sicalisches Opfer (Musical Offering). 1747. } For clavier
The Art of Fugue. 1749. } alone.
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. }
6 Partitas. }
6 English Suites. }
6 French Suites. }
3 Sonatas for clavier and flute.
6 Sonatas and 1 Suite for clavier and violin.
3 Sonatas for clavier and viol da gamba.
7 Concertos for clavier and orchestra.
1 Concerto for clavier, violin, and flute.
6 Concertos ('Brandenburg Concertos') for several instruments.
2 Concertos for violin and orchestra.
1 Concerto for 2 violins.
3 Concertos for 2 claviers.
2 Concertos for 3 claviers.
3 Sonatas and 3 Partitas for violin alone.
6 Suites for violoncello.
3 Sonatas for flute.
4 Overtures. }
1 Symphony. } For orchestra.
6 Sonatas. }
18 Preludes and Fugues. }
3 Toccatas. } For organ.
113 Preludes. }
24 Chorales. }

HANDEL

HANDEL

In a garret choked with lumber of various kinds, to which the dust of
years had imparted the greyish hue of neglect and decay, a little
fair-haired boy was seated before a spinet, fingering its yellow keys
with a tenderness that betokened his fondness for the instrument. The
level rays of the setting sun streaming through the dimmed casement
lighted up the child's head with its clustering curls, as he bent over
the keyboard. The little spinet was almost dumb, and the voice which
had cheered so many lonely hours spent in its companionship was hardly
more than a whisper. Yet even so the boy loved to listen to it, for
the spinet could speak to him as no living voice could speak; its
sweet, faint sounds stirred the heart within him as nothing else in
the whole of his childish world had the power to move it, awakening
and creating fresh sounds that grew ever stronger as the hours flew by
unheeded. To him the greatest joy of existence was to steal away to
his garret next the sky and whisper his secrets to the friendly
spinet.

[Illustration: _Handel's birthplace, Halle, Saxony._]

George Frederick Handel, as the boy was named, was the son of a
surgeon of Halle, Lower Saxony, in which town the child was born on
February 23, 1685. Even before he could speak little George had shown
a remarkable fondness for music, and the only toys h