Press release

February 2026

Handel through Mozart’s eyes: Handel Hendrix House displays unique Handel manuscript penned by Mozart.

Link to images: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo...

Visitors to Handel Hendrix House have the chance to see music penned in Mozart’s own hand in a new display coinciding with the release of the Sky Arts series Amadeus. The manuscript is beautifully written and shows the beginning of a piece of music for a string quartet that 26-year-old Mozart transcribed from a harpsichord work by George Frideric Handel composed more than 60years earlier. This manuscript is evidence of Mozart’s life-long fascination with Handel’s music and the Baroque master’s influence on Mozart’s own music.

The exhibition, Handel through Mozart’s eyes will run at Handel Hendrix House - the Mayfair museum once home to composer G.F. Handel and rock legend Jimi Hendrix at 25 Brook Street - from Wednesday, February 25 until Sunday, September 13., 2026. Entry to the exhibition is included in the admission price. Mozart embarked on a long European tour with his family, visiting London in 1764-5. At just eight years old, Mozart performed Handel’s music in the presence of royalty, participated in concerts that included Handel’s Acis and Galatea, and experienced live performances of many more works including Alexander’s Feast. Mozart went on to study and make new arrangements of Handel’s fugues, dramatic oratorios and odes, finding inspiration in Handel’s mastery of the rules of counterpoint and the expressive power of his music. Mozart was reported to say that ‘Handel understands effect better than any of us…when he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt.’

The objects on display will include:

• An early printed score of Messiah re-orchestrated by Mozart in 1789 (K572), showing Mozart’s fascinating engagement with and respect for Handel’s music

• 18th-century concert tickets and engravings showing key locations Hanover Square and Vauxhall Gardens wherethe young Mozart wowed audiences with his keyboard and violin playing in between performances of music by Handel during the child prodigy’s famous visit to London in 1764-5.

• A 1760 biography of Handel by John Mainwaring of the kind that Mozart owned, studied, and recommended

• On rare display to the public: A unique manuscript in Mozart’s hand of an incomplete transcription of the first 20 bars of thefugue from Handel’s Suite in F for harpsichord (HWV427), which Mozart worked on in 1782-3

Whilst it is not known if Mozart ever finished arranging Handel’s keyboard fugue for string quartet, it is clear that Handel’s music had a profound influence on his own style and compositions. This is perhaps most evident in his late string quartets and major works such as the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony, the C minor Mass and the Requiem.

In the exhibition, visitors will be able to hear the original keyboard fugue and explore the sounds of the kinds of early keyboard instruments that Mozart composed and performed on.

Exhibition curator Olwen Foulkes said: “We are delighted to be displaying this beautiful Mozart manuscript at Handel Hendrix House and giving a rare chance to see Mozart's string quartet transcription in his own meticulous handwriting. Handel’s music was a highly influential part of Mozart’s journey as a composer and performer, and I hope that visitors will enjoy exploring this exciting part of Mozart’s story.’

Simon Daniels, Director of Handel Hendrix House, said “The Mozart manuscript is a fascinating and inspiring piece of music history, revealing as it does the depth of Mozart’s engagement with music written by the great masters of the previous generation. This manuscript was in the museum’s very first exhibition in 2001. As we look to celebrate the museum’s 25th anniversary this year, it is fitting that this rarely seen manuscript should once again be enjoyed by our visitors.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The house is open Wednesday – Sunday 10.00 – 17.00 (last entry at 16:00). Tickets are £14.50 for adults, £10.50 for students and free for the under 12s. Tickets can be purchased in advance on the website www.handelhendrix.org but it is possible to buy

a ticket on the day at the museum. Nearest Tube: Bond Street

PRESS INFORMATION

Please contact Rachel Aked

Email: [email protected]

Tel: 07790 732448

The live music at Handel Hendrix House is generously supported by The Thistle Trust, The Garrick Charitable Trust, and Chapman Charitable Trust.

Handel Hendrix House cares for and presents to the public the homes of two of the greatest musicians ever to have lived in London. George Frideric Handel lived at 25 Brook Street from 1723 until his death in 1759. It was here that Handel wrote and rehearsed his greatest works, including Messiah and its ever popular ‘Hallelujah chorus’ – perhaps the most famous piece of classical music ever written. His stirring anthem ‘Zadok the Priest’, was also written in Brook Street and has accompanied the coronation of every British monarch since George II (for whom it was written in 1727), including HM King Charles III.

In 1968, Jimi Hendrix moved into an adjoining flat at number 23. Here, in the only place he said he felt truly at home, Hendrix entertained, inspired, and collaborated with other icons of British 60s rock music.

Handel Hendrix House has completed a £3million project to open all of Handel’s house to the public for the first time by restoring the basement and ground floor by faithfully recreated Handel’s basement kitchen with all its fixtures and fittings, carefully detailed on research and an inventory made shortly after the composer’s death.

Also

· Restored the ground floor parlours in which Handel would receive his guests and aristocratic patrons and in which his assistant, J.C. Smith, would sell tickets and subscriptions to new works.

· Restored the front façade of 25 Brook Street so that visitors can finally enter Handel’s home through his front door.

New things to see in Handel’s house include:

• Historic rooms presented as they might have been in the 1740s, when the composer was in a new burst of creative energy and commercial success writing dramatic oratorios.

• Recently acquired works of art, creating a collection representative of the more than 100 works of art Handel owned in Brook Street.

• New exhibitions about Handel’s music and the musicians he worked with and a mixed reality audio-visual display about the writing of Messiah in the very room in which it was composed.

In 2016, Jimi Hendrix’s flat in 23 Brook Street was brilliantly restored and opened to the public. To be enjoyed as a contrasting and complementary part to a visit to Handel’s home,

the Hendrix experience at Handel Hendrix House has been expanded as part of the Hallelujah Project:

• For the first time, visitors can walk up and down the stairs to his flat, where George Harrison famously had to step over one of Jimi’s other visitors who had passed out en route to the exit.

• A new exhibition features a film showing visitors exploring Hendrix’s legendary guitar technique and his influence on musicians and creatives, with high quality sound supported by Bang & Olufsen

• The film includes material uncovered by Handel Hendrix House through their national ‘Your Experience’ appeal for memories, images and stories of people’s encounters with Jimi Hendrix across the country.

A guide to Handel Hendrix House is now available on Bloomberg Connects, which can be translated into 12 different languages including French, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Russian, Korean, Hindi, Japanese and Chinese. Details of the house can be found https://guides.bloombergconnects.org/en-US/guide/handelHendrixHouse

Image credits:

Title: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1819 (oil on canvas)

Creator: Krafft, Barbara (1764-1825)

Byline: Giancarlo Costa

Credit: © Giancarlo Costa. All rights

reserved 2026 / Bridgeman Images

Location: Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna, Austria