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Handel: The Harmonious Blacksmith
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Alan Titchmarsh's Great British Discovery
35. Handel: The Harmonious Blacksmith
The name of the final movement of Handel's Suite No. 5 in E major wasn't given by the composer. Was he inspired to write it upon hearing the hammer on an anvil in a smithy? Or did he hear a blacksmith singing the tune? Probably neither. In Dickens’s Great Expectations, Pip is given the nickname of Handel by in honour of his upbringing as a blacksmith, and in honour of this piece.
