An Account of the musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey, and the Pantheon, May 26th, 27th, 29th; and June the 3d, and 5th, 1784. In Commemoration of Handel.

London: Printed for the Benefit of the musical Fund; and sold by T. Payne and Son. 1785. First edition. 4to., pp. vii, [1], xvi, 8, *8, 9-20, *19-*24, 21-56, 21, [6], 26-41, [6], 46-90, [5], 94-139, [3], with the frontispiece and seven other engraved plates, two of them offering stunning views of Westminster Abbey during these vast concerts, and one being a full plan of the orchestra. Modest and inevitable foxing to the plates, but otherwise a very fine, uncut copy in recent full calf boards with five raised bands to the spine. Rothschild 544; Hazen, pp. 30-33; Chapman and Hazen, p. 161; Fleeman, p. 1570 (85.2BH/1a).


The great Handel Commemoration of 1784, marking the supposed centenary of the composer's death, was an event with out precedent in musical history. There were five performances, and five of the plates printed here were originally conceived as entrance tickets. On the morning of Wednesday 26 May 1784 at Westminster Abbey (where Handel is buried), 525 musicians and singers performed the Dettingen Te Deum, one of the Coronation Anthems, one of the Chandos Anthems, part of the Funeral Anthem, and a few shorter pieces. The next evening at the Pantheon a smaller group performed various songs and choruses, sacred and secular, four concertos, and an overture, and on the Saturday morning the full company returned to the Abbey to perform ‘Messiah’. So successful were the concerts in the Abbey that they were repeated in full the next week. The lavishly illustrated and finely printed volume recording the events was published under the close supervision of its dedicatee, the King, whose unscheduled suggestions for additional material led to numerous cancelations and thus, a series of confused paginations. The dedication was by Johnson, and according to Hazen was "probably the last work that [he] prepared for the press." The volume also contains Burney's 'Sketch' of the composer whom he had known personally since 1740. (8753)

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