The ‘Harmonious Blacksmith’ is the popular name for the last movement of Handel’s Suite No. 5 in E major (HWV 430) for harpsichord.
Handel did not give this name to his composition himself, though it is not clear exactly how it came about.
Whatever the origins of the name, it stuck; and in Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens, Herbert Pocket gives Pip the nickname ‘Handel’, because “We are so harmonious – and you have been a blacksmith”.
Please listen now to this great tune:
