and without renouncing his own right over his son (for he still had the legal plan in his head) consented to let him learn music; and on his return to Halle he placed him under the best master in the town, the organist Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau.[1]
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Zachau was a broad-minded man and moreover a good musician, whose greatness was only appreciated many years after his death. [2] His influence on Handel was splendid. Handel himself did not conceal it.[3] This influence affected the pupil in two ways: by his method of teaching, and by his artistic personality. "The man was very well up in his art," says Matheson,[4] "and is possessed of as much talent as beneficence."
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Handel's devotion to Zachau was so great that he seemed never able to show him sufficient affection and kindness. The master's first efforts were devoted to giving the pupil a strong foundation in harmony. Then he turned his thoughts towards the
- ↑ F. W. Zachau was born in 1663 at Leipzig, and died prematurely in 1712. His father came from Berlin. The original spelling of the name was Zachoff.
- ↑ Since the publication of the works of Zachau by Max Seiffert in the Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst, Vols. XXI and XXII, 1905, Breitkopf.
- ↑ Matheson refers to this briefly also, but the later historians, Chrysander, Volbach, Kretzschmar, Sedley Taylor have not taken any account of these words, which they attribute to the generosity of Handel, and to the malevolence of Matheson. In their judgment he did not even know the works by Zachau—this is very hard on Handel's master. Since the publication of the Denkmäler it is impossible not to recognize in Zachau the true originator of his style, and even, so to speak, of the genius of Handel.
- ↑ Lebensbeschreibung Haendels (1761).
