Philip Eiffert (d.1792)
The earliest documented records of the oboist Philip (or Philipp) Eiffert show that he joined the Royal Society of Musicians in 1750, and performed in several concerts at the Holywell Room in Oxford between 1758 and 1762. His instrument was the baroque oboe, or hautboy (hautbois in France), on which he was apparently a skilled performer.
By 1765, Eiffert had moved to London and was playing in the King's Theatre band. In November 1781, the eighteenth century London newspaper Public Advertiser had noted that the King's Theatre band was 'as usual completely magnificent... Eiffert [is] the Hautboy.'
In 1784 Eiffert was one of the 525 musicians who performed in the series of five vast concerts held in Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon in London to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Handel's death. Unfortunately, confusion over the English Julian calendar led to Handel's gravestone in Westminster Abbey erroneously recording his birth year (in reality, 1685) as:
GEORGE FREDERIC HANDEL BORN YE 23 FEBRUARY 1684 DIED YE 14 OF APRIL 1759
The musical historian, Dr Charles Burney, therefore had some justification for his claim that 1784 also represented the centenary of Handel's birth - at least, in England!
Ref: Susan Wollenberg. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, Oxford University
