Teaching Fugue à la Handel - Lessons for Princess Anne

Abstract

Handel, while living in London, once told Dutch organist Jacob Wilhelm Lustig, who was visiting that city, "No power on earth could have moved me to resume teaching duties again - except Anne, the flower of princesses." Anne, the daughter of George II, studied composition with Handel from 1724 to 1734. For this gifted keyboardist, Handel wrote a series of thorough-bass exercises, culminating in six fugue exercises, three fugue models and one sketch. These lessons later became part of Handel's bequest of his manuscripts to his friend John Christopher Smith, who acted as his manager. They are now preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge.