Handel House Museum - The Rooms of 25 Brook Street

The Rooms of 25 Brook Street

  • Rehearsal and performance room (first floor, front). This was used as a rehearsal room by Handel from the 1730s onwards. It contains portraits of contemporary singers and a reproduction of a two manual harpsichord by the Flemish firm Ruckers. The harpsichord is used for concerts and is also available for rehearsals by musicians from the general public.
  • Composition room (first floor, back). This is believed to be the room in which composed some of his most celebrated works, including Messiah. It contains portraits of Handel and Charles Jennens, Handel's friend and librettist of Messiah. This room usually contains a smaller harpsichord; while it is being repaired, a 1749 Joseph Mahoon spinet, similar to the spinet Handel is believed to have owned, is on display, on loan from a private collection.
  • London room (second floor, back). This served as Handel's dressing room and was originally connected to a small closet.
  • Bedroom (second floor, front). This is probably the room where Handel died. A complete inventory was made within months of his death. Amongst the furniture, it describes a large canopied tester bed similar to the one now in the room.

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