Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and performance room, plus a composition room at the back. The museum has few
original artefacts, but the house has been redecorated to how it would have looked in
Handel's day. Further atmosphere is provided by the harpsichord students who often
practise in the rehearsal room; to find out about the regular recitals, visit the website.
Access to the house is via the chic, cobbled yard at the back of the house.
Berkeley Square
Berkeley Square
is where, according to the music-hall song, nightingales sing (though it's
probable they were, in fact, blackcaps). Laid out in the 1730s, only the west side of the
square has any surviving Georgian houses to boast of, including Maggs, at no. 50, the
oldest antiquarian booksellers in the world - they also sell signatures and famously
bought Napoleon's penis in 1916. A few doors up, in the basement of the Georgian
mansion at no. 44, is
Annabel's
, the nightclub where Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson
turned up, dressed as a police o
cer and a tra
c warden, and were refused entry on the
grounds that no uniforms were allowed inside. What saves the square aesthetically,
however, is its wonderful parade of two hundred-year-old
London plane trees
. With
their dappled, exfoliating trunks, giant lobed leaves and globular spiky fruits, these
pollution-resistant trees are a ubiquitous feature of the city, and Berkeley Square's
specimens are among the finest. The square has further royal connections, as the Queen
was born just off it, at 17 Bruton St, and then lived at 145 Piccadilly until 1936.
3
Bourdon House: Alfred Dunhill
2 Davies St • Mon-Sat 10am-7pm •
T
020 7853 4440,
W
dunhill.com •
!
Bond Street
Just north of Berkeley Square, it's possible to see inside
Bourdon House
, a lovely
Georgian mansion on the corner of Davies and Bourdon streets. Former private
HANDEL AND HENDRIX
Born
Georg Friedrich Händel
(1685-1759) in Halle, Saxony, Handel first visited London in
1710, composing
Rinaldo
in fifteen days flat. The furore it produced - not least when Handel
released a flock of sparrows for one aria - made him a household name. The following year he
was commissioned to write several works for Queen Anne, eventually becoming court
composer to George I, his one-time patron in Hanover.
London quickly became Handel's permanent home: he anglicized his name and nationality
and lived out the rest of his life here, producing all the work for which he is now best known,
including the
Water Music
, the
Fireworks Music
and his
Messiah
, which failed to enthral its first
audiences, but which is now one of the great set pieces of Protestant musical culture. George II
was so moved by the
Hallelujah Chorus
that he leapt to his feet and remained standing for the
entire performance. Handel himself fainted during a performance in 1759, and died shortly
afterwards in his home, now a museum (see p.83); he is buried in Westminster Abbey. Today,
Handel's birthday is celebrated with a concert at the Foundling Museum (see p.123), and an
annual Handel Festival (
W
london-handel-festival.com) takes place annually at St George's
Church, Hanover Square (see p.83).
Two centuries later,
Jimi Hendrix
(1942-70) moved into the top-floor flat of 23 Brook St,
next door to Handel's old address, and lived there for eighteen months or so. Born in Seattle
in 1942, Hendrix was persuaded to fly over to London in 1966 by The Animals. Shortly after
arriving, he teamed up with two British musicians, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, and
formed The Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was at the beginning of 1969 that Hendrix moved into
Brook Street with his girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham; apparently he was much taken with the fact
that it was once Handel's residence, ordering Kathy to go and buy some Handel albums for
him. It was also in London that Hendrix met his untimely death, on September 18, 1970. At the
Samarkand Hotel
in Notting Hill, after a gig at
Ronnie Scott's
in Soho, Hendrix, with alcohol still
in his system, swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, later vomiting in his sleep and slipping into
unconsciousness. He was pronounced dead on arrival at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, and is
buried in Seattle.
