In deep mourning and close connection

Together with millions of people in the Commonwealth and worldwide, the news of the death of the British Queen has filled us with great sadness.

As a festival in Lower Saxony, the Göttingen International Handel Festival is connected to the British royal family in many ways: in 1710, George Frideric Handel moved from Hanover to London, where he celebrated his greatest successes and even took on English citizenship in 1727. In 1714, Handel's employer from Hanover, Elector George, was crowned King of Great Britain and Ireland in Westminster Abbey and remained a patron of the native of Halle and Londoner by choice. After the death of George I in 1727, his son George II commissioned Handel to compose four "Coronation Anthems" for the coronation celebrations in Westminster Abbey. "Zadok the Priest", probably the most famous of these coronation anthems, was also heard at the coronation celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.

In 2014, exactly 300 years after George I's accession to the throne, the Göttingen International Handel Festival payed tribute to the special relationship between Handel and the royal house under the motto "Reigning Times - Handel Royal". Among other things, a three-part cycle of coronation music of the English crown of the Hanoverian dynasty from the time before and after Handel was presented. As court kapellmeister in Hanover and composer to the royal house, he represented the musical side of the connection that had previously been celebrated in Göttingen in 1995 and 2008: Here "Orpheus Britannicus" came into focus, there "Handel and the English tradition". A connection that will endure.

In sincere sympathy

the team of the Göttingen International Handel Festival