New Exhibition
Handel Through Mozart's Eyes
See Handel’s music as Mozart encountered it in this exhibition at Handel Hendrix House, centred on a rare manuscript written in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s own hand. Beautifully preserved, the manuscript shows the opening of a string quartet transcription Mozart made from a harpsichord work by George Frideric Handel, composed more than 60 years earlier.
Mozart’s engagement with Handel began early and continued throughout his life. During a European tour with his family, the eight-year-old Mozart visited London in 1764–65, where he performed Handel’s music in the presence of royalty and participated in concerts that included Handel’s Acis and Galatea, while also hearing works such as Alexander’s Feast. Mozart went on to study and arrange Handel’s fugues, oratorios and odes, drawn to Handel’s mastery of counterpoint and expressive power—an influence that can be traced through Mozart’s later works, from his string quartets to major compositions including the Jupiter Symphony, the C minor Mass and the Requiem.
At the heart of the exhibition is the unique Mozart manuscript, dating from around 1782–3, showing the first 20 bars of the fugue from Handel’s Suite in F for harpsichord (HWV 427) in transcription for string quartet. Although it is not known whether Mozart completed the transcription, the manuscript offers an insight into how he engaged with and imagined Handel’s music.
The exhibition also brings together an early printed score of Messiah re-orchestrated by Mozart in 1789, 18th-century concert tickets and engravings linked to London’s musical life, and a contemporary biography of Handel by John Mainwaring of the kind Mozart is known to have owned and studied. Visitors will also be able to hear the original keyboard fugue and explore the sounds of early keyboard instruments similar to those Mozart composed and performed on.
See this fascinating and inspiring piece of music history, revealing the depth of Mozart’s engagement with music written by the great masters of the previous generation.
