Handel’s Youth: The Attic Clavichord

Handel’s father had a plan: law school, not a life in music. Instruments were off-limits—so the boy found a workaround. An old clavichord sat up in the attic, and Handel would sneak up there to play while the household slept.

When he was six, his father set off for the court of a prince where a relative served. Handel refused to be left behind, followed the carriage on foot, and begged until his father finally relented. At court the child’s organ playing caught the prince’s attention, and the prince pressed Handel’s father to let the boy study music seriously.

The pace after that was wild: from nine to twelve Handel wrote a complete church service every week for voices and instruments. By fifteen he had already written three operas—each performed for many nights in Hamburg. From there the output kept coming, eventually leading to the great oratorios of his later years.