, was musically gifted, but the mere fact of their
being the daughters of a Lutheran pastor makes it probable that they had
had some education in the art. We may safely guess that the composer
inherited his musical talents from the Taust family. He showed his
inclination for music at a very early age, with such insistence indeed
that his father forbade him to touch any musical instrument. There is a
well-known story of his contriving to smuggle a clavichord into a garret
without his father's knowledge in order to practise on it while the rest of
the family were asleep, but for this tale Mainwaring is our only authority.
It is very probable that old Handel was irritated by the sound of his son's
early efforts and regarded music as a waste of time; his wife may perhaps
have encouraged the child's obvious abilities, taking care that he made
music only in some part of the house where he would not disturb his father.

At the age of seven he was sent to the Lutheran Grammar School, and he may
very likely have had some instruction in singing while there. In any case
there can be no doubt that he was taught more than the mere rudiments of
music in childhood, however severe his father's opposition may have been.
He was between seven and nine when his father took him to Weissenfels,
where he was required to attend on the Duke. It is quite probable that the
child may have been taken there several times, especially as a relative