Topic: George Frideric Handel – A Musical Journey from the Saale to the Thames
Speaker: Steffen Rieche, former church musician at St. Jakobus Church in Ilmenau
Time: Friday, May 8, 2026, 3:00 p.m.
Location: TU Ilmenau, Faraday Lecture Hall, Weimarer Straße 32, Access via Prof. Schmidt-Straße
Admission: 5 euros
“Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived. I would take off my hat and kneel at his grave,” said Ludwig van Beethoven in 1823. Four years later, at Handel’s deathbed, Beethoven referred to him as the “greatest and most talented of all composers,” from whom he could “still learn.” Steffen Rieche, a lecturer at the TU Ilmenau Bürgercampus, also pays tribute to the great Baroque composer in his lecture. Rieche, who served as cantor in Halle from 1982 to 1990, grew up, so to speak, on Handel’s music—Handel was born in Halle in 1685. Since virtually nothing is known about Handel’s private life, Rieche will shed light on Handel’s musical oeuvre—which, in turn, is vast—through music at the Bürgercampus.
Joseph Haydn also paid tribute to the brilliant composer shortly before his death: “Handel is the unrivaled master of all masters. Go and learn from him how to achieve powerful effects with simple means.” For his oratorio “The Creation,” Haydn diligently studied Handel’s “Messiah and Co.” Thus, Steffen Rieche, who served as a church musician in Ilmenau until 1997, takes the participants of the Bürgercampus on a musical study tour of the most important stages of Handel’s life—Halle, Hamburg, Italy, Hanover, and London—from the Saale to the Elbe, the Tiber, the Leine, and finally the Thames.
