Corner House

Accordingly, there cannot be any doubt that Georg Friedrich Händel was born in the house “at the sign of the Yellow Stag”, the corner house at the junction of Grosser Schlamm / Kleine Ulrichstrasse and the Kleine Klausstrasse. The confusion probably arose from a statement made by Friedrich Chrysander in his generally authoritative Handel biography of 1858, in which he says, “ Georg Händel lived in Halle in the ‘Schlamm’ (mud street) in a part of the town which despite its name was in fact quite salubrious. The house where his son was born cannot be placed with absolute certainty, but the facts available agree that it was the house now belonging to the merchant F. W. Rüprecht, Grosser Schlamm 4.” Except for the wrong house number Chrysander’s facts, as we now know, were correct, despite the uncertainty expressed in his statement. An article, which appeared in the Illustrated London News Supplement, 25 June 1859, on the 100th anniversary of Handel’s death made reference to Chrysander and carried a sketch based on a photograph by C. Klingemann (see above), in which the two houses in question may be seen. The viewer however can have no doubts, since the “ real” Handel House bears the inscription of the firm of the merchant Rüprecht. Furthermore, an essay appeared in the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (2nd year, 1867), which discussed the question raised by Chrysander and stated that the house where Handel was born could only be the corner house on Kleine Ulrichstrasse. But because it was not generally known that Rüprecht owned two houses, the rumours and uncertainties continued to circulate. In 1827 Friedrich Wilhelm Rüprecht had also acquired what later became the “wrong” Handel House. His successor, the merchant Wilhelm Richard Fuss, also owned both properties for a time. There can hardly be any doubt that it was he more than any other who set the confusion rumours on foot or at least nurtured them. And in the same year, 1885, in which Dr Julius Opel succeeded in tracing almost unbrokenly the varied history of the true Handel House, the merchant Julius Winzer, the new owner of the neighbouring property (Große Nikolaistrasse 3, later 4, now 6) had the front facade of the building covered with a stucco decoration by the builder Gustav Glück.
 
To strengthen his claim to be the owner of the house of Handel’s birth he did indeed find on a false ceiling the clavichord on which the little Handel is said to have practised at night - as Handel’s first biographer informs us in an anecdote. The instrument was subsequently revealed to be a table model of later date.