Author: [HANDEL (George Frederick].
Title: Handel Commeration. An Illustrated Subscriber's ticket for the Handel Commemoration of 1784,
Description: [London} [No printer, no publisher] 1784 1784 A single leaf measuring 280 x 280 ms., with a central oval engraving engraving of a scene from John Dryden's "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day" (1687), engraved by Francis Haward after Robert Smirk, in very poor condition with faults in the image, some paper missing, "Subscribers Ticket [missing] Door" on lower margin, stained and worn, contained in a folder 317 x 319 mms, with ticket protected by mylar. I quote from an AI description "The 1784 Handel Commemoration was a series of five concerts held in Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of George Frideric Handel's death. The event took place between May 26 and June 5, 1784. The concerts featured Handel's sacred and secular music, including complete performances of The Messiah, Dettingen Te Deum, and Israel in Egypt, as well as excerpts from Belshazzar's Feast and Judas Maccabaeus." And from Wikipedia: "The commemoration was organized by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich[2] and the Concerts of Antient Music and took the form of a series of concerts of Handel's music, given in the Abbey by vast numbers of singers and instrumentalists. Above Handel's own monument in the Abbey, there is a small additional tablet to record the commemoration. An account of the commemoration was published by Charles Burney in the following year. The commemoration established a fashion for large-scale performances of Handel's choral works throughout the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth. E. D. Mackerness described it as "the most important single event in the history of English music". Five further Handel commemorations followed over the next seven years - in 1785, 1786, 1787, 1790 and 1791, the last with over 1,000 participants and an estimated audience of 2,200 people, including Joseph Haydn.[1] Then in 1834 there was another larger scale commemoration, the Royal Musical Festival also at Westminster Abbey, this time with 625 participating musicians (223 instrumentalists, 397 choral singers and five soloists), and an audience of 2,700."

Keywords: music performing arts prose


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