Handel Commemoration
The original Handel Festival or "Commemoration" took place in Westminster Abbey between 26 May and 5 June 1784, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of George Frideric Handel in 1759. A series of further commemorations were held between 1785 and 1859.
1784 Commemoration
The commemoration was organized by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich and the Concerts of Antient Music and took the form of a series of concerts of Handel's music, given in the Abbey by vast numbers of singers and instrumentalists.Above Handel's own monument in the Abbey, there is a small additional tablet to record the commemoration. An account of the event was published by Charles Burney in the following year.
The commemoration established a fashion for large-scale performances of Handel's choral works throughout the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth. E.D. Mackerness described it as "the most important single event in the history of English music".