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# Young George Frideric Handel secretly taught himself the harpsichord in an attic
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/eto-imenno-to-o-chem-vy-podumali/
- Published: 2023-02-24T10:31:31.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:05:03.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Mores, People, Humour

This is exactly what you were thinking! Papa with a lantern and the entire family burst into the attic to catch their son at a shameful occupation.

Little Georg Friedrich Handel was strictly forbidden to study music. The four-year-old child found an abandoned old harpsichord and taught himself to play it, creeping by night into the dark, dusty attic while all the household slept.

It took the intervention of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels himself to persuade the obstinate father not to hinder the gifted child in his musical pursuits.

At seven Handel could already play the organ. By nine he had mastered the harpsichord, the violin and the oboe. At eleven he was already accompanying at the court of the Elector