Georg Friedrich Handel Society

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The Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft (GFHG) is an international association founded in 1955 with headquarters and offices in the Handel House in Halle (Saale) . The registered, non-profit association has around 700 members. Its purpose is to “promote Handel research and care”.

history

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of the baroque composer Georg Friedrich Händel (1859), the first German Handel Society was founded in 1856 . Friedrich Chrysander began at that time with the Handel Complete Edition, which, however, petered out after the turn of the century.

In 1925, Hermann Abert founded a new Handel company in Leipzig, which was headed by Arnold Schering from 1926 . In addition to organizing Handel festivals, she published Rudolf Steglich's Handel yearbook . The Handel Society, which was dissolved in 1935, is considered to be the predecessor organization of today's Georg Friedrich Händel Society. With the anniversary year 1935 and the acquisition of the Handel House in 1937 by the city of Halle, however, Georg Friedrich Handel remained omnipresent. During this time, Karl Vötterle and Herbert Koch made plans for a Halle Handel edition. Even before the end of the Second World War, the Halle Handel Society was formed under Max Schneider , which organized Handel concerts from 1944.

The Handel House Music Museum opened in 1948 and regular Handel Festival was held from 1952 . Even before the composer's 200th year of death, there was a new beginning in 1955 with the founding of the Georg Friedrich Handel Society (founding document of April 23, 1955). Max Schneider (President), Rudolf Steglich (Vice President) and Walther Siegmund-Schultze (Scientific Secretary) were elected to the Executive Board. Other board members were Horst-Tanu Margraf , Walter Serauky and Ernst Hermann Meyer and later Konrad Ameln . The first general meeting was held on June 18, 1955 in the Intelligence Club in Halle. International representatives in their field also approved their election as members of the full board: Jens Peter Larsen (Denmark), William C. Smith and Arnold Goldsbrough (England). Karl Vötterle, director of the Bärenreiter publishing house, and Georg Engelmann, director of the German publishing house for music , also belonged to the board. Honorary membership was given to Edward Dent and Berta Chrysander (daughter-in-law of Friedrich Chrysander).

The company sat down u. a. for the international popularization of music and the rediscovery of old works by the composer. The activities led to a “Halle Handel Renaissance”. However, the GDR leadership also wanted to instrumentalize the Handel Society politically and create a " Marxist image of Handel". In 1967 the internationally networked Ernst Hermann Meyer became President of the Society, probably for political reasons .

The Handel Society regularly organizes congresses, conferences and colloquia. The company also supports the Handel Festival.

Publications

In conjunction with the Handel House Foundation, the Handel Society publishes the Handel Yearbook (Hjb). In addition, the Halle Handel Edition (HHA, critical complete edition ) has been published since 1955 . Both publications are published today by Bärenreiter-Verlag in Kassel. The HHA is a third-party funded project of the Institute for Music, Media and Speech Studies, Musicology Department of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg . It receives funding from the Union of German Academies of Science . The editorial team is supported by the Handel House Foundation and the Landgraf Moritz Foundation.

President

Honorary members

(in chronological order)

The honorary members receive a badge of honor from the jewelery designer Gunther Graf from Halle.

International Handel Research Award

Since 2014, the Georg Friedrich Handel Society has been awarding the International Handel Research Award , which is in the tradition of the Handel Sponsorship Award of the city of Halle . It is endowed with 2000 euros and is funded by the Saalesparkasse Foundation in Halle (Saale). It is aimed at young researchers from the field of musicology and related disciplines who worked on Georg Friedrich Händel.

The jury currently includes Donald Burrows , Wolfgang Hirschmann, Silke Leopold , Thomas Neumann and Susanne Quednau.

Award winners

  • 1st International Handel Research Award (2014): Dominik Höink, Rebekka Sandmeier, Matthew Gardner
  • 2nd International Handel Research Award (2015): Regina Compton
  • 3rd International Handel Research Award (2017): Susanne Spiegler
  • 4th International Handel Research Award (2019): Natassa Varka

literature

  • Konstanze Musketa : Music history of the city of Halle: Guide through the exhibition of the Handel House . Handel House, Halle an der Saale 1998, ISBN 3-910019-13-7 , p. 92.
  • Gert Richter: 50 years of the Georg Friedrich Handel Society . In: Handel House Communications 2/2005, pp. 52–57.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Rink: Handel Sponsorship Award - Handel Research Award . In: Announcements of the Friends and Sponsors of the Handel House in Halle eV 1/2014, pp. 11–13, here: p. 11.