George Frideric Handel at the British Library
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 - 1759) died 257 years ago today. Though born in Germany, he settled in England and became a citizen. Handel may have lost an umlaut in the process, but England gained a treasure trove of manuscripts - and indeed, in the RISM database you will find more Handel sources at the British Library (GB-Lbl) than any other library.
To find the British Library’s Handel holdings, go to the RISM online database and click on Advanced Search. Fill out these fields:
Composer: Handel (a list will automatically appear to help you with the name, and you can pick any of them that look like Handel)
Library siglum: GB-Lbl
You will see over 2,800 results, and on the left you can filter based on a number of criteria, such as genre, scoring, or source type. The British Library holds an impressive number of Handel autograph manuscripts thanks to a gift from Queen Elizabeth II in 1957. Ninety-seven autographs were part of this acquisition. In the RISM database, each individual piece in a manuscript has a separate record, so you’ll notice 339 autographs at the moment and over 1,900 manuscript copies.
The British Library has an ongoing project to digitize items from its music collection. To find 79 Handel manuscripts, go to the Digitised Manuscripts page and enter Handel in the field Author / Scribe. Links to these are gradually being added to the RISM records. Most recent include Ottone (1722), Ezio (1731-1732), and Floriodante (1721-1733 ).
With last year’s addition of records for printed music to the online catalog, you’ll find over 800 records for printed editions at the British Library. Most of these were published by John Walsh, but you’ll also find other London editions. To browse these in the online catalog, go back to your list of Handel sources (you can use this handy link) and narrow your results by publisher on the left. Alternately, if you do an Advanced Search, add the word London in the field All fields and you’ll get mostly printed editions.
Image: George Frideric Handel: Messiah, HWV 56. Autograph manuscript. British Library (GB-Lbl) R.M.20.f.2, f.100r. Used with kind permission. RISM ID no. 804002301.
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