Georg Händel (1622-97): the barber-surgeon father of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle (Saale) in Germany. After initial musical education in Germany and Italy, he came to London as a young man and spent the rest of his life in England. Until recently, little has been written of his early life in either the English or the German literature, and it is not widely known that he was the son of Georg Händel, a barber-surgeon of repute. When his father's name is mentioned, it is usually to claim that he actively discouraged his son's musical education. Georg Händel lived in a turbulent time; he became an eminent surgeon who served as valet and barber to the Courts of Saxony and Brandenburg, as well as a distinguished citizen of Halle. In describing his surgical duties, we show how these differed from those of barbers in England and France at that time. Barbers in Germany were less controlled, freer to practise as they pleased, and Händel himself had important duties in public health and forensic medicine. George Frideric was the first son of the second marriage, born when his father was 63 years of age. We aim also to dispel the notion that Händel's influence on his son's career was as obstructive as has been claimed, but rather that he was a responsible father with his children's interests at heart. This is shown in the success achieved by all his children, most of whom followed their father into medicine, while George Frideric became the most famous of them all, being regarded by posterity as one of the greatest composers.