It was Mattheson, by his own account, who introduced Handel to the musical
life of Hamburg. The opera was closed for the summer, and Keiser's
celebrated winter concerts, at which the wealthy society of Hamburg
listened to the most famous singers and regaled themselves with tokay, had
not yet begun; but there was no lack of social distractions, in which music
no doubt played its part. In August the two friends made a journey to
Lubeck, to compete for the post of organist at the Marienkirche in
succession to Dietrich Buxtehude, who was nearly seventy and ready to
retire. But both Buxtehude and the town council insisted that the new
organist should marry his predecessor's daughter, in order to save the town
the necessity of providing for her; she was considerably older than the
two youthful candidates, and they both withdrew in haste. Late in life
Mattheson married the daughter of an English clergyman; Handel remained a
bachelor to the end of his days.
It was no doubt through Mattheson that Handel, in the autumn, entered the
opera band as a humble second violinist. He seems to have been of a very
retiring and quiet disposition, although of a dry humour. Opera management
at Hamburg was no less precarious than it was in London; Keiser could
not afford the Italian singers patronised by the German princes, and his
performances had often to be helped out by amateurs of all classes.
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