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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39671-8.txt b/39671-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..370750f --- /dev/null +++ b/39671-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8020 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Handel, by Romain Rolland + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Handel + +Author: Romain Rolland + +Translator: A. Eaglefield Hull + +Release Date: May 11, 2012 [EBook #39671] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANDEL *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL + +(_From a Portrait by Mercier in the possession of the Earl of +Malmesbury._) + +_Frontispiece._]] + + + + +HANDEL + +BY + +ROMAIN ROLLAND + +TRANSLATED BY +A. EAGLEFIELD HULL + +MUS. DOC. (OXON.) + +_WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR_ + +_17 MUSICAL ILLUSTRATIONS AND 4 PLATES_ + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +1916 + + + + +PREFACE + + +For a proper appreciation of the colossal work of Handel many years of +study and a book of some two hundred pages are very insufficient. To +treat at all adequately of Handel's life and work needs a whole lifetime +in itself, and even the indefatigable and enthusiastic Chrysander, who +devoted his life to this subject, has hardly encompassed the task.... I +have done what I could; my faults must be excused. This little book does +not pretend to be anything more than a very brief sketch of the life and +technique of Handel. I hope to study his character, his work, and his +times, more in detail in another volume. + +ROMAIN ROLLAND. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +HIS LIFE 1 + +HIS TECHNIQUE AND WORKS 111 + + (1) THE OPERAS 122 + + (2) THE ORATORIOS 134 + + (3) THE CLAVIER COMPOSITIONS 143 + + (4) THE CHAMBER MUSIC (SONATAS AND TRIOS) 154 + + (5) THE ORCHESTRAL WORKS 158 + + +APPENDICES-- + + LIST OF HANDEL'S WORKS 193 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 201 + +INDEX 204 + + + + +PLATES + + +PORTRAIT BY THORNHILL _frontispiece_ + +GEORGE I AND HANDEL'S WATER MUSIC _to face page_ 69 + +HANDEL'S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 107 + +HANDEL DIRECTING AN ORATORIO 165 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +BY THE EDITOR + + +Here in England we are supposed to know our Handel by heart, but it is +doubtful whether we do. Who can say from memory the titles of even six +of his thirty-nine operas, from whence may be culled many of his +choicest flowers of melody? M. Rolland rightly emphasises the importance +of the operas of Handel in the long chain of musical evolution, and it +seems impossible for anyone to lay down his book without having a more +all-round impression than heretofore of this giant among composers. + +M. Saint-Saëns once compared the position of a conductor in front of the +score of a Handel oratorio to that of a man who sought to settle with +his family in some old mansion which has been uninhabited for centuries. +The music was different altogether from that to which he was accustomed. +No nuances, no bowing, frequently no indication of rate, and often +merely a "sketched-in" bass.... Tradition only could guide him, and the +English, who alone could have preserved this, he considers, have lost +it. + +Can it be recovered to any extent, and, if so, how? + +Behind each towering figure of genius are to be found numbers of +eloquent men who prepared the way for him; and amongst these precursors +there is frequently discovered one who exercised a dominating influence +over the young budding genius. Such an influence was exercised by Zachau +on Handel, and M. Rolland rightly gives due importance to the +consideration of this old master's teachings and compositions, a careful +study of which should go far to supplying the right key to Handel's +music. One of the great shortcomings in the general musical listener is +a lack of the historical view of music. It is a long cry from Bach and +Handel to Debussy and Scriabin, but we shall be all the better for +looking well at both ends of the long musical chain which connects the +unvoiced expression of the past with the vague yet certain hopes of the +future. + +No doubt we have hardly yet recovered from the false position into which +we have all helped to place Handel. He was never the great Church +composer which has been assumed for so long. Perhaps, rather, he leaned +to the pagan side of life in his art. As Mr. Streatfeild says, "You can +no more call the _Messiah_ a work of art than you can call the _Book of +Common Prayer_ popular as a masterpiece of literature.... Handel the +preacher is laid for ever in the tomb, but Handel the artist with his +all-embracing sympathy for human things and his delight in the world +around him lives for evermore." Handel has been greatly, almost +wilfully, misrepresented; but he has played too great a part in the +history of English music to be cast aside on this account. It is true +that there are many difficulties in the way of a clearer understanding +of his music. A two-hundred years' overgrowth of vain vocal traditions +is not going to be torn away in the space of a few years. + +If the operas have been overlooked in favour of the oratorios, then his +instrumental music has been even more neglected on account of the +preponderance of his vocal movements. In a recent important contribution +to Handelian biography only a few pages are given to the instrumental +works. In this respect M. Rolland's clear and critical biography fills +in a distinct _hiatus_. + +Moreover, Handel sojourned in Germany, Italy, finally (and longest) in +England--but never in France. M. Rolland, therefore, a Frenchman and the +author of that brilliant work _Histoire de l'Opéra en Europe avant Lulli +et Scarlatti_, may, more than any other writer, be expected to bring a +freshness of vision and an impartial judgment to bear on Handel's works. +_And he has not disappointed us._ + +A. E. H. + + + + +GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL + + + + +HIS LIFE + + +The Handel family was of Silesian origin.[1] The grandfather, Valentine +Handel, was a master coppersmith at Breslau. The father, George Handel, +was a barber-surgeon, originally attached to the service of the armies +of Saxony, then of Sweden, later of the French Emperor, and finally in +the private service of Duke Augustus of Saxony. He was very rich, and +purchased at Halle in 1665 a beautiful house, which is still in +existence. He was married twice; in 1643 he married a widow of a barber, +who was ten years older than himself (he had six children by her); and +in 1683, the daughter of a pastor who was thirty years younger than he +was: he had four children by her, of which the second was George +Frederick. + +Both parents sprang from that good old _bourgeois_ stock of the +seventeenth century which was such excellent soil for genius and for +faith. Handel, the surgeon, was a man of gigantic stature, serious, +severe, energetic, religiously attached to duty, upright and affable in +his dealings with those around him. + +His portrait exhibits a large clean-shaven face which has the impression +of one who never smiled. The head is carried high, the eyes morose; +prominent nose and a pleasant but obstinate mouth; long hair with white +curls falling on his shoulders; black cap, collar of lace, and coat of +black satin: the aspect of a parliamentary man of his time.--The mother +was no less sturdy a character. Of a clerical family on the maternal +side as well as on the paternal side, with a spirit imbued with the +Bible, she had a calm courage, which came out prominently when the +country was ravaged by pestilence. Her sister and her elder brother were +both carried off by the plague; her father was also affected. She +refused to leave them and remained quietly at home. She was then engaged +to be married.--This sturdy couple transmitted to their distinguished +son in place of good looks (which he certainly had not, and which never +disquieted him) their physical and moral health, their stature, their +keen intelligence and common sense, their application to work, and the +indestructible essence of their quiet, calm spirit. + + * * * * * + +George Frederick Handel was born at Halle on Monday, February 23, +1685.[2] His father was then sixty-three years, and his mother +thirty-four.[3] + +The town of Halle occupied a singular political situation. It belonged +originally to the Elector of Saxony; by the Treaties of Westphalia it +was ceded to the Elector of Brandenburg; but it paid tribute to the Duke +Augustus of Saxony during his lifetime. After the death of Augustus in +1680, Halle passed definitely to Brandenburg; and in 1681 the Grand +Elector came to receive homage there. Handel then was born a Prussian; +but his father was in the service of the Duke of Saxony, and he retained +relationship with the son of Augustus, Johann Adolf, who moved his court +after the Prussian annexation to the neighbouring town of Weissenfels. +Thus the childhood of Handel was influenced by two intellectual forces: +the Saxon and the Prussian. Of the two the more aristocratic, and also +the more powerful was the Saxon. Most of the artists had emigrated with +the Duke to Weissenfels. It was there that the genial Heinrich Schütz +was born and died:[4] it was there that Handel found his first impetus, +and where the calling of the child was first recognized. The precocious +musical tendencies of the little George Frederick were somewhat curbed +by the formal opposition of his father.[5] The sturdy surgeon had more +than objection--he possessed an aversion to the profession of artist. +This sentiment was shared by nearly all the sturdy men of Germany. The +calling of musician was degraded by the unedifying spectacle of many +artists in the years of relaxation which followed the Thirty Years' +war.[6] Besides which, the _bourgeois_ German of the seventeenth century +had a very different idea of music from that of our French middle +classes of the nineteenth century. It was with them a mere art of +amusement, and not a serious profession. Many of the masters of that +time, Schütz, Rosenmüller, Kuhnau, were lawyers, or theologians, before +they devoted themselves to music; or they even followed for a time the +two professions. Handel's father wished his son to follow his own +profession, that of law; but a journey to Weissenfels overcame all his +objections. The Duke heard the little seven-year-old Handel play the +organ, with the result that he sent for the father to see him and +recommended him not to thwart the child's obvious musical talents. The +father, who had always taken these counsels very badly when they came +from anyone else, doubtless appreciated them when they came from the +lips of a prince; and without renouncing his own right over his son +(for he still had the legal plan in his head) consented to let him learn +music; and on his return to Halle he placed him under the best master in +the town, the organist Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau.[7] + + * * * * * + +Zachau was a broad-minded man and moreover a good musician, whose +greatness was only appreciated many years after his death.[8] His +influence on Handel was splendid. Handel himself did not conceal it.[9] +This influence affected the pupil in two ways: by his method of +teaching, and by his artistic personality. "The man was very well up in +his art," says Mattheson,[10] "and is possessed of as much talent as +beneficence." + + * * * * * + +Handel's devotion to Zachau was so great that he seemed never able to +show him sufficient affection and kindness. The master's first efforts +were devoted to giving the pupil a strong foundation in harmony. Then he +turned his thoughts towards the inventive side of the art; he showed +him how to give his musical ideas the most perfect form, and he refined +his taste. He possessed a remarkable library of Italian and German +music, and he explained to Handel the various methods of writing and +composing adopted by different nationalities, whilst pointing out the +good qualities and the faults of each composer; and in order that his +education might be at the same time theoretical and practical, he +frequently gave him exercises to work in such and such a style. + + * * * * * + +This education with a true European catholicity was not confined to one +particular musical style, but spread itself out over all schools, and +caused him to assimilate the best points of all, for who can fail to see +that the conception and practice of Handel, and indeed the very essence +of his genius, was the absorption of a hundred different styles! "One of +his manuscripts dated 1698, and preserved carefully all his life, +contains," so says Chrysander, "some airs, choruses, capriccios, and +fugues of Zachau, Alberti (Heinrich Albert), Froberger, Krieger, Kerl, +Ebner, Strungk, which he had copied out whilst studying with Zachau." +Handel could never forget these old masters, distinct traces of whom are +found from time to time in his best-known works.[11] He would doubtless +too, with Zachau, have seen the first volumes of the clavier works of +Kuhnau, which were published at that time.[12] + +Moreover, it seems that Zachau knew the work of Agostino Steffani,[13] +who later on took a fatherly interest in Handel; and Zachau followed +sympathetically the dramatic musical movement in Hamburg. Thus the +little Handel had, thanks to his master, a living summary of the musical +resources of Germany, old and new; and under his direction he absorbed +all the secrets of the great contrapuntal architects of the past, +together with the clear expressive and melodic beauty of the +Italian-German schools of Hanover and Hamburg. + +But the personal influence of the character and the art of Zachau +reacted no less strongly on Handel than did his methods of instruction. +One is struck by the relationship of his works[14] to those of Handel; +they are similar in character and style. The reminiscences of motives, +figures, and of subjects count for little;[15] there is the same essence +in the art of both master and pupil; there is the same feeling of light +and joy; there is nothing of the pious concentration and introspection +of Bach, who goes down into the deeps of thought, and who loves to probe +into all the innermost recesses of the heart, and--in silence and +solitude--converse with his God. The music of Zachau is the music of +great spaces, of dazzling frescoes, such as one sees on the domes of the +Italian cathedrals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but +Zachau's work contains more religion than these. His music pulses with +action like the bounding and rebounding of great springs of steel. It +has triumphant subjects with expositions of great solemnity. There are +victorious marches, carrying everything before them, which go crashing +on without stopping, ever spurring on the sparkling and joyous patterns. +There are also pastoral themes, pure and voluptuous reveries,[16] +dances, and songs accompanied by flutes, with a Grecian perfume,[17] and +a smiling virtuosity, a joy intoxicated with itself, twisting lines, and +vocal arabesques, vocalizations, trills for the voice which gambol +light-heartedly with the little wave-like arpeggios of the violins.[18] +Let us unite these two traits: the heroic and the pastoral, the +warriors' marches and the jubilant dances. There you have the Handelian +tableaux: the people of Israel and the women dancing before the +victorious army. You find in Zachau a sketch for the monumental +constructions of Handel in his Hallelujahs; those mountains of sound +which resound their joy, the colossal _Amens_ which crown his oratorios +like the dome of St. Peter at Rome.[19] + +Add to this also Zachau's marked liking for instrumental music,[20] +which makes him combine it so happily with the vocal solos; and very +often he imagines the voice as an instrument, which combines and gambols +with the other instruments, thus forming a decorative garland +harmoniously woven. + +To sum up, it was an art less intimate than expansive, an art newly +born; not devoid of emotion though,[21] but above all, restful, strong, +and happy--an optimistic music like that of Handel. + +Truly Handel in miniature, with much less breadth, less richness of +invention, and particularly a smaller power of development. There is +nothing of the attractiveness of Handel's colossal movements, like an +army which marches and sings; and more solid strength is necessary to +carry the weight right to the end without bending. Zachau flinches on +his way; he has not the vital force of Handel, but in compensation he +has more _naïveté_, more tender candour, more of the childlike +chasteness and evangelic grace.[22] Certainly there we have the master +really necessary to Handel, a master more than one great man had the +good fortune to find (it is Giovanni Santi for Raphael; it is Neefe for +Beethoven): good, simple, straightforward, a little dull, but giving a +steady and gentle light where the youth may dream in peace and abandon +himself with confidence to a guide almost fraternal, who does not seek +to dominate him, but rather strives to fan the little flame into a +greater fire; to turn the little rivulet of music into the mighty river +of genius. + + * * * * * + +Whilst studying with Zachau the young Handel visited Berlin. After +having paid his homage to his former master, the Elector of Saxony, he +was wise enough also to present himself to the new one, the Elector of +Brandenburg. It seems that this journey took place about 1696 when the +boy was eleven years old, and his father, being ill, did not accompany +him. + +The Berlin Court lived a very short life of artistic brilliance between +the wars of the Grand Elector and those of the Prince-Regent. Music was +greatly in honour, thanks to the Electress, Sophia Charlotte, daughter +of the celebrated Sophia of Hanover. She attracted to her the best +Italian instrumentalists, singers, and composers.[23] She founded the +Berlin Opera,[24] and even conducted several concerts at Court. +Doubtless the movement was but superficial. It was only held together by +the impulse of the Electress, who had more spirit than earnestness. Art +was for her only a fond distraction; so that after her death the musical +_fêtes_ in Berlin became extinct. But it was something to have lighted, +only for a brief hour, this flame of beautiful Italian art, and it was +thus that the little Handel came into contact for the first time with +the music of the South.[25] The child, who displayed his powers on the +clavecin before a princely audience, had so much success that the +Elector of Brandenburg wished him to enter his service. He offered +Handel's father to send the child to Italy to finish his studies. The +old man refused. "He had a stubborn pride, and did not desire," so says +Mainwaring, "that his son should be tied too soon to a Prince." He +wished to see his child again, as he considered that he himself might +die at any moment. + +Little Handel returned. Too late! He learnt _en route_ that his father +had died on February 11, 1697. The principal obstacle in the way of his +musical vocation had now disappeared, but he had so profound a respect +for his father's wishes that he forced himself to study law for many +more years. After having completed in due course his classes at the +college he was entered for the Faculty of Law at the University of Halle +on February 10, 1702, five years after his father's death. + +University life in Halle at that time was of a revolting character. But, +in spite of this, an intense life of thought and religion was also to be +found there. The Faculty of Theology was the centre of Pietism.[26] The +students devoted themselves to religious exercises which led to +ecstasy.--Handel, independent as he always was, kept clear of the brutal +amusements, just as he did of the mystic contemplation. He was religious +without being sentimental. For the rest, an artist could only listen to +the Pietists with difficulty, for their religious devotion was too often +oppressive to art. Even J. S. Bach, Pietist at heart, by his public acts +declared himself opposed to the Pietists, who were on certain marked +occasions inimical to music.[27] For a still stronger reason Handel had +no leaning towards mysticism. + +Religion was not his business; Law certainly was not. However, he had +for his master the most remarkable professor in Germany, Christian +Thomasius, the advocate in the arraignment of witchcraft,[28] the +reformer of the teaching of law, who himself made a thorough study of +German customs, and who did not cease to make battle with the gross and +stupid abuses of the universities, with their spirit of caste, pedantry, +ignorance, hypocrisy, and judicial and religious acerbity. If such a +training was not of the nature to retain Handel it was certainly not the +fault of the professor; there were no more vital lessons in the whole +of the Germany of that day; none which offered a more fruitful field of +activity to a young man. Let us be sure that a Beethoven would not have +been insensible to them. But Handel was a pure musician; he was music +itself; nothing else could occupy his thoughts. + +In the year in which he had completed his terms in the Faculty of Law he +found a post of organist at Halle: and in a church more than strictly +Lutheran, being of the Reformed order, where the organist had expressly +to conform to the new cult. However, he was only seventeen years +old.[29] This simple fact showed what musical authority he already +exercised in the town where he had studied law.[30] Not only was he +organist, but he was also Professor at the College of the Reformists; he +took vocal music there for two hours every week; he selected the most +gifted of his pupils and formed from them a vocal and instrumental body +which was to be heard every Sunday in one church or another of the town. +He included in his musical repertoire, chorales, Psalms, motets, +cantatas--which were changed every Sunday. Truly an excellent school for +learning to write quickly and well. Handel there formed his creative +fecundity.[31] Of hundreds of cantatas which he then wrote, none were +preserved by him.[32] But it is certain that his memory retained more +than one idea to serve in later compositions, for he never lost +anything, and from that time for the rest of his life he retained in his +mind his earlier musical ideas. This should not be attributed to his +speed in working, but to the unity of his thought and his strenuous +search for perfection. + +Handel renewed neither his yearly engagement at the Cathedral of Halle +nor at the University. In his period as organist he had gauged his own +musical force and he no longer wished to constrain it. A wider field of +activity was necessary. He quitted Halle in the spring of 1703, and +guided both by his instincts and by a preference of his master +Zachau[33] he betook himself to Hamburg, the city of German Opera. + +Hamburg was the Venice of Germany. A free town far from the noise of +wars, a refuge of artists, and people of large fortunes, the centre of +the commerce of Northern Europe, a cosmopolitan city where they spoke +all languages and especially the French tongue, it was in continual +relationship with both England and Italy, and particularly with Venice, +which constituted for it a model for emulation. It was by way of Hamburg +that the English ideas were circulated in Germany. It was there where +the first German newspapers appeared.[34] In the time of Handel, Hamburg +shared with Leipzig the intellectual prestige of Germany. There was no +other place in Germany where music was held in such high esteem.[35] The +artists there hobnobbed with the rich merchants. Christoph, pupil of +Schütz, had founded there a celebrated Collegium Musicum, a Society of +Musicians, and started there in 1677-8 the first theatre of German +Opera. It was not a princely opera open only to those invited by the +prince, but a public opera, popular in spirit and in prices. It was the +example of Italy, notably that of Venice, which called forth this +foundation, but the spirits of the two theatres were very different. +Whilst that of Venice satisfied itself with fantastic melodramas, +curiously devised from the ancient mythology and history, the Hamburg +Opera retained, despite the grossness of taste and licentiousness of +manners, an old religious foundation. The Hamburg opera was inaugurated +in 1678 by the production of Joh. Theile's _Creation of the World_. The +composer was a pupil of Schütz. From 1678 to 1692 a large number of +religious dramas were given there; some of an allegorical character, +others inspired by the Bible. In certain of these subjects one can +already see the future oratorios of Handel.[36] Feeble as these pieces +were, they were yet on the definite road for the founding of a real +German theatre. It seems to have been the idea of one of these poets, +Pastor Elmenhorst, who wished to give to the religious opera the value +of a classic form of art.[37] Unfortunately, the public spirit was on +the decline; its religious resources, however, were well protected, save +in a minority where religion took a more aggressive character as it felt +itself less able to hold people. There were two factions in the Hamburg +public; one (the most numerous) whom religion bored, and who wished to +amuse themselves at the theatre. The other party was religious and would +not have anything to do with the opera under the impression that it was +a work of Satan, _opera diabolica_.[38] The struggle was warmly +contested between the two factions, and religious opera came to grief. +The last representation took place in 1692. When Handel arrived it was +truly the _opera diabolica_ which ran with its many extravagances and +its licentious habits. + +I have told elsewhere[39] the story of this period of theatrical history +in Hamburg, of which the golden age was certainly between 1692 and 1703. +Many conditions contributed to the establishment of a good Theatre and +Opera at Hamburg; money and the wealthy patrons disposed to expend it, +an excellent band of instruments, good but small in number, a scenic art +well advanced, a luxury of decoration and machinery, renowned poets, +musicians of great value, and, rarest of all, the poets and musicians +who assembled from "die sich wohl verstanden," as Mattheson wrote. The +poets were named Bressand of Wolfenbüttel, who was inspired by the +French theatre, and Christian Postel, whom Chrysander calls very +complacently a German Metastasio. The feeblest part was the singing. For +a long time the Hamburg Opera had no professional singers. The _rôles_ +were taken by students and artisans, by shoemakers, tailors, fruiterers, +and girls of little talent and less virtue; generally the artisans found +it more convenient themselves to take the female _rôles_. Men and women +alike had a profound ignorance of music. Towards 1693 the Opera at +Hamburg was fortunately completely transformed from top to bottom by the +great Kapellmeister Sigismund Cousser, who introduced reforms in the +orchestra after the French model, and in the singing on Italian lines. +France was represented in his eyes (as for all foreign musicians) by the +personage of Lully, by whom Cousser was trained for six years in Paris. +Italy was represented by a remarkable artist settled at Hanover from +1689 to 1696, who produced ten operas; Agostino Steffani from the +province of Venice. + +This dual model from Italy and France, aided by the personal example of +Cousser, played the chief part in producing the best musician of the +Hamburg Opera, Reinhard Keiser, a man who, despite his character and +presumptuous knowledge, had certainly genius.[40] + +Keiser was under thirty years old when Handel arrived, but he was then +at the zenith of his fame. Kapellmeister of the Hamburg Opera since +1695, then director of the theatre since the end of 1702, very highly +gifted, but of scanty culture, dissipated, voluptuous, careless, he was +the incontestable ruler of the German Opera; the artist type of that +epoch, overflowing with material life, and devoting itself to the love +of pleasure. The influence of both Lully[41] and that of Steffani[42] is +shown in his first operas. But his own personality is easily +recognizable under these traces of borrowing. He has a very fine sense +of instrumental colour, widely differing from that of the followers of +Lully, who were a little disdainful of expressive power in the +orchestra, and were always disposed to sacrifice it to the primacy of +the voice.[43] He believed, as did his admirer and commentator, +Mattheson, that one can express the feelings by means of the orchestra +alone.[44] + +He was, moreover, a true master of _recitative_; one might say that he +created the German _recitative_. He attached extreme importance to it, +saying that the expression in _recitative_ often gave the intelligent +composer much more trouble than the invention of the air.[45] He sought +to note with exactitude, accent, punctuation, the living breath itself, +without sacrificing anything of the musical beauty. His _Recitative +arioso_ takes an intermediate place between the oratorical _recitative_ +of the French, and the _recitative secco_ of the Italians, and was one +of the models for the _recitative_ of J. S. Bach,[46] and even not +excepting Bach and Handel, Mattheson persists in seeing in Keiser the +master of this style.--But the real supreme gift of Keiser was his +melodic invention. In that he was one of the first artists in Germany, +and the Mozart of the first part of the eighteenth century. He had an +abundant and winning inspiration. As Mattheson said, "His true nature +was tenderness, love...." From the commencement to the end of his career +he could reproduce voluptuous feelings with such exquisite art that no +one could surpass him. His melodic style, much more advanced than that +of Handel--not only at this particular epoch but at any moment of his +life--is free, unsophisticated and happy. It is not the contrapuntal +style of Handelian Opera, but it inclines rather to that of Hasse (who +was trained entirely in it), to the symphonists of Mannheim, and to +Mozart. Never has Handel, greater and more perfect as he was, possessed +the exquisite note which breathes in the melodies of Keiser--that fresh +perfume of the simple flower of the field.[47] Keiser had the taste for +popular songs and rustic scenes,[48] but he knew also how to rise to the +very summits of classical tragedy, and some of his airs of stately +grief might have been written by Handel himself.[49] Keiser was, then, +full of lessons and of models for Handel, who was not slow to take +them,[50] but he also set him several bad examples too. The worst was +the renunciation of the national language. Whilst Postel and Schott had +been at the head of the Hamburg Opera the Italian language had been kept +within bounds,[51] but since Keiser had become Director he had changed +all that. In his _Claudius_ (1703) he made the first barbarous attempt +at a mixture of Italian and German languages. It was for him a pure +fanfare of virtuosity, and he wished to show, as he explained in his +Preface, that he was capable of beating the Italians on their own +ground. He took no account of the detriment to German Opera. Handel, +following his example, mixes, in his first operas, the airs with Italian +words with those set to German words.[52] Since that time he no longer +wrote Italian operas; and after that, his musical theatre was without +foundation and without public. The sanction of this error resulted in +Germany's neglect of Keiser's operas and even of those of Handel, +despite the genius of both composers. + + * * * * * + +Handel arrived at Hamburg during the summer of 1703. One can imagine him +there at that time of life as in the portrait painted by Thornhill, +which is in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge: a long face, calm, but +a little coarse, large and serious eyes, large and straight nose, ample +forehead, vigorous mouth, with thick lips, cheeks and chin already full, +very straight head without wig, and covered with a biretta after the +manner of Wagner. "He was rich in power, and strong in will," says +Mattheson, who, by the way, was the first acquaintance he made in +Hamburg. Mattheson, who was then twenty-two,[53] four years older than +Handel, came from a rich Hamburg family, and possessed vast knowledge. +He spoke English, Italian, French, was trained for the law, well +grounded in music, could play nearly all the instruments, and wrote +operas, of which he was the poet, the composer, and the actor all in +one. Above all he was a master theorist, and the most energetic critic +of German music. With an immense _amour-propre_ and many passionate +dislikes, he had a robust spirit, very sound, and very honest, a sort of +Boileau or of Lessing in music half a century before _la Dramaturgie_. +On the one side he combated scholastic routine and abstract science in +the name of nature, and laid down the rule that "music is that which +sounds well" ("Musik müsse schön klingen").[54] He played his part in +the banishment of the obsolete theories (solmisation, ecclesiastical +modes) and the definition of our modern system.[55] On the other hand, +he was the champion of German art and German spirit. From Lessing he +derived his patriotism, his rough independence, his impetuosity, which +seemed to possess a violence almost brutal. All his books cry "Fuori +Barbari."[56] One of his works was entitled _The Musical Patriot_ (_Der +Musikalische Patriot_, 1728). + +In 1722 he founded the first German musical journal, _Critica +Musica_,[57] and all his life he waged a vigorous war for good sense, +real musical intelligence, music which speaks to the heart and not to +the ear, moving and strengthening the soul of the intelligent man with +beautiful thoughts and melodies.[58] He saw in music a religious +idea.[59] By his wide culture, his knowledge of the artistic theories of +the past, his familiarity with all the important French and Italian +works, his relationships with the principal German masters, with Keiser, +Handel, J. S. Bach, by his rich practical experience, his acute critical +sense, his ardent patriotism, his virile and flowing language, he was +well fitted to be the great musical educator of Germany, and he +accomplished his task well. In the dispersion of German artists which +took place then, in addition to the many vicissitudes of their work, +there was chiefly lacking a support of political solidarity which could +cause music to rise above the fluctuations of the tastes of little towns +and the small coteries. Mattheson was then for half a century the sole +tribune of German music, the intellect where thoughts concentrated from +all quarters, and from him radiated an influence over all the country +in return. It was thus that he preserved the ideas of Keiser, which +apart from him would have fallen into oblivion without leaving any +traces of their existence. It was these traces that he rescued out of +the _débâcle_ and preserved for us--a multitude of imperishable +souvenirs for the musical history of the eighteenth century--which +Mattheson gathered together and published in his monumental +_Ehrenpforte_.[60] He acted powerfully on his times. His books laid down +the law for the Kapellmeisters, the Cantors, the organists, and the +teachers. + +His criticisms, his advice on style in singing, on gesture in acting, +were no less efficacious. He possessed the real "theatre" feeling. He +expected life in the stage action, attaching considerable importance to +the pantomime "which is a silent music."[61] He waged war against the +impossible action and the want of intelligence amongst the German +singers and choralists, and he desired that the composer should think +always in writing of the action of the player. "The knowledge of facial +expression by the actors on the stage," says he, "can often be a source +of good musical ideas."[62] This is indeed the language of a true man of +the theatre.[63] For the rest, Mattheson was too good a musician to +serve music in words. He sought to unite them by safeguarding the +independence of both, but ended by giving the preference to the soul +over the body, the melody over the words. The words he wrote are the +body of the discourses; the thoughts are the soul; the melody is the sun +shining on the soul, the marvellous atmosphere which envelops it all. We +have said enough to give some idea of this great critic, intelligent and +intrepid, who, with many faults, has yet many virtues. One will see how +important it was to the young Handel to meet such a guide, even though +they were both too original and too self-sufficient for the association +to last long. + + * * * * * + +Mattheson did Handel the honours of Hamburg. He introduced him at the +Opera, and the concerts, and it was through him that Handel entered for +the first time into negotiations with England, which was to become his +second country.[64] They helped one another mutually. Handel had +already an exceptional power on the organ, and in fugue and +counterpoint; above all, in improvisation. He shared his knowledge with +Mattheson, who in return helped him to perfect his melodic style. +Mattheson believed him to be a very feeble melodist. He wrote his +melodies at that time, "Oh, long, long, long" (_sehr lange lange +Arien_), and cantatas without end, which had neither ability nor good +taste, but perfect harmony.[65] It is very remarkable that melody was +not a natural gift with Handel, for he now appears to us as a melodic +genius. It is not necessary to believe that the simple, beautiful +melodies rushed forth without effort from his brain. The melodies of +Beethoven, which seem the most spontaneous, cost him years of thoughtful +work during which he brooded continually over them, and so Handel also +only came to his full power of melodic expression after years of severe +discipline, where he learnt as an apprentice-sculptor to model beautiful +forms, and to leave them neither complex nor unfinished. + +Handel and Mattheson spent several months in intimate friendship.[66] +Handel joined Mattheson at table for meals, and in July and August, +1703, they made a journey together to Lubeck to hear the renowned +organist, Dietrich Buxtehude.[67] Buxtehude had thoughts of retiring, +and was looking for a successor. The two young men were greatly affected +by his talent, but they did not care to succeed him in the post, for it +was necessary to wed his daughter[68] to have his organ, and, said +Mattheson, "neither of them wanted her."--Two years later they would +have met on the road to Lubeck a young musician also going, like them, +to pay Buxtehude a visit, not like them, however, in a carriage, but +more humbly on foot: J. S. Bach.[69] Nothing makes us realise the +importance of Buxtehude in German music better than this magnet-like +attraction which he exercised over the German musicians of the +eighteenth century. Pirro has remarked at some length his influence on +the organ style of J. S. Bach. I consider that it was no less marked, +though quite different, on the oratorio style of Handel.[70] + +Buxtehude gave at St. Mary's Church, Lubeck, his celebrated +_Abendmusiken_ (evening concerts), which took place on Sundays from St. +Martin's Day to Christmas,[71] by the request of the Merchants' Guilds +at Lubeck, which occupied themselves keenly with music.[72] His +cantatas, of which the number is considerable,[73] were all composed for +these occasions. Writing for a concert public, and not for a religious +service, he felt the need of making his music of a kind which would +appeal to everyone. Handel later on found himself in similar +circumstances, and the same need led them both to a similar technique. +Buxtehude avoided in his music the ornate and clustering polyphony which +was really his _métier_.[74] He sought nothing but clear, pleasing, and +striking designs, and even aimed at descriptive music. He willingly +sacrificed himself, by intensifying his expression, and what he lost in +abundance he gained in power. The homophonic character of his writing, +the neatness of his beautiful melodic designs of a popular clarity,[75] +the insistence of the rhythms and the repetition of phrases which sink +down into the heart in so obsessive a manner, are all essentially +Handelian traits. No less is the magnificent triumph of the ensembles, +his manner of painting in bold masses of light and shade.[76] It is to a +very high degree, as with the art of Handel, music for everyone. + +But much time passed before Handel profited by the examples of +Buxtehude. On his return from Lubeck he seems to have forgotten them. It +was not so, however, for nothing was ever lost on him. + +At the end of August, 1703, Handel entered the Hamburg orchestra as a +second violinist. He loved to amuse himself amongst his kind, and he +often made himself appear more ignorant than he was. "He behaved," said +Mattheson, "as if he did not even know how to count five, for he was a +'dry stick.'"[77] That year at Hamburg, Reiser's _Claudius_ was given at +the Opera, and many of the phrases registered themselves in Handel's +marvellous memory.[78] + +When the season was finished, Mattheson made a journey to Holland, and +Handel profited by the absence of his young adviser to assert his own +individuality. He had made the acquaintance of the poet Postel, who, +old, ill, and troubled by religious scruples, had given up the writing +of opera _libretti_, and no longer wished to compose anything but sacred +works. Postel furnished Handel with the text for a _Passion according to +Saint John_, which Handel set to music, and performed during Holy Week +in 1704.[79] Mattheson, piqued at the _volte face_ which had happened in +his relationship with Handel, criticised the music severely, but not +unjustly.[80] Despite the intense feeling of certain pages, and the fine +dramatic nature of the choruses, the work was uneven, and occasionally +lacked good taste. + +From this moment the friendship between Handel and Mattheson was +finished. Handel became conscious of his own genius, and could no longer +stand the protectorship of Mattheson. Other occurrences aggravated the +misunderstanding, which ended in a quarrel, which narrowly escaped a +fatal issue.[81] Following the altercation at the Opera on December 5, +1704, they fought a duel in the market-place at Hamburg, and Handel only +escaped being killed by a stroke of luck: for Mattheson's sword snapped +on a large metal button on Handel's coat, after which they embraced, and +the two companions, reconciled by Keiser, took part together in the +rehearsals of _Almira_, the first opera of Handel.[82] The first +representation took place on January 8, 1705, and the work was a +brilliant success. A second opera of Handel, _Nero_[83] was played on +February 25 following, but it had not quite the success of _Almira_. +Handel himself occupied the placards of the opera during the whole of +the winter season. It was a fine _début_. Too fine indeed, and Keiser +became jealous of him. The Hamburg Opera, however, was gradually waning. +Keiser gaily led it to its ruin. He led the life of a gay libertine, +and all the artists around him rivalled him in his follies. Alone Handel +held aloof from the follies, working hard, and spending only what was +barely necessary.[84] After the success of these two operas he resigned +his post as second violin and clavecinist to the orchestra, but +continued to give lessons, and his reputation as a composer kept pace +with that of his teaching. Keiser was uneasy. Handel's increasing +reputation aroused his _amour-propre_. Nothing was more stupid, however, +than his jealousy. He was Director of the Opera, and it was in his +interest to give those pieces which were written by popular composers, +and to maintain relationships with successful composers, but jealousy +knows no reason. He reset _Almira_ and _Nero_ to music in order to put +Handel out of joint,[85] and as he had not the opportunity of publishing +his opera _in toto_ he hastily printed the most taking solos from +each.[86] But, however quickly he went, his downfall followed faster. +Before the volume of his opera airs appeared he had to fly. This was in +the end of 1706.[87] Handel and he were destined never to meet again. + + * * * * * + +Keiser having brought disaster to the Hamburg Opera, there was nothing +left to keep Handel in that city. The direction of the theatre had +fallen into the hands of a Philistine, who, to make money, played +musical farces. He certainly commissioned Handel for the opera _Florindo +und Daphne_, but he mutilated the work on its presentation "for fear," +so he said in the Preface of the libretto, "that the music might tire +the hearers"; and lest the public should find the work too serious, he +intersected it with a farce in low German, _Die lustige Hochzeit_ (The +Joyous Wedding). One can well understand that Handel was little +interested in his piece so disfigured, and that he did not himself +attend the production, but quitted Hamburg. It was about the autumn of +1706 that he made the journey to Italy.[88] It was not, however, that +Italy particularly attracted him. Strange to say--it is not unique in +the history of art--this man, who was later on to be caught by the +fascination of Italy, and secure an European musical triumph in the +beautiful Italian style, had then a very strong repugnance for the +foreign art. When _Almira_ was being given, he made the acquaintance of +the Italian prince, Giovanni Gastone dei Medici, brother of the Grand +Duke of Tuscany.[89] He was astonished that Handel interested himself so +little in the Italian musicians, and bought him a collection of their +best works, offering to take him to Florence to hear them performed. But +Handel refused, saying that he could find nothing in these works which +deserved the Prince's eulogies, and that angels would be necessary to +sing them in order to make such mediocre things sound even +agreeable.[90] This disdain of Italy was not peculiar to Handel. It +characterised his generation, and above all, the cult of German +musicians who lived at Hamburg. Before then, and later on, the +fascination of Italy took hold of Germany. Even Hasler, Schütz, Hasse, +Gluck, and Mozart made long and earnest pilgrimages to that country, but +on the other hand J. S. Bach, Keiser, Mattheson, and Telemann never went +there. The Hamburg musicians truly wished to assimilate the Italian art, +but they never wished to place themselves under the thraldom of the +Italian school. They had the laudable ambition of creating a German +style independent of foreign influences. Handel shared these great +hopes, sustained for a time by the theatre at Hamburg, but the sudden +collapse of this theatre made him see little ground on which to build up +the taste of the musical public in Germany, and against his own +inclinations, he turned his eyes towards that habitual refuge of German +artists: Italy, which the older ones so affected to disdain, that +country where music expanded itself in the sun, where it was not cheated +out of its right of existence as with the Hamburg Pietists. It +flourished in all the Italian cities, and in all classes of Italian +society with the transports of love. And all around it was an +efflorescence of the other arts, a superior civilization, a life smiling +and radiant, of which Handel had some foretaste in his dealings with the +Italian nobles who passed through Hamburg. + +He departed. His leaving was so brusque that his friends knew nothing of +it. He did not even say good-bye to Mattheson. + +The period at which he arrived in Italy was not the most fortunate. The +war for the Spanish Succession was in full swing, and Handel met at +Venice, in the winter of 1706, Prince Eugène and his staff-major, who +were resting after their victorious campaign in Lombardy. He did not +stay there, but went right on to Florence, where he remained till the +end of the year.[91] + +Doubtless he bore these offers of protection in mind which the Prince +Gastone dei Medici had made him. Was such protection as useful to Handel +as he had hoped? One may be allowed to doubt it. In truth the son of the +Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, was a musician. He played the clavier +well;[92] he had caused an opera house to be built in his villa at +Pratolino; he chose the _libretti_, advised the composers, corresponded +with Alessandro Scarlatti, but he had never a very reliable taste. He +found Scarlatti's style too learned. He begged him to write some easier +music, and, as far as possible, lighter.[93] He himself did not continue +the fastidiousness of the Medici, his ancestors. He somewhat stinted his +outlay on music. He decided not to appoint Scarlatti his chapel-master, +and when this great artist asked for money at a period of embarrassment +he responded "that he would pray for him."[94] One can scarcely believe +that he was less economical in his dealings with Handel, who had less +reputation than Scarlatti. He seems to have paid little attention to him +during his first visit. The Prince himself seemed out of his element in +this new world. It was necessary for him to catch up with his times. +Handel certainly wrote some cantatas, only one of which, _Lucretia_, +with a dramatic character, was very popular in Italy and in Germany +later on.[95] Its style was nearly completely German. + +From Florence he went to Rome for the Easter festivals in April, 1707. +Even there the moment was not very favourable for him. The Grand Opera +House, the _Tor di Nona_, had been destroyed as immoral by an edict of +Pope Innocent XII ten years before. Since 1700, things had been a little +easier for the musicians, but in 1703 a terrible earthquake had +desolated the country, and reawakened religious qualms.[96] Even in +1709, during the whole of Handel's sojourn in Italy, there was not a +single representation of Opera at Rome. On the other hand, religious +music and chamber music were enjoying a great vogue. Handel, during the +first months, listened and studied the religious music at Rome, and +tried his hand on similar works. From this period dated his Latin +Psalms.[97] Thanks to the letters of recommendation he had from the +Medici, he had also been introduced into the Roman _salons_. He became +famous there, more on account of his _virtuoso_ powers on the keyboard +than of those of composer. He remained at Rome until the autumn of +1707.[98] Doubtless, he returned to Florence in the month of October, +and it appears that he then produced _Roderigo_ for the first time. +Handel had then been nearly a year in Italy. He set about writing an +opera in Italian. His boldness was justified. _Roderigo_ was successful. +Handel gained through it the favour of the Grand Duke, and the love of +the Prima Donna, Vittoria Tarquini.[99] Fortified by his first victory +he went on to try his luck at Venice. + +Venice was then the musical metropolis of Italy. It was in a way the +real kingdom of Opera. The first public opera house had been already +open there for half a century, and after it, fifteen other opera houses +had sprung into being. During the Carnival no less than seven opera +houses were open each evening there. Every night also a musical union +was held at the Academy of Music, and occasionally twice or even three +times in one evening. Every day in the churches, musical solemnities +and concerts, which lasted for many hours, with several orchestras, many +organs, and numerous full and echo choirs,[100] and on Saturday and +Sunday the famous Vespers of the Hospitals, those conservatoires for +women where they taught music to orphans and foundlings, or, more +frequently, to the girls who had fine voices. They gave orchestral and +vocal concerts, over which all Venice raved. Venice, indeed, was bathed +in music, the entire life was threaded with it. Life was a perpetual +round of pleasure. + +When Handel arrived, the greatest of the Italian musicians, Alessandro +Scarlatti, was about to produce at St. John Chrysostom's Theatre his +chief work, _Mitridate Eupatore_, one of the rare Italian operas of +which the dramatic beauty is on a par with the musical value. Was +Alessandro Scarlatti still in Venice when Handel met him? We do not +know, but in any case he encountered him at Rome some months later, and +it appears that at that time Handel was tied by bonds of friendship to +the son of Alessandro,--Domenico.[101] He also made many other +encounters in Venice, which were destined to change his life. The +Prince of Hanover, Ernest Augustus, and the Duke of Manchester, the +English Ambassador Extraordinary at Venice, were both passionate +music-lovers, and interested themselves in Handel. The first invitations +which Handel received to go to Hanover, and to London, dated doubtless +from that time. + +But if the visit to Venice was not fruitless to the future of Handel, it +brought him very little at the time. Handel could produce nothing at any +of the seven opera houses.[102] He was much happier at Rome, where he +returned at the beginning of March, 1708.[103] The renown of his +_Roderigo_ had preceded him. All the Italian merchants strove to receive +him with honour. He was the guest of the Marquis Ruspoli, whose gardens +on the Esquilino formed the bond of reunion for the Academy of the +Arcadians.[104] Handel found himself agreeably placed amongst the most +illustrious men which Italy boasted in literature, the arts, and in the +aristocracy. Arcadia, which united the nobility and the artists,[105] in +a spiritual brotherhood, counted amongst its members, Alessandro +Scarlatti, Archangelo Corelli, Bernardo Pasquini, and Benedetto +Marcello.[106] A similar _élite_ society was found at the _soirées_ of +the Cardinal Ottoboni.[107] Every Monday, in the palace of Ottoboni, as +at the meetings of the Arcadia, concerts and poetical recitations were +given. The Cardinal Prince, Superintendent of the Pontifical chapel, had +in his service the finest orchestra in Italy,[108] and the singers of +the Sistine Chapel. At the Arcadia there was also to be heard a numerous +orchestra, under the direction of Corelli, of Pasquini, or of Scarlatti. +Musical and poetical improvisation was also given there. It was that +which provoked the artistic jousts between poets and musicians.[109] It +was for the concerts at the palace of Ottoboni that Handel wrote his +two Roman oratorios, _The Resurrection_ and _The Triumph of Time and +Truth_,[110] which were really but disguised operas. One finds traces of +the Arcadia _coterie_ in the compositions which are perhaps the most +characteristic of this period in the life of Handel: the Italian +cantatas,[111] of which the reputation spread itself very wide, for J. +S. Bach made a copy of one of them before 1715.[112] Handel passed three +or four months at Rome. He was friendly with Corelli, and with the two +Scarlattis, especially with the son, Domenico, who made many trials of +virtuosity with him.[113] Perhaps he also played with Bernardo Pasquini, +whom he doubtless heard more than once on his organ at Great St. Mary's. +He was interested in the life of the Vatican, and they tried to convert +him to Catholicism, but he refused. Such was the friendly tolerance +which prevailed then at the Court of Rome that, notwithstanding the war +between the Pope and Emperor, this refusal did not alter the friendly +relationships between the young German Lutheran and the Cardinals, his +patrons. He became so attached to Rome, that it was difficult for him to +leave it until the war which approached the city obliged him to take his +way in the month of May or June, 1708, to Naples. One of the Italian +cantatas entitled _Partenza_ shows his grief at leaving the lovely +banks, the dear walls, and the beautiful waters of the Tiber. + +Soon after his arrival at Naples, Alessandro Scarlatti returned to +settle there after seven years of absence.[114] + +Thanks to this friendship, and his membership of the Arcadia, Handel was +received into the best circles of Neapolitan society. He remained at +Naples for nearly a year, from June, 1708, to the spring of 1709, +enjoying princely hospitality, "which placed at his disposal," says +Mainwaring, "a palace, a well-supplied table, and a coach." If the +softness of the Italian life enervated him, he appears to have wasted no +time. Not only did he assimilate the style of his friend Corelli--he +conceived in Italy a passionate love of pictures[115]--but he attempted +with a carefully cultivated dilettantism the most diverse styles, with +which the cosmopolitan society of Naples amused its careless curiosity. +Spanish and French influence fought for the honours of this city. +Handel, as indifferent as Scarlatti to the victory of either of these +parties, tried to write in the style of both.[116] He interested himself +also in the Italian popular songs and noted down the rustic melodies of +the Calabrian _Pifferari_.[117] For the Arcadians of Naples he wrote his +beautiful serenata, _Acis and Galatea_.[118] Finally he had the good +fortune to please the Viceroy of Naples--the Cardinal Grimani. He was a +Venetian and his family owned the theatre of San Grisostomo at Venice. +Grimani wrote for Handel the libretto of the opera _Agrippina_, of which +Handel probably composed part of the music at Naples. A similar +collaboration assured it of being produced at Venice without trouble. + +He left Naples in the springtime, and returned to Rome, where he met, at +the Palace of the Cardinal Ottoboni, Bishop Agostino Steffani, who by a +curious combination of attributes was at the same time Kapellmeister at +the Court of Hanover, and charged with secret missions by different +German princes.[119] Steffani was one of the most finished musicians of +his time. He established a firm friendship with Handel, possibly when +travelling together to Venice, where Handel's _Agrippina_ was played at +the opening of the Carnival season, 1709-10, at the theatre of San +Giovanni Grisostomo.[120] The success exceeded all anticipations. +Mainwaring says that he took all his hearers by storm. There were great +acclamations, and cries of _Viva il caro Sassone_ and extravagances +impossible to record. The grandeur of the style struck them all like +thunder. The Italians had good reason to rejoice, for they found in +Handel a most brilliant exponent, and _Agrippina_ is the most melodious +of his Italian operas. Venice then made and unmade reputations. The +enthusiasm aroused by the representations at San Giovanni Grisostomo's +spread itself out over the whole of musical Europe. Handel remained the +whole of the winter at Venice. He seemed undecided as to what course to +follow. It was quite on the cards that he should pass through +Paris.[121] Handel had familiarised himself with the French +language.[122] He showed, as it happened, a singular attraction for the +most beautiful subjects of our French tragedy.[123] With his prodigious +adaptability, and his Latin qualities, the clarity of his lines, his +eloquence, logic, and his passionate love for form, he would have +rejoiced exceedingly in assimilating the tradition of our art, and +taking it up with an irresistible vigour.[124] But at Venice, whilst he +was still hesitating what to do, he encountered the Hanoverian nobles, +amongst whom was the Baron Kielmansegg, who invited him to follow them. +Steffani himself had offered him with a charming grace his post as +Kapellmeister at the Court of Hanover. Handel went then to Hanover. + + * * * * * + +There were four brothers who became in turn Dukes of Hanover: Christian +Louis, George William, John Frederick, and Ernest Augustus.[125] All +four were under the spell of France and Italy. They passed the greater +part of their time away from their own States, choosing Venice for +preference. George William married morganatically a French lady of the +noble family of Poitou, Eléonora d'Olbreuse. John Frederick was +pensioned by Louis XIV, and became Catholic. He took Versailles for his +model, and founded an Opera in 1672 at Hanover. He had also the acumen +to call Leibnitz into his States,[126] but he took great care on his +side that he should remain there. He died in the course of a journey to +Venice. Ernest Augustus, who succeeded him, in 1680, was the patron of +Steffani. He married the beautiful and intelligent Duchess Sophia, a +Palatine princess, stepdaughter of James I Stuart, aunt of the Palatine +of France, and sister of the Princess Elizabeth, friend of +Descartes.[127] She herself was the friend and correspondent of +Leibnitz, who admired her. She had great intellectual gifts, spoke seven +languages, read widely, and had a natural taste for the beautiful. "No +one had greater gifts," said Madame her niece, Michel de Montaigne. With +great lucidity of thought, decidedly outspoken, she professed an +epicurean materialism of great superiority and intelligence.[128] Her +husband valued her little, but he was brilliant and ostentatious. They +were the most polished and distinguished couple in Germany at the Court +of Hanover.[129] Both loved music, but Ernest Augustus seems never to +have dreamt that it existed anywhere outside of Italy, and he might +almost as well have been called the "Duke of Venice" as the Duke of +Hanover, for he was constantly in Venice, and never wished to leave it +for long.[130] + +The Hanover people began to murmur. The only means they could find of +keeping their Prince at home with them was to build a magnificent opera +house where spectacles and _fêtes_ resembling those in Venice could be +given. The idea was good. Ernest Augustus warmly took up the scheme for +his opera house, which, built and decorated by the Italians between 1687 +and 1690, was the most beautiful in all Germany.[131] For this opera +house Steffani was engaged as Kapellmeister.[132] Agostina Steffani is +one of the most curious figures in history.[133] Born in 1653 at +Castelfranco, near Venice, of a poor family, after being a choir-boy at +St. Mark's, he was taken in 1667 to Munich by the Count of Tattenbach, +who had been the pupil of Ercole Bernabei, a master brought up in the +purest Roman style.[134] At the same time he had been given a very +complete education in literature, science, and theology, for he was +destined for the priesthood, and with a view to becoming Abbé.[135] He +was appointed organist at the Court, and music-director. Since 1681 a +set of his operas, played at Munich (and especially _Servio Tullio_ in +1685[136]), spread his renown through Germany. The Duke of Hanover +enticed him to his Court, and in 1689 the new Hanoverian theatre was +inaugurated by one of Steffani's operas, for which the Duchess Sophia +furnished, it is said, the patriotic subject _Henrico Leoni_.[137] Then +followed a set of fifteen operas of which the _mise en scène_ and music +had an amazing popularity in Germany.[138] Cousser introduced them at +Hamburg as models of true Italian song, and Keiser modelled himself +partly on them, ten years before Handel in his turn followed Keiser's +pattern. The Opera did not enjoy a long life at Hanover. The Duke alone +liked it. The Duchess Sophia had much less sympathy for this kind of +art.[139] The ballets and the masquerades put the Opera to shame. +Steffani was otherwise occupied with more serious business elsewhere. In +the Treaty of Augsburg, Ernest Augustus of Hanover had taken sides with +the Emperor. To recompense his fidelity the Emperor bestowed on him the +dignity of Prince-Elect, but in the confusion of the Empire it was not +easy to clear up the situation. It was necessary to send an Ambassador +Extraordinary to the great German Courts. The choice of all fell on +Steffani, who, being a Catholic Abbé, could more easily serve as +intermediary between the Protestant Court of Hanover and the Catholic +Courts;[140] his mission was so well accomplished that in 1697 the Duke +of Hanover obtained for him the title of Elector. This astonishing +diplomat had found the means of writing operas. After the death of +Ernest Augustus in 1698 he gave up opera writing, but continued to +occupy himself with politics. He became in 1703 the secret adviser to +the Elector Palatine, the President of the Religious Council, who was +created a noble. At the same time Pope Innocent II made him in 1706 +Bishop of Spiga.[141] The Elector Palatine created him his Grand Almoner +and gave him charge of the Italian and Latin correspondence with the +Duke of Brunswick. From November, 1708, to April, 1709, Steffani stayed +at Rome, where the Pope crowded honours on him, making him Prelate of +the Chamber, Assistant to the Throne, Abbé of St. Steffano in Carrara, +and Apostolic Vicar of the north of Germany, with the supervision of the +Catholics in Palatine, Brunswick, and Brandenburg.[142] Then it was, as +we have seen, that he met Handel. It is necessary to sketch briefly the +life of this extraordinary personage, who was at the same time Abbé, +Bishop, Apostolic Vicar, intimate Councillor and Ambassador of Princes, +organist, Kapellmeister, musical critic,[143] chief singer,[144] and yet +composer--not only for the interest of his personality, but because he +exercised considerable influence on Handel, who always retained a +pleasant remembrance of him. + +The feature in Steffani's art, and that by which he is superior to all +of his own time, is his mastery of the art of singing. Well accustomed +as all the Italians were to it, none wrote so purely for the voice as +he. Scarlatti was not concerned with carrying the voice to its full +limits, either for an expressive purpose or with a concerted intention. +Thus in Steffani, as Hugo Goldschmidt says, "the singer held the pen." +His work is the most perfect picture of Italian song in a golden age, +and Handel owes to it his very refined feeling for the _bel canto_. In +truth Steffani's operas gained little by this virtuosity. They were +mediocre from the dramatic point of view, not very expressive, abused +the vocalisation, and were essentially operas for singers.[145] They +revealed a curious harmonic vein, and a contrapuntal alertness, which +strongly contrasted with the nearly homophonic writing of Lully,[146] +but the principal glory of Steffani was in his chamber vocal music, and +especially in his duets.[147] These duets are of various types, and of +various lengths. One is a single piece. Others are in the _Da Capo_ +form. Some are veritable cantatas with recitatives, soli, and duets. +Others are consecutive pieces, forming, as it were, little song-cycles. +The writing in this form was evolved from Schütz and Bernabei to Handel +and Telemann, but their inner construction is usually the same: the +first voice announces alone the first phrase, which reflects the poetic +emotion of the piece; the second voice repeats the subject in the unison +or in the octave; with the second subject the voices leave the unison +and indulge in canonic imitations which are freely treated. Then a +return is made to the first part, which concludes the piece. When the +duet is more developed, after the first air in the minor key, a second +one comes in the major, where virtuosity is given free play, after which +the minor air recurs. These works possess an admirable melodic beauty, +and an expression often quite profound. In the lighter subjects Steffani +has an easy gracefulness, the elegant fancy of Scarlatti. In his sad +moments he reaches the highest models: from Schütz, from Provenzale, +even to J. S. Bach. He is one of the greatest lyricists in the music of +the seventeenth century.[148] These duets set the style in this form of +work. The _rôle_ played by Steffani in music can very well be compared +with that of Fra Bartolommeo in painting;--both applied themselves with +perfect art, and steadfast spirit, to find the laws of composition in +limited and restrained forms: Fra Bartolommeo sought for the balance of +groups, and the harmony of lines in scenes, with three or four persons +grouped in a round picture; Steffani concentrated all the efforts of his +ingenuity, invention, and artistic science into the somewhat limited +form of the duet. These two religious artists both have a luminous art; +both are sure of themselves, have learning and simplicity, with little +or no passion. Their souls are noble, pure, a little impersonal. They +were intended to prepare the way for others. As Chrysander says, "Handel +walked in the steps of Steffani, but his feet were larger." + + * * * * * + +Handel made only a short stay at Hanover in 1710. Hardly had he taken up +his duties when he asked and obtained leave to go to England, from +whence proposals had been made to him. He crossed Holland, and arrived +at London at the end of the autumn, 1710. He was then twenty-five years +old. The English musical era was broken off. Fifteen years before, +England had lost its greatest musician, Henry Purcell, who died +prematurely at the age of thirty-six.[149] + +In his short life he had produced a considerable amount of work: operas, +cantatas, religious music, and instrumental pieces. He was a cultured +genius, and intimately acquainted with Lully, Carissimi, and the Italian +sonatas, at the same time very English, possessing the gift of +spontaneous melody, and never losing contact with the spirit of the +British race. His art was full of grace and delicacy, much more +aristocratic than that of Lully. He is the Van Dyck of music. Everything +of his is of extreme elegance, refinement, ease, slightly _exsangue_. +His art is natural: always steeped in the country life which is indeed +the source of the English inspiration. There are no operas of the +seventeenth century where one finds fresher melodies which are more +inspired and yet of a popular character. This charming artist was +delicate, of a weak constitution, somewhat feminine in character, +feeble, and of little stamina. His poetic languor was his strongest +appeal, and at the same time his weak point; he was prevented from +following his artistic progress with the tenacity of a Handel. Most of +his works lack finish. He never tried to break down the final barriers +which separated him from perfection. His musical compositions are +sketches of genius with strange weaknesses. He produced many hastily +finished operas with singular awkwardnesses in the manner of treating +the instruments and the voice,--ill-fitting cadences, monotonous +rhythms, a spoilt harmonic tissue, and, finally, in his larger pieces +and those of grander scale, there is a lack of breath, a sort of +physical exhaustion, which prevents him reaching the end of his superb +ideas. But it is necessary to take him for what he is, one of the most +poetic figures in music--smiling, yet a little elegiac--a miniature +Mozart eternally convalescent. Nothing vulgar, nothing brutal, ever +enters his music. Captivating melodies, coming straight from the heart, +where the purest of English souls mirrors itself. Full of delicate +harmonies, of caressing dissonances, a taste for the clashing of +sevenths and seconds, of incessant poising between the major and minor, +and with delicate and varied nuances of a pale tint, vague and slightly +blurred, like the springtime sun piercing through a light mist.[150] He +only wrote one real opera, the admirable _Dido and Æneas_, of 1680.[151] +His other dramatic works, very numerous, were music for the stage, and +the most beautiful type of this kind is that which he wrote for Dryden's +_King Arthur_ in 1691. This music is nearly all episodical. One cannot +remove it without causing the essential action to suffer. The English +taste was impatient of operas sung from one end to the other, and in +Handel's time Addison endeavoured to voice this national repugnance in +his _Spectator_. + +It was a good thing that Handel had an altogether different idea of +opera, and that his personality differed greatly from that of Purcell, +which left him no point for profiting (as he had done with others) by +the genius of his predecessor. Arriving in a strange country, of which +he did not even know the language or the spirit, it was natural that he +should take the English master as his guide. Hence the analogies between +them. Purcell's Odes often give one the impression of being merely a +sketch of the cantatas and oratorios of Handel. One finds there the same +architectural style, the same contrast of movements, of instrumental +colours, of large ensembles, and of _soli_. Certain dances,[152] some of +the heroic airs, with irresistible rhythms and triumphant fanfares,[153] +are there already before Handel, but they are only there as brilliant +flashes with Purcell. Both his personality and his art were different. +Like so many fine musicians of that time, he has been swallowed up in +Handel, just as a stream of water loses itself in a river. But there was +nevertheless in this little spring a poetry peculiar to England, which +the entire work of Handel has not--nor can have. + +Since the death of Purcell the fount of English music had dried up. +Foreign elements submerged it.[154] A renewal of Puritanical opposition +which attacked the English stage contributed to the discouragement and +abdication of the national artists.[155] The last master of the great +epoch, John Blow, an estimable artist, famous in his time, whose +personality is a little grey and faded, was not wanting in distinction +or in expressive feeling--but he had then withdrawn himself into his +religious thoughts.[156] + +In the absence of English composers, the Italians took possession of the +field.[157] An old musician of the Chapel Royal, Thomas Clayton, brought +from Italy some opera _libretti_, scores, and singers. He took an old +_libretto_ from Boulogne, caused it to be translated into English by a +Frenchman, and clumsily adapted it to music of little worth; and, such +as it was, he proudly called it "The first musical drama which has been +entirely composed and produced in England in the Italian style, +_Arsinoé, Queen of Cyprus_." This nullity, played at Drury Lane in 1705, +had a great success, which even exceeded the authentic Italian opera +given in the following year in London, _Camilla, regina de' Volsci_, by +Marc Antonio Bononcini.[158] Vainly Addison tried to battle against the +Italian invasion. By writing skits on the snobbism of the public with +pleasant irony, he endeavoured to oppose the Italian Opera with a +national English one.[159] He was defeated, and with him the entire +English theatre collapsed.[160] "Thomyris" in 1707 inaugurated the +representations half in Italian and half in English, and after the +_Almahade_ in January, 1710, all was in Italian. No English musician +attempted to continue the struggle.[161] + +When Handel arrived then, at the end of 1710, national art was dead. It +would be absurd to say, as some have often done, that he killed English +music. There was nothing left to kill. London had not a single composer. +On the other hand, she was rich in excellent players. Above all she +possessed one of the best troupes of Italian singers which could be +found in Europe. Having been presented to the Queen Anne, who loved +music, and played the clavier well, Handel was received with open arms +by the Director of the Opera, Aaron Hill. He was an extraordinary +person, who travelled in the East, wrote a history of the Ottoman +Empire, composed tragedies, translated Voltaire, founded the "Beech Oil +Company" for extracting the oil from the wood of the beech, mixing it +with chemicals and using it for the construction of ships. This +orchestral man composed during a meeting the plan of an opera, after +_Jerusalem Delivered_. It was _Rinaldo_, which was written, poem and +music, in fourteen days, and played for the first time on February 24, +1711, at the Haymarket. + +Its success was immense. It decided the victory of the Italian Opera in +London, and when the singer, Nicolini, who took the _rôle_ of Renaud, +left England he carried the score to Naples, where he had it produced in +1718, with the aid of young Leonardo Leo. The _Rinaldo_ marked a +turning-point in musical history. The Italian Opera, which had conquered +Europe, began to be conquered in its turn by foreign musicians, who had +been formed by it--the Italianised Germans. After Handel it was Hasse, +then Gluck, and finally Mozart; but Handel is the first of the +conquerors.[162] After _Rinaldo_, and until the time when Handel had +settled definitely in London, that is to say, between 1711 and the end +of 1716, was an indecisive period which oscillated between Germany and +England, and between religious music and the Opera. + +Handel, who bore the title of Kapellmeister of Hanover, returned to his +post in June, 1711.[163] At Hanover he found the Bishop Steffani again, +and attempted to write in his style. In this imitation he composed some +twenty chamber duets, which did not come up to their model, and some +beautiful German songs on the poems by Brockes.[164] Several of his best +instrumental pages, his first Oboe Concertos, his Sonatas for Flute and +Bass,[165] seem to date from this time. The cavaliers of the Court of +Hanover were ardent flautists, and the orchestra, under the direction of +Farinel, was excellent; especially had the oboes reached a high degree +of virtuosity, which has hardly been approached at the present day. On +the other hand, the Opera at Hanover was closed, and Handel could not +even give _Rinaldo_. + +He had a taste of the theatre, and did not like abandoning his plan; so +he turned his eyes again towards London. Having tested the soil of +England, and judged it favourable, Handel decided to establish himself +there. He received regular news from England whilst in Hanover.[166] +Since his departure no opera could hold its own except _Rinaldo_. The +English amateurs recalled him, and Handel, burning to depart, asked for +a new leave from the Court of Hanover. This was granted on the easiest +of terms: "on condition that he returned after a reasonable time."[167] + +He returned to London towards the end of November, 1712, in time to +supervise the representation of a pastoral, _Il Pastor Fido_, a hasty +work, from which he abstracted the best airs later on.[168] Twenty days +later he had finished writing _Teseo_, a tragic opera in five very short +acts,[169] full of haste and of genius, which was given in January, +1713. + +Handel endeavoured to settle himself firmly in England. He associated +himself with the loyalty and pride of the nation by writing for +political celebrations. The conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht, a +glorious day for England, approached. Handel prepared a _Te Deum_, which +was already finished in January, 1713, but the laws of England forbade +a foreigner to be charged with composing music for official ceremonies. +Parliament alone could authorise the representation of this production. +Handel cleverly wrote the flattering Ode for the anniversary of the +birth of Queen Anne, _Birthday Ode of Queen Anne_. The Ode was performed +at St. James's on February 6, 1713, and the Queen, enchanted with the +work, commanded Handel to write the _Te Deum_ and the _Jubilate_ for the +Peace of Utrecht, which was played on July 7, 1713, at a solemn service +at St. Paul's, on which occasion the Members of Parliament attended. +These works, in which Handel was helped by the example of Purcell,[170] +were his first great efforts in the monumental style. + +Handel had succeeded in securing, despite precedent, the post of +Official Composer to the English Court. But he had not acted without +grave neglect of his duties towards other masters, the princes of +Hanover, in whose services he still was. The relationship was extremely +strained between the cousin by heritage and her poor parents at Hanover. +Queen Anne had taken a dislike to them, especially as she could not +endure the intelligent Duchess Sophia. She made up songs about her, and +dealt secretly with the Pretender Stuart, for whom she wished to secure +the Heritage. In remaining in her service then, Handel took sides +against his sovereign at Hanover. Certain historians have even breathed +the word "treason." It is the only fault which his biographer, +Chrysander, does not excuse, for it wounded his German patriotism. But +it is very necessary to say here that of German patriotism Handel had +hardly any. He had the mentality of the great German artists of his +time, for whom the country was art and religion; the State mattered +little to him. + +He lived then amongst the English patrons--for a year with a wealthy +music lover in Surrey--then in Piccadilly at Lord Burlington's palace. +He remained there three years. Pope and Swift were familiars in the +house, which Gay had described. Handel performed there on the organ and +clavecin before the _élite_ of London society by whom he was much +admired--with the exception of Pope, who did not like music. He composed +a little,[171] being satisfied to exist, as in his sojourn at Naples, +waiting without hurry to be saturated by the English atmosphere. Handel +was one of those who can write three operas in two months, and then do +nothing more for a year. It is the rule of the torrential river which +sometimes overflows, and then runs dry. He awaited the course of events. +The inheritors of Hanover seemed decidedly ousted. The Duchess Sophia +died on June 7, 1714, Chrysander says of grief (but it was certainly +also apoplexy)--convinced that the Stuart would attain the coveted +heritage. Less than ever did Handel breathe a word of returning to +Hanover, but chance upset all his plans. Two months after the death of +the Duchess Sophia, Queen Anne died suddenly on August 1, 1714. The same +day, in the confusion into which events had thrown the Stuart party, +George of Hanover was proclaimed King by the secret council. On +September 20 he arrived in London. He was crowned at Westminster on +October 20, and Handel, very perturbed at the thought of his _Ode to +Queen Anne_, had the mortification of seeing that had he waited another +year his _Te Deum_ would have served for the enthronement of the new +dynasty. + +To do him full justice, he did not seem much discomfited by this turn of +fortune's wheel. He did not put himself about to ask for pardon. He set +to work instead and wrote _Amadigi_. It was the very best way for him to +plead his cause. George I of Hanover had many faults, but he had one +good quality. He loved music sincerely, and this passion was shared by +very many of the people more or less notable in his Court. Music had +always been for Germany the fountain where soiled hearts purified +themselves, the redemption from the petty basenesses of "the daily +round, the common task." Whatever King George thought of Handel, he +could not punish him without punishing himself. After the success of his +charming _Amadigi_, played for the first time on May 25, 1715, he had +not the courage to harbour malice any longer against his musician. They +were reconciled.[172] Handel resumed his post of Kapellmeister at +Hanover by now acting as the music master to the little princesses, and +when the King went to Hanover in July, 1716, Handel travelled with him. + +[Illustration: GEORGE I., IN HIS ROYAL BARGE, LISTENING TO HANDEL'S +"WATER-MUSIC." + +(_From a Painting._)] + +It was not that he had much occupation at the Court. The King was too +engrossed in State business, and with hunting. He did not even find time +to be anxious about his old retainer, Leibnitz, who died at Hanover on +November 14, 1716, unnoticed at Court. Handel took advantage of this +leisure to renew his acquaintance with the German art. + +There was then in Germany a fashion for musical Passions. There was a +religious and theatrical tendency at that time. One cannot separate the +influence of Pietism and that of the Opera. Keiser, Telemann, Mattheson, +all wrote Passions, which caused a great stir[173] at Hamburg, on the +famous text of the Senator Brockes. Following their example, perhaps in +order to measure himself with these men, who had all three been rivals +or friends,[174] Handel took the same text and wrote on it in 1716 his +_Passion after Brockes_. This powerful and disparate work, where bad +taste mingles with the sublime, where affectation and pomposity are +mingled with the most profound and serious art--a work which J. S. Bach +knew well, and very carefully remembered--was for Handel a decided +experience. He felt in writing it what a great gulf separated him from +the Pietist German art, and on his return to England[175] he composed +the _Psalms_ and _Esther_. + + * * * * * + +This was the principal epoch of his life. Between 1717 and 1720, whilst +he was in the service of the Duke of Chandos,[176] he made a careful +examination of his own personality, and created a new style in music, +and for the theatre. + +The Chandos Anthems or Psalms[177] stand, in relationship to Handel's +oratorios, in the same position as his Italian cantatas stand to his +operas: they are splendid sketches of the more monumental works. In +these religious cantatas, written for the Duke's chapel, Handel gives +the first place to the choruses: it is the exact words of the Bible +which they sing. Strong heroic words, freed from all the commentary and +sentimental effusions with which German Pietism had loaded them. There +is already in them the spirit and the style of _Israel in Egypt_, the +great monumental lines, the popular feeling. + +It was only a step from this to the colossal Biblical dramas. Handel +took the step with _Esther_, which in its first form was entitled _Haman +and Mordecai, a masque_.[178] + +Quite possibly the work had its first presentation at the Duke of +Chandos', but on August 29, 1720, it was presented on the stage. It was +in any case one of the greatest tragedies in the old style which had +been written since the Grecian period. It was as though the spirit of +Handel had been led insensibly towards the Hellenic ideal, for he +composed nearly at the same time his pastoral tragedy _Acis and +Galatea_, to which he also gave the name of masque,[179] and which did +not disengage itself from the complete idea of a free theatre. This +little masterpiece of poetry,[180] and of music, where the beautiful +Sicilian legend unfolds itself in pictures smiling and mournful, has a +classical perfection which Handel never surpassed. + + * * * * * + +_Esther_ and _Acis_ bore witness to Handel's desire to bring to the +surface of dramatic action all the powers of choral and symphonic music. +Even in these two works, which unquestionably opened up the way for his +future oratorios, it is not the oratorio which is his aim, but the +opera. Always attracted by the theatre, only a succession of disasters +of accumulating ruin thrust him away later against his will. So it is +natural to find him at the same time when he was writing _Esther_ and +_Acis_, also undertaking the musical direction of a theatre enterprise, +which led later on to one of the most important steps of his life, the +Academy of Italian Opera.[181] + +Handel saw, it is said, in the year 1720 the end of his years of +apprenticeship; he certainly terminated (although he knew it not) his +years of tranquillity. Up to then he had led the life of numberless +other great musicians, who lived under the protection of princes, and +wrote for a select audience. He had only occasion to leave this path, +with his religious and national works, where he had voiced a people's +feelings. After 1720, and indeed up to the time of his death, all the +rest of his art belonged to everybody. He put himself at the head of a +theatre, and opened a struggle with the public at large. He exerted +prodigious vitality, writing two or three operas every year, knocking +into shape an undisciplined troupe of _virtuosi_ smothered with pride, +harassed with intrigues, hindered by bankruptcy, using his genius for +twenty years in the paradoxical task of thrusting on London a shaky and +shallow Italian opera, which could not live under a sun and in a climate +unsuitable to it. At the end of this strife, enraged, conquered, but +invincible, sowing on his way all his masterpieces, he reached the +pinnacle of his art--those grand oratorios which rendered him immortal. + +After a voyage in Germany to Hanover, to Halle, to Düsseldorf, and to +Dresden, to recruit for his troupe of Italian singers,[182] Handel +inaugurated at the Haymarket Theatre the London Opera of April 27, 1720, +with his _Radamisto_, which was dedicated to the King.[183] The rush of +the public was very great indeed, but it was due more to curiosity than +to the turn of the fashion. Soon the snobbishness of the amateurs could +no longer content itself with Italianized German as the representative +of Italian Opera, and finally Lord Burlington, Handel's former patron, +went to Rome to induce the king of the Italian style, Giovanni +Bononcini, to come over.[184] + +Bononcini came from Modena. He was about fifty years old,[185] son of an +artist of great merit, Giovanni Bononcini, whose premature death cut +short a career rich with promise.[186] Brought up with an almost +paternal affection by one of the first masters of that epoch, one of the +few who had preserved the cult and the science of the past, Giampaolo +Colonna, organist of St. Pietronio at Bologna, he had benefited early in +life by a high princely, even Imperial,[187] protection. More precocious +even than Handel, he published his first works at the age of thirteen, +was member of the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna at fourteen, and +master of the Chapel at fifteen. His first works were instrumental. This +was his speciality, having inherited his gift from his father.[188] He +only reached the Opera after having tried all the other styles. It was +not with him a natural calling. He was a born concert musician, and he +remained so even in the Opera. His tours in Germany and in Austria, +where he was created Imperial Composer in 1700, and gave his _Polifemo_ +at Berlin in 1703,[189] fully established his renown in Europe. His +music spread in France after 1706 and excited there an almost incredible +infatuation.[190] When in Italy his reputation surpassed even that of +Scarlatti, who himself, according to Mr. Dent, came under his influence +to a small extent. He had a European vogue for about ten or fifteen +years. He was, so to speak, the reflection of the society of his time. + +What strikes one in his music, if we are to believe Lecerf de la +Viéville, is the boldness of his modulations, the abundance of his vocal +ornaments, the unruliness of his mind. His style seemed to the Lullyists +that of the affected and distorted order as opposed to the school of +common sense. Bononcini was a "verticalist" then, differing from the +"horizontalists" of the preceding epoch.[191] He was essentially a +sensuous musician, and an anti-intellectualist. Right from the +beginning, as an instrumental composer he always remained indifferent to +his poems, to his subjects, and to everything which was outside of +music. In his music he set a pleasing sonority above everything;[192] +and it was evidently on this account that his work required less effort +of the intelligence than was necessitated by the severe art of +Scarlatti, or the recitative and expressive art of Lully.[193] In him +was inaugurated the reaction of fashionable good taste in the general +public against that of the savant.[194] Contrast the grand airs _Da +Capo_, broadly developed in a more or less contrapuntal fashion, with +his tiny little airs, also _Da Capo_, but in miniature, easy to +understand, which touched the popular feeling for melody. He carefully +perfumed it and served it up for the taste of the elegant and +fashionable.[195] This distinguished simplicity, this delicate +sensibility, rather feeble, always so correct in its audacities and +restrained in its pleasures, made Bononcini a drawing-room favourite, a +fashionable revolutionary. The more he worked, the more his traits were +accentuated, and became permanent. As happens to all artists who enjoy +too much success, this reacted on his art, and imposed on him the +repetition of certain fixed patterns. The natural laziness of Bononcini +only exaggerated this tendency, so that from year to year this +affectedness appeared in his art, making it quite mechanical. His music, +often beautiful and gracious, always harmonious, never expressive, +unrolled itself as a succession of elegant and highly finished subjects, +all cut out as if with scissors on the same pattern, and indefinitely +repeated. At first in London one was only conscious of his charm. The +personality of the musician added to the attractions of his music. The +gentle Italian had polished manners, a quality at once lovable, and +penetrated by a bold courage. He was a _virtuoso_ like Handel, but on an +instrument more distinguished than the clavier--on the violoncello; and +he was listened to with respect in the aristocratic _salons_. He was, so +to speak, the author _à la mode_; and his _Astarto_,[196] given at the +end of 1720, erased the impression made by Handel's _Radamisto_. + +Handel had his work cut out. He was not suited to strive with Bononcini +on the ground of Italianism. However, he was up against the wall. The +English public, always keen on bear fights, cock fights, and _virtuoso_ +contests, amused themselves by arranging a joust between Bononcini and +Handel. They were to be tested by an opera written in combination. +Handel took up the glove--and was beaten. His _Muzio Scevola_[197] +(March, 1721) is very feeble, and the _Floridante_ which followed +(December 9, 1721) is little better. The success of the Italian +increased his fame, and the pretty _Griselda_ (February, 1722) +consummated Bononcini's glory. He benefited by the strenuous opposition +of the English _littérateurs_, and the leading aristocrats, against the +Hanoverian Court and the German artists. + +Handel's situation was much involved, but he took his revenge with the +melodious opera _Ottone_ (January 12, 1723), which was the most popular +of all his operas. Victorious then,[198] he went straight ahead without +troubling himself about Bononcini, and he composed, one after another, +three masterpieces in which he inaugurated a new musical theatre, as +musically rich, and more dramatic than that of Rameau, some ten years +later: _Guilio Cesare_ (February 20, 1724); _Tamerlano_ (October 21, +1724), and _Rodelinda_ (February 13, 1725). The last of _Tamerlano_ is a +magnificent example of the great music drama, an example nearly unique +before Gluck, in its poignancy and passion. Bononcini's party was +definitely ruined,[199] but the greatest difficulties now began for +Handel. The London Opera was delivered over into the hands of _Castrati_ +and _Prime Donne_, and the extravagances of their supporters. In 1726 +there arrived the most celebrated Italian singer of the time, the famous +Faustina.[200] From this moment the London representations became mere +jousts of song between Faustina and Cuzzoni--jousts as strenuous as the +shouting of their various partisans. Handel wrote his _Alessandro_ (May +5, 1721) for an artistic duel between the two stars of his troupe, who +acted as the two mistresses of _Alessandro_.[201] In spite of all, his +dramatic genius won the day by several sublime scenes from _Almeto_ +(January 31, 1727), the grandeur of which veritably seized hold of the +public. But the rivalry of the singers, far from being appeased, +redoubled in fury. Each party had its hired pamphleteers, who let loose +on the adversary the most degrading libels. Cuzzoni and Faustina +reached such a state of rage that on June 6, 1727, during the play, they +fought and tore each other's hair unmercifully, amidst the yells of the +audience, the Princess of Wales being present.[202] + +After this everything went to the dogs. Handel tried hard to take the +reins, but, as his friend Arbuthnot said, "the devil was loose, and +could never be caged again." The battle was lost, despite three new +works of Handel, where his genius again shone forth: _Riccardo I_ +(November 11, 1727); _Siroe_ (February 17, 1728); and _Tolomeo_ (April +30, 1728). A little venture by John Gay and by Pepusch, _The Beggar's +Opera_ (A War Opera) finished the defeat of the London Academy of +Opera.[203] This excellent operetta, spoken in dialogue, with popular +songs interspersed, was at the same time a trenchant satire on Walpole, +and a spirited parody of the ridiculous sides of the opera.[204] Its +immense success took the character of a national manifestation. It was +a reaction of popular common sense against the pompous childishnesses of +the Italian Opera, and against the snobbishness which attempted to +impose it on other nations. We see in this the first blow struck at the +triumphant Italianism. Nationality awoke. In 1729 the _Passion according +to St. Matthew_ was given. Some years later Handel's earlier oratorios +were performed, and also the first operas of Rameau. In 1728 to 1729 +Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann entered the campaign against Italian Opera with +his famous pamphlets. After him, Mattheson re-entered the ring: _The +Goths and their Hippogriffs to be purified in the crater of Etna_. But +nowhere was this national reaction so widely spread as in England, where +it roused itself with such robust humour, as with Swift and with Pope, +those famous layers of ghosts[205] and dreams. + + * * * * * + +Handel felt this. After 1727 he sought steadily to establish himself on +the national English soil. He had become a naturalized Englishman on +February 13, 1726. He wrote for the Coronation of the new King, George +II, his Coronation Anthems,[206] September 11, 1727.[207] He returned to +his plans for the English oratorios. + +But he was not yet sufficiently sure of his ground, nor of the public +taste, to justify him in completely throwing over the Italian Opera, for +he realized more than before the resources of the people and what he +could do with them. Besides, the collapse of the London Academy of Opera +had not touched his personal prestige. He was regarded, not only in +England, but also in France, as the greatest man of the Lyric +Theatre.[208] His London Italian operas became known all over Europe. + + _Flavius, Tamerlan, Othon, Renaud, César,_ + _Admete, Siroé, Rodelinde, et Richard,_ + _Éternels monumens dressés à sa mémoire,_ + _Des operas Romains surpassèrent la gloire,_ + _Venise lui peut-elle opposer un rival?_[209] + +One can well understand, then, that Handel was tempted by the desire of +taking on his own shoulders, without the control which hampered him, the +complete enterprise of the Italian Opera. At the end of the summer of +1728 he went to Italy in search of new arms for the strife. In the +course of this tour, which lasted nearly a year,[210] he recruited his +singers, renewed his collection of _libretti_ and Italian scores. Above +all, he refreshed his Italianism at the source of the new School of +Opera, founded by Leonardo Vinci,[211] which reacted against the concert +style in the theatre, and sought to give back to Opera a more dramatic +character, even at the risk of impoverishing the music. + +Without sacrificing the richness of his style, Handel did not neglect to +profit by these examples in his new operas: _Lotario_ (December, 1729), +_Partenope_ (February, 1730), _Poro_ (February, 1731), _Ezio_ (January, +1732), which are notable (particularly the last two) by the beauty of +the melodic writing, and the dramatic power of certain pages. The +masterpiece of this period is _Orlando_ (January 27, 1733), of which the +richness and musical perfection are on a level with the insight into the +characters, and the spirited and passionate life of the piece. If the +_Tamerlano_ of 1724 awakens ideas of Gluck's tragedies, it is the +beautiful operas of Mozart which come to mind in _Orlando_. + +In continuation of the strife for the Italian Opera, Handel profited by +the unexpected success with which the English people had met the +reproduction of his _Acis and Galatea_ and his _Esther_,[212] written to +English words, and he attempted again, in a more conscientious fashion +than ten years before at Chandos', to found a form of musical theatre, +freer and richer, where the lyricism of the choruses had free play. For +the reproduction of _Esther_ in 1732 he introduced into the work of 1720 +the most beautiful choruses from the Coronation Anthems. In the +following year he wrote _Deborah_ (March 17, 1733), and _Athaliah_ (July +10, 1733), where the chorus took first place. These grand Biblical +dramas would have been able to have awakened in the English nation an +enthusiastic response, were it not that this attempt was damaged by a +violent quarrel inspired by personal reasons, where art counted for +nothing. A dead set was made against _Deborah_,[213] and though +_Athaliah_ succeeded at Oxford,[214] Handel did not present it in London +until two years later. + +Once again Handel returned to Italian Opera. The public hatred pursued +him here also. The royal family of Hanover was detested. It added to its +own discredit by the scandalous disputes which took place between the +King and his son. The Prince of Wales, in a spirit of petty spite +against his father, who showed his affection for Handel, amused himself +by attempting to ruin the composer. Encouraged by the opposition, and +enchanted by the idea of making sport against the King, he founded a +rival opera house, and as he could no longer set Bononcini up against +Handel, as the former had been discredited by a case of flagrant +plagiarism, which had an European circulation,[215] he approached +Porpora, with a view to directing his theatre. "Then," says Lord Hervey, +"the struggle became as serious as that of the Greens against the Blues +at Constantinople under Justinian. An anti-Handelian was regarded as an +anti-Royalist, and in Parliament, to vote against the Court was hardly +more dangerous than to speak against Handel." On the other hand, the +immense unpopularity of the King redounded on Handel, and the +aristocracy combined to secure his downfall. + +He accepted the challenge, and after a third tour in Italy during the +summer of 1733, again to recruit more singers, he bravely took up the +fight with Porpora, to whom was added Hasse in 1734. They were the +greatest rivals against which he had yet measured himself. But Hasse and +Porpora had strong dramatic feeling, and especially were they the most +perfect masters of the beautiful art of Italian melody and singing.[216] +Nicolo Porpora, who came from Naples, was forty-seven years old. He had +a cold but vigorous spirit, intelligent and possessing more than anyone +else, except Hasse, all the resources of the Italian singing. His style +was very beautiful, and it was not less broad than that of Handel. No +other Italian musician of his time had such ample breadth of +phrasing.[217] His writings seem of a later age than Handel's, and +approximate to the time of Gluck and Mozart. Whilst Handel, despite his +marvellous feeling for plastic beauty, often treated the voices as an +instrument, and in his development the beautiful Italian lines +occasionally became weighed down by German complexity, Porpora's music +always kept within the bounds of classic purity, though the form was a +little uninteresting in design. History has never done him sufficient +justice.[218] He was quite worthy of measuring himself against Handel, +and the comparison between Handel's _Arianna_ and that of Porpora, +played at an interval of a few weeks,[219] did not prove to the +advantage of the former. Handel's music is elegant, but one does not +find the breadth of certain airs in Porpora's _Arianna à Naxos_. The +form of these airs is perhaps of too classic a correctness, but the +right Grecian breezes blow across his Roman temples.[220] He has been +claimed as an Italian disciple of Gluck--a curious criticism which is +bestowed occasionally on precursors. It was so with Jacopo della +Quercia, who inspired Michael Angelo, and to whom the latter seems to +owe something. + +Hasse was even superior to Porpora in the charm of his melody, which +Mozart alone has equalled, and in his symphonic gifts, which showed +themselves in his rich instrumental accompaniments no less melodious +than his songs.[221] Handel was not slow to discover the folly of +striving with Hasse on Italian ground. His superiority was with the +choruses; he sought to introduce them into the Opera after the French +model. The situation was even less promising for him on the departure of +his best protectrix, the Princess Anne, sister of the Prince of +Wales.[222] After having compromised Handel by the strong feeling which +she had shown in defending him, she left him to the tender cares of the +enemies which she had made for him. She left England in April, 1734, to +join her husband the Prince of Orange[223] in Holland. + +Handel came to be abandoned by his old friends. His associate, +Heidegger, the proprietor of the Haymarket Theatre, took the hall for a +rival opera, and Handel, driven from the house in which he had worked +for fourteen years, had to emigrate with his troupe to John Rich's place +at Covent Garden[224]--a sort of music-hall where Opera took its turn +with all kinds of other spectacles: ballets, pantomimes, and +harlequinades. In Rich's troupe some French dancers were to be found, +amongst whom was "_la Salle_,"[225] who was shortly to arouse great +enthusiasm amongst the English public with two tragic dances: +_Pygmalion_ and _Bacchus and Ariadne_.[226] Handel, who had known the +French art[227] for a long time, saw how far he could draw on these new +resources, and he opened the season of 1734 at Covent Garden with a +first attempt in the field of the French ballet opera: _Terpsichore_ +(November 9, 1734), in which "_la Salle_" took the principal _rôle_. A +month later a _Pasticcio_ followed, _Orestes_, where Handel gave a +similar important part to "_la Salle_," and to her expressive dances. +Finally, he intermingled the dance and the choruses closely with the +dramatic action in two masterpieces of poetry and beautiful musical +construction--_Ariodante_ (January 8, 1735), and especially _Alcina_ +(April 16, 1735). + +Bad luck still pursued him. Some gross national manifestations compelled +"_la Salle_" and her French dancers to leave London.[228] Handel gave up +the ballet opera. To leave at this moment, if he was to continue the +struggle with the theatre, went badly against the grain, and was +tantamount to declaring himself vanquished. At the opening of his +theatrical enterprise he had saved, so it is said, £10,000. All this was +absorbed, and already he was £10,000 more to the bad. His friends did +not understand his obstinacy, which seemed about to involve him in +complete ruin. "But," says Hawkins, "he was a man of intrepid spirit, +and in no ways a slave to mere interest. He raised himself again for the +battle rather than bow down to those whom he regarded as infinitely +beneath him." If he could no longer be conqueror, still less would he +hand the reins to his adversaries. He overcame them--but a little more +would have vanquished himself in the same stroke. + +He persisted then in writing his operas,[229] of which the series spread +out until 1741, marking work after work with a growing tendency towards +the _opéra-comique_ and the style of romances[230] so dear to the +people at the second half of the eighteenth century. But since 1735 he +felt more than ever that the true musical drama for him was the +oratorio. He returned victoriously with _Alexander's Feast_, which was +composed on the _Ode to St. Cecilia_, by Dryden,[231] and given for the +first time on February 19, 1736, at the Covent Garden Theatre. + +Who would have believed that this work, robust and sane throughout, was +written in twenty days, that it was performed in the midst of his +business worries, within an ace of ruin, and when he was threatened with +that grave malady which was to throw the mind of Handel for evermore +into gloom? + + * * * * * + +For several years trouble pursued him. Work and excessive worry had +undermined an iron constitution. He tried the baths at Tunbridge Wells +during the summer of 1735, and probably also in 1736, but with no +success. He could not sleep. His theatre was always on his mind. He made +superhuman efforts to keep it going. From January, 1736, to April, 1737, +he directed two seasons of Opera, two seasons of oratorio, and composed +a song, an oratorio, a Psalm, and four operas.[232] On April 12, or 13, +1737, the machine broke down. He was smitten with paralysis, his right +side was attacked, his hand refused all service, and even his mind was +affected. In his absence his theatre closed its doors, bankrupt.[233] +During the whole of the summer Handel remained in a pitiful state of +depression. He refused to care for anything; all hope was lost. Finally, +his friends succeeded in inducing him, towards the end of August, to try +the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle. The cure had a miraculous effect. In a few +days he was restored. In October he returned to London, and immediately +the refreshed giant resumed the struggle, writing in three months two +operas, and the magnificent _Funeral Anthem_ on the death of the +Queen.[234] + +Sad days were in store, however. His creditors seized him, and he was +threatened with imprisonment. Happily a sympathetic movement was +inaugurated in favour of the artist so harassed by his kind. A benefit +concert, to which his pride reluctantly submitted,[235] at the end of +March, 1738, had an unexpected success. It freed him from the most +pressing of his debts. In the following month a token of public +admiration was given him. His statue was erected in the Vauxhall +Gardens.[236] In the springtime of 1738 he began to feel, with returning +strength, confidence in the future. The horizon cleared. He was +encouraged by such faithful sympathy. He returned to life, and made his +presence felt again. + +On July 23 he commenced _Saul_; on August 8 he had written two acts of +it; by September 27 the work was finished. On October 7 he began _Israel +in Egypt_; by October 28 the work was achieved. Still pushing +strenuously forward, on October 4 he launched the first volume of his +organ concertos with the publisher Walsh, and on the 7th he took to him +his _Seven Trios or Sonatas in two parts, with bass_, Opus 5. For those +who know these joyful works, which dominate like two Colossi the two +oratorios of victory, this superhuman effort had the effect of a force +of Nature, like a field which breaks into flower in a single night of +springtime. + +_Saul_ is a great epic drama, flowing and powerful, where the humorous +and the tragic intermingle. _Israel_ is one immense chorale, the most +gigantic effort which has ever been made in oratorio, not only with a +single but with combined choirs.[237] The audacious originality of the +conception and its austere grandeur almost stunned the public of his +day. The living Handel breathes throughout the work. + +The hopes which Handel had founded on England caused him fresh +uneasiness. Times were hard. Since the winter of 1739, theatrical +performances, and even concerts, were suspended for several months on +account of the war, and the extreme cold. Handel, to keep himself warm, +wrote in eight days the little _Ode to St. Cecilia_ (November 29, 1739); +in sixteen days _L'Allegro_, _Il Penseroso_, _ed Il Moderato_ of Milton +(January-February, 1740); in a month the _Concerti Grossi_, Opus 6.[238] +But the success of these charming works, graven out with loving care, +into which Handel had perhaps put more than into any other his own +personal feelings, his poetic and humorous reproductions of nature,[239] +was hardly sufficient yet to establish his affairs, at one time so +embarrassed. Once more, as in the time of _Deborah_ and _Arianna_, he +was attacked by a coalition of fashionable people. One does not know +how Handel had wounded them,[240] but they were resolved on his +downfall. They avoided his concerts. They even paid men to pull down his +placards in the streets. Handel, tired and disheartened, suddenly threw +up the combat.[241] He decided to leave England, where he had lived for +nearly thirty years, and where he had increased his fame so much. He +announced his last concert for April 8, 1741.[242] + + * * * * * + +It is a remarkable thing that often in the lives of the great men, just +at the moment when all seems lost, or things are at their lowest ebb, +they are nearest to the fulfilment of their destiny. Handel appeared +vanquished. Just at that very hour he wrote a work which was destined to +establish permanently his immortality. + +He left London.[243] The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland invited him to +Dublin to direct some concerts. Thus it was, so he said, "in order to +offer this generous and polished nation something new" that he composed +_The Messiah_ on a poem by his friend Jennens.[244] They had already +given many of his religious works in Dublin for charitable +concerts.[245] Handel was received enthusiastically. The letter which he +wrote on December 29 to Jennens bubbles over with joy. The time which he +passed in Dublin was, together with his early years in Italy, the +happiest in his life. From December 23, 1741, to April 7, 1742, he gave +two series of six concerts, and always with the same success. Finally, +on April 12, the first hearing of _The Messiah_ took place in Dublin. +The proceeds of the concert were devoted to charitable objects, and the +success was very considerable.[246] + +Eight days after having finished The _Messiah_ (that is to say, before +he had yet arrived in Ireland) Handel had commenced _Samson_, which was +finished in five weeks, from the end of September to the end of October, +1741. However, he did not give it in Dublin. Doubtless he could not find +the interpreters which he desired for this colossal drama, rich in +choral scenes and in difficult _rôles_.[247] Perhaps also he reserved +the work for the following season in Dublin, when he hoped to return, +but the expected invitation which he awaited in London did not come, and +it was in London that _Samson_ reached its first hearing on February 18, +1743. + +To this heroic oratorio, based on the sublime _Samson Agonistes_ of +Milton,[248] succeeded a light opera, which bore, nevertheless, the name +of oratorio, the libretto of which was based on a poem by Congreve: +_Semele_ (June 3 to July 4, 1743). It afforded a relief for him between +these two Herculean works. In the same month in which he finished +_Semele_, Handel wrote his monumental _Dettingen Te Deum_, to celebrate +the victory of the Duke of Cumberland over the French.[249] _Joseph_, +written in August and September of the same year, on a very touching +poem by James Miller, reveals a sweet yet melancholy fancy, a little +insipid, on which, however, the strong portrait of Simeon projects +itself forcibly. + +1744 was one of Handel's most glorious years from the creative point of +view, but one of the most miserable in outward success. He wrote nearly +simultaneously his two most tragic oratorios, the great Shakespearian +drama of _Belshazzar_ (July-October, 1744), the rich poem of which was +furnished for him by his friend Jennens;[250] and the sublime tragedy of +the ancient _Hercules_, a musical drama,[251] which marks the +culmination of the Handelian musical drama, and indeed one might say of +the whole musical theatre before Gluck. + +Never was the hostility of the English public more roused against him. +The same hateful cabal which had already thrice threatened to bring +about his downfall again rose against him. They invited the fashionable +world in London to their _fêtes_, specially organised on the days when +the performances of his oratorios were to have taken place, with the +object of robbing him of his audience. Bolingbroke and Smollett both +speak of the plots of certain ladies to ruin Handel. Horace Walpole says +that it was the fashion to go to the Italian Opera when Handel directed +his oratorio concerts. Handel, whose force of energy and genius had +weakened since his first failure of 1735, was involved afresh in +bankruptcy at the beginning of 1745. His griefs and troubles, and the +prodigious expenditure of force which he made, seemed again on the point +of turning his brain. He fell into extreme bodily prostration and +lowness of spirit, similar to that of 1737, and this lasted for the +space of eight months, from March to October, 1745.[252] By a miracle he +was able to rise out of this abyss, and by unforeseen events, where +music was his only aid, he became more popular than he ever was before. + +The Pretender, Charles Edward, landed in Scotland; the country rose up. +An army of Highlanders marched on London. The city was in consternation. +A great national movement arose in England, Handel associated himself +with it. On November 14, 1745, he brought to light at Drury Lane his +_Song made for the Gentlemen Volunteers of the City of London_,[253] +and he wrote two oratorios, which were, so to speak, immense national +hymns: the _Occasional Oratorio_,[254] where Handel called the English +to rise up against invasion, and _Judas Maccabæus_[255] (July 9 to +August 11, 1746), the Hymn of Victory, written after the rout of the +rebels at Culloden Moor, and for the _fête_ on the return of the +conqueror, the ferocious Duke of Cumberland, to whom the poem was +dedicated. + +These two patriotic oratorios, where Handel's heart beat with that of +England, and of which the second, _Judas Maccabæus_, has retained even +to our own day its great popularity, thanks to its broad style and the +spirit which animates it,[256] brought more fortune to Handel than all +the rest of his works together. After thirty-five years of continuous +struggle, plot and counterplot, he had at last obtained a decisive +victory. He became by the force of events _the national musician of +England_. + + * * * * * + +Freed from material cares, which had embittered his life,[257] Handel +took up the work of his composition again, with more tranquillity, and +in the following years came many of his happiest works. _Alexander +Balus_ (June 1 to July 4, 1747)[258] is, like _Semele_, a concert opera, +well developed; the orchestration being exceptionally rich and subtle. +_Joshua_ (July 30 to August 18, 1747)[259] is a somewhat pale _replica_ +of _Judas Maccabæus_. A gentle love idyll blossoms amidst the pompous +choruses. _Solomon_ (June, 1748)[260] is a musical festival, radiating +poetry and gladness. _Susanna_ (July 11, 1724, to August, 1748), grave +and gay by turns, realistic yet lyric, is a hybrid kind of work, but +very original. + +Finally, in the spring of 1749, which marks, so it seems, the end of +Handel's good fortune, he wrote his brilliant Firework Music--a model +for popular open-air _fêtes_--produced on April 27, 1749, by a monster +orchestra of trumpets, horns, oboes, and bassoons, without stringed +instruments, on the occasion of the Firework display given in Green Park +to celebrate the Peace of Aix la Chapelle.[261] + +More solemn works followed these gay pieces. At this moment of his life +the spirit of melancholy raised its grey head before the robust old man, +who seemed to be obsessed by the presentiment of some coming ill +fortune. + +On May 27, 1749, he conducted at the Foundling Hospital[262] for the +benefit of waifs and strays, his beautiful _Anthem for the Foundling +Hospital_,[263] which was inspired by his great pity for these little +unfortunates. From June 28 to July 31 he wrote a pure masterpiece, +_Theodora_, his most intimate musical tragedy, his only Christian +tragedy besides _The Messiah_[264]. From the end of that same year dates +also his music for a scene from Tobias Smollett's Alceste, which was +never played, and from which Handel took the essential parts for his +_Choice of Hercules_.[265] A little time after he made his last voyage +to Halle. He arrived on German soil at the moment when Bach died, July +28, 1750. Indeed he nearly ended his life there himself in the same week +by a carriage accident.[266] + +He recovered quickly, and on January 21, 1751, when he commenced the +score of _Jephtha_, he appeared to be in robust health, despite his +sixty-six years. He wrote the first act at a stretch in thirteen days. +In eleven days more he had arrived at the last scene but one of Act II. +Here he had to break off. Already in the preceding pages he only +progressed with difficulty; his writing, so clear and firm at the +commencement, became sticky, confused, and trembling.[267] He had +started on the final chorus of Act II: "How dark, O Lord, are Thy Ways." +Hardly had he written the opening _Largo_ than he had to stop working. +He wrote: + +"_I reached here on Wednesday, February 13, had to discontinue on +account of the sight of my left eye._"[268] + +The work was broken off for ten days. On February 23 (which was his +birthday) he wrote in: + +"_Feel a little better. Resumed work_"; + +and he wrote the music to those foreboding words: + +"_Grief follows joy as night the day._" + +He took hardly five days to finish this chorus, which is really sublime. +He stopped then for four months.[269] On June 18 he resumed the third +act. He was again interrupted in the middle.[270] The last four airs and +the final chorus took more time than a whole oratorio usually occupied. +He did not finish it until August 30, 1751. His sight was then gone. + + * * * * * + +After that, all was ended. Handel's eyes were closed for ever.[271] The +sun was blotted out, "_Total eclipse_...." The world was effaced. + +He had never suffered so much as in the first year of his illness, when +he was not yet completely blind. In 1752 he was unable to play the organ +at the productions of his oratorios, and the public, moved by sympathy, +saw him tremble and blanch in listening to the admirable complaint of +his blind Samson. But in 1753, when the evil was incurable, Handel +regained his self-possession. He played the organ again at the twelve +performances of oratorios which he gave each year in Lent, and he kept +up this custom until his death. + +But with his vanished sight he had lost the best source of his +inspiration. This man, who was neither an intellectual nor a mystic, one +who loved above all things light and nature, beautiful pictures, and the +spectacular view of things, who lived more through his eyes than most of +the German musicians, was engulfed in deepest night. From 1752 to 1759 +he was overtaken by the semi-consciousness which precedes death. He only +wrote in 1758 a duet and chorus for _Judas Maccabæus_, "Zion now her +head shall raise," and reviving in that the happy times of other days he +took up a work of his youth, the _Trionfo del Tempo_,[272] which he now +gave in a new version in March, 1757: _The Triumph of Time and +Truth_.[273] + +[Illustration: HANDEL'S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. + +(_In the "Poets' Corner."_)] + +On April 6, 1759, he again took the organ at a production of _The +Messiah_. His powers failed him in the middle of a movement. He soon +recovered himself and improvised (it is said) with his habitual +grandeur. Returned home he took to bed. On April 11 he added a last +codicil to his will,[274] bequeathing munificently £1000 sterling to +the Society for the Maintenance of Poor Musicians, and expressing, with +tranquillity, his desire of being buried in Westminster Abbey. He said: +"I want to die on Good Friday in the hope of rejoining the good God, my +sweet Lord and Saviour, on the day of his Resurrection." His wish was +accomplished. On Holy Saturday, April 14, at eight in the morning, the +sweet singer of _The Messiah_ slept with his Lord. + + * * * * * + +His glory spread after his death. On April 20 he was interred in +Westminster Abbey, as he had requested.[275] The annual performances of +his oratorios continued in Lent under the direction of his friend, +Christopher Smith. Popular performances of them were soon given. The +great festival of his Commemoration celebrated at Westminster Abbey and +in the Pantheon, from May 26 to June 5, 1784, for the centenary of his +birth,[276] was observed all over Europe. New festivals took place in +London in 1785, 1786, 1787, 1790, and 1791. On the last occasion more +than a thousand executants[277] took part. Haydn was present, and he +said, through his tears, "He is master of us all." + +The English performances attracted the attention of Germany. Two years +after the Commemoration, Johann Adam Hiller produced _The Messiah_ in +the Cathedral Church at Berlin, then at Leipzig, and then at Breslau. +Three years later, in 1789, Mozart made his arrangements of _The +Messiah_, of _Acis and Galatea_, of the _Ode to St. Cecilia_, and of +_Alexander's Feast_.[278] The first complete edition of Handel was +commenced in 1786. A strong feeling of emulation made itself felt in +Germany to imitate the English festivals, and to restore choral singing, +and to found the _Singakademien_ for the preservation of the national +glories.[279] The rendering of Handel's oratorios inspired Haydn to +write _The Creation_. Beethoven at the end of his life said of Handel: +"See there is the truth."[280] Poets also vied equally in rendering him +homage. Goethe admired him, and Herder devoted a chapter to him in his +_Adrastea_ of 1802. The wars of Independence gave an access of favour to +the oratorio of freedom, to _Judas Maccabæus_. + +With romanticism the feeling for the genius of Handel was lost. Berlioz, +who, if he had but known him truly, and had found a model for that grand +popular style which he sought, never understood him. Of all other +musicians, those who approached to the spirit of Handel nearest were +Schumann and Liszt,[281] but they were exceptional in the lucidity of +their perception, and their generous sympathies. It might be said that +Handel's art, distorted by the editions and false renderings--quite as +much those in Germany as the ridiculously colossal representations in +England--would have been completely lost except for the foundation in +1856 of the Handel Society, which devoted itself to the object of +publishing an exact and complete edition of the works of the master. +Gervinus was the promoter and Friedrich Chrysander alone accomplished +the task. It did not aim at being a critical edition of his works. His +ardent apostle sought simply to revive them in their pristine +force.[282] He was seconded by the choral societies of north Germany, +particularly by the Berlin _Singakademien_, which from 1830 to 1860 +never ceased to perform all the oratorios of Handel. On the contrary, +Austria remained a long way behind. In 1873, Brahms conducted the first +production of _Saul_ in Vienna, but the veritable awakening of Handel's +art in Germany only dates back about half a score years. One recognized +his grandeur, and did not doubt that he had lived. It was chiefly (so it +seems) at the first Handel Festival of Mayence in 1895, where _Hercules +and Deborah_ were given, that his astounding dramatic genius was first +truly felt there. + +To us in France we still await the full revelation of the living scenes +of this great and luminous tragic art, so akin to the aims of Ancient +Greece.[283] + + + + +HIS TECHNIQUE AND WORKS + + +No great musician is more impossible to include in the limits of one +definition, or even of several, than Handel. It is a fact that he +reached the complete mastery of his style very early (much earlier than +J. S. Bach), although it was never really fixed, and he never devoted +himself to any one form of art. It is even difficult to see a conscious +and a logical evolution in him. His genius is not of the kind which +follows a single path, and forges right ahead until it reaches its +object. For his aim is none other than to do well whatever he undertook. +All ways are good to him--from his early steps at the crossing of the +ways, he dominated the country, and shed his light on all sides, without +laying siege to any particular part. He is not one of those who impose +on life and art a voluntary idealism, either violent or patient; nor is +he one of those who inscribe in the book of life the formula of their +campaign. He is of the kind who drink in the life universal, +assimilating it to themselves. His artistic will is mainly objective. +His genius adapts itself to a thousand images of passing events, to the +nation, to the times in which he lived, even to the fashions of his day. +It accommodates itself to the various influences, ignoring all +obstacles. It weighs other styles and other thoughts, but such is the +power of assimilation and the prevailing equilibrium of his nature that +he never feels submerged and overweighted by the mass of these strange +elements. Everything is duly absorbed, controlled, and classified. This +immense soul is like the sea itself, into which all the rivers of the +world pour themselves without troubling its serenity. + +The German geniuses have often had this power of absorbing thoughts and +strange forms,[284] but it is excessively rare to find amongst them the +grand objectivism, and this superior impersonality, which is, so to +speak, the hall-mark of Handel. Their sentimental lyricism is better +fitted to sing songs, to voice the thoughts of the universe in song, +than to paint the universe in living forms and vital rhythms. Handel is +very different, and approaches much more nearly than any other in +Germany the genius of the South, the Homeric genius of which Goethe +received the sudden revelation on his arrival at Naples.[285] This +capacious mind looks out on the whole universe, and on the way the +universe depicts itself, as a picture is reflected in calm and clear +water. He owes much of this objectivism to Italy, where he spent many +years, and the fascination of which never effaced itself from his mind, +and he owes even more to that, sturdy England, which guards its emotions +with so tight a rein, and which eschews those sentimental and +effervescing effusions, so often displayed in the pious German art; but +that he had all the germs of his art in himself, is already shown in his +early works at Hamburg. + +From his infancy at Halle, Zachau had trained him not in one style, but +in all the styles of the different nations, leading him to understand +not only the spirit of each great composer, but to assimilate the styles +by writing in various manners. This education, essentially cosmopolitan, +was completed by his three tours in Italy, and his sojourn of half a +century in England. Above all he never ceased to follow up the lessons +learnt at Halle, always appropriating to himself the best from all +artists and their works. If he was never in France (it is not absolutely +proved), he knew her nevertheless. He was anxious to master their +language and musical style. We have proofs of that in his +manuscripts,[286] and in the accusations made against him by certain +French critics.[287] Wherever he passed, he gathered some musical +souvenir, buying and collecting foreign works, copying them, or rather +(for he had not the careful patience of J. S. Bach, who scrupulously +wrote out in his own hand the entire scores of the French organists and +the Italian violinists) copying down in hasty and often inexact +expressions any idea which struck him in the course of his reading. This +vast collection of European thoughts, which only remains in remnants at +the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, was the reservoir, so to speak, +from which his creative genius continually fed itself. Profoundly German +in race and character, he had become a world citizen, like his +compatriot Leibnitz, whom he had known at Hanover, a European with a +tendency for the Latin culture. The great Germans at the end of that +century, Goethe and Herder, were never more free, or more universal, +than this great Saxon in music, saturated as he was with all the +artistic thoughts of the West. + +He drew not only from the sources of learned and refined music--the +music of musicians; but also drank deeply from the founts of popular +music--that of the most simple and rustic folk.[288] He loved the +latter. One finds noted down in his manuscripts the street cries of +London, and he once told a friend that he received many inspirations for +his best airs from them.[289] Certain of his oratorios, like _L'Allegro +ed Il Penseroso_, are threaded with remembrances of his walks in the +English country, and who can ignore the _Pifferari_ (Italian peasant's +pipe) in _The Messiah_, the Flemish carillon in _Saul_, the joyous +popular Italian songs in _Hercules_, and in _Alexander Balus_? Handel +was not an artist lost in introspection. He watched all around him, he +listened, and observed. Sight was for him a source of inspiration, +hardly of less importance than hearing. I do not know any great German +musician who has been as much a visual as Handel. Like Hasse and +Corelli, he had a veritable passion for beautiful pictures. He hardly +ever went out without going to a theatre or to a picture sale. He was a +connoisseur, and he made a collection, in which some Rembrandts[290] +were found after his death. It has been remarked that his blindness +(which should have rendered his hearing still more sensitive, his +creative powers translating everything into sonorous dreams) soon +paralysed his hearing when its principal source of renewal was +withdrawn. + +Thus, saturated in all the European music of his time, impregnated with +the music of musicians, and the still richer music which flows in all +Nature herself, which is specially diffused in the vibrations of light +and shade, that song of the rivers, of the forest, of the birds, in +which all his works abound, and which have inspired some of his most +picturesque pages with a semi-romantic colour,[291] he wrote as one +speaks, he composed as one breathes. He never sketched out on paper in +order to prepare his definite work. He wrote straight off as he +improvised, and in truth he seems to have been the greatest improviser +that ever was. Whether extemporising on the organ at the midday services +in St. Paul's Cathedral, or playing the _capriccios_ during the +_entr'actes_ of his oratorios at Covent Garden--or improvising on the +clavier in the orchestra at the opera, at Hamburg or in London, or "when +he accompanied the singers in a most marvellous fashion, adapting +himself to their temperament and virtuosity, without having any written +notes," he astounded the connoisseurs of his time; and Mattheson, who +may hardly be suspected of any indulgence towards him, proclaimed that +he had no equal in this. One can truly say that "he improvised every +minute of his life." He wrote his music with such an impetuosity of +feeling, and such a wealth of ideas, that his hand was constantly +lagging behind his thoughts, and in order to keep pace with them at all +he had to note them down in an abbreviated manner.[292] But (and this +seems contradictory) he had at the same time an exquisite sense of form. +No German surpassed him in the art of writing beautiful, melodic lines. +Mozart and Hasse alone were his equals in this. It was to this love of +perfection that we attribute that habit which, despite his fertility of +invention, causes him to use time after time, the same phrases (those +most important, and dearest to him) each time introducing an +imperceptible change, a light stroke of the pencil, which renders them +more perfect. The examination of these kinds of musical _eaux-fortes_ in +their successive states is very instructive for the musician who is +interested in plastic beauty.[293] It shows also how certain melodies, +once written down, continued to slumber in Handel's mind for many years, +until they had penetrated his subconscious nature, were applied at +first, by following the chances of his inspiration, to a certain +situation, which suited them moderately well. They are, so to speak, in +search of a body where they can reincarnate themselves, seeking the true +situation, the real sentiment of which they are but the latent +expression; and once having found it, they expand themselves with +ease.[294] + +Handel worked no less with the music of other composers than with his +own. If one had the time to study here what superficial readers have +called his plagiarisms, particularly taking, for example, _Israel in +Egypt_, where the most barefaced of these cases occur, one would see +with what genius and insight Handel has evoked from the very depths of +these musical phrases, their secret soul, of which the first creators +had not even a presentiment. It needed his eye, or his ear, to discover +in the serenade of Stradella its Biblical cataclysms. Each read and +heard a work of art as it is, and yet not as it is; and one may conclude +that it is not always the creator himself who has the most fertile idea +of it. The example of Handel well proves this. Not only did he create +music, but very often he created that of others for them. Stradella and +Erba were only for him (however humiliating the comparison) the flames +of fire, and the cracks in the wall, through which Leonardo saw the +living figures. Handel heard great storms passing through the gentle +quivering of Stradella's guitar.[295] + +This evocatory character of Handel's genius should never be forgotten. +He who is satisfied with listening to this music without _seeing_ what +it expresses--who judges this art as a purely formal art, who does not +feel his expressive and suggestive power, occasionally so far as +hallucination, will never understand it. It is a music which paints +emotions, souls, and situations, to see the epochs and the places, which +are the framework of the emotions, and which tint them with their own +peculiar moral tone. In a word, his is an art essentially picturesque +and dramatic. It is scarcely twenty to thirty years since the key to it +was found in Germany, thanks to the Handel Musical Festivals. As Heuss +says, concerning a recent performance at Leipzig, "For a proper +comprehension no master more than Handel has greater need of being +performed, and _well_ performed. One can study J. S. Bach at home, and +enjoy it even more than at a good concert, but he who has never heard +Handel well performed can with difficulty imagine what he really is, for +really good performances of Handel are excessively rare." The intimate +sense of his works was falsified in the century which followed his death +by the English interpretations, strengthened further still in Germany by +those of Mendelssohn, and his numerous following. By the exclusion of +and systematic contempt for all the operas of Handel, by an elimination +of nearly all the dramatic oratorios, the most powerful and the +freshest, by a narrow choice more and more restrained to the four or +five oratorios, and even here, by giving an exaggerated supremacy to +_The Messiah_, by the interpretation finally of these works, and notably +of _The Messiah_ in a pompous, rigid, and stolid manner, with an +orchestra and choir far too numerous and badly balanced, with singers +frightfully correct and pious, without any feeling or intimacy, there +has been established that tradition which makes Handel a church +musician after the style of Louis XIV, all decoration--pompous columns, +noble and cold statues, and pictures by Le Brun. It is not surprising +that this has reduced works executed on such principles, and degraded +them to a monumental tiresomeness similar to that which emanates from +the bewigged Alexanders, and the very conventional Christs of Le Brun. + +It is necessary to turn back. Handel was never a church musician, and he +hardly ever wrote for the church. Apart from his _Psalms_ and his _Te +Deum_, composed for the private chapels, and for exceptional events, he +only wrote instrumental music for concerts and for open-air _fêtes_, for +operas, and for those so-called oratorios, which were really written for +the theatre. The first oratorios he composed were really acted: _Acis +and Galatea_ in May, 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, with scenery, +decoration, and costumes, under the title of _English Pastoral +Opera--Esther_, in February, 1732, at the Academy of Ancient Music after +the manner of the Grecian tragedy, the chorus being placed behind the +stage and the orchestra. And if Handel resolutely abstained from +theatrical representation[296]--which alone gives the full value to +certain scenes, such as the orgie and the dream of Belshazzar, expressly +conceived for acting--on the other hand he stood out firmly for having +his oratorios at the theatre and not in the church. There were not +wanting churches any less than dissenting chapels in which he could give +his works, and by not doing so he turned against him the opinion of +religious people who considered it sacrilegious to carry pious subjects +on to the stage,[297] but he continued to affirm that he did not write +compositions for the church, but worked for the theatre--a free +theatre.[298] + +This briefly dramatic character of Handel's works has been well +comprehended by the German historians who have studied him during recent +times. Chrysander compares him to Shakespeare,[299] Kretzschmar calls +him the reformer of musical drama, Volbach and A. Heuss see in him a +dramatic musician, and claim for the performance of his oratorios +dramatic singers. Richard Strauss, in his introduction to Berlioz's +_Treatise of Orchestration_, opposes the great polyphonic and symphonic +stream issuing from J. S. Bach with that homophonic and dramatic one +which comes from Handel. We hope that the readers of this little book +have found here in nearly all these pages a confirmation of these ideas. + + * * * * * + +It remains for us, after having attempted to indicate the general +characteristics of Handel's art, to sketch the technique of the +different styles in which he worked. + +To speak truly, it is difficult to speak of the opera or of the oratorio +of Handel. It is necessary to say: _of the operas or of the oratorios_, +for we do not find that they point back to any single type. We can +verify here what we said at the commencement of this chapter, about the +magnificent vitality of Handel in choosing amongst his art forms the +different directions of the music of his times. + +All the European tendencies at that time are reflected in his operas: +the model of Keiser in his early works, the Venetian model in his +_Agrippina_, the model of Scarlatti and Steffani in his first early +operas; in the London works he soon introduces English influences, +particularly in the rhythms. Then it was Bononcini whom he rivalled. +Again, those great attempts of genius to create a new musical drama, +_Giulio Cesare_, _Tamerlano_, _Orlando_; later on, those charming +ballet-operas inspired by France, _Ariodante_, _Alcina_; later still, +those operas which point towards the _opéra comique_ and the light style +of the second half of the century, _Serse Deidamia_.... Handel continued +to try every other style, without making any permanent choice as did +Gluck, with whom alone he can be compared. + +Without doubt (and it is his greatest fault in the theatre) he was +constrained by the conventions of the Italian Opera at tunes and by the +composition of his troupe of singers to overlook his choruses, and to +write operas for solo voices, of which the principal _rôles_ were cast +for the Prima Donna and for the contralto,[300] but whenever he could, +he wrote his operas with choruses, like _Ariodante_, _Alcina_, and he +only owed it to himself that he did not give to the tenor or to the bass +their place in the concert of voices.[301] If it was not possible to +break the uniformity of the solo voices by the addition of choruses, +still he enlivened these solos by the flexibility and the variety of his +instrumental accompaniments. Such of his most celebrated airs, as the +Garden scene in _Rinaldo_, "_Augelletti che cantate_," are only in truth +an orchestral tone picture. The voice mingles itself only as an +instrument,[302] and with what art Handel always decides his melodies in +disengaging the beautiful lines, drawing all the parts possible in pure +tone colours from single instruments, and from the voice isolated,--then +united,--and what of his silences! + +The appeal of his melodies is much more varied than one usually +believes. If the _Da Capo_ form abounds in his works,[303] it is +necessary to admit that it was practically the only one of that period. +In _Almira_, Handel uses the form of a little strophic song, very +happily. For this, Keiser supplied him with models, and he never +renounces the use of these little melodies, so simple and touching, +almost bare, which speak direct to the soul. He seems to return to them +even with special predilection in his last operas, _Atalanta_, +_Giustina_, _Serse_, _Deidamia_.[304] He gives also to Hasse and to +Graun the model of his six cavatinas, airs in two parts,[305] which they +later on brought into prominence. We find his dramatic airs also have +the second part and the repeat.[306] + +Even in the _Da Capo_, however, he gives us a variety of forms! Not only +does Handel use all styles, but how well does he blend the voices with +the instruments in those airs of great brilliance and free +virtuosity![307] With what predilection does he ply all these beautiful +and learned contrapuntal tissues, as in the _Cara sposa_ from _Rinaldo_ +or the _Ombra cara_ from _Radamisto_; but he ever seeks new combinations +for the old form. He was one of the first to adopt the little Airs _da +capo_, which with Bononcini seems to have been so much the fashion at +the commencement of the eighteenth century, and of which _Agrippina_ and +_Ottone_ furnish such delightful examples.[308] To the second part of +the air he gave a different character and movement from that of the +first part.[309] Still further, in either of the parts several +movements were combined.[310] Sometimes the second part was +recitative,[311] or it was extremely condensed.[312] When Handel had +choruses at his disposal in his oratorios, he often entrusted the _Da +Capo_ to the Chorus.[313] He went further: in _Samson_, after Micah has +sung in the second act the first two parts of the air "Return, O God of +Hosts," the chorus takes up the second part at the same time as Micah +returns to the first part. Finally he attempts to divide the _Da Capo_ +between two characters, thus in the second act of _Saul_, Jonathan's +solo "Sin not, O King, against the youth," is followed by Saul's solo, +then appearing note for note. + +But the most glorious feat of Handel in vocal solos is the "recitative +scene." + +It was Keiser who taught him the art of those moving _recitative-ariosi_ +with orchestra, which he had already used in _Almira_, and of which, +later on, J. S. Bach was to take from him the style. He never ceased to +employ it in his London operas, and he gave the form a superb amplitude. +They are not merely isolated recitatives or preambles to an extended +solo.[314] The story of Cæsar in the third act of _Giulio Cesare, +Dall'ondoso periglio_ is one large musical picture, which expresses in +its frame a symphonic prelude, a recitative, the two first parts of an +air over the symphonic accompaniment of the opening, a second +recitative, then the _Da Capo_. The scene of Bajazet's death in the last +act of _Tamerlano_ is composed of a series of recitatives with +orchestra, and of airs joined together, and passes through all the +nuances of feeling, forming from one stage to the other a veritable +ladder of life. The scene of Admetes' agony at the opening of the opera +of the same name equals in profundity, emotion, and dramatic liberty, +the finest recitative scenes of Gluck. The "mad scene" in +_Orlando_,[315] and that of Dejanira's despair in the third act of +_Hercules_, surpasses them in boldness of realism, and frenetic passion. +In the first, burlesque and tragic elements commingle with a truly +Shakespearean art. The second is a mighty foaming river, raging with +fury and grief. Neither of these two scenes have any analogy in the +whole of the musical theatre of the eighteenth century. And _Teseo_, +_Rodelinda_, _Alessandro_, _Alcina_, _Semele_, _Joseph_, _Alexander +Balus_, _Jephtha_, all present recitative scenes, or combinations in the +same scene of recitatives and very free airs, with instrumental +interludes, no less original. Finally a sort of presentiment of the +_leit-motiv_, and its psychological employment in _Belshazzar_, should +be noticed, where certain instrumental phrases and recitatives seem +attached to the character of Nitocris.[316] + + * * * * * + +The study of Handel's recitatives and airs raises perhaps the greatest +problem of artistic interpretation--that of vocal ornamentation. + +We know that Handelian singers used to decorate his melodies with graces +and melismatic figures, and cadenzas (often very considerable) which +have disappeared for the greater part. Chrysander, in editing Handel's +works, found them given as alternatives, and either suppressed them +(those which were false to the historic sense of the text) or else +rewrote them himself. It was in this last point that he stopped short of +all possible guarantees of exactness, or at least of true resemblance. +But his revisions found few supporters, and a discussion on his +treatment of this subject has been recently raised amongst German +musical writers.[317] This debate, the examination of which cannot be +entered into in this volume, authorised, it seems, the following +conclusions: + + (1) The vocal ornaments were not improvised and left to the fancy + of the singer, as is often asserted, but they were marked with + precise indications in the singer's parts, and also in the score of + the accompanying clavecinist:[318] + + (2) They were not mere caprices of empty virtuosity but the result + of a reflective virtuosity, and subject to the general style of the + piece. They served to accentuate more deeply the expression of the + principal melodic lines.[319] + +Yet what would be the advantage of restoring these ornaments? Our taste +has changed since then, and a stricter reverence forbids us to risk +tampering with works of the past by following slavishly such details of +tradition and habit which have become meaningless and old-fashioned. Is +it better to impose on the public of to-day the older works with all +their marks of age improved away by the learning of later +generations--or to adapt them soberly in the manner of true feeling, so +as to enable them to continue to exercise on us their elevating power? +Both sides have been well supported.[320] For myself I consider the +first proposition bears on the publication of the scores, and the second +on the musical renderings. The mind ought to seek and find out exactly +what used to be the case, but when this is done the living are justified +in claiming their rights, and by being allowed to reject ancient usages, +only preserving such as render these works of genius truly vital. + + * * * * * + +The vocal ensemble pieces hold a much humbler place in Italian Opera, +and Handel has made fewer innovations on this ground than in the vocal +solo. However, one finds some very interesting experiments here. His +duets are often written in an imitative style, serious and rather sad, +in the old Italian school of Provenzale and Steffani,[321] or in the +Lully style, where the two voices mingle together note by note with +exactitude.[322] But _Atalanta_ and _Poro_ furnish us also with duets of +an alluring freedom and uncommon artistry. And in the duet in the third +act of _Orlando_, Handel attempts to differentiate the characters of the +weeping Angelica and the furious Roland.--Similarly with the trios +written in the strict style of imitation, like that in _Alcina_, Act +III, the trio in _Acis and Galatea_ carefully defines the couple of +lovers from the colossal figure of Polyphemus, the trio in _Tamerlano_ +contrasts the exasperated Tamerlano with Bajazet and with Asteria, who +aggravated him, and the trio in the judgment of Solomon distinguishes +the three diverse characters: the calm power of Solomon, the aggressive +cries of the wicked mother, and the sorrowful supplications of the good +mother. The trio from _Susanna_ is no less free, but in the humorous +style: one of the two old men madrigalises whilst the other menaces. The +_ensemble_ forms altogether a most vivid little scene which Mozart +himself would not have disowned.[323] Quartets are rare. There are two +little ones in the _Triumph of Time_, written in Rome. In _Radamisto_ +Handel made the attempt at a dramatic quartet, but rather clumsily, and +with repeated _Da Capo_.[324] The most moving quartet is found in the +second act of _Jephtha_. It is in _Jephtha_ also, Act III, where the +only quintet which he wrote is to be found. + +The choruses in the Italian opera of the eighteenth century[325] were +reduced to a rudimentary stage, and they consist merely of the union of +the voices of soloists at the end of a piece, with certain banal and +brilliant acclamations during the course of the action. Notwithstanding +this, Handel wrote some stronger ones in _Alcina_; those of _Giulio +Cesare_, _Ariodante_, and _Atalanta_, were also exceptional in the +operas of his time. So with the final choruses Handel arranged after a +fashion to escape from the current banality: that of _Tamerlano_ is +written in a melancholy dramatic vein; that of _Orlando_ strives to +preserve the individual character of their personality; that of _Giulio +Cesare_ is tacked on to a duet. There are also choruses of people; the +Matelots in _Giustino_; that of the hunters in _Deidamia_, where the +choruses take up the refrain from the air announced by the solo voice. +It is the same in _Alessandro_, where the soldiers' chorus repeats +Alessandro's hymn, slightly curtailed. + +Finally, Handel frequently attempted to build up great musical +architecture, raising it by successive stages from solos to ensemble +pieces, and then to choruses. At the end of the first act of +_Ariodante_, a duet (gavotte style) is taken up by the chorus, then +danced without voices; finally sung and danced. The close of Act III +from the same opera gives us a chain of processions, dances, and +choruses. The final scenes of _Alessandro_ constitute a veritable opera +_finale_, 2 duets and a trio running into a chorus. + +But it is in his oratorios that Handel attempted these ensemble vocal +combinations on the larger scale, and principally that mixture of +movements where the powerful contrasts of soli and chorus are grouped +together in the same picture. + +One sees what a variety of forms and styles he used. Handel was too +universal and too objective to believe that one kind of art only was the +true one. He believed in two kinds of music only, the good and the bad. +Apart from that he appreciated all styles. Thus he has left masterpieces +in every style, but he did not open any new way in opera for the simple +reason that he went a long way in nearly all paths already opened up. +Constantly he experimented, invented, and always with his singularly +sure touch. He seemed to have an extraordinary penetrating knowledge in +invention, and consequently few artistic regions remained for him to +conquer. He made as masterly a use of the recitative as Gluck, or of the +_arioso_ as Mozart, writing the acts of _Tamerlano_, which are the +closest and most heartrending dramas, in the manner of _Iphigénie en +Tauride_, the most moving and passionate scenes in music such as certain +pages of _Admeto_ and _Orlando_, where the humorous and tragic are +intermingled in the manner of _Don Giovanni_. He has experimented very +happily here in new rhythms.[326] There were new forms, the dramatic +duet or quartet, the descriptive symphony opening the opera,[327] +refined orchestration,[328] choruses and dances.[329] Nothing seems to +have obsessed him. In the following opera we find him returning to the +ordinary forms of the Italian or German opera of his time. + + * * * * * + +Still less can we say that he held to a rigid form with his operas, +which were continually adapted to the changing tastes of the theatre +public of his age, and of the singers which he had at his disposal, but +when he left the opera for the oratorio he varied no less. It was a +perpetual experiment of new forms in the vast framework of the free +theatre (_theatre en liberté_) of the concert drama; and the sort of +instinctive ebb and flow in creation seems to have caused his works to +succeed one another in groups of analogous or related compositions, each +work in a nearly opposite style of feeling and form. In each one Handel +indulged momentarily in a certain side of his feelings, and when that +was finished he found himself in the possession of other feelings which +had been accumulating whilst he was drawing on his first. He thus kept +up a perpetual balance, which is like the pulsation of life itself. +After the realistic _Saul_ comes the impersonal epic of _Israel in +Egypt_. After this colossal monument appear the two little _genre_ +pictures, _The Ode to Cecilia_ and _L'Allegro ed Penseroso_. After the +Herculean _Samson_, an heroic and popular tragic comedy sprang forth, +the charming flower of _Semele_, an opera of romanticism and gallantry. + +But if the oratorios are so wonderfully varied they have one +characteristic in common even more than the operas, they are musical +dramas. It was not that religious thought turned Handel to this choice +of Biblical subjects, but as Kretzschmar has well shown, it was on +account of the stories of the Bible heroes being a part of the very +life-blood of the people whom he addressed. They were known to all, +whilst the ancient romantic stories could only interest a society of +refined and spoilt _dilettanti_. Without doubt, these oratorios were not +made for representation, did not seek scenic effects, with rare +exceptions, as for instance the scene of the orgy of _Belshazzar_, where +one feels that Handel had drawn on the direct vision of theatrical +representation, but passions, spirits, and personalities were +represented always in a dramatic fashion. Handel is a great painter of +characters, and the Delilah in _Samson_, the Nitocris in _Belshazzar_, +the Cleopatra in _Alexander Balus_, the mother in _Solomon_, the +Dejanira in _Hercules_, the beautiful Theodora, all bear witness to the +suppleness and the profundity of his psychological genius. If in the +course of the action, and the depicting of the ordinary sentiments, he +abandoned himself freely to the flow of pure music, in the moments of +passionate crises he is the equal of the greatest masters in musical +drama. Is it necessary to mention the terrible scenes in the third act +of _Hercules_, the beautiful scenes of _Alexander Balus_, the Dream of +_Belshazzar_, the scenes of _Juno_ and the death of _Semele_, the +recognition of Joseph and his brothers, the destruction of the temple in +Samson, the second act of _Jephtha_, the prison scenes in _Theodora_, or +in the first act of _Saul_, and dominating all, like great pictures, +certain of the choruses in _Israel in Egypt_, in _Esther_, and in +_Joshua_, and in the _Chandos Anthems_, which seem veritable tempests of +passion, great upheavals of overpowering effect? It is by these choruses +that the oratorio is essentially distinguished from the opera. It is in +the first place a choral tragedy. These choruses, which are nearly +eliminated in Italian Opera during the time of the Barberini, held a +very important place in French Opera, but their _rôle_ was limited to +that of commentator or else merely decorative. In the oratorio of Handel +they became the very life and soul of the work. Sometimes they took the +part of the ancient classical chorus, which exposed the thought of the +drama when the hidden fates led on the heroes to their destinies--as in +_Saul_, _Hercules_, _Alexander Balus_, _Susanna_. Sometimes they added +to the shock of human passions the powerful appeal of religion, and +crowned the human drama with a supernatural aureole, as in _Theodora_ +and _Jephtha_. Or finally they became the actual actors themselves, or +the enemy-people and the God who guided them. It is remarkable that in +his very first oratorio _Esther_, Handel had this stroke of genius. In +the choruses there we see the drama of an oppressed people and their God +who led them by his voice superbly depicted. In _Deborah_ and _Athaliah_ +also, two nations are in evidence. In _Belshazzar_ there are three, but +in his chief work of this kind, _Israel in Egypt_, the greatest choral +epic which exists, is entirely occupied by Jehovah and His people. + +The choruses are in the most diverse styles. Some are in the church +style, and a little antiquated;[330] others tend towards the opera--even +the _opéra bouffe_;[331] some exhale the perfume of the madrigals at the +end of the sixteenth century,[332] and the Academy of Ancient Music in +London sought to sustain this art in honour. On the other hand, Handel +has frequently used them in the form of a chorale, simple or +varied,[333] above all, he employs the choral double fugue in a most +astounding manner,[334] and he carries everything on with that +impetuosity of genius which drew to him the admiration of the sternest +critics of his time, such as Mattheson. His instinct as a great +constructor loved to alternate homophonic music with fugal +choruses,[335] the massive columns of musical harmony with the moving +contrapuntal in superimposed strata, very cleverly framing his dramatic +choruses in a most imposing architecture of decorative and impersonal +character. His choruses are sometimes tragic scenes,[336] or comedy (see +the _Vaudeville_),[337] sometimes _genre_ pictures.[338] Handel knew +most admirably how to weave in popular motives,[339] or to mingle the +dance with the song.[340] + +But what belongs chiefly to him--not that he invented it, but made the +happiest use of it--is the musical architecture of solo and chorus +alternating and intermingled. Purcell and the French composers had given +him this idea. He attempted it in his earliest religious works, +especially in his _Birthday Ode for Queen Anne_, 1713, where nearly +every solo air is taken up again by the following chorus.[341] He had a +great feeling for light and pleased himself by introducing in the middle +of his choral masses, solo songs which soared up into the air like +birds.[342] His dramatic genius knew, when required, how to draw from +this combination the most astounding effects. Thus in the _Passion after +Brockes_, 1716, where the dialogue of the Daughter of Sion and the +chorus _Eilt ihr angefochten Seelen_, with its questions, its responses, +its Æschylian interjections, served as Bach's model for his St. Matthew +Passion. At the end of _Israel in Egypt_, after those great choral +mountains of sounds, by an ingenious contrast a female voice is heard +alone without accompaniment, and then a hymn alternating with the chorus +which repeats it. It is the same again at the end of the little short +_Ode to St. Cecilia_. + +In the _Occasional Oratorio_ a duet for Soprano and Alto alternates with +the choruses, but it is in _Judas Maccabæus_ where he best achieves this +combination of solos and the chorus. In this victorious epic of an +invaded people, who rose up and overcame their oppressors, the +individualities are scarcely distinguished from the heroic soul of the +nation, and the chiefs of the people are only the choralists, whose +songs set dancing the enormous ensembles which unfold themselves in +powerful and irresistible progressions, like a giant's procession up a +triumphal staircase. + +It follows then that when the orchestra is added to the dialogue of +solos and of choruses, the third element enters into the psychological +drama, sometimes in apparent opposition to the two others. Thus in the +second act of _Judas Maccabæus_ the orchestra which sounds the battle +calls makes a vivid contrast to the somewhat funereal choruses on which +they are interposed: _We hear the pleasing dreadful call_, or to put it +better, they complete them, and fill in the picture. After Death--Glory. + +The oratorio being a "free theatre," it becomes necessary for the music +to supply the place of the scenery. Thus its picturesque and descriptive +_rôle_ is strongly developed and it is by this above all that Handel's +genius so struck the English public. Camille Saint-Saëns wrote in an +interesting letter to C. Bellaigue,[343] "I have come to the conclusion +that it is the picturesque and descriptive side, until then novel and +unreached, whereby Handel achieved the astonishing favour which he +enjoyed. This masterly way of writing choruses, of treating the fugue, +had been done by others. What really counts with him is the colour--that +modern element which we no longer hear in him.... He knew nothing of +exotism. But look at _Alexander's Feast_, _Israel in Egypt_, and +especially _L'Allegro ed Penseroso_, and try to forget all that has been +done since. You find at every turn a striving for the picturesque, for +an effect of imitation. It is real and very intense for the medium in +which it is produced, and it seems to have been unknown hitherto." + +Perhaps Saint-Saëns lays too much weight on the "masterly way of writing +his choruses," which was not so common in England, even with Purcell. +Perhaps he accentuates too much also the real influence of the French in +matters of picturesque and descriptive music and the influence which it +exerted on Handel.[344] Finally, it is not necessary to represent these +descriptive tendencies of Handel as exceptional in his time. A great +breath of nature passed over German music, and pushed it towards +tone-painting. Telemann was, even more than Handel, a painter in music, +and was more celebrated than Handel for his realistic effects. But the +England of the eighteenth century had remained very conservative in +music, and had devoted itself to cultivating the masters of the past. +Handel's art was then more striking to them on account of "its colour" +and "its imitative effects." I will not say with Saint-Saëns that "there +was no question of exotism with him," for Handel seems to have sought +this very thing more than once; notably in the orchestration of certain +scenes for the two Cleopatras, of _Giulio Cesare_, and of _Alexander +Balus_. But that which was constantly with him was tone-painting, the +reproduction through passages of music of natural impressions, a +painting very characterised, and, as Beethoven put it, "more an +expression of feelings than of painting," a poetic evocation of the +raging tempests, of the tranquillity of the sea, of the dark shades of +night, of the twilight which envelops the English country, of the parks +by moonlight, of the sunrise in springtime, and of the awakening of +birds. _Acis and Galatea_, _Israel in Egypt_, _Allegro_, _The Messiah_, +_Semele_, _Joseph_, _Solomon_, _Susanna_, all offer a wondrous picture +gallery of nature, carefully noted by Handel with the sure stroke of a +Flemish painter, and of a romantic poet at the same time. This +romanticism struck powerfully on his time with a strength which would +not be denied. It drew upon him both admiration and violent criticism. A +letter of 1751 depicts him as a Berlioz or Wagner, raising storms by +his orchestra and chorus. + +"He cannot give people pleasure after the proper fashion," writes this +anonymous author in his letter, "and his evil genius will not allow him +to do this. He imagines a new _grandioso_ kind of music, and in order to +make more noise he has it executed by the greatest number of voices and +instruments which one has ever heard before in a theatre. He thinks thus +to rival not only the god of musicians, but even all the other gods, +like Iöle, Neptune, and Jupiter: for either I expected that the house +would be brought down by his tempest, or that the sea would engulf the +whole. But more unbearable still was his thunder. Never have such +terrible rumblings fallen on my head."[345] + +Similarly Goethe, irritated and upset, said, after having heard the +first movement of the Beethoven C Minor symphony, "It is meaningless. +One expected the house to fall about one's ears." + +It is not by chance that I couple the names of Handel and Beethoven. +Handel is a kind of Beethoven in chains. He had the unapproachable +manner like the great Italian artists who surrounded him: the Porporas, +the Hasses, and between him and them there was a whole world.[346] +Under the classic ideal with which he covered himself burned a romantic +genius, precursor of the _Sturm und Drang_ period; and sometimes this +hidden demon broke out in brusque fits of passion--perhaps despite +himself. + + * * * * * + +Handel's instrumental music deserves very close notice: for it is nearly +always wrongly assessed by historians, and badly understood by artists, +who treat it for the most part as a merely formal art. + +Its chief characteristic is that of a perpetual improvisation. If it was +published, it was more in spite of Handel than at his instigation.[347] +It was not made to be played and judged coldly, but to be produced at +white heat to the public. They were free sketches, in which the form was +never completely tightened up, but remained always moving and living, +modifying itself at the concert, as the two sensibilities--the artist +and the public--came into touch with one another.[348] It is necessary +then to preserve in this music a certain measure of the character of +living improvisation. What we too often do, on the contrary, is to +petrify them. One cannot say that they are a caricature of the work of +Handel. They are rather a negation of it. When one studies with a minute +care every detail of the work, when one has attained from the orchestra +a precision of attack, an ensemble, a justness, an irreproachable +finish, we have yet done nothing more than raise up the mere figure of +this genial improvisator. + +Further, there is with his instrumental music, as with his vocal music, +nearly always an intimate and picturesque expression. For Handel, as +with his friend Geminiani, "the aim of instrumental music is not only to +please the ear, but to express the sentiments, the emotions, to paint +the feelings."[349] It reflects not only the interior world, but it also +turns to the actual spectacle of things.[350] It is a precise poetry, +and if one cannot define the sources of his inspiration, one can often +find in certain of his instrumental works the souvenir of days and +journeys, and of scenes visited and experienced by Handel. It was here +that he was visibly inspired by Nature.[351] + +Others have a relationship with vocal and dramatic works. Certain of the +heroic fugues in the fourth book of the Clavier pieces published in 1735 +were taken up again by Handel in his _Israel in Egypt_ and clothed with +words which agreed precisely with their hidden feeling. The first +_Allegro_ from the Fourth Organ Concerto (the first book appeared in +1738) soon became shortly afterwards one of the prettiest of the +choruses in _Alcina_. The second and monumental concerto for two horns +in F Major[352] is a reincarnation of some of the finest pages from +_Esther_. It was quite evident to the public of his time that the +instrumental works had an expressive meaning, or that as Geminiani +wrote, "all good music ought to be an imitation of a fine discourse." +Thus the publisher Walsh was justified in issuing his six volumes of +Favourite Airs from Handel's operas and oratorios, arranged as _Sonatas +for the flute, violin, and harpsichord_, and Handel himself, or his +pupil, W. Babell, arranged excellently for the clavier, some suites of +airs from the operas, binding them together with preludes, interludes, +and variations.--It is necessary always to keep in view this intimate +relation of the instrumental works of Handel with the rest of his music. +It ought to draw our attention more and more to the expressive contents +of these works. + + * * * * * + +The instrumental music of Handel divides itself into three classes: +firstly--music for the clavier (the clavecin and organ); +secondly--chamber music (sonatas and trios); thirdly--orchestral music. +The compositions for clavier are the most popular works of any that +Handel wrote, and these have achieved the greatest number of European +editions. Although they comprise three volumes, yet there is only one, +the first, which represents him properly, for it is the only one which +he prepared himself, and supervised. The others, more or less +fraudulently published, misrepresent him. + +This First Volume, published in November, 1720, under the French title +_Suites_, etc., affords us the means of appreciating the two most +striking of Handel's traits: his precocious maturity, which hardly +developed at all in the course of time; and the European universality of +character which distinguished his art even at an epoch when the great +artists were less national than they are to-day. For the first trait one +would remark in fine that these Clavier Pieces published in 1720 had +already been written some time, certainly before 1700. One discovers a +part of them in the _Jugendbuch_ of the Lennard Collection.[353] Others +come from _Almira_, 1705. Naturally Handel enlarged and revised, and +carefully grouped all these pieces in his edition of 1720. The interest +of the _Jugendbuch_ is chiefly that it shows us the first sketches of +the pieces, and how Handel perfected them. Side by side with the oldest +pieces there are others more recent, composed, it may be, in Italy or in +England.[354] One can trace in these pages the course of the different +influences. Seiffert and Fleischer have noted some of them,[355] German +influences, French, and Italian.[356] In England even, sometimes +Italian elements, sometimes German, predominated with him.[357] The +order of the dances varies in each Suite, and also the central point, +the kernel of the work. The introductory pieces are sometimes preludes, +sometimes fugues, overtures, etc. The dances and the airs are sometimes +related to one another, and sometimes independent, and nevertheless the +prevailing impression of the work, so varied in its texture, is its +complete unity. The personality of Handel holds it all together and +welds the most diverse elements--polyphony and richness of German +harmony, Italian homophony, and Scarlattian technique, the French rhythm +and ornamentation[358] with English directness and practicability. Thus +the work made its impression on the times. Before this time, there had +perhaps been more original volumes of pieces for the clavier, but their +inspiration was nearly always very much circumscribed by the limits of +their national art. Handel was the first of the great German classics of +the eighteenth century. He did for music what the French writers and +philosophers of the eighteenth century did for literature. He wrote for +all and sundry, and his volume took the place on the day of its +publication which it has held since, that of a European classic. + +The following volumes are less interesting for the reasons I have given. +The Second Volume published in 1733 by Walsh, _unknown_ to Handel, and +in a very faulty manner, gives us little pieces which we find in the +_Jugendbuch_, and which date from the time of Hamburg and Halle.[359] +They lack the setting which Handel had certainly planned for them: +preludes and fugues. + +This arrangement was ready; and Handel, frustrated by this publisher, +resigned himself to publishing them later on, as an Appendix to the +preceding work: _Six Fugues or Voluntaries for the Organ or Harpsichord, +1735, Opus 3._ These fugues date from the time when Handel was at Canons +before 1720, the second in G Major was from the period of his first +sojourn in England. They became celebrated at once, and were much +circulated in manuscript even in Germany.[360] Handel had trained +himself in fugue in the school of Kuhnau, and specially with Johann +Krieger.[361] Like them he gave his Fugues an essentially melodic +character. They are so suited for singing that two of them, as we have +said, afterwards served for two choruses in the first part of +_Israel_,[362] but Handel's compositions possess a far different +vitality from that of his German forerunners. They have a charming +intrepidity, a fury, a passion, a fire which belongs only to him. In +other words they live. "All the notes talk," says Mattheson. These +fugues have the character of happy improvisations, and in truth they +were improvised. Handel calls them Voluntaries, that is fanciful and +learned caprices. He made frequent use of double fugues with a masterly +development. "Such an art rejoices the hearer and warms the heart +towards the composer and towards the executant," says Mattheson again, +who, after having heard J. S. Bach, found Handel the greater in the +composition of the double fugue and in improvisation. This habit of +Handel--one might say almost a craving--for improvising, was the origin +of the grand Organ Concertos. After the fashion of his time, Handel +conducted his operas and oratorios from the clavier. He accompanied the +singers with a marvellous art, blending himself to their fancy, and when +the singer had done, he delivered his version.[363] From the interludes +on the clavier in his operas, he passed to the fantasies or caprices on +the organ in the _entr'actes_ of his oratorios, and his success was so +great that he never again abandoned this custom. One might say that the +public were drawn to his oratorios more by his improvisations on the +organ than by the oratorios themselves. Two volumes of the Organ +Concertos were published during the lifetime of Handel, in 1738 and in +1740; the third a little after his death, in 1760.[364] To judge them +properly it is necessary to bear in mind that they were destined for +the theatre. It would be absurd to expect works in the strict, vigorous, +and involved style of J. S. Bach. They were brilliant _divertissements_, +of which the style, somewhat commonplace yet luminous and pompous, +preserves the character of oratorio improvisations, finding their +immediate effect on the great audience. "_When he gave a concerto_," +says Hawkins, "_his method in general was to introduce it with a +voluntary movement on the diapasons, which stole on the ear in a slow +and solemn progression; the harmony close wrought, and as full as could +possibly be expressed; the passages concatenated with stupendous art, +the whole at the same time being perfectly intelligible, and carrying +the appearance of great simplicity. This kind of prelude was succeeded +by the concerto itself, which he executed with a degree of spirit and +firmness that no one can ever pretend to equal_." Even at the height of +the cabal which was organised against Handel, the Grub Street Journal +published an enthusiastic poem on Handel's Organ Concertos.[365] + + "_Oh winds, softly, softly raise your golden wings among the branches!_ + _That all may be silent, make even the whisperings of Zephyrs to cease._ + _Sources of life, suspend your course...._ + _Listen, listen, Handel the incomparable plays!..._ + _Oh look, when he, the powerful man, makes the forces of the + organ resound,_ + _Joy assembles its cohorts, malice is appeased, ..._ + _His hand, like that of the Creator, conducts his noble work with + order, with grandeur and reason...._ + _Silence, bunglers in art! It is nothing here to have the favour of + great lords. Here, Handel is king._" + +It is necessary then to view these Organ Concertos in the proper sense +of magnificent concerts for a huge public.[366] Great shadows, great +lights, strong and joyous contrasts, all are conceived in view of a +colossal effect. The orchestra usually consists of two oboes, two +violins, viola, and basses (violoncellos, bassoons, and cembalo), +occasionally two flutes, some contrabassos and a harp.[367] The +concertos are in three or four movements, which are generally connected +in pairs. Usually they open with a _pomposo_, or a _staccato_, in the +style of the French overture,[368] often an _allegro_ in the same style +follows. For the conclusion, an _allegro moderato_, or an _andante_, +somewhat animated, sometimes some dances. The _adagio_ in the middle is +often missing, and is left to be improvised on the organ. The form has a +certain relation with that of the sonata in three movements, +_allegro-adagio-allegro_, preceded by an introduction. The first pieces +of these two first concertos published in Volume XLVIII of the Complete +Edition (second volume) are in a picturesque and descriptive style. The +long Concerto in F Major in the same volume has the swing of festival +music, very closely allied to the open-air style. Finally, one must +notice the beautiful experiment, unfortunately not continued, of the +Concerto for two organs,[369] and that, more astonishing still, of a +Concerto for Organ terminated by a Chorus,[370] thus opening the way for +Beethoven's fine Symphony, and to his successors, Berlioz, Liszt, and +Mahler.[371] + + * * * * * + +The chamber music of Handel proves to be of the same precocious maturity +as his clavier music. + +Six Sonatas in Trio for two oboes and harpsichord[372] appear to date +from about 1696, when he was eleven years old, and while he was still at +Halle, where he wrote as he said, "like the devil," above all for the +oboe, his favourite instrument. They are in four movements: _adagio_, +_allegro_, _adagio_, _allegro_. The slow movements are often very short, +and the second between them is sometimes a mere transition. The Sonata +for _Viola da Gamba_, and _Cembalo Concertato_ in C Major[373] probably +belongs to 1705, when Handel was at Hamburg. It is the only one of its +kind in the works of Handel, which shows him as a forerunner of Bach. +The sonata is in trio form. The clavier plays a second _obbligato_ +besides the bass part, as Seiffert notes: "Ten years before Bach worked +at his Sonatas with accompaniment for _cembalo obbligato_, Handel had +already a clear perception of their value." + +Three Sonatas for Flute and Bass,[374] of an elegiac grace, also perhaps +date from the Halle period, and according to Chrysander seem to have +been continued up to 1710 at Hanover. + +But the chief instrumental chamber works written by Handel were +published in London between 1732 and 1740, and they comprise three +volumes:[375] + + (1) Fifteen sonatas or solos for a German flute, oboe or violin, + with a thorough bass for the harpsichord, or bass violin, Op. 1. + + (2) Nine sonatas or trios for two violins, flutes, or oboes, with a + thorough bass for the harpsichord, or violoncello, Op. 2. + + (3) Seven sonatas or trios for two violins, or German flutes, with + a thorough bass for the harpsichord, or violoncello, Op. 5. + +The first volume contains very old pieces, of which some date from the +time when Handel was at Burlington and Chandos. Others might have been +intended for the Prince of Wales, whose violin teacher, John Dubourg, +was a friend of Handel, as they date from about 1730. The second volume +appeared at first in Amsterdam, afterwards in London with Walsh, under a +French title[376] in 1733. + +The third volume was composed in 1738, and published about the beginning +of 1739.[377] + +The first feature to notice in general is the want of definition in the +choice of instruments for which this music was written. Following the +same abstract æsthetic of his time, the composer left it to the players +to choose the instruments. However, there was no doubt that in the first +conception of Handel certain of these pieces were made for the flute, +others for the violin, and others for the oboe. + +In the volume Op. 1 of the solo sonatas (for the flute or oboe, or +violin) with bass (harpsichord or violoncello), the usual form is +generally in four movements:[378] _adagio_, _allegro_, _adagio_, +_allegro_. The slow pieces are very short. Several are inspired by the +airs of Italian cantatas and operas. Some of the pieces are joined +together.[379] The harmony is often thin, and requires to be filled in. + +The second and third volumes have a much greater value, containing trios +or sonatas in two parts (for two violins, or two oboes, or two +_flauti-traversi_) with Bass (harpsichord or violoncello). All the +sonatas in the second volume, with only one exception,[380] have four +movements, two slow and two fast alternatively, as in the Opus 1. +Sometimes they are inspired by the airs of the operas, or of the +oratorios; at other times they have furnished a brief sketch for them. +The elegiac _Largo_ which opens the First Sonata is found again in +_Alessandro_, the _allegro_ which finishes the Third Sonata forms one of +the movements in the overture of _Athaliah_, the larghetto of the Fourth +serves for the second movement of the _Esther_ overture. Other pieces +have been transferred to the clavier or other instrumental works, where +they are joined to other movements. The finest of these Trios are the +First and the Ninth, both of enchanting poetry. In the second movement +of the Ninth Trio, Handel has utilised very happily a popular English +theme. + +The Seven Trios from the third volume afford a much greater variety in +the style and in the number[381] of the pieces. Dances occupy a great +part.[382] They are indeed veritable Suites. They were composed in the +years when Handel was attracted by the form of ballet-opera. The +Musette and the _Allegro_ of the Second Sonata come from _Ariodante_. +Some of the other slow and pompous movements are borrowed from his +oratorios. The two _Allegri_ which open the Fourth Sonata are taken from +the Overture of _Athaliah_. On the other hand, Handel inserts in the +final movement of _Belshazzar_ the beautiful _Andante_ which opens his +First Sonata. + +Whoever wishes to judge these works historically or from the +intellectual point of view, will find, like Chrysander, that Handel has +not invented here any new forms, and, as he advanced, he returned to the +form of the Suite, which already belonged to the past, instead of +continuing on his way towards the future Sonata. But those who will +judge them artistically, for their own personal charm, will find in them +some of the purest creations of Handel, and those which best retain +their freshness. Their beautiful Italian lines, their delicate +expression, their aristocratic simplicity, are refreshing alike to the +mind and to the heart. Our own epoch, tired of the post-Beethoven and +post-Wagnerian art, can find here, as in the chamber music of Mozart, a +safe haven, where it can escape the sterile agitation of the present and +find again quiet peace and sanity. + + * * * * * + +The orchestral music of Handel comprises twelve _Concerti Grossi_ +(1740), the six Oboe Concertos (1734), the Symphonies from his operas, +oratorios, and his open-air music--Water-Music (1715 or 1717), Firework +Music (1749),--and _Concerti_ for two horns. + +Although Handel was in art a visualist, and though his music had a +highly descriptive and evocatory power, he only made a very restrained +use of instrumental tone-colour.[383] However, he showed on occasion a +refined intelligence in its use. The two oratorios written at Rome when +he found himself in the society of the Cardinal Ottoboni, and his great +_virtuoso_ works, _The Triumph of Time_ and _The Resurrection_ of 1708, +have a fine and well-varied orchestration.[384] In London he was one of +the first to introduce the use of the horn into the orchestra of the +opera.[385] "He was the first," says Volbach, "to assert the expressive +personality of the violoncello."[386] From the viola he knew how to +secure many curious effects of indefinite and disquieting +half-tones,[387] he gave to the bassoons a lugubrious and fantastic +character,[388] he experimented with new instruments, small[389] and +great,[390] he used the drum (_tambour_) solo in a dramatic fashion for +Jupiter's oath in _Semele_. For special situations, by instrumental +tone-colours, he secures effects not only of dramatic expression, but +also of exotism and local colour. It is so in the two scenes from the +two Cleopatras, _Giulio Cesare_ (1724)[391] and _Alexander Balus_ +(1748). + +But great painter as Handel was he did not work so much through the +brilliancy, variety, and novelty of his tone-colours as by the beauty of +his designs, and his effects of light and shade. With a voluntarily +restrained palette, and by satisfying himself with the sober colours of +the strings, he yet was able to produce surprising and thrilling +effects. Volbach has shown[392] that he had less recourse to the +contrast and mixing of instruments than to the division of the same +family of instruments into different groups. In the introductory piece +movement to his second _Esther_ (1732) the violins are divided into five +groups;[393] in _The Resurrection_ (1708), into four divisions;[394] the +violas are sometimes divided into two, the second being reinforced by +the third violin, or by the violoncellos.[395] On the other hand, +Handel, when he considered it advisable, reduced his instrumental forces +by suppressing the viola and the second violin, whose places were taken +by the clavecin. All his orchestral art is in the true instinct of +balance and economy, which, with the most restricted means in managing a +few colours, yet knows how to obtain as powerful impressions as our +musicians of to-day, with their crowded palette.[396] Nothing, then, is +more important, if we wish to render this music truly, than the +avoidance of upsetting the equilibrium of the various sections of the +orchestra under the pretext of enriching it and bringing it up to date. +The worse fault is to deprive it, by a useless surplus of tone-colours, +of that suppleness and subtlety of nuance which is its principal charm. + +One is prone to accept too readily the idea, that expressive nuance is a +privilege of the modern musical art, and that Handel's orchestra knew +only the great theatrical contrasts between force and sweetness, or +loudness and softness. It is nothing of the kind. The range of Handel's +nuances is extremely varied. One finds with him the _pianissimo_, the +piano, the _mezzo piano_, the _mezzo forte_, _un poco più F_, _un poco +F_, _forte_, _fortissimo_. We never find the orchestral _crescendo_ and +_decrescendo_, which hardly appears marked expressly until the time of +Jommelli,[397] and the school of Mannheim; but there is no doubt that it +was practised long before it was marked in the music.[398] The President +of Brosses wrote in 1739 from Rome: "The voices, like the violins, used +with light and shade, with unconscious swelling of sound, which augments +the force from note to note, even to a very high degree, since its use +as a nuance is extremely sweet and touching." And endless examples occur +in Handel of long _crescendi_ and _diminuendi_ without its expression +being marked in the scores.[399] Another kind of _crescendo_ and +_diminuendo_ on the same note was very common in the time of Handel, and +his friend, Geminiani, helped to set the fashion. Volbach, and with him +Hugo Riemann,[400] has shown that Geminiani used in the later editions +of his first Violin Sonatas in 1739, and in his Violin School in 1751, +the two following signs: + +Swelling the sound [=\=] + +Diminishing (falling) the sound [=/=] + +[Illustration] + +As Geminiani explains it, "The sound ought to commence softly, and +should swell out in a gradual fashion to about half its value, then it +should diminish to the end. The movement of the bow should continue +without interruption." + +It happens thus, that by a refinement of expression, which became a +mannerism of the Mannheim school, but which also became a source of +powerful contrast with the Beethovenians, the swelling stopped short of +its aim, and was followed instead by a sudden piano, as in the following +example from the Trio Sonatas of Geminiani. + +[Illustration] + +It is more than probable that the virtuoso players of Handel's orchestra +also used this means of expression,[401] though we need not assume that +Handel used them as abundantly as Geminiani or as the Mannheim players, +whose taste had become doubtless a little affected and exaggerated. But +what is certain is that with him, as with Geminiani, and indeed with all +the great artists of his time, especially with the Italians and their +followers, music was a real discourse, and ought to be rendered with +inflections as free and as varied as natural speech.[402] + +[Illustration: HANDEL DIRECTING AN ORATORIO. + +Handel is seen (on the left) seated at a cembalo with two keyboards in +the midst of his musicians. At his right hand he has the "concertino" +group (consisting of the 'cellist, two violinists and two flautists). On +his near left (quite close to the cembalo) are the vocal soloists. The +rest of the instrumentalists are out of his sight.] + +How was it possible to realise all the suppleness and subtleties of +elocution on the orchestra? To understand this it is necessary to +examine the disposition and placing of the orchestra of that time. It +was not, as with us, centralised under the control of a single +conductor. Thus, as Seiffert tells us,[403] in Handel's time it was the +principle of decentralisation which ruled. The choruses had their +leaders, who listened to the organ, from which they took their cue, and +so sustained the voices. The orchestra was divided into three sections, +after the Italian method. Firstly, the _Concertino_, comprising a first +and a second violin, and a solo violoncello; secondly, the _Concerto +Grosso_, comprising the instrumental choir; thirdly, the _Ripienists_ +strengthening the _Grosso_.[404] + +A picture in the British Museum, representing Handel in the midst of his +musicians, depicts the composer seated at the clavier (a cembalo with +two keyboards, of which the lid is raised). He is surrounded by the +violoncellist (placed at his right-hand side), two violins and two +flutes, which are placed just before him, under his eye. The solo +singers are also near him, on his left, quite close to the clavecin. The +rest of the instrumentalists are behind him, out of his sight. Thus his +directions and his glances would control the _Concertino_, who would +transmit in their turn the chief conductor's wishes to the _Concerto +Grosso_, and they in their turn to the _Ripienists_. In place of the +quasi-military discipline of modern orchestras, controlled under the +baton of a chief conductor, the different bodies of the Handelian +orchestra governed one another with elasticity, and it was the incisive +rhythm of the little _Cembalo_ which put the whole mass into motion. +Such a method avoided the mechanical stiffness of our performances. The +danger was rather a certain wobbling without the powerful and infectious +will-power of a chief such as Handel, and without the close sympathy of +thought which was established between him and his capable sub-conductors +of the _Concertino_ and of the _Grosso_. + +It is this elasticity which should be aimed at in the instrumental works +of Handel when they are executed nowadays.[405] + + * * * * * + +We will first take his _Concerti Grossi_.[406] None of his works are +more celebrated and less understood. Handel attached to them a +particular value, for he published them himself by subscription, a means +which was usual in his day, but which he himself never adopted except +under exceptional circumstances. + +One knows that the kind of _Concerti Grossi_, which consists chiefly in +a dialogue between a group of solo instrumentalists (the _Concertino_) +and the full body of instruments (_Concerto Grosso_), to which is added +the cembalo,[407] was, if not invented, at least carried to its +perfection and rendered classical by Corelli.[408] The works of Corelli, +aided by the efforts of his followers, had become widely known in +Europe. Geminiani introduced them into England,[409] and without doubt +Handel did not hesitate to profit by the example of Geminiani, who was +his friend;[410] but it is much more natural to think that he learnt the +_Concerto Grosso_, at its source at Rome, from Corelli himself during +his sojourn there in 1708. Several of his Concertos in his Opus 3[411] +date from 1710, 1716, 1722. The same feature shows itself right up to +the time of his apprenticeship at Hamburg: in any case he might have +already known the Corellian style, thanks to the propaganda of George +Muffat, who spread this style very early in Germany.[412] After Corelli, +Locatelli,[413] and especially Vivaldi,[414] have singularly transformed +the _Concerto Grosso_ by giving it the free character of programme +music[415] and by turning it resolutely towards the form of the Sonata +in three parts. But when the works of Vivaldi were played in London in +1723, and the works which aroused such a general enthusiasm became +thoroughly known to Handel, it was always to Corelli that he gave the +preference, and he was very conservative in certain ways even about him. +The form of his Concerto, of which the principal movements varied from +four to six, oscillated between the Suite and the Sonata, and even +glanced towards the symphonic overture. It is this for which the +theorists blame him, and it is this for which I praise him. For he does +not seek to impose a uniform cast on his thoughts, but leaves it open to +himself to fashion the form as he requires, and the framework varies +accordingly, following his inclinations from day to day. The spontaneity +of his thought, which has already been shown by the extreme rapidity +with which the _Concerti_ were composed--each in a single day at a +single sitting, and many each week[416]--constitutes the great charm of +these works. They are, in the words of Kretzschmar, grand impression +pictures, translated into a form, at the same time precise and supple, +in which the least change of emotion can make itself easily felt. Truly +they are not all of equal value. Their conception itself, which depended +in a way on mere momentary inspiration, is the explanation of this +extreme inequality. One ought to acknowledge here that the Seventh +Concerto, for example (the one in B flat major), and the last three have +but a moderate interest.[417] They are amongst those least played; but +to be quite just we must pay homage to these masterpieces, and +especially to the Second Concerto in F major, which is like a +Beethovenian concerto: for we find there some of the spirit of the Bonn +master. For Kretzschmar the ensemble calls to mind a beautiful autumn +day--the morning, where the rising sun pierces its way through the +clouds--the afternoon, the joyful walk, the rest in the forest, and +finally the happy and belated return. It is difficult in fact not to +have natural scenes brought before one's eyes in hearing these works. +The first _Andante Larghetto_, which predicts, at times, the Pastoral +Symphony of Beethoven, is a reverie on a beautiful summer's day. The +spirit lulls itself with nature's murmur, becomes intoxicated with it, +and goes to rest. The tonality rocks between F major to B flat major and +G minor. To render this piece well it is necessary to give the time +plenty of play, often retarding it, and following the composer's reverie +in a spirit of soft leisurely abandon. + +[Illustration: _Andante larghetto_] + +The _Allegro_ in D minor which follows is a spirited and delicate little +play, a dialogue leaping from the two solo violins of the _Concerto_, +then on to the _Concertino_ and the _Grosso_ in turn. There, also, +certain passages in the Bass, robust, rollicking, and rustic, again +bring to mind the Pastoral Symphony. + +[Illustration: _Allegro_] + +[Illustration: _Largo_] + +The third movement, a _Largo_ in B flat major, is one of the most +intimate of Handel's instrumental pages. After seven bars of _Largo_, in +which the _Concertino_ alternates dreamily with the _Tutti_, two bars +_adagio_, languorously drawn out, cause the reverie to glide into a sort +of ecstasy, + +[Illustration: _Adagio_] + +then a _larghetto andante e piano_ breathes out a tender and melancholy +song. + +[Illustration: _Larghetto andante_] + +The _Largo_ is resumed. There is in this little poem a melancholy which +seems to revive Handel's personal remembrances.--The _allegro ma non +troppo_ with which it finishes is, on the contrary, of a jovial feeling, +entirely Beethovenish; it sings joyfully as it bounds along in +well-marked three-four time, with a _pizzicato_-like rhythm. + +[Illustration: _Allegro ma non troppo_] + +In the middle of this march a phrase occurs on the two violins of the +_Concertino_ which is like a hymn of reverent and tender gratitude. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +The Fourth Concerto in A minor is not less intimate with its _Larghetto +affettuoso_, which ought to be played with the _rubato_, _rallentando_ +and short pauses--its _allegro_ fugue, which spreads out and +over-shadows all by its powerful tread--and after a _Largo_ of antique +graveness the _allegro_ three-four which finishes is the veritable last +movement of the Beethoven sonata, romantic, capricious, passionate, and +more and more unrestrained as it approaches the end, _accelerando_ +nearly _prestissimo_,--inebriated.[418] + +[Illustration: _Allegro_] + +[Illustration] + +But one ought to know especially the Sixth Concerto in G minor, the most +celebrated of all on account of its magnificent Musette. It opens with a +beautiful _Larghetto_, full of that melancholy which is one of the +dominant sentiments with Handel, and one of the least observed by most +people: melancholy that is, in the sense of the _Malinconia_ of Dürer, +or of Beethoven--less agitated, but still profound. We have already +encountered it in the Second, in the Third, and in the Fourth +Concerto.[419] Here it is found in an elegiac monologue, punctuated by +pedal points; + +[Illustration: _Largo affettuoso_] + +then in the dialogues of the _Concertino_ and of the _Tutti_ responding, +like the groups of the ancient classical chorus. The _allegro ma non +troppo_ fugue which follows it, on a twisting chromatic theme, is of the +same sombre colour. But it is the lusty march of the disciplined fugue +which dispels the fantastic shadows. + +[Illustration: _Allegro ma non troppo_] + +Then comes the _Larghetto_, three-four time in E flat major, which +Handel calls a Musette, and which is one of the most delightful dreams +of pastoral happiness.[420] A whole day of poetic and capricious events +gradually unrolls itself over the beautiful echoing refrain, + +[Illustration: _Larghetto_] + +then the movement slackens, nearly going to sleep, then presses forward +again, acquiring a strong, joyous rhythm, a pulsating dance of robust +youths, full of bounding life. + +In the midst of this picture an episode, rustic and frolicsome, is +introduced. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: _Un poco piu allegro_] + +[Illustration] + +Then the broad subject of the Introduction recurs with its refrain of +quiet joy, nature's own smile.[421] + +Such works are truly pictures in music. To understand them it does not +suffice to have quick ears; it is necessary to have the eyes to see, and +the heart to feel.[422] + + * * * * * + +The Symphonies of the operas and oratorios of Handel are extremely +varied. Still, the Lully form predominates.[423] This form consists, as +is well known, of a first slow movement, grave, pompous, and majestic, +followed by a second (quick) movement, full of life, and usually in +fugal style, with a return to the slow movement for conclusion. It +appears in the _Almira_ of 1705, and Handel uses it with variations in +all the most celebrated works of his maturity, such as in the _Messiah_, +and _Judas Maccabæus_, and even has recourse to it again in his last +work of all, _The Triumph of Time_ (1757), but he does not confine +himself entirely to this form alone. The _Symphonia of Roderigo_ (1707) +adds to the Lully-like overture a _Balletto_ in the Italian style, a +veritable Suite of Dances: Jig, Sarabande, Matelot, Minuet, Bourrée, +Minuet, Grand Passacaille. The Overture to _The Triumph of Time_ of 1708 +is a brilliant Concerto, where the _Concertino_ and the _Grosso_ +converse in a most entertaining and graceful fashion. The Overture to +_Il Pastor Fido_, 1712, is a Suite in eight movements. That of _Teseo_, +1713, contains two Largos, each followed by a playful movement of +imitation. That of the _Passion after Brockes_, 1716, consists of a +single fugued allegro,[424] which is joined to the first chorus by the +link of a declamatory solo on the oboe.[425] The Overture to _Acis and +Galatea_, 1720, is also a single movement. The Overture to _Giulio +Cesare_, 1724, is joined on to the first chorus, which is in the form of +the third movement, the Minuet. The Overture to _Atalanta_, 1736, has a +charming sprightliness, similar to an instrumental suite for a _fête_, +like the Firework Music, of which we shall speak later. The Overture to +_Saul_, 1738, is a veritable Concerto for organ and orchestra, and the +sonata form is adopted in the first movement.--We see then a very marked +effort on the part of Handel, particularly in his youth, to vary the +form of his Overture from one work to another. + +Even when he uses the Lully type of Overture (and he seems to turn +towards it more and more in his maturity) he transforms it by the spirit +which animates it. He never allows its character to be purely +decorative. He introduces therein always expressive and dramatic +ideas.[426] If one cannot exactly call the splendid Overture to +_Agrippina_, 1709, a Concert Overture of programme music, one cannot +deny its dramatic power. The second movement bubbles with life. It is no +longer an erudite _divertissement_, a movement foreign to the action, +but it has a tragic character, and the response of the fugue is apparent +in the severe and slightly restless subject of the first piece. For +conclusion the slow movement is recalled by a solo on the oboe, which +announces it out in the pathetic manner made so well known in certain +_recitatives_ of J. S. Bach. + +[Illustration: _Adagio_] + +Many people have seen in the three movements[427] of the Overture to +_Esther_, 1720, a complete programme, which Chrysander gives thus in +detail: firstly, the wickedness of Haman; secondly, the complaints of +Israel; thirdly, the deliverance. I will content myself by saying that +the ensemble of this symphony is thoroughly in the colour and spirit of +the tragedy itself--but it is not possible to doubt that, with the +Overture of _Deborah_ and with that of _Belshazzar_ that Handel wished +to work to a complete programme; for of the four movements of the +_Deborah_ Overture, the second is repeated later on as the Chorus of the +Israelites, and the fourth as the Chorus of Baal's priests. Thus in his +very first pages he places in miniature in the Overture the duality of +the nations, whose antagonism forms the subject of the drama.[428] It +seems also true that the Overture to _Belshazzar_ aims at painting the +orgy of the feast of Sesach, and the apparition of the Divine Hand which +wrote the mystic words of fire on the wall. In every case dramatic +intentions are very evident; by the three repeats; the interrupted flow +of the orchestra is intersected by three short chords, _piano_; and, +then after the sudden silence, three bars of solemn and soft music are +heard like a religious song.[429] + +[Illustration: _Allegro_] + +[Illustration] + +We now come to our last class of Handel's instrumental music, to which +historians have given far too little attention, and in which Handel +shows himself a precursor, and at the same time a model. I refer to the +open-air music. + +This took a prominent place in the English life. The environs of London +were full of gardens, where, Pepys tells us, "vocal and instrumental +concerts vied with the voices of the birds." Concerts were given at +Vauxhall; at South Lambeth Palace on the Thames; at Ranelagh, near +Chelsea, about two miles from the city; at Marylebone Garden; and Handel +was always welcome there. From 1738 the proprietor of Vauxhall, Jonathan +Tyer, erected in its gardens a statue of Handel, and this was hardly +done when the _Concerti Grossi_ became the favourite pieces at the +concerts of Marylebone, Vauxhall, and Ranelagh. Burney tells us that he +often heard them played by numerous orchestras. Handel wrote pieces +especially intended for these garden concerts. Generally speaking, he +attached little importance to them. They were little symphonies or +unpretentious dances, like the Hornpipe, composed for the concert at +Vauxhall in 1740.[430] An anecdote related by Pohl and also by +Chrysander, shows Handel pleasantly engaged on this music, which gave +him no trouble at all. + +But he composed on these lines some works tending towards a much vaster +scale: from 1715 or 1717 the famous Water Music, written for the royal +procession of barges on the Thames,[431] and the Firework Music made to +illustrate the firework display given in Green Park on April 27, 1749, +in celebration of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.[432] + +The Water Music has a grand Serenade in the form of a suite comprising +more than twenty movements. It opens with a pompous Opera-overture; +then come some dialogues, with echoes of horns and drums, where the +brass and the rest of the orchestra, which are arranged in two sections, +respond. Then follow happy and soothing songs, dances, a Bourrée, a +Hornpipe, Minuets, popular songs, which alternate and contrast with the +joyful and powerful fanfares. The orchestra is very nearly the same as +in his usual symphonies, except that considerable importance is given to +the brass. One even finds in this work certain pieces written in the +chamber-music style, or in the theatrical manner. + +With the Firework Music the character of open-air music is even more +definitely asserted, quite as much by the broad style of the piece as by +the orchestration, which is confined entirely to the wind +instruments.[433] The composition is divided into two parts: an Overture +which was to be played before the grand firework display, and a number +of little pieces to be played during the display, and which corresponded +to certain allegorical set pieces. The Overture is a sort of stately +march in D major, and has some resemblance to the Overture of the +_Ritterballet_ (Huntsman's Dance) of Beethoven, and which is, like it, +joyful, equestrian, and very sonorous. The shorter movements comprise a +Bourrée, a _Largo a la Siciliana_, entitled _Peace_,[434] of a beautiful +heroic grace, which lulls itself to sleep; a very sprightly _Allegro_ +entitled _The Rejoicing_, and two Minuets for conclusion. It is an +interesting work for the organisers of our popular _fêtes_ and open-air +spectacles to study.[435] If we have said that after 1740 Handel wrote +hardly any other instrumental music than the Firework Music, and the two +monumental concertos, _a due cori_ (for two horns) we have the feeling +that the last evolution of his thought and instrumental style led him in +the direction of music conceived for great masses, wide spaces, and huge +audiences. He had always in him a popular vein of thought. I immediately +call to mind the many popular inspirations with which his memory was +stored, and which vivify the pages of his oratorios. His art, which +renewed itself perpetually at this rustic source, had in his time an +astonishing popularity. Certain airs from _Ottone_, _Scipione_, +_Arianna_, _Berenice_, and such other of his operas, were circulated and +vulgarised not only in England,[436] but abroad, and even in France +(generally so unyielding to outside influences).[437] + +It is not only of this popularity, a little banal, of which I wish to +speak, which one could not ignore--for it is only a stupid pride and a +small heart which denies great value to the art which pleases humble +people;--what I wish to notice chiefly in the popular character of +Handel's music is that it is always truly conceived for the people, and +not for an _élite dilettanti_ as was the French Opera between Lully and +Gluck. Without ever departing from his sovereign ideas of beautiful +form, in which he gave no concession to the crowd, he reproduced in a +language immediately "understanded of the people" those feelings in +which all could share. This genial improvisor, compelled during the +whole of his life (a half-century of creative power) to address from the +stage a mixed public, for whom it was necessary to understand +immediately, was like the orators of old, who had the cult of style and +instinct for immediate and vital effect. Our epoch has lost the feeling +of this type of art and men: pure artists who speak _to_ the people and +_for_ the people, not for themselves or for their confrères. To-day the +pure artists lock themselves within themselves, and those who speak to +the people are most often mountebanks. The free England of the +nineteenth century was in a certain measure related to the Roman +republic, and indeed Handel's eloquence was not without relation to that +of the epic orators, who sustained in the form their highly finished and +passionate discourses, who left their mark on the shuddering crowd of +loiterers. This eloquence did on occasion actually thrust itself into +the soul of the nation as in the days of the Jacobite invasion, where +_Judas Maccabæus_ incarnated the public feeling. In the first +performances of _Israel in Egypt_ some of the auditors praised the +heroic virtues of this music, which could raise up the populace and lead +armies to victory. + +By this power of popular appeal, as by all the other aspects of his +genius, Handel was in the robust line of Cavalli and of Gluck, but he +surpassed them. Alone, Beethoven has walked in these broader paths, and +followed along the road which Handel had opened. + + + + +LIST OF HANDEL'S WORKS + + +I. OPERAS + +In chronological order, with the dates and places of the first +performance. + +(The figures in brackets refer to the number of the Volume in the +Complete Edition of Handel's Works.) + + 1. _Almira_ (55) Hamburg, 1705. + 2. _Nero_ (lost) " 1705. + 3. _Florinda_ (lost) " about 1706. + 4. _Daphne_ (lost) " about 1706. + 5. _Roderigo_ (56) Florence, 1707. + 6. _Agrippina_ (57) Venice, 1708. + 7. _Rinaldo_ (58) London, 1711. + 8. _Il Pastor Fido_ (59) " 1712. + 9. _Teseo_ (60) " 1713. +10. _Silla_ (61). Never performed in + public (probably privately performed + at Canons). +11. _Amadigi_ (62) London, 1715. +12. _Radamisto_ (63) " 1720. + (There are three versions.) +13. _Muzio Scævola_ (64) " 1721. +14. _Floridante_ (65) " 1721. +15. _Ottone_ (66) " 1723. +16. _Flavio_ (67) " 1723. +17. _Giulio Cesare_ (68) " 1724. +18. _Tamerlano_ (69) " 1724. +19. _Rodelinda_ (70) London, 1725. +20. _Scipione_ (71) " 1726. +21. _Alessandro_ (72) " 1726. +22. _Admeto_ (73) " 1727. +23. _Riccardo Primo, Re d'Inghilterra_ " 1727. +24. _Siroe_ (75) " 1728. +25. _Tolomeo, Re d'Egitto_ (76) " 1728. +26. _Lotario_ (77) " 1729. +27. _Partenope_ (78) " 1730. +28. _Rinaldo_ (new version) (58) " 1731. +29. _Poro_ (79) " 1731. +30. _Ezio_ (80) " 1732. +31. _Sosarme_ (81) " 1732. +32. _Orlando_ (82) " 1733. +33. _Arianna_ (83) " 1734. +34. _Terpsichore_ (84) +35. _Ariodante_ (85) " 1735. +36. _Alcina_ (86) " 1735. +37. _Atalanta_ (87) " 1736. +38. _Giustino_ (88) " 1737. +39. _Arminio_ (89) " 1737. +40. _Berenice_ (90) " 1737. +41. _Faramondo_ (91) " 1738. +42. _Serse_ (92) " 1738. +43. _Imeneo_ (93) " 1740. +44. _Deidamia_ (94) " 1741. +45. _Jupiter in Argos_ (MS. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. + Advertised but never performed), 1739. +46. _Tito._ Unperformed and unpublished. +47. _Alfonso Imo._ Unperformed and unpublished. +48. _Flavio Olibrio._ Unperformed and unpublished. +49. _Honorius._ Unperformed and unpublished. +50. An unnamed opera (MS. Fitzwilliam Museum). +51. Eleven Pasticcios, arranged at various times between + 1730 and 1747. + + +II. ORATORIOS + + 1. _Passion according to St. John_ (9) Hamburg, 1704. + 2. _Resurrezione_ (32) Rome, 1708. + 3. _Il Trionfo del Tempo_ (24) " 1708. + 4. _The Passion of Christ_ (15) Hamburg, 1717. + 5. _Esther_ (First Version) Canons, 1720. + 6. _Esther_ (Second Version) King's Theatre, London, 1733. + 7. _Deborah_ (29) King's Theatre, London, 1733. + 8. _Athaliah_ (5) Oxford, 1733. + 9. _Saul_ (13) King's Theatre, London, 1739. +10. _Israel in Egypt_ (16) " " 1739. +11. _Messiah_ Dublin, 1742. +12. _Samson_ (10) Covent Garden, 1743. +13. _Joseph_ (42) " " 1744. +14. _Belshazzar_ (19) King's Theatre, 1745. +15. _Occasional Oratorio_ (43) Covent Garden, 1746. +16. _Judas Maccabæus_ (22) " " 1747. +17. _Joshua_ (17) " " 1748. +18. _Alexander Balus_ (33) " " 1748. +19. _Solomon_ (26) " " 1749. +20. _Susanna_ (1) " " 1749. +21. _Theodora_ (8) " " 1750. +22. _Jephtha_ (44) " " 1752. +23. _Triumph of Time and Truth_ (20) " " 1757. + + +III. ODES, SERENATAS, AND OCCASIONAL PIECES + + 1. _Acis, Galatea e Polifemo_ (53) Naples, 1708. + 2. _Birthday Ode for Queen Anne_ (46a) St. James' Palace, 1713. + 3. _Acis and Galatea_ (3) Canons, 1720. + 4. _The Alchemist_ Covent Garden, 1732. + 5. _Il Parnasso in Festa_ (54) King's Theatre, 1734. + 6. _Alexander's Feast_ (12) Covent Garden, 1736. + 7. _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_ (23) Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1739. + 8. _Praise of Harmony_ " " about 1739. + 9. _L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il + Moderato_ (6) Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1740. +10. _Hymen_ Dublin, 1742. +11. _Semele_ (7) Covent Garden, 1744. +12. _Hercules_ (4) King's Theatre, 1745. +13. _Alceste_ (46b). Incidental music to play. + (Never performed) 1749 or 1750. +14. _Choice of Hercules_ (18). An Interlude Covent Garden, 1751. + + +IV. CHURCH MUSIC + + 1. _Laudate Pueri in F_ Halle, 1702. + 2. _Dixit Dominus_ (38) Rome, 1707. + 3. _Nisi Dominus_ (38) Rome or Halle. + 4. _Laudate Pueri in D_ (38) Rome, 1707. + 5. _Silete venti_ (38) " 1708. + 6. _Six Alleluias_ (38). For voice and harpsichord. + 7. _Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate_ (31) St. Paul's Cathedral, 1713. + 8. _Te Deum in D_ (37) About 1714. + 9. _Fifteen Chandos Anthems_ (34). For chorus, organ + and orchestra Canons, 1716-18. +10. _Te Deum in B flat_ (37) 1716-18. +11. _Four Coronation Anthems_ (14). + For seven-part chorus and large + orchestra Westminster Abbey, 1727. +12. _Te Deum in A_ (37) About 1727. +13. _O Praise the Lord, Ps. CIII._, etc. + (36). Anthem for chorus and + orchestra. +14. _Wedding Anthem, Ps. XLV._, etc. + (36). Eight-part chorus, solos, + orchestra, and organ Wedding of Princess Anne, 1734. +15. _Wedding Anthem, Ps. LXVIII._, etc. + Chorus, solos, and orchestra + Wedding of the Prince of Wales, 1736. +16. _Funeral Anthem_ (II) Death of Queen Caroline, 1737. +17. _Dettingen Te Deum_ (25) 1743. +18. _Dettingen Anthem, Ps. X. and XI._, + etc. (36) 1743. +19. _Foundling Hospital Anthem, Ps. + XLI._, etc. (36) 1749. +20. Three Hymns. MS. in Fitzwilliam Museum. Words + by the Rev. C. Wesley. "Sinners, obey the + Gospel word," "O Love divine, how sweet thou + art," "Rejoice, the Lord is King." + + +V. VOCAL CHAMBER MUSIC + +1. Seventy-two Solo Cantatas for one or two voices + with instruments (52 a, b, c). Italian. No. 8 is + English; No. 18 is Spanish with guitar accompaniment. + +2. Twenty-two Italian Duets and two Trios with + harpsichord and violoncello (32). + +3. Seven Italian Sonatas. Unpublished. MSS. in + Fitzwilliam Museum. + + +VI. INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC + + 1. Six Sonatas for two oboes with thorough-bass for + harpsichord (73) 1696. + 2. Sonata for viola-da-gamba and cembalo concertata in + C (48) Hamburg, 1705. + 3. _Klavierbuch aus der Jugendzeit_ (48) 1710. + 4. Three Sonatas for flute and harpsichord + (48) Probably Hanover, about 1710. + 5. Water Music (47) 1715. + 6. _Suites de pièces pour clavecin_ (2) Published 1720. + 7. Fifteen Solos for a German flute, oboe or violin, + with a thorough-bass for harpsichord or bass violin (27) 1724. + 8. Six Concertos (21), Op. 3. _Concerti grossi con due + violini e violoncello di concertino e due altri violini, + viola e basso di concerto grosso ad arbitrio_, known as + the Oboe Concertos Walsh, 1729. + 9. Nine Sonatas or Trios for two violins, flutes, or + oboes, with a thorough-bass for harpsichord or + violoncello, Op. 2 (27) Walsh, 1733. +10. _Suites de pièces pour clavecin_ (2). Second + volume pilfered by Walsh in 1733. +11. _Pièces pour clavecin_ (2). Five pieces Witvogel + in Amsterdam, 1733. Several clavecin pieces still + remain in MS. at Buckingham Palace and Fitzwilliam + Museum. + +12. Overture for the pasticcio _Oreste_ (48) 1734. +13. Six "Fugues or Voluntaries for the organ or harpsichord," + Op. 3a (2) Walsh, 1735. +14. Overture in G minor for the pasticcio _Alessandro + Severo_ (48) 1738. +15. Six Organ Concertos, Op. 4 (48) Walsh, 1738. +16. Seven Sonatas or Trios for two violins or German flutes, + with a thorough-bass for the harpsichord or violoncello, + Op. 5 (27) Walsh, 1739. +17. Hornpipe, composed for the concert at Vauxhall (48). + For strings in three parts 1740. +18. Six Concertos for organ arranged by Walsh from the + Orchestral Concertos 1740. +19. Twelve Grand Concertos, Op. 6a (30). For strings only, + in seven parts Walsh, 1740. +20. _Pièces pour le clavecin_ (2) Cluer, 1742. +21. Forest Music (47) 1742. +22. Fire Music (47) 1749. +23. Concerto for two organs and orchestra in D minor (48). + Movement only exists. +24. Overture in B minor (48). Adapted by Walsh from the + Overture to _Trionfo del Tempo_. +25. Organ Concerto in D minor (48). Two movements. +26. Organ Concerto in F (48). +27. Partita in A (48). +28. Six little Fugues. (Dubious.) +29. Concerto for trumpets and horns. +30. Concerto for horns and side-drums. +31. _Sinfonie diverse_ (48). Eight short pieces for orchestral + instruments. +32. Overture in five movements (incomplete) for two clarionets + and corno di caccia. MS. in Fitzwilliam Museum. + + * * * * * + +The COMPLETE HANDEL EDITION contains as supplements several volumes of +works by various Italian and German composers, which Handel has utilised +in his compositions, namely:-- + +1. _Magnificat_ said to be by Erba. +2. _Te deum_ said to be by Urio. +3. _Serenata_ by Stradella. +4. _Duetti_ by Clari. +5. _Componimenti musicali_ by G. Muffat. +6. _Octavia_ by Reinhard Keiser. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +FRIEDRICH CHRYSANDER, _G. F. Handel_. 3 vols., 1858-67, Leipzig. + +(The name of Chrysander ought to be attached permanently to that of +Handel, for his life was entirely devoted to him. It was he who founded +in 1856, with Gervinus, the GERMAN HANDEL SOCIETY and who accomplished +nearly the whole of the Complete Edition of the Works of Handel in one +hundred volumes by himself alone. His biography is a monument of science +and devotion comparable with Philipp Spitta's _J. S. Bach_ and Otto +Jahn's _Mozart_. Unfortunately the work remained unfinished: it stopped +at the year 1740. Max Seiffert completed it.) + +SCHOELCHER, _The Life of Handel_. 1857. + +(Schoelcher's works, anterior to those of Chrysander, are valuable on +account of their collection of documents rather than that of the general +laying out of the works. As we have seen, the priceless collection of +these documents is housed at the Paris Conservatoire.) + +HERMANN KRETZSCHMAR, _Georg Friedrich Handel_ (published in the +_Sammlung musikalischer Vorträge_ by Paul Graf Waldersee). + +FRITZ VOLBACH, _Georg-Friedrich Hændel_ (Collection: _Harmonie_. 1898, +Berlin). + +(These two last works are excellent little _résumés_ of the life and +works of Handel.) + +J. A. FULLER-MAITLAND, _The Age of Bach and Handel_ (The Oxford History +of Music, Vol. IV). 1902, Oxford. + +R. A. STREATFEILD, _Handel_. 1909, London. + +(This book is one of the first in England which has freed the figure of +Handel from the false mass of moralising and teaching under which the +author of the _Messiah_ was buried. He shows the richness and freedom of +Handel's work and rectifies several points in the German biographies.) + +ADIMOLO, _G. F. Handel in Italia_. + +SEDLEY TAYLOR, _The Indebtedness of Handel to Works by other Composers_. +1906, Cambridge. + +P. ROBINSON, _Handel and his Orbit_. 1908, London. (These two last books +are concerned with the question of Handel's plagiarisms.) + +F. VOLBACH, _Die Praxis der Hændel-Aufführung_, 1889. Thesis for +Doctorate. + +(On the Orchestra of Handel.) + +HUGO GOLDSCHMIDT, _Die Lehre von der vocalen Ornamentik_. 1907. + +(On the vocal execution of Handel's works, and particularly on the +question of Handel's ornaments. This matter has been the subject of +numerous discussions in the numbers of the _International Musical +Gazette_, especially by Max Seiffert.) + +WEITZMANN, _Geschichte der Klaviermusik_, Vol. 1, 1899 (continued and +completed by Seiffert and Fleischer). (For the Clavier Works of Handel.) + +ERNEST DAVID, _Handel_. 1884. + +CAMILLE BELLAIGUE, _Les Époques de la Musique_, Vol. I, 1909. + +For readers desirous of consulting the sources of the biographies of +Handel, the most interesting works written by his contempories are: + +JOHANN MATTHESON, _Handel_ (in his _Ehrenpforte_, 1740). + +MAINWARING, _Memoirs of the Life of the late G. F. Handel_. London, +1760. (Translated into German with annotations by Mattheson, 1761; into +French by Arnaud and Suard in 1778.) + +BURNEY, _Commemoration of Handel_. London, 1785. + +HAWKINS, _General History of Music_. London, 1788. + +W. COXE, _Anecdotes of G. F. Handel and Smith_. London, 1799. + + + + +INDEX + + +A + +Academy of Ancient Music, 54, 137 + +Academy of Italian Opera, 73 + +_Acis and Galatea_, 7, 46, 72, 85, 108, 120, 182 + +Addison, 16, 60 + +_Agrippina_, 46, 183 + +Airs adapted to French words, 191 n. + +Alberti, 6 + +_Alceste_, 104 + +_Alcina_, 91, 122, 127 + +_Alexander Balus_, 102 + +_Alexander's Feast_, 92, 108, 93 n., 160 n. + +_Almahade_, 62 + +_Almira_, 33, 34, 36, 124 + +Amadigi, 68 + +Amsterdam, 149 + +Ademollo, 40 + +Arbuthnot, Dr., 81 n. + +Architecture, Musical, 138 + +_Arianna_, 88, 95 + +_Arias Buffi_, 128 + +_Arietti Da Capo_, 125 + +_Ariodante_, 91, 122 + +_Arioso_, 133 + +Ariosti, 11 + +Aristoxenians, 24 + +_Arminio_, 91, 93 n. + +Arne, 96 n. + +_Arsinoé_, 62 + +_Astarto_, 78 + +_Atalanta_, 91, 93, 124, 131, 182 + +_Athaliah_, 85, 86 + +_Athalie_, 48 + +Augsburg, 53 + +Augustus of Saxony, Duke, 1, 3, 42 + + +B + +Babell, Wm., 145, 149 n. + +_Bacchus und Ariadne_, 90 + +Bach, 3, 21, 29, 56, 70, 104, 113, 119, 121, 150, 152 + +Ballet-Operas, 122 + +Bankruptcy, 93, 100 + +Bartolommeo, 57 + +Bass soloists, 123 n. + +Bassoons, 160 + +Battle of Dettingen, 99 n. + +Beech Oil Company, 63 + +Beethoven, 10, 108, 142, 154, 176, 192 + +Beethovenians, 164 + +_Beggar's Opera_, 62, 81 + +_Belshazzar_, 99, 128, 135, 136, 184 + +_Berenice_, 91, 93 n. + +Berlin, 11, 108 + +Berlioz, 109, 121, 142, 154 + +Bernabei, 51, 56 + +Bernhard, 16 + +Bible, 2 + +Biblical dramas, 71, 85 + +Birds, 187 + +_Birthday Ode to Queen Anne_, 66, 138 + +Blindness, 105 + +Bolingbroke, 100 + +Bologna, 75 + +_Bonduca_, 59 + +Bononcini, 62, 74, 75, 79, 86 n., 122 + +Brandenburg, 3, 12 + +Breslau, 108 + +British Museum, 165 + +Brockes, 64 + +Burlington, Lord, 67, 74 + +Burney, 187 + +Buxtehude, 29, 30, 31 + + +C + +Cadenzas, 128 + +_Camilla, Regina de Volsei_, 62 + +Canons, 149 + +_Cara sposa (Rinaldo)_, 125 + +Carey, 96 + +Caricature of Handel's art, 144 + +Carriage-accident to Handel, 104 + +Carillon in _Saul_, 115 + +_Castrati_, 80 + +Cavalli, 193 + +Chaconnes, 149 n. + +_Chandos Anthems_, 71, 85, 136 + +Characters, 135 + +_Choice of Hercules_, 104, 187 n. + +Choruses, 132, 140 + +Chrysander, 57, 110 + +Cibber, Colley, 81 n. + +Classical chorus, 136 + +Clavier pieces, 145 + +Clayton, 61 + +_Cleopatra_, 32, 160 + +Colour, 140, 141 + +Comic style of Keiser, 128 + +Commemoration festival, 107 + +Composing music, 142 n. + +Concert overture, 183 + +_Concerti Grossi_, 95, 165, 166 + +_Concertino_, 165 + +Concerto, 168, 190, 188 + +Concerto for two organs, 154 + +Concerto for organ with chorus, 154 + +Concerto for two horns, 145, 159 + +Concerto for organ, 183 + +Conductor, 165 + +Corelli, 11, 115, 168 + +_Coronation Anthems_, 83, 85 + +Cousser, 18 + +Covent Garden Theatre, 92 + +_Creation_, Haydn's, 108 + +_Crescendo_, 163 + +_Critica Musica_, 24 + +Culloden Moor, 101 + +Cuzzoni, 80 n. + + +D + +_Da Capo_ form, 56, 77, 124, 132 + +Dances, 133 + +Death, Handel's, 107 + +_Deborah_, 85, 95, 110, 184 + +_Deidamia_, 91 n., 95, 122, 124 + +Dent, Edward, 38 + +Descartes, 49 + +_Dettingen Te Deum_, 99, 160 n. + +_Dido and Æneas_, 59 + +_Die lustige Hochzeit_, 35 + +_Diminuendo_, 163 + +_Dioclesian_, 59 + +_Divertissement_, 183 + +Domenico Scarlatti, 44 + +Double fugue, 150 + +Drums, 160 + +Drury Lane Theatre, 81 n. + +Dryden, 92 + +Dublin, 97 + +Dubourg, 156 + +Duchess Sophia, 67 + +Duel with Mattheson, 33 + +Duets, Vocal, 131 + +Duke of Chandos, 71, 72 + +Duke of Cumberland, 101 + +Dukes of Hanover, 49 + +Dürer, 176 + + +E + +Education, 6 + +_Ehrenpforte_, 26 + +England, 70, 109, 112, 113, 148, etc. + +English taste, 59 + +English country, 114 + +Ensemble pieces, 133 + +_Entr'actes_, 151 + +Erba, 118 + +Ernest Augustus, Duke, 49 + +_Esther_, 48, 70, 71, 72, 120, 161, 184 + +Eugène, Prince, 37, 157 + +Exotism, 160 + +_Ezio_, 84 + + +F + +_Faramondo_, 91, 93 + +Faustina, 80 + +Festivals, 107 + +Fifth Concerto, 176 + +_Finale_, 133 + +Fire-arms in orchestra, 160 + +Firework music, 103, 159, 189 + +First Sonata, 157 + +Flemish carillon in _Saul_, 115 + +Florence, 39 + +_Floridante_, 79 + +_Florindo und Daphne_, 35 + +Forms, 133, 134, 158, 168 + +Foundling Hospital, 103, 105 n., 165 + +France, 122 + +Fraudulent copies, 143 n. + +Free theatre, 121, 134, 139 + +French dances, 91 + +French influences, 14 + +French language, 48 + +French model, 89 + +French organists, 113 + +French rhythm, 148 + +French style, 148 + +French vocal style, 48 + +Froberger, 6 + +Fugues, 149 + +_Funeral Anthem_, 93, 93 n. + + +G + +Garden scene, _Rinaldo_, 124 + +Gay, 67, 72 n. + +Geminiani, 144, 163, 164 + +_Genre_ pictures, 135, 138 + +George of Hanover, 68 + +German geniuses, 112 + +German Handel Society, 109, 201 + +German influences, 147, 148 n. + +German patriotism, Handel's lack of, 67 + +Germany, 109, 142 + +Gervinus, 110, 201 + +_Giulio Cesare_, 79, 122, 127, 182 + +_Giustina_, 93, 124 + +Gluck, 36, 99, 101, 122, 127, 191, 192 + +Goethe, 109, 112 + +Goldschmidt, 55 + +Graces, 128 + +Grattan-Flood, 97 + +Graun, 124 + +Greece, 110 + +Green, Maurice, 96 + +Green Park, 198 + +Grimani, 46 + +Griselda, 79 + +_Grub Street Journal_, 152 + + +H + +Hailstone chorus, 118 + +Halle, 14, 64, 66, 69, 74, 113 + +_Haman_, 71 + +Hamburg, 7, 15, 18, 35, 113 + +Handel Society, 109, 201 + +Handel musical festivals, 119 + +Handel's joust with Bononcini, 79 + +Hanover, 19, 42, 49, 51 + +Hanoverian nobles, 49 + +_Harmony in revolt_, 143 n. + +Harp, 160 n. + +Hasler, 36 + +Hasse, 36, 45, 87, 115, 117, 124 + +Hawkins, Sir J., 91, 152 + +Haydn, 108 + +Haymarket Theatre, 74, 89 + +Heidegger, 89 + +_Henrico Leoni_, 52 + +_Hercules_, 8, 99, 110, 127 + +Herder, 109 + +Hill, Aaron, 63 + +Hiller, 108 + +Holland, 31, 58 + +Horn, 159 + +Hornpipe, 187 + +House of Hanover, 65 + +Humour in Handel, 128 + + +I + +_Il Pastor Fido_, 65, 182 + +_Imeneo_, 91 n., 95 n. + +Imitative effects, 141 + +Improvisation, 143, 150, 152 + +Improviser, 116 + +Independence, Handel's, 109 + +Instrumental music, 9, 143, 144, 146 + +Ireland, 97 + +_Israel in Egypt_, 71, 94, 95, 118, 137, 145, 150 + +Italian homophony, 148 + +Italian influences, 147 + +Italian musicians, 36 + +Italian songs in _Hercules_, 115 + +Italian violinists, 113 + +Italy, 37, 112, 113 + +Italianised Germans, 63 + +Italians, 61, 148 + + +J + +James I, Stuart, 49 + +Jennens, 97, 99 + +_Jephtha_, 104, 116 + +_Jerusalem Delivered_, 63 + +John Frederick, Duke of Hanover, 49 + +_Joseph_, 99, 127 + +_Joshua_, 80, 102 + +_Jubilate_, 66 + +_Judas Maccabæus_, 101, 102, 106, 109, 139, 184, 192 + +_Jugendbuch_, 146, 149 + + +K + +Keiser, 17, 19, 21, 31, 35, 122, 126 + +Kerl, 6 + +Kielmansegg, 49 + +_King Arthur_, 59, 60 + +Krieger, 6, 150 + +Kuhnau, 7 + + +L + +_L'Allegro_, 95, 114 + +Languages, 22 + +_La Salle_, 90 + +Latin Psalms, 39 + +Law, 14 + +Lawyers, 4 + +Leibnitz, 69 + +_Leit-motiv_, 128 + +_Leider_, 77 n. + +Leipzig, 16, 108 + +Lent, 106, 107 + +Leo, 178 + +Leonardo, 118 + +Light and shade, 161 + +Liszt, 109, 154 + +Local colour, 160 + +Locatelli, 168 + +London, 42, 58, 65, etc. + +London Academy of Opera, 83 + +_London Daily Post_, 96 + +London operas, 126 + +_Lotario_, 84 + +Lubeck, 28 + +_Lucretia_, 39 + +Lully, 18, 19, 181 + + +M + +Mad scene in _Orlando_, 127 + +Mahler, 154 + +Mainwaring, 47 + +Manchester, Duke of, 42 + +Mandoline, 160 n. + +Mannheim players, 164 + +Marcello, 3 + +Marylebone, 167 + +Mattheson, 5, 18, 21, 23, 27, 82 + +Mayence, 110 + +Medici, 36 + +Mendelssohn, 119 + +Melodic lines, 117 + +Melodist, 28 + +_Messiah_, 8, 59, 97, 98, 104, 108, 119, etc. + +Miller, 99 + +_Mitridate Eupatore_, 41 + +Modulations, 76 + +Muffat, 168 + +Mozart, 21, 36, 88, 108, 117 + +Munich, 51, 52 + +Musette, 178 + +Musical architecture, 132 + +Musical comedy, 128 + +Musical dramas, 135 + +_Musical Patriot, The_, 24, 27 + +_Muzio Scevola_, 79 + + +N + +Naples, 112, 145 + +National musician of England, The, 102 + +Natural scenes, 170 + +_Nero_, 33, 34 + +Newspapers, The first, 16 + +Nicolini, 63 + +_Nitocris_, 128 + +Nuance, 163 + + +O + +Objective art, 133 + +Oboe concertos, 64, 158 + +_Occasional Oratorio_, 101, 139, 185 n. + +_Ode to Queen Anne_, 68 + +_Ode to St. Cecilia_, 92, 95 + +_Ombra cara_ from _Radamisto_, 125 + +Open-air fêtes, 120, 190 + +Open-air music, 187 + +_Opera Buffa_, 137 + +_Opera Comique_, 91, 122, 128 + +_Opera Diabolica_, 17 + +Opera houses, 51, 102 + +Oratorios, 120, 122, 136, etc. + +Orchestra, 9, 103, 153, 165 + +Orchestral concertos, 181 n. + +Orchestral music, 158 + +Organ, 105 + +Organ concertos, 150-153 + +Organ music, 30 + +_Orlando_, 84, 122 + +Ottoboni, Cardinal, 43, 46 + +_Ottone_, 79, 190 + + +P + +Pagan life, 185 + +Painting in music, 141 + +Painting, 185 + +Palestrina, 114 n. + +Pantheon, 107 + +_Parnasso in festa_, 89 n., 96 n. + +_Partenope_, 84 + +_Partenza_, 45 + +Pasquini, 43, 44 + +_Passion according to St. John_, 25, 32 + +_Passion after Brockes_, 70, 138, 182 + +Passionate scenes, 133 + +_Passions_, 69 + +_Pastor Fido_, 89 + +_Pastoral Symphony_, 170 + +Pepusch, 96 + +Piccadilly, 67 + +Pictures, Love of, 115 + +Pietism, 12, 39, 71 + +_Pifferari_, 46, 114 + +Pirro, 13 + +Pistocchi, 11 + +Pistol-shot in orchestra, 160 n. + +Plagiarisms, 118 + +_Polifemo_, 76 + +Pope, 67, 82, 142 n. + +_Poro_, 84 + +Porpora, 87, 88 + +Postel, 22, 31 + +Pratolino, 38 + +Pretender, Charles Edward, 100 + +Princess of Wales, 81 + +Programme music, 184, 185 n. + +Psalms, 70, 120 + +Purcell, 58, etc. + +Puritanical opposition, 61 + +_Pygmalion_, 90 + +Pythagoreans, 24 + + +Q + +Quartets, 131 + +Queen Anne, 65, 68 + +Quintet, 132 + + +R + +_Radamisto_, 74, 78 + +Rameau's _Acanthe_, 164 n. + +Ranelagh, 187 + +Raphael, 10 + +Recitative, 20 + +_Recitative-arioso_, 126 + +Recitatives and airs, 128 + +Relationship with vocal, 145 + +Resurrection, 44, 159, 161 + +Rhythms, 134 + +_Riccardo I_, 81, 186 n. + +Rich's theatre, 90 + +Rigid and stolid manner of rendering Handel's works, 119 + +_Rinaldo_, 63, 64 + +_Roderigo_, 40, 42, 182 + +_Rodelinda_, 80 + +Rôles, Singers', 123 + +Romances, 91 + +Rome, 39 + +_Rosamunde_, 62 + +Roseingrave, 114 n. + +Rosenmüller, 4 + +Roubiliac, 107 + +Ruspoli, Cardinal, 42 + + +S + +St. John Chrysostomo's Theatre, 41, 47 + +St. Paul's Cathedral, 66 + +Saint-Saëns, 140, 141 + +_Samson_, 31, 98, 126 + +_San Giovanni Grisostomo_, 41, 47 + +_Saul_, 94, 126, 183 + +Scarlatti, 38, 41, 43, 76, 122, 127 + +Schott, 22 + +Schumann, 109 + +Schütz, 36, 56 + +_Second Concerto in F major_, 170 + +_Semele_, 127, 135 + +Semi-romantic colour, 115 + +_Serse_, 91 n., 122, 124, 98 n. + +_Servio Tullio_, 52 + +Seven Trios or Sonatas in two parts, 94 + +_Seventh Concerto_, 169 + +Shakespeare, 121 + +Sicilian legend, 72 + +Sight gone, 105 + +_Singakademien_, 108, 110 + +_Siroé_, 81 + +Six Fugues or Voluntaries, 149 + +Six Sonatas in Trio, 154 + +_Sixth Concerto in G minor_, 176 + +Smith, C., 107 + +Smollett, 100 + +Society for the Maintenance of Poor Musicians, 96, 107 + +Solo voices, 123 + +_Solomon_, 102, 131 + +Sonata for Viola da Gamba, 154 + +Sonatas or trios for two violins, flutes, 155 + +Sonatas or trios for two violins, 155 + +Sonatas for the flute, violin, and harpsichord, 145 + +Sonatas for flute and bass, 64, 155 + +Sophia Charlotte, Princess, 11 + +Speed of working, Handel's, 116 + +Steffani, 7, 11, 19, 46, 51, 64, 122 + +Storms, Musical, 142 + +Streatfeild, 37, 40 + +Strungk, 6 + +Stuart party, 68 + +Stuart, James I, 66 + +Strauss, R., 121 + +Stradella, 118 + +_Sturm und Drang period_, 143 + +Styles, 133, 134, 137 + +Suites, etc., 146 + +_Suites de pièces pour le clavecin_, 143 + +_Susanna_, 102 + +Symphonies, 158 + +Swift, 67, 82 + + +T + +_Tamerlano_, 79, 84, 122, 127 + +Tarquini, 40 + +_Te Deum_, 65, 66, 68, 120 + +Telemann, 56, 141 + +Tendencies, 122 + +Tenor, 123 + +_Terpsichore_, 90 + +_Teseo_, 65, 127 + +Theatre, 120 + +Theatre closed, Handel's, 93 + +Theile's _Creation_, 17 + +_Theodora_, 48, 104, 135 + +Theologians, 4 + +Theology, 12 + +_The Triumph of Time and Truth_, 106, 159, 160, 161 + +Third Violin, Part for, 161 + +Thirty Years' War, 4 + +Thornhill, 23 + +_Tomomeo_, 81 + +Tone-colour, 159, 160, 161 + +_Tor di Nona_, 39 + +Touch, 151 + +_Trionfo del Tempo_, 106 + +Trios, 131 + +Tunbridge Wells, 92 + +Tyer, 187 + + +U + +Utrecht, 66 + + +V + +Vatican, 44 + +_Vaudeville_, 138 + +Vauxhall Gardens, 94, 100, 101, 107, 187 + +Venice, 40, 42 + +_Vierge d'Martyre_, 48 + +Vinci, 84 + +Viola, 160, 161 + +Violoncellist, 75 + +Violoncello, 160 + +_Violette marine_, 160 n. + +_Virtuoso_ powers, 40, 49 + +Vivaldi, 168 + +Vocal _ensemble_ pieces, 130 + +Vocal ornamentation, 128, 129 + + +W + +Wagner, 142 + +Walpole, 81 + +Walsh, 145, 149, 181 n. + +Water music, 68 n., 158, 188 + +Weissenfels, 3 + +Westminster Abbey, 107 + +Witchcraft, 13 + + +Z + +Zachau, 5, 15, 113 + +_Zadock the Priest_, 109 n. + +Zappi, 43 + + +THE MUSIC LOVER'S LIBRARY + +A series of small books on various musical subjects written in a popular +style for the general reader. + +EDITOR: A. EAGLEFIELD HULL, MUS. DOC. (OXON.) + +Each about 200 pages. + +1. SHORT HISTORY OF MUSIC. By the EDITOR. + +2. SHAKESPEARE: HIS MUSIC AND SONG. By A. H. MONCUR-SIME. + +3. THE UNFOLDING OF HARMONY. By CHARLES MACPHERSON, F.R.A.M., +Sub-Organist St. Paul's Cathedral. + +4. THE STORY OF MEDIÆVAL MUSIC. By R. R. TERRY, Mus. Doc. (Dublin), +Director of Music at the pro-Cathedral, Westminster. + +5. MUSIC AND RELIGION. By W. W. LONGFORD, D.D., M.A. + +6. MODERN MUSICAL STYLES. By the EDITOR. + +7. ON LISTENING TO AN ORCHESTRA. By M. MONTAGU-NATHAN. + +8. EVERYMAN AND HIS MUSIC. By P. A. SCHOLES. + +9. MUSIC AND ÆSTHETICS. By J. B. MCEWEN, M.A., F.R.A.M. + +10. THE VOICE IN SONG AND SPEECH. By GORDON HELLER. + +11. DESIGN OR CONSTRUCTION IN MUSIC. By the EDITOR. + +KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD., LONDON + + PRINTED BY +WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD. + PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND + + * * * * * + +These typographical errors were corrected by the text transcriber: + +constituted for it a model for emulatation=>constituted for it a model +for emulation + +Hinweg, du Dornen schwangre Krone!=>Hinweg, du Dornen schwangere Krone! + +his voice suberbly depicted=>his voice superbly depicted + +George Moffat=>Muffat [Muffat, Georg (1653-1704)] + +Vivaldi's influence in Germany on a Granpuer=> Vivaldi's influence in +Germany on a Graupnuer [Graupner (Christoph, 1683-1760)] + +_Te deum_ said to be by Vrio.=>_Te deum_ said to be by Urio. [Urio, +Francesco Antonio, 1631-1719] + +Domenio Scarlatti=>Domenico Scarlatti + +Andimollo, Andimolo=>Ademollo + +Christoph Bernhart, pupil of Schütz=>Christoph Bernhard, pupil of Schütz + +Bernhardt, 16=>Bernhard, 16 + +He stayed at Dusseldorf with the Elector=>He stayed at Düsseldorf with +the Elector + +Locatalli and Vivaldi came under the influence of the Italian +Opera.=>Locatelli and Vivaldi came under the influence of the Italian +Opera. + +of Locatalli (Op. 7, 1741) was named _Il pianto d'Arianna_.=>of +Locatelli (Op. 7, 1741) was named _Il pianto d'Arianna_. + +(1890 in the _Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenfchaft_)=>(1890 in the +_Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft_) + +Abbé Prevost=>Abbé Prévost + +Reinhärd Keiser=>Reinhard Keiser + +Max Seifiert: Haendels Verhältnis zu Tonwerken ælterer deutscher +Meister=>Max Seiffert: Haendels Verhältnis zu Tonwerken ælterer +deutscher Meister + +_Siroë_, 81=>_Siroé_, 81 + +Pratelino, 38=>Pratolino, 38 + + +that Lecerf de la Vieville wrote his _Comparaison de la musique +française et de la musique italienne_=>that Lecerf de la Viéville wrote +his _Comparaison de la musique française et de la musique italienne_ + + * * * * * + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] The genealogical tree of Handel has been prepared by Karl Eduard +Förstemann: _Georg Friedrich Haendel's Stammbaum_, 1844, Breitkopf. + +The name of Handel was very common at Halle in different forms +(_Hendel_, _Hendeler_, _Händeler_, _Hendtler_). One would say that its +derivation signified "merchant." G. F. Handel wrote it in Italian +_Hendel_, in English and French _Handel_, in German _Händel_. + +[2] It is interesting to note that Johann Sebastian Bach was born at +Eisenach on March 21, 1685. + +[3] Of the four children by the second marriage, the first died at +birth. George Frederick had two sisters: one, two years, the other, five +years younger than himself. + +[4] He died in 1672. + +[5] Legendary anecdotes of the little Handel are often quoted, showing +him rising from his bed in the middle of the night to play a little +clavichord, which was concealed in an upper garret. + +[6] See the Preface which the choirmaster of the Thomas School at +Leipzig, Tobias Michael, wrote to the second part of his _Musikalische +Seelenlust_ (1637); and in the life of Rosenmüller the story of the +scandalous affair which in 1655 forced this fine musician to flee from +his country (August Horneffer: _Johann Rosenmüller_, 1898). + +[7] F. W. Zachau was born in 1663 at Leipzig, and died prematurely in +1712. His father came from Berlin. The original spelling of the name was +_Zachoff_. + +[8] Since the publication of the works of Zachau by Max Seiffert in the +_Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst_, Vols. XXI and XXII, 1905, Breitkopf. + +[9] Matheson refers to this briefly also, but the later historians, +Chrysander, Volbach, Kretzschmar, Sedley Taylor have not taken any +account of these words, which they attribute to the generosity of +Handel, and to the malevolence of Matheson. In their judgment he did not +even know the works of Zachau--this is very hard on Handel's master. +Since the publication of the _Denkmäler_ it is impossible not to +recognize in Zachau the true originator of his style, and even, so to +speak, of the genius of Handel. + +[10] _Lebensbeschreibung Haendels_ (1761). + +[11] One notices many of Kerl's themes in one of Handel's Organ +concertos, and in a Concerto Grosso. A _canzone_ of Kerl; also a +_capriccio_ of Strungk has been transferred bodily into two choruses of +_Israel in Egypt_ (Max Seiffert: _Haendels Verhältnis zu Tonwerken +ælterer deutscher Meister_, Jahrbuch Peters, 1907). + +[12] The two parts of the Clavier Exercises of Kuhnau appeared in 1689 +and 1692. The new Clavier Pieces in 1696 and the Bible Sonatas in 1700. +(See the Edition of Kuhnau's clavier works by Karl Pasler in the +_Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst_, 1901). + +[13] See Chrysander. We shall speak later on of the work of Steffani and +its relation to Handel. + +[14] The volume of his published works comprises 12 cantatas for +orchestra, soli, and chorus, and a _capella_ (unaccompanied) Mass, a +chamber work (trio for flute, bassoon, and continuo), 8 preludes, +fugues, fantasias, capriccios for clavecin or organ, and 44 choral +variations. + +[15] Compare the Tenor air _O du werter Freudengeist_ (p. 71) and +accompaniment, and _ritornello_ of the _violini unisoni_ in the 4th +cantata _Ruhe, Friede, Freud und Wonne_ with the air of Polyphemus in +Handel's _Acis and Galatea_; compare also the subject in the Bass air of +the 8th cantata (p. 189) with the well-known instrumental piece which +Handel used for the Symphony in the Second Act of _Hercules_; also the +Tenor solo with horn, _Kommt jauchzet_ (p. 181) in the 8th cantata: +_Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele_ with the soprano air in _The Messiah_. One +also finds in the cantata _Ruhe, Friede_ (p. 83) the sketch for the +famous chorus of the destruction of the walls of Jericho in _Joshua_. + +[16] _Ruhe, Friede_, p. 122. + +[17] _Ibid._, pp. 113, 183. + +[18] _Ibid._, pp. 110, 141, 254, 263. + +[19] _Ibid._ 8th Cantata. _Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele_, p. 166, the +German _Hallelujah_ with its fine flow of jubilant +vocalizing--especially on page 192, the great final chorus. + +[20] See his pretty trio for flute, bassoon and clavier (p. 313). It is +a small work in 4 movements (1. _Affettuoso_; 2. _Vivace_; 3. _Adagio_; +4. _Allegro_), where clear Italian grace mixes itself so happily with +German _Gemüth_. + +The orchestra for the cantatas seldom includes anything but the strings +with the organ or the clavier. But in general the palette of Zachau is +very rich, comprising violas, violetti, violoncello, harps, oboes, +flutes, hunting horns, bassoons and bassonetti, and even clarini (high +trumpets) and drums (Cantata: _Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar_). + +Zachau amuses himself by combining the tone-colours of the different +instruments with those of the voices in the solo airs; thus a Tenor air +is accompanied by a violoncello solo; another by two hunting horns; an +air for the Bass is combined, with the bassoon _obbligato_; another with +4 drums and trumpets; a Soprano air with the bassoon and 2 bassonetti; +without mentioning innumerable airs with oboes or flutes. + +Thanks to Zachau, Handel was familiarized at an early date with the +orchestra. He learnt at his house how to play all the instruments, +especially the oboe, for which he has written many charming numbers. +When he was ten years old he wrote some Trios for 2 oboes and bass. An +English nobleman travelling in Germany found a little collection of 6 +Trios (Sammlung dreistimmiger Sonaten für Zwei Oboen und Bass, sechs +Stück) dating from this period (Volume 28 of the Complete Handel +Edition). + +[21] See his beautiful air for bass in the Cantata _Lobe den Herrn_, p. +164. + +[22] Certain very simple phrases as in the Cantata for the _Visitation_, +"_Meine Seel erhebt den Herren_," the recitative for Soprano "_Denn er +hat seine elende Magd angesehen_" (p. 112) have an exquisite flavour of +virginal humility which we never find in Handel. + +[23] The Torellian violinist, Antonio Pistocchi, who was one of the +masters of Italian song, the father, Attilio Ariosti, Giovanni +Bononcini, Steffani, who wrote for the Electress some famous duets, and +Corelli, who dedicated to her his last Violin Sonata, op. 5. + +[24] The first representation took place June 1, 1700, with a pastoral +ballet of Ariosti. Leibnitz was present at the full rehearsal. + +[25] All that one has heard of his meeting with Ariosti and Bononcini is +somewhat legendary. A. Ebert has shown that Ariosti only went to Berlin +in 1697, and that Bononcini did not arrive in Germany till November, +1697, and they were not there together before 1702. In order that Handel +should have met them there it was necessary that they should return in +1703 on their way to Hamburg. But then he was eighteen years; and the +legend of the infant prodigy being victorious over the two masters thus +disappears (_Attilio Ariosti in Berlin_, 1905, Leipzig). + +[26] The broad-minded policy of the Electors of Brandenburg attracted to +their University at Halle many of the most independent men in Germany +who had been persecuted elsewhere. Thus the Pietists who were driven +from Leipzig came to Halle. Indeed they flocked there from all parts of +Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries (Volbach: _Vie de Haendel_, +and Levy-Bruhl: _L'Allemagne depuis Leibnitz_, 1890). + +[27] See the fine studies of J. S. Bach by Pirro. + +[28] One knows that the trial of witchcraft was one of the many blots on +this period. More than a hundred thousand victims perished in the +funeral pyres of witchcraft in one century! Frederick II said that if +women could die peacefully of old age in Germany, it was all owing to +Thomasius. + +[29] The yearly contract with the Cathedral church was dated March 30, +1702, a month after he had signed the faculty of law. + +[30] Telemann, passing through Halle in 1701, said that he made the +acquaintance of Handel, who was already there "a man of importance" +("Dem damahls schon wichtigen Herrn Georg Friedrich Haendel")--a +singular epithet indeed to apply to a child of sixteen years! Chrysander +had indeed reason to insist on the precocious maturity of Handel, "No +one was his equal in that, even J. S. Bach, who developed much more +slowly!" + +[31] Already for several years he had composed "like the devil," as he +said of himself once. + +[32] There are attributed to him two oratorios (very doubtful), one +Cantata, _Ach Herr mich armen Sünder_, and a _Laudate Pueri_ for Soprano +solo, which are anterior to his departure for Hamburg. + +[33] Alfred Heuss was the first to show what attraction the musical +drama had for Zachau, who introduced it even into the Church. Some of +his cantatas, the 4th, for example, _Ruhe, Friede, Freud und Wonne_, +very unjustly criticised by Chrysander, is a fragment of a fantastic +opera where one finds David tormented by evil spirits. The declamation +is expressive, and the choruses have a highly dramatic effect. Thus we +see the theatrical career of Handel was prepared in Halle, and perhaps +it was Zachau himself who sent Handel to Hamburg (A. Heuss: _Fr. Wilh. +Zachau als dramatischer Kantaten-Komponist_). (I.M.G., May, 1909). + +[34] In reality under the influence of English publications, and notably +_The Spectator_ of Addison, 1711. About 1713 _The Man of Reason_ +appeared in Hamburg. In 1724 to 1727 the journal _The Patriot_ of +Hamburg was founded by a patriotic society. The original intention was +to print 400 copies, but 5000 were subscribed for in Upper Saxony alone. + +[35] The secular music about 1728 reckoned in its ranks 50 masters and +150 professors. In comparison, religious music was much more poorly +represented than in many other cities of north Germany. + +[36] _The Birth of Christ, Michael and David, Esther._ + +[37] _Dramatologia antigua-hodierna_, 1688. + +[38] _Theatromachia_, or _die Werke der Finsterniss_ (The Powers of +Darkness), by Anton Reiser, 1682. + +[39] _Histoire de l'Opèra avant Lully et Scarlatti_, 1895, pp. 217-222. + +[40] Reinhard Keiser was born in 1674 at Teuchern, near Weissenfels, and +he died in 1739 at Copenhagen. + +See Hugo Leichtentritt: _Reinhard Keiser in seinen Opern_, 1901, Berlin; +Wilhelm Kleefeld: _Das Orchester der ersten deutschen Oper_, 1898, +Berlin; F. A. Voigt: _Reinhard Keiser_ (1890 in the _Vierteljahrsschrift +für Musikwissenschaft_)--the Octavia and the _Croesus_ of Keiser have +been republished. + +[41] For instance in the overtures in 3 parts, with French indications +"_Vitement, Lentement_"; also in the instrumental preludes, and perhaps +in the dances. + +[42] Principally in the duets, which have a slightly contrapuntal +character. + +[43] "Is it the orchestra which is the hero?" asked the theorist of +Lullyism, Lecerf de la Viéville. "No, it is the singer...." "Oh, well, +then, let the singer move me himself, and take care not to worry me with +the orchestra, which is only there by courtesy and accident. _Si vis me +flere...._" (_Comparaison de la Musique italienne et de la Musique +française_, 1705). + +[44] "One can represent quite well with simple instruments," says +Mattheson, "the grandeur of the soul, of love, of jealousy, etc., and +render all the feelings of the heart by simple chords and their +progressions without words, in such a way that the hearer can know and +understand their trend, the sense and thought of the musical discourses +as if it were a veritably spoken one" (_Die neueste Untersuchung der +Singspiele_, 1744). + +[45] The preface of the _Componimenti Musicali_ of 1706. Mattheson +exaggeratingly says that "to compose well a single recitative in keeping +with the feelings and the flow of the phrase as Keiser did, needs more +art and ability than to compose ten airs after the common practice." + +[46] Compare the _recitative_ in the first great cantatas of J. S. Bach, +"Aus der Tiefe, Gottes Zeit," which cover from 1709 to 1712-14, with +such _recitatives_ from "Octavia" of Keiser (1705), notably Act II, +_Hinweg, du Dornen schwangere Krone!_ Melodic inflections, modulations, +harmonies, grouping of phrases, cadences, all in the style of J. S. Bach +even more than in that of Handel. + +[47] See in _Croesus_ (1711) the air of Elmira, with flute, which calls +to mind a similar air from _Echo and Narcissus_ by Gluck. + +[48] In this genre a scene from _Croesus_ is a little masterpiece in the +pastoral style of the end of the eighteenth century; and is very close +to Beethoven. + +[49] Such as the _Song of the Imprisoned Croesus_, which calls to mind +certain airs in _The Messiah_. + +[50] I need only cite one example: it is the air of Octavia with two +soft flutes, "Wallet nicht zu laut," one of the most poetic pages of +Keiser, which Handel reproduced several times in his works, and even in +his _Acis and Galatea_, 1720. + +[51] Postel, who used seven languages in the Prologues of his Libretti, +was opposed to this mixture in poetical works, "for that which ornaments +learning," he says, "disfigures poetry." + +[52] Certain German operas mix High German, Low German, French and +Italian. + +[53] He was born at Hamburg in 1681, and died there in 1764. See L. +Meinardus: _J. Mattheson und seine Verdienste um die deutsche Tonkunst_, +1870; and Heinrich Schmidt: _J. Mattheson, ein Förderer der deutschen +Tonkunst_, 1897, Leipzig. + +[54] He violently attacked in the _Volkommene Kapellmeister_ (1739) the +"Pythagoreans" of whom the chief was Lor. Christoph Mizler, of Leipzig, +who attempted to work out music on the lines of mathematics and logic. +With the "Aristoxenians" (harmonists) he wished to rescue music from an +iron vice, from the hands of the skeleton of a dead science, and from +scholasticism. The ear was his law. "Let your art be encompassed where +the ear alone reigns: that should suffice. Where nature and experience +leads you, all is well. Do it, play it, sing it; for wrong doing, avoid +it, efface it" (_Das forschende Orchestre_). Against the scholastic, he +opposed the fecund and living harmonic science (_Harmonische +Wissenschaft_); he demanded that the latter should be taught in the +universities, and offered to bequeath a large sum to found a Chair for a +musical lectureship in the college of his native city. + +[55] Especially in _Das neueröffnete Orchestre_ (1713), _Das beschützte +Orchestre_ (1717), _Das forschende Orchestre_ (1721). We might say that +the most fruitful of his theoretical writings is _Der Vollkommene +Kapellmeister_ (1739), which might even to-day serve as the basis of a +work on musical æsthetics, and that it was the work which produced a +good part of our musicology. + +[56] He warns German musicians against going to Italy, whence they +return like so many birds plucked of their feathers, with their great +weaknesses hidden, and an intolerable presumption. He reproached Germany +with not helping her national musicians, who were languishing and +becoming extinct (_Volk. Kapellm._ and _Critica Musica_). + +[57] Twenty-four monthly books which appeared with interruptions from +May, 1722, to 1725, Hamburg. There were musical polemics, +correspondence, interviews with musicians, analyses of their books and +works, a shoal of letters on the last opera, on the last concert, on the +life of a musician, on a new clavier, on a singer, etc. One finds +pre-eminently very solid musical critiques, perhaps the oldest which +exist. The minute analysis of Handel's _Passion according to St. John_ +was still celebrated when the work itself was forgotten. "It is +perhaps," said Marpurg in 1760, "the first good critique which was +written on choral music" since it sprang into being. + +[58] _Critica Musica._ + +[59] "When I think as a tone-poet (Tondichter)," he says, "I think of +something higher than a great figure.... Formerly musicians were poets +and prophets." In another place he writes, "It is the property of music +to be above all sciences a school of virtue, _eine Zuchtlehre_" (_Vollk. +Kapellm._). + +[60] _Grundlagen einer Ehrenpforte, worin der tüchtigsten Kapellmeister, +Komponisten, Musikgelehrten, Tonkünstler, etc. Leben, Werke, Verdienste, +etc., erscheinen sollen, 1740._ + +[61] _Vollkommene Kapellmeister_, 1739--he devoted a very important +study, which he called the _Hypokritik_ (Pantomime), to it in this work. + +[62] _Ibid._ + +[63] In theory rather than in practice: for his operas are mediocre. +Besides, he soon lost his taste for the theatre, his religious scruples +being too strong for him. He wished at first to purify the Opera, to +make the theatre something serious and sacred, which should act on the +masses in an instructive and elevating manner (_Musikalischer Patriot_, +1728). Then he saw that his conception of a moral and edifying opera had +no chance of being realised. Finally he lost his interest, and even +rejoiced in 1750 over the final ruin which overtook the Hamburg Opera. + +[64] Mattheson, who spoke perfect English, and who became a little later +the secretary to the English Legation, then resident in the interim, +presented Handel to the English Ambassador, John Wich, who entrusted +them both with the instruction of his son. + +[65] _Ehrenpforte._--Telemann, a co-disciple of Handel, says also that +both Handel and he worked continually at melody. + +[66] With a kind of protective touch, however, on the part of Mattheson. +During the first months Handel would never have dreamt of offending him. +The style of his letters to Mattheson in March, 1704, was extremely +respectful. In fact Mattheson was then in advance of him, and his +superior in social position. + +[67] See in the _Ehrenpforte_ the story of this journey, and the frolics +which happened on the way to the two joyful companions. + +Buxtehude was a Dane, born at Elsinore in 1637. He settled at Lubeck, +where he remained as the organist of St. Mary's Church, from the age of +thirty years until his death in 1707. + +[68] It was the custom that the organ of a church should be given with +the daughter, or the widow of the organist. Buxtehude himself, in +succeeding Tunder, had married his daughter. + +[69] J. S. Bach went to Lubeck in October, 1705, and instead of staying +a month, as arranged, he spent four months there; an irregularity which +cost him his position at Celle. + +[70] The organ works of Buxtehude have been republished by Spitta and +Max Seiffert, in 2 volumes by Breitkopf (see the short, but pithy, study +of Pirro in his little book on _L'Orgue de J. S. Bach_, Paris, 1895, and +Max Seiffert: _Buxtehude, Handel, Bach_, in the Peter's Annual, 1902). A +selection (too restricted) of the cantatas has been published in a +volume of the _Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst_. Pirro is preparing a +longer work on Buxtehude. + +[71] Particularly during 1693. + +[72] The part played by these free cities, Hamburg, Lubeck, the abodes +of intelligent and adventurous merchants, in the history of German +music, should be specially noticed. The part is analogous to that played +by Venice and Florence in Italian painting and music. + +[73] There are about 150 manuscripts in the libraries of Lubeck, Upsala, +Berlin, Wolfenbüttel, and Brussels. + +[74] His organ music bears witness to his mastery in this style. + +[75] See the penetrating intimacy, the suave melody, of the cantata +_Alles was ihr tut mit Worten oder Werken_, and the tragic grandeur with +such simple means of the magnificent cantata _Gott hilf mir_. + +[76] We find on page 167 of the _Denkmäler_ volume, a _Hallelujah_ by +Buxtehude for 2 clarini (trumpets), 2 violins, 2 violas, violoncello, +organ, and 5 vocal parts, which is pure Handel, and very beautiful. + +[77] Mattheson adds: "I know with certainty that if he reads these +pages, he will laugh up his sleeve, but outwardly he laughs little." + +[78] Amongst others, the subject from an air in minuet form, which he +repeated exactly in the minuet of his overture to _Samson_. + +[79] In the same week, Keiser and the poet Hunold gave another Passion, +_The Bleeding and Dying Jesus_, which made a scandal: for he had treated +the subject in the manner of an opera, suppressing the chorales, the +chief songs, and the person of the evangelist and his story. Handel and +Postel more prudently only suppressed the songs, but reserved the text +of the evangelist. + +[80] This criticism, certainly written in 1704, was repeated by +Mattheson in his musical journal, _Critica Musica_, in 1725, and even +twenty years later on, in his _Wollkommene Kapellmeister_, in 1740. + +[81] The two young men had charge of the education of the English +Ambassador's son, Mattheson in the position of chief tutor, Handel as +music master. Mattheson took advantage of the situation to inflict on +Handel a humiliating rebuke. Handel revenged himself by ridiculing +Mattheson, whose _Cleopatra_ was being given at the Opera. Mattheson +conducted the orchestra from the clavier, and took the _rôle_ of Antony +as well. When he played the part he left the clavier to Handel, but +after Antony had died, an hour before the end of the play, Mattheson +returned in theatrical costume to the clavier, so as not to miss the +final ovations. Handel, who had submitted to this little comedy for the +first two representations, refused on the third to give his chair to +Mattheson. In the end they came to fisticuffs. The story is told in a +rather confusing manner by Mattheson in his _Ehrenpforte_, and by +Mainwaring, who sided with Handel. + +[82] _Der in Krohnen erlangte Glücks-Wechsel, oder Almira Konigen von +Castilien_ (The Adventures of the Fortune of the Kings, or Almira, Queen +of Castile). The libretti was drawn from a comedy by Lope de Vega by a +certain Feustking, whose scandalous life Chrysander has recorded, and +also the battle of the ribald pamphlets with Barthold Feind on the +subject of this piece. Keiser ought to have written the music of +_Almira_, but, being too occupied with his business and his amusements, +he handed the book over to Handel. + +Once for all I will say here that the exigences of this book will not +allow of any analysis of Handel's operas. I hope to give detailed +analyses of them in another book on Handel and his times (_Musiciens +d'autrefois_, Second Series). + +[83] _Die durch Blut und Mord erlangte Liebe, oder Nero_ (Love obtained +by blood and crime, or Nero), poem by Feustking. Mattheson played the +part of Nero. The musical score is lost. + +[84] In 1703 Handel returned his mother the allowance which she made +him, and added thereto certain presents for Christmas. In 1704, 1705 and +1706 he saved two hundred ducats for his travels in Italy. + +[85] The new Nero was played under the title of _Die Romische Unruhe, +oder die edelmüthige Octavia_ (The troubles of Rome, or the magnanimous +Octavia). The score has been republished in the supplements to the +Complete Handel Edition by Max Seiffert with Breitkopf. _Almira_ took +the title: _Der Durchlanchtige Secretarius, oder Almira, Königen in +Castilien_ (His Excellency the Secretary, or Almira, Queen of Castile). + +Besides these two works, Keiser wrote in two years, seven operas, the +finest he had done, an evident proof of his genius, which, however, +lacked the character and dignity worthy of it. + +[86] Under the title _Componimenti Musicali_, 1706, Hamburg. + +[87] For the space of two years no one knew what had become of him, for +he had taken care to elude the restraint of his creditors. At the +beginning of 1709 he quietly reappeared in Hamburg, took up again his +post and his glory, without anyone dreaming of reproaching him, but then +Handel was no longer at Hamburg. + +[88] Besides the operas, and his _Passion_, Handel wrote at Hamburg a +large number of cantatas, songs, and clavier works. Mainwaring assures +us that he had two cases full of them. Mattheson doubts the truth of +this statement, but the ignorance which he shows on this subject only +goes to prove his growing estrangement from Handel, for we have since +found both in his clavier book, etc. (Volume XLVIII of the complete +works), and in the Sonatas (Volume XXVII) a number of compositions which +certainly date from the Hamburg period 1705 or 1706. + +[89] He was the last of the Medici. He came to the title in 1723, but +after several years of brilliant rule he retired into solitude, sick in +body and in spirit (see Reumont: _Toscana_, and Robiony: _Gli Ultimi dei +Medici_). + +[90] Later on Handel said after he had been to Italy that he never had +imagined that Italian music, which appears so ordinary and empty on +paper, could make such a good effect in the theatre itself. + +[91] Mr. R. A. Streatfeild believes that he even stayed in Florence +until October, 1706, for the Prince Gastone dei Medici, who ought to +have presented him to the Grand Duke, left Florence in November, 1706. +He also places in this first sojourn in Florence the production of +Handel's _Roderigo_, of which all precise records in the archives of the +Medicis and the papers of the time are lost. I am more inclined to +follow the traditional opinion that _Roderigo_ dates from Handel's +second stay in Florence, when he commenced to work in the Italian +language and style. + +[92] Bartolommeo Christofori, inventor of the pianoforte, made several +very interesting instruments for him. + +[93] April 2, 1706. + +[94] April 23, 1707. See Edward Dent: _Alessandro Scarlatti_. + +[95] Volume LI of the Complete Works. It was pretended at the time that +this _Lucretia_ was written by one Lucretia, a singer at the court of +Tuscany, who showed Handel for the first time the great beauty of the +Italian song--and of the Italians. + +[96] The whole of Europe in the commencement of the eighteenth century +had passed through a vogue of Pietism. Historians have scarcely paid +sufficient attention to local influences. It was thus that they +attributed the reawakening of the religious spirit in France entirely to +the influence of Louis XIV. Analogous phenomena were produced in Italy, +in Germany, and in England, at the same time. There were great moral +forces awakening, which, one cannot exactly say why, suddenly broke out +over the whole of the civilized world like a stroke of fever. + +[97] A _Dixit Dominus_ is dated April 4, 1707; a _Laudate Pueri_, July +8, 1707. + +[98] A letter from Annibale Merlini to Ferdinando dei Medici, recently +published by Mr. Streatfeild, says that on September 24, 1707, the +famous Saxon (_Il Sassone famoso_), as Handel was already called, was +still enchanting hearers in the musical evenings at Rome. + +[99] Both Mr. Ademollo, in an article in the _Nuova Antologia_, July 16, +1889, and Mr. Streatfeild, have established the true name of the chief +singer in _Roderigo_. Thus the romantic story believed ever since +Chrysander of Handel's love for the famous Vittoria Tesi has been +destroyed. She was only seven years old in 1707, and did not come out +until 1716. + +[100] Occasionally in St. Mark's there were six orchestras, two large +ones in the galleries with the two grand organs, four smaller ones +distributed in pairs in the lower galleries, each with two small organs. + +[101] Mainwaring relates that Handel arrived _incognito_ at Venice, and +that he was discovered in a masquerade where he was playing the clavier. +Domenico Scarlatti cried out that it must either be the celebrated +Saxon, or the devil. This story, which shows that Handel was celebrated +already as a virtuoso, accords very well with his taste for mystifying +people, a marked trait in his character. + +[102] This appears thoroughly established by recent researches, and +contradicts the statement of Chrysander that Handel's _Agrippina_ had +been played at the commencement of 1708 at Venice. All the documents of +that time agree in placing the first production of _Agrippina_ at the +end of 1709 or at the beginning of 1710. + +[103] An autograph cantata by Handel, which is found in London, was +dated Rome, March 3, 1708. + +[104] This Academy was founded at Rome in 1690 for the production and +exposition of popular poetry and rhetoric. + +[105] Amongst the "shepherds" of Arcadia were counted four Popes +(Clement XI, Innocent XIII, Clement XII, Benoit XIII), nearly all the +sacred colleges, the Princes of Bavaria, Poland, Portugal; the Queen of +Poland, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and a crowd of great lords and +ladies. + +[106] Scarlatti under the name of Terpandro; Corelli under that of +Archimelo; Pasquini as Protico; Marcello as Dryanti. Handel was not +inscribed on the Arcadia list because he was not yet of the regulation +age, twenty-four years. + +[107] Cardinal Ottoboni was a Venetian, and nephew of the Pope Alexander +VIII. A good priest, very benevolent, and ostentatious art patron whose +prodigalities were celebrated even in England, where Dryden eulogised +them in 1691 in the Prologue of Purcell's _King Arthur_. He was a great +_dilettante_, and even wrote an opera himself, _Il Columbo, overo +l'India scoperta_, 1691. Alessandro Scarlatti set to music his libretto +of _Statira_, and composed for him his _Rosaura_, and his _Christmas +Oratorio_. He was particularly intimate with Corelli, who lived with +him. + +[108] Corelli took the first violin, and Francischiello, the +violoncello. + +[109] At one meeting of the Arcadia in April, 1706, Alessandro Scarlatti +seated himself at the keyboard, whilst the poet Zappi improvised a poem. +Hardly had Zappi finished reciting the last verse than Scarlatti +improvised music on the verses--similarly at Ottoboni's house Handel +improvised many secular cantatas whilst the Cardinal Panfili improvised +the verses. It is related that one of these poems constituted a +Dithyrambic eulogy, and that Handel, unperturbed, amused himself by +setting it to music, and doubtless singing it. + +[110] The manuscript of _The Resurrection_ bears this superscription: +April 11, 1708, _La Festa de Pasque dal Marche Ruspoli_ (The Easter +Festival at the Marquis Ruspoli's). + +[111] They occupy four volumes in the great Breitkopf edition--two +volumes of cantatas, of solo cantatas, with single bass for clavier, and +two volumes of cantatas _Con stromenti_, of which certain are serenatas +for two or three parts. + +[112] The _Armida abbandonata_. The copy, very carefully penned in the +writing of Bach, is now lodged in the house of Breitkopf. + +[113] It is related that at one of the Ottoboni evenings there was a +contest on the clavier and on the organ between Domenico Scarlatti and +Handel. The result was undecided on the clavier, but for the organ +Scarlatti himself was the first to declare Handel the victor. After +that, whenever Scarlatti spoke of him he always made the sign of the +Cross. + +[114] Scarlatti was attached to the Royal Chapel of Naples as principal +Organist in December, 1708. Then he was reinstated in this post in +January, 1709, and in the course of the same year he was nominated +master of the Conservatoire of _Poveri di Gesù Cristo_. + +[115] All his life one of his chief hobbies--as with Corelli and +Hasse--was to visit picture galleries. It is necessary to note this +visual intelligence with the great German and Italian musicians of this +period, since one does not find it with those of the end of the +eighteenth century. + +[116] One of his cantatas is preserved, _Cantata spagnola a voce sola a +chitarra_ (Spanish Cantata for solo voice and guitar, published in the +second volume of Italian cantatas _Con stromenti_), and seven French +songs in the style of Lully, with accompaniment of Figured Bass for the +clavier. One copy of these songs is found in the Conservatoire Library, +Paris (Fonds Schoelcher). + +[117] One of them forms the inspiration for the Pastoral Symphony of +_The Messiah_. Handel also acquired in Italy his taste for the +Siciliano, which became the rage in Naples, and which he used, after +_Agrippina_, in nearly all his operas, and even in his oratorios. + +[118] The _Acis and Galatea_ of 1708 has no relation to the one of 1720, +but in taking up the later work in 1732 Handel made a rearrangement of +his Italian serenade, and gave it in London, mingling with it the +English airs of his other _Acis_. + +[119] Concerning Steffani, see page 51 and following. It seems quite +compatible with this meeting with Handel at Rome in 1709 to relate the +story made by Handel of a concert at Ottoboni's, where Steffani supplied +the improvisation of one of the chief singers with a consummate art. +Chrysander places this story at the time of the second Italian journey +of Handel in 1729, but that is impossible, for Steffani died in +February, 1728. + +[120] That is to say on December 26, 1709. That is the date which the +recent researches of Mr. Ademollo and Mr. Streatfeild have established +in accordance with the indications of the contemporary histories of +Handel by Mattheson, Marpurg, and Burney, of the date inscribed on the +_libretto_ itself. This contradicts the statement of Chrysander adopted +on his authority by most of the musical writers of our own time, stating +that _Agrippina_ was played at Venice in the Carnival of 1708. + +[121] There was so much probability of this that he tried his hand on +the French vocal style by writing seven French songs, of which the +manuscript was carefully revised by him, for the sheets contain +evidences of a close revision in pencil. How changed things would have +been there if he had really come and settled in the interregnum between +Lully and Rameau. He had that quality which none of the French musicians +possessed--a superabundance of music, and he had not that which they had +got--lucid intelligence and a penetration into the true need of the +musical drama and its possibilities. (It was at that time that Lecerf de +la Viéville wrote his _Comparaison de la musique française et de la +musique italienne_, of which certain pages forestall the musical creed +of Gluck.) If Handel had come to France, I am convinced that that reform +would have been brought about sixty years sooner, and with a wealth of +music which Gluck never possessed. + +[122] It is the language which he used in his correspondence, even with +his own family, and his style, always very correct, had the fine +courtesy of the court of Louis XIV. + +[123] _Esther, Athalie, Theodore, Vierge d'Martyre._ + +[124] Even in 1734 Séré de Rieux wrote of Handel: "His composition, +infinitely clever and gracious, seems to approach nearer to our taste +than any other in Europe" (p. 29 of _Enfants de Latone_, poems dedicated +to the King). Handel particularly pleased the French because his +Italianism was always restrained by reason, and French musicians loved +to think that logic was totally French. + +"Son caractère fort, nouveau, brillant, égal, +Du sens judicieux suit la constante trace, +Et ne s'arme jamais d'une insolente audace." + +_Ibid._ (pp. 102-3.) + + +[125] See the book abounding in picturesque documents by Georg Fischer, +_Musik in Hannover_, Second Edition, 1903. + +[126] In 1676, Leibnitz was then thirty years old. He received the title +of Councillor and President of the Library at the Castle. + +[127] Moreover, by the quaintnesses of the Treaties of Westphalia, this +Protestant Princess found herself under the care of the Catholic Bishop +of Osnabruck. + +[128] Madame Arvède Barine has given an amusing portrait of her, +although a little severe, in her charming studies on _Madame Mère du +Regent_, 1909 (Hachette). See particularly the Memoirs of the Duchess +Sophia, written by the same author in French. + +[129] Thus a French traveller, the Abbé Tolland, in 1702, expresses it. + +[130] Created Duke in 1680, he left the same year for Venice. He +returned there at the end of 1684, and remained there until about +August, 1685. He returned three months later, in December, and only left +it in September, 1686. He lived at the palace Foscarini, with a numerous +following, his ministers, his poets, his musicians, his chapel. He spent +enormous sums. He gave _fêtes_ to the Venetians, and took boxes by the +year in five theatres in Venice. In return he lent his subjects as +soldiers to Venice; and his son, Maximilian, was a General in the +Republic. When the Grand Marshal of the Court of Hanover wrote to the +Prince of the discontent of his people, Ernest Augustus answered: "I +very much wish that Monsieur the Grand Marshal would come here, then he +would no longer write so often to me about coming home. M. the Grand +Marshal can have no idea how amusing it is here, and if he only came +once he would never want to return to Germany." + +[131] Barthold Feind says in 1708: "Of all the German opera houses, the +Leipzig one is the poorest, that of Hamburg the largest, the Brunswick +the most perfect, and that of Hanover the most beautiful." The Opera of +Hanover had four tiers of boxes, and was capable of accommodating 1300 +people. + +[132] The orchestra was composed chiefly of French musicians, and they +were conducted by a Frenchman, Jean Baptiste Farinel, son-in-law of +Cambert. + +[133] A. Einstein and Ad. Sanberger have just republished in the +_Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Bayern_ a selection of Steffani's works. +Arthur Neisser has devoted a little book to Steffani. Apropos of one of +his operas _Servio Tullio_, Leipzig, 1902. See also the studies of +Robert Eitner in the _Allg. Deutsche Biographie_; of Chrysander in his +_Haendel_ (Volume I), and also Fischer in his _Musik in Hannover_. + +[134] Munich had become the centre of Italian music in Germany since the +Prince-Elector Ferdinand had married in 1652 an Italian princess, +Adelaide of Savoy. See Ludwig Schiedermair: _Die Anfange der Münchener +Oper_ (_Sammelb. der I.M.G._, 1904). + +[135] In 1680. + +[136] One finds the list of Steffani's operas, together with an analysis +of the _Servio Tullio_, in the book of Arthur Neisser. + +[137] This opera was played for the fifth centenary of the Siege of +Bardwick by Henry Lion-heart in 1089. The Elector of Brandenburg was at +the first representation. Steffani treated other German subjects, such +as the _Tassilone_ of 1709. + +[138] The manuscripts of most of these operas are preserved in the +libraries of Berlin, Munich, London, Vienna, and Schwerin. It is +astonishing that they have never been published, notwithstanding their +importance in the history of German opera. Chrysander has given some +specimens of the _libretti_. The music has only been slightly studied by +Neisser, who makes the mistake of not knowing the music of the +contemporaries of Steffani, and in consequence is frequently at fault in +his appreciation of him. + +[139] Leibnitz neither, although he had certain intuition of what was +possible in this style of theatre-piece, which united all the means of +expression: beauty of words, of rhymes, of music, of paintings and +harmonious gestures (letter of 1681). In general he regarded music from +the attitude of our Encyclopædists at the time of Rameau. His musical +ideal was simple melody. "I have often remarked," says he, "that men of +note have little esteem for things which are touching. Simplicity often +makes more effect than elaborate ornaments" (letter to Henfling). + +[140] The testimony of his contemporaries agrees in depicting him as a +man of agreeable physique, small, of a debilious constitution, which the +excess of study had aggravated, of a superior nature, but altogether +lovable in his manners, full of wit and of gentleness, clear and calm in +speech, possessing exquisite tact and perfect politeness, from which he +never departed, an accomplished man of the court, and further very well +informed, passionately interested in philosophy and mathematics. +Leibnitz taught him German political law. We find in Fischer's _Musik in +Hannover_ a reproduction of a very rare portrait of Steffani in an +episcopal costume. + +[141] Bishop _in partibus_. Spiga was a district in the Spanish West +Indies. + +[142] He ended by abdicating his post as Vicar, which cost him more +annoyance than pleasure. He travelled afresh in Italy in 1722. In 1724 +he was nominated President for life of the Academy of Ancient Music, +founded in London by his pupil, Galliard. He dedicated to the Academy +several of his compositions, but since he was made Bishop he no longer +signed them; they appeared under the name of his secretary, Lagorio +Piva. He returned to Hanover in 1725, after having lived on a grander +scale than his revenues sufficed to maintain. He became embarrassed, and +had to sell his beautiful collection of pictures and statuary, among +which were found, it is said, some of Michael Angelo's. The English king +settled some of his debts. Steffani died of apoplexy in the middle of a +journey to Frankfort on February 12, 1728. + +[143] A little work by him in the form of a letter is known. It is +entitled _Quanta certezza habbia de suoi Principii la Musica et in qual +pregio fosse perciò presso gli Antichi_, and was published in 1695 at +Amsterdam. Again in 1700 in German. He therefore advanced the value of +music not only as an art, but also as a science. + +[144] His singing was celebrated. If his voice was feeble, the purity +and finish of his style, his delicate and chaste expression, were +incomparable, if we are to believe Handel. + +[145] They caused in truth a grand gathering of singers. _Servius +Stallius_ alone required twenty-five, of which six were sopranos +(Nicer). _Op. cit._ + +[146] On the other hand, the symphonic pieces, and particularly the +overtures, are in the Lully style, and afforded the models for Handel. +The French style reigned in the orchestra at Hanover. Telemann says, "at +Hanover is the art of French science." + +[147] Steffani seems to have written these duets as music master of the +Court ladies, and several were composed for the Electress of +Brandenburg, Sophia Dorothea. The poems were the work of the great +lords, or the Italian Abbés. These duets were regarded in their time as +masterpieces, and numerous copies were made of them. One finds the +bibliography in the first volume of choice works of Steffani published +by Breitkopf by A. Einstein and A. Zanberger. The Paris Conservatoire +alone possesses six volumes of manuscript duets by Steffani. + +[148] See the airs _Lungi dall'idol_, _Occhi perche piangete_, and +particularly _Forma un mare_, which offer a striking analogy to one of +the more beautiful _lieder_ of Philip Heinrich Erlebach: _Meine Seufzer_ +(published by Max Friedlander in his History of the Song of the +Eighteenth Century). There is every reason to believe that Steffani +afforded one of the models for Erlebach. + +One should notice the predilection of Steffani (like the great Italians +of his time) for chromaticism and his contrapuntal taste. Steffani was +one of the artists of the time nearest to the spirit of the ancient +music, yet opening the way to the new, and it was characteristic that he +was chosen as President of the Academy of Ancient Music of London, which +took for its models the art of Palestrina and the Madrigalians of the +end of the sixteenth century. I do not doubt that Handel learnt much, +even in this, from Steffani. + +[149] Henry Purcell was born about 1658, and died in 1695. + +[150] See the Prelude or the Dance in _Dioclesian_ and the overture to +_Bonduca_. + +[151] English art has never produced anything more worthy of being +placed side by side with the masterpieces of the Italian art than the +scene of Dido's death. + +[152] _King Arthur_: Grand Dance, or final Chaconne; _Dioclesian_: trio +with final chorus. + +[153] Particularly the famous song of St. George in _King Arthur_--"St. +George, the patron of our isle, a soldier and a saint." + +[154] It was no longer French influence, which, very powerful at the +time of the Stuarts, had very nearly disappeared during the Revolution +of 1688; but the Italian. + +[155] The celebrated pamphlet of the priest Jeremias Collier appeared in +1688: "A short view of the immorality and profaneness of the English +stage with the sense of Antiquity," had made an epoch because it +expressed with an ardent conviction the hidden feelings of the nation. +Dryden, the first, did humble penitence. + +[156] See the Preface to his _Amphion Britannicus_ in 1700. Blow died in +1708. + +[157] There had been several efforts on the part of Italian opera +companies in London under the Restoration of 1660 and 1674. None had +succeeded, but certain Italians were installed in London, and had some +success: about 1667 G. B. Draghi, about 1677 the violinist Niccolo +Matteis, who spread the knowledge in English of the instrumental works +of Vitali and of Bassani; the family of Italian singers, Pietro Reggio +de Gênes, and the famous Siface (Francesco Grossi), who in 1687 was the +first to give Scarlatti in London; Marguerita de l'Espine, who during +1692 gave Italian concerts; but it was in 1702 that the infatuation for +the Italians commenced. + +[158] He was the brother of the celebrated Bononcini (Giovanni). + +[159] This was _Rosamunde_, played in 1707, which had only three +representations. Addison, very little of a musician, had taken as his +collaborator the insipid Clayton. His satires against the Italian opera +appeared in March and April, 1710, in the _Spectator_. + +[160] The struggle was put into evidence in 1708, three years before the +Haymarket Theatre was founded under the patronage of the Queen, by the +poet Congreve, who gave there the old English plays. In 1708 the English +drama left the place and opera installed itself. + +[161] Two German musicians established in England, and naturalized, Dr. +Christoph Pepusch and Nichilo Francesco Haym, pushed certain of their +compositions on to the Italian opera stage in London. They were found +there later. Pepusch, founder of the Academy of Ancient Music in 1710, +was badly disposed against Handel, whose operas he ridiculed in the +famous _Beggars' Opera_ of 1728. Haym, who wished to publish in 1730 a +great history of music, was one of Handel's librettists. + +The Library of the Paris Conservatoire possessed a volume of airs from +the principal Italian operas displayed in London from 1706 to 1710 +(London, Walsh). + +[162] When the poet Barthold Feind gave in 1715 the translation of +_Rinaldo_ at Hamburg, he did not neglect to call him the universally +celebrated Mr. Handel, known to the Italians as "_l'Orfeo del nostro +secolo_" and "_un ingegno sublime_." + +[163] He did not hurry. He stayed at Düsseldorf with the Elector +Palatine (A. Einstein, etc., April, 1907), then in the later months of +the year he went to see his family at Halle. + +[164] To speak truly, they were more like little cantatas than _lieder_. +The Collection Schoelcher in the Library of the Paris Conservatoire +possesses these copies. + +[165] Volumes XXVII and XLVIII of the Complete Handel Edition. + +[166] One sees by the letters of 1711 that Handel applied himself, even +in Germany, to perfecting his knowledge of English. + +[167] The House of Hanover was, as one knows, an aspirant for the +succession to the throne of England, and it behoved it to keep on good +terms with Queen Anne, who was partial to Handel. + +[168] For his second version of this work in 1734 he then added some +choruses. + +[169] It is the only opera of Handel's which is in five acts. The poem +was by Haym. + +[170] Purcell had written in 1694 a _Te Deum_ and _Jubilate_. + +[171] He wrote, it is said, for the little amateur theatre of Burlington +an opera _Silla_, 1714, of which he reproduced the best parts in +_Amadigi_. One can also date from this time a certain number of clavier +pieces, which appeared in a volume in 1720. + +[172] The legend records that Handel composed in August, 1715, the +famous Water Music to regain the favour of the King. Installed on a +boat, with a small "wind" orchestra, he had this work performed during +one of the King's state processions on the Thames. The King was +delighted, and renewed his friendship with Handel. Unfortunately, the +Water Music appears to have been written two years later than the return +to Court of Handel, and the scene placed by Chrysander on August 22, +1715, in his first volume--in October, 1715, by Fischer, _Musik in +Hannover_--is changed by Chrysander in his third volume to July 17, +1717, with a cutting from one of the newspapers of that time, which does +not seem, however, convincing to the others. Be that as it may, the work +is from this period, and the first publication of it appeared about +1720. + +[173] Keiser in 1712, _Der für die Sünden der Welt gemarterte und +sterbende Jesus_ (Jesus Crucified and Dying for the Sins of the World). +Then Telemann in 1716, some months after Handel's arrival; a little +later, Mattheson. Handel's _Passion_ was executed for the first time at +Hamburg during Lent 1717, when Handel had already returned to England. +The four Passions of Keiser, Telemann, Mattheson, and Handel, were given +in 1719 at the Hamburg Cathedral, Mattheson being choirmaster. + +[174] Handel and Mattheson exchanged some correspondence. Mattheson was +about to engage in a musical polemic with the organist and theorist, +Buttstedt. He proved the need of building on the sound foundations of +the German music. He proposed a suggestion for an enquiry on the Greek +modes of Solmisation. Handel, pressed on these questions, responded +tardily in 1719; he sided with Mattheson, a declared modernist against +the old modal period. Mattheson also asked for details of his life for +the purpose of including him in his biographical dictionary which he had +in view. Handel excused himself on account of the concentration +necessary. He merely promised in a vague manner to relate later on the +principal stages which he had taken in the course of his profession, but +Mattheson drew nothing more from this source. + +[175] At the end of 1716. In the course of this sojourn in Germany, +where he had assisted the widow of his former master, Zachau, then +fallen into great poverty, he also succoured at Anspach an old +University friend, Johann Christoph Schmidt, who carried on a woollen +business, and who left all--fortune, wife, and child--to follow him to +London. Schmidt remained attached to Handel all his life, conducting his +business affairs for him, recopying his manuscripts, taking care of his +music, and afterwards his son, Schmidt (or Smith) Junior, took on the +same good offices with equal devotion, a striking instance of the +attractive powers which Handel excited on others. + +[176] The Duke of Chandos was a Croesus, enriched in his office of +Paymaster-General to the army in the reign of Queen Anne, and by his +vast speculations in the South Sea Company. He built a magnificent +castle at Cannons, a few miles from London. He had the _entourage_ of a +prince, and was surrounded by a guard of a hundred Swiss soldiers. His +ostentation, indeed, was a little ridiculous. Pope made fun of it. + +[177] The Anthems occupied three volumes of the Complete Handel edition. +The third is reserved for the later works of this epoch, with which we +are concerned here. The two first volumes contained eleven Chandos +anthems, of which two have a couple of versions and one has three. +Handel wrote at the same time three _Te Deums_. + +[178] Masques were secular compositions very much in the fashion in +England at the time of the Stuarts. They were part played and part +danced, as theatre plays, and partly sung as concert pieces (see Paul +Reyher: _Les_, etc., Paris, 1909). + +Handel took up his _Esther_ in 1732 and recast it. The first _Esther_ +had a single part, it comprised six scenes. The second _Esther_ had +three acts, each preceded and terminated by a full chorus in the ancient +manner. Some have asserted that the poem was by Pope. + +[179] Later on, when he took up this work again in 1733, he called it an +English opera. + +[180] The pretty poem is by Gay. + +[181] This was a society with a capital of £50,000 by shares of £100 +subscribed for fourteen years, each share giving the use of one seat in +the theatre. At the head of it, as President, was the Lord Chamberlain, +Duke of Newcastle. (Until 1723, when he entered the Ministry, and was +replaced by the Duke of Grafton.) The second President, the real +director, was Lord Bingley. He was assisted on the Council of +Administration by twenty-four directors re-elected yearly. The whole +scheme was under the protection of the King, who paid £1000 a year for +his box. The dividends paid to the shareholders reached in 1724 7%, but +speculation endangered the work, and indeed led to its ruin. + +Handel was charged with the complete musical direction until 1728, when +he took on his shoulders the whole direction of the opera, financial and +musical. + +[182] This voyage took place from February, 1719, to the end of the same +year. When Handel was staying at Halle, J. S. Bach, who was then at +Cothen, about four miles away, was informed of it, and went there to see +him, but he only arrived at Halle the very day when Handel was about to +leave. Such at least is the story of Forkel. + +[183] The poem was by Haym. From 1722 the work was given at Hamburg with +a translation of Mattheson. + +[184] Before him Domenico Scarlatti had already visited London, where he +had given unsuccessfully an opera, _Narcissus_, 1720. + +[185] He was born in 1671 or 1672, for his first opus appeared in 1684 +or 1685, when he was little more than thirteen years old. + +Giovanni Bononcini was far from being well known. He was not a +celebrated musician, on which account there are many disagreements. +Bononcini was the name of a long string of musicians, and one has been +frequently confounded with the other. Such mistakes are found even in +the critical work of Eitner (where they rest on a great error in +reading) and in the most recent Italian works, as that of Luigi Torchi, +who in his instrumental music in Italy, 1901, confounds all the +Bononcini together. Luigi Francesco Valdreghi's monograph _I Bononcini +in Modena_, 1882, is more reliable, although very incomplete. + +[186] Gianmaria Bononcini was Chapel-Master of the Cathedral of Modena, +and attached to the service of Duke Francis II. A fine violinist, author +of instrumental sonatas in suites, to which Mr. Torchi and Sir Hubert +Parry attribute great historical importance. He had a reflective spirit, +and dedicated in 1673 to the Emperor Leopold I a treatise on Harmony and +Counterpoint, entitled _Musico Practico_, which was afterwards +reprinted. He died in 1678, less than forty years old. + +[187] Several of his early works are dedicated to Francis II of Modena, +and his 8th opus, _Duetti da Camera_, 1691, is dedicated to the Emperor +Leopold I, who caused him to be engaged for the Court Chapel. + +[188] He was a celebrated violoncellist. + +[189] Alfred Ebert: _Attilo Ariosto in Berlin_, 1905, Leipzig. + +[190] See Lecerf de la Viéville: _Eclaircissement sur Bononcini_, +published in the 3rd part of his _Comparaison de la musique française +avec la musique italienne_ (1706). + +[191] "Like Corelli," says Lecerf, "he had a few fugues, contra fugues, +based on conceits, frequently in other Italian works, and he made many +delicious things from all the lesser used intervals, the most valiant +and the most strange. His dissonances struck fear." + +[192] See the gentle suspension of notes in the Cantata _Dori e Aminta_ +(manuscript in the Library of the Conservatoire of Paris), or the +_Cantata Care luci (ibid.)_. + +[193] "What is necessary in music," said _The London Journal_ of +February 24, 1722, "is that it should chase away _ennui_, and relieve +clever men from the trouble of thinking." + +[194] It is the eternal struggle between the art of knowledge and the +pseudo-popular art. It recurred again a little later with Rousseau. The +principal difference between the two phases of the strife is that in the +epoch with which we are occupied the champion of the anti-learned art +was a well-instructed musician who did not uphold his cause by +ignorance, but by laziness and by profligacy. + +[195] "To study this more closely," says Hugo Goldschmidt (_Vocal +Ornamentation_, 1908), "Bononcini's songs are really _lieder_, to which +is applied, for good or evil, the old form of the Aria Da Capo, or the +Cavatina: the taste for little airs in the form of a song spread itself +widely during the end of the seventeenth century in Germany and in +England." Bononcini, who was always led naturally by fashion, and by his +indolent facility, abandoned himself to it still more in England, and +suited it to the English taste. + +[196] The work had already been given in Italy about 1714. It was then +that Lord Burlington heard it, and became the champion of Bononcini when +he decided to come to England. + +[197] Handel wrote the third act, Bononcini the second, the first had +been already set by a certain Signor Pippo (Phillipo Matti?). + +[198] The victory of Handel began for the most part with the engagement +of his new interpreter, Francesca Cuzzoni, of Parma, a great and +vigorous artist, violent and passionate, whose excellent soprano voice +excelled particularly in pathetic _cantabile_ music. She was twenty-two +years old, and came to London, where she made her début in _Ottone_. Her +quarrels with Handel, and how he treated her by threatening to throw her +out of the window, are well known. + +Handel gave again in May another opera, _Flavio_, of little importance. +On his side Bononcini produced _Erminia and Attilio_, _Aristosi_, +_Coreolanus_, in which the prison scene reduced the ladies to tears, and +inspired numerous analogous scenes in the following operas of Handel. + +[199] Bononcini gave his last piece, _Kalfernia_, on April 18, 1724. +Ariosti says possibly in 1725. On the other hand, in 1725 there +commenced to be played in London the works of Leonardo Vinci, and +Porpora, patronized by Handel himself. + +[200] Faustina Bordoni was born in 1700 at Venice. She had been educated +in the school of Marcello. In 1730 she married Hasse. Her singing had an +incredible agility. No one could repeat the same note with such +rapidity, and she seemed able to hold on sounds to any extent. Less +concentrated and less profound than Cuzzoni, she had an art more moving +and brilliant. + +[201] Two months before Handel had given the opera _Scipione_ (March 12, +1726). + +[202] The Director of the Drury Lane Theatre, Colley Cibber, produced, a +month later, a farce called _The Contretemps, or The Rival Queens_, +where the two singers were depicted tearing their chignons, and Handel +saying in anger to them, whom he wished to separate, "Leave them alone, +when they are tired their fury will spend itself out," and, in order +that the strife might be definitely finished, he wound it up with great +strokes on the drum. Handel's friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, also published on +this subject one of his best pamphlets, "The Devil let loose at St. +James's" (see Chrysander, Volume II). + +[203] The last representation at the Academy took place on June 1, 1728, +with _Almeto_. + +[204] Amongst others, the accompanied recitative, the air _Da Capo_, the +opera duets, the farewell scenes, the great prison scenes, the +inconsequent ballads. Pepusch even took an air of Handel and parodied +it. In the second act a band of robbers came together in the tavern, and +solemnly defiled before their chiefs to the sound of the March of the +Crusaders' Army in _Rinaldo_--_The Beggar's Opera_, given for the first +time on January 29, 1728, was played all over England, and aroused +violent polemics. Swift became a passionate champion for it. After the +success appeared in the following years a number of operas with +songs--Georgy Kalmas has dedicated a very complete article to _The +Beggar's Opera_ in his _Sammelbände der I.M.G._ (January to March, +1907). + +[205] The first three books of the _Dunciad_ of Pope appeared in 1728; +_The Voyages of Gulliver_ in 1726. Swift did not forget the musical +folly in his satire on the kingdom of Lilliputia. + +[206] The Coronation Anthems comprised four hymns, of which we do not +know the exact order. Handel arranged for their presentation at +Westminster by forty-seven singers, and a very considerable orchestra. + +[207] _Riccardo I_, played in November of the same year (see p. 81), was +also a national opera, dedicated to King George II, and celebrating, +_apropos_ of Richard Coeur de Lion, the annals of Old England. + +[208] See page 48, note 4, the opinions held by Séré de Rieux. + +[209] Séré de Rieux: _les Dons les infants de Latone; la Musique et la +Chasse du cerf_, poems dedicated to the King, 1734, Paris, p. 102-3. + +[210] During this voyage, where he sojourned a considerable time at +Venice, he learned that his mother was stricken with paralysis. He +hastened to Halle, so that he might see her again, but she could no +longer see him. For several years she had been blind. She died the +following year, December 27, 1730. Whilst Handel was at Halle watching +over his mother, he received a visit from Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who +came on behalf of his father, to invite him to come to Leipzig. One can +well understand that Handel declined the invitation under his sad +circumstances. + +[211] Born in 1690 at Strongoli in Calabria, he died in 1730. He was the +master of the Chapel Royal at Naples, where he preceded Pergolesi and +Hasse. I have spoken of Vinci in another volume. + +[212] _Acis and Galatea_ was reproduced in 1731, then given again in +1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, with the scenery and costumes, under the +title of _An English Pastoral Opera_. The representation had taken place +without the consent of Handel, who in response to the event, gave the +work himself a little later. As for _Esther_, a member of the Academy of +Ancient Music, Bernard Gates who had formerly sung in the piece at the +Duke of Chandos' and who possessed a copy of it, produced it at the +Hostelry of the Crown and Anchor, on February 23, 1732. In his turn +Handel directed the work on May 2, 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, under +the title of English _Oratorio_. These presentations did not appease the +interest of the public. + +[213] In the "first place there were in all," said a pamphlet, "260 +persons, of whom many had free tickets, and others were even paid to +come." Handel tried to give the work again at reduced prices. This +brought him no advantage. The English patrons repeated already their +exultation over the Saxon, and caused him to return to Germany. + +[214] _Athaliah_ was written for the University feasts at Oxford, to +which Handel had been invited. They wished to confer on him there the +title of Doctor of Music. One does not know exactly what happened to +Handel, having always refused the honour. It is certain, however, that +Handel did not receive the title. + +[215] Bononcini had been received into the Academy of Ancient Music at +London. To secure his footing he offered the Academy in 1728 a Madrigal +in five voices. Unfortunately for him, three years after, a member of +the Academy found this Madrigal in a book of duets, trios, madrigals of +Antonio Lotti, published in 1705 at Venice. Bononcini persisted in +claiming the authorship of the work. A long enquiry was instituted, in +which Lotti himself and a great number of witnesses were examined. The +result was disastrous for Bononcini, who threw up all and disappeared +from London towards the end of 1732--the whole of the correspondence +relating to this affair was published by the Academy in Latin, Italian, +French and English, under the title "Letters from the Academy of Ancient +Music at London to Signor Antonio Lotti of Venice, with answers and +testimonies, London, 1732." + +[216] Porpora was the most famous Italian teacher of singing of the +eighteenth century. Hasse was himself a great singer, and married one of +the most celebrated Prima Donnas who ever lived, Faustina. + +[217] Contrast with the short and restricted phrases of Benedetto +Marcello in his _Arianna_, the amplitude of Porpora's treatment of the +same subject. + +[218] Chrysander, who did not know him well, speaks with a disdain +absolutely unjustifiable. + +[219] Handel's _Arianna_, January 26, 1734. Porpora's _Arianna à Naxos_, +a little later. + +[220] Thus the Invocation of Theseus to Neptune: _Nume che reggi'l +mare_, and the air: _Spetto d'orrore_. + +[221] Johann Adolf Hasse was born March 23, 1699, at Bergedorf, near +Hamburg, and died on December 16, 1783, at Venice. He came to London in +October, 1734, where he gave his _Artaserse_, which was played until +about 1737. He also gave in England his Siroé, 1736, and two comic +_intermezzi_. I do not attach much importance to him, for his life and +his art are a little outside the scope of this work. Despite the efforts +of Handel's enemies, Hasse always avoided posing as the rival of his +great countryman, and their art remains independent of each other. I +will hold over (till some time later on) the study of the work of this +admirable artist, for posterity has been even more unjust to him than to +Porpora, for no one had his wonderful sense of melodic beauty in such a +degree, and in his best pages he is the equal of the very greatest. + +[222] She was Handel's pupil and friend. An excellent musician, she +conducted the orchestra at public concerts given by her every evening in +Holland. + +[223] Handel composed for the marriage of the Princess Anne _The Wedding +Anthem_ (March 14, 1734), which is a _pasticcio_ of old works, +especially _Athaliah_. He gave also for the marriage _fêtes_ the +serenata, _Parnasso in festa_, and a revised form of _Pastor Fido_, with +choruses. + +[224] It was John Rich who had produced here the _Beggar's Opera_ of Gay +and Pepusch in 1728--that parody of Handel's operas. + +[225] She was the pupil of Mlle Prévost, and made her début in 1725 with +Rich. See the study of M. Emile Dacier: _Une danseuse française a +Londres, au début du XVIII siècle_ (French number of the S.I.M. May and +July, 1907). + +[226] It is interesting to notice that it was with the same subjects of +_Pygmalion_ and of _Ariadne_ that J. J. Rousseau and Georg Benda +inaugurated in 1770-1775 the Melodrama or "opera without singing." + +[227] He has been accused of knowing it too well. The Abbé Prévost wrote +exactly at this same period in _Le Pour et le Contre_ (1733): "...Certain +critics accuse him of having taken for his basis an infinite number of +beautiful things from Lully, and especially from our French cantatas, +and of having the effrontery of disguising them in the Italian manner...." + +[228] "_La Salle_" returned to Paris, where she made her reappearance at +the Académie de Musique in August, 1735, in _les Indes galantes_ of +Rameau. It is quite remarkable that some pages of this work, such as the +superb chaconne at the end, have a character quite Handelian. + +[229] _Atalanta_ (May 12, 1736), _Arminio_ (January 12, 1737), +_Giustino_ (February 16, 1737), _Berenice_ (May 18, 1737), _Faramondo_ +(January 7, 1738), _Serse_ (April 15, 1738), _Imeneo_ (November 22, +1740), _Deidamia_ (January 10, 1741). + +[230] Especially in _Serse_ and _Deidamia_. + +[231] Dryden the poet wrote this brilliant poem in 1697 in a night of +inspiration. Clayton had set it to music in 1711; and again about 1720 +Benedetto Marcello wrote a cantata in the ancient manner on an Italian +adaptation of the English ode by the Abbé Conti. A friend of Handel, +Newburgh Hamilton, arranged Dryden's poem with great discretion for +Handel's oratorio. + +Handel had already written several times in honour of St. Cecilia. Some +fragments of four cantatas to St. Cecilia are to be found in Vol. LII of +the great Breitkopf edition (_Cantate italiane con stromenti_). They +were all written in London, the first about 1713. + +[232] _Alexander's Feast_ (January, 1736), _Atalanta_ (April), _Wedding +Anthem_ (April), _Giustino_ (August), _Arminio_ (September), _Berenice_ +(December). + +[233] June 1, 1737. But on June 11 the rival opera also closed its +doors, ruined. Handel, like Samson, dragged down in his own fall the +enemy whom he wished to annihilate. + +[234] On November 15, 1737, Handel commenced _Faramondo_; from December +7 to 17 he wrote the _Funeral Anthem_. On December 24 he finished +_Faramondo_. On December 25 he commenced _Serse_. + +[235] He said that these kinds of concerts were but a way of begging. + +[236] Vauxhall was a beautiful garden on the Thames, the meeting place +of London Society. Every evening except Sunday from the end of April to +the beginning of August, vocal, orchestral, and organ concerts were +given. The manager of these entertainments, Tyers, caused a white marble +statue of Handel by the sculptor Roubiliac to be placed in a niche of a +large grotto. The same sculptor later on executed Handel's statue for +his monument in Westminster Abbey. + +[237] In the first part of _Israel in Egypt_ there is not a single solo +air to be found. In the whole work there are nineteen choruses against +four solos and three duets. The poem of _Saul_ which Chrysander at first +attributed to Jennens appears to have been, as he discovered later on, +the work of Newburgh Hamilton. For _Israel_, Handel entirely dispensed +with a librettist, taking the pure Bible text. + +[238] Written between September 29 and October 30, 1739. Handel further +prepared in November, 1740, the Second Volume of Organ Concertos (six). +The same month he opened his last season of opera, giving on November 22 +_Imeneo_, which was only played twice, and on January 14, 1741, +_Deidamia_, which was only given three times. + +[239] Especially in the _Allegro_ and in certain _Concerti Grossi_. + +[240] An anonymous letter published in the _London Daily Post_ of April +4, 1741, alludes to a single false step made without premeditation. + +[241] In the midst of his misery he still thought of those more +miserable than himself. In April, 1738, he founded with other well-known +English musicians, Arne, Greene, Pepusch, Carey, etc., the Society of +Musicians for the succour of aged and poor musicians. Tormented as he +was himself, he was more generous than all the others. On March 20, +1739, he gave _Alexander's Feast_ with a new Organ Concerto for the +benefit of the Society. On March 28, 1740, he conducted his _Acis and +Galatea_ and his little _Ode on Cecilia's day_. On March 14, 1741, in +his worst days he gave the _Parnasso in festa_, a gala spectacle very +onerous for him with five Solo Concertos by the most celebrated +instrumentalists. Later on he bequeathed £1000 to the Society. + +[242] A clumsy friend tried to raise a public charity in an anonymous +letter to the _London Daily Post_ (see above). He made excuses for +Handel, and thus gave the composer the most cruel blow of all. (The +clumsiness of a bear!) This letter is found at the end of Chrysander's +third volume. + +[243] On November 4, 1741, he still had time to see, before his +departure, the reopening of the Italian Opera, under the direction of +Galuppi, supported by the English nobility. + +[244] Handel wrote the _Messiah_ between August 22 and September 14, +1741. Certain historians have attributed the composition of the +_libretto_ to him. There is no reason for robbing Jennens, a man of +intelligence, author of the excellent poem of _Belshazzar_, of this +honour, and of that shown by the fact that Handel changed none of the +text which Jennens gave him. A letter of March 31, 1745, to a friend +(quoted by Schoelcher) shows that Jennens found the music of the +_Messiah_ hardly worthy of his poem. + +[245] The great Musical Society of Dublin, the Philharmonic, gave only +benevolent concerts. For Handel they made a special arrangement. It +suited them that Handel reserved one concert for charity. Handel was +engaged there with gratefulness by promising "some better music." This +"better music" was the _Messiah_. See an article on _Music in Dublin_ +from 1730 to 1754 by Dr. W. H. Gratten-Flood, I.M.G. (April-June, 1910). + +[246] But not at London, where Handel gave the _Messiah_ only three +times in 1743, twice in 1745, and not again until 1749. The cabals of +the pious tried to stifle it. He was not allowed to put the title of the +oratorio on the bills. It was called A Sacred Oratorio. It was only at +the close of 1750 that the victory of the _Messiah_ was complete. Handel +all his life preserved his connection with charitable objects. He +conducted it once a year for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. Even +when he was blind he remained faithful to this noble practice, and in +order to better preserve the monopoly of the work for the Hospital he +forbade anyone to publish anything from it before his death. + +Since then one knows what a number of editions of the _Messiah_ have +appeared. The Schoelcher collection in the Paris Conservatoire has +brought together sixty-six published between 1763-1869. + +[247] The character of Delilah is one of the most complex which Handel +has created, and the parts of Samson and Harapha require exceptional +voices. + +[248] Milton's poem had been adapted by Newburgh Hamilton. + +[249] The Battle of Dettingen took place on June 27, 1743. Handel had +already finished on July 17 his _Te Deum_, which was solemnly performed +on the following November 27 in Westminster Abbey. + +[250] Too slowly for the liking of Handel, who composed it bit by bit as +the acts were sent him. There are five letters from him to Jennens dated +June 9, July 19, August 21, September 13 and October 2, 1744, where he +presses him to send at once the rest of the poem, expressing his own +admiration for the second act, which he said provides new means of +expression and furnishes the opportunity of giving some special ideas, +"finally asking him to cut down the work a little, as it was too long" +(see Schoelcher). + +[251] Handel wrote it during the forced pauses in the composition of +_Belshazzar_, and produced it at the commencement of 1745. + +[252] The letters quite recently published throw much light on this +troublous period in Handel's life (William Barclay-Squire: Handel in +1745, in the H. Riemann Festschrift, 1909, Leipzig). + +[253] Two examples of the song appear in the Schoelcher Collection at +the Paris Conservatoire. + +Handel also wrote in July, 1746, for the return of the Duke of +Cumberland, a song on the victory over the rebels by His Royal Highness +the Duke of Cumberland, which was given at Vauxhall (a copy of this song +also appears in the Schoelcher Collection). + +[254] Finished in the early days of December, 1745, and given in +February, 1746. The text was founded partly on the Psalms of Milton and +partly on the Bible. Handel inserted in the third part several of the +finest pages from _Israel in Egypt_. In one of the solos the principal +theme of Rule Britannia which was later to be composed by Arne appears. + +[255] The poem, very mediocre, was by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Morell, who +was the librettist for the last oratorios of Handel. + +[256] It was not one of Handel's oratorios, of which the style was in +the popular vein, and where one finds further grand ensembles and solos +closely connected with the Chorus. + +Gluck journeyed to London at the end of 1745. He was then thirty-one +years old. He gave two operas in London, _La Caduta de'Giganti_ and +_Artamene_. (Certain solos from them are to be found in the very rare +collection of _Delizie dell'opere_, Vol. II, London, Walsh, possessed by +the library of the Paris Conservatoire.) This journey of Gluck in +England has no importance in the story of Handel, who showed himself +somewhat scornful in his regard for Gluck's music. But it was not so for +Gluck, who all his life professed the most profound respect for Handel. +He regarded him as his master; he even imagined that he imitated him +(see Michael Kelly: _Reminiscences_, I, 255), and certainly one is +struck by the analogies between certain pages in Handel's oratorios +written from 1744 to 1746 (notably _Hercules_ and _Judas Maccabæus_) and +the grand operas of Gluck. We find in the two funeral scenes from the +first and second acts of _Judas Maccabæus_ the pathetic accents and +harmonies of Gluck's _Orpheus_. + +[257] After 1747 Handel, abandoning his system of subscriptions, turned +his back on his aristocratic clientèle, which had treated him so +shamefully, and opened his theatre to all. It paid him. The middle +classes of London responded to his appeal. After 1748 Handel had full +houses at nearly all his concerts. + +[258] Poem founded on the book of Maccabees by Thomas Morell. The first +performance March 23, 1748. + +[259] Poem by Thomas Morell, first performances March 9, 1748. + +[260] The poem, apparently, by Thomas Morell, notwithstanding its want +of mention in his notes. First performance March 17, 1749. + +[261] The Firework Music has been published in Volume XLVII of the +Complete Handel Edition. For the performance on April 27, 1749, the +orchestra numbered one hundred. Schoelcher has published a +correspondence on the subject of this work between Lord Montague, +General-in-chief of the Artillery, and Charles Frederick, Controller of +the King's fireworks. One sees there that very serious differences arose +between Handel and Lord Montague. + +[262] The Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 by an old mariner, +Thomas Coram, "for the maintainance and education of abandoned +children." Handel devoted himself to this institution, and gave +performances of the _Messiah_ annually for its funds. In 1750 he was +elected a Governor of the Hospital, after he had made it a gift of an +organ. + +[263] Vol. XXXVI of the Complete Handel Edition. The Foundling Anthem, +of which more than one page is taken from the Funeral Anthem, finishes +with the Hallelujah from the _Messiah_ in its original form. + +[264] The libretto was inspired by the _Théodore vierge et martyre_ of +Corneille. + +[265] Written between June 28 and July 5, and produced on March 1, to +follow Alexander's feast as "a new act added." + +[266] A paragraph in the _General Advertiser_ of August 21, 1750, tells +us that Handel was very seriously hurt between La Haye and Amsterdam, +but that he was already out of danger. + +[267] The facsimile of the autograph manuscript was published by +Chrysander, for the second centenary of Handel in 1885. + +[268] Page 182 of MS. + +[269] To occupy himself he directed two performances of the _Messiah_ +for the funds of the Foundling Hospital--on April 18 and May 16, "with +an improvisation on the organ." He also tried the cure at Cheltenham. + +[270] Page 244 of MS. + +[271] He underwent an operation for cataract, the last time on November +3, 1752. A newspaper stated in January, 1753: "Handel has become +completely blind." + +[272] Written in 1708 at Rome. + +[273] Handel had already regiven the Italian work with some +rearrangements and editions in 1737. Thomas Morell adapted the poem to +English, and extended the two acts into three. + +[274] This will was written since 1750. Handel added codicils to it in +August, 1756, March and August, 1757, April, 1759. He nominated his +niece, Johanna Friderica Floerchen, of Gotha, _née_ Michaelsen, his +sole executor. He made several gifts to his friends--to Christopher +Smith, to John Rich, to Jennens, to Newburgh Hamilton, to Thomas Morell, +and others. He did not forget any of his numerous servants. He left a +fortune of about twenty-five thousand pounds, which he had made entirely +in his last ten years; he possessed also a fine collection of musical +instruments and a picture gallery in which were two Rembrandts. + +[275] A monument, somewhat mediocre, was erected to him. It was the work +of Roubiliac, who had already done the statue of Handel for the Vauxhall +Gardens. + +[276] They were celebrated in reality a year too soon. Burney devoted a +whole book to describing these festivals. + +[277] The number of performers never ceased to increase after the +festivals of 1784, when there were 530 or 540, right up to the famous +festivals in the Sydenham Crystal Palace, when the number reached 1035 +in 1854, 2500 in 1857, and 4000 in 1859. Remember that during the +lifetime of Handel the _Messiah_ was performed by thirty-three players +and twenty-three singers. They manufactured for these gigantic +performances some monster instruments; a double bassoon (already +invented in 1727), a special contrabass, some bass trumpets, drums tuned +an octave lower, etc + +[278] These arrangements, executed for the Baron van Swieten, are far +from being irreproachable, and show that Mozart, despite the assertions +of Rochlitz, had not a deep understanding of Handel's works. However, he +wrote an "Overture in the style of Handel," and suddenly remembered him +when he composed his _Requiem_. + +[279] The first was the Singakademie of Berlin, founded in 1790 by +Fasch. + +[280] In the _Harmonicon_ of January, 1824, one finds Beethoven's +opinion (quoted by Percy Robinson): "Handel is the greatest composer who +has ever lived. I should like to kneel at his tomb." And in a letter +from Beethoven to an English lady (published in the _Harmonicon_ of +December, 1825): "I adore Handel." We know that after the 9th Symphony +he had the plan of writing some grand oratorios in the style of Handel. + +[281] Schumann wrote to Pohl in 1855, that _Israel in Egypt_ was his +"ideal of a choral work," and, wishing to write a work called _Luther_, +he defined this music thus, of which he found the ideal realized by +Handel: "A popular oratorio that both country and town-people can +understand.... A work of simple inspiration, in which the effect depends +entirely on the melody and the rhythm, without contrapuntal artifice." + +Liszt, _apropos_ of the Anthem _Zadock the Priest_, goes into ecstasies +over "the genius of Handel, great as the world itself," and very rightly +perceives in the author of the _Allegro_ and of _Israel_, a precursor of +descriptive music. + +[282] See, in Chrysander's work, an article by Emil Krause, in the +_Monatshefte für Musikwissenschaft_, 1904. + +[283] A Société G. F. Handel was founded in Paris in 1909, under the +direction of two conductors full of zeal and intelligence, MM. F. Borrel +and F. Raugal. It has already done much to awaken the love of Handel in +France by giving the large works hitherto unknown in France, such as +_Hercules_, the _Foundling Anthem_, and the model performances of the +_Messiah_ at the Trocadero. + +[284] Lessing, in the Preface to his _Beiträge zur Historie und Aufnahme +des Theaters_ (1750), gives as the principal characteristic of the +German, "that he appreciates whatever is good, particularly where he +finds it, and when he can turn it to his profit." + +[285] See the _Voyage en Italie_, May 18, 1787, letter to Herder. + +[286] French Songs (MSS. in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge): copies in +the Schoelcher Collection, in the library of the Paris Conservatoire. + +[287] See the Abbé Prévost: _Le Pour et le Contre_, 1733. + +[288] These are not traits special to Handel alone. The double +stream--encyclopædic and learned on the one hand, popular or +pseudo-popular on the other--was found in an even greater degree in +London amongst the musicians of Handel's time. In the circle of the +_Academy of Antient Musick_ there was quite a mania of archaic +eclectism. One of these members, the composer Roseingrave, even went to +the length of having the walls of his rooms and all his furniture +covered with bars of music, extracted from the works of Palestrina. At +the same period there was felt all over Europe a reaction of popular +taste against that of the savants. It was the day of the little _lieder_ +by Bononcini or by Keiser. Handel took sides with neither extravagances, +but chose whatever was alive in both movements. + +[289] Letter from Lady Luxborough to the poet Shenstone in 1748--quoted +by Chrysander. + +[290] His passion of collecting increased with age and fortune. A letter +of 1750 reveals him buying some beautiful pictures, including a fine +Rembrandt. It was the year before he was smitten with blindness. + +[291] From the "_Hauts tilleuls_" of _Almira_ up to the Night Chorus in +_Solomon_. + +[292] A study of the MS. of _Jephtha_ (published in _facsimile_ by +Chrysander) affords an opportunity of noticing Handel's speed of working +at composition. On these very pages one reads various annotations in +Handel's own handwriting. At the end of the first act, for instance, he +writes: "_Geendiget_ (finished) 2 February." Again, on the same page one +reads: "_Völlig_ (complete) 13th August, 1751." There were then two +different workings; one the work of invention, the other a work of +completion. It is easy to distinguish them here on account of the +illness which changed the handwriting of Handel after February 13, 1751. +Thanks to this circumstance, one sees that with the Choruses he wrote +the entire subjects in all the voices at the opening; then he let first +one fall, then another, in proceeding; he finished hastily with a single +voice filled in or even the bass only. + +[293] It was so with the melody: _Dolce amor che mi consola_ in +_Roderigo_, which became the air: _Ingannata una sol volta_ in +_Agrippina_--and also with the air: _L'alma mia_ from _Agrippina_, which +was used again for the _Resurrection_, for _Rinaldo_ and for _Joshua_. + +[294] The Eastern Dance in _Almira_ became the celebrated _Lascia ch'io +pianga_ in _Rinaldo_; and a joyful but ordinary melody from _Pastor +Fido_ was transformed to the touching phrase in the _Funeral Ode_: +"Whose ear she heard." + +[295] One can examine here in detail the two very characteristic +instrumental interludes from Stradella's _Serenata a 3 con stromenti_ +which had the fortune of blossoming out into the formidable choruses of +the Hailstones and the Plague of Flies in _Israel_. I have made a study +of this in an article for the S.I.M. review (May and July, 1910), under +the title of _Les plagiats de Handel_. + +[296] There is reason to believe that he was not absolutely free in the +matter. In 1732, when the Princess Anne wished to have _Esther_ +represented at the opera the Archbishop (Dr. Gibson) opposed it, and it +was necessary to fall back to giving the work at a concert. + +[297] An anonymous letter published in the _London Daily Post_ in April, +1739, dealing with _Israel in Egypt_, defends Handel against the +opposition of the bigots, who were then very bitter. The writer protests +"that the performance at which he was present was the noblest manner of +honouring God ... it is not the house which sanctifies the prayer, but +the prayer which sanctifies the house." + +[298] Is not even _Joseph_ entitled "a sacred Drama," and _Hercules_ "a +musical Drama"? + +[299] At the end of his second volume of the Life of Handel. + +[300] See the vocal distribution of some of the London Operas: + +_Radamisto_ (1720): 4 Sopranos (of which 3 parts are male characters), 1 +Alto, 1 Tenor, 1 Bass. + +_Floridante_ (1722): 2 Sopranos, 2 Contraltos, 2 Basses. + +_Giulio Cesare_ (1724): 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, 1 Contralto (Cæsar's rôle), +2 Basses. + +_Tamerlano_ (1724): 2 Sopranos, 1 Contralto (male _rôle_), 1 Alto +(Tamerlano), 1 Tenor, 1 Bass. + +_Admeto_ (1727): 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, 1 Contralto (Admeto), 2 Basses. + +_Orlando_ (1732): 2 Sopranos, 1 Alto (Medora), 1 Contralto (Orlando), 1 +Bass. + +_Deidamia_ (1747): 3 Sopranos (one is Achilles' _rôle_), 1 Contralto +(Ulysses), 2 Basses. + +It is the same in the Oratorios, where one finds such a work as _Joseph_ +(1744) written for 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, l Contralto (Joseph), 2 Tenors, +and 2 Basses. + +Thus, without speaking of the shocking inconsistencies of the parts thus +travestied, the balance of voices tends to fall off as we go from high +to low. + +[301] In 1729 he went to Italy to find an heroic tenor, Pio Fabri; +unfortunately he could not secure him for two years.--_Acis and Galatea_ +(1720) is written for 2 Tenors, 1 Soprano, and 1 Bass.--The most tragic +_rôle_ in _Tamerlano_ (1724) (that of Bajazet) was written for the +Tenor, Borosini.--_Rodelinda_, _Scipione_, _Alessandro_, all contain +Tenor _rôles_.--On the other hand, Handel was not satisfied with having +in his theatre the most celebrated basses of the century, the famous +Boschi and Montagnana, for whom he wrote such fine _rôles_, such as that +of Zoroaster in _Orlando_, and Polyphemus in _Acis and Galatea_; but he +aimed at having several important _rôles_ all taken by Basses in the +same Opera. In his first version of _Athaliah_ (1733) he had written a +duet for Basses for Joad and Mathan. But the defection of Montagnana +obliged him to give up this idea, which he could only realise in _Israel +in Egypt_. + +[302] See also _Giulio Cesare_, _Atalanta_, or _Orlando_. + +[303] Especially in certain concert operas, such as _Alcina_ (1735), and +also in the last work of Handel, in which one feels his final torpor, +_The Triumph of Time_. + +[304] See those Oratorios in which he is not afraid, when necessary, of +introducing little popular songs, as that of the little waiting-maid in +_Susanna_ (1749). + +[305] See the air of Medea at the beginning of the second act of +_Teseo_; _Dolce riposo_. See also _Ariodante_ and _Hercules_. + +[306] Such as the air at the opening of _Radamisto_; _Sommi Dei_.--I +will mention also the airs written over a Ground-Bass accompaniment +without _Da Capo_, of which the most beautiful type is the _Spirito +amato_ of Cleofide, in _Poro_. + +[307] For example the air, _Per dar pregio_, in _Roderigo_. The oboe +plays a great part in these musical jousts. Such an air as that in +_Teseo_ is like a little Concerto for Oboe. + +[308] They are extremely short. Some are popular songs. Others in +_Agrippina_ have just a phrase. Many of these _arietti da capo_, in +_Teseo_, in _Ottone_; make one think of those in Gluck's _Iphigénie en +Aulide_. + +[309] In _Rinaldo_, the air, _Ah crudel il pianto mio_, the first part +is a sorrowful _largo_, the second a furious _presto_.--The finest +example of this freedom is the air of Timotheus at the beginning of the +second act of _Alexander's Feast_. The two parts in this air differ not +only by the movements but by the instrumental colouring, by the harmonic +character, and by the very essence of the thought; they are two +different poems which are joined together, but each being complete in +itself. + +[310] Examples; _Teseo_, Medea's _Moriro, ma vendicata_; _Amadigi_ air, +_T'amai quant'il mio cor_. + +[311] _Riccardo I_, air, _Morte, vieni_. + +[312] In the airs _da capo_ of _Ariodante_, the second part is +restricted to five bars. + +[313] _L'Allegro ed Penseroso_, 1st air, Part 3, _Come with native +lustre shine_; after the 2nd part comes a recitative, then the chorus +sings the _Da Capo_.--In _Alexander's Feast_ the air, _He sung Darius, +great and good_; after the 2nd part comes a recitative, then the _Da +Capo_ with Chorus, but altogether free; to speak truly, the _Da Capo_ is +only in the instrumental accompaniment. + +[314] Handel has found a musical language passing by imperceptible steps +from _recitativo secco_, almost spoken, to _recitativo accompagnato_, +then to the air. In _Scipione_ (1726) the phrases of the accompanied +_recitative_ are enshrined in small frameworks of spoken _recitative_ +(see p. 23 of the Complete Handel Edition, the air, _Oh sventurati_). +The final air in the first act is a compromise between speech and song. +The accompanied _recitative_ runs naturally into the air. + +[315] In the chain of Recitatives and Airs of all kinds which succeed or +mingle themselves with it, with an astonishing freedom reflecting one +after another, or even at the same time the contradictory ideas which +course through Roland's mind, Handel does not hesitate to use unusual +rhythms, as the 5-8 here which gives a stronger impression of the hero's +madness. + +[316] It is necessary to consider to some extent the _Arias buffi_. Some +have denied Handel the gift of humour. They cannot know him well. He is +full of humour, and often expresses it in his works. In his first opera, +_Almira_, the _rôle_ of Tabarco is in the comic style of Keiser and of +Telemann. It is the same feeling which gives certain traits a little +_caricaturesque_ to the _rôle_ of St. Peter in the _Passion after +Brockes_. The Polyphemus in _Acis and Galatea_ has a fine amplitude of +rough buffoonery. But in _Agrippina_ Handel derived his subtle irony +from Italy; and the light style with its minute touches and its jerky +rhythms from Vinci and Pergolesi (to the letter) appear with Handel in +_Teseo_ (1713). _Radamisto_, _Rodelinda_, _Alessandro_, _Tolomeo_, +_Partenope_, _Orlando_, _Atalanta_ afford numerous examples. The scene +where Alexander and Roxane are asleep (or pretend to be) is a little +scene of musical comedy. _Serse_ and _Deidamia_ are like tragi-comedies, +the action of which points to _opéra comique_. But his gift of humour +takes another turn in his oratorios, where Handel not only creates +complex and colossal types, such as _Delilah_ or _Haraphah_ in _Samson_, +or as the two old men in _Susanna_, but where his Olympian laugh breaks +out in the choruses of _L'Allegro_, shaking the sides of the audience +with irresistible laughter. + +[317] See especially Hugo Goldschmidt: _Treatise on Vocal Ornaments_, +Volume I, 1907; Max Seiffert: _Die Verzierung der Sologesänge in +Haendels Messias_ (I.M.G., July-September, 1907, and Monthly Bulletin of +I.M.G., February, 1908); Rudolf Wustmann: _Zwei Messias-probleme_ +(Monthly Bulletin I.M.G., January, February, 1908). + +[318] M. Seiffert has given a description of the whole series of copies +of Handel Operas and Oratorios in the Lennard collection of the +Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. There are to be found there (in pencil) +the indication of the ornaments and vocalises executed by the singers. +According to M. Seiffert these indications were by Christopher Smith, +the friend and factotum of Handel. According to Mr. Goldschmidt they +were put in at the end of the eighteenth century. In any case they show +a vocal tradition which affords a good opportunity of preserving for us +the physiognomy of the musical ornaments of Handel's time. + +[319] This is especially true of the oratorios. In the operas, the +ornamentation was much more elaborate and more irrelevant to the +expression. + +[320] The first, by Mr. Seiffert; the second, by Mr. Goldschmidt. + +[321] _Teseo_, duet, _Addio, mio caro bene_; _Esther_, duet by Esther +and Ahasuerus: "Who calls my parting soul?" + +[322] _Arminio_ (1737), duet from Act III. It is to be noticed that +_Arminio_ opens also with a duet, a very exceptional thing. + +Other duets are in the Sicilian style, as, for instance, that in _Giulio +Cesare_, or in the popular English style of the hornpipe, as that of +Teofane and Otho in _Ottone_; _A'teneri affetti_. + +[323] There are to be found also some fine trios in a serious yet virile +style in the _Passion according to Brockes_ (trio of the believing +souls: _O Donnerwort_!) and in the _Chandos Anthems_. + +[324] See also the quartet in Act I of _Semele_. + +[325] With the exception of the Italian operas played at Venice, in +which (thanks to Fux) the tradition of vocal polyphony is maintained--a +tradition to be put to such good use later by Hasse and especially +Jommelli. + +[326] The 5-8 time in _Orlando_; the 9-8 in _Berenice_. + +[327] The Introduction to _Riccardo I_ represents a vessel wrecked in a +tempestuous sea. + +[328] _Giulio Cesare_: Scene on Parnassus. + +[329] _Ariodante_, _Alcina_. + +[330] See _Israel in Egypt_. + +[331] _Belshazzar_, _Susanna_, _L'Allegro_, _Samson_. + +[332] _Saul_, _Theodora_, _Athalia_. + +[333] _Passion according to Brockes_, _Chandos Anthems_, _Funeral +Anthem_, _Foundling Anthem_. + +[334] _Anthems_, _Jubilate_, _Israel in Egypt_. + +[335] _Israel in Egypt_, _Messiah_, _Belshazzar_, _Chandos Anthems_. + +[336] _Samson_, _Saul_, _Israel in Egypt_. + +[337] _L'Allegro_, _Susanna_, _Belshazzar_, _Alexander Balus_. + +[338] _Solomon_, _L'Allegro_. + +[339] _Hercules_, _Saul_, _Semele_, _Alexander Balus_, _Solomon_. + +[340] I have noticed above the Chorus-Dances in _Giulio Cesare_, +_Orlando_, _Ariodante_, _Alcina._ There are also veritable choral dances +in _Hercules_, _Belshazzar_, _Solomon_, _Saul_ (the Bell scene), +_Joshua_ (Sacred dance in Act II over a Ground-Bass). + +[341] So in _Athalia_, _Alexander's Feast_, _L'Allegro_, _Samson_ +(Michel's rôle). + +[342] _Jubilate_, _Funeral Anthem_. + +[343] Quoted by M. Bellaigue in _Les Époques de la Musique_, Vol. I, +page 109. + +[344] In the time of Lully and his school, the French were the leaders +in musical painting, especially for the storms. Addison made fun of it, +and the parodies of the _Théâtre de la Foire_ often amused people by +reproducing in caricature the storms of the _Opéra_. + +[345] Extract from a pamphlet published in London (1751) on _The art of +composing music in a completely new manner adapted even to the feeblest +intellects_. + +Already Pope in 1742 compared Handel with Briareus. + +"Strong in new arms, lo! Giant HANDEL stands, +Like bold Briareus with his _hundred hands_." + +At the time of _Rinaldo_ (1711) Addison accused Handel of delighting in +noise. + +[346] ".... You refuse to submit to rules; you refuse to let your genius +be hampered by them.... O thou Goth and Vandal!... You also allow +nightingales and canaries on the stage and let them execute their +untrained natural operas, in order that you may be considered a +composer. A carpenter with his rule and square can go as far in +composition as you, O perfect irregularity!" (_Harmony in Revolt: a +letter to Frederic Handel esquire, ... by Hurlothrumbo-Johnson_, +February, 1734). + +[347] Soon Handel was obliged to publish these works, because fraudulent +and faulty copies were being sold. It was so with the first volume of +_Suites de pièces pour le clavecin_, published in 1720, and the first +volume of Organ Concertos published in 1738. Some of these publications +had been made in a bare-faced manner without Handel's permission by +publishers who had pilfered them. So it was with the second volume of +_Suites de pièces pour le clavecin_, which Walsh had appropriated and +published in 1733 without giving Handel an opportunity of correcting the +proofs. It is very remarkable that, notwithstanding the great European +success achieved by the first volume for the Clavecin, Handel did not +trouble to publish the others. + +[348] All his contemporaries agree in praising the wonderful genius with +which Handel adapted himself instinctively in his improvisations to the +spirit of his audience. Like all the greatest Virtuosos he soon placed +himself in the closest spiritual communion with his public; and, so to +speak, they collaborated together. + +[349] Geminiani's Preface to his _Ecole de violon_, or _The Art of +Playing on the Violin, Containing all the Rules necessary to attain to +Perfection on that Instrument, with great variety of Compositions, which +will also be very useful to those who study the violoncello, +harpsichord, etc._ Composed by F. Geminiani, Opera IX, London, MDCCLI. + +[350] Geminiani himself had attempted to represent in music the pictures +of Raphael and the poems of Tasso. + +[351] For example, the _Allegro_ of the First Organ Concerto (second +volume published in 1740), with its charming dialogue between the cuckoo +and the nightingale, or the first of the Second Organ Concerto (in the +same volume), or several of the _Concerti Grossi_ (referred to later). + +[352] Vol. XLVII of the Complete Handel Edition. + +[353] It is a manuscript of 21 pages, the writing appearing to date from +about 1710. It is certainly a copy from some older works. Chrysander +published it in Volume XLVIII of the Complete Edition. It is probable +that Handel had given to an English friend a selection from the +compositions of his early youth. They were passed from hand to hand, and +were even fraudulently published, as Handel tells us himself in the +Edition of 1720: "I have been led to publish some of the following +pieces, because some faulty copies of them have been surreptitiously +circulated abroad." In this number appear, for example, the Third Suite, +the Sarabande of the Seventh Suite, etc. + +[354] It is said that Handel wrote these for the Princess Anne, whom he +taught the clavecin; but Chrysander had observed that the princess was +only eleven years old at the time. It is more probable that these pieces +were written for the Duke of Chandos or for the Duke of Burlington.--It +is in the second book of Clavier Pieces that we find the much easier +pieces written for the princesses. + +[355] In their republication of the _Geschichte der Klaviermusik_ by +Weitzmann (1899), in which the chapter devoted to Handel contains the +fullest information of any description of the Clavier works. + +[356] Influences of Krieger and of Kuhnau, particularly in the Halle +period (see Vol. XLVIII, pp. 146, 149); French influences in the Hamburg +Period (pp. 166, 170); influences of Pasquini (p. 162); and of Scarlatti +(pp. 148, 152), about the time of his Italian visits. The influence of +Kuhnau is very marked, and Handel had all his life a well-stocked memory +of this music, and particularly of Kuhnau's _Klavier-Uebung_ +(1689-1692), and the _Frischen Klavier-Früchte_ (1696), which were then +widely known and published in numerous editions. Here is the same limpid +style, the same neat soberness of line. Kuhnau's Sarabandes especially +are already completely Handelian. It is the same with certain Preludes, +certain Gigues, and some of the airs (a trifle popular). + +[357] For the German influence, see the Suites 1, 4, 5, 8 (four dance +movements preceded by an introduction). For the Italian, see the Suites +2, 3, 6, 7, of which the form approximates to the _Sonata da camera_. + +[358] M. Seiffert adds that none of these elements predominate. I would +rather follow the opinion of Chrysander, who notices in this fusion of +three national styles a predominant tendency to the Italian, just as +Bach inclines most to the French style. + +[359] One finds there, cycles of variations on Minuets, on Gavottes, +especially on Chaconnes and many other Italian forms. The Gigue of the +Sixth Suite (in G minor) comes from an air in _Almira_ (1705). One +notices also that the Eighth Suite in G major is in the French style +(particularly the Gavotte in rondo with five variations). + +It is necessary to follow this second volume by the third, which +contains works of widely different periods: _Fantasia_, _Capriccio_, +_Preludio e Allegro_, _Sonata_, published at Amsterdam in 1732, and +dating from his youthful period (the Second Suite was inspired by an +_Allemande_ of Mattheson): _Lessons composed for the Princess Louisa_ +(when aged twelve or thirteen years) about 1736; _Capriccio in G minor_ +(about the same date); and _Sonata in C major_ in 1750. + +Finally, there should be added to these volumes, various clavier works +published in Vol. XLVIII of the Complete Edition under the title: +_Klaviermusik und Cembalo Bearbeitungen_. There is also a selection of +the best arrangements of symphonies and airs from the operas of Handel +by Babell (about 1713 or 1714). + +[360] Mattheson in 1722 quoted the Fugue in E minor as quite a recent +work. + +[361] Handel himself told his friend Bernard Granville so, when he made +him a present of Krieger's work: _Anmuthige Clavier-Uebung_, published +in 1699. + +[362] The Fugue in A minor was used for the Chorus, _He smote all the +firstborn in Egypt_, in _Israel in Egypt_, and the Fugue in G minor. The +Chorus, _They loathed to drink at the river_. Another (the 4th) served +for the Overture to the _Passion after Brockes_. + +[363] The indications: _ad libitum_, or _cembalo_, found time after time +in his scores, marked the places reserved for the improvisation. + +Despite Handel's great physical power, his touch was extraordinarily +smooth and equal. Burney tells us that when he played, his fingers were +"so curved and compact, that no motion, and scarcely the fingers +themselves, could be discovered" (_Commemoration of Handel_, p. 35). M. +Seiffert believes that "his technique, which realised all Rameau's +principles, certainly necessitated the use of the thumb in the modern +style," and that "one can trace a relationship between Handel's arrival +in England and the adoption of the Italian fingering which soon became +fully established there." + +[364] A fourth was published by Arnold in 1797; but part of the works +which it contains are not original. Handel had nothing to do with the +publication of the Second Set. + +Vol. XXVIII of the Complete Edition contains the Six Concertos of the +First Set, Op. 4 (1738) and the Six of the Third Set, Op. 7 (1760). Vol. +XLVIII comprises the concertos of the Second Set (1740), an experiment +at a Concerto for two organs and orchestra, and two Concertos from the +Fourth Set (1797). + +Many of the Concertos are dated. Most of them were written between 1735 +and 1751; and several for special occasions; the sixth of the First Set +for an _entr'acte_ to _Alexander's Feast_; the fourth of the First Set, +a little before _Alcina_; the third of the Third Set for the Foundling +Hospital. The Concerto in B minor (No. 3) was always associated in the +mind of the English public with _Esther_; for the minuet was called the +"Minuet from Esther." + +[365] May 8, 1735. It was the year when Handel wrote and performed his +first Concertos of the First Set. + +[366] Hawkins wrote further: "Music was less fashionable than it is now, +many of both sexes were ingenuous enough to confess that they wanted +this sense, by saying, 'I have no ear for music.' Persons such as these, +who, had they been left to themselves, would have interrupted the +hearing of others by their talking, were by the performance of Handel +not only charmed into silence, but were generally the loudest in their +acclamations. This, though it could not be said to be genuine applause, +was a much stronger proof of the power of harmony, than the like effect +on an audience composed only of judges and rational admirers of his art" +(_General History of Music_, p. 912). + +[367] In the Tenth Concerto there are two violoncellos and two bassoons. +The same in the Concerto for two Organs. In the long Concerto in F major +(Vol. XLVIII) we find two horns. + +[368] Sometimes the name is found marked there. See the Eighth Concerto +in Vol. XXVIII and the Concerto in F major in Vol. XLVIII. + +[369] Vol. XLVIII, page 51. + +[370] Mr. Streatfeild was, I believe, the first to notice an autograph +MS. of the Fourth Organ Concerto to which is attached a Hallelujah +Chorus built on a theme from the concerto itself. This MS., which is +found at the British Museum, dates from 1735, and appears to have been +used for the revival in 1737 of the _Trionfo del Tempo_ to which the +Concerto serves for conclusion. + +[371] Scriabin also.--_Translator._ + +[372] _Six Sonatas or Trios for two Hoboys with a thorough bass for the +Harpsichord._ Published in Vol. XXVII. + +[373] Volume XLVIII, page 112. + +[374] Volume XLVIII, page 130. + +[375] Volume XXVII. + +[376] _VII Sonatas à 2 violons, 2 hautbois, ou 2 flûtes traversières et +basse continue, composées par G. F. Handel, Second ouvrage._ + +[377] Later on, Walsh made arrangements of favourite airs from Handel's +Operas and Oratorios as "Sonatas" for flute, violin and harpsichord. Six +Vols. + +[378] In eleven sonatas out of sixteen. One sonata (the third) is in +three movements. Three are in five movements (the first, the fifth and +the seventh). One is in seven movements (the ninth). + +[379] In the first Sonata, the final _Presto_ in common time uses the +theme of the _Andante_ in 3-4, which forms the second movement. In the +second Sonata, the final _Presto_ in common time is built on the subject +of the _Andante_ in 3-4, slightly modified. + +[380] The fifth Sonata is in five movements--_larghetto_, _allegro_ +(3-8), _adagio_, _allegro_ (4-4), _allegro_ (12-8). + +[381] From five to seven movements. + +[382] A Gavotte concludes the first, second, and third trios. A Minuet +ends the fourth, sixth, and seventh. A Bourrée finishes the fifth. There +are also found two Musettes and a March in the second Trio, a Sarabande, +an Allemande and a Rondo in the third; a Passacaille and a Gigue in the +fourth. + +[383] It was the æsthetic of the period. Thus M. Mennicke writes: +"Neutrality of orchestral colour characterises the time of Bach and +Handel. The instrumentation corresponds to the registration of an +Organ." The Symphonic orchestra is essentially built up on the strings. +The wind instruments serve principally as _ripieno_. When they used the +wood-wind _obbligato_, it went on throughout the movement and did not +merely add a touch of colour here and there. + +[384] One finds in the middle of the _Trionfo del Tempo_ an instrumental +Sonata for 2 Oboes, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello, Basso, and Organ. In the +Solo of the Magdalene in the _Resurrection_, Handel uses two flutes, two +violins (muted), _viola da gamba_ and cello; the cello is occupied with +a pedal-note of thirty-nine bars at the opening, and then joins the +clavecin. In the middle of the air, the _viola da gamba_ and the flutes +play by themselves. + +[385] In _Radamisto_ (1720) Tiridate's air: _Alzo al colo_, and final +chorus. In _Giulio Cesare_, 4 horns. + +I do not suppose that Handel was the first to use the clarionets in an +orchestra, as this appears very doubtful. One sees on a copy of +_Tamerlano_ by Schmidt: _clar. e clarini_ (in place of the _cornetti_ in +the autograph manuscript). But it is feasible that just as with the +"_clarinettes_" used by Rameau in the _Acanthe et Céphise_, the high +trumpets are intended. Mr. Streatfeild mentions also a concerto for two +"clarinets" and _corno di caccia_, the MS. being in the Fitzwilliam +Museum at Cambridge. + +[386] _Alcina_, _Semele_, _L'Allegro_, _Alexander's Feast_, the little +_Ode to St. Cecilia_, etc. Usually Handel imparts to the cello either an +amorous desire or an elegiac consolation. + +[387] Thus, in the famous scene which opens the second Act of +_Alexander's Feast_ (second part of the air in G minor), evoking the +host of the dead who have wandered at night from their graves, there are +no violins, no brass; just 3 bassoons, 2 violas, cello, bassi and organ. + +[388] In Saul, the scene of the Sorcerer, apparition of the spirit of +Samuel. + +[389] The _violette marine_ (little violas very soft) in _Orlando_ +(1733). + +[390] The monster instruments used for the colossal performances at +Westminster. The double bassoon by Stainsby made in 1727 for the +coronation celebrations. Handel borrowed from the Captain of Artillery +some huge drums preserved at the Tower of London, for _Saul_ and for the +_Dettingen Te Deum_. Moreover, like Berlioz, he was not afraid of using +firearms in the orchestra. Mrs. Elizabeth Carter wrote: "Handel has +literally introduced firearms into _Judas Maccabæus_; and they have a +good effect" (_Carter Correspondence_, p. 134), and Sheridan, in a +humorous sketch (Jupiter) represents an author who directs a pistol-shot +to be fired behind the scenes, as saying, "See, I borrowed this from +Handel." + +[391] For the scene of Cleopatra's apparition on the Parnassus, at the +opening of Act II of _Giulio Cesare_, Handel has two orchestras, one on +the stage; Oboe, 2 Violins, Viola, Harp, Viola da gamba, Theorbo, +Bassoons, Cellos; the other, in front. The first air of Cleopatra in +_Alexander Balus_ is accompanied by 2 Flutes, 2 Violins, Viola, 2 +Cellos, Harp, Mandoline, Basses, Bassoon and Organ. + +[392] Fritz Volbach: _Die Praxis der Hændel-Aufführung_, 1899. + +[393] In addition to two parts for Flutes, two for Oboes, two for +Bassoons, Violas, Cellos and Basses, Cembalo, Theorbo, Harp and Organ; +in all, fifteen orchestral parts to accompany a single voice of +_Esther_. + +[394] For the Angel's Song. + +[395] In _Saul_, "_viola II per duoi violoncelli ripieni_." (See +Volbach, _ibid._) + +[396] Study from this point of view the progress from the very simple +instrumentation of _Alexander's Feast_, where at first two Oboes are +used with the strings, then appear successively two Bassoons (air No. +6), two Horns (air No. 9), two Trumpets and Drums (Part II), and, for +conclusion, with the heavenly apparition of St. Cecilia, two Flutes. + +[397] Dr. Hermann Abert has found the first indication: _crescendo il +forte_ in Jommelli's _Artaserse_, performed at Rome in 1749. In the +eighteenth century the Abbé Vogler and Schubart already had attributed +the invention of the _Crescendo_ to Jommelli. + +[398] See Lucien Kamiensky: _Mannheim und Italien_ (_Sammelbände der +I.M.G._, January-March, 1909). + +[399] M. Volbach has noticed in the overture to the _Choice of +Hercules_, second movement: _piano_, _mezzo forte_, _un poco più forte_, +_forte_, _mezzo piano_, all in fourteen bars. In the chorus in _Acis and +Galatea_, "Mourn, all ye muses," one reads _forte_, _piano_, _pp._--The +introduction of _Zadock the Priest_ shows a colossal _crescendo_; the +introductory movement to the final chorus in _Deborah_, a very broad +_diminuendo_. + +[400] H. Riemann: _Zur Herkunft der dynamischen Schwellzeichen_ (I.M.G., +February, 1909). + +[401] Carle Mennicke notices the same sign for _decrescendo_ ((>) on a +long note in the Overture to Rameau's _Acanthe et Céphise_ (1751). + +[402] Geminiani says of the _forte_ and the _piano_: "They are +absolutely necessary to give expression to the melody; for all good +music being the imitation of a fine discourse, these two ornaments have +for their aim the varied inflections of the speaking voice." Telemann +writes: "Song is the foundation of music, in every way. What the +instruments play ought to be exactly after the principles of expression +in singing." + +And M. Volbach shows that these principles governed music then in +Germany with all kinds of musicians, even with the trompettist +Altenburg, whose _School for the Trumpet_ was based on the principle +that instrumental performance ought to be similar to vocal rendering. + +[403] Max Seiffert: _Die Verzierung der Sologesänge in Haendels Messias_ +(_Sammelbände der I.M.G._, July-September, 1907). + +[404] Fritz Volbach reckons for the _Concerto Grosso_, 8 first violins, +8 seconds, 6 violas, 4 to 6 cellos, 4 basses--and for the _Ripienists_, +6 first violins, 6 seconds, 4 violas, 3 or 4 celli, and 3 basses. + +These numbers are much greater than that of Handel's own performances. +The programmes of a performance of the _Messiah_ at the Foundling +Hospital, May 3, 1759, a little after Handel's death, give only 56 +executants, of which 33 were instrumentalists and 23 singers. The +orchestra was divided into 12 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, 4 oboes, 4 +bassoons, 2 trumpets, 2 horns and drums (see _Musical Times_, May, +1902). + +[405] "_Leichtigkeit der Bewegung und Beweglichkeit des Ausdrucks_," as +Volbach tells us (suppleness of time and fluidity of expression); these +are the essential qualities which alone will revive the true rendering +of Handel's works. + +[406] _12 Grand Concertos_ for stringed instruments and clavier (Vol. +XXX of the Complete Edition), written from September 29 to October 20, +1739, between the little _Ode to St. Cecilia_ and _L'Allegro_. They +appeared in April, 1740. Another volume, of which we will speak later, +is known under the name of _Oboe Concertos_, and contains six _Concerti +Grossi_ (Vol. XXI of the Complete Edition). Max Seiffert has published a +well-edited practical edition of these concertos (Breitkopf). + +[407] The _Concertino_ consists of a trio for two violins and bass +_soli_, with _Cembalo Obbligato_. The Germans introduced wood-wind into +the _concertino_, combining thus a violin, an oboe, a bassoon. The +Italians remained faithful, generally speaking, to the stringed +instruments alone. + +[408] The _Concerti Grossi_, Op. 6, of Corelli, published in 1712, +represent his lifelong practice. About 1682, George Muffat, visiting +Rome, sought to make acquaintance there with the _Concerti Grossi_ of +Corelli, who already wrote them for instrumental masses of considerable +size. Burney speaks of a concert of 150 string instruments conducted by +Corelli at the Palace of Christine of Sweden in 1680 (see Arnold +Schering's excellent little book: _Geschichte des Instrumentalkonzerts_, +1905, Breitkopf). + +[409] Geminiani caused three volumes of Corelli's Concertos to be +published: Op. 2 (1732), Op. 3 (1735), Op. 7 (1748). + +[410] Arnold Schering has noted the relationship between a subject of +Geminiani and one in Handel's _Concerto Grosso_, No. 4. + +[411] Volume XXI of the Complete Edition. + +[412] About 1682, Muffat published at Salzburg his _Armonico tributo_, +Chamber Sonatas, where he mingled the style of the Lullian Trio with the +style of the Italian _Concertino_. And in 1701, at Passau, he published +some _Concerti Grossi_ in the Italian manner after the example of +Corelli. + +[413] _Concerti Grossi_, Amsterdam, 1721. + +[414] Antonio Vivaldi of Venice (1680-1743), choirmaster of the Ospedale +della Pieta from 1714, began to be known in Germany between 1710 and +1720. The arrangements of his _Concerti Grossi_, which J. S. Bach made, +date from the time when Bach was at Weimar, that is between 1708 and +1714. + +[415] Locatelli and Vivaldi came under the influence of the Italian +Opera. Vivaldi himself wrote thirty-eight operas. One of the _Concerti_ +of Locatalli (Op. 7, 1741) was named _Il pianto d'Arianna_. In the +_Cimento dell'Armonia_ of Vivaldi four Concertos describe the four +seasons, a fifth paints _La Tempesta_, a sixth _Il Piacere_ (Pleasure). +In Vivaldi's Op. 10 a Concerto represents _La Notte_ (Night), another +_Il Cardellino_ (The Goldfinch). And Arnold Schering notices Vivaldi's +influence in Germany on a Granpuer at Darmstadt, and on Jos. Gregorius +Werner in Bohemia. + +[416] See the following dates: September 29, 1739, Concerto I in G +major; October 4, Concerto II in F major; October 6, Concerto III in E +minor; October 8, Concerto IV in A minor; October 12, Concerto VII in B +flat major; October 15, Concerto VI in G minor; October 18, Concerto +VIII in C minor; October 20, Concerto XII in B minor; October 22, +Concerto X in D minor; October 30, Concerto XI in A major (Vol. XXX of +Complete Edition). + +[417] One sees French influences particularly in the Tenth Concerto (in +D minor), which has an Overture (_Grave_ in 4-4 time and Fugue in 6-8). +The whole movement preserves an abstract and irregular character. The +last of the six movements--an _Allegro Moderato_, with Variations (very +pretty)--resembles a tune for a musical box. + +[418] See even the Third Concerto in E minor, so vivacious, with its +_Larghetto_ 3-2, melancholy and serene, its _Andante_ 12-8 Fugue with an +elaborate theme of twirling designs which gives the impression of the +fancies of a capricious and gloomy soul, its _Allegro_ in 4-4, with a +humour a little grotesque--its picturesque Polonaise on a pedal-bass, +and its final _allegro ma non troppo_ of which the rhythm and unexpected +modulations make one think of certain dances in the later quartets of +Beethoven. + +[419] The Fifth Concerto in D major may be styled the Concerto to St. +Cecilia; for three out of the six movements (the two first and the +beautiful final minuet) are found again in the Overture to the little +_Ode to St. Cecilia_. + +[420] Arnold Schering believes that the idea of this Musette was given +to Handel by a _ritournelle_ from Leonardo Leo's _S. Elena il Calvaroa_. + +[421] The two last _allegri_ conclude the work a trifle brusquely. The +order of the movements with Handel is often very surprising. It is as +though he followed the caprice of the moment. + +[422] We cannot continue here the analysis of the other volumes of +Orchestral Concertos. I satisfy myself with merely enumerating them: The +_6 Concerti grossi con due violini e violoncello di concertino obligati +e due altri violini viola e basso di concerto grosso, op. 3_, known +under the name of Oboe Concertos (notwithstanding that the oboe does not +play a very prominent _rôle_), were published in 1734, and seemed to +have been performed at the Wedding of the Prince of Orange with the +Princess Anne in 1733. But, as we are told, their composition was +previous to this; for not only do we find in the third and the fifth the +reproduction of fugues from the Clavier Pieces, but the fourth served in +1716 as the second overture to _Amadigi_, and the first movement of the +fifth was played in 1722 in the opera _Ottone_. The form of these +Concertos, even less set than with the preceding _Concerti Grossi_, +varies from two to five movements, and their orchestration comprises, +besides the strings, two oboes, to which are occasionally added two +flutes, two bassoons, the organ and the clavecin. It is only exceptional +that the oboe plays a solo part; more often it has to satisfy itself by +reinforcing the violins. + +To this volume we must add a number of other concertos, which appeared +at different times, and are brought together in Volume XXI of the +Complete Works; especially the celebrated Concerto of _Alexander's +Feast_, written in January, 1736, of which the style has the same +massive breadth as the oratorio itself. And four little concertos, two +of which are interesting by being youthful works, from 1703 to 1710, +according to Chrysander. + +[423] Handel's Overtures were so much appreciated that the publisher +Walsh issued a volume of them for the clavier(65 Overtures). A good +specimen of these transcriptions is found in Volume XLVIII of the +Complete Edition. + +[424] Both movements are rudimentary. + +[425] This device is often used by Handel to make the transition between +the orchestra and the voice. + +[426] Scheibe, who was, with Mattheson, the greatest of German musical +critics in Handel's time, states that the overture ought in its two +first movements "to mark the chief character of the work"; and in the +third movement "to prepare for the first scene of the piece" (_Krit. +Musikus_, 1745). Scheibe himself composed in 1738 some _Sinfonie_ "which +expressed to some extent the contents of the works" (_Polyeuctes, +Mithridates_). + +[427] _Andante_, _larghetto_, _allegro_ (fugue). + +[428] Only whereas a modern composer would not have omitted the +opportunity of exposing his programme in an organic manner (by +presenting turn by turn the two rival themes, then by bringing them into +conflict, and finally terminating with the triumph of Israel's theme), +Handel contents himself in exposing the two subjects without seeking to +establish any further sequence. If he finishes his overture with the +theme of Baal, it is because it is a gigue movement, and because the +gigue serves well there for concluding; and because Israel's song being +an _adagio_ is better placed as the second movement. It is such +architectural considerations which guide him rather than dramatic ones. +It is the same with nearly all the symphonies of the eighteenth century. +In the same manner even Beethoven in his _Eroica_ symphony allows his +hero to die and be buried in the second movement, and then celebrates +his acts and his triumphs in the third and fourth movements. + +[429] Amongst the other overtures, which have the character of +introduction to the work proper, I will mention the Overture to +_Athalie_, which is in perfect accordance with the tragedy;--that of +_Acis and Galatea_, which is a Pastoral Symphony evoking the Pagan life +of nature;--that of the _Occasional Oratorio_, a warlike overture with +two marches, trumpet calls, and a Prayer of distress. There is also the +outline of a programme in the Overture to _Judas Maccabæus_, of which +the first movement is related to the Funeral Scene which opens the first +act, and of which the second movement (Fugue) is connected with one of +the warlike choruses of Act I. + +The Overture of _Riccardo I_ (1727), in two movements, contains a +tempest in music painted in a powerful and poetic manner, which opens +the first act after the manner of the Tempest in _Iphigénie en Tauride_, +and on the last rumblings of which the dialogue between the heroes +commences. + +Finally one finds occasionally in the course of the works some other +_Sinfonie_ which have a dramatic character. The most striking is that +which opens the third act of the _Choice of Hercules_. It depicts turn +by turn the fury of Hercules and the sad force of Destiny which weighs +down on his soul. + +[430] Volume XLVIII of the Complete Works. + +[431] The work was an immediate success. A first Edition very incorrect +and incomplete was published in London about 1720, by Walsh. +Arrangements for harpsichord with variations by Geminiani were also +published. Both the Water Music and the Firework Music are published in +Volume XLVII of the Complete Edition. + +[432] One may add to these monumental pieces the _Sinfonie diverse_ (pp. +140-143 of Vol. XLVIII) and the Concerto in F major in the form of an +Overture and Suite (pp. 68-100, _ibid._), but particularly the _3 +Concerti für grosses Orchester_ and the _2 Concerti a due cori_ of Vol. +XLVII. The _Concerti für grosses Orchester_ have been, so to speak, the +sketch books for the Water Music and for the Firework Music. The first +Concerto dates from about 1715, and furnished two movements for the +Water Music. It is written for two horns, two oboes, bassoon, two +violins, violas and bass. The second Concerto in F major (for four +horns, two oboes, bassoons, two violins, violas, cellos, basses and +organ); and the third Concerto in D major (for two trumpets, four horns, +drums, two oboes, bassoons, two violins, violas, cellos, organ) contains +already nearly all the Firework Music with a less important orchestra, +but with the Organ in addition. + +The two Concertos for two horns (_Concerti a due cori_) were made from +the important choruses of the Oratorios transcribed for double +orchestra--ten orchestral parts for the first group, twelve for the +second (four horns, eight oboes, bassoons, etc.). Thus the appearance of +God in _Esther_: "Jehovah crowned in glory bright," and the connected +chorus: "He comes to end our woes." There are there colossal dialogues +between the two orchestras. + +[433] The autograph MS., published in XLVII of the Complete Edition, +contains: 2 parts for trumpets with 3 trumpets to a part (_i.e._ 6 +trumpets); 3 _Prinzipali_ (low trumpets); 3 drums; 3 parts for horns +with 3 to a part (_i.e._ 9 Horns); 3 parts for oboes with 12 for the +first part, 8 for the second and 4 for the third (_i.e._ 24 oboes); 2 +parts for bassoons with 8 for the first and 4 for the second (_i.e._ 12 +bassoons). Total, 70 wind instruments. There were about 100 players for +the performance on April 27, 1749. + +Later on, Handel reproduced the work for concert use by adding the +string orchestra to it. + +[434] Written for 9 horns in three sections, 24 oboes in two sections, +and 12 bassoons. + +[435] It would not be difficult to add other analogous works by Handel +and Beethoven. There exists a fine repertoire of popular classical music +for open-air _fêtes_. But, nevertheless, it is completely disregarded. + +[436] The Gavotte theme from the Overture to _Ottone_ was played all +over England and on all kinds of instruments, "even on the pan's-pipes +of the perambulating jugglers." It was found even at the end of the +eighteenth century as a French vaudeville air. (see the _Anthologie +françoise ou Chansons choisies_, published by Monnet, in 1765, Vol. I, +p. 286). The March from _Scipio_, as also that from _Rinaldo_, served +during half a century for the Parade of the Life Guards. The minuets and +overtures from _Arianna_ and Berenice had a long popularity. One sees in +the English novels of the time (especially in Fielding's _Tom Jones_) to +what an extent Handel's music had permeated English country life, even +from the small country squires to the county magnates, so absolutely cut +off as they were from _all_ artistic influences. + +[437] Paul Marie Masson has noticed that about the date of 1716, in a +volume of _Recueil d'airs serieux et à boire_. (Bibl. Nat. Vm. 549), an +_Aria del Signor Inden_ (sic), "_air ajouté au ballet de l'Europe +Galante_." The _Meslanges de musique latine, françoise et italienne_ of +Ballard (in 1728), contains amongst the Italian airs _Arie de Signor +Endel_ (p. 61). All the airs of the _Chasse du cerf_ by Sere de Rieux +(1734) are Handel airs adapted to French words. An article by Michel +Brenet, _La librairie musicale en France de 1653 à 1790, d'après les +registres de priviléges_ (_Sammelbände I.M.G._, 1907) gives a series of +French Editions of Handel from 1736, 1739, 1749, 1751, 1765. In 1736 and +in 1743 in _Concerts Spirituels_ some of his airs and his _Concerti +Grossi_ were given (Brenet: _Les Concerts en France sous l'ancien +régime_, 1900). A number of his airs were arranged for the flute by +Blavet in his three _Receuils de pièces, petits airs, brunettes, +minuets, etc., accommodés pour les flutes traversières, violins, etc._, +which appeared between 1740 and 1750. Handel was so well known in Paris +that they sold his portrait there in 1739. (See a tradesman's +advertisement in the _Mercure de France_, June, 1739, Vol. II, page +1384.) + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Handel, by Romain Rolland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANDEL *** + +***** This file should be named 39671-8.txt or 39671-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/6/7/39671/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Handel + +Author: Romain Rolland + +Translator: A. Eaglefield Hull + +Release Date: May 11, 2012 [EBook #39671] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANDEL *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="388" height="647" alt="image of the book's cover" +title="image of the book's cover" /> +</p> + +<p><a name="front" id="front"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/front_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/front_sml.jpg" width="336" height="443" alt="GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL + +(From a Portrait by Mercier in the possession of the Earl of Malmesbury.) + +Frontispiece." title="Frontispiece" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL<br /> +(From a Portrait by Mercier in the possession of the Earl of Malmesbury.)<br /><br /> +Frontispiece.]</span> +</p> + +<h1>HANDEL</h1> + +<p class="cb">BY<br /> +ROMAIN ROLLAND +<br /><br /><br /> +TRANSLATED BY<br /> +A. EAGLEFIELD HULL<br /> +<small>MUS. DOC. (OXON.)</small><br /> +<br /><br /><br /> +<i>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR</i><br /> +<i>17 MUSICAL ILLUSTRATIONS AND 4 PLATES</i><br /> +<br /><br /><br /> +<img src="images/colophon.jpg" width="100" height="126" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /> +<br /> +<br /><br /><br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br /> +1916</p> + +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + +<p class="nind">For a proper appreciation of the colossal work of Handel many years of +study and a book of some two hundred pages are very insufficient. To +treat at all adequately of Handel’s life and work needs a whole lifetime +in itself, and even the indefatigable and enthusiastic Chrysander, who +devoted his life to this subject, has hardly encompassed the task.... I +have done what I could; my faults must be excused. This little book does +not pretend to be anything more than a very brief sketch of the life and +technique of Handel. I hope to study his character, his work, and his +times, more in detail in another volume.</p> + +<p class="r"> +ROMAIN ROLLAND.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> +<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#HIS_LIFE">His Life</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#HIS_TECHNIQUE_AND_WORKS">His Technique and Works</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_111">111</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(1) <span class="smcap">The Operas</span></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_122">122</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(2) <span class="smcap">The Oratorios</span></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_134">134</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(3) <span class="smcap">The Clavier Compositions</span></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_143">143</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(4) <span class="smcap">The Chamber Music</span> (<span class="smcap">Sonatas and Trios</span>)</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_154">154</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(5) <span class="smcap">The Orchestral Works</span></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_158">158</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Appendices</span>—</td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap"><a href="#LIST_OF_HANDELS_WORKS">List of Handel’s Works</a></span></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_193">193</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap"><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">Bibliography</a></span></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_201">201</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#INDEX">Index</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_204">204</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#transcriber">Etext transcriber's note</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#FOOTNOTES">Footnotes</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<h2><a name="PLATES" id="PLATES"></a>PLATES</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="PLATES"> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#front">Portrait by Thornhill</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#front"><i>frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#BARGE">George I and Handel’s Water Music</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><i>to face page</i> <a href="#page_069">69</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#MONUMENT">Handel’s Monument in Westminster Abbey</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_107">107</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#ORATORIO">Handel Directing an Oratorio</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION<br /><br /> +<small>BY THE EDITOR</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">H<small>ERE</small> in England we are supposed to know our Handel by heart, but it is +doubtful whether we do. Who can say from memory the titles of even six +of his thirty-nine operas, from whence may be culled many of his +choicest flowers of melody? M. Rolland rightly emphasises the importance +of the operas of Handel in the long chain of musical evolution, and it +seems impossible for anyone to lay down his book without having a more +all-round impression than heretofore of this giant among composers.</p> + +<p>M. Saint-Saëns once compared the position of a conductor in front of the +score of a Handel oratorio to that of a man who sought to settle with +his family in some old mansion which has been uninhabited for centuries. +The music was different altogether from that to which he was accustomed. +No nuances, no bowing, frequently no indication of rate, and often +merely a “sketched-in” bass.... Tradition only could guide him, and the +English, who alone could have preserved this, he considers, have lost +it.</p> + +<p>Can it be recovered to any extent, and, if so, how?</p> + +<p>Behind each towering figure of genius are to be found numbers of +eloquent men who prepared the way for him; and amongst these precursors +there is frequently discovered one who exercised a dominating influence +over the young budding genius. Such an influence was exercised by Zachau +on Handel, and M. Rolland rightly gives due importance to the +consideration of this old master’s teachings and compositions, a careful +study of which should go far to supplying the right key to Handel’s +music. One of the great shortcomings in the general musical listener is +a lack of the historical view of music. It is a long cry from Bach and +Handel to Debussy and Scriabin, but we shall be all the better for +looking well at both ends of the long musical chain which connects the +unvoiced expression of the past with the vague yet certain hopes of the +future.</p> + +<p>No doubt we have hardly yet recovered from the false position into which +we have all helped to place Handel. He was never the great Church +composer which has been assumed for so long. Perhaps, rather, he leaned +to the pagan side of life in his art. As Mr. Streatfeild says, “You can +no more call the <i>Messiah</i> a work of art than you can call the <i>Book of +Common Prayer</i> popular as a masterpiece of literature.... Handel the +preacher is laid for ever in the tomb, but Handel the artist with his +all-embracing sympathy for human things and his delight in the world +around him lives for evermore.” Handel has been greatly, almost +wilfully, misrepresented; but he has played too great a part in the +history of English music to be cast aside on this account. It is true +that there are many difficulties in the way of a clearer understanding +of his music. A two-hundred years’ overgrowth of vain vocal traditions +is not going to be torn away in the space of a few years.</p> + +<p>If the operas have been overlooked in favour of the oratorios, then his +instrumental music has been even more neglected on account of the +preponderance of his vocal movements. In a recent important contribution +to Handelian biography only a few pages are given to the instrumental +works. In this respect M. Rolland’s clear and critical biography fills +in a distinct <i>hiatus</i>.</p> + +<p>Moreover, Handel sojourned in Germany, Italy, finally (and longest) in +England—but never in France. M. Rolland, therefore, a Frenchman and the +author of that brilliant work <i>Histoire de l’Opéra en Europe avant Lulli +et Scarlatti</i>, may, more than any other writer, be expected to bring a +freshness of vision and an impartial judgment to bear on Handel’s works. +<i>And he has not disappointed us.</i></p> + +<p class="r"> +A. E. H.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h1>GEORGE FREDERICK<br />HANDEL</h1> + +<h2><a name="HIS_LIFE" id="HIS_LIFE"></a>HIS LIFE</h2> + +<p>The Handel family was of Silesian origin.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The grandfather, Valentine +Handel, was a master coppersmith at Breslau. The father, George Handel, +was a barber-surgeon, originally attached to the service of the armies +of Saxony, then of Sweden, later of the French Emperor, and finally in +the private service of Duke Augustus of Saxony. He was very rich, and +purchased at Halle in 1665 a beautiful house, which is still in +existence. He was married twice; in 1643 he married a widow of a barber, +who was ten years older than himself (he had six children by her); and +in 1683, the daughter of a pastor who was thirty years younger than he +was: he had four children by her, of which the second was George +Frederick.</p> + +<p>Both parents sprang from that good old <i>bourgeois</i><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> stock of the +seventeenth century which was such excellent soil for genius and for +faith. Handel, the surgeon, was a man of gigantic stature, serious, +severe, energetic, religiously attached to duty, upright and affable in +his dealings with those around him.</p> + +<p>His portrait exhibits a large clean-shaven face which has the impression +of one who never smiled. The head is carried high, the eyes morose; +prominent nose and a pleasant but obstinate mouth; long hair with white +curls falling on his shoulders; black cap, collar of lace, and coat of +black satin: the aspect of a parliamentary man of his time.—The mother +was no less sturdy a character. Of a clerical family on the maternal +side as well as on the paternal side, with a spirit imbued with the +Bible, she had a calm courage, which came out prominently when the +country was ravaged by pestilence. Her sister and her elder brother were +both carried off by the plague; her father was also affected. She +refused to leave them and remained quietly at home. She was then engaged +to be married.—This sturdy couple transmitted to their distinguished +son in place of good looks (which he certainly had not, and which never +disquieted him) their physical and moral health, their stature, their +keen intelligence and common sense, their application to work, and the +indestructible essence of their quiet, calm spirit.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></p> + +<p>George Frederick Handel was born at Halle on Monday, February 23, +1685.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> His father was then sixty-three years, and his mother +thirty-four.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>The town of Halle occupied a singular political situation. It belonged +originally to the Elector of Saxony; by the Treaties of Westphalia it +was ceded to the Elector of Brandenburg; but it paid tribute to the Duke +Augustus of Saxony during his lifetime. After the death of Augustus in +1680, Halle passed definitely to Brandenburg; and in 1681 the Grand +Elector came to receive homage there. Handel then was born a Prussian; +but his father was in the service of the Duke of Saxony, and he retained +relationship with the son of Augustus, Johann Adolf, who moved his court +after the Prussian annexation to the neighbouring town of Weissenfels. +Thus the childhood of Handel was influenced by two intellectual forces: +the Saxon and the Prussian. Of the two the more aristocratic, and also +the more powerful was the Saxon. Most of the artists had emigrated with +the Duke to Weissenfels. It was there that the genial Heinrich Schütz +was born and died:<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> it was there that Handel found his first impetus, +and where the calling of the child was first recognized. The precocious +musical tendencies of the little George Frederick were somewhat curbed +by the formal opposition of his<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> father.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> The sturdy surgeon had more +than objection—he possessed an aversion to the profession of artist. +This sentiment was shared by nearly all the sturdy men of Germany. The +calling of musician was degraded by the unedifying spectacle of many +artists in the years of relaxation which followed the Thirty Years’ +war.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Besides which, the <i>bourgeois</i> German of the seventeenth century +had a very different idea of music from that of our French middle +classes of the nineteenth century. It was with them a mere art of +amusement, and not a serious profession. Many of the masters of that +time, Schütz, Rosenmüller, Kuhnau, were lawyers, or theologians, before +they devoted themselves to music; or they even followed for a time the +two professions. Handel’s father wished his son to follow his own +profession, that of law; but a journey to Weissenfels overcame all his +objections. The Duke heard the little seven-year-old Handel play the +organ, with the result that he sent for the father to see him and +recommended him not to thwart the child’s obvious musical talents. The +father, who had always taken these counsels very badly when they came +from anyone else, doubtless appreciated them when they came from the +lips of a prince;<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> and without renouncing his own right over his son +(for he still had the legal plan in his head) consented to let him learn +music; and on his return to Halle he placed him under the best master in +the town, the organist Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Zachau was a broad-minded man and moreover a good musician, whose +greatness was only appreciated many years after his death.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> His +influence on Handel was splendid. Handel himself did not conceal it.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +This influence affected the pupil in two ways: by his method of +teaching, and by his artistic personality. “The man was very well up in +his art,” says Mattheson,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> “and is possessed of as much talent as +beneficence.”</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Handel’s devotion to Zachau was so great that he seemed never able to +show him sufficient affection and kindness. The master’s first efforts +were devoted to giving the pupil a strong foundation in harmony. Then he +turned his thoughts towards the<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> inventive side of the art; he showed +him how to give his musical ideas the most perfect form, and he refined +his taste. He possessed a remarkable library of Italian and German +music, and he explained to Handel the various methods of writing and +composing adopted by different nationalities, whilst pointing out the +good qualities and the faults of each composer; and in order that his +education might be at the same time theoretical and practical, he +frequently gave him exercises to work in such and such a style.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>This education with a true European catholicity was not confined to one +particular musical style, but spread itself out over all schools, and +caused him to assimilate the best points of all, for who can fail to see +that the conception and practice of Handel, and indeed the very essence +of his genius, was the absorption of a hundred different styles! “One of +his manuscripts dated 1698, and preserved carefully all his life, +contains,” so says Chrysander, “some airs, choruses, capriccios, and +fugues of Zachau, Alberti (Heinrich Albert), Froberger, Krieger, Kerl, +Ebner, Strungk, which he had copied out whilst studying with Zachau.” +Handel could never forget these old masters, distinct traces of whom are +found from time to time in his best-known works.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> He would doubtless +too, with<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> Zachau, have seen the first volumes of the clavier works of +Kuhnau, which were published at that time.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>Moreover, it seems that Zachau knew the work of Agostino Steffani,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> +who later on took a fatherly interest in Handel; and Zachau followed +sympathetically the dramatic musical movement in Hamburg. Thus the +little Handel had, thanks to his master, a living summary of the musical +resources of Germany, old and new; and under his direction he absorbed +all the secrets of the great contrapuntal architects of the past, +together with the clear expressive and melodic beauty of the +Italian-German schools of Hanover and Hamburg.</p> + +<p>But the personal influence of the character and the art of Zachau +reacted no less strongly on Handel than did his methods of instruction. +One is struck by the relationship of his works<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> to those of Handel; +they are similar in character and style. The reminiscences of motives, +figures, and of subjects count for little;<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> there is the same essence +in the art<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> of both master and pupil; there is the same feeling of light +and joy; there is nothing of the pious concentration and introspection +of Bach, who goes down into the deeps of thought, and who loves to probe +into all the innermost recesses of the heart, and—in silence and +solitude—converse with his God. The music of Zachau is the music of +great spaces, of dazzling frescoes, such as one sees on the domes of the +Italian cathedrals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but +Zachau’s work contains more religion than these. His music pulses with +action like the bounding and rebounding of great springs of steel. It +has triumphant subjects with expositions of great solemnity. There are +victorious marches, carrying everything before them, which go crashing +on without stopping, ever spurring on the sparkling and joyous patterns. +There are also pastoral themes, pure and voluptuous reveries,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +dances, and songs accompanied by flutes, with a Grecian perfume,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> and +a smiling virtuosity, a joy intoxicated with itself, twisting lines, and +vocal arabesques, vocalizations, trills for the voice which gambol +light-heartedly with the little wave-like arpeggios of the violins.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> +Let us unite these two traits: the heroic and the pastoral, the +warriors’ marches and the jubilant dances. There you have<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> the Handelian +tableaux: the people of Israel and the women dancing before the +victorious army. You find in Zachau a sketch for the monumental +constructions of Handel in his Hallelujahs; those mountains of sound +which resound their joy, the colossal <i>Amens</i> which crown his oratorios +like the dome of St. Peter at Rome.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>Add to this also Zachau’s marked liking for instrumental music,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +which makes him combine it so happily with the vocal solos; and very +often he imagines the voice as an instrument, which combines and gambols +with the other instruments, thus forming a decorative garland +harmoniously woven.<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a></p> + +<p>To sum up, it was an art less intimate than expansive, an art newly +born; not devoid of emotion though,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> but above all, restful, strong, +and happy—an optimistic music like that of Handel.</p> + +<p>Truly Handel in miniature, with much less breadth, less richness of +invention, and particularly a smaller power of development. There is +nothing of the attractiveness of Handel’s colossal movements, like an +army which marches and sings; and more solid strength is necessary to +carry the weight right to the end without bending. Zachau flinches on +his way; he has not the vital force of Handel, but in compensation he +has more <i>naïveté</i>, more tender candour, more of the childlike +chasteness and evangelic grace.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Certainly there we have the master +really necessary to Handel, a master more than one great man had the +good fortune to find (it is Giovanni Santi for Raphael; it is Neefe for +Beethoven): good, simple, straightforward, a little dull, but giving a +steady and gentle light where the youth may dream in peace and abandon +himself with confidence to a guide almost fraternal, who does not seek +to dominate him, but rather strives to fan the little flame into a +greater fire; to turn the little rivulet of music into the mighty river +of genius.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a></p> + +<p>Whilst studying with Zachau the young Handel visited Berlin. After +having paid his homage to his former master, the Elector of Saxony, he +was wise enough also to present himself to the new one, the Elector of +Brandenburg. It seems that this journey took place about 1696 when the +boy was eleven years old, and his father, being ill, did not accompany +him.</p> + +<p>The Berlin Court lived a very short life of artistic brilliance between +the wars of the Grand Elector and those of the Prince-Regent. Music was +greatly in honour, thanks to the Electress, Sophia Charlotte, daughter +of the celebrated Sophia of Hanover. She attracted to her the best +Italian instrumentalists, singers, and composers.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> She founded the +Berlin Opera,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> and even conducted several concerts at Court. +Doubtless the movement was but superficial. It was only held together by +the impulse of the Electress, who had more spirit than earnestness. Art +was for her only a fond distraction; so that after her death the musical +<i>fêtes</i> in Berlin became extinct. But it was something to have lighted, +only for a brief hour, this flame of beautiful Italian art, and it was +thus that the little Handel came into contact for the first time with +the music of the South.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The child, who displayed his powers<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> on the +clavecin before a princely audience, had so much success that the +Elector of Brandenburg wished him to enter his service. He offered +Handel’s father to send the child to Italy to finish his studies. The +old man refused. “He had a stubborn pride, and did not desire,” so says +Mainwaring, “that his son should be tied too soon to a Prince.” He +wished to see his child again, as he considered that he himself might +die at any moment.</p> + +<p>Little Handel returned. Too late! He learnt <i>en route</i> that his father +had died on February 11, 1697. The principal obstacle in the way of his +musical vocation had now disappeared, but he had so profound a respect +for his father’s wishes that he forced himself to study law for many +more years. After having completed in due course his classes at the +college he was entered for the Faculty of Law at the University of Halle +on February 10, 1702, five years after his father’s death.</p> + +<p>University life in Halle at that time was of a revolting character. But, +in spite of this, an intense life of thought and religion was also to be +found there. The Faculty of Theology was the centre of Pietism.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> The +students devoted themselves to<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> religious exercises which led to +ecstasy.—Handel, independent as he always was, kept clear of the brutal +amusements, just as he did of the mystic contemplation. He was religious +without being sentimental. For the rest, an artist could only listen to +the Pietists with difficulty, for their religious devotion was too often +oppressive to art. Even J. S. Bach, Pietist at heart, by his public acts +declared himself opposed to the Pietists, who were on certain marked +occasions inimical to music.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> For a still stronger reason Handel had +no leaning towards mysticism.</p> + +<p>Religion was not his business; Law certainly was not. However, he had +for his master the most remarkable professor in Germany, Christian +Thomasius, the advocate in the arraignment of witchcraft,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> the +reformer of the teaching of law, who himself made a thorough study of +German customs, and who did not cease to make battle with the gross and +stupid abuses of the universities, with their spirit of caste, pedantry, +ignorance, hypocrisy, and judicial and religious acerbity. If such a +training was not of the nature to retain Handel it was certainly not the +fault of the professor; there were no more vital lessons in the<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> whole +of the Germany of that day; none which offered a more fruitful field of +activity to a young man. Let us be sure that a Beethoven would not have +been insensible to them. But Handel was a pure musician; he was music +itself; nothing else could occupy his thoughts.</p> + +<p>In the year in which he had completed his terms in the Faculty of Law he +found a post of organist at Halle: and in a church more than strictly +Lutheran, being of the Reformed order, where the organist had expressly +to conform to the new cult. However, he was only seventeen years +old.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> This simple fact showed what musical authority he already +exercised in the town where he had studied law.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Not only was he +organist, but he was also Professor at the College of the Reformists; he +took vocal music there for two hours every week; he selected the most +gifted of his pupils and formed from them a vocal and instrumental body +which was to be heard every Sunday in one church or another of the town. +He included in his musical repertoire, chorales, Psalms, motets, +cantatas—which were changed every Sunday. Truly an excellent school for +learning to write quickly and well. Handel there formed his creative +fecundity.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Of hundreds of cantatas which<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> he then wrote, none were +preserved by him.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> But it is certain that his memory retained more +than one idea to serve in later compositions, for he never lost +anything, and from that time for the rest of his life he retained in his +mind his earlier musical ideas. This should not be attributed to his +speed in working, but to the unity of his thought and his strenuous +search for perfection.</p> + +<p>Handel renewed neither his yearly engagement at the Cathedral of Halle +nor at the University. In his period as organist he had gauged his own +musical force and he no longer wished to constrain it. A wider field of +activity was necessary. He quitted Halle in the spring of 1703, and +guided both by his instincts and by a preference of his master +Zachau<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> he betook himself to Hamburg, the city of German Opera.</p> + +<p>Hamburg was the Venice of Germany. A free town far from the noise of +wars, a refuge of artists, and people of large fortunes, the centre of +the commerce of Northern Europe, a cosmopolitan city<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> where they spoke +all languages and especially the French tongue, it was in continual +relationship with both England and Italy, and particularly with Venice, +which constituted for it a model for emulation. It was by way of Hamburg +that the English ideas were circulated in Germany. It was there where +the first German newspapers appeared.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> In the time of Handel, Hamburg +shared with Leipzig the intellectual prestige of Germany. There was no +other place in Germany where music was held in such high esteem.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> The +artists there hobnobbed with the rich merchants. Christoph, pupil of +Schütz, had founded there a celebrated Collegium Musicum, a Society of +Musicians, and started there in 1677-8 the first theatre of German +Opera. It was not a princely opera open only to those invited by the +prince, but a public opera, popular in spirit and in prices. It was the +example of Italy, notably that of Venice, which called forth this +foundation, but the spirits of the two theatres were very different. +Whilst that of Venice satisfied itself with fantastic melodramas, +curiously devised from the ancient mythology and history, the Hamburg +Opera retained, despite the grossness of taste and licentiousness of +manners, an old religious<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> foundation. The Hamburg opera was inaugurated +in 1678 by the production of Joh. Theile’s <i>Creation of the World</i>. The +composer was a pupil of Schütz. From 1678 to 1692 a large number of +religious dramas were given there; some of an allegorical character, +others inspired by the Bible. In certain of these subjects one can +already see the future oratorios of Handel.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Feeble as these pieces +were, they were yet on the definite road for the founding of a real +German theatre. It seems to have been the idea of one of these poets, +Pastor Elmenhorst, who wished to give to the religious opera the value +of a classic form of art.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Unfortunately, the public spirit was on +the decline; its religious resources, however, were well protected, save +in a minority where religion took a more aggressive character as it felt +itself less able to hold people. There were two factions in the Hamburg +public; one (the most numerous) whom religion bored, and who wished to +amuse themselves at the theatre. The other party was religious and would +not have anything to do with the opera under the impression that it was +a work of Satan, <i>opera diabolica</i>.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> The struggle was warmly +contested between the two factions, and religious opera came to grief. +The last representation took place in 1692. When Handel arrived it was +truly the <i>opera diabolica</i> which ran with its many extravagances and +its licentious habits.<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a></p> + +<p>I have told elsewhere<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> the story of this period of theatrical history +in Hamburg, of which the golden age was certainly between 1692 and 1703. +Many conditions contributed to the establishment of a good Theatre and +Opera at Hamburg; money and the wealthy patrons disposed to expend it, +an excellent band of instruments, good but small in number, a scenic art +well advanced, a luxury of decoration and machinery, renowned poets, +musicians of great value, and, rarest of all, the poets and musicians +who assembled from “die sich wohl verstanden,” as Mattheson wrote. The +poets were named Bressand of Wolfenbüttel, who was inspired by the +French theatre, and Christian Postel, whom Chrysander calls very +complacently a German Metastasio. The feeblest part was the singing. For +a long time the Hamburg Opera had no professional singers. The <i>rôles</i> +were taken by students and artisans, by shoemakers, tailors, fruiterers, +and girls of little talent and less virtue; generally the artisans found +it more convenient themselves to take the female <i>rôles</i>. Men and women +alike had a profound ignorance of music. Towards 1693 the Opera at +Hamburg was fortunately completely transformed from top to bottom by the +great Kapellmeister Sigismund Cousser, who introduced reforms in the +orchestra after the French model, and in the singing on Italian lines. +France was represented in his eyes (as for all foreign musicians) by the +personage of Lully, by whom Cousser was trained for six years in Paris. +Italy<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> was represented by a remarkable artist settled at Hanover from +1689 to 1696, who produced ten operas; Agostino Steffani from the +province of Venice.</p> + +<p>This dual model from Italy and France, aided by the personal example of +Cousser, played the chief part in producing the best musician of the +Hamburg Opera, Reinhard Keiser, a man who, despite his character and +presumptuous knowledge, had certainly genius.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>Keiser was under thirty years old when Handel arrived, but he was then +at the zenith of his fame. Kapellmeister of the Hamburg Opera since +1695, then director of the theatre since the end of 1702, very highly +gifted, but of scanty culture, dissipated, voluptuous, careless, he was +the incontestable ruler of the German Opera; the artist type of that +epoch, overflowing with material life, and devoting itself to the love +of pleasure. The influence of both Lully<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> and that of Steffani<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> is +shown in his first operas. But his own personality is easily +recognizable under these traces of borrowing. He has a very fine sense +of instrumental colour, widely<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> differing from that of the followers of +Lully, who were a little disdainful of expressive power in the +orchestra, and were always disposed to sacrifice it to the primacy of +the voice.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> He believed, as did his admirer and commentator, +Mattheson, that one can express the feelings by means of the orchestra +alone.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<p>He was, moreover, a true master of <i>recitative</i>; one might say that he +created the German <i>recitative</i>. He attached extreme importance to it, +saying that the expression in <i>recitative</i> often gave the intelligent +composer much more trouble than the invention of the air.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> He sought +to note with exactitude, accent, punctuation, the living breath itself, +without sacrificing anything of the musical beauty. His <i>Recitative +arioso</i> takes an intermediate place between the oratorical <i>recitative</i> +of the French, and the <i>recitative secco</i> of the Italians, and was one +of the models for the <i>recitative</i> of J. S.<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> Bach,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> and even not +excepting Bach and Handel, Mattheson persists in seeing in Keiser the +master of this style.—But the real supreme gift of Keiser was his +melodic invention. In that he was one of the first artists in Germany, +and the Mozart of the first part of the eighteenth century. He had an +abundant and winning inspiration. As Mattheson said, “His true nature +was tenderness, love....” From the commencement to the end of his career +he could reproduce voluptuous feelings with such exquisite art that no +one could surpass him. His melodic style, much more advanced than that +of Handel—not only at this particular epoch but at any moment of his +life—is free, unsophisticated and happy. It is not the contrapuntal +style of Handelian Opera, but it inclines rather to that of Hasse (who +was trained entirely in it), to the symphonists of Mannheim, and to +Mozart. Never has Handel, greater and more perfect as he was, possessed +the exquisite note which breathes in the melodies of Keiser—that fresh +perfume of the simple flower of the field.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> Keiser had the taste for +popular songs and rustic scenes,<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> but he knew also how to rise to the +very summits of classical tragedy, and some of his airs of<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> stately +grief might have been written by Handel himself.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> Keiser was, then, +full of lessons and of models for Handel, who was not slow to take +them,<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> but he also set him several bad examples too. The worst was +the renunciation of the national language. Whilst Postel and Schott had +been at the head of the Hamburg Opera the Italian language had been kept +within bounds,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> but since Keiser had become Director he had changed +all that. In his <i>Claudius</i> (1703) he made the first barbarous attempt +at a mixture of Italian and German languages. It was for him a pure +fanfare of virtuosity, and he wished to show, as he explained in his +Preface, that he was capable of beating the Italians on their own +ground. He took no account of the detriment to German Opera. Handel, +following his example, mixes, in his first operas, the airs with Italian +words with those set to German words.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Since that time he no longer +wrote Italian operas; and after that, his musical theatre was without +foundation and without public. The sanction of this error resulted in +Germany’s neglect of Keiser’s operas and even of those of Handel, +despite the genius of both composers.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p> + +<p>Handel arrived at Hamburg during the summer of 1703. One can imagine him +there at that time of life as in the portrait painted by Thornhill, +which is in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge: a long face, calm, but +a little coarse, large and serious eyes, large and straight nose, ample +forehead, vigorous mouth, with thick lips, cheeks and chin already full, +very straight head without wig, and covered with a biretta after the +manner of Wagner. “He was rich in power, and strong in will,” says +Mattheson, who, by the way, was the first acquaintance he made in +Hamburg. Mattheson, who was then twenty-two,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> four years older than +Handel, came from a rich Hamburg family, and possessed vast knowledge. +He spoke English, Italian, French, was trained for the law, well +grounded in music, could play nearly all the instruments, and wrote +operas, of which he was the poet, the composer, and the actor all in +one. Above all he was a master theorist, and the most energetic critic +of German music. With an immense <i>amour-propre</i> and many passionate +dislikes, he had a robust spirit, very sound, and very honest, a sort of +Boileau or of Lessing in music half a century before <i>la Dramaturgie</i>. +On the one side he combated scholastic routine and abstract science in +the name of nature, and laid down the rule that “music is that which +sounds well” (“Musik müsse schön klingen”).<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> He played his<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> part in +the banishment of the obsolete theories (solmisation, ecclesiastical +modes) and the definition of our modern system.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> On the other hand, +he was the champion of German art and German spirit. From Lessing he +derived his patriotism, his rough independence, his impetuosity, which +seemed to possess a violence almost brutal. All his books cry “Fuori +Barbari.”<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> One of his works was entitled <i>The Musical Patriot</i> (<i>Der +Musikalische Patriot</i>, 1728).</p> + +<p>In 1722 he founded the first German musical journal, <i>Critica +Musica</i>,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> and all his life he waged<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> a vigorous war for good sense, +real musical intelligence, music which speaks to the heart and not to +the ear, moving and strengthening the soul of the intelligent man with +beautiful thoughts and melodies.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> He saw in music a religious +idea.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> By his wide culture, his knowledge of the artistic theories of +the past, his familiarity with all the important French and Italian +works, his relationships with the principal German masters, with Keiser, +Handel, J. S. Bach, by his rich practical experience, his acute critical +sense, his ardent patriotism, his virile and flowing language, he was +well fitted to be the great musical educator of Germany, and he +accomplished his task well. In the dispersion of German artists which +took place then, in addition to the many vicissitudes of their work, +there was chiefly lacking a support of political solidarity which could +cause music to rise above the fluctuations of the tastes of little towns +and the small coteries. Mattheson was then for half a century the sole +tribune of German music, the intellect where thoughts concentrated from +all<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> quarters, and from him radiated an influence over all the country +in return. It was thus that he preserved the ideas of Keiser, which +apart from him would have fallen into oblivion without leaving any +traces of their existence. It was these traces that he rescued out of +the <i>débâcle</i> and preserved for us—a multitude of imperishable +souvenirs for the musical history of the eighteenth century—which +Mattheson gathered together and published in his monumental +<i>Ehrenpforte</i>.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> He acted powerfully on his times. His books laid down +the law for the Kapellmeisters, the Cantors, the organists, and the +teachers.</p> + +<p>His criticisms, his advice on style in singing, on gesture in acting, +were no less efficacious. He possessed the real “theatre” feeling. He +expected life in the stage action, attaching considerable importance to +the pantomime “which is a silent music.”<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> He waged war against the +impossible action and the want of intelligence amongst the German +singers and choralists, and he desired that the composer should think +always in writing of the action of the player. “The knowledge of facial +expression by the actors on the stage,” says he, “can often be a source +of good musical ideas.”<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> This is indeed the language of a true man of +the<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> theatre.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> For the rest, Mattheson was too good a musician to +serve music in words. He sought to unite them by safeguarding the +independence of both, but ended by giving the preference to the soul +over the body, the melody over the words. The words he wrote are the +body of the discourses; the thoughts are the soul; the melody is the sun +shining on the soul, the marvellous atmosphere which envelops it all. We +have said enough to give some idea of this great critic, intelligent and +intrepid, who, with many faults, has yet many virtues. One will see how +important it was to the young Handel to meet such a guide, even though +they were both too original and too self-sufficient for the association +to last long.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Mattheson did Handel the honours of Hamburg. He introduced him at the +Opera, and the concerts, and it was through him that Handel entered for +the first time into negotiations with England, which was to become his +second country.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> They helped<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> one another mutually. Handel had +already an exceptional power on the organ, and in fugue and +counterpoint; above all, in improvisation. He shared his knowledge with +Mattheson, who in return helped him to perfect his melodic style. +Mattheson believed him to be a very feeble melodist. He wrote his +melodies at that time, “Oh, long, long, long” (<i>sehr lange lange +Arien</i>), and cantatas without end, which had neither ability nor good +taste, but perfect harmony.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> It is very remarkable that melody was +not a natural gift with Handel, for he now appears to us as a melodic +genius. It is not necessary to believe that the simple, beautiful +melodies rushed forth without effort from his brain. The melodies of +Beethoven, which seem the most spontaneous, cost him years of thoughtful +work during which he brooded continually over them, and so Handel also +only came to his full power of melodic expression after years of severe +discipline, where he learnt as an apprentice-sculptor to model beautiful +forms, and to leave them neither complex nor unfinished.</p> + +<p>Handel and Mattheson spent several months in intimate friendship.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> +Handel joined Mattheson at table for meals, and in July and August, +1703, they made a journey together to Lubeck to hear the<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> renowned +organist, Dietrich Buxtehude.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> Buxtehude had thoughts of retiring, +and was looking for a successor. The two young men were greatly affected +by his talent, but they did not care to succeed him in the post, for it +was necessary to wed his daughter<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> to have his organ, and, said +Mattheson, “neither of them wanted her.”—Two years later they would +have met on the road to Lubeck a young musician also going, like them, +to pay Buxtehude a visit, not like them, however, in a carriage, but +more humbly on foot: J. S. Bach.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Nothing makes us realise the +importance of Buxtehude in German music better than this magnet-like +attraction which he exercised over the German musicians of the +eighteenth century. Pirro has remarked at some length his influence on +the organ style of J. S. Bach. I consider that it was no less marked, +though quite different, on the oratorio style of Handel.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a></p> + +<p>Buxtehude gave at St. Mary’s Church, Lubeck, his celebrated +<i>Abendmusiken</i> (evening concerts), which took place on Sundays from St. +Martin’s Day to Christmas,<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> by the request of the Merchants’ Guilds +at Lubeck, which occupied themselves keenly with music.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> His +cantatas, of which the number is considerable,<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> were all composed for +these occasions. Writing for a concert public, and not for a religious +service, he felt the need of making his music of a kind which would +appeal to everyone. Handel later on found himself in similar +circumstances, and the same need led them both to a similar technique. +Buxtehude avoided in his music the ornate and clustering polyphony which +was really his <i>métier</i>.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> He sought nothing but clear, pleasing, and +striking designs, and even aimed at descriptive music. He willingly +sacrificed himself, by intensifying his expression, and what he lost in +abundance he gained in power. The homophonic character of his writing, +the neatness of his beautiful melodic designs of a popular clarity,<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> +the insistence of the rhythms and the repetition of phrases which sink +down into the heart in so obsessive a manner,<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> are all essentially +Handelian traits. No less is the magnificent triumph of the ensembles, +his manner of painting in bold masses of light and shade.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> It is to a +very high degree, as with the art of Handel, music for everyone.</p> + +<p>But much time passed before Handel profited by the examples of +Buxtehude. On his return from Lubeck he seems to have forgotten them. It +was not so, however, for nothing was ever lost on him.</p> + +<p>At the end of August, 1703, Handel entered the Hamburg orchestra as a +second violinist. He loved to amuse himself amongst his kind, and he +often made himself appear more ignorant than he was. “He behaved,” said +Mattheson, “as if he did not even know how to count five, for he was a +‘dry stick.’”<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> That year at Hamburg, Reiser’s <i>Claudius</i> was given at +the Opera, and many of the phrases registered themselves in Handel’s +marvellous memory.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p> + +<p>When the season was finished, Mattheson made a journey to Holland, and +Handel profited by the absence of his young adviser to assert his own +individuality. He had made the acquaintance of the poet Postel, who, +old, ill, and troubled by<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> religious scruples, had given up the writing +of opera <i>libretti</i>, and no longer wished to compose anything but sacred +works. Postel furnished Handel with the text for a <i>Passion according to +Saint John</i>, which Handel set to music, and performed during Holy Week +in 1704.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> Mattheson, piqued at the <i>volte face</i> which had happened in +his relationship with Handel, criticised the music severely, but not +unjustly.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> Despite the intense feeling of certain pages, and the fine +dramatic nature of the choruses, the work was uneven, and occasionally +lacked good taste.</p> + +<p>From this moment the friendship between Handel and Mattheson was +finished. Handel became conscious of his own genius, and could no longer +stand the protectorship of Mattheson. Other occurrences aggravated the +misunderstanding, which ended in a quarrel, which narrowly escaped a +fatal issue.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> Following the altercation at the Opera on<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> December 5, +1704, they fought a duel in the market-place at Hamburg, and Handel only +escaped being killed by a stroke of luck: for Mattheson’s sword snapped +on a large metal button on Handel’s coat, after which they embraced, and +the two companions, reconciled by Keiser, took part together in the +rehearsals of <i>Almira</i>, the first opera of Handel.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> The first +representation took place on January 8, 1705, and the work was a +brilliant success. A second opera of Handel, <i>Nero</i><a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> was played on +February 25 following, but it had not quite the success of <i>Almira</i>. +Handel himself occupied the placards of the opera during the whole of +the winter season. It was a fine <i>début</i>. Too fine indeed, and Keiser +became jealous of him. The Hamburg Opera, however, was gradually waning. +Keiser gaily led it to its ruin.<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> He led the life of a gay libertine, +and all the artists around him rivalled him in his follies. Alone Handel +held aloof from the follies, working hard, and spending only what was +barely necessary.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> After the success of these two operas he resigned +his post as second violin and clavecinist to the orchestra, but +continued to give lessons, and his reputation as a composer kept pace +with that of his teaching. Keiser was uneasy. Handel’s increasing +reputation aroused his <i>amour-propre</i>. Nothing was more stupid, however, +than his jealousy. He was Director of the Opera, and it was in his +interest to give those pieces which were written by popular composers, +and to maintain relationships with successful composers, but jealousy +knows no reason. He reset <i>Almira</i> and <i>Nero</i> to music in order to put +Handel out of joint,<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> and as he had not the opportunity of publishing +his opera <i>in toto</i> he hastily printed the most taking solos from +each.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> But, however quickly he went, his downfall followed faster. +Before the volume of his opera airs appeared<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> he had to fly. This was in +the end of 1706.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> Handel and he were destined never to meet again.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Keiser having brought disaster to the Hamburg Opera, there was nothing +left to keep Handel in that city. The direction of the theatre had +fallen into the hands of a Philistine, who, to make money, played +musical farces. He certainly commissioned Handel for the opera <i>Florindo +und Daphne</i>, but he mutilated the work on its presentation “for fear,” +so he said in the Preface of the libretto, “that the music might tire +the hearers”; and lest the public should find the work too serious, he +intersected it with a farce in low German, <i>Die lustige Hochzeit</i> (The +Joyous Wedding). One can well understand that Handel was little +interested in his piece so disfigured, and that he did not himself +attend the production, but quitted Hamburg. It was about the autumn of +1706 that he made the journey to Italy.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> It was not, however, that +Italy particularly attracted him. Strange to say—it is not unique in +the history of art—this man, who was<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> later on to be caught by the +fascination of Italy, and secure an European musical triumph in the +beautiful Italian style, had then a very strong repugnance for the +foreign art. When <i>Almira</i> was being given, he made the acquaintance of +the Italian prince, Giovanni Gastone dei Medici, brother of the Grand +Duke of Tuscany.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> He was astonished that Handel interested himself so +little in the Italian musicians, and bought him a collection of their +best works, offering to take him to Florence to hear them performed. But +Handel refused, saying that he could find nothing in these works which +deserved the Prince’s eulogies, and that angels would be necessary to +sing them in order to make such mediocre things sound even +agreeable.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> This disdain of Italy was not peculiar to Handel. It +characterised his generation, and above all, the cult of German +musicians who lived at Hamburg. Before then, and later on, the +fascination of Italy took hold of Germany. Even Hasler, Schütz, Hasse, +Gluck, and Mozart made long and earnest pilgrimages to that country, but +on the other hand J. S. Bach, Keiser, Mattheson, and Telemann never went +there. The Hamburg musicians truly wished to assimilate the Italian art, +but they never wished to place themselves under the thraldom of the<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> +Italian school. They had the laudable ambition of creating a German +style independent of foreign influences. Handel shared these great +hopes, sustained for a time by the theatre at Hamburg, but the sudden +collapse of this theatre made him see little ground on which to build up +the taste of the musical public in Germany, and against his own +inclinations, he turned his eyes towards that habitual refuge of German +artists: Italy, which the older ones so affected to disdain, that +country where music expanded itself in the sun, where it was not cheated +out of its right of existence as with the Hamburg Pietists. It +flourished in all the Italian cities, and in all classes of Italian +society with the transports of love. And all around it was an +efflorescence of the other arts, a superior civilization, a life smiling +and radiant, of which Handel had some foretaste in his dealings with the +Italian nobles who passed through Hamburg.</p> + +<p>He departed. His leaving was so brusque that his friends knew nothing of +it. He did not even say good-bye to Mattheson.</p> + +<p>The period at which he arrived in Italy was not the most fortunate. The +war for the Spanish Succession was in full swing, and Handel met at +Venice, in the winter of 1706, Prince Eugène and his staff-major, who +were resting after their victorious campaign in Lombardy. He did not +stay there, but went right on to Florence, where he remained till the +end of the year.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a></p> + +<p>Doubtless he bore these offers of protection in mind which the Prince +Gastone dei Medici had made him. Was such protection as useful to Handel +as he had hoped? One may be allowed to doubt it. In truth the son of the +Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, was a musician. He played the clavier +well;<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> he had caused an opera house to be built in his villa at +Pratolino; he chose the <i>libretti</i>, advised the composers, corresponded +with Alessandro Scarlatti, but he had never a very reliable taste. He +found Scarlatti’s style too learned. He begged him to write some easier +music, and, as far as possible, lighter.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> He himself did not continue +the fastidiousness of the Medici, his ancestors. He somewhat stinted his +outlay on music. He decided not to appoint Scarlatti his chapel-master, +and when this great artist asked for money at a period of embarrassment +he responded “that he would pray for him.”<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> One can scarcely believe +that he was less economical in his dealings with Handel, who had less +reputation than Scarlatti. He seems to have paid little attention to him +during his first visit. The Prince himself seemed out of his element in +this new world. It was necessary for him to<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> catch up with his times. +Handel certainly wrote some cantatas, only one of which, <i>Lucretia</i>, +with a dramatic character, was very popular in Italy and in Germany +later on.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> Its style was nearly completely German.</p> + +<p>From Florence he went to Rome for the Easter festivals in April, 1707. +Even there the moment was not very favourable for him. The Grand Opera +House, the <i>Tor di Nona</i>, had been destroyed as immoral by an edict of +Pope Innocent XII ten years before. Since 1700, things had been a little +easier for the musicians, but in 1703 a terrible earthquake had +desolated the country, and reawakened religious qualms.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Even in +1709, during the whole of Handel’s sojourn in Italy, there was not a +single representation of Opera at Rome. On the other hand, religious +music and chamber music were enjoying a great vogue. Handel, during the +first months, listened and studied the religious music at Rome, and +tried his hand on similar works. From this period dated his Latin +Psalms.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> Thanks to the<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> letters of recommendation he had from the +Medici, he had also been introduced into the Roman <i>salons</i>. He became +famous there, more on account of his <i>virtuoso</i> powers on the keyboard +than of those of composer. He remained at Rome until the autumn of +1707.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> Doubtless, he returned to Florence in the month of October, +and it appears that he then produced <i>Roderigo</i> for the first time. +Handel had then been nearly a year in Italy. He set about writing an +opera in Italian. His boldness was justified. <i>Roderigo</i> was successful. +Handel gained through it the favour of the Grand Duke, and the love of +the Prima Donna, Vittoria Tarquini.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> Fortified by his first victory +he went on to try his luck at Venice.</p> + +<p>Venice was then the musical metropolis of Italy. It was in a way the +real kingdom of Opera. The first public opera house had been already +open there for half a century, and after it, fifteen other opera houses +had sprung into being. During the Carnival no less than seven opera +houses were open each evening there. Every night also a musical union +was held at the Academy of Music, and occasionally twice or even three +times in one evening. Every day in the churches, musical<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> solemnities +and concerts, which lasted for many hours, with several orchestras, many +organs, and numerous full and echo choirs,<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> and on Saturday and +Sunday the famous Vespers of the Hospitals, those conservatoires for +women where they taught music to orphans and foundlings, or, more +frequently, to the girls who had fine voices. They gave orchestral and +vocal concerts, over which all Venice raved. Venice, indeed, was bathed +in music, the entire life was threaded with it. Life was a perpetual +round of pleasure.</p> + +<p>When Handel arrived, the greatest of the Italian musicians, Alessandro +Scarlatti, was about to produce at St. John Chrysostom’s Theatre his +chief work, <i>Mitridate Eupatore</i>, one of the rare Italian operas of +which the dramatic beauty is on a par with the musical value. Was +Alessandro Scarlatti still in Venice when Handel met him? We do not +know, but in any case he encountered him at Rome some months later, and +it appears that at that time Handel was tied by bonds of friendship to +the son of Alessandro,—Domenico.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> He also made many other +encounters in Venice, which were destined to change his life. The +Prince<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> of Hanover, Ernest Augustus, and the Duke of Manchester, the +English Ambassador Extraordinary at Venice, were both passionate +music-lovers, and interested themselves in Handel. The first invitations +which Handel received to go to Hanover, and to London, dated doubtless +from that time.</p> + +<p>But if the visit to Venice was not fruitless to the future of Handel, it +brought him very little at the time. Handel could produce nothing at any +of the seven opera houses.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> He was much happier at Rome, where he +returned at the beginning of March, 1708.<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> The renown of his +<i>Roderigo</i> had preceded him. All the Italian merchants strove to receive +him with honour. He was the guest of the Marquis Ruspoli, whose gardens +on the Esquilino formed the bond of reunion for the Academy of the +Arcadians.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> Handel found himself agreeably placed amongst the most +illustrious men which Italy boasted in literature, the arts, and in the +aristocracy. Arcadia, which united the nobility and the artists,<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> in +a spiritual brotherhood, counted amongst its members,<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> Alessandro +Scarlatti, Archangelo Corelli, Bernardo Pasquini, and Benedetto +Marcello.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> A similar <i>élite</i> society was found at the <i>soirées</i> of +the Cardinal Ottoboni.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> Every Monday, in the palace of Ottoboni, as +at the meetings of the Arcadia, concerts and poetical recitations were +given. The Cardinal Prince, Superintendent of the Pontifical chapel, had +in his service the finest orchestra in Italy,<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> and the singers of +the Sistine Chapel. At the Arcadia there was also to be heard a numerous +orchestra, under the direction of Corelli, of Pasquini, or of Scarlatti. +Musical and poetical improvisation was also given there. It was that +which provoked the artistic jousts between poets and musicians.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> It +was for the concerts at the palace of Ottoboni that Handel<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> wrote his +two Roman oratorios, <i>The Resurrection</i> and <i>The Triumph of Time and +Truth</i>,<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> which were really but disguised operas. One finds traces of +the Arcadia <i>coterie</i> in the compositions which are perhaps the most +characteristic of this period in the life of Handel: the Italian +cantatas,<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> of which the reputation spread itself very wide, for J. +S. Bach made a copy of one of them before 1715.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> Handel passed three +or four months at Rome. He was friendly with Corelli, and with the two +Scarlattis, especially with the son, Domenico, who made many trials of +virtuosity with him.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> Perhaps he also played with Bernardo Pasquini, +whom he doubtless heard more than once on his organ at Great St. Mary’s. +He was interested in the life of the Vatican, and they tried to convert +him to Catholicism, but he refused. Such was the friendly tolerance +which prevailed then at the Court of Rome that, notwithstanding the war +between the Pope and Emperor, this refusal did not alter the friendly +relationships between the young German Lutheran<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> and the Cardinals, his +patrons. He became so attached to Rome, that it was difficult for him to +leave it until the war which approached the city obliged him to take his +way in the month of May or June, 1708, to Naples. One of the Italian +cantatas entitled <i>Partenza</i> shows his grief at leaving the lovely +banks, the dear walls, and the beautiful waters of the Tiber.</p> + +<p>Soon after his arrival at Naples, Alessandro Scarlatti returned to +settle there after seven years of absence.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p> + +<p>Thanks to this friendship, and his membership of the Arcadia, Handel was +received into the best circles of Neapolitan society. He remained at +Naples for nearly a year, from June, 1708, to the spring of 1709, +enjoying princely hospitality, “which placed at his disposal,” says +Mainwaring, “a palace, a well-supplied table, and a coach.” If the +softness of the Italian life enervated him, he appears to have wasted no +time. Not only did he assimilate the style of his friend Corelli—he +conceived in Italy a passionate love of pictures<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a>—but he attempted +with a carefully cultivated dilettantism the most diverse styles, with +which the cosmopolitan society of Naples amused its careless curiosity. +Spanish and<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> French influence fought for the honours of this city. +Handel, as indifferent as Scarlatti to the victory of either of these +parties, tried to write in the style of both.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> He interested himself +also in the Italian popular songs and noted down the rustic melodies of +the Calabrian <i>Pifferari</i>.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> For the Arcadians of Naples he wrote his +beautiful serenata, <i>Acis and Galatea</i>.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> Finally he had the good +fortune to please the Viceroy of Naples—the Cardinal Grimani. He was a +Venetian and his family owned the theatre of San Grisostomo at Venice. +Grimani wrote for Handel the libretto of the opera <i>Agrippina</i>, of which +Handel probably composed part of the music at Naples. A similar +collaboration assured it of being produced at Venice without trouble.</p> + +<p>He left Naples in the springtime, and returned to Rome, where he met, at +the Palace of the Cardinal Ottoboni, Bishop Agostino Steffani, who by a +curious combination of attributes was at the same time Kapellmeister at +the Court of Hanover, and charged with secret missions by different +German<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> princes.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Steffani was one of the most finished musicians of +his time. He established a firm friendship with Handel, possibly when +travelling together to Venice, where Handel’s <i>Agrippina</i> was played at +the opening of the Carnival season, 1709-10, at the theatre of San +Giovanni Grisostomo.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> The success exceeded all anticipations. +Mainwaring says that he took all his hearers by storm. There were great +acclamations, and cries of <i>Viva il caro Sassone</i> and extravagances +impossible to record. The grandeur of the style struck them all like +thunder. The Italians had good reason to rejoice, for they found in +Handel a most brilliant exponent, and <i>Agrippina</i> is the most melodious +of his Italian operas. Venice then made and unmade reputations. The +enthusiasm aroused by the representations at San Giovanni Grisostomo’s +spread itself out over the whole of musical Europe. Handel remained the +whole of the winter at Venice. He seemed undecided as to what course to +follow. It was quite<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> on the cards that he should pass through +Paris.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> Handel had familiarised himself with the French +language.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> He showed, as it happened, a singular attraction for the +most beautiful subjects of our French tragedy.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> With his prodigious +adaptability, and his Latin qualities, the clarity of his lines, his +eloquence, logic, and his passionate love for form, he would have +rejoiced exceedingly in assimilating the tradition of our art, and +taking it up with an irresistible vigour.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> But at Venice, whilst he +was still hesitating what to do, he encountered the<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> Hanoverian nobles, +amongst whom was the Baron Kielmansegg, who invited him to follow them. +Steffani himself had offered him with a charming grace his post as +Kapellmeister at the Court of Hanover. Handel went then to Hanover.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>There were four brothers who became in turn Dukes of Hanover: Christian +Louis, George William, John Frederick, and Ernest Augustus.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> All +four were under the spell of France and Italy. They passed the greater +part of their time away from their own States, choosing Venice for +preference. George William married morganatically a French lady of the +noble family of Poitou, Eléonora d’Olbreuse. John Frederick was +pensioned by Louis XIV, and became Catholic. He took Versailles for his +model, and founded an Opera in 1672 at Hanover. He had also the acumen +to call Leibnitz into his States,<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> but he took great care on his +side that he should remain there. He died in the course of a journey to +Venice. Ernest Augustus, who succeeded him, in 1680, was the patron of +Steffani. He married the beautiful and intelligent Duchess Sophia, a +Palatine princess, stepdaughter of James I Stuart, aunt of the Palatine +of France, and sister of the Princess Elizabeth, friend of +Descartes.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> She herself was the<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> friend and correspondent of +Leibnitz, who admired her. She had great intellectual gifts, spoke seven +languages, read widely, and had a natural taste for the beautiful. “No +one had greater gifts,” said Madame her niece, Michel de Montaigne. With +great lucidity of thought, decidedly outspoken, she professed an +epicurean materialism of great superiority and intelligence.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> Her +husband valued her little, but he was brilliant and ostentatious. They +were the most polished and distinguished couple in Germany at the Court +of Hanover.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> Both loved music, but Ernest Augustus seems never to +have dreamt that it existed anywhere outside of Italy, and he might +almost as well have been called the “Duke of Venice” as the Duke of +Hanover, for he was constantly in Venice, and never wished to leave it +for long.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a></p> + +<p>The Hanover people began to murmur. The only means they could find of +keeping their Prince at home with them was to build a magnificent opera +house where spectacles and <i>fêtes</i> resembling those in Venice could be +given. The idea was good. Ernest Augustus warmly took up the scheme for +his opera house, which, built and decorated by the Italians between 1687 +and 1690, was the most beautiful in all Germany.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> For this opera +house Steffani was engaged as Kapellmeister.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> Agostina Steffani is +one of the most curious figures in history.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> Born in 1653 at +Castelfranco, near Venice, of a poor family, after being a choir-boy at +St. Mark’s, he was taken in 1667 to Munich by the Count of Tattenbach, +who had been the pupil of Ercole Bernabei, a master brought up in the +purest Roman style.<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> At the same time he had been given a very +complete education in literature, science, and theology, for he was +destined for the priesthood, and<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> with a view to becoming Abbé.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> He +was appointed organist at the Court, and music-director. Since 1681 a +set of his operas, played at Munich (and especially <i>Servio Tullio</i> in +1685<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a>), spread his renown through Germany. The Duke of Hanover +enticed him to his Court, and in 1689 the new Hanoverian theatre was +inaugurated by one of Steffani’s operas, for which the Duchess Sophia +furnished, it is said, the patriotic subject <i>Henrico Leoni</i>.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> Then +followed a set of fifteen operas of which the <i>mise en scène</i> and music +had an amazing popularity in Germany.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> Cousser introduced them at +Hamburg as models of true Italian song, and Keiser modelled himself +partly on them, ten years before Handel in his turn followed Keiser’s +pattern. The Opera did not enjoy a long life at Hanover. The Duke alone +liked it. The Duchess Sophia had much less sympathy for this kind of +art.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> The ballets and<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> the masquerades put the Opera to shame. +Steffani was otherwise occupied with more serious business elsewhere. In +the Treaty of Augsburg, Ernest Augustus of Hanover had taken sides with +the Emperor. To recompense his fidelity the Emperor bestowed on him the +dignity of Prince-Elect, but in the confusion of the Empire it was not +easy to clear up the situation. It was necessary to send an Ambassador +Extraordinary to the great German Courts. The choice of all fell on +Steffani, who, being a Catholic Abbé, could more easily serve as +intermediary between the Protestant Court of Hanover and the Catholic +Courts;<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> his mission was so well accomplished that in 1697 the Duke +of Hanover obtained for him the title of Elector. This astonishing +diplomat had found the means of writing operas. After the death of +Ernest Augustus in 1698 he gave up opera writing, but continued to +occupy himself with politics. He became in 1703 the secret adviser to +the Elector Palatine, the President of the Religious Council, who was +created a noble. At the<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> same time Pope Innocent II made him in 1706 +Bishop of Spiga.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> The Elector Palatine created him his Grand Almoner +and gave him charge of the Italian and Latin correspondence with the +Duke of Brunswick. From November, 1708, to April, 1709, Steffani stayed +at Rome, where the Pope crowded honours on him, making him Prelate of +the Chamber, Assistant to the Throne, Abbé of St. Steffano in Carrara, +and Apostolic Vicar of the north of Germany, with the supervision of the +Catholics in Palatine, Brunswick, and Brandenburg.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> Then it was, as +we have seen, that he met Handel. It is necessary to sketch briefly the +life of this extraordinary personage, who was at the same time Abbé, +Bishop, Apostolic Vicar, intimate Councillor and Ambassador of Princes, +organist, Kapellmeister, musical critic,<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> chief singer,<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> and yet +composer—not only<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> for the interest of his personality, but because he +exercised considerable influence on Handel, who always retained a +pleasant remembrance of him.</p> + +<p>The feature in Steffani’s art, and that by which he is superior to all +of his own time, is his mastery of the art of singing. Well accustomed +as all the Italians were to it, none wrote so purely for the voice as +he. Scarlatti was not concerned with carrying the voice to its full +limits, either for an expressive purpose or with a concerted intention. +Thus in Steffani, as Hugo Goldschmidt says, “the singer held the pen.” +His work is the most perfect picture of Italian song in a golden age, +and Handel owes to it his very refined feeling for the <i>bel canto</i>. In +truth Steffani’s operas gained little by this virtuosity. They were +mediocre from the dramatic point of view, not very expressive, abused +the vocalisation, and were essentially operas for singers.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> They +revealed a curious harmonic vein, and a contrapuntal alertness, which +strongly contrasted with the nearly homophonic writing of Lully,<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> +but the principal glory of Steffani was in his chamber vocal music, and +especially in his duets.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> These<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> duets are of various types, and of +various lengths. One is a single piece. Others are in the <i>Da Capo</i> +form. Some are veritable cantatas with recitatives, soli, and duets. +Others are consecutive pieces, forming, as it were, little song-cycles. +The writing in this form was evolved from Schütz and Bernabei to Handel +and Telemann, but their inner construction is usually the same: the +first voice announces alone the first phrase, which reflects the poetic +emotion of the piece; the second voice repeats the subject in the unison +or in the octave; with the second subject the voices leave the unison +and indulge in canonic imitations which are freely treated. Then a +return is made to the first part, which concludes the piece. When the +duet is more developed, after the first air in the minor key, a second +one comes in the major, where virtuosity is given free play, after which +the minor air recurs. These works possess an admirable melodic beauty, +and an expression often quite profound. In the lighter subjects Steffani +has an easy gracefulness, the elegant fancy of Scarlatti. In his sad +moments he reaches the highest models: from Schütz, from Provenzale, +even to J. S. Bach. He is one of the greatest lyricists in the music of +the seventeenth century.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> These duets set the style in this form of<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> +work. The <i>rôle</i> played by Steffani in music can very well be compared +with that of Fra Bartolommeo in painting;—both applied themselves with +perfect art, and steadfast spirit, to find the laws of composition in +limited and restrained forms: Fra Bartolommeo sought for the balance of +groups, and the harmony of lines in scenes, with three or four persons +grouped in a round picture; Steffani concentrated all the efforts of his +ingenuity, invention, and artistic science into the somewhat limited +form of the duet. These two religious artists both have a luminous art; +both are sure of themselves, have learning and simplicity, with little +or no passion. Their souls are noble, pure, a little impersonal. They +were intended to prepare the way for others. As Chrysander says, “Handel +walked in the steps of Steffani, but his feet were larger.”</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Handel made only a short stay at Hanover in 1710. Hardly had he taken up +his duties when he asked and obtained leave to go to England, from +whence proposals had been made to him. He crossed<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> Holland, and arrived +at London at the end of the autumn, 1710. He was then twenty-five years +old. The English musical era was broken off. Fifteen years before, +England had lost its greatest musician, Henry Purcell, who died +prematurely at the age of thirty-six.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a></p> + +<p>In his short life he had produced a considerable amount of work: operas, +cantatas, religious music, and instrumental pieces. He was a cultured +genius, and intimately acquainted with Lully, Carissimi, and the Italian +sonatas, at the same time very English, possessing the gift of +spontaneous melody, and never losing contact with the spirit of the +British race. His art was full of grace and delicacy, much more +aristocratic than that of Lully. He is the Van Dyck of music. Everything +of his is of extreme elegance, refinement, ease, slightly <i>exsangue</i>. +His art is natural: always steeped in the country life which is indeed +the source of the English inspiration. There are no operas of the +seventeenth century where one finds fresher melodies which are more +inspired and yet of a popular character. This charming artist was +delicate, of a weak constitution, somewhat feminine in character, +feeble, and of little stamina. His poetic languor was his strongest +appeal, and at the same time his weak point; he was prevented from +following his artistic progress with the tenacity of a Handel. Most of +his works lack finish. He never tried to break down the final barriers +which separated him from perfection. His musical compositions<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> are +sketches of genius with strange weaknesses. He produced many hastily +finished operas with singular awkwardnesses in the manner of treating +the instruments and the voice,—ill-fitting cadences, monotonous +rhythms, a spoilt harmonic tissue, and, finally, in his larger pieces +and those of grander scale, there is a lack of breath, a sort of +physical exhaustion, which prevents him reaching the end of his superb +ideas. But it is necessary to take him for what he is, one of the most +poetic figures in music—smiling, yet a little elegiac—a miniature +Mozart eternally convalescent. Nothing vulgar, nothing brutal, ever +enters his music. Captivating melodies, coming straight from the heart, +where the purest of English souls mirrors itself. Full of delicate +harmonies, of caressing dissonances, a taste for the clashing of +sevenths and seconds, of incessant poising between the major and minor, +and with delicate and varied nuances of a pale tint, vague and slightly +blurred, like the springtime sun piercing through a light mist.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> He +only wrote one real opera, the admirable <i>Dido and Æneas</i>, of 1680.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> +His other dramatic works, very numerous, were music for the stage, and +the most beautiful type of this kind is that which he wrote for Dryden’s +<i>King Arthur</i> in 1691. This music is nearly all episodical. One cannot +remove it without causing the essential action to suffer. The English +taste was impatient<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> of operas sung from one end to the other, and in +Handel’s time Addison endeavoured to voice this national repugnance in +his <i>Spectator</i>.</p> + +<p>It was a good thing that Handel had an altogether different idea of +opera, and that his personality differed greatly from that of Purcell, +which left him no point for profiting (as he had done with others) by +the genius of his predecessor. Arriving in a strange country, of which +he did not even know the language or the spirit, it was natural that he +should take the English master as his guide. Hence the analogies between +them. Purcell’s Odes often give one the impression of being merely a +sketch of the cantatas and oratorios of Handel. One finds there the same +architectural style, the same contrast of movements, of instrumental +colours, of large ensembles, and of <i>soli</i>. Certain dances,<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> some of +the heroic airs, with irresistible rhythms and triumphant fanfares,<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> +are there already before Handel, but they are only there as brilliant +flashes with Purcell. Both his personality and his art were different. +Like so many fine musicians of that time, he has been swallowed up in +Handel, just as a stream of water loses itself in a river. But there was +nevertheless in this little spring a poetry peculiar to England, which +the entire work of Handel has not—nor can have.</p> + +<p>Since the death of Purcell the fount of English music had dried up. +Foreign elements submerged<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> it.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> A renewal of Puritanical opposition +which attacked the English stage contributed to the discouragement and +abdication of the national artists.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> The last master of the great +epoch, John Blow, an estimable artist, famous in his time, whose +personality is a little grey and faded, was not wanting in distinction +or in expressive feeling—but he had then withdrawn himself into his +religious thoughts.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p> + +<p>In the absence of English composers, the Italians took possession of the +field.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> An old musician of the Chapel Royal, Thomas Clayton, brought +from Italy some opera <i>libretti</i>, scores, and singers. He took an old +<i>libretto</i> from Boulogne, caused it to be translated into English by a +Frenchman, and clumsily adapted it to music of little worth; and, such +as it was, he proudly called it “The first musical drama which has been +entirely composed<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> and produced in England in the Italian style, +<i>Arsinoé, Queen of Cyprus</i>.” This nullity, played at Drury Lane in 1705, +had a great success, which even exceeded the authentic Italian opera +given in the following year in London, <i>Camilla, regina de’ Volsci</i>, by +Marc Antonio Bononcini.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> Vainly Addison tried to battle against the +Italian invasion. By writing skits on the snobbism of the public with +pleasant irony, he endeavoured to oppose the Italian Opera with a +national English one.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> He was defeated, and with him the entire +English theatre collapsed.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> “Thomyris” in 1707 inaugurated the +representations half in Italian and half in English, and after the +<i>Almahade</i> in January, 1710, all was in Italian. No English musician +attempted to continue the struggle.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p> + +<p>When Handel arrived then, at the end of 1710,<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> national art was dead. It +would be absurd to say, as some have often done, that he killed English +music. There was nothing left to kill. London had not a single composer. +On the other hand, she was rich in excellent players. Above all she +possessed one of the best troupes of Italian singers which could be +found in Europe. Having been presented to the Queen Anne, who loved +music, and played the clavier well, Handel was received with open arms +by the Director of the Opera, Aaron Hill. He was an extraordinary +person, who travelled in the East, wrote a history of the Ottoman +Empire, composed tragedies, translated Voltaire, founded the “Beech Oil +Company” for extracting the oil from the wood of the beech, mixing it +with chemicals and using it for the construction of ships. This +orchestral man composed during a meeting the plan of an opera, after +<i>Jerusalem Delivered</i>. It was <i>Rinaldo</i>, which was written, poem and +music, in fourteen days, and played for the first time on February 24, +1711, at the Haymarket.</p> + +<p>Its success was immense. It decided the victory of the Italian Opera in +London, and when the singer, Nicolini, who took the <i>rôle</i> of Renaud, +left England he carried the score to Naples, where he had it produced in +1718, with the aid of young Leonardo Leo. The <i>Rinaldo</i> marked a +turning-point in musical history. The Italian Opera, which had conquered +Europe, began to be conquered in its turn by foreign musicians, who had +been formed by it—the Italianised Germans. After Handel it was Hasse, +then Gluck, and finally Mozart; but Handel<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> is the first of the +conquerors.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> After <i>Rinaldo</i>, and until the time when Handel had +settled definitely in London, that is to say, between 1711 and the end +of 1716, was an indecisive period which oscillated between Germany and +England, and between religious music and the Opera.</p> + +<p>Handel, who bore the title of Kapellmeister of Hanover, returned to his +post in June, 1711.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> At Hanover he found the Bishop Steffani again, +and attempted to write in his style. In this imitation he composed some +twenty chamber duets, which did not come up to their model, and some +beautiful German songs on the poems by Brockes.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> Several of his best +instrumental pages, his first Oboe Concertos, his Sonatas for Flute and +Bass,<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> seem to date from this time. The cavaliers of the Court of +Hanover were ardent flautists, and the orchestra, under the direction of +Farinel, was excellent; especially had the oboes reached a high degree +of virtuosity, which has hardly been approached at the present day. On +the other hand, the Opera at Hanover was closed, and Handel could not +even give <i>Rinaldo</i>.</p> + +<p>He had a taste of the theatre, and did not like<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> abandoning his plan; so +he turned his eyes again towards London. Having tested the soil of +England, and judged it favourable, Handel decided to establish himself +there. He received regular news from England whilst in Hanover.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> +Since his departure no opera could hold its own except <i>Rinaldo</i>. The +English amateurs recalled him, and Handel, burning to depart, asked for +a new leave from the Court of Hanover. This was granted on the easiest +of terms: “on condition that he returned after a reasonable time.”<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p> + +<p>He returned to London towards the end of November, 1712, in time to +supervise the representation of a pastoral, <i>Il Pastor Fido</i>, a hasty +work, from which he abstracted the best airs later on.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> Twenty days +later he had finished writing <i>Teseo</i>, a tragic opera in five very short +acts,<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> full of haste and of genius, which was given in January, +1713.</p> + +<p>Handel endeavoured to settle himself firmly in England. He associated +himself with the loyalty and pride of the nation by writing for +political celebrations. The conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht, a +glorious day for England, approached. Handel prepared a <i>Te Deum</i>, which +was already<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> finished in January, 1713, but the laws of England forbade +a foreigner to be charged with composing music for official ceremonies. +Parliament alone could authorise the representation of this production. +Handel cleverly wrote the flattering Ode for the anniversary of the +birth of Queen Anne, <i>Birthday Ode of Queen Anne</i>. The Ode was performed +at St. James’s on February 6, 1713, and the Queen, enchanted with the +work, commanded Handel to write the <i>Te Deum</i> and the <i>Jubilate</i> for the +Peace of Utrecht, which was played on July 7, 1713, at a solemn service +at St. Paul’s, on which occasion the Members of Parliament attended. +These works, in which Handel was helped by the example of Purcell,<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> +were his first great efforts in the monumental style.</p> + +<p>Handel had succeeded in securing, despite precedent, the post of +Official Composer to the English Court. But he had not acted without +grave neglect of his duties towards other masters, the princes of +Hanover, in whose services he still was. The relationship was extremely +strained between the cousin by heritage and her poor parents at Hanover. +Queen Anne had taken a dislike to them, especially as she could not +endure the intelligent Duchess Sophia. She made up songs about her, and +dealt secretly with the Pretender Stuart, for whom she wished to secure +the Heritage. In remaining in her service then, Handel took sides +against his sovereign at Hanover. Certain historians have even breathed +the word “treason.” It is the<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> only fault which his biographer, +Chrysander, does not excuse, for it wounded his German patriotism. But +it is very necessary to say here that of German patriotism Handel had +hardly any. He had the mentality of the great German artists of his +time, for whom the country was art and religion; the State mattered +little to him.</p> + +<p>He lived then amongst the English patrons—for a year with a wealthy +music lover in Surrey—then in Piccadilly at Lord Burlington’s palace. +He remained there three years. Pope and Swift were familiars in the +house, which Gay had described. Handel performed there on the organ and +clavecin before the <i>élite</i> of London society by whom he was much +admired—with the exception of Pope, who did not like music. He composed +a little,<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> being satisfied to exist, as in his sojourn at Naples, +waiting without hurry to be saturated by the English atmosphere. Handel +was one of those who can write three operas in two months, and then do +nothing more for a year. It is the rule of the torrential river which +sometimes overflows, and then runs dry. He awaited the course of events. +The inheritors of Hanover seemed decidedly ousted. The Duchess Sophia +died on June 7, 1714, Chrysander says of grief (but it was certainly +also apoplexy)—convinced that the Stuart would attain the coveted +heritage. Less than ever did Handel breathe a word of returning to +Hanover, but chance<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> upset all his plans. Two months after the death of +the Duchess Sophia, Queen Anne died suddenly on August 1, 1714. The same +day, in the confusion into which events had thrown the Stuart party, +George of Hanover was proclaimed King by the secret council. On +September 20 he arrived in London. He was crowned at Westminster on +October 20, and Handel, very perturbed at the thought of his <i>Ode to +Queen Anne</i>, had the mortification of seeing that had he waited another +year his <i>Te Deum</i> would have served for the enthronement of the new +dynasty.</p> + +<p>To do him full justice, he did not seem much discomfited by this turn of +fortune’s wheel. He did not put himself about to ask for pardon. He set +to work instead and wrote <i>Amadigi</i>. It was the very best way for him to +plead his cause. George I of Hanover had many faults, but he had one +good quality. He loved music sincerely, and this passion was shared by +very many of the people more or less notable in his Court. Music had +always been for Germany the fountain where soiled hearts purified +themselves, the redemption from the petty basenesses of “the daily +round, the common task.” Whatever King George thought of Handel, he +could not punish him without punishing himself. After the success of his +charming <i>Amadigi</i>, played for the first time on May 25, 1715, he had +not the courage to harbour malice any longer against his musician. They +were reconciled.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> Handel resumed his post<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> of Kapellmeister at +Hanover by now acting as the music master to the little princesses, and +when the King went to Hanover in July, 1716, Handel travelled with him.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a name="BARGE" id="BARGE"></a> +<a href="images/ill_p68_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p68_sml.jpg" width="520" height="327" alt="GEORGE I., IN HIS ROYAL BARGE, LISTENING TO HANDEL’S +“WATER-MUSIC.” + +(From a Painting.)" title="GEORGE I., IN HIS ROYAL BARGE" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">GEORGE I., IN HIS ROYAL BARGE, LISTENING TO HANDEL’S +“WATER-MUSIC.”<br /> +(From a Painting.)</span> +</p> + +<p>It was not that he had much occupation at the Court. The King was too +engrossed in State business, and with hunting. He did not even find time +to be anxious about his old retainer, Leibnitz, who died at Hanover on +November 14, 1716, unnoticed at Court. Handel took advantage of this +leisure to renew his acquaintance with the German art.</p> + +<p>There was then in Germany a fashion for musical Passions. There was a +religious and theatrical tendency at that time. One cannot separate the +influence of Pietism and that of the Opera. Keiser, Telemann, Mattheson, +all wrote Passions, which caused a great stir<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> at Hamburg, on the +famous<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> text of the Senator Brockes. Following their example, perhaps in +order to measure himself with these men, who had all three been rivals +or friends,<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> Handel took the same text and wrote on it in 1716 his +<i>Passion after Brockes</i>. This powerful and disparate work, where bad +taste mingles with the sublime, where affectation and pomposity are +mingled with the most profound and serious art—a work which J. S. Bach +knew well, and very carefully remembered—was for Handel a decided +experience. He felt in writing it what a great gulf separated him from +the Pietist German art, and on his return to England<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> he composed +the <i>Psalms</i> and <i>Esther</i>.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a></p> + +<p>This was the principal epoch of his life. Between 1717 and 1720, whilst +he was in the service of the Duke of Chandos,<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> he made a careful +examination of his own personality, and created a new style in music, +and for the theatre.</p> + +<p>The Chandos Anthems or Psalms<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> stand, in relationship to Handel’s +oratorios, in the same position as his Italian cantatas stand to his +operas: they are splendid sketches of the more monumental works. In +these religious cantatas, written for the Duke’s chapel, Handel gives +the first place to the choruses: it is the exact words of the Bible +which they sing. Strong heroic words, freed from all the commentary and +sentimental effusions with which German Pietism had loaded them. There +is already in them the spirit and the style of <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, the +great monumental lines, the popular feeling.</p> + +<p>It was only a step from this to the colossal Biblical dramas. Handel +took the step with <i>Esther</i>, which in its first form was entitled <i>Haman +and Mordecai, a masque</i>.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a></p> + +<p>Quite possibly the work had its first presentation at the Duke of +Chandos’, but on August 29, 1720, it was presented on the stage. It was +in any case one of the greatest tragedies in the old style which had +been written since the Grecian period. It was as though the spirit of +Handel had been led insensibly towards the Hellenic ideal, for he +composed nearly at the same time his pastoral tragedy <i>Acis and +Galatea</i>, to which he also gave the name of masque,<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> and which did +not disengage itself from the complete idea of a free theatre. This +little masterpiece of poetry,<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> and of music, where the beautiful +Sicilian legend unfolds itself in pictures smiling and mournful, has a +classical perfection which Handel never surpassed.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p><i>Esther</i> and <i>Acis</i> bore witness to Handel’s desire to bring to the +surface of dramatic action all the powers of choral and symphonic music. +Even in these two works, which unquestionably opened up the way for his +future oratorios, it is not the oratorio which is his aim, but the +opera. Always attracted by the theatre, only a succession of disasters +of accumulating ruin thrust him away<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> later against his will. So it is +natural to find him at the same time when he was writing <i>Esther</i> and +<i>Acis</i>, also undertaking the musical direction of a theatre enterprise, +which led later on to one of the most important steps of his life, the +Academy of Italian Opera.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p> + +<p>Handel saw, it is said, in the year 1720 the end of his years of +apprenticeship; he certainly terminated (although he knew it not) his +years of tranquillity. Up to then he had led the life of numberless +other great musicians, who lived under the protection of princes, and +wrote for a select audience. He had only occasion to leave this path, +with his religious and national works, where he had voiced a people’s +feelings. After 1720, and indeed up to the time of his death, all the +rest of his art belonged to everybody. He put himself at the head of a +theatre, and opened a struggle with the public at large. He exerted +prodigious vitality, writing two or three operas every year, knocking +into shape an undisciplined troupe of <i>virtuosi</i> smothered with pride, +harassed with intrigues, hindered by bankruptcy,<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> using his genius for +twenty years in the paradoxical task of thrusting on London a shaky and +shallow Italian opera, which could not live under a sun and in a climate +unsuitable to it. At the end of this strife, enraged, conquered, but +invincible, sowing on his way all his masterpieces, he reached the +pinnacle of his art—those grand oratorios which rendered him immortal.</p> + +<p>After a voyage in Germany to Hanover, to Halle, to Düsseldorf, and to +Dresden, to recruit for his troupe of Italian singers,<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> Handel +inaugurated at the Haymarket Theatre the London Opera of April 27, 1720, +with his <i>Radamisto</i>, which was dedicated to the King.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> The rush of +the public was very great indeed, but it was due more to curiosity than +to the turn of the fashion. Soon the snobbishness of the amateurs could +no longer content itself with Italianized German as the representative +of Italian Opera, and finally Lord Burlington, Handel’s former patron, +went to Rome to induce the king of the Italian style, Giovanni +Bononcini, to come over.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p> + +<p>Bononcini came from Modena. He was about fifty years old,<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> son of an +artist of great merit,<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> Giovanni Bononcini, whose premature death cut +short a career rich with promise.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> Brought up with an almost +paternal affection by one of the first masters of that epoch, one of the +few who had preserved the cult and the science of the past, Giampaolo +Colonna, organist of St. Pietronio at Bologna, he had benefited early in +life by a high princely, even Imperial,<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> protection. More precocious +even than Handel, he published his first works at the age of thirteen, +was member of the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna at fourteen, and +master of the Chapel at fifteen. His first works were instrumental. This +was his speciality, having inherited his gift from his father.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> He +only reached the Opera after having tried all the other styles. It was +not with him a natural calling. He was a born<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> concert musician, and he +remained so even in the Opera. His tours in Germany and in Austria, +where he was created Imperial Composer in 1700, and gave his <i>Polifemo</i> +at Berlin in 1703,<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> fully established his renown in Europe. His +music spread in France after 1706 and excited there an almost incredible +infatuation.<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> When in Italy his reputation surpassed even that of +Scarlatti, who himself, according to Mr. Dent, came under his influence +to a small extent. He had a European vogue for about ten or fifteen +years. He was, so to speak, the reflection of the society of his time.</p> + +<p>What strikes one in his music, if we are to believe Lecerf de la +Viéville, is the boldness of his modulations, the abundance of his vocal +ornaments, the unruliness of his mind. His style seemed to the Lullyists +that of the affected and distorted order as opposed to the school of +common sense. Bononcini was a “verticalist” then, differing from the +“horizontalists” of the preceding epoch.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> He was essentially a +sensuous musician, and an anti-intellectualist. Right from the +beginning, as an instrumental composer he always remained indifferent to +his poems, to his subjects, and to everything which was outside of +music. In his music he set a pleasing sonority<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> above everything;<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> +and it was evidently on this account that his work required less effort +of the intelligence than was necessitated by the severe art of +Scarlatti, or the recitative and expressive art of Lully.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> In him +was inaugurated the reaction of fashionable good taste in the general +public against that of the savant.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> Contrast the grand airs <i>Da +Capo</i>, broadly developed in a more or less contrapuntal fashion, with +his tiny little airs, also <i>Da Capo</i>, but in miniature, easy to +understand, which touched the popular feeling for melody. He carefully +perfumed it and served it up for the taste of the elegant and +fashionable.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> This distinguished simplicity, this delicate +sensibility, rather feeble, always so correct in its audacities and +restrained in its pleasures, made Bononcini a drawing-room favourite, a +fashionable revolutionary. The more he<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> worked, the more his traits were +accentuated, and became permanent. As happens to all artists who enjoy +too much success, this reacted on his art, and imposed on him the +repetition of certain fixed patterns. The natural laziness of Bononcini +only exaggerated this tendency, so that from year to year this +affectedness appeared in his art, making it quite mechanical. His music, +often beautiful and gracious, always harmonious, never expressive, +unrolled itself as a succession of elegant and highly finished subjects, +all cut out as if with scissors on the same pattern, and indefinitely +repeated. At first in London one was only conscious of his charm. The +personality of the musician added to the attractions of his music. The +gentle Italian had polished manners, a quality at once lovable, and +penetrated by a bold courage. He was a <i>virtuoso</i> like Handel, but on an +instrument more distinguished than the clavier—on the violoncello; and +he was listened to with respect in the aristocratic <i>salons</i>. He was, so +to speak, the author <i>à la mode</i>; and his <i>Astarto</i>,<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> given at the +end of 1720, erased the impression made by Handel’s <i>Radamisto</i>.</p> + +<p>Handel had his work cut out. He was not suited to strive with Bononcini +on the ground of Italianism. However, he was up against the wall. The +English public, always keen on bear fights, cock fights, and <i>virtuoso</i> +contests, amused themselves by arranging<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> a joust between Bononcini and +Handel. They were to be tested by an opera written in combination. +Handel took up the glove—and was beaten. His <i>Muzio Scevola</i><a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> +(March, 1721) is very feeble, and the <i>Floridante</i> which followed +(December 9, 1721) is little better. The success of the Italian +increased his fame, and the pretty <i>Griselda</i> (February, 1722) +consummated Bononcini’s glory. He benefited by the strenuous opposition +of the English <i>littérateurs</i>, and the leading aristocrats, against the +Hanoverian Court and the German artists.</p> + +<p>Handel’s situation was much involved, but he took his revenge with the +melodious opera <i>Ottone</i> (January 12, 1723), which was the most popular +of all his operas. Victorious then,<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> he went straight ahead without +troubling himself about Bononcini, and he composed, one after another, +three masterpieces in which he inaugurated a new musical theatre, as +musically rich, and more dramatic than that of Rameau, some ten years +later: <i>Guilio Cesare</i> (February 20, 1724); <i>Tamerlano</i> (October<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> 21, +1724), and <i>Rodelinda</i> (February 13, 1725). The last of <i>Tamerlano</i> is a +magnificent example of the great music drama, an example nearly unique +before Gluck, in its poignancy and passion. Bononcini’s party was +definitely ruined,<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> but the greatest difficulties now began for +Handel. The London Opera was delivered over into the hands of <i>Castrati</i> +and <i>Prime Donne</i>, and the extravagances of their supporters. In 1726 +there arrived the most celebrated Italian singer of the time, the famous +Faustina.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> From this moment the London representations became mere +jousts of song between Faustina and Cuzzoni—jousts as strenuous as the +shouting of their various partisans. Handel wrote his <i>Alessandro</i> (May +5, 1721) for an artistic duel between the two stars of his troupe, who +acted as the two mistresses of <i>Alessandro</i>.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> In spite of all, his +dramatic genius won the day by several sublime scenes from <i>Almeto</i> +(January 31, 1727), the grandeur of which veritably seized hold of the +public. But the rivalry of the singers, far from being appeased, +redoubled in fury. Each party had its hired pamphleteers, who let loose +on the adversary the<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> most degrading libels. Cuzzoni and Faustina +reached such a state of rage that on June 6, 1727, during the play, they +fought and tore each other’s hair unmercifully, amidst the yells of the +audience, the Princess of Wales being present.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a></p> + +<p>After this everything went to the dogs. Handel tried hard to take the +reins, but, as his friend Arbuthnot said, “the devil was loose, and +could never be caged again.” The battle was lost, despite three new +works of Handel, where his genius again shone forth: <i>Riccardo I</i> +(November 11, 1727); <i>Siroe</i> (February 17, 1728); and <i>Tolomeo</i> (April +30, 1728). A little venture by John Gay and by Pepusch, <i>The Beggar’s +Opera</i> (A War Opera) finished the defeat of the London Academy of +Opera.<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> This excellent operetta, spoken in dialogue, with popular +songs interspersed, was at the same time a trenchant satire on Walpole, +and a spirited parody of the ridiculous sides of the opera.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> Its +immense success<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> took the character of a national manifestation. It was +a reaction of popular common sense against the pompous childishnesses of +the Italian Opera, and against the snobbishness which attempted to +impose it on other nations. We see in this the first blow struck at the +triumphant Italianism. Nationality awoke. In 1729 the <i>Passion according +to St. Matthew</i> was given. Some years later Handel’s earlier oratorios +were performed, and also the first operas of Rameau. In 1728 to 1729 +Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann entered the campaign against Italian Opera with +his famous pamphlets. After him, Mattheson re-entered the ring: <i>The +Goths and their Hippogriffs to be purified in the crater of Etna</i>. But +nowhere was this national reaction so widely spread as in England, where +it roused itself with such robust humour, as with Swift and with Pope, +those famous layers of ghosts<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> and dreams.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Handel felt this. After 1727 he sought steadily to establish himself on +the national English soil. He had become a naturalized Englishman on +February 13, 1726. He wrote for the Coronation of<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> the new King, George +II, his Coronation Anthems,<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> September 11, 1727.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> He returned to +his plans for the English oratorios.</p> + +<p>But he was not yet sufficiently sure of his ground, nor of the public +taste, to justify him in completely throwing over the Italian Opera, for +he realized more than before the resources of the people and what he +could do with them. Besides, the collapse of the London Academy of Opera +had not touched his personal prestige. He was regarded, not only in +England, but also in France, as the greatest man of the Lyric +Theatre.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> His London Italian operas became known all over Europe.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Flavius, Tamerlan, Othon, Renaud, César,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Admete, Siroé, Rodelinde, et Richard,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Éternels monumens dressés à sa mémoire,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Des operas Romains surpassèrent la gloire,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Venise lui peut-elle opposer un rival?</i><a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>One can well understand, then, that Handel was tempted by the desire of +taking on his own shoulders, without the control which hampered him, the +complete enterprise of the Italian Opera. At the end of the summer of +1728 he went to Italy in search of new<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> arms for the strife. In the +course of this tour, which lasted nearly a year,<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> he recruited his +singers, renewed his collection of <i>libretti</i> and Italian scores. Above +all, he refreshed his Italianism at the source of the new School of +Opera, founded by Leonardo Vinci,<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> which reacted against the concert +style in the theatre, and sought to give back to Opera a more dramatic +character, even at the risk of impoverishing the music.</p> + +<p>Without sacrificing the richness of his style, Handel did not neglect to +profit by these examples in his new operas: <i>Lotario</i> (December, 1729), +<i>Partenope</i> (February, 1730), <i>Poro</i> (February, 1731), <i>Ezio</i> (January, +1732), which are notable (particularly the last two) by the beauty of +the melodic writing, and the dramatic power of certain pages. The +masterpiece of this period is <i>Orlando</i> (January 27, 1733), of which the +richness and musical perfection are on a level with the insight into the +characters, and the spirited and passionate life of the piece. If the +<i>Tamerlano</i> of 1724 awakens ideas of Gluck’s tragedies, it is the +beautiful operas of Mozart which come to mind in <i>Orlando</i>.<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a></p> + +<p>In continuation of the strife for the Italian Opera, Handel profited by +the unexpected success with which the English people had met the +reproduction of his <i>Acis and Galatea</i> and his <i>Esther</i>,<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> written to +English words, and he attempted again, in a more conscientious fashion +than ten years before at Chandos’, to found a form of musical theatre, +freer and richer, where the lyricism of the choruses had free play. For +the reproduction of <i>Esther</i> in 1732 he introduced into the work of 1720 +the most beautiful choruses from the Coronation Anthems. In the +following year he wrote <i>Deborah</i> (March 17, 1733), and <i>Athaliah</i> (July +10, 1733), where the chorus took first place. These grand Biblical +dramas would have been able to have awakened in the English nation an +enthusiastic response, were it not that this attempt was damaged by a +violent quarrel inspired by personal reasons, where art counted for +nothing. A dead set was made against <i>Deborah</i>,<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> and though +<i>Athaliah</i> succeeded at Oxford,<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> Handel did not present it in London +until two years later.</p> + +<p>Once again Handel returned to Italian Opera. The public hatred pursued +him here also. The royal family of Hanover was detested. It added to its +own discredit by the scandalous disputes which took place between the +King and his son. The Prince of Wales, in a spirit of petty spite +against his father, who showed his affection for Handel, amused himself +by attempting to ruin the composer. Encouraged by the opposition, and +enchanted by the idea of making sport against the King, he founded a +rival opera house, and as he could no longer set Bononcini up against +Handel, as the former had been discredited by a case of flagrant +plagiarism, which had an European circulation,<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> he<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> approached +Porpora, with a view to directing his theatre. “Then,” says Lord Hervey, +“the struggle became as serious as that of the Greens against the Blues +at Constantinople under Justinian. An anti-Handelian was regarded as an +anti-Royalist, and in Parliament, to vote against the Court was hardly +more dangerous than to speak against Handel.” On the other hand, the +immense unpopularity of the King redounded on Handel, and the +aristocracy combined to secure his downfall.</p> + +<p>He accepted the challenge, and after a third tour in Italy during the +summer of 1733, again to recruit more singers, he bravely took up the +fight with Porpora, to whom was added Hasse in 1734. They were the +greatest rivals against which he had yet measured himself. But Hasse and +Porpora had strong dramatic feeling, and especially were they the most +perfect masters of the beautiful art of Italian melody and singing.<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> +Nicolo Porpora, who came from Naples, was forty-seven years old. He had +a cold but vigorous spirit, intelligent and possessing more than anyone +else, except Hasse, all the resources of the Italian singing. His style +was very beautiful, and it was not less broad than that of Handel. No +other Italian musician of his time had such ample breadth of +phrasing.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> His writings seem of a later age than Handel’s, and +approximate<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> to the time of Gluck and Mozart. Whilst Handel, despite his +marvellous feeling for plastic beauty, often treated the voices as an +instrument, and in his development the beautiful Italian lines +occasionally became weighed down by German complexity, Porpora’s music +always kept within the bounds of classic purity, though the form was a +little uninteresting in design. History has never done him sufficient +justice.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> He was quite worthy of measuring himself against Handel, +and the comparison between Handel’s <i>Arianna</i> and that of Porpora, +played at an interval of a few weeks,<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> did not prove to the +advantage of the former. Handel’s music is elegant, but one does not +find the breadth of certain airs in Porpora’s <i>Arianna à Naxos</i>. The +form of these airs is perhaps of too classic a correctness, but the +right Grecian breezes blow across his Roman temples.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> He has been +claimed as an Italian disciple of Gluck—a curious criticism which is +bestowed occasionally on precursors. It was so with Jacopo della +Quercia, who inspired Michael Angelo, and to whom the latter seems to +owe something.</p> + +<p>Hasse was even superior to Porpora in the charm of his melody, which +Mozart alone has equalled, and in his symphonic gifts, which showed +themselves in his rich instrumental accompaniments no less<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> melodious +than his songs.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> Handel was not slow to discover the folly of +striving with Hasse on Italian ground. His superiority was with the +choruses; he sought to introduce them into the Opera after the French +model. The situation was even less promising for him on the departure of +his best protectrix, the Princess Anne, sister of the Prince of +Wales.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> After having compromised Handel by the strong feeling which +she had shown in defending him, she left him to the tender cares of the +enemies which she had made for him. She left England in April, 1734, to +join her husband the Prince of Orange<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> in Holland.</p> + +<p>Handel came to be abandoned by his old friends. His associate, +Heidegger, the proprietor of the Haymarket Theatre, took the hall for a +rival opera,<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> and Handel, driven from the house in which he had worked +for fourteen years, had to emigrate with his troupe to John Rich’s place +at Covent Garden<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a>—a sort of music-hall where Opera took its turn +with all kinds of other spectacles: ballets, pantomimes, and +harlequinades. In Rich’s troupe some French dancers were to be found, +amongst whom was “<i>la Salle</i>,”<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> who was shortly to arouse great +enthusiasm amongst the English public with two tragic dances: +<i>Pygmalion</i> and <i>Bacchus and Ariadne</i>.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> Handel, who had known the +French art<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> for a long time, saw how far he could draw on these new +resources, and he opened the season of 1734 at Covent Garden with a +first attempt in the field of the French ballet opera: <i>Terpsichore</i> +(November 9, 1734), in which “<i>la Salle</i>” took the principal <i>rôle</i>. A +month later a <i>Pasticcio</i> followed, <i>Orestes</i>, where Handel gave a +similar important part to “<i>la Salle</i>,” and to her expressive dances. +Finally, he intermingled the dance and the choruses closely with the +dramatic action in two masterpieces of poetry and beautiful<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> musical +construction—<i>Ariodante</i> (January 8, 1735), and especially <i>Alcina</i> +(April 16, 1735).</p> + +<p>Bad luck still pursued him. Some gross national manifestations compelled +“<i>la Salle</i>” and her French dancers to leave London.<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> Handel gave up +the ballet opera. To leave at this moment, if he was to continue the +struggle with the theatre, went badly against the grain, and was +tantamount to declaring himself vanquished. At the opening of his +theatrical enterprise he had saved, so it is said, £10,000. All this was +absorbed, and already he was £10,000 more to the bad. His friends did +not understand his obstinacy, which seemed about to involve him in +complete ruin. “But,” says Hawkins, “he was a man of intrepid spirit, +and in no ways a slave to mere interest. He raised himself again for the +battle rather than bow down to those whom he regarded as infinitely +beneath him.” If he could no longer be conqueror, still less would he +hand the reins to his adversaries. He overcame them—but a little more +would have vanquished himself in the same stroke.</p> + +<p>He persisted then in writing his operas,<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> of which the series spread +out until 1741, marking work after work with a growing tendency towards +the <i>opéra-comique</i> and the style of romances<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> so dear to the<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> +people at the second half of the eighteenth century. But since 1735 he +felt more than ever that the true musical drama for him was the +oratorio. He returned victoriously with <i>Alexander’s Feast</i>, which was +composed on the <i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i>, by Dryden,<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> and given for the +first time on February 19, 1736, at the Covent Garden Theatre.</p> + +<p>Who would have believed that this work, robust and sane throughout, was +written in twenty days, that it was performed in the midst of his +business worries, within an ace of ruin, and when he was threatened with +that grave malady which was to throw the mind of Handel for evermore +into gloom?</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>For several years trouble pursued him. Work and excessive worry had +undermined an iron constitution. He tried the baths at Tunbridge Wells +during the summer of 1735, and probably also in 1736, but with no +success. He could not sleep. His theatre was always on his mind. He made +superhuman efforts to keep it going. From January, 1736, to April, 1737, +he directed two seasons of Opera, two seasons of oratorio, and<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> composed +a song, an oratorio, a Psalm, and four operas.<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> On April 12, or 13, +1737, the machine broke down. He was smitten with paralysis, his right +side was attacked, his hand refused all service, and even his mind was +affected. In his absence his theatre closed its doors, bankrupt.<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> +During the whole of the summer Handel remained in a pitiful state of +depression. He refused to care for anything; all hope was lost. Finally, +his friends succeeded in inducing him, towards the end of August, to try +the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle. The cure had a miraculous effect. In a few +days he was restored. In October he returned to London, and immediately +the refreshed giant resumed the struggle, writing in three months two +operas, and the magnificent <i>Funeral Anthem</i> on the death of the +Queen.<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a></p> + +<p>Sad days were in store, however. His creditors seized him, and he was +threatened with imprisonment. Happily a sympathetic movement was +inaugurated in favour of the artist so harassed by his kind. A benefit +concert, to which his pride reluctantly submitted,<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> at the end of +March, 1738,<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> had an unexpected success. It freed him from the most +pressing of his debts. In the following month a token of public +admiration was given him. His statue was erected in the Vauxhall +Gardens.<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> In the springtime of 1738 he began to feel, with returning +strength, confidence in the future. The horizon cleared. He was +encouraged by such faithful sympathy. He returned to life, and made his +presence felt again.</p> + +<p>On July 23 he commenced <i>Saul</i>; on August 8 he had written two acts of +it; by September 27 the work was finished. On October 7 he began <i>Israel +in Egypt</i>; by October 28 the work was achieved. Still pushing +strenuously forward, on October 4 he launched the first volume of his +organ concertos with the publisher Walsh, and on the 7th he took to him +his <i>Seven Trios or Sonatas in two parts, with bass</i>, Opus 5. For those +who know these joyful works, which dominate like two Colossi the two +oratorios of victory, this superhuman effort had the effect of a force +of Nature, like a field which breaks into flower in a single night of +springtime.</p> + +<p><i>Saul</i> is a great epic drama, flowing and powerful, where the humorous +and the tragic intermingle. <i>Israel</i> is one immense chorale, the most +gigantic effort which has ever been made in oratorio, not<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> only with a +single but with combined choirs.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> The audacious originality of the +conception and its austere grandeur almost stunned the public of his +day. The living Handel breathes throughout the work.</p> + +<p>The hopes which Handel had founded on England caused him fresh +uneasiness. Times were hard. Since the winter of 1739, theatrical +performances, and even concerts, were suspended for several months on +account of the war, and the extreme cold. Handel, to keep himself warm, +wrote in eight days the little <i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i> (November 29, 1739); +in sixteen days <i>L’Allegro</i>, <i>Il Penseroso</i>, <i>ed Il Moderato</i> of Milton +(January-February, 1740); in a month the <i>Concerti Grossi</i>, Opus 6.<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> +But the success of these charming works, graven out with loving care, +into which Handel had perhaps put more than into any other his own +personal feelings, his poetic and humorous reproductions of nature,<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> +was hardly sufficient yet to establish his affairs, at one time so +embarrassed. Once more, as in the time of <i>Deborah</i> and <i>Arianna</i>, he +was attacked by a coalition of<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> fashionable people. One does not know +how Handel had wounded them,<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> but they were resolved on his +downfall. They avoided his concerts. They even paid men to pull down his +placards in the streets. Handel, tired and disheartened, suddenly threw +up the combat.<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> He decided to leave England, where he had lived for +nearly thirty years, and where he had increased his fame so much. He +announced his last concert for April 8, 1741.<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>It is a remarkable thing that often in the lives of the great men, just +at the moment when all seems lost, or things are at their lowest ebb, +they are nearest to the fulfilment of their destiny. Handel appeared +vanquished. Just at that very hour he wrote a work which was destined to +establish permanently his immortality.<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a></p> + +<p>He left London.<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland invited him to +Dublin to direct some concerts. Thus it was, so he said, “in order to +offer this generous and polished nation something new” that he composed +<i>The Messiah</i> on a poem by his friend Jennens.<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> They had already +given many of his religious works in Dublin for charitable +concerts.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> Handel was received enthusiastically. The letter which he +wrote on December 29 to Jennens bubbles over with joy. The time which he +passed in Dublin was, together with his early years in Italy, the +happiest in his life. From December 23, 1741, to April 7, 1742, he gave +two series of six concerts, and always with the same success. Finally, +on April 12, the first hearing of <i>The Messiah</i> took place in Dublin. +The proceeds of the concert were devoted to charitable objects, and the +success was very considerable.<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a></p> + +<p>Eight days after having finished The <i>Messiah</i> (that is to say, before +he had yet arrived in Ireland) Handel had commenced <i>Samson</i>, which was +finished in five weeks, from the end of September to the end of October, +1741. However, he did not give it in Dublin. Doubtless he could not find +the interpreters which he desired for this colossal drama, rich in +choral scenes and in difficult <i>rôles</i>.<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> Perhaps also he reserved +the work for the following season in Dublin, when he hoped to return, +but the expected invitation which he awaited in London did not come, and +it was in London that <i>Samson</i> reached its first hearing on February 18, +1743.</p> + +<p>To this heroic oratorio, based on the sublime <i>Samson Agonistes</i> of +Milton,<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> succeeded a light opera, which bore, nevertheless, the name +of oratorio, the libretto of which was based on a poem by Congreve: +<i>Semele</i> (June 3 to July 4, 1743). It afforded a relief for him between +these two Herculean works. In the same month in which he finished +<i>Semele</i>, Handel wrote his monumental<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> <i>Dettingen Te Deum</i>, to celebrate +the victory of the Duke of Cumberland over the French.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> <i>Joseph</i>, +written in August and September of the same year, on a very touching +poem by James Miller, reveals a sweet yet melancholy fancy, a little +insipid, on which, however, the strong portrait of Simeon projects +itself forcibly.</p> + +<p>1744 was one of Handel’s most glorious years from the creative point of +view, but one of the most miserable in outward success. He wrote nearly +simultaneously his two most tragic oratorios, the great Shakespearian +drama of <i>Belshazzar</i> (July-October, 1744), the rich poem of which was +furnished for him by his friend Jennens;<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> and the sublime tragedy of +the ancient <i>Hercules</i>, a musical drama,<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> which marks the +culmination of the Handelian musical drama, and indeed one might say of +the whole musical theatre before Gluck.</p> + +<p>Never was the hostility of the English public more roused against him. +The same hateful cabal which had already thrice threatened to bring +about<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> his downfall again rose against him. They invited the fashionable +world in London to their <i>fêtes</i>, specially organised on the days when +the performances of his oratorios were to have taken place, with the +object of robbing him of his audience. Bolingbroke and Smollett both +speak of the plots of certain ladies to ruin Handel. Horace Walpole says +that it was the fashion to go to the Italian Opera when Handel directed +his oratorio concerts. Handel, whose force of energy and genius had +weakened since his first failure of 1735, was involved afresh in +bankruptcy at the beginning of 1745. His griefs and troubles, and the +prodigious expenditure of force which he made, seemed again on the point +of turning his brain. He fell into extreme bodily prostration and +lowness of spirit, similar to that of 1737, and this lasted for the +space of eight months, from March to October, 1745.<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> By a miracle he +was able to rise out of this abyss, and by unforeseen events, where +music was his only aid, he became more popular than he ever was before.</p> + +<p>The Pretender, Charles Edward, landed in Scotland; the country rose up. +An army of Highlanders marched on London. The city was in consternation. +A great national movement arose in England, Handel associated himself +with it. On November 14, 1745, he brought to light at Drury Lane his +<i>Song made for the Gentlemen Volunteers<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> of the City of London</i>,<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> +and he wrote two oratorios, which were, so to speak, immense national +hymns: the <i>Occasional Oratorio</i>,<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> where Handel called the English +to rise up against invasion, and <i>Judas Maccabæus</i><a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> (July 9 to +August 11, 1746), the Hymn of Victory, written after the rout of the +rebels at Culloden Moor, and for the <i>fête</i> on the return of the +conqueror, the ferocious Duke of Cumberland, to whom the poem was +dedicated.</p> + +<p>These two patriotic oratorios, where Handel’s heart beat with that of +England, and of which the second, <i>Judas Maccabæus</i>, has retained even +to our own day its great popularity, thanks to its broad style and the +spirit which animates it,<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> brought<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> more fortune to Handel than all +the rest of his works together. After thirty-five years of continuous +struggle, plot and counterplot, he had at last obtained a decisive +victory. He became by the force of events <i>the national musician of +England</i>.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Freed from material cares, which had embittered his life,<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> Handel +took up the work of his composition again, with more tranquillity, and +in the following years came many of his happiest works. <i>Alexander +Balus</i> (June 1 to July 4, 1747)<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> is, like <i>Semele</i>, a concert opera, +well developed; the orchestration being exceptionally rich and subtle. +<i>Joshua</i> (July 30 to August 18, 1747)<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> is a somewhat pale <i>replica</i> +of <i>Judas Maccabæus</i>. A gentle love idyll blossoms amidst the pompous +choruses. <i>Solomon</i> (June, 1748)<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> is a musical festival, radiating +poetry and gladness. <i>Susanna</i> (July 11, 1724, to August,<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> 1748), grave +and gay by turns, realistic yet lyric, is a hybrid kind of work, but +very original.</p> + +<p>Finally, in the spring of 1749, which marks, so it seems, the end of +Handel’s good fortune, he wrote his brilliant Firework Music—a model +for popular open-air <i>fêtes</i>—produced on April 27, 1749, by a monster +orchestra of trumpets, horns, oboes, and bassoons, without stringed +instruments, on the occasion of the Firework display given in Green Park +to celebrate the Peace of Aix la Chapelle.<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a></p> + +<p>More solemn works followed these gay pieces. At this moment of his life +the spirit of melancholy raised its grey head before the robust old man, +who seemed to be obsessed by the presentiment of some coming ill +fortune.</p> + +<p>On May 27, 1749, he conducted at the Foundling Hospital<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> for the +benefit of waifs and strays, his beautiful <i>Anthem for the Foundling +Hospital</i>,<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> which was inspired by his great pity for these little<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> +unfortunates. From June 28 to July 31 he wrote a pure masterpiece, +<i>Theodora</i>, his most intimate musical tragedy, his only Christian +tragedy besides <i>The Messiah</i><a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a>. From the end of that same year dates +also his music for a scene from Tobias Smollett’s Alceste, which was +never played, and from which Handel took the essential parts for his +<i>Choice of Hercules</i>.<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> A little time after he made his last voyage +to Halle. He arrived on German soil at the moment when Bach died, July +28, 1750. Indeed he nearly ended his life there himself in the same week +by a carriage accident.<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a></p> + +<p>He recovered quickly, and on January 21, 1751, when he commenced the +score of <i>Jephtha</i>, he appeared to be in robust health, despite his +sixty-six years. He wrote the first act at a stretch in thirteen days. +In eleven days more he had arrived at the last scene but one of Act II. +Here he had to break off. Already in the preceding pages he only +progressed with difficulty; his writing, so clear and firm at the +commencement, became sticky, confused, and trembling.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> He had +started on the final chorus of Act II: “How dark, O Lord, are Thy Ways.” +Hardly had he written the opening <i>Largo</i> than he had to stop working. +He wrote:<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a></p> + +<p>“<i>I reached here on Wednesday, February 13, had to discontinue on +account of the sight of my left eye.</i>”<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a></p> + +<p class="nind">The work was broken off for ten days. On February 23 (which was his +birthday) he wrote in:</p> + +<p>“<i>Feel a little better. Resumed work</i>”;</p> + +<p class="nind">and he wrote the music to those foreboding words:</p> + +<p>“<i>Grief follows joy as night the day.</i>”</p> + +<p>He took hardly five days to finish this chorus, which is really sublime. +He stopped then for four months.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> On June 18 he resumed the third +act. He was again interrupted in the middle.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> The last four airs and +the final chorus took more time than a whole oratorio usually occupied. +He did not finish it until August 30, 1751. His sight was then gone.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>After that, all was ended. Handel’s eyes were closed for ever.<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> The +sun was blotted out, “<i>Total eclipse</i>....” The world was effaced.</p> + +<p>He had never suffered so much as in the first year of his illness, when +he was not yet completely blind. In 1752 he was unable to play the organ +at the productions of his oratorios, and the public, moved by sympathy, +saw him tremble and blanch in<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> listening to the admirable complaint of +his blind Samson. But in 1753, when the evil was incurable, Handel +regained his self-possession. He played the organ again at the twelve +performances of oratorios which he gave each year in Lent, and he kept +up this custom until his death.</p> + +<p>But with his vanished sight he had lost the best source of his +inspiration. This man, who was neither an intellectual nor a mystic, one +who loved above all things light and nature, beautiful pictures, and the +spectacular view of things, who lived more through his eyes than most of +the German musicians, was engulfed in deepest night. From 1752 to 1759 +he was overtaken by the semi-consciousness which precedes death. He only +wrote in 1758 a duet and chorus for <i>Judas Maccabæus</i>, “Zion now her +head shall raise,” and reviving in that the happy times of other days he +took up a work of his youth, the <i>Trionfo del Tempo</i>,<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> which he now +gave in a new version in March, 1757: <i>The Triumph of Time and +Truth</i>.<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a name="MONUMENT" id="MONUMENT"></a> +<a href="images/ill_p106_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p106_sml.jpg" width="334" height="513" alt="HANDEL’S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. + +(In the “Poets’ Corner.”)" title="HANDEL’S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">HANDEL’S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.<br /> +(In the “Poets’ Corner.”)</span> +</p> + +<p>On April 6, 1759, he again took the organ at a production of <i>The +Messiah</i>. His powers failed him in the middle of a movement. He soon +recovered himself and improvised (it is said) with his habitual +grandeur. Returned home he took to bed. On April 11 he added a last +codicil to his will,<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> bequeathing<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> munificently £1000 sterling to +the Society for the Maintenance of Poor Musicians, and expressing, with +tranquillity, his desire of being buried in Westminster Abbey. He said: +“I want to die on Good Friday in the hope of rejoining the good God, my +sweet Lord and Saviour, on the day of his Resurrection.” His wish was +accomplished. On Holy Saturday, April 14, at eight in the morning, the +sweet singer of <i>The Messiah</i> slept with his Lord.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>His glory spread after his death. On April 20 he was interred in +Westminster Abbey, as he had requested.<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> The annual performances of +his oratorios continued in Lent under the direction of his friend, +Christopher Smith. Popular performances of them were soon given. The +great festival of his Commemoration celebrated at Westminster Abbey and +in the Pantheon, from May 26 to June 5, 1784, for the centenary of his +birth,<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> was observed all over Europe. New festivals took place in +London in 1785, 1786, 1787, 1790, and 1791. On<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> the last occasion more +than a thousand executants<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> took part. Haydn was present, and he +said, through his tears, “He is master of us all.”</p> + +<p>The English performances attracted the attention of Germany. Two years +after the Commemoration, Johann Adam Hiller produced <i>The Messiah</i> in +the Cathedral Church at Berlin, then at Leipzig, and then at Breslau. +Three years later, in 1789, Mozart made his arrangements of <i>The +Messiah</i>, of <i>Acis and Galatea</i>, of the <i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i>, and of +<i>Alexander’s Feast</i>.<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> The first complete edition of Handel was +commenced in 1786. A strong feeling of emulation made itself felt in +Germany to imitate the English festivals, and to restore choral singing, +and to found the <i>Singakademien</i> for the preservation of the national +glories.<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> The rendering of Handel’s oratorios inspired Haydn to +write <i>The Creation</i>. Beethoven at the end of his life said of Handel: +“See there is the truth.”<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> Poets also vied equally<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> in rendering him +homage. Goethe admired him, and Herder devoted a chapter to him in his +<i>Adrastea</i> of 1802. The wars of Independence gave an access of favour to +the oratorio of freedom, to <i>Judas Maccabæus</i>.</p> + +<p>With romanticism the feeling for the genius of Handel was lost. Berlioz, +who, if he had but known him truly, and had found a model for that grand +popular style which he sought, never understood him. Of all other +musicians, those who approached to the spirit of Handel nearest were +Schumann and Liszt,<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> but they were exceptional in the lucidity of +their perception, and their generous sympathies. It might be said that +Handel’s art, distorted by the editions and false renderings—quite as +much those in Germany as the ridiculously colossal representations in +England—would have been completely lost except for the foundation in +1856 of the Handel Society, which devoted itself to the object of +publishing an exact and complete edition of the<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> works of the master. +Gervinus was the promoter and Friedrich Chrysander alone accomplished +the task. It did not aim at being a critical edition of his works. His +ardent apostle sought simply to revive them in their pristine +force.<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> He was seconded by the choral societies of north Germany, +particularly by the Berlin <i>Singakademien</i>, which from 1830 to 1860 +never ceased to perform all the oratorios of Handel. On the contrary, +Austria remained a long way behind. In 1873, Brahms conducted the first +production of <i>Saul</i> in Vienna, but the veritable awakening of Handel’s +art in Germany only dates back about half a score years. One recognized +his grandeur, and did not doubt that he had lived. It was chiefly (so it +seems) at the first Handel Festival of Mayence in 1895, where <i>Hercules +and Deborah</i> were given, that his astounding dramatic genius was first +truly felt there.</p> + +<p>To us in France we still await the full revelation of the living scenes +of this great and luminous tragic art, so akin to the aims of Ancient +Greece.<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="HIS_TECHNIQUE_AND_WORKS" id="HIS_TECHNIQUE_AND_WORKS"></a>HIS TECHNIQUE AND WORKS</h2> + +<p>N<small>O</small> great musician is more impossible to include in the limits of one +definition, or even of several, than Handel. It is a fact that he +reached the complete mastery of his style very early (much earlier than +J. S. Bach), although it was never really fixed, and he never devoted +himself to any one form of art. It is even difficult to see a conscious +and a logical evolution in him. His genius is not of the kind which +follows a single path, and forges right ahead until it reaches its +object. For his aim is none other than to do well whatever he undertook. +All ways are good to him—from his early steps at the crossing of the +ways, he dominated the country, and shed his light on all sides, without +laying siege to any particular part. He is not one of those who impose +on life and art a voluntary idealism, either violent or patient; nor is +he one of those who inscribe in the book of life the formula of their +campaign. He is of the kind who drink in the life universal, +assimilating it to themselves. His artistic will is mainly objective. +His genius adapts itself to a thousand images of passing events, to the +nation, to the times in which he lived, even to the fashions of his day. +It accommodates itself to the various influences, ignoring all +obstacles. It weighs other styles and other thoughts, but such is<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> the +power of assimilation and the prevailing equilibrium of his nature that +he never feels submerged and overweighted by the mass of these strange +elements. Everything is duly absorbed, controlled, and classified. This +immense soul is like the sea itself, into which all the rivers of the +world pour themselves without troubling its serenity.</p> + +<p>The German geniuses have often had this power of absorbing thoughts and +strange forms,<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> but it is excessively rare to find amongst them the +grand objectivism, and this superior impersonality, which is, so to +speak, the hall-mark of Handel. Their sentimental lyricism is better +fitted to sing songs, to voice the thoughts of the universe in song, +than to paint the universe in living forms and vital rhythms. Handel is +very different, and approaches much more nearly than any other in +Germany the genius of the South, the Homeric genius of which Goethe +received the sudden revelation on his arrival at Naples.<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> This +capacious mind looks out on the whole universe, and on the way the +universe depicts itself, as a picture is reflected in calm and clear +water. He owes much of this objectivism to Italy, where he spent many +years, and the fascination of which never effaced itself from his mind, +and he owes even more to that, sturdy England, which guards its emotions +with so tight a rein, and which eschews those sentimental and +effervescing effusions,<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> so often displayed in the pious German art; but +that he had all the germs of his art in himself, is already shown in his +early works at Hamburg.</p> + +<p>From his infancy at Halle, Zachau had trained him not in one style, but +in all the styles of the different nations, leading him to understand +not only the spirit of each great composer, but to assimilate the styles +by writing in various manners. This education, essentially cosmopolitan, +was completed by his three tours in Italy, and his sojourn of half a +century in England. Above all he never ceased to follow up the lessons +learnt at Halle, always appropriating to himself the best from all +artists and their works. If he was never in France (it is not absolutely +proved), he knew her nevertheless. He was anxious to master their +language and musical style. We have proofs of that in his +manuscripts,<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> and in the accusations made against him by certain +French critics.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> Wherever he passed, he gathered some musical +souvenir, buying and collecting foreign works, copying them, or rather +(for he had not the careful patience of J. S. Bach, who scrupulously +wrote out in his own hand the entire scores of the French organists and +the Italian violinists) copying down in hasty and often inexact +expressions any idea which struck him in the course of his reading. This +vast collection of European thoughts, which only remains in remnants at +the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, was the<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> reservoir, so to speak, +from which his creative genius continually fed itself. Profoundly German +in race and character, he had become a world citizen, like his +compatriot Leibnitz, whom he had known at Hanover, a European with a +tendency for the Latin culture. The great Germans at the end of that +century, Goethe and Herder, were never more free, or more universal, +than this great Saxon in music, saturated as he was with all the +artistic thoughts of the West.</p> + +<p>He drew not only from the sources of learned and refined music—the +music of musicians; but also drank deeply from the founts of popular +music—that of the most simple and rustic folk.<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> He loved the +latter. One finds noted down in his manuscripts the street cries of +London, and he once told a friend that he received many inspirations for +his best airs from them.<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> Certain of his oratorios, like <i>L’Allegro +ed Il Penseroso</i>, are threaded with remembrances of his walks in the +English country, and who can ignore the <i>Pifferari</i> (Italian peasant’s +pipe) in <i>The<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> Messiah</i>, the Flemish carillon in <i>Saul</i>, the joyous +popular Italian songs in <i>Hercules</i>, and in <i>Alexander Balus</i>? Handel +was not an artist lost in introspection. He watched all around him, he +listened, and observed. Sight was for him a source of inspiration, +hardly of less importance than hearing. I do not know any great German +musician who has been as much a visual as Handel. Like Hasse and +Corelli, he had a veritable passion for beautiful pictures. He hardly +ever went out without going to a theatre or to a picture sale. He was a +connoisseur, and he made a collection, in which some Rembrandts<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> +were found after his death. It has been remarked that his blindness +(which should have rendered his hearing still more sensitive, his +creative powers translating everything into sonorous dreams) soon +paralysed his hearing when its principal source of renewal was +withdrawn.</p> + +<p>Thus, saturated in all the European music of his time, impregnated with +the music of musicians, and the still richer music which flows in all +Nature herself, which is specially diffused in the vibrations of light +and shade, that song of the rivers, of the forest, of the birds, in +which all his works abound, and which have inspired some of his most +picturesque pages with a semi-romantic colour,<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> he wrote as one +speaks, he composed as one breathes. He<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> never sketched out on paper in +order to prepare his definite work. He wrote straight off as he +improvised, and in truth he seems to have been the greatest improviser +that ever was. Whether extemporising on the organ at the midday services +in St. Paul’s Cathedral, or playing the <i>capriccios</i> during the +<i>entr’actes</i> of his oratorios at Covent Garden—or improvising on the +clavier in the orchestra at the opera, at Hamburg or in London, or “when +he accompanied the singers in a most marvellous fashion, adapting +himself to their temperament and virtuosity, without having any written +notes,” he astounded the connoisseurs of his time; and Mattheson, who +may hardly be suspected of any indulgence towards him, proclaimed that +he had no equal in this. One can truly say that “he improvised every +minute of his life.” He wrote his music with such an impetuosity of +feeling, and such a wealth of ideas, that his hand was constantly +lagging behind his thoughts, and in order to keep pace with them at all +he had to note them down in an abbreviated manner.<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> But (and<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> this +seems contradictory) he had at the same time an exquisite sense of form. +No German surpassed him in the art of writing beautiful, melodic lines. +Mozart and Hasse alone were his equals in this. It was to this love of +perfection that we attribute that habit which, despite his fertility of +invention, causes him to use time after time, the same phrases (those +most important, and dearest to him) each time introducing an +imperceptible change, a light stroke of the pencil, which renders them +more perfect. The examination of these kinds of musical <i>eaux-fortes</i> in +their successive states is very instructive for the musician who is +interested in plastic beauty.<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> It shows also how certain melodies, +once written down, continued to slumber in Handel’s mind for many years, +until they had penetrated his subconscious nature, were applied at +first, by following the chances of his inspiration, to a certain +situation, which suited them moderately well. They are, so to speak, in +search of a body where they can reincarnate themselves, seeking the true +situation, the real sentiment of which they are but the latent +expression; and once having found it, they expand themselves with +ease.<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a></p> + +<p>Handel worked no less with the music of other composers than with his +own. If one had the time to<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> study here what superficial readers have +called his plagiarisms, particularly taking, for example, <i>Israel in +Egypt</i>, where the most barefaced of these cases occur, one would see +with what genius and insight Handel has evoked from the very depths of +these musical phrases, their secret soul, of which the first creators +had not even a presentiment. It needed his eye, or his ear, to discover +in the serenade of Stradella its Biblical cataclysms. Each read and +heard a work of art as it is, and yet not as it is; and one may conclude +that it is not always the creator himself who has the most fertile idea +of it. The example of Handel well proves this. Not only did he create +music, but very often he created that of others for them. Stradella and +Erba were only for him (however humiliating the comparison) the flames +of fire, and the cracks in the wall, through which Leonardo saw the +living figures. Handel heard great storms passing through the gentle +quivering of Stradella’s guitar.<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a></p> + +<p>This evocatory character of Handel’s genius should never be forgotten. +He who is satisfied with listening to this music without <i>seeing</i> what +it expresses—who judges this art as a purely formal art, who does not +feel his expressive and suggestive power, occasionally so far as +hallucination, will never understand it. It is a music which paints<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> +emotions, souls, and situations, to see the epochs and the places, which +are the framework of the emotions, and which tint them with their own +peculiar moral tone. In a word, his is an art essentially picturesque +and dramatic. It is scarcely twenty to thirty years since the key to it +was found in Germany, thanks to the Handel Musical Festivals. As Heuss +says, concerning a recent performance at Leipzig, “For a proper +comprehension no master more than Handel has greater need of being +performed, and <i>well</i> performed. One can study J. S. Bach at home, and +enjoy it even more than at a good concert, but he who has never heard +Handel well performed can with difficulty imagine what he really is, for +really good performances of Handel are excessively rare.” The intimate +sense of his works was falsified in the century which followed his death +by the English interpretations, strengthened further still in Germany by +those of Mendelssohn, and his numerous following. By the exclusion of +and systematic contempt for all the operas of Handel, by an elimination +of nearly all the dramatic oratorios, the most powerful and the +freshest, by a narrow choice more and more restrained to the four or +five oratorios, and even here, by giving an exaggerated supremacy to +<i>The Messiah</i>, by the interpretation finally of these works, and notably +of <i>The Messiah</i> in a pompous, rigid, and stolid manner, with an +orchestra and choir far too numerous and badly balanced, with singers +frightfully correct and pious, without any feeling or intimacy, there +has been established that tradition which<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> makes Handel a church +musician after the style of Louis XIV, all decoration—pompous columns, +noble and cold statues, and pictures by Le Brun. It is not surprising +that this has reduced works executed on such principles, and degraded +them to a monumental tiresomeness similar to that which emanates from +the bewigged Alexanders, and the very conventional Christs of Le Brun.</p> + +<p>It is necessary to turn back. Handel was never a church musician, and he +hardly ever wrote for the church. Apart from his <i>Psalms</i> and his <i>Te +Deum</i>, composed for the private chapels, and for exceptional events, he +only wrote instrumental music for concerts and for open-air <i>fêtes</i>, for +operas, and for those so-called oratorios, which were really written for +the theatre. The first oratorios he composed were really acted: <i>Acis +and Galatea</i> in May, 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, with scenery, +decoration, and costumes, under the title of <i>English Pastoral +Opera—Esther</i>, in February, 1732, at the Academy of Ancient Music after +the manner of the Grecian tragedy, the chorus being placed behind the +stage and the orchestra. And if Handel resolutely abstained from +theatrical representation<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a>—which alone gives the full value to +certain scenes, such as the orgie and the dream of Belshazzar, expressly +conceived for acting—on the other hand he stood out firmly for having +his oratorios at the<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> theatre and not in the church. There were not +wanting churches any less than dissenting chapels in which he could give +his works, and by not doing so he turned against him the opinion of +religious people who considered it sacrilegious to carry pious subjects +on to the stage,<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> but he continued to affirm that he did not write +compositions for the church, but worked for the theatre—a free +theatre.<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a></p> + +<p>This briefly dramatic character of Handel’s works has been well +comprehended by the German historians who have studied him during recent +times. Chrysander compares him to Shakespeare,<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> Kretzschmar calls +him the reformer of musical drama, Volbach and A. Heuss see in him a +dramatic musician, and claim for the performance of his oratorios +dramatic singers. Richard Strauss, in his introduction to Berlioz’s +<i>Treatise of Orchestration</i>, opposes the great polyphonic and symphonic +stream issuing from J. S. Bach with that homophonic and dramatic one +which comes from Handel. We hope that the readers of this little book +have found here in nearly all these pages a confirmation of these ideas.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a></p> + +<p>It remains for us, after having attempted to indicate the general +characteristics of Handel’s art, to sketch the technique of the +different styles in which he worked.</p> + +<p>To speak truly, it is difficult to speak of the opera or of the oratorio +of Handel. It is necessary to say: <i>of the operas or of the oratorios</i>, +for we do not find that they point back to any single type. We can +verify here what we said at the commencement of this chapter, about the +magnificent vitality of Handel in choosing amongst his art forms the +different directions of the music of his times.</p> + +<p>All the European tendencies at that time are reflected in his operas: +the model of Keiser in his early works, the Venetian model in his +<i>Agrippina</i>, the model of Scarlatti and Steffani in his first early +operas; in the London works he soon introduces English influences, +particularly in the rhythms. Then it was Bononcini whom he rivalled. +Again, those great attempts of genius to create a new musical drama, +<i>Giulio Cesare</i>, <i>Tamerlano</i>, <i>Orlando</i>; later on, those charming +ballet-operas inspired by France, <i>Ariodante</i>, <i>Alcina</i>; later still, +those operas which point towards the <i>opéra comique</i> and the light style +of the second half of the century, <i>Serse Deidamia</i>.... Handel continued +to try every other style, without making any permanent choice as did +Gluck, with whom alone he can be compared.</p> + +<p>Without doubt (and it is his greatest fault in the theatre) he was +constrained by the conventions of the Italian Opera at tunes and by the +composition of his troupe of singers to overlook his choruses, and<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> to +write operas for solo voices, of which the principal <i>rôles</i> were cast +for the Prima Donna and for the contralto,<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> but whenever he could, +he wrote his operas with choruses, like <i>Ariodante</i>, <i>Alcina</i>, and he +only owed it to himself that he did not give to the tenor or to the bass +their place in the concert of voices.<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> If it was not possible to +break the uniformity of the solo voices by the addition of<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> choruses, +still he enlivened these solos by the flexibility and the variety of his +instrumental accompaniments. Such of his most celebrated airs, as the +Garden scene in <i>Rinaldo</i>, “<i>Augelletti che cantate</i>,” are only in truth +an orchestral tone picture. The voice mingles itself only as an +instrument,<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> and with what art Handel always decides his melodies in +disengaging the beautiful lines, drawing all the parts possible in pure +tone colours from single instruments, and from the voice isolated,—then +united,—and what of his silences!</p> + +<p>The appeal of his melodies is much more varied than one usually +believes. If the <i>Da Capo</i> form abounds in his works,<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> it is +necessary to admit that it was practically the only one of that period. +In <i>Almira</i>, Handel uses the form of a little strophic song, very +happily. For this, Keiser supplied him with models, and he never +renounces the use of these little melodies, so simple and touching, +almost bare, which speak direct to the soul. He seems to return to them +even with special predilection in his last operas, <i>Atalanta</i>, +<i>Giustina</i>, <i>Serse</i>, <i>Deidamia</i>.<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> He gives also to Hasse and to +Graun the model of his six cavatinas, airs in two parts,<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> which they +later on brought into prominence. We find his<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> dramatic airs also have +the second part and the repeat.<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a></p> + +<p>Even in the <i>Da Capo</i>, however, he gives us a variety of forms! Not only +does Handel use all styles, but how well does he blend the voices with +the instruments in those airs of great brilliance and free +virtuosity!<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> With what predilection does he ply all these beautiful +and learned contrapuntal tissues, as in the <i>Cara sposa</i> from <i>Rinaldo</i> +or the <i>Ombra cara</i> from <i>Radamisto</i>; but he ever seeks new combinations +for the old form. He was one of the first to adopt the little Airs <i>da +capo</i>, which with Bononcini seems to have been so much the fashion at +the commencement of the eighteenth century, and of which <i>Agrippina</i> and +<i>Ottone</i> furnish such delightful examples.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> To the second part of +the air he gave a different character and movement from that of the +first part.<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> Still further, in either of the<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> parts several +movements were combined.<a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> Sometimes the second part was +recitative,<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> or it was extremely condensed.<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> When Handel had +choruses at his disposal in his oratorios, he often entrusted the <i>Da +Capo</i> to the Chorus.<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> He went further: in <i>Samson</i>, after Micah has +sung in the second act the first two parts of the air “Return, O God of +Hosts,” the chorus takes up the second part at the same time as Micah +returns to the first part. Finally he attempts to divide the <i>Da Capo</i> +between two characters, thus in the second act of <i>Saul</i>, Jonathan’s +solo “Sin not, O King, against the youth,” is followed by Saul’s solo, +then appearing note for note.</p> + +<p>But the most glorious feat of Handel in vocal solos is the “recitative +scene.”</p> + +<p>It was Keiser who taught him the art of those moving <i>recitative-ariosi</i> +with orchestra, which he had already used in <i>Almira</i>, and of which, +later on, J. S. Bach was to take from him the style. He never ceased to +employ it in his London operas, and he gave the form a superb amplitude. +They are not merely isolated recitatives or preambles to an extended +solo.<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> The story of Cæsar in the third act<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> of <i>Giulio Cesare, +Dall’ondoso periglio</i> is one large musical picture, which expresses in +its frame a symphonic prelude, a recitative, the two first parts of an +air over the symphonic accompaniment of the opening, a second +recitative, then the <i>Da Capo</i>. The scene of Bajazet’s death in the last +act of <i>Tamerlano</i> is composed of a series of recitatives with +orchestra, and of airs joined together, and passes through all the +nuances of feeling, forming from one stage to the other a veritable +ladder of life. The scene of Admetes’ agony at the opening of the opera +of the same name equals in profundity, emotion, and dramatic liberty, +the finest recitative scenes of Gluck. The “mad scene” in +<i>Orlando</i>,<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> and that of Dejanira’s despair in the third act of +<i>Hercules</i>, surpasses them in boldness of realism, and frenetic passion. +In the first, burlesque and tragic elements commingle with a truly +Shakespearean art. The second is a mighty foaming river, raging with +fury and grief. Neither of these two scenes have any analogy in the +whole of the musical theatre of the eighteenth century. And <i>Teseo</i>, +<i>Rodelinda</i>, <i>Alessandro</i>, <i>Alcina</i>, <i>Semele</i>, <i>Joseph</i>,<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> <i>Alexander +Balus</i>, <i>Jephtha</i>, all present recitative scenes, or combinations in the +same scene of recitatives and very free airs, with instrumental +interludes, no less original. Finally a sort of presentiment of the +<i>leit-motiv</i>, and its psychological employment in <i>Belshazzar</i>, should +be noticed, where certain instrumental phrases and recitatives seem +attached to the character of Nitocris.<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a></p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>The study of Handel’s recitatives and airs raises perhaps the greatest +problem of artistic interpretation—that of vocal ornamentation.</p> + +<p>We know that Handelian singers used to decorate his melodies with graces +and melismatic figures, and cadenzas (often very considerable) which +have disappeared for the greater part. Chrysander, in<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> editing Handel’s +works, found them given as alternatives, and either suppressed them +(those which were false to the historic sense of the text) or else +rewrote them himself. It was in this last point that he stopped short of +all possible guarantees of exactness, or at least of true resemblance. +But his revisions found few supporters, and a discussion on his +treatment of this subject has been recently raised amongst German +musical writers.<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> This debate, the examination of which cannot be +entered into in this volume, authorised, it seems, the following +conclusions:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="" +style="border:none;"> +<tr valign="top"><td>(1)</td><td>The vocal ornaments were not improvised and left to the fancy +of the singer, as is often asserted, but they were marked with +precise indications in the singer’s parts, and also in the score of +the accompanying clavecinist:<a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td>(2)</td><td>They were not mere caprices of empty virtuosity but the result +of a reflective virtuosity, and subject to the general style of the +piece. They served to accentuate more<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> deeply the expression of the +principal melodic lines.<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Yet what would be the advantage of restoring these ornaments? Our taste +has changed since then, and a stricter reverence forbids us to risk +tampering with works of the past by following slavishly such details of +tradition and habit which have become meaningless and old-fashioned. Is +it better to impose on the public of to-day the older works with all +their marks of age improved away by the learning of later +generations—or to adapt them soberly in the manner of true feeling, so +as to enable them to continue to exercise on us their elevating power? +Both sides have been well supported.<a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> For myself I consider the +first proposition bears on the publication of the scores, and the second +on the musical renderings. The mind ought to seek and find out exactly +what used to be the case, but when this is done the living are justified +in claiming their rights, and by being allowed to reject ancient usages, +only preserving such as render these works of genius truly vital.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>The vocal ensemble pieces hold a much humbler place in Italian Opera, +and Handel has made fewer innovations on this ground than in the vocal +solo. However, one finds some very interesting experiments here. His +duets are often written in an<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> imitative style, serious and rather sad, +in the old Italian school of Provenzale and Steffani,<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> or in the +Lully style, where the two voices mingle together note by note with +exactitude.<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> But <i>Atalanta</i> and <i>Poro</i> furnish us also with duets of +an alluring freedom and uncommon artistry. And in the duet in the third +act of <i>Orlando</i>, Handel attempts to differentiate the characters of the +weeping Angelica and the furious Roland.—Similarly with the trios +written in the strict style of imitation, like that in <i>Alcina</i>, Act +III, the trio in <i>Acis and Galatea</i> carefully defines the couple of +lovers from the colossal figure of Polyphemus, the trio in <i>Tamerlano</i> +contrasts the exasperated Tamerlano with Bajazet and with Asteria, who +aggravated him, and the trio in the judgment of Solomon distinguishes +the three diverse characters: the calm power of Solomon, the aggressive +cries of the wicked mother, and the sorrowful supplications of the good +mother. The trio from <i>Susanna</i> is no less free, but in the humorous +style: one of the two old men madrigalises whilst the other menaces. The +<i>ensemble</i> forms altogether a most vivid little scene which Mozart +himself would not have disowned.<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> Quartets are rare. There are two +little ones in the <i>Triumph of<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> Time</i>, written in Rome. In <i>Radamisto</i> +Handel made the attempt at a dramatic quartet, but rather clumsily, and +with repeated <i>Da Capo</i>.<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> The most moving quartet is found in the +second act of <i>Jephtha</i>. It is in <i>Jephtha</i> also, Act III, where the +only quintet which he wrote is to be found.</p> + +<p>The choruses in the Italian opera of the eighteenth century<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> were +reduced to a rudimentary stage, and they consist merely of the union of +the voices of soloists at the end of a piece, with certain banal and +brilliant acclamations during the course of the action. Notwithstanding +this, Handel wrote some stronger ones in <i>Alcina</i>; those of <i>Giulio +Cesare</i>, <i>Ariodante</i>, and <i>Atalanta</i>, were also exceptional in the +operas of his time. So with the final choruses Handel arranged after a +fashion to escape from the current banality: that of <i>Tamerlano</i> is +written in a melancholy dramatic vein; that of <i>Orlando</i> strives to +preserve the individual character of their personality; that of <i>Giulio +Cesare</i> is tacked on to a duet. There are also choruses of people; the +Matelots in <i>Giustino</i>; that of the hunters in <i>Deidamia</i>, where the +choruses take up the refrain from the air announced by the solo voice. +It is the same in <i>Alessandro</i>, where the soldiers’ chorus repeats +Alessandro’s hymn, slightly curtailed.</p> + +<p>Finally, Handel frequently attempted to build up great musical +architecture, raising it by successive<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> stages from solos to ensemble +pieces, and then to choruses. At the end of the first act of +<i>Ariodante</i>, a duet (gavotte style) is taken up by the chorus, then +danced without voices; finally sung and danced. The close of Act III +from the same opera gives us a chain of processions, dances, and +choruses. The final scenes of <i>Alessandro</i> constitute a veritable opera +<i>finale</i>, 2 duets and a trio running into a chorus.</p> + +<p>But it is in his oratorios that Handel attempted these ensemble vocal +combinations on the larger scale, and principally that mixture of +movements where the powerful contrasts of soli and chorus are grouped +together in the same picture.</p> + +<p>One sees what a variety of forms and styles he used. Handel was too +universal and too objective to believe that one kind of art only was the +true one. He believed in two kinds of music only, the good and the bad. +Apart from that he appreciated all styles. Thus he has left masterpieces +in every style, but he did not open any new way in opera for the simple +reason that he went a long way in nearly all paths already opened up. +Constantly he experimented, invented, and always with his singularly +sure touch. He seemed to have an extraordinary penetrating knowledge in +invention, and consequently few artistic regions remained for him to +conquer. He made as masterly a use of the recitative as Gluck, or of the +<i>arioso</i> as Mozart, writing the acts of <i>Tamerlano</i>, which are the +closest and most heartrending dramas, in the manner of <i>Iphigénie en +Tauride</i>, the most moving and passionate scenes in music such as certain +pages of <i>Admeto</i><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> and <i>Orlando</i>, where the humorous and tragic are +intermingled in the manner of <i>Don Giovanni</i>. He has experimented very +happily here in new rhythms.<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> There were new forms, the dramatic +duet or quartet, the descriptive symphony opening the opera,<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> +refined orchestration,<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> choruses and dances.<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> Nothing seems to +have obsessed him. In the following opera we find him returning to the +ordinary forms of the Italian or German opera of his time.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Still less can we say that he held to a rigid form with his operas, +which were continually adapted to the changing tastes of the theatre +public of his age, and of the singers which he had at his disposal, but +when he left the opera for the oratorio he varied no less. It was a +perpetual experiment of new forms in the vast framework of the free +theatre (<i>theatre en liberté</i>) of the concert drama; and the sort of +instinctive ebb and flow in creation seems to have caused his works to +succeed one another in groups of analogous or related compositions, each +work in a nearly opposite style of feeling and form. In each one Handel +indulged momentarily in a certain side of his feelings, and when that +was finished he found himself in the possession of other feelings which +had been accumulating whilst he was drawing on his first. He thus kept +up a perpetual<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> balance, which is like the pulsation of life itself. +After the realistic <i>Saul</i> comes the impersonal epic of <i>Israel in +Egypt</i>. After this colossal monument appear the two little <i>genre</i> +pictures, <i>The Ode to Cecilia</i> and <i>L’Allegro ed Penseroso</i>. After the +Herculean <i>Samson</i>, an heroic and popular tragic comedy sprang forth, +the charming flower of <i>Semele</i>, an opera of romanticism and gallantry.</p> + +<p>But if the oratorios are so wonderfully varied they have one +characteristic in common even more than the operas, they are musical +dramas. It was not that religious thought turned Handel to this choice +of Biblical subjects, but as Kretzschmar has well shown, it was on +account of the stories of the Bible heroes being a part of the very +life-blood of the people whom he addressed. They were known to all, +whilst the ancient romantic stories could only interest a society of +refined and spoilt <i>dilettanti</i>. Without doubt, these oratorios were not +made for representation, did not seek scenic effects, with rare +exceptions, as for instance the scene of the orgy of <i>Belshazzar</i>, where +one feels that Handel had drawn on the direct vision of theatrical +representation, but passions, spirits, and personalities were +represented always in a dramatic fashion. Handel is a great painter of +characters, and the Delilah in <i>Samson</i>, the Nitocris in <i>Belshazzar</i>, +the Cleopatra in <i>Alexander Balus</i>, the mother in <i>Solomon</i>, the +Dejanira in <i>Hercules</i>, the beautiful Theodora, all bear witness to the +suppleness and the profundity of his psychological genius. If in the +course of the action, and the depicting of the ordinary sentiments,<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> he +abandoned himself freely to the flow of pure music, in the moments of +passionate crises he is the equal of the greatest masters in musical +drama. Is it necessary to mention the terrible scenes in the third act +of <i>Hercules</i>, the beautiful scenes of <i>Alexander Balus</i>, the Dream of +<i>Belshazzar</i>, the scenes of <i>Juno</i> and the death of <i>Semele</i>, the +recognition of Joseph and his brothers, the destruction of the temple in +Samson, the second act of <i>Jephtha</i>, the prison scenes in <i>Theodora</i>, or +in the first act of <i>Saul</i>, and dominating all, like great pictures, +certain of the choruses in <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, in <i>Esther</i>, and in +<i>Joshua</i>, and in the <i>Chandos Anthems</i>, which seem veritable tempests of +passion, great upheavals of overpowering effect? It is by these choruses +that the oratorio is essentially distinguished from the opera. It is in +the first place a choral tragedy. These choruses, which are nearly +eliminated in Italian Opera during the time of the Barberini, held a +very important place in French Opera, but their <i>rôle</i> was limited to +that of commentator or else merely decorative. In the oratorio of Handel +they became the very life and soul of the work. Sometimes they took the +part of the ancient classical chorus, which exposed the thought of the +drama when the hidden fates led on the heroes to their destinies—as in +<i>Saul</i>, <i>Hercules</i>, <i>Alexander Balus</i>, <i>Susanna</i>. Sometimes they added +to the shock of human passions the powerful appeal of religion, and +crowned the human drama with a supernatural aureole, as in <i>Theodora</i> +and <i>Jephtha</i>. Or finally they became the actual actors themselves,<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> or +the enemy-people and the God who guided them. It is remarkable that in +his very first oratorio <i>Esther</i>, Handel had this stroke of genius. In +the choruses there we see the drama of an oppressed people and their God +who led them by his voice superbly depicted. In <i>Deborah</i> and <i>Athaliah</i> +also, two nations are in evidence. In <i>Belshazzar</i> there are three, but +in his chief work of this kind, <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, the greatest choral +epic which exists, is entirely occupied by Jehovah and His people.</p> + +<p>The choruses are in the most diverse styles. Some are in the church +style, and a little antiquated;<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> others tend towards the opera—even +the <i>opéra bouffe</i>;<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> some exhale the perfume of the madrigals at the +end of the sixteenth century,<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> and the Academy of Ancient Music in +London sought to sustain this art in honour. On the other hand, Handel +has frequently used them in the form of a chorale, simple or +varied,<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> above all, he employs the choral double fugue in a most +astounding manner,<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> and he carries everything on with that +impetuosity of genius which drew to him the admiration of the sternest +critics of his time, such as Mattheson. His instinct as a great +constructor loved to alternate homophonic music with fugal +choruses,<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> the massive columns of musical harmony with the moving +contrapuntal in superimposed strata, very cleverly<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> framing his dramatic +choruses in a most imposing architecture of decorative and impersonal +character. His choruses are sometimes tragic scenes,<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> or comedy (see +the <i>Vaudeville</i>),<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> sometimes <i>genre</i> pictures.<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> Handel knew +most admirably how to weave in popular motives,<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> or to mingle the +dance with the song.<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a></p> + +<p>But what belongs chiefly to him—not that he invented it, but made the +happiest use of it—is the musical architecture of solo and chorus +alternating and intermingled. Purcell and the French composers had given +him this idea. He attempted it in his earliest religious works, +especially in his <i>Birthday Ode for Queen Anne</i>, 1713, where nearly +every solo air is taken up again by the following chorus.<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> He had a +great feeling for light and pleased himself by introducing in the middle +of his choral masses, solo songs which soared up into the air like +birds.<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> His dramatic genius knew, when required, how to draw from +this combination the most astounding effects. Thus in the <i>Passion after +Brockes</i>, 1716, where the dialogue of the Daughter of Sion and the +chorus <i>Eilt ihr angefochten Seelen</i>, with its questions, its responses, +its Æschylian interjections, served as<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> Bach’s model for his St. Matthew +Passion. At the end of <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, after those great choral +mountains of sounds, by an ingenious contrast a female voice is heard +alone without accompaniment, and then a hymn alternating with the chorus +which repeats it. It is the same again at the end of the little short +<i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i>.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Occasional Oratorio</i> a duet for Soprano and Alto alternates with +the choruses, but it is in <i>Judas Maccabæus</i> where he best achieves this +combination of solos and the chorus. In this victorious epic of an +invaded people, who rose up and overcame their oppressors, the +individualities are scarcely distinguished from the heroic soul of the +nation, and the chiefs of the people are only the choralists, whose +songs set dancing the enormous ensembles which unfold themselves in +powerful and irresistible progressions, like a giant’s procession up a +triumphal staircase.</p> + +<p>It follows then that when the orchestra is added to the dialogue of +solos and of choruses, the third element enters into the psychological +drama, sometimes in apparent opposition to the two others. Thus in the +second act of <i>Judas Maccabæus</i> the orchestra which sounds the battle +calls makes a vivid contrast to the somewhat funereal choruses on which +they are interposed: <i>We hear the pleasing dreadful call</i>, or to put it +better, they complete them, and fill in the picture. After Death—Glory.</p> + +<p>The oratorio being a “free theatre,” it becomes necessary for the music +to supply the place of the scenery. Thus its picturesque and descriptive +<i>rôle</i><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> is strongly developed and it is by this above all that Handel’s +genius so struck the English public. Camille Saint-Saëns wrote in an +interesting letter to C. Bellaigue,<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> “I have come to the conclusion +that it is the picturesque and descriptive side, until then novel and +unreached, whereby Handel achieved the astonishing favour which he +enjoyed. This masterly way of writing choruses, of treating the fugue, +had been done by others. What really counts with him is the colour—that +modern element which we no longer hear in him.... He knew nothing of +exotism. But look at <i>Alexander’s Feast</i>, <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, and +especially <i>L’Allegro ed Penseroso</i>, and try to forget all that has been +done since. You find at every turn a striving for the picturesque, for +an effect of imitation. It is real and very intense for the medium in +which it is produced, and it seems to have been unknown hitherto.”</p> + +<p>Perhaps Saint-Saëns lays too much weight on the “masterly way of writing +his choruses,” which was not so common in England, even with Purcell. +Perhaps he accentuates too much also the real influence of the French in +matters of picturesque and descriptive music and the influence which it +exerted on Handel.<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> Finally, it is not necessary to represent these +descriptive tendencies of Handel as exceptional in his time. A great +breath of nature<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> passed over German music, and pushed it towards +tone-painting. Telemann was, even more than Handel, a painter in music, +and was more celebrated than Handel for his realistic effects. But the +England of the eighteenth century had remained very conservative in +music, and had devoted itself to cultivating the masters of the past. +Handel’s art was then more striking to them on account of “its colour” +and “its imitative effects.” I will not say with Saint-Saëns that “there +was no question of exotism with him,” for Handel seems to have sought +this very thing more than once; notably in the orchestration of certain +scenes for the two Cleopatras, of <i>Giulio Cesare</i>, and of <i>Alexander +Balus</i>. But that which was constantly with him was tone-painting, the +reproduction through passages of music of natural impressions, a +painting very characterised, and, as Beethoven put it, “more an +expression of feelings than of painting,” a poetic evocation of the +raging tempests, of the tranquillity of the sea, of the dark shades of +night, of the twilight which envelops the English country, of the parks +by moonlight, of the sunrise in springtime, and of the awakening of +birds. <i>Acis and Galatea</i>, <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, <i>Allegro</i>, <i>The Messiah</i>, +<i>Semele</i>, <i>Joseph</i>, <i>Solomon</i>, <i>Susanna</i>, all offer a wondrous picture +gallery of nature, carefully noted by Handel with the sure stroke of a +Flemish painter, and of a romantic poet at the same time. This +romanticism struck powerfully on his time with a strength which would +not be denied. It drew upon him both admiration and violent criticism. A +letter of 1751<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> depicts him as a Berlioz or Wagner, raising storms by +his orchestra and chorus.</p> + +<p>“He cannot give people pleasure after the proper fashion,” writes this +anonymous author in his letter, “and his evil genius will not allow him +to do this. He imagines a new <i>grandioso</i> kind of music, and in order to +make more noise he has it executed by the greatest number of voices and +instruments which one has ever heard before in a theatre. He thinks thus +to rival not only the god of musicians, but even all the other gods, +like Iöle, Neptune, and Jupiter: for either I expected that the house +would be brought down by his tempest, or that the sea would engulf the +whole. But more unbearable still was his thunder. Never have such +terrible rumblings fallen on my head.”<a name="FNanchor_345_345" id="FNanchor_345_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a></p> + +<p>Similarly Goethe, irritated and upset, said, after having heard the +first movement of the Beethoven C Minor symphony, “It is meaningless. +One expected the house to fall about one’s ears.”</p> + +<p>It is not by chance that I couple the names of Handel and Beethoven. +Handel is a kind of Beethoven in chains. He had the unapproachable +manner like the great Italian artists who surrounded him: the Porporas, +the Hasses, and<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> between him and them there was a whole world.<a name="FNanchor_346_346" id="FNanchor_346_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a> +Under the classic ideal with which he covered himself burned a romantic +genius, precursor of the <i>Sturm und Drang</i> period; and sometimes this +hidden demon broke out in brusque fits of passion—perhaps despite +himself.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>Handel’s instrumental music deserves very close notice: for it is nearly +always wrongly assessed by historians, and badly understood by artists, +who treat it for the most part as a merely formal art.</p> + +<p>Its chief characteristic is that of a perpetual improvisation. If it was +published, it was more in spite of Handel than at his instigation.<a name="FNanchor_347_347" id="FNanchor_347_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> +It was not made to be played and judged coldly, but to be produced at +white heat to the public. They were free sketches, in which the form was +never completely tightened up, but remained always moving<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> and living, +modifying itself at the concert, as the two sensibilities—the artist +and the public—came into touch with one another.<a name="FNanchor_348_348" id="FNanchor_348_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> It is necessary +then to preserve in this music a certain measure of the character of +living improvisation. What we too often do, on the contrary, is to +petrify them. One cannot say that they are a caricature of the work of +Handel. They are rather a negation of it. When one studies with a minute +care every detail of the work, when one has attained from the orchestra +a precision of attack, an ensemble, a justness, an irreproachable +finish, we have yet done nothing more than raise up the mere figure of +this genial improvisator.</p> + +<p>Further, there is with his instrumental music, as with his vocal music, +nearly always an intimate and picturesque expression. For Handel, as +with his friend Geminiani, “the aim of instrumental music is not only to +please the ear, but to express the sentiments, the emotions, to paint +the feelings.”<a name="FNanchor_349_349" id="FNanchor_349_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> It reflects not only the interior world, but it also +turns to the actual spectacle of things.<a name="FNanchor_350_350" id="FNanchor_350_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> It is a<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> precise poetry, +and if one cannot define the sources of his inspiration, one can often +find in certain of his instrumental works the souvenir of days and +journeys, and of scenes visited and experienced by Handel. It was here +that he was visibly inspired by Nature.<a name="FNanchor_351_351" id="FNanchor_351_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a></p> + +<p>Others have a relationship with vocal and dramatic works. Certain of the +heroic fugues in the fourth book of the Clavier pieces published in 1735 +were taken up again by Handel in his <i>Israel in Egypt</i> and clothed with +words which agreed precisely with their hidden feeling. The first +<i>Allegro</i> from the Fourth Organ Concerto (the first book appeared in +1738) soon became shortly afterwards one of the prettiest of the +choruses in <i>Alcina</i>. The second and monumental concerto for two horns +in F Major<a name="FNanchor_352_352" id="FNanchor_352_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> is a reincarnation of some of the finest pages from +<i>Esther</i>. It was quite evident to the public of his time that the +instrumental works had an expressive meaning, or that as Geminiani +wrote, “all good music ought to be an imitation of a fine discourse.” +Thus the publisher Walsh was justified in issuing his six volumes of +Favourite Airs from Handel’s operas and oratorios, arranged as <i>Sonatas +for the flute, violin, and harpsichord</i>, and Handel himself, or his +pupil, W. Babell, arranged excellently for the clavier, some suites of +airs from the<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> operas, binding them together with preludes, interludes, +and variations.—It is necessary always to keep in view this intimate +relation of the instrumental works of Handel with the rest of his music. +It ought to draw our attention more and more to the expressive contents +of these works.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>The instrumental music of Handel divides itself into three classes: +firstly—music for the clavier (the clavecin and organ); +secondly—chamber music (sonatas and trios); thirdly—orchestral music. +The compositions for clavier are the most popular works of any that +Handel wrote, and these have achieved the greatest number of European +editions. Although they comprise three volumes, yet there is only one, +the first, which represents him properly, for it is the only one which +he prepared himself, and supervised. The others, more or less +fraudulently published, misrepresent him.</p> + +<p>This First Volume, published in November, 1720, under the French title +<i>Suites</i>, etc., affords us the means of appreciating the two most +striking of Handel’s traits: his precocious maturity, which hardly +developed at all in the course of time; and the European universality of +character which distinguished his art even at an epoch when the great +artists were less national than they are to-day. For the first trait one +would remark in fine that these Clavier Pieces published in 1720 had +already been written some time, certainly before 1700. One discovers a +part of them in the <i>Jugendbuch</i> of the<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> Lennard Collection.<a name="FNanchor_353_353" id="FNanchor_353_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> Others +come from <i>Almira</i>, 1705. Naturally Handel enlarged and revised, and +carefully grouped all these pieces in his edition of 1720. The interest +of the <i>Jugendbuch</i> is chiefly that it shows us the first sketches of +the pieces, and how Handel perfected them. Side by side with the oldest +pieces there are others more recent, composed, it may be, in Italy or in +England.<a name="FNanchor_354_354" id="FNanchor_354_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> One can trace in these pages the course of the different +influences. Seiffert and Fleischer have noted some of them,<a name="FNanchor_355_355" id="FNanchor_355_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> German +influences, French, and Italian.<a name="FNanchor_356_356" id="FNanchor_356_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> In<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> England even, sometimes +Italian elements, sometimes German, predominated with him.<a name="FNanchor_357_357" id="FNanchor_357_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> The +order of the dances varies in each Suite, and also the central point, +the kernel of the work. The introductory pieces are sometimes preludes, +sometimes fugues, overtures, etc. The dances and the airs are sometimes +related to one another, and sometimes independent, and nevertheless the +prevailing impression of the work, so varied in its texture, is its +complete unity. The personality of Handel holds it all together and +welds the most diverse elements—polyphony and richness of German +harmony, Italian homophony, and Scarlattian technique, the French rhythm +and ornamentation<a name="FNanchor_358_358" id="FNanchor_358_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> with English directness and practicability. Thus +the work made its impression on the times. Before this time, there had +perhaps been more original volumes of pieces for the clavier, but their +inspiration was nearly always very much circumscribed by the limits of +their national art. Handel was the first of the great German classics of +the eighteenth century. He did for music what the French writers and +philosophers of the eighteenth century did for literature. He wrote for +all and sundry, and his volume took the<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> place on the day of its +publication which it has held since, that of a European classic.</p> + +<p>The following volumes are less interesting for the reasons I have given. +The Second Volume published in 1733 by Walsh, <i>unknown</i> to Handel, and +in a very faulty manner, gives us little pieces which we find in the +<i>Jugendbuch</i>, and which date from the time of Hamburg and Halle.<a name="FNanchor_359_359" id="FNanchor_359_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> +They lack the setting which Handel had certainly planned for them: +preludes and fugues.</p> + +<p>This arrangement was ready; and Handel, frustrated by this publisher, +resigned himself to publishing them later on, as an Appendix to the +preceding work: <i>Six Fugues or Voluntaries for the Organ or Harpsichord, +1735, Opus 3.</i> These fugues date from the time when Handel was at Canons +before 1720, the second in G Major was from the period of his first +sojourn in England. They became celebrated at once, and were much +circulated in<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> manuscript even in Germany.<a name="FNanchor_360_360" id="FNanchor_360_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> Handel had trained +himself in fugue in the school of Kuhnau, and specially with Johann +Krieger.<a name="FNanchor_361_361" id="FNanchor_361_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a> Like them he gave his Fugues an essentially melodic +character. They are so suited for singing that two of them, as we have +said, afterwards served for two choruses in the first part of +<i>Israel</i>,<a name="FNanchor_362_362" id="FNanchor_362_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> but Handel’s compositions possess a far different +vitality from that of his German forerunners. They have a charming +intrepidity, a fury, a passion, a fire which belongs only to him. In +other words they live. “All the notes talk,” says Mattheson. These +fugues have the character of happy improvisations, and in truth they +were improvised. Handel calls them Voluntaries, that is fanciful and +learned caprices. He made frequent use of double fugues with a masterly +development. “Such an art rejoices the hearer and warms the heart +towards the composer and towards the executant,” says Mattheson again, +who, after having heard J. S. Bach, found Handel the greater in the +composition of the double fugue and in improvisation. This habit of +Handel—one might say almost a craving—for improvising, was the origin +of the grand Organ Concertos. After the fashion of his time, Handel +conducted his operas and oratorios from the clavier. He accompanied<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> the +singers with a marvellous art, blending himself to their fancy, and when +the singer had done, he delivered his version.<a name="FNanchor_363_363" id="FNanchor_363_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> From the interludes +on the clavier in his operas, he passed to the fantasies or caprices on +the organ in the <i>entr’actes</i> of his oratorios, and his success was so +great that he never again abandoned this custom. One might say that the +public were drawn to his oratorios more by his improvisations on the +organ than by the oratorios themselves. Two volumes of the Organ +Concertos were published during the lifetime of Handel, in 1738 and in +1740; the third a little after his death, in 1760.<a name="FNanchor_364_364" id="FNanchor_364_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> To judge them +properly it is necessary to bear in<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> mind that they were destined for +the theatre. It would be absurd to expect works in the strict, vigorous, +and involved style of J. S. Bach. They were brilliant <i>divertissements</i>, +of which the style, somewhat commonplace yet luminous and pompous, +preserves the character of oratorio improvisations, finding their +immediate effect on the great audience. “<i>When he gave a concerto</i>,” +says Hawkins, “<i>his method in general was to introduce it with a +voluntary movement on the diapasons, which stole on the ear in a slow +and solemn progression; the harmony close wrought, and as full as could +possibly be expressed; the passages concatenated with stupendous art, +the whole at the same time being perfectly intelligible, and carrying +the appearance of great simplicity. This kind of prelude was succeeded +by the concerto itself, which he executed with a degree of spirit and +firmness that no one can ever pretend to equal</i>.” Even at the height of +the cabal which was organised against Handel, the Grub Street Journal +published an enthusiastic poem on Handel’s Organ Concertos.<a name="FNanchor_365_365" id="FNanchor_365_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a></p> + +<div class="poem2"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“<i>Oh winds, softly, softly raise your golden wings among the branches!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>That all may be silent, make even the whisperings of Zephyrs to cease.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Sources of life, suspend your course....</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Listen, listen, Handel the incomparable plays!...</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Oh look, when he, the powerful man, makes the forces of the organ resound,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Joy assembles its cohorts, malice is appeased, ...</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>His hand, like that of the Creator, conducts his noble work with order, with grandeur and reason....</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Silence, bunglers in art! It is nothing here to have the favour of great lords. Here, Handel is king.</i>”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a></p> + +<p>It is necessary then to view these Organ Concertos in the proper sense +of magnificent concerts for a huge public.<a name="FNanchor_366_366" id="FNanchor_366_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a> Great shadows, great +lights, strong and joyous contrasts, all are conceived in view of a +colossal effect. The orchestra usually consists of two oboes, two +violins, viola, and basses (violoncellos, bassoons, and cembalo), +occasionally two flutes, some contrabassos and a harp.<a name="FNanchor_367_367" id="FNanchor_367_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> The +concertos are in three or four movements, which are generally connected +in pairs. Usually they open with a <i>pomposo</i>, or a <i>staccato</i>, in the +style of the French overture,<a name="FNanchor_368_368" id="FNanchor_368_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> often an <i>allegro</i> in the same style +follows. For the conclusion, an <i>allegro moderato</i>, or an <i>andante</i>, +somewhat animated, sometimes some dances. The <i>adagio</i> in the middle is +often missing, and is left to be improvised on the organ. The form has a +certain relation with that of the sonata in three movements, +<i>allegro-adagio-allegro</i>, preceded by an introduction. The first pieces +of these two first concertos published in Volume XLVIII of the<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> Complete +Edition (second volume) are in a picturesque and descriptive style. The +long Concerto in F Major in the same volume has the swing of festival +music, very closely allied to the open-air style. Finally, one must +notice the beautiful experiment, unfortunately not continued, of the +Concerto for two organs,<a name="FNanchor_369_369" id="FNanchor_369_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> and that, more astonishing still, of a +Concerto for Organ terminated by a Chorus,<a name="FNanchor_370_370" id="FNanchor_370_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> thus opening the way for +Beethoven’s fine Symphony, and to his successors, Berlioz, Liszt, and +Mahler.<a name="FNanchor_371_371" id="FNanchor_371_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a></p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>The chamber music of Handel proves to be of the same precocious maturity +as his clavier music.</p> + +<p>Six Sonatas in Trio for two oboes and harpsichord<a name="FNanchor_372_372" id="FNanchor_372_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> appear to date +from about 1696, when he was eleven years old, and while he was still at +Halle, where he wrote as he said, “like the devil,” above all for the +oboe, his favourite instrument. They are in four movements: <i>adagio</i>, +<i>allegro</i>, <i>adagio</i>, <i>allegro</i>. The slow movements are often very short, +and the second between them is sometimes a mere transition. The Sonata +for <i>Viola da Gamba</i>, and<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> <i>Cembalo Concertato</i> in C Major<a name="FNanchor_373_373" id="FNanchor_373_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> probably +belongs to 1705, when Handel was at Hamburg. It is the only one of its +kind in the works of Handel, which shows him as a forerunner of Bach. +The sonata is in trio form. The clavier plays a second <i>obbligato</i> +besides the bass part, as Seiffert notes: “Ten years before Bach worked +at his Sonatas with accompaniment for <i>cembalo obbligato</i>, Handel had +already a clear perception of their value.”</p> + +<p>Three Sonatas for Flute and Bass,<a name="FNanchor_374_374" id="FNanchor_374_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a> of an elegiac grace, also perhaps +date from the Halle period, and according to Chrysander seem to have +been continued up to 1710 at Hanover.</p> + +<p>But the chief instrumental chamber works written by Handel were +published in London between 1732 and 1740, and they comprise three +volumes:<a name="FNanchor_375_375" id="FNanchor_375_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr valign="top"><td>(1)</td><td>Fifteen sonatas or solos for a German flute, oboe or violin, +with a thorough bass for the harpsichord, or bass violin, Op. 1.</td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td>(2)</td><td>Nine sonatas or trios for two violins, flutes, or oboes, with a +thorough bass for the harpsichord, or violoncello, Op. 2.</td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td>(3)</td><td>sonatas or trios for two violins, or German flutes, with +a thorough bass for the harpsichord, or violoncello, Op. 5.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The first volume contains very old pieces, of which some date from the +time when Handel was at<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> Burlington and Chandos. Others might have been +intended for the Prince of Wales, whose violin teacher, John Dubourg, +was a friend of Handel, as they date from about 1730. The second volume +appeared at first in Amsterdam, afterwards in London with Walsh, under a +French title<a name="FNanchor_376_376" id="FNanchor_376_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> in 1733.</p> + +<p>The third volume was composed in 1738, and published about the beginning +of 1739.<a name="FNanchor_377_377" id="FNanchor_377_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a></p> + +<p>The first feature to notice in general is the want of definition in the +choice of instruments for which this music was written. Following the +same abstract æsthetic of his time, the composer left it to the players +to choose the instruments. However, there was no doubt that in the first +conception of Handel certain of these pieces were made for the flute, +others for the violin, and others for the oboe.</p> + +<p>In the volume Op. 1 of the solo sonatas (for the flute or oboe, or +violin) with bass (harpsichord or violoncello), the usual form is +generally in four movements:<a name="FNanchor_378_378" id="FNanchor_378_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> <i>adagio</i>, <i>allegro</i>, <i>adagio</i>, +<i>allegro</i>. The slow pieces are very short. Several are inspired by the +airs of Italian cantatas and operas. Some of the pieces are joined +together.<a name="FNanchor_379_379" id="FNanchor_379_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> The harmony is often thin, and requires to be filled in.<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a></p> + +<p>The second and third volumes have a much greater value, containing trios +or sonatas in two parts (for two violins, or two oboes, or two +<i>flauti-traversi</i>) with Bass (harpsichord or violoncello). All the +sonatas in the second volume, with only one exception,<a name="FNanchor_380_380" id="FNanchor_380_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> have four +movements, two slow and two fast alternatively, as in the Opus 1. +Sometimes they are inspired by the airs of the operas, or of the +oratorios; at other times they have furnished a brief sketch for them. +The elegiac <i>Largo</i> which opens the First Sonata is found again in +<i>Alessandro</i>, the <i>allegro</i> which finishes the Third Sonata forms one of +the movements in the overture of <i>Athaliah</i>, the larghetto of the Fourth +serves for the second movement of the <i>Esther</i> overture. Other pieces +have been transferred to the clavier or other instrumental works, where +they are joined to other movements. The finest of these Trios are the +First and the Ninth, both of enchanting poetry. In the second movement +of the Ninth Trio, Handel has utilised very happily a popular English +theme.</p> + +<p>The Seven Trios from the third volume afford a much greater variety in +the style and in the number<a name="FNanchor_381_381" id="FNanchor_381_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> of the pieces. Dances occupy a great +part.<a name="FNanchor_382_382" id="FNanchor_382_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> They are indeed veritable Suites. They were composed in the +years when Handel was attracted by the<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> form of ballet-opera. The +Musette and the <i>Allegro</i> of the Second Sonata come from <i>Ariodante</i>. +Some of the other slow and pompous movements are borrowed from his +oratorios. The two <i>Allegri</i> which open the Fourth Sonata are taken from +the Overture of <i>Athaliah</i>. On the other hand, Handel inserts in the +final movement of <i>Belshazzar</i> the beautiful <i>Andante</i> which opens his +First Sonata.</p> + +<p>Whoever wishes to judge these works historically or from the +intellectual point of view, will find, like Chrysander, that Handel has +not invented here any new forms, and, as he advanced, he returned to the +form of the Suite, which already belonged to the past, instead of +continuing on his way towards the future Sonata. But those who will +judge them artistically, for their own personal charm, will find in them +some of the purest creations of Handel, and those which best retain +their freshness. Their beautiful Italian lines, their delicate +expression, their aristocratic simplicity, are refreshing alike to the +mind and to the heart. Our own epoch, tired of the post-Beethoven and +post-Wagnerian art, can find here, as in the chamber music of Mozart, a +safe haven, where it can escape the sterile agitation of the present and +find again quiet peace and sanity.</p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>The orchestral music of Handel comprises twelve <i>Concerti Grossi</i> +(1740), the six Oboe Concertos (1734), the Symphonies from his operas, +oratorios, and his open-air music—Water-Music (1715 or 1717),<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> Firework +Music (1749),—and <i>Concerti</i> for two horns.</p> + +<p>Although Handel was in art a visualist, and though his music had a +highly descriptive and evocatory power, he only made a very restrained +use of instrumental tone-colour.<a name="FNanchor_383_383" id="FNanchor_383_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> However, he showed on occasion a +refined intelligence in its use. The two oratorios written at Rome when +he found himself in the society of the Cardinal Ottoboni, and his great +<i>virtuoso</i> works, <i>The Triumph of Time</i> and <i>The Resurrection</i> of 1708, +have a fine and well-varied orchestration.<a name="FNanchor_384_384" id="FNanchor_384_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> In London he was one of +the first to introduce the use of the horn into the orchestra of the +opera.<a name="FNanchor_385_385" id="FNanchor_385_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> “He was the first,” says Volbach, “to assert the expressive +personality of<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> the violoncello.”<a name="FNanchor_386_386" id="FNanchor_386_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> From the viola he knew how to +secure many curious effects of indefinite and disquieting +half-tones,<a name="FNanchor_387_387" id="FNanchor_387_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> he gave to the bassoons a lugubrious and fantastic +character,<a name="FNanchor_388_388" id="FNanchor_388_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> he experimented with new instruments, small<a name="FNanchor_389_389" id="FNanchor_389_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> and +great,<a name="FNanchor_390_390" id="FNanchor_390_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> he used the drum (<i>tambour</i>) solo in a dramatic fashion for +Jupiter’s oath in <i>Semele</i>. For special situations, by instrumental +tone-colours, he secures effects not only of dramatic expression, but +also of exotism and local colour. It is so in the two scenes from the +two Cleopatras, <i>Giulio Cesare</i> (1724)<a name="FNanchor_391_391" id="FNanchor_391_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> and <i>Alexander Balus</i> +(1748).<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a></p> + +<p>But great painter as Handel was he did not work so much through the +brilliancy, variety, and novelty of his tone-colours as by the beauty of +his designs, and his effects of light and shade. With a voluntarily +restrained palette, and by satisfying himself with the sober colours of +the strings, he yet was able to produce surprising and thrilling +effects. Volbach has shown<a name="FNanchor_392_392" id="FNanchor_392_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> that he had less recourse to the +contrast and mixing of instruments than to the division of the same +family of instruments into different groups. In the introductory piece +movement to his second <i>Esther</i> (1732) the violins are divided into five +groups;<a name="FNanchor_393_393" id="FNanchor_393_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> in <i>The Resurrection</i> (1708), into four divisions;<a name="FNanchor_394_394" id="FNanchor_394_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> the +violas are sometimes divided into two, the second being reinforced by +the third violin, or by the violoncellos.<a name="FNanchor_395_395" id="FNanchor_395_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> On the other hand, +Handel, when he considered it advisable, reduced his instrumental forces +by suppressing the viola and the second violin, whose places were taken +by the clavecin. All his orchestral art is in the true instinct of +balance and economy, which, with the most restricted means in managing a +few colours, yet knows how to obtain as powerful impressions as our +musicians of to-day, with their crowded palette.<a name="FNanchor_396_396" id="FNanchor_396_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a> Nothing, then, is +more<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> important, if we wish to render this music truly, than the +avoidance of upsetting the equilibrium of the various sections of the +orchestra under the pretext of enriching it and bringing it up to date. +The worse fault is to deprive it, by a useless surplus of tone-colours, +of that suppleness and subtlety of nuance which is its principal charm.</p> + +<p>One is prone to accept too readily the idea, that expressive nuance is a +privilege of the modern musical art, and that Handel’s orchestra knew +only the great theatrical contrasts between force and sweetness, or +loudness and softness. It is nothing of the kind. The range of Handel’s +nuances is extremely varied. One finds with him the <i>pianissimo</i>, the +piano, the <i>mezzo piano</i>, the <i>mezzo forte</i>, <i>un poco più F</i>, <i>un poco +F</i>, <i>forte</i>, <i>fortissimo</i>. We never find the orchestral <i>crescendo</i> and +<i>decrescendo</i>, which hardly appears marked expressly until the time of +Jommelli,<a name="FNanchor_397_397" id="FNanchor_397_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> and the school of Mannheim; but there is no doubt that it +was practised long before it was marked in the music.<a name="FNanchor_398_398" id="FNanchor_398_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a> The President +of Brosses wrote in 1739 from Rome: “The voices, like the violins, used +with light and shade, with unconscious swelling of sound, which augments +the force from note to note, even to a very high degree,<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> since its use +as a nuance is extremely sweet and touching.” And endless examples occur +in Handel of long <i>crescendi</i> and <i>diminuendi</i> without its expression +being marked in the scores.<a name="FNanchor_399_399" id="FNanchor_399_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> Another kind of <i>crescendo</i> and +<i>diminuendo</i> on the same note was very common in the time of Handel, and +his friend, Geminiani, helped to set the fashion. Volbach, and with him +Hugo Riemann,<a name="FNanchor_400_400" id="FNanchor_400_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> has shown that Geminiani used in the later editions +of his first Violin Sonatas in 1739, and in his Violin School in 1751, +the two following signs:</p> + +<p>Swelling the sound [<b><big>\</big></b>]</p> + +<p>Diminishing (falling) the sound [<b>/</b>]</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p163_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p163_sml.jpg" width="89" height="46" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p>As Geminiani explains it, “The sound ought to commence softly, and +should swell out in a gradual fashion to about half its value, then it +should diminish to the end. The movement of the bow should continue +without interruption.”</p> + +<p>It happens thus, that by a refinement of expression, which became a +mannerism of the Mannheim school, but which also became a source of +powerful<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> contrast with the Beethovenians, the swelling stopped short of +its aim, and was followed instead by a sudden piano, as in the following +example from the Trio Sonatas of Geminiani.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p164-a_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p164-a_sml.jpg" width="186" height="45" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p>It is more than probable that the virtuoso players of Handel’s orchestra +also used this means of expression,<a name="FNanchor_401_401" id="FNanchor_401_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> though we need not assume that +Handel used them as abundantly as Geminiani or as the Mannheim players, +whose taste had become doubtless a little affected and exaggerated. But +what is certain is that with him, as with Geminiani, and indeed with all +the great artists of his time, especially with the Italians and their +followers, music was a real discourse, and ought to be rendered with +inflections as free and as varied as natural speech.<a name="FNanchor_402_402" id="FNanchor_402_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a></p> + +<p class="figcenter" style="width:350px;"> +<a name="ORATORIO" id="ORATORIO"></a> +<a href="images/ill_p164_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p164_sml.jpg" width="312" height="309" alt="HANDEL DIRECTING AN ORATORIO. + +Handel is seen (on the left) seated at a cembalo with two keyboards in +the midst of his musicians. At his right hand he has the “concertino” +group (consisting of the ’cellist, two violinists and two flautists). On +his near left (quite close to the cembalo) are the vocal soloists. The +rest of the instrumentalists are out of his sight." title="HANDEL DIRECTING AN ORATORIO" /></a> +<span class="caption">HANDEL DIRECTING AN ORATORIO.<br /> + +Handel is seen (on the left) seated at a cembalo with two keyboards in +the midst of his musicians. At his right hand he has the “concertino” +group (consisting of the ’cellist, two violinists and two flautists). On +his near left (quite close to the cembalo) are the vocal soloists. The +rest of the instrumentalists are out of his sight.</span> +</p> + +<p>How was it possible to realise all the suppleness and subtleties of +elocution on the orchestra? To<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> understand this it is necessary to +examine the disposition and placing of the orchestra of that time. It +was not, as with us, centralised under the control of a single +conductor. Thus, as Seiffert tells us,<a name="FNanchor_403_403" id="FNanchor_403_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> in Handel’s time it was the +principle of decentralisation which ruled. The choruses had their +leaders, who listened to the organ, from which they took their cue, and +so sustained the voices. The orchestra was divided into three sections, +after the Italian method. Firstly, the <i>Concertino</i>, comprising a first +and a second violin, and a solo violoncello; secondly, the <i>Concerto +Grosso</i>, comprising the instrumental choir; thirdly, the <i>Ripienists</i> +strengthening the <i>Grosso</i>.<a name="FNanchor_404_404" id="FNanchor_404_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a></p> + +<p>A picture in the British Museum, representing Handel in the midst of his +musicians, depicts the composer seated at the clavier (a cembalo with +two keyboards, of which the lid is raised). He is surrounded by the +violoncellist (placed at his right-hand side), two violins and two +flutes, which are placed just before him, under his eye. The solo +singers are also near him, on his left, quite close to the clavecin. The +rest of the instrumentalists are<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> behind him, out of his sight. Thus his +directions and his glances would control the <i>Concertino</i>, who would +transmit in their turn the chief conductor’s wishes to the <i>Concerto +Grosso</i>, and they in their turn to the <i>Ripienists</i>. In place of the +quasi-military discipline of modern orchestras, controlled under the +baton of a chief conductor, the different bodies of the Handelian +orchestra governed one another with elasticity, and it was the incisive +rhythm of the little <i>Cembalo</i> which put the whole mass into motion. +Such a method avoided the mechanical stiffness of our performances. The +danger was rather a certain wobbling without the powerful and infectious +will-power of a chief such as Handel, and without the close sympathy of +thought which was established between him and his capable sub-conductors +of the <i>Concertino</i> and of the <i>Grosso</i>.</p> + +<p>It is this elasticity which should be aimed at in the instrumental works +of Handel when they are executed nowadays.<a name="FNanchor_405_405" id="FNanchor_405_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a></p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>We will first take his <i>Concerti Grossi</i>.<a name="FNanchor_406_406" id="FNanchor_406_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a> None of his works are +more celebrated and less understood.<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> Handel attached to them a +particular value, for he published them himself by subscription, a means +which was usual in his day, but which he himself never adopted except +under exceptional circumstances.</p> + +<p>One knows that the kind of <i>Concerti Grossi</i>, which consists chiefly in +a dialogue between a group of solo instrumentalists (the <i>Concertino</i>) +and the full body of instruments (<i>Concerto Grosso</i>), to which is added +the cembalo,<a name="FNanchor_407_407" id="FNanchor_407_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> was, if not invented, at least carried to its +perfection and rendered classical by Corelli.<a name="FNanchor_408_408" id="FNanchor_408_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> The works of Corelli, +aided by the efforts of his followers, had become widely known in +Europe. Geminiani introduced them into England,<a name="FNanchor_409_409" id="FNanchor_409_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> and without doubt +Handel did not hesitate to profit by the example of Geminiani, who was +his friend;<a name="FNanchor_410_410" id="FNanchor_410_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a> but it is much more natural to think that he learnt the +<i>Concerto Grosso</i>, at its source at Rome, from Corelli himself during +his sojourn there in 1708. Several of his Concertos in his Opus 3<a name="FNanchor_411_411" id="FNanchor_411_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a> +date from<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> 1710, 1716, 1722. The same feature shows itself right up to +the time of his apprenticeship at Hamburg: in any case he might have +already known the Corellian style, thanks to the propaganda of George +Muffat, who spread this style very early in Germany.<a name="FNanchor_412_412" id="FNanchor_412_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> After Corelli, +Locatelli,<a name="FNanchor_413_413" id="FNanchor_413_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> and especially Vivaldi,<a name="FNanchor_414_414" id="FNanchor_414_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> have singularly transformed +the <i>Concerto Grosso</i> by giving it the free character of programme +music<a name="FNanchor_415_415" id="FNanchor_415_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a> and by turning it resolutely towards the form of the Sonata +in three parts. But when the works of Vivaldi were played in London in +1723, and the works which aroused such a general enthusiasm became +thoroughly known to Handel, it was always to Corelli that he gave the +preference, and he was very conservative in certain ways even about him. +The form of his Concerto, of which the principal movements varied from +four to six, oscillated between the Suite and the Sonata, and even +glanced<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> towards the symphonic overture. It is this for which the +theorists blame him, and it is this for which I praise him. For he does +not seek to impose a uniform cast on his thoughts, but leaves it open to +himself to fashion the form as he requires, and the framework varies +accordingly, following his inclinations from day to day. The spontaneity +of his thought, which has already been shown by the extreme rapidity +with which the <i>Concerti</i> were composed—each in a single day at a +single sitting, and many each week<a name="FNanchor_416_416" id="FNanchor_416_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a>—constitutes the great charm of +these works. They are, in the words of Kretzschmar, grand impression +pictures, translated into a form, at the same time precise and supple, +in which the least change of emotion can make itself easily felt. Truly +they are not all of equal value. Their conception itself, which depended +in a way on mere momentary inspiration, is the explanation of this +extreme inequality. One ought to acknowledge here that the Seventh +Concerto, for example (the one in B flat major), and the last three have +but a moderate interest.<a name="FNanchor_417_417" id="FNanchor_417_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> They are amongst those least<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> played; but +to be quite just we must pay homage to these masterpieces, and +especially to the Second Concerto in F major, which is like a +Beethovenian concerto: for we find there some of the spirit of the Bonn +master. For Kretzschmar the ensemble calls to mind a beautiful autumn +day—the morning, where the rising sun pierces its way through the +clouds—the afternoon, the joyful walk, the rest in the forest, and +finally the happy and belated return. It is difficult in fact not to +have natural scenes brought before one’s eyes in hearing these works. +The first <i>Andante Larghetto</i>, which predicts, at times, the Pastoral +Symphony of Beethoven, is a reverie on a beautiful summer’s day. The +spirit lulls itself with nature’s murmur, becomes intoxicated with it, +and goes to rest. The tonality rocks between F major to B flat major and +G minor. To render this piece well it is necessary to give the time +plenty of play, often retarding it, and following the composer’s reverie +in a spirit of soft leisurely abandon.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p170_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p170_sml.jpg" width="318" height="142" alt="Andante larghetto" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p171_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p171_sml.jpg" width="336" height="420" alt="Andante larghetto" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p>The <i>Allegro</i> in D minor which follows is a spirited and delicate little +play, a dialogue leaping from the two solo violins of the <i>Concerto</i>, +then on to the <i>Concertino</i> and the <i>Grosso</i> in turn. There, also, +certain passages in the Bass, robust, rollicking, and rustic, again +bring to mind the Pastoral Symphony.<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p172-a_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p172-a_sml.jpg" width="343" height="363" alt="Allegro" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p>The third movement, a <i>Largo</i> in B flat major, is one of the most +intimate of Handel’s instrumental pages. After seven bars of <i>Largo</i>, in +which the <i>Concertino</i> alternates dreamily with the <i>Tutti</i>,</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p172-b_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p172-b_sml.jpg" width="341" height="156" alt="Largo" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> two bars <i>adagio</i>, languorously drawn out, cause the reverie to glide into a sort +of ecstasy,</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p173-a_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p173-a_sml.jpg" width="231" height="157" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p class="nind">then a <i>larghetto andante e piano</i> breathes out a tender and melancholy +song.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p173_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p173_sml.jpg" width="346" height="296" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">The <i>Largo</i> is resumed. There is in this little poem a melancholy which +seems to revive Handel’s personal remembrances.—The <i>allegro ma non +troppo</i> with which it finishes is, on the contrary, of a jovial feeling, +entirely Beethovenish; it sings joyfully as it bounds along in +well-marked three-four time, with a <i>pizzicato</i>-like rhythm.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p174-a_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p174-a_sml.jpg" width="339" height="187" alt="Allegro ma non troppo" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p class="nind">In the middle of this march a phrase occurs on the two violins of the +<i>Concertino</i> which is like a hymn of reverent and tender gratitude.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p174-b_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p174-b_sml.jpg" width="323" height="144" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p175-a_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p175-a_sml.jpg" width="341" height="157" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p class="nind">The Fourth Concerto in A minor is not less intimate with its <i>Larghetto +affettuoso</i>, which ought to be played with the <i>rubato</i>, <i>rallentando</i> +and short pauses—its <i>allegro</i> fugue, which spreads out and +over-shadows all by its powerful tread—and after a <i>Largo</i> of antique +graveness the <i>allegro</i> three-four which finishes is the veritable last +movement of the Beethoven sonata, romantic, capricious, passionate, and +more and more unrestrained as it approaches the end, <i>accelerando</i> +nearly <i>prestissimo</i>,—inebriated.<a name="FNanchor_418_418" id="FNanchor_418_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p175-b_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p175-b_sml.jpg" width="328" height="138" alt="Allegro" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p176-a_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p176-a_sml.jpg" width="323" height="98" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p>But one ought to know especially the Sixth Concerto in G minor, the most +celebrated of all on account of its magnificent Musette. It opens with a +beautiful <i>Larghetto</i>, full of that melancholy which is one of the +dominant sentiments with Handel, and one of the least observed by most +people: melancholy that is, in the sense of the <i>Malinconia</i> of Dürer, +or of Beethoven—less agitated, but still profound. We have already +encountered it in the Second, in the Third, and in the Fourth +Concerto.<a name="FNanchor_419_419" id="FNanchor_419_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> Here it is found in an elegiac monologue, punctuated by +pedal points;</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p176-b_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p176-b_sml.jpg" width="325" height="152" alt="Largo affettuoso" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">then in the dialogues of the <i>Concertino</i> and of the <i>Tutti</i> responding, +like the groups of the ancient classical chorus. The <i>allegro ma non +troppo</i> fugue which follows it, on a twisting chromatic theme, is of the +same sombre colour. But it is the lusty march of the disciplined fugue +which dispels the fantastic shadows.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p177_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p177_sml.jpg" width="341" height="417" alt="Allegro ma non troppo" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">Then comes the <i>Larghetto</i>, three-four time in E flat major, which +Handel calls a Musette, and which is one of the most delightful dreams +of pastoral happiness.<a name="FNanchor_420_420" id="FNanchor_420_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> A whole day of poetic and capricious events +gradually unrolls itself over the beautiful echoing refrain,</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p178_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p178_sml.jpg" width="348" height="296" alt="Larghetto" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p class="nind">then the movement slackens, nearly going to sleep, then presses forward +again, acquiring a strong, joyous rhythm, a pulsating dance of robust +youths, full of bounding life.<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p179-a_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p179-a_sml.jpg" width="343" height="391" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p>In the midst of this picture an episode, rustic and frolicsome, is +introduced.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p179_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p179_sml.jpg" width="315" height="137" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p180_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p180_sml.jpg" width="344" height="569" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a></p> + +<p class="nind">Then the broad subject of the Introduction recurs with its refrain of +quiet joy, nature’s own smile.<a name="FNanchor_421_421" id="FNanchor_421_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a></p> + +<p>Such works are truly pictures in music. To understand them it does not +suffice to have quick ears; it is necessary to have the eyes to see, and +the heart to feel.<a name="FNanchor_422_422" id="FNanchor_422_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a></p> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>The Symphonies of the operas and oratorios of Handel are extremely +varied. Still, the Lully form predominates.<a name="FNanchor_423_423" id="FNanchor_423_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> This form consists, as +is well<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> known, of a first slow movement, grave, pompous, and majestic, +followed by a second (quick) movement, full of life, and usually in +fugal style, with a return to the slow movement for conclusion. It +appears in the <i>Almira</i> of 1705, and Handel uses it with variations in +all the most celebrated works of his maturity, such as in the <i>Messiah</i>, +and <i>Judas Maccabæus</i>, and even has recourse to it again in his last +work of all, <i>The Triumph of Time</i> (1757), but he does not confine +himself entirely to this form alone. The <i>Symphonia of Roderigo</i> (1707) +adds to the Lully-like overture a <i>Balletto</i> in the Italian style, a +veritable Suite of Dances: Jig, Sarabande, Matelot, Minuet, Bourrée, +Minuet, Grand Passacaille. The Overture to <i>The Triumph of Time</i> of 1708 +is a brilliant Concerto, where the <i>Concertino</i> and the <i>Grosso</i> +converse in a most entertaining and graceful fashion. The Overture to +<i>Il Pastor Fido</i>, 1712, is a Suite in eight movements. That of <i>Teseo</i>, +1713, contains two Largos, each followed by a playful movement of +imitation. That of the <i>Passion after Brockes</i>, 1716, consists of a +single fugued allegro,<a name="FNanchor_424_424" id="FNanchor_424_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> which is joined to the first chorus by the +link of a declamatory solo on the oboe.<a name="FNanchor_425_425" id="FNanchor_425_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a> The Overture to <i>Acis and +Galatea</i>, 1720, is also a single movement. The Overture to <i>Giulio +Cesare</i>, 1724, is joined on to the first chorus, which is in the form of +the third movement, the Minuet. The Overture to <i>Atalanta</i>,<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> 1736, has a +charming sprightliness, similar to an instrumental suite for a <i>fête</i>, +like the Firework Music, of which we shall speak later. The Overture to +<i>Saul</i>, 1738, is a veritable Concerto for organ and orchestra, and the +sonata form is adopted in the first movement.—We see then a very marked +effort on the part of Handel, particularly in his youth, to vary the +form of his Overture from one work to another.</p> + +<p>Even when he uses the Lully type of Overture (and he seems to turn +towards it more and more in his maturity) he transforms it by the spirit +which animates it. He never allows its character to be purely +decorative. He introduces therein always expressive and dramatic +ideas.<a name="FNanchor_426_426" id="FNanchor_426_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> If one cannot exactly call the splendid Overture to +<i>Agrippina</i>, 1709, a Concert Overture of programme music, one cannot +deny its dramatic power. The second movement bubbles with life. It is no +longer an erudite <i>divertissement</i>, a movement foreign to the action, +but it has a tragic character, and the response of the fugue is apparent +in the severe and slightly restless subject of the first piece. For +conclusion the slow movement is recalled by a solo on the oboe, which +announces it out in the pathetic manner made so well known in certain +<i>recitatives</i> of J. S. Bach.<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p184_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p184_sml.jpg" width="334" height="276" alt="Adagio" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p>Many people have seen in the three movements<a name="FNanchor_427_427" id="FNanchor_427_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> of the Overture to +<i>Esther</i>, 1720, a complete programme, which Chrysander gives thus in +detail: firstly, the wickedness of Haman; secondly, the complaints of +Israel; thirdly, the deliverance. I will content myself by saying that +the ensemble of this symphony is thoroughly in the colour and spirit of +the tragedy itself—but it is not possible to doubt that, with the +Overture of <i>Deborah</i> and with that of <i>Belshazzar</i> that Handel wished +to work to a complete programme; for of the four movements of the +<i>Deborah</i> Overture, the second is repeated later on as the Chorus of the +Israelites, and the fourth as the Chorus of Baal’s priests. Thus in his +very first pages he places in<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> miniature in the Overture the duality of +the nations, whose antagonism forms the subject of the drama.<a name="FNanchor_428_428" id="FNanchor_428_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> It +seems also true that the Overture to <i>Belshazzar</i> aims at painting the +orgy of the feast of Sesach, and the apparition of the Divine Hand which +wrote the mystic words of fire on the wall. In every case dramatic +intentions are very evident; by the three repeats; the interrupted flow +of the orchestra is intersected by three short chords, <i>piano</i>; and, +then after the sudden silence, three bars of solemn and soft music are +heard like a religious song.<a name="FNanchor_429_429" id="FNanchor_429_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p185_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p185_sml.jpg" width="295" height="101" alt="Allegro" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_p186_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_p186_sml.jpg" width="338" height="451" alt="musical notation" title="musical notation" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a></p> + +<p>We now come to our last class of Handel’s instrumental music, to which +historians have given far too little attention, and in which Handel +shows himself a precursor, and at the same time a model. I refer to the +open-air music.</p> + +<p>This took a prominent place in the English life. The environs of London +were full of gardens, where, Pepys tells us, “vocal and instrumental +concerts vied with the voices of the birds.” Concerts were given at +Vauxhall; at South Lambeth Palace on the Thames; at Ranelagh, near +Chelsea, about two miles from the city; at Marylebone Garden; and Handel +was always welcome there. From 1738 the proprietor of Vauxhall, Jonathan +Tyer, erected in its gardens a statue of Handel, and this was hardly +done when the <i>Concerti Grossi</i> became the favourite pieces at the +concerts of Marylebone, Vauxhall, and Ranelagh. Burney tells us that he +often heard them played by numerous orchestras. Handel wrote pieces +especially intended for these garden concerts. Generally speaking, he +attached little importance to them. They were little symphonies or +unpretentious dances, like the Hornpipe, composed for the concert at +Vauxhall in 1740.<a name="FNanchor_430_430" id="FNanchor_430_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a> An anecdote related by Pohl and also by +Chrysander, shows<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> Handel pleasantly engaged on this music, which gave +him no trouble at all.</p> + +<p>But he composed on these lines some works tending towards a much vaster +scale: from 1715 or 1717 the famous Water Music, written for the royal +procession of barges on the Thames,<a name="FNanchor_431_431" id="FNanchor_431_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> and the Firework Music made to +illustrate the firework display given in Green Park on April 27, 1749, +in celebration of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.<a name="FNanchor_432_432" id="FNanchor_432_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a></p> + +<p>The Water Music has a grand Serenade in the form of a suite comprising +more than twenty movements. It opens with a pompous Opera-overture;<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a> +then come some dialogues, with echoes of horns and drums, where the +brass and the rest of the orchestra, which are arranged in two sections, +respond. Then follow happy and soothing songs, dances, a Bourrée, a +Hornpipe, Minuets, popular songs, which alternate and contrast with the +joyful and powerful fanfares. The orchestra is very nearly the same as +in his usual symphonies, except that considerable importance is given to +the brass. One even finds in this work certain pieces written in the +chamber-music style, or in the theatrical manner.</p> + +<p>With the Firework Music the character of open-air music is even more +definitely asserted, quite as much by the broad style of the piece as by +the orchestration, which is confined entirely to the wind +instruments.<a name="FNanchor_433_433" id="FNanchor_433_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> The composition is divided into two parts: an Overture +which was to be played before the grand firework display, and a number +of little pieces to be played during the display, and which corresponded +to certain allegorical set pieces. The Overture is a sort of stately +march in D major, and has some resemblance to the Overture of the +<i>Ritterballet</i> (Huntsman’s Dance) of Beethoven, and which is, like it, +joyful, equestrian, and very<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> sonorous. The shorter movements comprise a +Bourrée, a <i>Largo a la Siciliana</i>, entitled <i>Peace</i>,<a name="FNanchor_434_434" id="FNanchor_434_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> of a beautiful +heroic grace, which lulls itself to sleep; a very sprightly <i>Allegro</i> +entitled <i>The Rejoicing</i>, and two Minuets for conclusion. It is an +interesting work for the organisers of our popular <i>fêtes</i> and open-air +spectacles to study.<a name="FNanchor_435_435" id="FNanchor_435_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> If we have said that after 1740 Handel wrote +hardly any other instrumental music than the Firework Music, and the two +monumental concertos, <i>a due cori</i> (for two horns) we have the feeling +that the last evolution of his thought and instrumental style led him in +the direction of music conceived for great masses, wide spaces, and huge +audiences. He had always in him a popular vein of thought. I immediately +call to mind the many popular inspirations with which his memory was +stored, and which vivify the pages of his oratorios. His art, which +renewed itself perpetually at this rustic source, had in his time an +astonishing popularity. Certain airs from <i>Ottone</i>, <i>Scipione</i>, +<i>Arianna</i>, <i>Berenice</i>, and such other of his operas, were circulated and +vulgarised not only in England,<a name="FNanchor_436_436" id="FNanchor_436_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> but abroad, and<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> even in France +(generally so unyielding to outside influences).<a name="FNanchor_437_437" id="FNanchor_437_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a></p> + +<p>It is not only of this popularity, a little banal, of which I wish to +speak, which one could not ignore—for it is only a stupid pride and a +small heart which denies great value to the art which pleases humble +people;—what I wish to notice chiefly in the popular character of +Handel’s music is that it is always truly conceived for the people, and +not for an <i>élite dilettanti</i> as was the French Opera between Lully and +Gluck. Without ever departing from his sovereign ideas of beautiful +form, in which he gave no concession to the crowd, he reproduced in a +language immediately “understanded<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> of the people” those feelings in +which all could share. This genial improvisor, compelled during the +whole of his life (a half-century of creative power) to address from the +stage a mixed public, for whom it was necessary to understand +immediately, was like the orators of old, who had the cult of style and +instinct for immediate and vital effect. Our epoch has lost the feeling +of this type of art and men: pure artists who speak <i>to</i> the people and +<i>for</i> the people, not for themselves or for their confrères. To-day the +pure artists lock themselves within themselves, and those who speak to +the people are most often mountebanks. The free England of the +nineteenth century was in a certain measure related to the Roman +republic, and indeed Handel’s eloquence was not without relation to that +of the epic orators, who sustained in the form their highly finished and +passionate discourses, who left their mark on the shuddering crowd of +loiterers. This eloquence did on occasion actually thrust itself into +the soul of the nation as in the days of the Jacobite invasion, where +<i>Judas Maccabæus</i> incarnated the public feeling. In the first +performances of <i>Israel in Egypt</i> some of the auditors praised the +heroic virtues of this music, which could raise up the populace and lead +armies to victory.</p> + +<p>By this power of popular appeal, as by all the other aspects of his +genius, Handel was in the robust line of Cavalli and of Gluck, but he +surpassed them. Alone, Beethoven has walked in these broader paths, and +followed along the road which Handel had opened.<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="LIST_OF_HANDELS_WORKS" id="LIST_OF_HANDELS_WORKS"></a>LIST OF HANDEL’S WORKS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">I. Operas</th></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td colspan="3" align="center">In chronological order, with the dates and places of the first +performance.</td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td colspan="3" align="center">(The figures in brackets refer to the number of the Volume in the +Complete Edition of Handel’s Works.)</td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">1.</td><td> <i>Almira</i> (55)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Hamburg, 1705.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">2.</td><td> <i>Nero</i> (lost)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1705.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">3.</td><td> <i>Florinda</i> (lost) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> ” about 1706.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">4.</td><td> <i>Daphne</i> (lost) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> ” about 1706.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">5.</td><td> <i>Roderigo</i> (56)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Florence, 1707.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">6.</td><td> <i>Agrippina</i> (57)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Venice, 1708.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">7.</td><td> <i>Rinaldo</i> (58)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">London, 1711.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">8.</td><td> <i>Il Pastor Fido</i> (59) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1712.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">9.</td><td> <i>Teseo</i> (60)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1713.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">10.</td><td> <i>Silla</i> (61). Never performed in + public (probably privately performed at Canons).</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">11.</td><td> <i>Amadigi</i> (62)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">London, 1715.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">12.</td><td> <i>Radamisto</i> (63)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1720.</td></tr> + <tr><td> </td><td>(There are three versions.)</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">13.</td><td> <i>Muzio Scævola</i> (64)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1721.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">14.</td><td> <i>Floridante</i> (65) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1721.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">15.</td><td> <i>Ottone</i> (66)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1723.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">16.</td><td> <i>Flavio</i> (67)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1723.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">17.</td><td> <i>Giulio Cesare</i> (68)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1724.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">18.</td><td> <i>Tamerlano</i> (69)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1724.<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a></td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">19.</td><td> <i>Rodelinda</i> (70)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">London, 1725.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">20.</td><td> <i>Scipione</i> (71)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1726.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">21.</td><td> <i>Alessandro</i> (72)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1726.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">22.</td><td> <i>Admeto</i> (73)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1727.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">23.</td><td> <i>Riccardo Primo, Re d’Inghilterra</i></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1727.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">24.</td><td> <i>Siroe</i> (75)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1728.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">25.</td><td> <i>Tolomeo, Re d’Egitto</i> (76)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1728.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">26.</td><td> <i>Lotario</i> (77)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1729.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">27.</td><td> <i>Partenope</i> (78)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1730.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">28.</td><td> <i>Rinaldo</i> (new version) (58)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1731.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">29.</td><td> <i>Poro</i> (79)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1731.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">30.</td><td> <i>Ezio</i> (80)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1732.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">31.</td><td> <i>Sosarme</i> (81)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1732.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">32.</td><td> <i>Orlando</i> (82)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1733.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">33.</td><td> <i>Arianna</i> (83)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1734.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">34.</td><td> <i>Terpsichore</i> (84)</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">35.</td><td> <i>Ariodante</i> (85)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1735.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">36.</td><td> <i>Alcina</i> (86)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1735.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">37.</td><td> <i>Atalanta</i> (87)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1736.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">38.</td><td> <i>Giustino</i> (88)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1737.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">39.</td><td> <i>Arminio</i> (89)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1737.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">40.</td><td> <i>Berenice</i> (90)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1737.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">41.</td><td> <i>Faramondo</i> (91)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1738.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">42.</td><td> <i>Serse</i> (92)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1738.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">43.</td><td> <i>Imeneo</i> (93)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1740.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">44.</td><td> <i>Deidamia</i> (94)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1741.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">45.</td><td> <i>Jupiter in Argos</i> (MS. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Advertised but never performed), 1739.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">46.</td><td> <i>Tito.</i> Unperformed and unpublished.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">47.</td><td> <i>Alfonso Imo.</i> Unperformed and unpublished.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">48.</td><td> <i>Flavio Olibrio.</i> Unperformed and unpublished.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">49.</td><td> <i>Honorius.</i> Unperformed and unpublished.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">50.</td><td> An unnamed opera (MS. Fitzwilliam Museum).</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">51.</td><td> Eleven Pasticcios, arranged at various times between 1730 and 1747.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">II. Oratorios</th></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">1.</td><td> <i>Passion according to St. John</i> (9)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Hamburg. 1704.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">2.</td><td> <i>Resurrezione</i> (32) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Rome. 1708.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">3.</td><td> <i>Il Trionfo del Tempo</i> (24)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span> 1708.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">4.</td><td> <i>The Passion of Christ</i> (15)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Hamburg. 1717.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">5.</td><td> <i>Esther</i> (First Version)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Canons. 1720.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">6.</td><td> <i>Esther</i> (Second Version)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> King’s Theatre, London, 1733.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">7.</td><td> <i>Deborah</i> (29) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> King’s Theatre, London, 1733.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">8.</td><td> <i>Athaliah</i> (5)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Oxford. 1733</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">9.</td><td> <i>Saul</i> (13) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> King’s Theatre, London, 1739.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">10.</td><td> <i>Israel in Egypt</i> (16) ”</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1739.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">11.</td><td> <i>Messiah</i></td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Dublin, 1742.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">12.</td><td> <i>Samson</i> (10) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Covent Garden, 1743.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">13.</td><td> <i>Joseph</i> (42) ”</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1744.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">14.</td><td> <i>Belshazzar</i> (19) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> King’s Theatre, 1745.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">15.</td><td> <i>Occasional Oratorio</i> (43) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Covent Garden, 1746.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">16.</td><td> <i>Judas Maccabæus</i> (22) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>1747.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">17.</td><td> <i>Joshua</i> (17) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>1748.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">18.</td><td> <i>Alexander Balus</i> (33) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>1748.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">19.</td><td> <i>Solomon</i> (26) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>1749.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">20.</td><td> <i>Susanna</i> (1) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>1749.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">21.</td><td> <i>Theodora</i> (8) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>1750.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">22.</td><td> <i>Jephtha</i> (44) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>1752.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">23.</td><td> <i>Triumph of Time and Truth</i> (20) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>1757.</td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">III. Odes, Serenatas, and Occasional Pieces</th></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">1.</td><td> <i>Acis, Galatea e Polifemo</i> (53)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Naples. 1708.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">2.</td><td> <i>Birthday Ode for Queen Anne</i> (46a)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> St. James’ Palace, 1713.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">3.</td><td> <i>Acis and Galatea</i> (3)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Canons, 1720.<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a></td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">4.</td><td> <i>The Alchemist</i> </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Covent Garden, 1732.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">5.</td><td> <i>Il Parnasso in Festa</i> (54) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> King’s Theatre, 1734.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">6.</td><td> <i>Alexander’s Feast</i> (12) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Covent Garden, 1736.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">7.</td><td> <i>Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day</i> (23) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1739.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">8.</td><td> <i>Praise of Harmony</i> </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">”<span class="quo">”</span>about 1739.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">9.</td><td> <i>L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato</i> (6) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1740.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">10.</td><td> <i>Hymen</i></td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Dublin, 1742.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">11.</td><td> <i>Semele</i> (7) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Covent Garden, 1744.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">12.</td><td> <i>Hercules</i> (4) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> King’s Theatre, 1745.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">13.</td><td> <i>Alceste</i> (46b). Incidental music to play. (Never performed) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> 1749 or 1750.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">14.</td><td> <i>Choice of Hercules</i> (18). An Interlude </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Covent Garden, 1751.</td></tr> +</table> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">IV. Church Music</th></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">1.</td><td> <i>Laudate Pueri in F</i></td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Halle, 1702.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">2.</td><td> <i>Dixit Dominus</i> (38)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Rome, 1707.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">3.</td><td> <i>Nisi Dominus</i> (38) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Rome or Halle.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">4.</td><td> <i>Laudate Pueri in D</i> (38)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Rome, 1707.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">5.</td><td> <i>Silete venti</i> (38)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><span class="quo">”</span>1708.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">6.</td><td> <i>Six Alleluias</i> (38). For voice and harpsichord.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">7.</td><td> <i>Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate</i> (31) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1713.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">8.</td><td> <i>Te Deum in D</i> (37) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> About 1714.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">9.</td><td> <i>Fifteen Chandos Anthems</i> (34). For chorus, organ </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Canons, 1716-18.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">10.</td><td> <i>Te Deum in B flat</i> (37) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1716-18.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">11.</td><td> <i>Four Coronation Anthems</i> (14).<br /> + For seven-part chorus and large + orchestra </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Westminster Abbey, 1727.<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a></td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">12.</td><td> <i>Te Deum in A</i> (37) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> About 1727.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">13.</td><td> <i>O Praise the Lord, Ps. CIII.</i>, etc.<br /> (36). Anthem for chorus and orchestra.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">14.</td><td> <i>Wedding Anthem, Ps. XLV.</i>, etc.<br /> (36). Eight-part chorus, solos, orchestra, and organ</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Wedding of Princess Anne, 1734.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">15.</td><td> <i>Wedding Anthem, Ps. LXVIII.</i>, etc.<br /> + Chorus, solos, and orchestra </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> Wedding of the Prince of Wales, 1736.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">16.</td><td> <i>Funeral Anthem</i> (II)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Death of Queen Caroline, 1737.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">17.</td><td> <i>Dettingen Te Deum</i> (25) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1743.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">18.</td><td> <i>Dettingen Anthem, Ps. X. and XI.</i>,</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1743.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">19.</td><td> <i>Foundling Hospital Anthem, Ps. + XLI.</i>, etc. (36)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1749.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">20.</td><td> Three Hymns. MS. in Fitzwilliam Museum.<br />Words + by the Rev. C. Wesley. “Sinners, obey the<br /> + Gospel word,” “O Love divine, how sweet thou<br /> + art,” “Rejoice, the Lord is King.”</td></tr> +</table> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">V. Vocal Chamber Music</th></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">1.</td><td> Seventy-two Solo Cantatas for one or two voices + with instruments (52 a, b, c). Italian. No. 8 is + English; No. 18 is Spanish with guitar accompaniment.</td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">2.</td><td> Twenty-two Italian Duets and two Trios with + harpsichord and violoncello (32).</td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">3.</td><td> Seven Italian Sonatas. Unpublished. MSS. in + Fitzwilliam Museum.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr valign="top"><th colspan="3" align="center">VI. Instrumental Music</th></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">1.</td><td> Six Sonatas for two oboes with thorough-bass for + harpsichord (73) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> 1696.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">2.</td><td> Sonata for viola-da-gamba and cembalo concertata in + C (48)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Hamburg, 1705.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">3.</td><td> <i>Klavierbuch aus der Jugendzeit</i> (48)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1710.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">4.</td><td> Three Sonatas for flute and harpsichord + (48) Probably Hanover,</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> about 1710.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">5.</td><td> Water Music (47) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> 1715.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">6.</td><td> <i>Suites de pièces pour clavecin</i> (2) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Published 1720.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">7.</td><td> Fifteen Solos for a German flute, oboe or violin,<br /> + with a thorough-bass for harpsichord or bass violin (27) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"> 1724.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">8.</td><td> Six Concertos (21), Op. 3. <i>Concerti grossi con due</i> + <i>violini e violoncello di concertino e due altri violini,</i> + <i>viola e basso di concerto grosso ad arbitrio</i>, known as + the Oboe Concertos</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Walsh, 1729.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">9.</td><td> Nine Sonatas or Trios for two violins, flutes, or + oboes, with a thorough-bass for harpsichord or + violoncello, Op. 2 (27)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Walsh, 1733.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">10.</td><td> <i>Suites de pièces pour clavecin</i> (2). Second + volume pilfered by Walsh in 1733.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">11.</td><td> <i>Pièces pour clavecin</i> (2). Five pieces Witvogel + in Amsterdam, 1733. Several clavecin pieces still + remain in MS. at Buckingham Palace and Fitzwilliam + Museum.<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">12.</td><td> Overture for the pasticcio <i>Oreste</i> (48)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1734.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">13.</td><td> Six “Fugues or Voluntaries for the organ or harpsichord,” + Op. 3a (2)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Walsh, 1735.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">14.</td><td> Overture in G minor for the pasticcio <i>Alessandro + Severo</i> (48)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1738.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">15.</td><td> Six Organ Concertos, Op. 4 (48)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Walsh, 1738.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">16.</td><td> Seven Sonatas or Trios for two violins or German flutes, + with a thorough-bass for the harpsichord or violoncello, + Op. 5 (27)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Walsh, 1738.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">17.</td><td> Hornpipe, composed for the concert at Vauxhall (48). + For strings in three parts</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1740.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">18.</td><td> Six Concertos for organ arranged by Walsh from the + Orchestral Concertos</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1740.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">19.</td><td> Twelve Grand Concertos, Op. 6a (30). For strings only, + in seven parts</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Walsh, 1740.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">20.</td><td> <i>Pièces pour le clavecin</i> (2)</td><td align="right" valign="bottom">Cluer, 1742.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">21.</td><td> Forest Music (47) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1742.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">22.</td><td> Fire Music (47) </td><td align="right" valign="bottom">1749.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">23.</td><td> Concerto for two organs and orchestra in D minor (48). + Movement only exists.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">24.</td><td> Overture in B minor (48). Adapted by Walsh from the + Overture to <i>Trionfo del Tempo</i>.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">25.</td><td> Organ Concerto in D minor (48). Two movements.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">26.</td><td> Organ Concerto in F (48).</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">27.</td><td> Partita in A (48).</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">28.</td><td> Six little Fugues. (Dubious.)</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">29.</td><td> Concerto for trumpets and horns.<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a></td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">30.</td><td> Concerto for horns and side-drums.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">31.</td><td> <i>Sinfonie diverse</i> (48). Eight short pieces for orchestral instruments.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">32.</td><td> Overture in five movements (incomplete) for two clarionets + and corno di caccia. MS. in Fitzwilliam Museum.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="cb">. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . . +. . . . .</p> + +<p>The C<small>OMPLETE</small> H<small>ANDEL</small> E<small>DITION</small> contains as supplements several volumes of +works by various Italian and German composers, which Handel has utilised +in his compositions, namely:—</p> + +<ul> +<li>1. <i>Magnificat</i> said to be by Erba.</li> +<li>2. <i>Te deum</i> said to be by Urio.</li> +<li>3. <i>Serenata</i> by Stradella.</li> +<li>4. <i>Duetti</i> by Clari.</li> +<li>5. <i>Componimenti musicali</i> by G. Muffat.</li> +<li>6. <i>Octavia</i> by Reinhard Keiser.</li> +</ul> + +<p><a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY"></a>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> + +<p><span class="smcap">Friedrich Chrysander</span>, <i>G. F. Handel</i>. 3 vols., 1858-67, Leipzig.</p> + +<p>(The name of Chrysander ought to be attached permanently to that of +Handel, for his life was entirely devoted to him. It was he who founded +in 1856, with Gervinus, the <span class="smcap">German Handel Society</span> and who accomplished +nearly the whole of the Complete Edition of the Works of Handel in one +hundred volumes by himself alone. His biography is a monument of science +and devotion comparable with Philipp Spitta’s <i>J. S. Bach</i> and Otto +Jahn’s <i>Mozart</i>. Unfortunately the work remained unfinished: it stopped +at the year 1740. Max Seiffert completed it.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Schoelcher</span>, <i>The Life of Handel</i>. 1857.</p> + +<p>(Schoelcher’s works, anterior to those of Chrysander, are valuable on +account of their collection of documents rather than that of the general +laying out of the works. As we have seen, the priceless collection of +these documents is housed at the Paris Conservatoire.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hermann Kretzschmar</span>, <i>Georg Friedrich Handel</i> (published in the +<i>Sammlung musikalischer Vorträge</i> by Paul Graf Waldersee).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Fritz Volbach</span>, <i>Georg-Friedrich Hændel</i> (Collection: <i>Harmonie</i>. 1898, +Berlin).</p> + +<p>(These two last works are excellent little <i>résumés</i> of the life and +works of Handel.)<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">J. A. Fuller-Maitland</span>, <i>The Age of Bach and Handel</i> (The Oxford History +of Music, Vol. IV). 1902, Oxford.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">R. A. Streatfeild</span>, <i>Handel</i>. 1909, London.</p> + +<p>(This book is one of the first in England which has freed the figure of +Handel from the false mass of moralising and teaching under which the +author of the <i>Messiah</i> was buried. He shows the richness and freedom of +Handel’s work and rectifies several points in the German biographies.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Adimolo</span>, <i>G. F. Handel in Italia</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sedley Taylor</span>, <i>The Indebtedness of Handel to Works by other Composers</i>. +1906, Cambridge.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">P. Robinson</span>, <i>Handel and his Orbit</i>. 1908, London. (These two last books +are concerned with the question of Handel’s plagiarisms.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">F. Volbach</span>, <i>Die Praxis der Hændel-Aufführung</i>, 1889. Thesis for +Doctorate.</p> + +<p>(On the Orchestra of Handel.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hugo Goldschmidt</span>, <i>Die Lehre von der vocalen Ornamentik</i>. 1907.</p> + +<p>(On the vocal execution of Handel’s works, and particularly on the +question of Handel’s ornaments. This matter has been the subject of +numerous discussions in the numbers of the <i>International Musical +Gazette</i>, especially by Max Seiffert.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Weitzmann</span>, <i>Geschichte der Klaviermusik</i>, Vol. 1, 1899 (continued and +completed by Seiffert and Fleischer). (For the Clavier Works of Handel.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest David</span>, <i>Handel</i>. 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Camille Bellaigue</span>, <i>Les Époques de la Musique</i>, Vol. I, 1909.<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a></p> + +<p>For readers desirous of consulting the sources of the biographies of +Handel, the most interesting works written by his contempories are:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Johann Mattheson</span>, <i>Handel</i> (in his <i>Ehrenpforte</i>, 1740).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mainwaring</span>, <i>Memoirs of the Life of the late G. F. Handel</i>. London, +1760. (Translated into German with annotations by Mattheson, 1761; into +French by Arnaud and Suard in 1778.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Burney</span>, <i>Commemoration of Handel</i>. London, 1785.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Hawkins</span>, <i>General History of Music</i>. London, 1788.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">W. Coxe</span>, <i>Anecdotes of G. F. Handel and Smith</i>. London, 1799.</p> + +<p><a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + +<p class="cb"><a href="#A">A</a>, +<a href="#B">B</a>, +<a href="#C">C</a>, +<a href="#D">D</a>, +<a href="#E">E</a>, +<a href="#F">F</a>, +<a href="#G">G</a>, +<a href="#H">H</a>, +<a href="#I">I</a>, +<a href="#J">J</a>, +<a href="#K">K</a>, +<a href="#L">L</a>, +<a href="#M">M</a>, +<a href="#N">N</a>, +<a href="#O">O</a>, +<a href="#P">P</a>, +<a href="#Q">Q</a>, +<a href="#R">R</a>, +<a href="#S">S</a>, +<a href="#T">T</a>, +<a href="#U">U</a>, +<a href="#V">V</a>, +<a href="#W">W</a>, +<a href="#Z">Z</a></p> + +<p class="nind"> +<span class="lettra"><a name="A" id="A">A</a></span><br /> +Academy of Ancient Music, <a href="#page_054">54</a>, <a href="#page_137">137</a><br /> +Academy of Italian Opera, <a href="#page_073">73</a><br /> +<i>Acis and Galatea</i>, <a href="#page_007">7</a>, <a href="#page_046">46</a>, <a href="#page_072">72</a>, <a href="#page_085">85</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>, <a href="#page_120">120</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a><br /> +Addison, <a href="#page_016">16</a>, <a href="#page_060">60</a><br /> +<i>Agrippina</i>, <a href="#page_046">46</a>, <a href="#page_183">183</a><br /> +Airs adapted to French words, <a href="#page_191">191</a> n.<br /> +Alberti, <a href="#page_006">6</a><br /> +<i>Alceste</i>, <a href="#page_104">104</a><br /> +<i>Alcina</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a><br /> +<i>Alexander Balus</i>, <a href="#page_102">102</a><br /> +<i>Alexander’s Feast</i>, <a href="#page_092">92</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a> n., <a href="#page_160">160</a> n.<br /> +<i>Almahade</i>, <a href="#page_062">62</a><br /> +<i>Almira</i>, <a href="#page_033">33</a>, <a href="#page_034">34</a>, <a href="#page_036">36</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> +Amadigi, <a href="#page_068">68</a><br /> +Amsterdam, <a href="#page_149">149</a><br /> +Ademollo, <a href="#page_040">40</a><br /> +Arbuthnot, Dr., <a href="#page_081">81</a> n.<br /> +Architecture, Musical, <a href="#page_138">138</a><br /> +<i>Arianna</i>, <a href="#page_088">88</a>, <a href="#page_095">95</a><br /> +<i>Arias Buffi</i>, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +<i>Arietti Da Capo</i>, <a href="#page_125">125</a><br /> +<i>Ariodante</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> +<i>Arioso</i>, <a href="#page_133">133</a><br /> +Ariosti, <a href="#page_011">11</a><br /> +Aristoxenians, <a href="#page_024">24</a><br /> +<i>Arminio</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a> n.<br /> +Arne, <a href="#page_096">96</a> n.<br /> +<i>Arsinoé</i>, <a href="#page_062">62</a><br /> +<i>Astarto</i>, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> +<i>Atalanta</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a>, <a href="#page_131">131</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a><br /> +<i>Athaliah</i>, <a href="#page_085">85</a>, <a href="#page_086">86</a><br /> +<i>Athalie</i>, <a href="#page_048">48</a><br /> +Augsburg, <a href="#page_053">53</a><br /> +Augustus of Saxony, Duke, <a href="#page_001">1</a>, <a href="#page_003">3</a>, <a href="#page_042">42</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="B" id="B">B</a></span><br /> +Babell, Wm., <a href="#page_145">145</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a> n.<br /> +<i>Bacchus und Ariadne</i>, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> +Bach, <a href="#page_003">3</a>, <a href="#page_021">21</a>, <a href="#page_029">29</a>, <a href="#page_056">56</a>, <a href="#page_070">70</a>, <a href="#page_104">104</a>, <a href="#page_113">113</a>, <a href="#page_119">119</a>, <a href="#page_121">121</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_152">152</a><br /> +Ballet-Operas, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> +Bankruptcy, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> +Bartolommeo, <a href="#page_057">57</a><br /> +Bass soloists, <a href="#page_123">123</a> n.<br /> +Bassoons, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> +Battle of Dettingen, <a href="#page_099">99</a> n.<br /> +Beech Oil Company, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> +Beethoven, <a href="#page_010">10</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>, <a href="#page_142">142</a>, <a href="#page_154">154</a>, <a href="#page_176">176</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> +Beethovenians, <a href="#page_164">164</a><br /> +<i>Beggar’s Opera</i>, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_081">81</a><br /> +<i>Belshazzar</i>, <a href="#page_099">99</a>, <a href="#page_128">128</a>, <a href="#page_135">135</a>, <a href="#page_136">136</a>, <a href="#page_184">184</a><br /> +<i>Berenice</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a> n.<br /> +Berlin, <a href="#page_011">11</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a><br /> +Berlioz, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_121">121</a>, <a href="#page_142">142</a>, <a href="#page_154">154</a><br /> +Bernabei, <a href="#page_051">51</a>, <a href="#page_056">56</a><br /> +Bernhard, <a href="#page_016">16</a><br /> +Bible, <a href="#page_002">2</a><br /> +Biblical dramas, <a href="#page_071">71</a>, <a href="#page_085">85</a><br /> +Birds, <a href="#page_187">187</a><br /> +<i>Birthday Ode to Queen Anne</i>, <a href="#page_066">66</a>, <a href="#page_138">138</a><br /> +Blindness, <a href="#page_105">105</a><br /> +Bolingbroke, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> +Bologna, <a href="#page_075">75</a><br /> +<i>Bonduca</i>, <a href="#page_059">59</a><br /> +Bononcini, <a href="#page_062">62</a>, <a href="#page_074">74</a>, <a href="#page_075">75</a>, <a href="#page_079">79</a>, <a href="#page_086">86</a> n., <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> +Brandenburg, <a href="#page_003">3</a>, <a href="#page_012">12</a><br /> +Breslau, <a href="#page_108">108</a><br /> +British Museum, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> +Brockes, <a href="#page_064">64</a><br /> +Burlington, Lord, <a href="#page_067">67</a>, <a href="#page_074">74</a><br /> +Burney, <a href="#page_187">187</a><br /> +Buxtehude, <a href="#page_029">29</a>, <a href="#page_030">30</a>, <a href="#page_031">31</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="C" id="C">C</a></span><br /> +Cadenzas, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +<i>Camilla, Regina de Volsei</i>, <a href="#page_062">62</a><br /> +Canons, <a href="#page_149">149</a><br /> +<i>Cara sposa (Rinaldo)</i>, <a href="#page_125">125</a><br /> +Carey, <a href="#page_096">96</a><br /> +Caricature of Handel’s art, <a href="#page_144">144</a><br /> +Carriage-accident to Handel, <a href="#page_104">104</a><br /> +Carillon in <i>Saul</i>, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> +<i>Castrati</i>, <a href="#page_080">80</a><br /> +Cavalli, <a href="#page_193">193</a><br /> +Chaconnes, <a href="#page_149">149</a> n.<br /> +<i>Chandos Anthems</i>, <a href="#page_071">71</a>, <a href="#page_085">85</a>, <a href="#page_136">136</a><br /> +Characters, <a href="#page_135">135</a><br /> +<i>Choice of Hercules</i>, <a href="#page_104">104</a>, <a href="#page_187">187</a> n.<br /> +Choruses, <a href="#page_132">132</a>, <a href="#page_140">140</a><br /> +Chrysander, <a href="#page_057">57</a>, <a href="#page_110">110</a><br /> +Cibber, Colley, <a href="#page_081">81</a> n.<br /> +Classical chorus, <a href="#page_136">136</a><br /> +Clavier pieces, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> +Clayton, <a href="#page_061">61</a><br /> +<i>Cleopatra</i>, <a href="#page_032">32</a>, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> +Colour, <a href="#page_140">140</a>, <a href="#page_141">141</a><br /> +Comic style of Keiser, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +Commemoration festival, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +Composing music, <a href="#page_142">142</a> n.<br /> +Concert overture, <a href="#page_183">183</a><br /> +<i>Concerti Grossi</i>, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_165">165</a>, <a href="#page_166">166</a><br /> +<i>Concertino</i>, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> +Concerto, <a href="#page_168">168</a>, <a href="#page_190">190</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a><br /> +Concerto for two organs, <a href="#page_154">154</a><br /> +Concerto for organ with chorus, <a href="#page_154">154</a><br /> +Concerto for two horns, <a href="#page_145">145</a>, <a href="#page_159">159</a><br /> +Concerto for organ, <a href="#page_183">183</a><br /> +Conductor, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> +Corelli, <a href="#page_011">11</a>, <a href="#page_115">115</a>, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> +<i>Coronation Anthems</i>, <a href="#page_083">83</a>, <a href="#page_085">85</a><br /> +Cousser, <a href="#page_018">18</a><br /> +Covent Garden Theatre, <a href="#page_092">92</a><br /> +<i>Creation</i>, Haydn’s, <a href="#page_108">108</a><br /> +<i>Crescendo</i>, <a href="#page_163">163</a><br /> +<i>Critica Musica</i>, <a href="#page_024">24</a><br /> +Culloden Moor, <a href="#page_101">101</a><br /> +Cuzzoni, <a href="#page_080">80</a> n.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="D" id="D">D</a></span><br /> +<i>Da Capo</i> form, <a href="#page_056">56</a>, <a href="#page_077">77</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a>, <a href="#page_132">132</a><br /> +Dances, <a href="#page_133">133</a><br /> +Death, Handel’s, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +<i>Deborah</i>, <a href="#page_085">85</a>, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_110">110</a>, <a href="#page_184">184</a><br /> +<i>Deidamia</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a> n., <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> +Dent, Edward, <a href="#page_038">38</a><br /> +Descartes, <a href="#page_049">49</a><br /> +<i>Dettingen Te Deum</i>, <a href="#page_099">99</a>, <a href="#page_160">160</a> n.<br /> +<i>Dido and Æneas</i>, <a href="#page_059">59</a><br /> +<i>Die lustige Hochzeit</i>, <a href="#page_035">35</a><br /> +<i>Diminuendo</i>, <a href="#page_163">163</a><br /> +<i>Dioclesian</i>, <a href="#page_059">59</a><br /> +<i>Divertissement</i>, <a href="#page_183">183</a><br /> +Domenico Scarlatti, <a href="#page_044">44</a><br /> +Double fugue, <a href="#page_150">150</a><br /> +Drums, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> +Drury Lane Theatre, <a href="#page_081">81</a> n.<br /> +Dryden, <a href="#page_092">92</a><br /> +Dublin, <a href="#page_097">97</a><br /> +Dubourg, <a href="#page_156">156</a><br /> +Duchess Sophia, <a href="#page_067">67</a><br /> +Duel with Mattheson, <a href="#page_033">33</a><br /> +Duets, Vocal, <a href="#page_131">131</a><br /> +Duke of Chandos, <a href="#page_071">71</a>, <a href="#page_072">72</a><br /> +Duke of Cumberland, <a href="#page_101">101</a><br /> +Dukes of Hanover, <a href="#page_049">49</a><br /> +Dürer, <a href="#page_176">176</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="E" id="E">E</a></span><br /> +Education, <a href="#page_006">6</a><br /> +<i>Ehrenpforte</i>, <a href="#page_026">26</a><br /> +England, <a href="#page_070">70</a>, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_112">112</a>, <a href="#page_113">113</a>, <a href="#page_148">148</a>, etc.<br /> +English taste, <a href="#page_059">59</a><br /> +English country, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> +Ensemble pieces, <a href="#page_133">133</a><br /> +<i>Entr’actes</i>, <a href="#page_151">151</a><br /> +Erba, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> +Ernest Augustus, Duke, <a href="#page_049">49</a><br /> +<i>Esther</i>, <a href="#page_048">48</a>, <a href="#page_070">70</a>, <a href="#page_071">71</a>, <a href="#page_072">72</a>, <a href="#page_120">120</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a>, <a href="#page_184">184</a><br /> +Eugène, Prince, <a href="#page_037">37</a>, <a href="#page_157">157</a><br /> +Exotism, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> +<i>Ezio</i>, <a href="#page_084">84</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="F" id="F">F</a></span><br /> +<i>Faramondo</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a><br /> +Faustina, <a href="#page_080">80</a><br /> +Festivals, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +Fifth Concerto, <a href="#page_176">176</a><br /> +<i>Finale</i>, <a href="#page_133">133</a><br /> +Fire-arms in orchestra, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> +Firework music, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_159">159</a>, <a href="#page_189">189</a><br /> +First Sonata, <a href="#page_157">157</a><br /> +Flemish carillon in <i>Saul</i>, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> +Florence, <a href="#page_039">39</a><br /> +<i>Floridante</i>, <a href="#page_079">79</a><br /> +<i>Florindo und Daphne</i>, <a href="#page_035">35</a><br /> +Forms, <a href="#page_133">133</a>, <a href="#page_134">134</a>, <a href="#page_158">158</a>, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> +Foundling Hospital, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_105">105</a> n., <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> +France, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> +Fraudulent copies, <a href="#page_143">143</a> n.<br /> +Free theatre, <a href="#page_121">121</a>, <a href="#page_134">134</a>, <a href="#page_139">139</a><br /> +French dances, <a href="#page_091">91</a><br /> +French influences, <a href="#page_014">14</a><br /> +French language, <a href="#page_048">48</a><br /> +French model, <a href="#page_089">89</a><br /> +French organists, <a href="#page_113">113</a><br /> +French rhythm, <a href="#page_148">148</a><br /> +French style, <a href="#page_148">148</a><br /> +French vocal style, <a href="#page_048">48</a><br /> +Froberger, <a href="#page_006">6</a><br /> +Fugues, <a href="#page_149">149</a><br /> +<i>Funeral Anthem</i>, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_093">93</a> n.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="G" id="G">G</a></span><br /> +Garden scene, <i>Rinaldo</i>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> +Gay, <a href="#page_067">67</a>, <a href="#page_072">72</a> n.<br /> +Geminiani, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_163">163</a>, <a href="#page_164">164</a><br /> +<i>Genre</i> pictures, <a href="#page_135">135</a>, <a href="#page_138">138</a><br /> +George of Hanover, <a href="#page_068">68</a><br /> +German geniuses, <a href="#page_112">112</a><br /> +German Handel Society, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_201">201</a><br /> +German influences, <a href="#page_147">147</a>, <a href="#page_148">148</a> n.<br /> +German patriotism, Handel’s lack of, <a href="#page_067">67</a><br /> +Germany, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_142">142</a><br /> +Gervinus, <a href="#page_110">110</a>, <a href="#page_201">201</a><br /> +<i>Giulio Cesare</i>, <a href="#page_079">79</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a><br /> +<i>Giustina</i>, <a href="#page_093">93</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> +Gluck, <a href="#page_036">36</a>, <a href="#page_099">99</a>, <a href="#page_101">101</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a>, <a href="#page_191">191</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> +Goethe, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_112">112</a><br /> +Goldschmidt, <a href="#page_055">55</a><br /> +Graces, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +Grattan-Flood, <a href="#page_097">97</a><br /> +Graun, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> +Greece, <a href="#page_110">110</a><br /> +Green, Maurice, <a href="#page_096">96</a><br /> +Green Park, <a href="#page_198">198</a><br /> +Grimani, <a href="#page_046">46</a><br /> +Griselda, <a href="#page_079">79</a><br /> +<i>Grub Street Journal</i>, <a href="#page_152">152</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="H" id="H">H</a></span><br /> +Hailstone chorus, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> +Halle, <a href="#page_014">14</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_066">66</a>, <a href="#page_069">69</a>, <a href="#page_074">74</a>, <a href="#page_113">113</a><br /> +<i>Haman</i>, <a href="#page_071">71</a><br /> +Hamburg, <a href="#page_007">7</a>, <a href="#page_015">15</a>, <a href="#page_018">18</a>, <a href="#page_035">35</a>, <a href="#page_113">113</a><br /> +Handel Society, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_201">201</a><br /> +Handel musical festivals, <a href="#page_119">119</a><br /> +Handel’s joust with Bononcini, <a href="#page_079">79</a><br /> +Hanover, <a href="#page_019">19</a>, <a href="#page_042">42</a>, <a href="#page_049">49</a>, <a href="#page_051">51</a><br /> +Hanoverian nobles, <a href="#page_049">49</a><br /> +<i>Harmony in revolt</i>, <a href="#page_143">143</a> n.<br /> +Harp, <a href="#page_160">160</a> n.<br /> +Hasler, <a href="#page_036">36</a><br /> +Hasse, <a href="#page_036">36</a>, <a href="#page_045">45</a>, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_115">115</a>, <a href="#page_117">117</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a><br /> +Hawkins, Sir J., <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_152">152</a><br /> +Haydn, <a href="#page_108">108</a><br /> +Haymarket Theatre, <a href="#page_074">74</a>, <a href="#page_089">89</a><br /> +Heidegger, <a href="#page_089">89</a><br /> +<i>Henrico Leoni</i>, <a href="#page_052">52</a><br /> +<i>Hercules</i>, <a href="#page_008">8</a>, <a href="#page_099">99</a>, <a href="#page_110">110</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a><br /> +Herder, <a href="#page_109">109</a><br /> +Hill, Aaron, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> +Hiller, <a href="#page_108">108</a><br /> +Holland, <a href="#page_031">31</a>, <a href="#page_058">58</a><br /> +Horn, <a href="#page_159">159</a><br /> +Hornpipe, <a href="#page_187">187</a><br /> +House of Hanover, <a href="#page_065">65</a><br /> +Humour in Handel, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="I" id="I">I</a></span><br /> +<i>Il Pastor Fido</i>, <a href="#page_065">65</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a><br /> +<i>Imeneo</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a> n., <a href="#page_095">95</a> n.<br /> +Imitative effects, <a href="#page_141">141</a><br /> +Improvisation, <a href="#page_143">143</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a>, <a href="#page_152">152</a><br /> +Improviser, <a href="#page_116">116</a><br /> +Independence, Handel’s, <a href="#page_109">109</a><br /> +Instrumental music, <a href="#page_009">9</a>, <a href="#page_143">143</a>, <a href="#page_144">144</a>, <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> +Ireland, <a href="#page_097">97</a><br /> +<i>Israel in Egypt</i>, <a href="#page_071">71</a>, <a href="#page_094">94</a>, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_118">118</a>, <a href="#page_137">137</a>, <a href="#page_145">145</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a><br /> +Italian homophony, <a href="#page_148">148</a><br /> +Italian influences, <a href="#page_147">147</a><br /> +Italian musicians, <a href="#page_036">36</a><br /> +Italian songs in <i>Hercules</i>, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> +Italian violinists, <a href="#page_113">113</a><br /> +Italy, <a href="#page_037">37</a>, <a href="#page_112">112</a>, <a href="#page_113">113</a><br /> +Italianised Germans, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> +Italians, <a href="#page_061">61</a>, <a href="#page_148">148</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="J" id="J">J</a></span><br /> +James I, Stuart, <a href="#page_049">49</a><br /> +Jennens, <a href="#page_097">97</a>, <a href="#page_099">99</a><br /> +<i>Jephtha</i>, <a href="#page_104">104</a>, <a href="#page_116">116</a><br /> +<i>Jerusalem Delivered</i>, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> +John Frederick, Duke of Hanover, <a href="#page_049">49</a><br /> +<i>Joseph</i>, <a href="#page_099">99</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a><br /> +<i>Joshua</i>, <a href="#page_080">80</a>, <a href="#page_102">102</a><br /> +<i>Jubilate</i>, <a href="#page_066">66</a><br /> +<i>Judas Maccabæus</i>, <a href="#page_101">101</a>, <a href="#page_102">102</a>, <a href="#page_106">106</a>, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_139">139</a>, <a href="#page_184">184</a>, <a href="#page_192">192</a><br /> +<i>Jugendbuch</i>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="K" id="K">K</a></span><br /> +Keiser, <a href="#page_017">17</a>, <a href="#page_019">19</a>, <a href="#page_021">21</a>, <a href="#page_031">31</a>, <a href="#page_035">35</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a><br /> +Kerl, <a href="#page_006">6</a><br /> +Kielmansegg, <a href="#page_049">49</a><br /> +<i>King Arthur</i>, <a href="#page_059">59</a>, <a href="#page_060">60</a><br /> +Krieger, <a href="#page_006">6</a>, <a href="#page_150">150</a><br /> +Kuhnau, <a href="#page_007">7</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="L" id="L">L</a></span><br /> +<i>L’Allegro</i>, <a href="#page_095">95</a>, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> +Languages, <a href="#page_022">22</a><br /> +<i>La Salle</i>, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> +Latin Psalms, <a href="#page_039">39</a><br /> +Law, <a href="#page_014">14</a><br /> +Lawyers, <a href="#page_004">4</a><br /> +Leibnitz, <a href="#page_069">69</a><br /> +<i>Leit-motiv</i>, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +<i>Leider</i>, <a href="#page_077">77</a> n.<br /> +Leipzig, <a href="#page_016">16</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a><br /> +Lent, <a href="#page_106">106</a>, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +Leo, <a href="#page_178">178</a><br /> +Leonardo, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> +Light and shade, <a href="#page_161">161</a><br /> +Liszt, <a href="#page_109">109</a>, <a href="#page_154">154</a><br /> +Local colour, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> +Locatelli, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> +London, <a href="#page_042">42</a>, <a href="#page_058">58</a>, <a href="#page_065">65</a>, etc.<br /> +London Academy of Opera, <a href="#page_083">83</a><br /> +<i>London Daily Post</i>, <a href="#page_096">96</a><br /> +London operas, <a href="#page_126">126</a><br /> +<i>Lotario</i>, <a href="#page_084">84</a><br /> +Lubeck, <a href="#page_028">28</a><br /> +<i>Lucretia</i>, <a href="#page_039">39</a><br /> +Lully, <a href="#page_018">18</a>, <a href="#page_019">19</a>, <a href="#page_181">181</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="M" id="M">M</a></span><br /> +Mad scene in <i>Orlando</i>, <a href="#page_127">127</a><br /> +Mahler, <a href="#page_154">154</a><br /> +Mainwaring, <a href="#page_047">47</a><br /> +Manchester, Duke of, <a href="#page_042">42</a><br /> +Mandoline, <a href="#page_160">160</a> n.<br /> +Mannheim players, <a href="#page_164">164</a><br /> +Marcello, <a href="#page_003">3</a><br /> +Marylebone, <a href="#page_167">167</a><br /> +Mattheson, <a href="#page_005">5</a>, <a href="#page_018">18</a>, <a href="#page_021">21</a>, <a href="#page_023">23</a>, <a href="#page_027">27</a>, <a href="#page_082">82</a><br /> +Mayence, <a href="#page_110">110</a><br /> +Medici, <a href="#page_036">36</a><br /> +Mendelssohn, <a href="#page_119">119</a><br /> +Melodic lines, <a href="#page_117">117</a><br /> +Melodist, <a href="#page_028">28</a><br /> +<i>Messiah</i>, <a href="#page_008">8</a>, <a href="#page_059">59</a>, <a href="#page_097">97</a>, <a href="#page_098">98</a>, <a href="#page_104">104</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>, <a href="#page_119">119</a>, etc.<br /> +Miller, <a href="#page_099">99</a><br /> +<i>Mitridate Eupatore</i>, <a href="#page_041">41</a><br /> +Modulations, <a href="#page_076">76</a><br /> +Muffat, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> +Mozart, <a href="#page_021">21</a>, <a href="#page_036">36</a>, <a href="#page_088">88</a>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>, <a href="#page_117">117</a><br /> +Munich, <a href="#page_051">51</a>, <a href="#page_052">52</a><br /> +Musette, <a href="#page_178">178</a><br /> +Musical architecture, <a href="#page_132">132</a><br /> +Musical comedy, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +Musical dramas, <a href="#page_135">135</a><br /> +<i>Musical Patriot, The</i>, <a href="#page_024">24</a>, <a href="#page_027">27</a><br /> +<i>Muzio Scevola</i>, <a href="#page_079">79</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="N" id="N">N</a></span><br /> +Naples, <a href="#page_112">112</a>, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> +National musician of England, The, <a href="#page_102">102</a><br /> +Natural scenes, <a href="#page_170">170</a><br /> +<i>Nero</i>, <a href="#page_033">33</a>, <a href="#page_034">34</a><br /> +Newspapers, The first, <a href="#page_016">16</a><br /> +Nicolini, <a href="#page_063">63</a><br /> +<i>Nitocris</i>, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +Nuance, <a href="#page_163">163</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="O" id="O">O</a></span><br /> +Objective art, <a href="#page_133">133</a><br /> +Oboe concertos, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_158">158</a><br /> +<i>Occasional Oratorio</i>, <a href="#page_101">101</a>, <a href="#page_139">139</a>, <a href="#page_185">185</a> n.<br /> +<i>Ode to Queen Anne</i>, <a href="#page_068">68</a><br /> +<i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i>, <a href="#page_092">92</a>, <a href="#page_095">95</a><br /> +<i>Ombra cara</i> from <i>Radamisto</i>, <a href="#page_125">125</a><br /> +Open-air fêtes, <a href="#page_120">120</a>, <a href="#page_190">190</a><br /> +Open-air music, <a href="#page_187">187</a><br /> +<i>Opera Buffa</i>, <a href="#page_137">137</a><br /> +<i>Opera Comique</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +<i>Opera Diabolica</i>, <a href="#page_017">17</a><br /> +Opera houses, <a href="#page_051">51</a>, <a href="#page_102">102</a><br /> +Oratorios, <a href="#page_120">120</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_136">136</a>, etc.<br /> +Orchestra, <a href="#page_009">9</a>, <a href="#page_103">103</a>, <a href="#page_153">153</a>, <a href="#page_165">165</a><br /> +Orchestral concertos, <a href="#page_181">181</a> n.<br /> +Orchestral music, <a href="#page_158">158</a><br /> +Organ, <a href="#page_105">105</a><br /> +Organ concertos, <a href="#page_150">150-153</a><br /> +Organ music, <a href="#page_030">30</a><br /> +<i>Orlando</i>, <a href="#page_084">84</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> +Ottoboni, Cardinal, <a href="#page_043">43</a>, <a href="#page_046">46</a><br /> +<i>Ottone</i>, <a href="#page_079">79</a>, <a href="#page_190">190</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="P" id="P">P</a></span><br /> +Pagan life, <a href="#page_185">185</a><br /> +Painting in music, <a href="#page_141">141</a><br /> +Painting, <a href="#page_185">185</a><br /> +Palestrina, <a href="#page_114">114</a> n.<br /> +Pantheon, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +<i>Parnasso in festa</i>, <a href="#page_089">89</a> n., <a href="#page_096">96</a> n.<br /> +<i>Partenope</i>, <a href="#page_084">84</a><br /> +<i>Partenza</i>, <a href="#page_045">45</a><br /> +Pasquini, <a href="#page_043">43</a>, <a href="#page_044">44</a><br /> +<i>Passion according to St. John</i>, <a href="#page_025">25</a>, <a href="#page_032">32</a><br /> +<i>Passion after Brockes</i>, <a href="#page_070">70</a>, <a href="#page_138">138</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a><br /> +Passionate scenes, <a href="#page_133">133</a><br /> +<i>Passions</i>, <a href="#page_069">69</a><br /> +<i>Pastor Fido</i>, <a href="#page_089">89</a><br /> +<i>Pastoral Symphony</i>, <a href="#page_170">170</a><br /> +Pepusch, <a href="#page_096">96</a><br /> +Piccadilly, <a href="#page_067">67</a><br /> +Pictures, Love of, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> +Pietism, <a href="#page_012">12</a>, <a href="#page_039">39</a>, <a href="#page_071">71</a><br /> +<i>Pifferari</i>, <a href="#page_046">46</a>, <a href="#page_114">114</a><br /> +Pirro, <a href="#page_013">13</a><br /> +Pistocchi, <a href="#page_011">11</a><br /> +Pistol-shot in orchestra, <a href="#page_160">160</a> n.<br /> +Plagiarisms, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> +<i>Polifemo</i>, <a href="#page_076">76</a><br /> +Pope, <a href="#page_067">67</a>, <a href="#page_082">82</a>, <a href="#page_142">142</a> n.<br /> +<i>Poro</i>, <a href="#page_084">84</a><br /> +Porpora, <a href="#page_087">87</a>, <a href="#page_088">88</a><br /> +Postel, <a href="#page_022">22</a>, <a href="#page_031">31</a><br /> +Pratolino, <a href="#page_038">38</a><br /> +Pretender, Charles Edward, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> +Princess of Wales, <a href="#page_081">81</a><br /> +Programme music, <a href="#page_184">184</a>, <a href="#page_185">185</a> n.<br /> +Psalms, <a href="#page_070">70</a>, <a href="#page_120">120</a><br /> +Purcell, <a href="#page_058">58</a>, etc.<br /> +Puritanical opposition, <a href="#page_061">61</a><br /> +<i>Pygmalion</i>, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> +Pythagoreans, <a href="#page_024">24</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="Q" id="Q">Q</a></span><br /> +Quartets, <a href="#page_131">131</a><br /> +Queen Anne, <a href="#page_065">65</a>, <a href="#page_068">68</a><br /> +Quintet, <a href="#page_132">132</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="R" id="R">R</a></span><br /> +<i>Radamisto</i>, <a href="#page_074">74</a>, <a href="#page_078">78</a><br /> +Rameau’s <i>Acanthe</i>, <a href="#page_164">164</a> n.<br /> +Ranelagh, <a href="#page_187">187</a><br /> +Raphael, <a href="#page_010">10</a><br /> +Recitative, <a href="#page_020">20</a><br /> +<i>Recitative-arioso</i>, <a href="#page_126">126</a><br /> +Recitatives and airs, <a href="#page_128">128</a><br /> +Relationship with vocal, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> +Resurrection, <a href="#page_044">44</a>, <a href="#page_159">159</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a><br /> +Rhythms, <a href="#page_134">134</a><br /> +<i>Riccardo I</i>, <a href="#page_081">81</a>, <a href="#page_186">186</a> n.<br /> +Rich’s theatre, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> +Rigid and stolid manner of rendering Handel’s works, <a href="#page_119">119</a><br /> +<i>Rinaldo</i>, <a href="#page_063">63</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a><br /> +<i>Roderigo</i>, <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_042">42</a>, <a href="#page_182">182</a><br /> +<i>Rodelinda</i>, <a href="#page_080">80</a><br /> +Rôles, Singers’, <a href="#page_123">123</a><br /> +Romances, <a href="#page_091">91</a><br /> +Rome, <a href="#page_039">39</a><br /> +<i>Rosamunde</i>, <a href="#page_062">62</a><br /> +Roseingrave, <a href="#page_114">114</a> n.<br /> +Rosenmüller, <a href="#page_004">4</a><br /> +Roubiliac, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +Ruspoli, Cardinal, <a href="#page_042">42</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="S" id="S">S</a></span><br /> +St. John Chrysostomo’s Theatre, <a href="#page_041">41</a>, <a href="#page_047">47</a><br /> +St. Paul’s Cathedral, <a href="#page_066">66</a><br /> +Saint-Saëns, <a href="#page_140">140</a>, <a href="#page_141">141</a><br /> +<i>Samson</i>, <a href="#page_031">31</a>, <a href="#page_098">98</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a><br /> +<i>San Giovanni Grisostomo</i>, <a href="#page_041">41</a>, <a href="#page_047">47</a><br /> +<i>Saul</i>, <a href="#page_094">94</a>, <a href="#page_126">126</a>, <a href="#page_183">183</a><br /> +Scarlatti, <a href="#page_038">38</a>, <a href="#page_041">41</a>, <a href="#page_043">43</a>, <a href="#page_076">76</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a><br /> +Schott, <a href="#page_022">22</a><br /> +Schumann, <a href="#page_109">109</a><br /> +Schütz, <a href="#page_036">36</a>, <a href="#page_056">56</a><br /> +<i>Second Concerto in F major</i>, <a href="#page_170">170</a><br /> +<i>Semele</i>, <a href="#page_127">127</a>, <a href="#page_135">135</a><br /> +Semi-romantic colour, <a href="#page_115">115</a><br /> +<i>Serse</i>, <a href="#page_091">91</a> n., <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_124">124</a>, <a href="#page_098">98</a> n.<br /> +<i>Servio Tullio</i>, <a href="#page_052">52</a><br /> +Seven Trios or Sonatas in two parts, <a href="#page_094">94</a><br /> +<i>Seventh Concerto</i>, <a href="#page_169">169</a><br /> +Shakespeare, <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> +Sicilian legend, <a href="#page_072">72</a><br /> +Sight gone, <a href="#page_105">105</a><br /> +<i>Singakademien</i>, <a href="#page_108">108</a>, <a href="#page_110">110</a><br /> +<i>Siroé</i>, <a href="#page_081">81</a><br /> +Six Fugues or Voluntaries, <a href="#page_149">149</a><br /> +Six Sonatas in Trio, <a href="#page_154">154</a><br /> +<i>Sixth Concerto in G minor</i>, <a href="#page_176">176</a><br /> +Smith, C., <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +Smollett, <a href="#page_100">100</a><br /> +Society for the Maintenance of Poor Musicians, <a href="#page_096">96</a>, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +Solo voices, <a href="#page_123">123</a><br /> +<i>Solomon</i>, <a href="#page_102">102</a>, <a href="#page_131">131</a><br /> +Sonata for Viola da Gamba, <a href="#page_154">154</a><br /> +Sonatas or trios for two violins, flutes, <a href="#page_155">155</a><br /> +Sonatas or trios for two violins, <a href="#page_155">155</a><br /> +Sonatas for the flute, violin, and harpsichord, <a href="#page_145">145</a><br /> +Sonatas for flute and bass, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_155">155</a><br /> +Sophia Charlotte, Princess, <a href="#page_011">11</a><br /> +Speed of working, Handel’s, <a href="#page_116">116</a><br /> +Steffani, <a href="#page_007">7</a>, <a href="#page_011">11</a>, <a href="#page_019">19</a>, <a href="#page_046">46</a>, <a href="#page_051">51</a>, <a href="#page_064">64</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> +Storms, Musical, <a href="#page_142">142</a><br /> +Streatfeild, <a href="#page_037">37</a>, <a href="#page_040">40</a><br /> +Strungk, <a href="#page_006">6</a><br /> +Stuart party, <a href="#page_068">68</a><br /> +Stuart, James I, <a href="#page_066">66</a><br /> +Strauss, R., <a href="#page_121">121</a><br /> +Stradella, <a href="#page_118">118</a><br /> +<i>Sturm und Drang period</i>, <a href="#page_143">143</a><br /> +Styles, <a href="#page_133">133</a>, <a href="#page_134">134</a>, <a href="#page_137">137</a><br /> +Suites, etc., <a href="#page_146">146</a><br /> +<i>Suites de pièces pour le clavecin</i>, <a href="#page_143">143</a><br /> +<i>Susanna</i>, <a href="#page_102">102</a><br /> +Symphonies, <a href="#page_158">158</a><br /> +Swift, <a href="#page_067">67</a>, <a href="#page_082">82</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="T" id="T">T</a></span><br /> +<i>Tamerlano</i>, <a href="#page_079">79</a>, <a href="#page_084">84</a>, <a href="#page_122">122</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a><br /> +Tarquini, <a href="#page_040">40</a><br /> +<i>Te Deum</i>, <a href="#page_065">65</a>, <a href="#page_066">66</a>, <a href="#page_068">68</a>, <a href="#page_120">120</a><br /> +Telemann, <a href="#page_056">56</a>, <a href="#page_141">141</a><br /> +Tendencies, <a href="#page_122">122</a><br /> +Tenor, <a href="#page_123">123</a><br /> +<i>Terpsichore</i>, <a href="#page_090">90</a><br /> +<i>Teseo</i>, <a href="#page_065">65</a>, <a href="#page_127">127</a><br /> +Theatre, <a href="#page_120">120</a><br /> +Theatre closed, Handel’s, <a href="#page_093">93</a><br /> +Theile’s <i>Creation</i>, <a href="#page_017">17</a><br /> +<i>Theodora</i>, <a href="#page_048">48</a>, <a href="#page_104">104</a>, <a href="#page_135">135</a><br /> +Theologians, <a href="#page_004">4</a><br /> +Theology, <a href="#page_012">12</a><br /> +<i>The Triumph of Time and Truth</i>, <a href="#page_106">106</a>, <a href="#page_159">159</a>, <a href="#page_160">160</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a><br /> +Third Violin, Part for, <a href="#page_161">161</a><br /> +Thirty Years’ War, <a href="#page_004">4</a><br /> +Thornhill, <a href="#page_023">23</a><br /> +<i>Tomomeo</i>, <a href="#page_081">81</a><br /> +Tone-colour, <a href="#page_159">159</a>, <a href="#page_160">160</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a><br /> +<i>Tor di Nona</i>, <a href="#page_039">39</a><br /> +Touch, <a href="#page_151">151</a><br /> +<i>Trionfo del Tempo</i>, <a href="#page_106">106</a><br /> +Trios, <a href="#page_131">131</a><br /> +Tunbridge Wells, <a href="#page_092">92</a><br /> +Tyer, <a href="#page_187">187</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="U" id="U">U</a></span><br /> +Utrecht, <a href="#page_066">66</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="V" id="V">V</a></span><br /> +Vatican, <a href="#page_044">44</a><br /> +<i>Vaudeville</i>, <a href="#page_138">138</a><br /> +Vauxhall Gardens, <a href="#page_094">94</a>, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a href="#page_101">101</a>, <a href="#page_107">107</a>, <a href="#page_187">187</a><br /> +Venice, <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_042">42</a><br /> +<i>Vierge d’Martyre</i>, <a href="#page_048">48</a><br /> +Vinci, <a href="#page_084">84</a><br /> +Viola, <a href="#page_160">160</a>, <a href="#page_161">161</a><br /> +Violoncellist, <a href="#page_075">75</a><br /> +Violoncello, <a href="#page_160">160</a><br /> +<i>Violette marine</i>, <a href="#page_160">160</a> n.<br /> +<i>Virtuoso</i> powers, <a href="#page_040">40</a>, <a href="#page_049">49</a><br /> +Vivaldi, <a href="#page_168">168</a><br /> +Vocal <i>ensemble</i> pieces, <a href="#page_130">130</a><br /> +Vocal ornamentation, <a href="#page_128">128</a>, <a href="#page_129">129</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="W" id="W">W</a></span><br /> +Wagner, <a href="#page_142">142</a><br /> +Walpole, <a href="#page_081">81</a><br /> +Walsh, <a href="#page_145">145</a>, <a href="#page_149">149</a>, <a href="#page_181">181</a> n.<br /> +Water music, <a href="#page_068">68</a> n., <a href="#page_158">158</a>, <a href="#page_188">188</a><br /> +Weissenfels, <a href="#page_003">3</a><br /> +Westminster Abbey, <a href="#page_107">107</a><br /> +Witchcraft, <a href="#page_013">13</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="lettra"><a name="Z" id="Z">Z</a></span><br /> +Zachau, <a href="#page_005">5</a>, <a href="#page_015">15</a>, <a href="#page_113">113</a><br /> +<i>Zadock the Priest</i>, <a href="#page_109">109</a> n.<br /> +Zappi, <a href="#page_043">43</a><br /> +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cb"><big>THE MUSIC LOVER’S LIBRARY</big></p> + +<p class="cb">A series of small books on various musical subjects written in a popular +style for the general reader.</p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Editor</span>: A. EAGLEFIELD HULL, <span class="smcap">Mus. Doc. (Oxon.)</span></p> + +<p class="cb">Each about 200 pages.</p> + +<p>1. SHORT HISTORY OF MUSIC. By the <span class="smcap">Editor</span>.</p> + +<p>2. SHAKESPEARE: HIS MUSIC AND SONG. By <span class="smcap">A. H. Moncur-Sime</span>.</p> + +<p>3. THE UNFOLDING OF HARMONY. By <span class="smcap">Charles Macpherson</span>, F.R.A.M., +Sub-Organist St. Paul’s Cathedral.</p> + +<p>4. THE STORY OF MEDIÆVAL MUSIC. By <span class="smcap">R. R. Terry</span>, Mus. Doc. (Dublin), +Director of Music at the pro-Cathedral, Westminster.</p> + +<p>5. MUSIC AND RELIGION. By <span class="smcap">W. W. Longford</span>, D.D., M.A.</p> + +<p>6. MODERN MUSICAL STYLES. By the <span class="smcap">Editor</span>.</p> + +<p>7. ON LISTENING TO AN ORCHESTRA. By <span class="smcap">M. Montagu-Nathan</span>.</p> + +<p>8. EVERYMAN AND HIS MUSIC. By <span class="smcap">P. A. Scholes</span>.</p> + +<p>9. MUSIC AND ÆSTHETICS. By <span class="smcap">J. B. Mcewen</span>, M.A., F.R.A.M.</p> + +<p>10. THE VOICE IN SONG AND SPEECH. By <span class="smcap">Gordon Heller</span>.</p> + +<p>11. DESIGN OR CONSTRUCTION IN MUSIC. By the <span class="smcap">Editor</span>.</p> + +<p>KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD., LONDON</p> + +<p class="c"> + PRINTED BY<br /> +WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD.<br /> + PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND +</p> + +<p><a name="transcriber" id="transcriber"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" +style="border:3px dotted gray;padding:2%;font-size:90%;"> +<tr><th align="center">These typographical errors were corrected by the text transcriber:</th></tr> +<tr><td align="center">constituted for it a model for <span class="errata">emulatation</span>=>constituted for it a model for emulation</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">Hinweg, du Dornen <span class="errata">schwangre</span> Krone!=>Hinweg, du Dornen schwangere Krone!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">his voice <span class="errata">suberbly</span> depicted=>his voice superbly depicted</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">George <span class="errata">Moffat</span>=>Muffat [Muffat, Georg (1653-1704)]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">Vivaldi’s influence in Germany on a <span class="errata">Granpuer</span>=> Vivaldi’s influence in Germany on a Graupner [Graupner (Christoph, 1683-1760)]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><i>Te deum</i> said to be by <span class="errata">Vrio</span>.=><i>Te deum</i> said to be by Urio. [Urio, Francesco Antonio, 1631-1719]</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="errata">Domenio</span> Scarlatti=>Domenico Scarlatti</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">Andimollo, Andimolo=>Ademollo</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">Christoph <span class="errata">Bernhart</span>, pupil of Schütz=>Christoph Bernhard, pupil of Schütz</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="errata">Bernhardt</span>, 16=>Bernhard, 16</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">He stayed at <span class="errata">Dusseldorf</span> with the Elector=>He stayed at Düsseldorf with the Elector</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="errata">Locatalli</span> and Vivaldi came under the influence of the Italian Opera.=>Locatelli and Vivaldi came under the influence of the Italian Opera +of <span class="errata">Locatalli</span> (Op. 7, 1741) was named <i>Il pianto d’Arianna</i>.=>of Locatelli (Op. 7, 1741) was named <i>Il pianto d’Arianna</i>.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">(1890 in the <span class="errata"><i>Vierteljahrsschrift</i></span> <i>für Musikwissenfchaft</i>)=>(1890 in the <i>Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft</i>)</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">Abbé <span class="errata">Prevost</span>=>Abbé Prévost</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="errata">Reinhärd</span> Keiser=>Reinhard Keiser</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">Max <span class="errata">Seifiert</span>: Haendels Verhältnis zu Tonwerken ælterer deutscher Meister=>Max Seiffert: Haendels Verhältnis zu Tonwerken ælterer deutscher Meister</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><i><span class="errata">Siroë</span></i>, 81=><i>Siroé</i>, 81</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="errata">Pratelino</span>, 38=>Pratolino, 38</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">that Lecerf de la <span class="errata">Vieville</span> wrote his <i>Comparaison de la musique française et de la musique italienne</i>=>that Lecerf de la Viéville wrote his <i>Comparaison de la musique française et de la musique italienne</i></td></tr> +</table> + +<div class="footnotes"><p class="cb"><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The genealogical tree of Handel has been prepared by Karl +Eduard Förstemann: <i>Georg Friedrich Haendel’s Stammbaum</i>, 1844, +Breitkopf. +</p><p> +The name of Handel was very common at Halle in different forms +(<i>Hendel</i>, <i>Hendeler</i>, <i>Händeler</i>, <i>Hendtler</i>). One would say that its +derivation signified “merchant.” G. F. Handel wrote it in Italian +<i>Hendel</i>, in English and French <i>Handel</i>, in German <i>Händel</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> It is interesting to note that Johann Sebastian Bach was +born at Eisenach on March 21, 1685.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Of the four children by the second marriage, the first died +at birth. George Frederick had two sisters: one, two years, the other, +five years younger than himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> He died in 1672.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Legendary anecdotes of the little Handel are often quoted, +showing him rising from his bed in the middle of the night to play a +little clavichord, which was concealed in an upper garret.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See the Preface which the choirmaster of the Thomas School +at Leipzig, Tobias Michael, wrote to the second part of his +<i>Musikalische Seelenlust</i> (1637); and in the life of Rosenmüller the +story of the scandalous affair which in 1655 forced this fine musician +to flee from his country (August Horneffer: <i>Johann Rosenmüller</i>, +1898).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> F. W. Zachau was born in 1663 at Leipzig, and died +prematurely in 1712. His father came from Berlin. The original spelling +of the name was <i>Zachoff</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Since the publication of the works of Zachau by Max +Seiffert in the <i>Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst</i>, Vols. XXI and XXII, +1905, Breitkopf.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Matheson refers to this briefly also, but the later +historians, Chrysander, Volbach, Kretzschmar, Sedley Taylor have not +taken any account of these words, which they attribute to the generosity +of Handel, and to the malevolence of Matheson. In their judgment he did +not even know the works of Zachau—this is very hard on Handel’s master. +Since the publication of the <i>Denkmäler</i> it is impossible not to +recognize in Zachau the true originator of his style, and even, so to +speak, of the genius of Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Lebensbeschreibung Haendels</i> (1761).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> One notices many of Kerl’s themes in one of Handel’s Organ +concertos, and in a Concerto Grosso. A <i>canzone</i> of Kerl; also a +<i>capriccio</i> of Strungk has been transferred bodily into two choruses of +<i>Israel in Egypt</i> (Max Seiffert: <i>Haendels Verhältnis zu Tonwerken +ælterer deutscher Meister</i>, Jahrbuch Peters, 1907).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The two parts of the Clavier Exercises of Kuhnau appeared +in 1689 and 1692. The new Clavier Pieces in 1696 and the Bible Sonatas +in 1700. (See the Edition of Kuhnau’s clavier works by Karl Pasler in +the <i>Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst</i>, 1901).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> See Chrysander. We shall speak later on of the work of +Steffani and its relation to Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The volume of his published works comprises 12 cantatas +for orchestra, soli, and chorus, and a <i>capella</i> (unaccompanied) Mass, a +chamber work (trio for flute, bassoon, and continuo), 8 preludes, +fugues, fantasias, capriccios for clavecin or organ, and 44 choral +variations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Compare the Tenor air <i>O du werter Freudengeist</i> (p. 71) +and accompaniment, and <i>ritornello</i> of the <i>violini unisoni</i> in the 4th +cantata <i>Ruhe, Friede, Freud und Wonne</i> with the air of Polyphemus in +Handel’s <i>Acis and Galatea</i>; compare also the subject in the Bass air of +the 8th cantata (p. 189) with the well-known instrumental piece which +Handel used for the Symphony in the Second Act of <i>Hercules</i>; also the +Tenor solo with horn, <i>Kommt jauchzet</i> (p. 181) in the 8th cantata: +<i>Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele</i> with the soprano air in <i>The Messiah</i>. One +also finds in the cantata <i>Ruhe, Friede</i> (p. 83) the sketch for the +famous chorus of the destruction of the walls of Jericho in <i>Joshua</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Ruhe, Friede</i>, p. 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 113, 183.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 110, 141, 254, 263.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> 8th Cantata. <i>Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele</i>, p. +166, the German <i>Hallelujah</i> with its fine flow of jubilant +vocalizing—especially on page 192, the great final chorus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See his pretty trio for flute, bassoon and clavier (p. +313). It is a small work in 4 movements (1. <i>Affettuoso</i>; 2. <i>Vivace</i>; +3. <i>Adagio</i>; 4. <i>Allegro</i>), where clear Italian grace mixes itself so +happily with German <i>Gemüth</i>. +</p><p> +The orchestra for the cantatas seldom includes anything but the strings +with the organ or the clavier. But in general the palette of Zachau is +very rich, comprising violas, violetti, violoncello, harps, oboes, +flutes, hunting horns, bassoons and bassonetti, and even clarini (high +trumpets) and drums (Cantata: <i>Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar</i>). +</p><p> +Zachau amuses himself by combining the tone-colours of the different +instruments with those of the voices in the solo airs; thus a Tenor air +is accompanied by a violoncello solo; another by two hunting horns; an +air for the Bass is combined, with the bassoon <i>obbligato</i>; another with +4 drums and trumpets; a Soprano air with the bassoon and 2 bassonetti; +without mentioning innumerable airs with oboes or flutes. +</p><p> +Thanks to Zachau, Handel was familiarized at an early date with the +orchestra. He learnt at his house how to play all the instruments, +especially the oboe, for which he has written many charming numbers. +When he was ten years old he wrote some Trios for 2 oboes and bass. An +English nobleman travelling in Germany found a little collection of 6 +Trios (Sammlung dreistimmiger Sonaten für Zwei Oboen und Bass, sechs +Stück) dating from this period (Volume 28 of the Complete Handel +Edition).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> See his beautiful air for bass in the Cantata <i>Lobe den +Herrn</i>, p. 164.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Certain very simple phrases as in the Cantata for the +<i>Visitation</i>, “<i>Meine Seel erhebt den Herren</i>,” the recitative for +Soprano “<i>Denn er hat seine elende Magd angesehen</i>” (p. 112) have an +exquisite flavour of virginal humility which we never find in Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The Torellian violinist, Antonio Pistocchi, who was one of +the masters of Italian song, the father, Attilio Ariosti, Giovanni +Bononcini, Steffani, who wrote for the Electress some famous duets, and +Corelli, who dedicated to her his last Violin Sonata, op. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The first representation took place June 1, 1700, with a +pastoral ballet of Ariosti. Leibnitz was present at the full rehearsal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> All that one has heard of his meeting with Ariosti and +Bononcini is somewhat legendary. A. Ebert has shown that Ariosti only +went to Berlin in 1697, and that Bononcini did not arrive in Germany +till November, 1697, and they were not there together before 1702. In +order that Handel should have met them there it was necessary that they +should return in 1703 on their way to Hamburg. But then he was eighteen +years; and the legend of the infant prodigy being victorious over the +two masters thus disappears (<i>Attilio Ariosti in Berlin</i>, 1905, +Leipzig).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The broad-minded policy of the Electors of Brandenburg +attracted to their University at Halle many of the most independent men +in Germany who had been persecuted elsewhere. Thus the Pietists who were +driven from Leipzig came to Halle. Indeed they flocked there from all +parts of Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries (Volbach: <i>Vie de +Haendel</i>, and Levy-Bruhl: <i>L’Allemagne depuis Leibnitz</i>, 1890).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> See the fine studies of J. S. Bach by Pirro.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> One knows that the trial of witchcraft was one of the many +blots on this period. More than a hundred thousand victims perished in +the funeral pyres of witchcraft in one century! Frederick II said that +if women could die peacefully of old age in Germany, it was all owing to +Thomasius.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The yearly contract with the Cathedral church was dated +March 30, 1702, a month after he had signed the faculty of law.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Telemann, passing through Halle in 1701, said that he made +the acquaintance of Handel, who was already there “a man of importance” +(“Dem damahls schon wichtigen Herrn Georg Friedrich Haendel”)—a +singular epithet indeed to apply to a child of sixteen years! Chrysander +had indeed reason to insist on the precocious maturity of Handel, “No +one was his equal in that, even J. S. Bach, who developed much more +slowly!”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Already for several years he had composed “like the +devil,” as he said of himself once.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> There are attributed to him two oratorios (very doubtful), +one Cantata, <i>Ach Herr mich armen Sünder</i>, and a <i>Laudate Pueri</i> for +Soprano solo, which are anterior to his departure for Hamburg.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Alfred Heuss was the first to show what attraction the +musical drama had for Zachau, who introduced it even into the Church. +Some of his cantatas, the 4th, for example, <i>Ruhe, Friede, Freud und +Wonne</i>, very unjustly criticised by Chrysander, is a fragment of a +fantastic opera where one finds David tormented by evil spirits. The +declamation is expressive, and the choruses have a highly dramatic +effect. Thus we see the theatrical career of Handel was prepared in +Halle, and perhaps it was Zachau himself who sent Handel to Hamburg (A. +Heuss: <i>Fr. Wilh. Zachau als dramatischer Kantaten-Komponist</i>). (I.M.G., +May, 1909).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> In reality under the influence of English publications, +and notably <i>The Spectator</i> of Addison, 1711. About 1713 <i>The Man of +Reason</i> appeared in Hamburg. In 1724 to 1727 the journal <i>The Patriot</i> +of Hamburg was founded by a patriotic society. The original intention +was to print 400 copies, but 5000 were subscribed for in Upper Saxony +alone.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The secular music about 1728 reckoned in its ranks 50 +masters and 150 professors. In comparison, religious music was much more +poorly represented than in many other cities of north Germany.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>The Birth of Christ, Michael and David, Esther.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Dramatologia antigua-hodierna</i>, 1688.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Theatromachia</i>, or <i>die Werke der Finsterniss</i> (The +Powers of Darkness), by Anton Reiser, 1682.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <i>Histoire de l’Opèra avant Lully et Scarlatti</i>, 1895, pp. +217-222.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Reinhard Keiser was born in 1674 at Teuchern, near +Weissenfels, and he died in 1739 at Copenhagen. +</p><p> +See Hugo Leichtentritt: <i>Reinhard Keiser in seinen Opern</i>, 1901, Berlin; +Wilhelm Kleefeld: <i>Das Orchester der ersten deutschen Oper</i>, 1898, +Berlin; F. A. Voigt: <i>Reinhard Keiser</i> (1890 in the <i>Vierteljahrsschrift +für Musikwissenschaft</i>)—the Octavia and the <i>Croesus</i> of Keiser have +been republished.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> For instance in the overtures in 3 parts, with French +indications “<i>Vitement, Lentement</i>”; also in the instrumental preludes, +and perhaps in the dances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Principally in the duets, which have a slightly +contrapuntal character.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> “Is it the orchestra which is the hero?” asked the +theorist of Lullyism, Lecerf de la Viéville. “No, it is the singer....” +“Oh, well, then, let the singer move me himself, and take care not to +worry me with the orchestra, which is only there by courtesy and +accident. <i>Si vis me flere....</i>” (<i>Comparaison de la Musique italienne +et de la Musique française</i>, 1705).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> “One can represent quite well with simple instruments,” +says Mattheson, “the grandeur of the soul, of love, of jealousy, etc., +and render all the feelings of the heart by simple chords and their +progressions without words, in such a way that the hearer can know and +understand their trend, the sense and thought of the musical discourses +as if it were a veritably spoken one” (<i>Die neueste Untersuchung der +Singspiele</i>, 1744).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> The preface of the <i>Componimenti Musicali</i> of 1706. +Mattheson exaggeratingly says that “to compose well a single recitative +in keeping with the feelings and the flow of the phrase as Keiser did, +needs more art and ability than to compose ten airs after the common +practice.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Compare the <i>recitative</i> in the first great cantatas of J. +S. Bach, “Aus der Tiefe, Gottes Zeit,” which cover from 1709 to 1712-14, +with such <i>recitatives</i> from “Octavia” of Keiser (1705), notably Act II, +<i>Hinweg, du Dornen schwangere Krone!</i> Melodic inflections, modulations, +harmonies, grouping of phrases, cadences, all in the style of J. S. Bach +even more than in that of Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> See in <i>Croesus</i> (1711) the air of Elmira, with flute, +which calls to mind a similar air from <i>Echo and Narcissus</i> by Gluck.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> In this genre a scene from <i>Croesus</i> is a little +masterpiece in the pastoral style of the end of the eighteenth century; +and is very close to Beethoven.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Such as the <i>Song of the Imprisoned Croesus</i>, which calls +to mind certain airs in <i>The Messiah</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> I need only cite one example: it is the air of Octavia +with two soft flutes, “Wallet nicht zu laut,” one of the most poetic +pages of Keiser, which Handel reproduced several times in his works, and +even in his <i>Acis and Galatea</i>, 1720.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Postel, who used seven languages in the Prologues of his +Libretti, was opposed to this mixture in poetical works, “for that which +ornaments learning,” he says, “disfigures poetry.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Certain German operas mix High German, Low German, French +and Italian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> He was born at Hamburg in 1681, and died there in 1764. +See L. Meinardus: <i>J. Mattheson und seine Verdienste um die deutsche +Tonkunst</i>, 1870; and Heinrich Schmidt: <i>J. Mattheson, ein Förderer der +deutschen Tonkunst</i>, 1897, Leipzig.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> He violently attacked in the <i>Volkommene Kapellmeister</i> +(1739) the “Pythagoreans” of whom the chief was Lor. Christoph Mizler, +of Leipzig, who attempted to work out music on the lines of mathematics +and logic. With the “Aristoxenians” (harmonists) he wished to rescue +music from an iron vice, from the hands of the skeleton of a dead +science, and from scholasticism. The ear was his law. “Let your art be +encompassed where the ear alone reigns: that should suffice. Where +nature and experience leads you, all is well. Do it, play it, sing it; +for wrong doing, avoid it, efface it” (<i>Das forschende Orchestre</i>). +Against the scholastic, he opposed the fecund and living harmonic +science (<i>Harmonische Wissenschaft</i>); he demanded that the latter should +be taught in the universities, and offered to bequeath a large sum to +found a Chair for a musical lectureship in the college of his native +city.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Especially in <i>Das neueröffnete Orchestre</i> (1713), <i>Das +beschützte Orchestre</i> (1717), <i>Das forschende Orchestre</i> (1721). We +might say that the most fruitful of his theoretical writings is <i>Der +Vollkommene Kapellmeister</i> (1739), which might even to-day serve as the +basis of a work on musical æsthetics, and that it was the work which +produced a good part of our musicology.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> He warns German musicians against going to Italy, whence +they return like so many birds plucked of their feathers, with their +great weaknesses hidden, and an intolerable presumption. He reproached +Germany with not helping her national musicians, who were languishing +and becoming extinct (<i>Volk. Kapellm.</i> and <i>Critica Musica</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Twenty-four monthly books which appeared with +interruptions from May, 1722, to 1725, Hamburg. There were musical +polemics, correspondence, interviews with musicians, analyses of their +books and works, a shoal of letters on the last opera, on the last +concert, on the life of a musician, on a new clavier, on a singer, etc. +One finds pre-eminently very solid musical critiques, perhaps the oldest +which exist. The minute analysis of Handel’s <i>Passion according to St. +John</i> was still celebrated when the work itself was forgotten. “It is +perhaps,” said Marpurg in 1760, “the first good critique which was +written on choral music” since it sprang into being.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <i>Critica Musica.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> “When I think as a tone-poet (Tondichter),” he says, “I +think of something higher than a great figure.... Formerly musicians +were poets and prophets.” In another place he writes, “It is the +property of music to be above all sciences a school of virtue, <i>eine +Zuchtlehre</i>” (<i>Vollk. Kapellm.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <i>Grundlagen einer Ehrenpforte, worin der tüchtigsten +Kapellmeister, Komponisten, Musikgelehrten, Tonkünstler, etc. Leben, +Werke, Verdienste, etc., erscheinen sollen, 1740.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> <i>Vollkommene Kapellmeister</i>, 1739—he devoted a very +important study, which he called the <i>Hypokritik</i> (Pantomime), to it in +this work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> In theory rather than in practice: for his operas are +mediocre. Besides, he soon lost his taste for the theatre, his religious +scruples being too strong for him. He wished at first to purify the +Opera, to make the theatre something serious and sacred, which should +act on the masses in an instructive and elevating manner (<i>Musikalischer +Patriot</i>, 1728). Then he saw that his conception of a moral and edifying +opera had no chance of being realised. Finally he lost his interest, and +even rejoiced in 1750 over the final ruin which overtook the Hamburg +Opera.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Mattheson, who spoke perfect English, and who became a +little later the secretary to the English Legation, then resident in the +interim, presented Handel to the English Ambassador, John Wich, who +entrusted them both with the instruction of his son.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> <i>Ehrenpforte.</i>—Telemann, a co-disciple of Handel, says +also that both Handel and he worked continually at melody.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> With a kind of protective touch, however, on the part of +Mattheson. During the first months Handel would never have dreamt of +offending him. The style of his letters to Mattheson in March, 1704, was +extremely respectful. In fact Mattheson was then in advance of him, and +his superior in social position.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> See in the <i>Ehrenpforte</i> the story of this journey, and +the frolics which happened on the way to the two joyful companions. +</p><p> +Buxtehude was a Dane, born at Elsinore in 1637. He settled at Lubeck, +where he remained as the organist of St. Mary’s Church, from the age of +thirty years until his death in 1707.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> It was the custom that the organ of a church should be +given with the daughter, or the widow of the organist. Buxtehude +himself, in succeeding Tunder, had married his daughter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> J. S. Bach went to Lubeck in October, 1705, and instead of +staying a month, as arranged, he spent four months there; an +irregularity which cost him his position at Celle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> The organ works of Buxtehude have been republished by +Spitta and Max Seiffert, in 2 volumes by Breitkopf (see the short, but +pithy, study of Pirro in his little book on <i>L’Orgue de J. S. Bach</i>, +Paris, 1895, and Max Seiffert: <i>Buxtehude, Handel, Bach</i>, in the Peter’s +Annual, 1902). A selection (too restricted) of the cantatas has been +published in a volume of the <i>Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst</i>. Pirro is +preparing a longer work on Buxtehude.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Particularly during 1693.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> The part played by these free cities, Hamburg, Lubeck, the +abodes of intelligent and adventurous merchants, in the history of +German music, should be specially noticed. The part is analogous to that +played by Venice and Florence in Italian painting and music.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> There are about 150 manuscripts in the libraries of +Lubeck, Upsala, Berlin, Wolfenbüttel, and Brussels.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> His organ music bears witness to his mastery in this +style.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> See the penetrating intimacy, the suave melody, of the +cantata <i>Alles was ihr tut mit Worten oder Werken</i>, and the tragic +grandeur with such simple means of the magnificent cantata <i>Gott hilf +mir</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> We find on page 167 of the <i>Denkmäler</i> volume, a +<i>Hallelujah</i> by Buxtehude for 2 clarini (trumpets), 2 violins, 2 violas, +violoncello, organ, and 5 vocal parts, which is pure Handel, and very +beautiful.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Mattheson adds: “I know with certainty that if he reads +these pages, he will laugh up his sleeve, but outwardly he laughs +little.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Amongst others, the subject from an air in minuet form, +which he repeated exactly in the minuet of his overture to <i>Samson</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> In the same week, Keiser and the poet Hunold gave another +Passion, <i>The Bleeding and Dying Jesus</i>, which made a scandal: for he +had treated the subject in the manner of an opera, suppressing the +chorales, the chief songs, and the person of the evangelist and his +story. Handel and Postel more prudently only suppressed the songs, but +reserved the text of the evangelist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> This criticism, certainly written in 1704, was repeated by +Mattheson in his musical journal, <i>Critica Musica</i>, in 1725, and even +twenty years later on, in his <i>Wollkommene Kapellmeister</i>, in 1740.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> The two young men had charge of the education of the +English Ambassador’s son, Mattheson in the position of chief tutor, +Handel as music master. Mattheson took advantage of the situation to +inflict on Handel a humiliating rebuke. Handel revenged himself by +ridiculing Mattheson, whose <i>Cleopatra</i> was being given at the Opera. +Mattheson conducted the orchestra from the clavier, and took the <i>rôle</i> +of Antony as well. When he played the part he left the clavier to +Handel, but after Antony had died, an hour before the end of the play, +Mattheson returned in theatrical costume to the clavier, so as not to +miss the final ovations. Handel, who had submitted to this little comedy +for the first two representations, refused on the third to give his +chair to Mattheson. In the end they came to fisticuffs. The story is +told in a rather confusing manner by Mattheson in his <i>Ehrenpforte</i>, and +by Mainwaring, who sided with Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <i>Der in Krohnen erlangte Glücks-Wechsel, oder Almira +Konigen von Castilien</i> (The Adventures of the Fortune of the Kings, or +Almira, Queen of Castile). The libretti was drawn from a comedy by Lope +de Vega by a certain Feustking, whose scandalous life Chrysander has +recorded, and also the battle of the ribald pamphlets with Barthold +Feind on the subject of this piece. Keiser ought to have written the +music of <i>Almira</i>, but, being too occupied with his business and his +amusements, he handed the book over to Handel. +</p><p> +Once for all I will say here that the exigences of this book will not +allow of any analysis of Handel’s operas. I hope to give detailed +analyses of them in another book on Handel and his times (<i>Musiciens +d’autrefois</i>, Second Series).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> <i>Die durch Blut und Mord erlangte Liebe, oder Nero</i> (Love +obtained by blood and crime, or Nero), poem by Feustking. Mattheson +played the part of Nero. The musical score is lost.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> In 1703 Handel returned his mother the allowance which she +made him, and added thereto certain presents for Christmas. In 1704, +1705 and 1706 he saved two hundred ducats for his travels in Italy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> The new Nero was played under the title of <i>Die Romische +Unruhe, oder die edelmüthige Octavia</i> (The troubles of Rome, or the +magnanimous Octavia). The score has been republished in the supplements +to the Complete Handel Edition by Max Seiffert with Breitkopf. <i>Almira</i> +took the title: <i>Der Durchlanchtige Secretarius, oder Almira, Königen in +Castilien</i> (His Excellency the Secretary, or Almira, Queen of Castile). +</p><p> +Besides these two works, Keiser wrote in two years, seven operas, the +finest he had done, an evident proof of his genius, which, however, +lacked the character and dignity worthy of it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Under the title <i>Componimenti Musicali</i>, 1706, Hamburg.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> For the space of two years no one knew what had become of +him, for he had taken care to elude the restraint of his creditors. At +the beginning of 1709 he quietly reappeared in Hamburg, took up again +his post and his glory, without anyone dreaming of reproaching him, but +then Handel was no longer at Hamburg.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Besides the operas, and his <i>Passion</i>, Handel wrote at +Hamburg a large number of cantatas, songs, and clavier works. Mainwaring +assures us that he had two cases full of them. Mattheson doubts the +truth of this statement, but the ignorance which he shows on this +subject only goes to prove his growing estrangement from Handel, for we +have since found both in his clavier book, etc. (Volume XLVIII of the +complete works), and in the Sonatas (Volume XXVII) a number of +compositions which certainly date from the Hamburg period 1705 or 1706.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> He was the last of the Medici. He came to the title in +1723, but after several years of brilliant rule he retired into +solitude, sick in body and in spirit (see Reumont: <i>Toscana</i>, and +Robiony: <i>Gli Ultimi dei Medici</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Later on Handel said after he had been to Italy that he +never had imagined that Italian music, which appears so ordinary and +empty on paper, could make such a good effect in the theatre itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Mr. R. A. Streatfeild believes that he even stayed in +Florence until October, 1706, for the Prince Gastone dei Medici, who +ought to have presented him to the Grand Duke, left Florence in +November, 1706. He also places in this first sojourn in Florence the +production of Handel’s <i>Roderigo</i>, of which all precise records in the +archives of the Medicis and the papers of the time are lost. I am more +inclined to follow the traditional opinion that <i>Roderigo</i> dates from +Handel’s second stay in Florence, when he commenced to work in the +Italian language and style.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Bartolommeo Christofori, inventor of the pianoforte, made +several very interesting instruments for him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> April 2, 1706.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> April 23, 1707. See Edward Dent: <i>Alessandro Scarlatti</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Volume LI of the Complete Works. It was pretended at the +time that this <i>Lucretia</i> was written by one Lucretia, a singer at the +court of Tuscany, who showed Handel for the first time the great beauty +of the Italian song—and of the Italians.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> The whole of Europe in the commencement of the eighteenth +century had passed through a vogue of Pietism. Historians have scarcely +paid sufficient attention to local influences. It was thus that they +attributed the reawakening of the religious spirit in France entirely to +the influence of Louis XIV. Analogous phenomena were produced in Italy, +in Germany, and in England, at the same time. There were great moral +forces awakening, which, one cannot exactly say why, suddenly broke out +over the whole of the civilized world like a stroke of fever.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> A <i>Dixit Dominus</i> is dated April 4, 1707; a <i>Laudate +Pueri</i>, July 8, 1707.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> A letter from Annibale Merlini to Ferdinando dei Medici, +recently published by Mr. Streatfeild, says that on September 24, 1707, +the famous Saxon (<i>Il Sassone famoso</i>), as Handel was already called, +was still enchanting hearers in the musical evenings at Rome.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Both Mr. Ademollo, in an article in the <i>Nuova Antologia</i>, +July 16, 1889, and Mr. Streatfeild, have established the true name of +the chief singer in <i>Roderigo</i>. Thus the romantic story believed ever +since Chrysander of Handel’s love for the famous Vittoria Tesi has been +destroyed. She was only seven years old in 1707, and did not come out +until 1716.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Occasionally in St. Mark’s there were six orchestras, two +large ones in the galleries with the two grand organs, four smaller ones +distributed in pairs in the lower galleries, each with two small +organs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Mainwaring relates that Handel arrived <i>incognito</i> at +Venice, and that he was discovered in a masquerade where he was playing +the clavier. Domenico Scarlatti cried out that it must either be the +celebrated Saxon, or the devil. This story, which shows that Handel was +celebrated already as a virtuoso, accords very well with his taste for +mystifying people, a marked trait in his character.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> This appears thoroughly established by recent researches, +and contradicts the statement of Chrysander that Handel’s <i>Agrippina</i> +had been played at the commencement of 1708 at Venice. All the documents +of that time agree in placing the first production of <i>Agrippina</i> at the +end of 1709 or at the beginning of 1710.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> An autograph cantata by Handel, which is found in London, +was dated Rome, March 3, 1708.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> This Academy was founded at Rome in 1690 for the +production and exposition of popular poetry and rhetoric.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Amongst the “shepherds” of Arcadia were counted four +Popes (Clement XI, Innocent XIII, Clement XII, Benoit XIII), nearly all +the sacred colleges, the Princes of Bavaria, Poland, Portugal; the Queen +of Poland, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and a crowd of great lords and +ladies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Scarlatti under the name of Terpandro; Corelli under that +of Archimelo; Pasquini as Protico; Marcello as Dryanti. Handel was not +inscribed on the Arcadia list because he was not yet of the regulation +age, twenty-four years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Cardinal Ottoboni was a Venetian, and nephew of the Pope +Alexander VIII. A good priest, very benevolent, and ostentatious art +patron whose prodigalities were celebrated even in England, where Dryden +eulogised them in 1691 in the Prologue of Purcell’s <i>King Arthur</i>. He +was a great <i>dilettante</i>, and even wrote an opera himself, <i>Il Columbo, +overo l’India scoperta</i>, 1691. Alessandro Scarlatti set to music his +libretto of <i>Statira</i>, and composed for him his <i>Rosaura</i>, and his +<i>Christmas Oratorio</i>. He was particularly intimate with Corelli, who +lived with him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Corelli took the first violin, and Francischiello, the +violoncello.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> At one meeting of the Arcadia in April, 1706, Alessandro +Scarlatti seated himself at the keyboard, whilst the poet Zappi +improvised a poem. Hardly had Zappi finished reciting the last verse +than Scarlatti improvised music on the verses—similarly at Ottoboni’s +house Handel improvised many secular cantatas whilst the Cardinal +Panfili improvised the verses. It is related that one of these poems +constituted a Dithyrambic eulogy, and that Handel, unperturbed, amused +himself by setting it to music, and doubtless singing it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> The manuscript of <i>The Resurrection</i> bears this +superscription: April 11, 1708, <i>La Festa de Pasque dal Marche Ruspoli</i> +(The Easter Festival at the Marquis Ruspoli’s).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> They occupy four volumes in the great Breitkopf +edition—two volumes of cantatas, of solo cantatas, with single bass for +clavier, and two volumes of cantatas <i>Con stromenti</i>, of which certain +are serenatas for two or three parts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> The <i>Armida abbandonata</i>. The copy, very carefully penned +in the writing of Bach, is now lodged in the house of Breitkopf.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> It is related that at one of the Ottoboni evenings there +was a contest on the clavier and on the organ between Domenico Scarlatti +and Handel. The result was undecided on the clavier, but for the organ +Scarlatti himself was the first to declare Handel the victor. After +that, whenever Scarlatti spoke of him he always made the sign of the +Cross.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Scarlatti was attached to the Royal Chapel of Naples as +principal Organist in December, 1708. Then he was reinstated in this +post in January, 1709, and in the course of the same year he was +nominated master of the Conservatoire of <i>Poveri di Gesù Cristo</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> All his life one of his chief hobbies—as with Corelli +and Hasse—was to visit picture galleries. It is necessary to note this +visual intelligence with the great German and Italian musicians of this +period, since one does not find it with those of the end of the +eighteenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> One of his cantatas is preserved, <i>Cantata spagnola a +voce sola a chitarra</i> (Spanish Cantata for solo voice and guitar, +published in the second volume of Italian cantatas <i>Con stromenti</i>), and +seven French songs in the style of Lully, with accompaniment of Figured +Bass for the clavier. One copy of these songs is found in the +Conservatoire Library, Paris (Fonds Schoelcher).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> One of them forms the inspiration for the Pastoral +Symphony of <i>The Messiah</i>. Handel also acquired in Italy his taste for +the Siciliano, which became the rage in Naples, and which he used, after +<i>Agrippina</i>, in nearly all his operas, and even in his oratorios.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> The <i>Acis and Galatea</i> of 1708 has no relation to the one +of 1720, but in taking up the later work in 1732 Handel made a +rearrangement of his Italian serenade, and gave it in London, mingling +with it the English airs of his other <i>Acis</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Concerning Steffani, see page 51 and following. It seems +quite compatible with this meeting with Handel at Rome in 1709 to relate +the story made by Handel of a concert at Ottoboni’s, where Steffani +supplied the improvisation of one of the chief singers with a consummate +art. Chrysander places this story at the time of the second Italian +journey of Handel in 1729, but that is impossible, for Steffani died in +February, 1728.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> That is to say on December 26, 1709. That is the date +which the recent researches of Mr. Ademollo and Mr. Streatfeild have +established in accordance with the indications of the contemporary +histories of Handel by Mattheson, Marpurg, and Burney, of the date +inscribed on the <i>libretto</i> itself. This contradicts the statement of +Chrysander adopted on his authority by most of the musical writers of +our own time, stating that <i>Agrippina</i> was played at Venice in the +Carnival of 1708.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> There was so much probability of this that he tried his +hand on the French vocal style by writing seven French songs, of which +the manuscript was carefully revised by him, for the sheets contain +evidences of a close revision in pencil. How changed things would have +been there if he had really come and settled in the interregnum between +Lully and Rameau. He had that quality which none of the French musicians +possessed—a superabundance of music, and he had not that which they had +got—lucid intelligence and a penetration into the true need of the +musical drama and its possibilities. (It was at that time that Lecerf de +la Viéville wrote his <i>Comparaison de la musique française et de la +musique italienne</i>, of which certain pages forestall the musical creed +of Gluck.) If Handel had come to France, I am convinced that that reform +would have been brought about sixty years sooner, and with a wealth of +music which Gluck never possessed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> It is the language which he used in his correspondence, +even with his own family, and his style, always very correct, had the +fine courtesy of the court of Louis XIV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> <i>Esther, Athalie, Theodore, Vierge d’Martyre.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Even in 1734 Séré de Rieux wrote of Handel: “His +composition, infinitely clever and gracious, seems to approach nearer to +our taste than any other in Europe” (p. 29 of <i>Enfants de Latone</i>, poems +dedicated to the King). Handel particularly pleased the French because +his Italianism was always restrained by reason, and French musicians +loved to think that logic was totally French. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">“Son caractère fort, nouveau, brillant, égal,</span> +<span class="i1">Du sens judicieux suit la constante trace,</span> +<span class="i1">Et ne s’arme jamais d’une insolente audace.”</span> +<span class="i12"><i>Ibid.</i> (pp. 102-3.)</span> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> See the book abounding in picturesque documents by Georg +Fischer, <i>Musik in Hannover</i>, Second Edition, 1903.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> In 1676, Leibnitz was then thirty years old. He received +the title of Councillor and President of the Library at the Castle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Moreover, by the quaintnesses of the Treaties of +Westphalia, this Protestant Princess found herself under the care of the +Catholic Bishop of Osnabruck.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> Madame Arvède Barine has given an amusing portrait of +her, although a little severe, in her charming studies on <i>Madame Mère +du Regent</i>, 1909 (Hachette). See particularly the Memoirs of the Duchess +Sophia, written by the same author in French.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> Thus a French traveller, the Abbé Tolland, in 1702, +expresses it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Created Duke in 1680, he left the same year for Venice. +He returned there at the end of 1684, and remained there until about +August, 1685. He returned three months later, in December, and only left +it in September, 1686. He lived at the palace Foscarini, with a numerous +following, his ministers, his poets, his musicians, his chapel. He spent +enormous sums. He gave <i>fêtes</i> to the Venetians, and took boxes by the +year in five theatres in Venice. In return he lent his subjects as +soldiers to Venice; and his son, Maximilian, was a General in the +Republic. When the Grand Marshal of the Court of Hanover wrote to the +Prince of the discontent of his people, Ernest Augustus answered: “I +very much wish that Monsieur the Grand Marshal would come here, then he +would no longer write so often to me about coming home. M. the Grand +Marshal can have no idea how amusing it is here, and if he only came +once he would never want to return to Germany.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Barthold Feind says in 1708: “Of all the German opera +houses, the Leipzig one is the poorest, that of Hamburg the largest, the +Brunswick the most perfect, and that of Hanover the most beautiful.” The +Opera of Hanover had four tiers of boxes, and was capable of +accommodating 1300 people.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> The orchestra was composed chiefly of French musicians, +and they were conducted by a Frenchman, Jean Baptiste Farinel, +son-in-law of Cambert.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> A. Einstein and Ad. Sanberger have just republished in +the <i>Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Bayern</i> a selection of Steffani’s works. +Arthur Neisser has devoted a little book to Steffani. Apropos of one of +his operas <i>Servio Tullio</i>, Leipzig, 1902. See also the studies of +Robert Eitner in the <i>Allg. Deutsche Biographie</i>; of Chrysander in his +<i>Haendel</i> (Volume I), and also Fischer in his <i>Musik in Hannover</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Munich had become the centre of Italian music in Germany +since the Prince-Elector Ferdinand had married in 1652 an Italian +princess, Adelaide of Savoy. See Ludwig Schiedermair: <i>Die Anfange der +Münchener Oper</i> (<i>Sammelb. der I.M.G.</i>, 1904).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> In 1680.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> One finds the list of Steffani’s operas, together with an +analysis of the <i>Servio Tullio</i>, in the book of Arthur Neisser.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> This opera was played for the fifth centenary of the +Siege of Bardwick by Henry Lion-heart in 1089. The Elector of +Brandenburg was at the first representation. Steffani treated other +German subjects, such as the <i>Tassilone</i> of 1709.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> The manuscripts of most of these operas are preserved in +the libraries of Berlin, Munich, London, Vienna, and Schwerin. It is +astonishing that they have never been published, notwithstanding their +importance in the history of German opera. Chrysander has given some +specimens of the <i>libretti</i>. The music has only been slightly studied by +Neisser, who makes the mistake of not knowing the music of the +contemporaries of Steffani, and in consequence is frequently at fault in +his appreciation of him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Leibnitz neither, although he had certain intuition of +what was possible in this style of theatre-piece, which united all the +means of expression: beauty of words, of rhymes, of music, of paintings +and harmonious gestures (letter of 1681). In general he regarded music +from the attitude of our Encyclopædists at the time of Rameau. His +musical ideal was simple melody. “I have often remarked,” says he, “that +men of note have little esteem for things which are touching. Simplicity +often makes more effect than elaborate ornaments” (letter to Henfling).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> The testimony of his contemporaries agrees in depicting +him as a man of agreeable physique, small, of a debilious constitution, +which the excess of study had aggravated, of a superior nature, but +altogether lovable in his manners, full of wit and of gentleness, clear +and calm in speech, possessing exquisite tact and perfect politeness, +from which he never departed, an accomplished man of the court, and +further very well informed, passionately interested in philosophy and +mathematics. Leibnitz taught him German political law. We find in +Fischer’s <i>Musik in Hannover</i> a reproduction of a very rare portrait of +Steffani in an episcopal costume.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Bishop <i>in partibus</i>. Spiga was a district in the Spanish +West Indies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> He ended by abdicating his post as Vicar, which cost him +more annoyance than pleasure. He travelled afresh in Italy in 1722. In +1724 he was nominated President for life of the Academy of Ancient +Music, founded in London by his pupil, Galliard. He dedicated to the +Academy several of his compositions, but since he was made Bishop he no +longer signed them; they appeared under the name of his secretary, +Lagorio Piva. He returned to Hanover in 1725, after having lived on a +grander scale than his revenues sufficed to maintain. He became +embarrassed, and had to sell his beautiful collection of pictures and +statuary, among which were found, it is said, some of Michael Angelo’s. +The English king settled some of his debts. Steffani died of apoplexy in +the middle of a journey to Frankfort on February 12, 1728.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> A little work by him in the form of a letter is known. It +is entitled <i>Quanta certezza habbia de suoi Principii la Musica et in +qual pregio fosse perciò presso gli Antichi</i>, and was published in 1695 +at Amsterdam. Again in 1700 in German. He therefore advanced the value +of music not only as an art, but also as a science.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> His singing was celebrated. If his voice was feeble, the +purity and finish of his style, his delicate and chaste expression, were +incomparable, if we are to believe Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> They caused in truth a grand gathering of singers. +<i>Servius Stallius</i> alone required twenty-five, of which six were +sopranos (Nicer). <i>Op. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> On the other hand, the symphonic pieces, and particularly +the overtures, are in the Lully style, and afforded the models for +Handel. The French style reigned in the orchestra at Hanover. Telemann +says, “at Hanover is the art of French science.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> Steffani seems to have written these duets as music +master of the Court ladies, and several were composed for the Electress +of Brandenburg, Sophia Dorothea. The poems were the work of the great +lords, or the Italian Abbés. These duets were regarded in their time as +masterpieces, and numerous copies were made of them. One finds the +bibliography in the first volume of choice works of Steffani published +by Breitkopf by A. Einstein and A. Zanberger. The Paris Conservatoire +alone possesses six volumes of manuscript duets by Steffani.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> See the airs <i>Lungi dall’idol</i>, <i>Occhi perche piangete</i>, +and particularly <i>Forma un mare</i>, which offer a striking analogy to one +of the more beautiful <i>lieder</i> of Philip Heinrich Erlebach: <i>Meine +Seufzer</i> (published by Max Friedlander in his History of the Song of the +Eighteenth Century). There is every reason to believe that Steffani +afforded one of the models for Erlebach. +</p><p> +One should notice the predilection of Steffani (like the great Italians +of his time) for chromaticism and his contrapuntal taste. Steffani was +one of the artists of the time nearest to the spirit of the ancient +music, yet opening the way to the new, and it was characteristic that he +was chosen as President of the Academy of Ancient Music of London, which +took for its models the art of Palestrina and the Madrigalians of the +end of the sixteenth century. I do not doubt that Handel learnt much, +even in this, from Steffani.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Henry Purcell was born about 1658, and died in 1695.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> See the Prelude or the Dance in <i>Dioclesian</i> and the +overture to <i>Bonduca</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> English art has never produced anything more worthy of +being placed side by side with the masterpieces of the Italian art than +the scene of Dido’s death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> <i>King Arthur</i>: Grand Dance, or final Chaconne; +<i>Dioclesian</i>: trio with final chorus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Particularly the famous song of St. George in <i>King +Arthur</i>—“St. George, the patron of our isle, a soldier and a saint.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> It was no longer French influence, which, very powerful +at the time of the Stuarts, had very nearly disappeared during the +Revolution of 1688; but the Italian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> The celebrated pamphlet of the priest Jeremias Collier +appeared in 1688: “A short view of the immorality and profaneness of the +English stage with the sense of Antiquity,” had made an epoch because it +expressed with an ardent conviction the hidden feelings of the nation. +Dryden, the first, did humble penitence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> See the Preface to his <i>Amphion Britannicus</i> in 1700. +Blow died in 1708.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> There had been several efforts on the part of Italian +opera companies in London under the Restoration of 1660 and 1674. None +had succeeded, but certain Italians were installed in London, and had +some success: about 1667 G. B. Draghi, about 1677 the violinist Niccolo +Matteis, who spread the knowledge in English of the instrumental works +of Vitali and of Bassani; the family of Italian singers, Pietro Reggio +de Gênes, and the famous Siface (Francesco Grossi), who in 1687 was the +first to give Scarlatti in London; Marguerita de l’Espine, who during +1692 gave Italian concerts; but it was in 1702 that the infatuation for +the Italians commenced.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> He was the brother of the celebrated Bononcini +(Giovanni).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> This was <i>Rosamunde</i>, played in 1707, which had only +three representations. Addison, very little of a musician, had taken as +his collaborator the insipid Clayton. His satires against the Italian +opera appeared in March and April, 1710, in the <i>Spectator</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> The struggle was put into evidence in 1708, three years +before the Haymarket Theatre was founded under the patronage of the +Queen, by the poet Congreve, who gave there the old English plays. In +1708 the English drama left the place and opera installed itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> Two German musicians established in England, and +naturalized, Dr. Christoph Pepusch and Nichilo Francesco Haym, pushed +certain of their compositions on to the Italian opera stage in London. +They were found there later. Pepusch, founder of the Academy of Ancient +Music in 1710, was badly disposed against Handel, whose operas he +ridiculed in the famous <i>Beggars’ Opera</i> of 1728. Haym, who wished to +publish in 1730 a great history of music, was one of Handel’s +librettists. +</p><p> +The Library of the Paris Conservatoire possessed a volume of airs from +the principal Italian operas displayed in London from 1706 to 1710 +(London, Walsh).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> When the poet Barthold Feind gave in 1715 the translation +of <i>Rinaldo</i> at Hamburg, he did not neglect to call him the universally +celebrated Mr. Handel, known to the Italians as “<i>l’Orfeo del nostro +secolo</i>” and “<i>un ingegno sublime</i>.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> He did not hurry. He stayed at Düsseldorf with the +Elector Palatine (A. Einstein, etc., April, 1907), then in the later +months of the year he went to see his family at Halle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> To speak truly, they were more like little cantatas than +<i>lieder</i>. The Collection Schoelcher in the Library of the Paris +Conservatoire possesses these copies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Volumes XXVII and XLVIII of the Complete Handel Edition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> One sees by the letters of 1711 that Handel applied +himself, even in Germany, to perfecting his knowledge of English.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> The House of Hanover was, as one knows, an aspirant for +the succession to the throne of England, and it behoved it to keep on +good terms with Queen Anne, who was partial to Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> For his second version of this work in 1734 he then added +some choruses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> It is the only opera of Handel’s which is in five acts. +The poem was by Haym.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> Purcell had written in 1694 a <i>Te Deum</i> and <i>Jubilate</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> He wrote, it is said, for the little amateur theatre of +Burlington an opera <i>Silla</i>, 1714, of which he reproduced the best parts +in <i>Amadigi</i>. One can also date from this time a certain number of +clavier pieces, which appeared in a volume in 1720.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> The legend records that Handel composed in August, 1715, +the famous Water Music to regain the favour of the King. Installed on a +boat, with a small “wind” orchestra, he had this work performed during +one of the King’s state processions on the Thames. The King was +delighted, and renewed his friendship with Handel. Unfortunately, the +Water Music appears to have been written two years later than the return +to Court of Handel, and the scene placed by Chrysander on August 22, +1715, in his first volume—in October, 1715, by Fischer, <i>Musik in +Hannover</i>—is changed by Chrysander in his third volume to July 17, +1717, with a cutting from one of the newspapers of that time, which does +not seem, however, convincing to the others. Be that as it may, the work +is from this period, and the first publication of it appeared about +1720.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> Keiser in 1712, <i>Der für die Sünden der Welt gemarterte +und sterbende Jesus</i> (Jesus Crucified and Dying for the Sins of the +World). Then Telemann in 1716, some months after Handel’s arrival; a +little later, Mattheson. Handel’s <i>Passion</i> was executed for the first +time at Hamburg during Lent 1717, when Handel had already returned to +England. The four Passions of Keiser, Telemann, Mattheson, and Handel, +were given in 1719 at the Hamburg Cathedral, Mattheson being +choirmaster.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> Handel and Mattheson exchanged some correspondence. +Mattheson was about to engage in a musical polemic with the organist and +theorist, Buttstedt. He proved the need of building on the sound +foundations of the German music. He proposed a suggestion for an enquiry +on the Greek modes of Solmisation. Handel, pressed on these questions, +responded tardily in 1719; he sided with Mattheson, a declared modernist +against the old modal period. Mattheson also asked for details of his +life for the purpose of including him in his biographical dictionary +which he had in view. Handel excused himself on account of the +concentration necessary. He merely promised in a vague manner to relate +later on the principal stages which he had taken in the course of his +profession, but Mattheson drew nothing more from this source.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> At the end of 1716. In the course of this sojourn in +Germany, where he had assisted the widow of his former master, Zachau, +then fallen into great poverty, he also succoured at Anspach an old +University friend, Johann Christoph Schmidt, who carried on a woollen +business, and who left all—fortune, wife, and child—to follow him to +London. Schmidt remained attached to Handel all his life, conducting his +business affairs for him, recopying his manuscripts, taking care of his +music, and afterwards his son, Schmidt (or Smith) Junior, took on the +same good offices with equal devotion, a striking instance of the +attractive powers which Handel excited on others.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> The Duke of Chandos was a Crœsus, enriched in his +office of Paymaster-General to the army in the reign of Queen Anne, and +by his vast speculations in the South Sea Company. He built a +magnificent castle at Cannons, a few miles from London. He had the +<i>entourage</i> of a prince, and was surrounded by a guard of a hundred +Swiss soldiers. His ostentation, indeed, was a little ridiculous. Pope +made fun of it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> The Anthems occupied three volumes of the Complete Handel +edition. The third is reserved for the later works of this epoch, with +which we are concerned here. The two first volumes contained eleven +Chandos anthems, of which two have a couple of versions and one has +three. Handel wrote at the same time three <i>Te Deums</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Masques were secular compositions very much in the +fashion in England at the time of the Stuarts. They were part played and +part danced, as theatre plays, and partly sung as concert pieces (see +Paul Reyher: <i>Les</i>, etc., Paris, 1909). +</p><p> +Handel took up his <i>Esther</i> in 1732 and recast it. The first <i>Esther</i> +had a single part, it comprised six scenes. The second <i>Esther</i> had +three acts, each preceded and terminated by a full chorus in the ancient +manner. Some have asserted that the poem was by Pope.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Later on, when he took up this work again in 1733, he +called it an English opera.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> The pretty poem is by Gay.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> This was a society with a capital of £50,000 by shares of +£100 subscribed for fourteen years, each share giving the use of one +seat in the theatre. At the head of it, as President, was the Lord +Chamberlain, Duke of Newcastle. (Until 1723, when he entered the +Ministry, and was replaced by the Duke of Grafton.) The second +President, the real director, was Lord Bingley. He was assisted on the +Council of Administration by twenty-four directors re-elected yearly. +The whole scheme was under the protection of the King, who paid £1000 a +year for his box. The dividends paid to the shareholders reached in 1724 +7%, but speculation endangered the work, and indeed led to its ruin. +</p><p> +Handel was charged with the complete musical direction until 1728, when +he took on his shoulders the whole direction of the opera, financial and +musical.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> This voyage took place from February, 1719, to the end of +the same year. When Handel was staying at Halle, J. S. Bach, who was +then at Cothen, about four miles away, was informed of it, and went +there to see him, but he only arrived at Halle the very day when Handel +was about to leave. Such at least is the story of Forkel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> The poem was by Haym. From 1722 the work was given at +Hamburg with a translation of Mattheson.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Before him Domenico Scarlatti had already visited London, +where he had given unsuccessfully an opera, <i>Narcissus</i>, 1720.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> He was born in 1671 or 1672, for his first opus appeared +in 1684 or 1685, when he was little more than thirteen years old. +</p><p> +Giovanni Bononcini was far from being well known. He was not a +celebrated musician, on which account there are many disagreements. +Bononcini was the name of a long string of musicians, and one has been +frequently confounded with the other. Such mistakes are found even in +the critical work of Eitner (where they rest on a great error in +reading) and in the most recent Italian works, as that of Luigi Torchi, +who in his instrumental music in Italy, 1901, confounds all the +Bononcini together. Luigi Francesco Valdreghi’s monograph <i>I Bononcini +in Modena</i>, 1882, is more reliable, although very incomplete.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> Gianmaria Bononcini was Chapel-Master of the Cathedral of +Modena, and attached to the service of Duke Francis II. A fine +violinist, author of instrumental sonatas in suites, to which Mr. Torchi +and Sir Hubert Parry attribute great historical importance. He had a +reflective spirit, and dedicated in 1673 to the Emperor Leopold I a +treatise on Harmony and Counterpoint, entitled <i>Musico Practico</i>, which +was afterwards reprinted. He died in 1678, less than forty years old.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> Several of his early works are dedicated to Francis II of +Modena, and his 8th opus, <i>Duetti da Camera</i>, 1691, is dedicated to the +Emperor Leopold I, who caused him to be engaged for the Court Chapel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> He was a celebrated violoncellist.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> Alfred Ebert: <i>Attilo Ariosto in Berlin</i>, 1905, Leipzig.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> See Lecerf de la Viéville: <i>Eclaircissement sur +Bononcini</i>, published in the 3rd part of his <i>Comparaison de la musique +française avec la musique italienne</i> (1706).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> “Like Corelli,” says Lecerf, “he had a few fugues, contra +fugues, based on conceits, frequently in other Italian works, and he +made many delicious things from all the lesser used intervals, the most +valiant and the most strange. His dissonances struck fear.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> See the gentle suspension of notes in the Cantata <i>Dori e +Aminta</i> (manuscript in the Library of the Conservatoire of Paris), or +the <i>Cantata Care luci (ibid.)</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> “What is necessary in music,” said <i>The London Journal</i> +of February 24, 1722, “is that it should chase away <i>ennui</i>, and relieve +clever men from the trouble of thinking.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> It is the eternal struggle between the art of knowledge +and the pseudo-popular art. It recurred again a little later with +Rousseau. The principal difference between the two phases of the strife +is that in the epoch with which we are occupied the champion of the +anti-learned art was a well-instructed musician who did not uphold his +cause by ignorance, but by laziness and by profligacy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> “To study this more closely,” says Hugo Goldschmidt +(<i>Vocal Ornamentation</i>, 1908), “Bononcini’s songs are really <i>lieder</i>, +to which is applied, for good or evil, the old form of the Aria Da Capo, +or the Cavatina: the taste for little airs in the form of a song spread +itself widely during the end of the seventeenth century in Germany and +in England.” Bononcini, who was always led naturally by fashion, and by +his indolent facility, abandoned himself to it still more in England, +and suited it to the English taste.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> The work had already been given in Italy about 1714. It +was then that Lord Burlington heard it, and became the champion of +Bononcini when he decided to come to England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> Handel wrote the third act, Bononcini the second, the +first had been already set by a certain Signor Pippo (Phillipo Matti?).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> The victory of Handel began for the most part with the +engagement of his new interpreter, Francesca Cuzzoni, of Parma, a great +and vigorous artist, violent and passionate, whose excellent soprano +voice excelled particularly in pathetic <i>cantabile</i> music. She was +twenty-two years old, and came to London, where she made her début in +<i>Ottone</i>. Her quarrels with Handel, and how he treated her by +threatening to throw her out of the window, are well known. +</p><p> +Handel gave again in May another opera, <i>Flavio</i>, of little importance. +On his side Bononcini produced <i>Erminia and Attilio</i>, <i>Aristosi</i>, +<i>Coreolanus</i>, in which the prison scene reduced the ladies to tears, and +inspired numerous analogous scenes in the following operas of Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> Bononcini gave his last piece, <i>Kalfernia</i>, on April 18, +1724. Ariosti says possibly in 1725. On the other hand, in 1725 there +commenced to be played in London the works of Leonardo Vinci, and +Porpora, patronized by Handel himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Faustina Bordoni was born in 1700 at Venice. She had been +educated in the school of Marcello. In 1730 she married Hasse. Her +singing had an incredible agility. No one could repeat the same note +with such rapidity, and she seemed able to hold on sounds to any extent. +Less concentrated and less profound than Cuzzoni, she had an art more +moving and brilliant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> Two months before Handel had given the opera <i>Scipione</i> +(March 12, 1726).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> The Director of the Drury Lane Theatre, Colley Cibber, +produced, a month later, a farce called <i>The Contretemps, or The Rival +Queens</i>, where the two singers were depicted tearing their chignons, and +Handel saying in anger to them, whom he wished to separate, “Leave them +alone, when they are tired their fury will spend itself out,” and, in +order that the strife might be definitely finished, he wound it up with +great strokes on the drum. Handel’s friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, also +published on this subject one of his best pamphlets, “The Devil let +loose at St. James’s” (see Chrysander, Volume II).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> The last representation at the Academy took place on June +1, 1728, with <i>Almeto</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> Amongst others, the accompanied recitative, the air <i>Da +Capo</i>, the opera duets, the farewell scenes, the great prison scenes, +the inconsequent ballads. Pepusch even took an air of Handel and +parodied it. In the second act a band of robbers came together in the +tavern, and solemnly defiled before their chiefs to the sound of the +March of the Crusaders’ Army in <i>Rinaldo</i>—<i>The Beggar’s Opera</i>, given +for the first time on January 29, 1728, was played all over England, and +aroused violent polemics. Swift became a passionate champion for it. +After the success appeared in the following years a number of operas +with songs—Georgy Kalmas has dedicated a very complete article to <i>The +Beggar’s Opera</i> in his <i>Sammelbände der I.M.G.</i> (January to March, +1907).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> The first three books of the <i>Dunciad</i> of Pope appeared +in 1728; <i>The Voyages of Gulliver</i> in 1726. Swift did not forget the +musical folly in his satire on the kingdom of Lilliputia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> The Coronation Anthems comprised four hymns, of which we +do not know the exact order. Handel arranged for their presentation at +Westminster by forty-seven singers, and a very considerable orchestra.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> <i>Riccardo I</i>, played in November of the same year (see p. +81), was also a national opera, dedicated to King George II, and +celebrating, <i>apropos</i> of Richard Cœur de Lion, the annals of Old +England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> See page 48, note 4, the opinions held by Séré de Rieux.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> Séré de Rieux: <i>les Dons les infants de Latone; la +Musique et la Chasse du cerf</i>, poems dedicated to the King, 1734, Paris, +p. 102-3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> During this voyage, where he sojourned a considerable +time at Venice, he learned that his mother was stricken with paralysis. +He hastened to Halle, so that he might see her again, but she could no +longer see him. For several years she had been blind. She died the +following year, December 27, 1730. Whilst Handel was at Halle watching +over his mother, he received a visit from Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who +came on behalf of his father, to invite him to come to Leipzig. One can +well understand that Handel declined the invitation under his sad +circumstances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> Born in 1690 at Strongoli in Calabria, he died in 1730. +He was the master of the Chapel Royal at Naples, where he preceded +Pergolesi and Hasse. I have spoken of Vinci in another volume.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> <i>Acis and Galatea</i> was reproduced in 1731, then given +again in 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, with the scenery and costumes, +under the title of <i>An English Pastoral Opera</i>. The representation had +taken place without the consent of Handel, who in response to the event, +gave the work himself a little later. As for <i>Esther</i>, a member of the +Academy of Ancient Music, Bernard Gates who had formerly sung in the +piece at the Duke of Chandos’ and who possessed a copy of it, produced +it at the Hostelry of the Crown and Anchor, on February 23, 1732. In his +turn Handel directed the work on May 2, 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, +under the title of English <i>Oratorio</i>. These presentations did not +appease the interest of the public.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> In the “first place there were in all,” said a pamphlet, +“260 persons, of whom many had free tickets, and others were even paid +to come.” Handel tried to give the work again at reduced prices. This +brought him no advantage. The English patrons repeated already their +exultation over the Saxon, and caused him to return to Germany.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> <i>Athaliah</i> was written for the University feasts at +Oxford, to which Handel had been invited. They wished to confer on him +there the title of Doctor of Music. One does not know exactly what +happened to Handel, having always refused the honour. It is certain, +however, that Handel did not receive the title.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> Bononcini had been received into the Academy of Ancient +Music at London. To secure his footing he offered the Academy in 1728 a +Madrigal in five voices. Unfortunately for him, three years after, a +member of the Academy found this Madrigal in a book of duets, trios, +madrigals of Antonio Lotti, published in 1705 at Venice. Bononcini +persisted in claiming the authorship of the work. A long enquiry was +instituted, in which Lotti himself and a great number of witnesses were +examined. The result was disastrous for Bononcini, who threw up all and +disappeared from London towards the end of 1732—the whole of the +correspondence relating to this affair was published by the Academy in +Latin, Italian, French and English, under the title “Letters from the +Academy of Ancient Music at London to Signor Antonio Lotti of Venice, +with answers and testimonies, London, 1732.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> Porpora was the most famous Italian teacher of singing of +the eighteenth century. Hasse was himself a great singer, and married +one of the most celebrated Prima Donnas who ever lived, Faustina.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> Contrast with the short and restricted phrases of +Benedetto Marcello in his <i>Arianna</i>, the amplitude of Porpora’s +treatment of the same subject.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> Chrysander, who did not know him well, speaks with a +disdain absolutely unjustifiable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> Handel’s <i>Arianna</i>, January 26, 1734. Porpora’s <i>Arianna +à Naxos</i>, a little later.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> Thus the Invocation of Theseus to Neptune: <i>Nume che +reggi’l mare</i>, and the air: <i>Spetto d’orrore</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Johann Adolf Hasse was born March 23, 1699, at Bergedorf, +near Hamburg, and died on December 16, 1783, at Venice. He came to +London in October, 1734, where he gave his <i>Artaserse</i>, which was played +until about 1737. He also gave in England his Siroé, 1736, and two comic +<i>intermezzi</i>. I do not attach much importance to him, for his life and +his art are a little outside the scope of this work. Despite the efforts +of Handel’s enemies, Hasse always avoided posing as the rival of his +great countryman, and their art remains independent of each other. I +will hold over (till some time later on) the study of the work of this +admirable artist, for posterity has been even more unjust to him than to +Porpora, for no one had his wonderful sense of melodic beauty in such a +degree, and in his best pages he is the equal of the very greatest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> She was Handel’s pupil and friend. An excellent musician, +she conducted the orchestra at public concerts given by her every +evening in Holland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Handel composed for the marriage of the Princess Anne +<i>The Wedding Anthem</i> (March 14, 1734), which is a <i>pasticcio</i> of old +works, especially <i>Athaliah</i>. He gave also for the marriage <i>fêtes</i> the +serenata, <i>Parnasso in festa</i>, and a revised form of <i>Pastor Fido</i>, with +choruses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> It was John Rich who had produced here the <i>Beggar’s +Opera</i> of Gay and Pepusch in 1728—that parody of Handel’s operas.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> She was the pupil of Mlle Prévost, and made her début in +1725 with Rich. See the study of M. Emile Dacier: <i>Une danseuse +française a Londres, au début du XVIII siècle</i> (French number of the +S.I.M. May and July, 1907).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> It is interesting to notice that it was with the same +subjects of <i>Pygmalion</i> and of <i>Ariadne</i> that J. J. Rousseau and Georg +Benda inaugurated in 1770-1775 the Melodrama or “opera without +singing.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> He has been accused of knowing it too well. The Abbé +Prévost wrote exactly at this same period in <i>Le Pour et le Contre</i> +(1733): “...Certain critics accuse him of having taken for his basis an +infinite number of beautiful things from Lully, and especially from our +French cantatas, and of having the effrontery of disguising them in the +Italian manner....”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> “<i>La Salle</i>” returned to Paris, where she made her +reappearance at the Académie de Musique in August, 1735, in <i>les Indes +galantes</i> of Rameau. It is quite remarkable that some pages of this +work, such as the superb chaconne at the end, have a character quite +Handelian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> <i>Atalanta</i> (May 12, 1736), <i>Arminio</i> (January 12, 1737), +<i>Giustino</i> (February 16, 1737), <i>Berenice</i> (May 18, 1737), <i>Faramondo</i> +(January 7, 1738), <i>Serse</i> (April 15, 1738), <i>Imeneo</i> (November 22, +1740), <i>Deidamia</i> (January 10, 1741).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> Especially in <i>Serse</i> and <i>Deidamia</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> Dryden the poet wrote this brilliant poem in 1697 in a +night of inspiration. Clayton had set it to music in 1711; and again +about 1720 Benedetto Marcello wrote a cantata in the ancient manner on +an Italian adaptation of the English ode by the Abbé Conti. A friend of +Handel, Newburgh Hamilton, arranged Dryden’s poem with great discretion +for Handel’s oratorio. +</p><p> +Handel had already written several times in honour of St. Cecilia. Some +fragments of four cantatas to St. Cecilia are to be found in Vol. LII of +the great Breitkopf edition (<i>Cantate italiane con stromenti</i>). They +were all written in London, the first about 1713.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> <i>Alexander’s Feast</i> (January, 1736), <i>Atalanta</i> (April), +<i>Wedding Anthem</i> (April), <i>Giustino</i> (August), <i>Arminio</i> (September), +<i>Berenice</i> (December).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> June 1, 1737. But on June 11 the rival opera also closed +its doors, ruined. Handel, like Samson, dragged down in his own fall the +enemy whom he wished to annihilate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> On November 15, 1737, Handel commenced <i>Faramondo</i>; from +December 7 to 17 he wrote the <i>Funeral Anthem</i>. On December 24 he +finished <i>Faramondo</i>. On December 25 he commenced <i>Serse</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> He said that these kinds of concerts were but a way of +begging.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> Vauxhall was a beautiful garden on the Thames, the +meeting place of London Society. Every evening except Sunday from the +end of April to the beginning of August, vocal, orchestral, and organ +concerts were given. The manager of these entertainments, Tyers, caused +a white marble statue of Handel by the sculptor Roubiliac to be placed +in a niche of a large grotto. The same sculptor later on executed +Handel’s statue for his monument in Westminster Abbey.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> In the first part of <i>Israel in Egypt</i> there is not a +single solo air to be found. In the whole work there are nineteen +choruses against four solos and three duets. The poem of <i>Saul</i> which +Chrysander at first attributed to Jennens appears to have been, as he +discovered later on, the work of Newburgh Hamilton. For <i>Israel</i>, Handel +entirely dispensed with a librettist, taking the pure Bible text.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> Written between September 29 and October 30, 1739. Handel +further prepared in November, 1740, the Second Volume of Organ Concertos +(six). The same month he opened his last season of opera, giving on +November 22 <i>Imeneo</i>, which was only played twice, and on January 14, +1741, <i>Deidamia</i>, which was only given three times.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> Especially in the <i>Allegro</i> and in certain <i>Concerti +Grossi</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> An anonymous letter published in the <i>London Daily Post</i> +of April 4, 1741, alludes to a single false step made without +premeditation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> In the midst of his misery he still thought of those more +miserable than himself. In April, 1738, he founded with other well-known +English musicians, Arne, Greene, Pepusch, Carey, etc., the Society of +Musicians for the succour of aged and poor musicians. Tormented as he +was himself, he was more generous than all the others. On March 20, +1739, he gave <i>Alexander’s Feast</i> with a new Organ Concerto for the +benefit of the Society. On March 28, 1740, he conducted his <i>Acis and +Galatea</i> and his little <i>Ode on Cecilia’s day</i>. On March 14, 1741, in +his worst days he gave the <i>Parnasso in festa</i>, a gala spectacle very +onerous for him with five Solo Concertos by the most celebrated +instrumentalists. Later on he bequeathed £1000 to the Society.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> A clumsy friend tried to raise a public charity in an +anonymous letter to the <i>London Daily Post</i> (see above). He made excuses +for Handel, and thus gave the composer the most cruel blow of all. (The +clumsiness of a bear!) This letter is found at the end of Chrysander’s +third volume.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> On November 4, 1741, he still had time to see, before his +departure, the reopening of the Italian Opera, under the direction of +Galuppi, supported by the English nobility.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> Handel wrote the <i>Messiah</i> between August 22 and +September 14, 1741. Certain historians have attributed the composition +of the <i>libretto</i> to him. There is no reason for robbing Jennens, a man +of intelligence, author of the excellent poem of <i>Belshazzar</i>, of this +honour, and of that shown by the fact that Handel changed none of the +text which Jennens gave him. A letter of March 31, 1745, to a friend +(quoted by Schoelcher) shows that Jennens found the music of the +<i>Messiah</i> hardly worthy of his poem.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> The great Musical Society of Dublin, the Philharmonic, +gave only benevolent concerts. For Handel they made a special +arrangement. It suited them that Handel reserved one concert for +charity. Handel was engaged there with gratefulness by promising “some +better music.” This “better music” was the <i>Messiah</i>. See an article on +<i>Music in Dublin</i> from 1730 to 1754 by Dr. W. H. Gratten-Flood, I.M.G. +(April-June, 1910).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> But not at London, where Handel gave the <i>Messiah</i> only +three times in 1743, twice in 1745, and not again until 1749. The cabals +of the pious tried to stifle it. He was not allowed to put the title of +the oratorio on the bills. It was called A Sacred Oratorio. It was only +at the close of 1750 that the victory of the <i>Messiah</i> was complete. +Handel all his life preserved his connection with charitable objects. He +conducted it once a year for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. Even +when he was blind he remained faithful to this noble practice, and in +order to better preserve the monopoly of the work for the Hospital he +forbade anyone to publish anything from it before his death. +</p><p> +Since then one knows what a number of editions of the <i>Messiah</i> have +appeared. The Schoelcher collection in the Paris Conservatoire has +brought together sixty-six published between 1763-1869.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> The character of Delilah is one of the most complex which +Handel has created, and the parts of Samson and Harapha require +exceptional voices.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> Milton’s poem had been adapted by Newburgh Hamilton.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> The Battle of Dettingen took place on June 27, 1743. +Handel had already finished on July 17 his <i>Te Deum</i>, which was solemnly +performed on the following November 27 in Westminster Abbey.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> Too slowly for the liking of Handel, who composed it bit +by bit as the acts were sent him. There are five letters from him to +Jennens dated June 9, July 19, August 21, September 13 and October 2, +1744, where he presses him to send at once the rest of the poem, +expressing his own admiration for the second act, which he said provides +new means of expression and furnishes the opportunity of giving some +special ideas, “finally asking him to cut down the work a little, as it +was too long” (see Schoelcher).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> Handel wrote it during the forced pauses in the +composition of <i>Belshazzar</i>, and produced it at the commencement of +1745.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> The letters quite recently published throw much light on +this troublous period in Handel’s life (William Barclay-Squire: Handel +in 1745, in the H. Riemann Festschrift, 1909, Leipzig).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> Two examples of the song appear in the Schoelcher +Collection at the Paris Conservatoire. +</p><p> +Handel also wrote in July, 1746, for the return of the Duke of +Cumberland, a song on the victory over the rebels by His Royal Highness +the Duke of Cumberland, which was given at Vauxhall (a copy of this song +also appears in the Schoelcher Collection).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Finished in the early days of December, 1745, and given +in February, 1746. The text was founded partly on the Psalms of Milton +and partly on the Bible. Handel inserted in the third part several of +the finest pages from <i>Israel in Egypt</i>. In one of the solos the +principal theme of Rule Britannia which was later to be composed by Arne +appears.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> The poem, very mediocre, was by the Rev. Dr. Thomas +Morell, who was the librettist for the last oratorios of Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> It was not one of Handel’s oratorios, of which the style +was in the popular vein, and where one finds further grand ensembles and +solos closely connected with the Chorus. +</p><p> +Gluck journeyed to London at the end of 1745. He was then thirty-one +years old. He gave two operas in London, <i>La Caduta de’Giganti</i> and +<i>Artamene</i>. (Certain solos from them are to be found in the very rare +collection of <i>Delizie dell’opere</i>, Vol. II, London, Walsh, possessed by +the library of the Paris Conservatoire.) This journey of Gluck in +England has no importance in the story of Handel, who showed himself +somewhat scornful in his regard for Gluck’s music. But it was not so for +Gluck, who all his life professed the most profound respect for Handel. +He regarded him as his master; he even imagined that he imitated him +(see Michael Kelly: <i>Reminiscences</i>, I, 255), and certainly one is +struck by the analogies between certain pages in Handel’s oratorios +written from 1744 to 1746 (notably <i>Hercules</i> and <i>Judas Maccabæus</i>) and +the grand operas of Gluck. We find in the two funeral scenes from the +first and second acts of <i>Judas Maccabæus</i> the pathetic accents and +harmonies of Gluck’s <i>Orpheus</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> After 1747 Handel, abandoning his system of +subscriptions, turned his back on his aristocratic clientèle, which had +treated him so shamefully, and opened his theatre to all. It paid him. +The middle classes of London responded to his appeal. After 1748 Handel +had full houses at nearly all his concerts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> Poem founded on the book of Maccabees by Thomas Morell. +The first performance March 23, 1748.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> Poem by Thomas Morell, first performances March 9, 1748.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> The poem, apparently, by Thomas Morell, notwithstanding +its want of mention in his notes. First performance March 17, 1749.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> The Firework Music has been published in Volume XLVII of +the Complete Handel Edition. For the performance on April 27, 1749, the +orchestra numbered one hundred. Schoelcher has published a +correspondence on the subject of this work between Lord Montague, +General-in-chief of the Artillery, and Charles Frederick, Controller of +the King’s fireworks. One sees there that very serious differences arose +between Handel and Lord Montague.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> The Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 by an old +mariner, Thomas Coram, “for the maintainance and education of abandoned +children.” Handel devoted himself to this institution, and gave +performances of the <i>Messiah</i> annually for its funds. In 1750 he was +elected a Governor of the Hospital, after he had made it a gift of an +organ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> Vol. XXXVI of the Complete Handel Edition. The Foundling +Anthem, of which more than one page is taken from the Funeral Anthem, +finishes with the Hallelujah from the <i>Messiah</i> in its original form.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> The libretto was inspired by the <i>Théodore vierge et +martyre</i> of Corneille.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> Written between June 28 and July 5, and produced on March +1, to follow Alexander’s feast as “a new act added.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> A paragraph in the <i>General Advertiser</i> of August 21, +1750, tells us that Handel was very seriously hurt between La Haye and +Amsterdam, but that he was already out of danger.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> The facsimile of the autograph manuscript was published +by Chrysander, for the second centenary of Handel in 1885.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> Page 182 of MS.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> To occupy himself he directed two performances of the +<i>Messiah</i> for the funds of the Foundling Hospital—on April 18 and May +16, “with an improvisation on the organ.” He also tried the cure at +Cheltenham.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> Page 244 of MS.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> He underwent an operation for cataract, the last time on +November 3, 1752. A newspaper stated in January, 1753: “Handel has +become completely blind.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> Written in 1708 at Rome.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> Handel had already regiven the Italian work with some +rearrangements and editions in 1737. Thomas Morell adapted the poem to +English, and extended the two acts into three.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> This will was written since 1750. Handel added codicils +to it in August, 1756, March and August, 1757, April, 1759. He nominated +his niece, Johanna Friderica Flœrchen, of Gotha, <i>née</i> Michaelsen, +his sole executor. He made several gifts to his friends—to Christopher +Smith, to John Rich, to Jennens, to Newburgh Hamilton, to Thomas Morell, +and others. He did not forget any of his numerous servants. He left a +fortune of about twenty-five thousand pounds, which he had made entirely +in his last ten years; he possessed also a fine collection of musical +instruments and a picture gallery in which were two Rembrandts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> A monument, somewhat mediocre, was erected to him. It was +the work of Roubiliac, who had already done the statue of Handel for the +Vauxhall Gardens.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> They were celebrated in reality a year too soon. Burney +devoted a whole book to describing these festivals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> The number of performers never ceased to increase after +the festivals of 1784, when there were 530 or 540, right up to the +famous festivals in the Sydenham Crystal Palace, when the number reached +1035 in 1854, 2500 in 1857, and 4000 in 1859. Remember that during the +lifetime of Handel the <i>Messiah</i> was performed by thirty-three players +and twenty-three singers. They manufactured for these gigantic +performances some monster instruments; a double bassoon (already +invented in 1727), a special contrabass, some bass trumpets, drums tuned +an octave lower, etc</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> These arrangements, executed for the Baron van Swieten, +are far from being irreproachable, and show that Mozart, despite the +assertions of Rochlitz, had not a deep understanding of Handel’s works. +However, he wrote an “Overture in the style of Handel,” and suddenly +remembered him when he composed his <i>Requiem</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> The first was the Singakademie of Berlin, founded in 1790 +by Fasch.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> In the <i>Harmonicon</i> of January, 1824, one finds +Beethoven’s opinion (quoted by Percy Robinson): “Handel is the greatest +composer who has ever lived. I should like to kneel at his tomb.” And in +a letter from Beethoven to an English lady (published in the +<i>Harmonicon</i> of December, 1825): “I adore Handel.” We know that after +the 9th Symphony he had the plan of writing some grand oratorios in the +style of Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> Schumann wrote to Pohl in 1855, that <i>Israel in Egypt</i> +was his “ideal of a choral work,” and, wishing to write a work called +<i>Luther</i>, he defined this music thus, of which he found the ideal +realized by Handel: “A popular oratorio that both country and +town-people can understand.... A work of simple inspiration, in which +the effect depends entirely on the melody and the rhythm, without +contrapuntal artifice.” +</p><p> +Liszt, <i>apropos</i> of the Anthem <i>Zadock the Priest</i>, goes into ecstasies +over “the genius of Handel, great as the world itself,” and very rightly +perceives in the author of the <i>Allegro</i> and of <i>Israel</i>, a precursor of +descriptive music.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> See, in Chrysander’s work, an article by Emil Krause, in +the <i>Monatshefte für Musikwissenschaft</i>, 1904.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> A Société G. F. Handel was founded in Paris in 1909, +under the direction of two conductors full of zeal and intelligence, MM. +F. Borrel and F. Raugal. It has already done much to awaken the love of +Handel in France by giving the large works hitherto unknown in France, +such as <i>Hercules</i>, the <i>Foundling Anthem</i>, and the model performances +of the <i>Messiah</i> at the Trocadero.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> Lessing, in the Preface to his <i>Beiträge zur Historie und +Aufnahme des Theaters</i> (1750), gives as the principal characteristic of +the German, “that he appreciates whatever is good, particularly where he +finds it, and when he can turn it to his profit.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> See the <i>Voyage en Italie</i>, May 18, 1787, letter to +Herder.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> French Songs (MSS. in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge): +copies in the Schoelcher Collection, in the library of the Paris +Conservatoire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> See the Abbé Prévost: <i>Le Pour et le Contre</i>, 1733.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> These are not traits special to Handel alone. The double +stream—encyclopædic and learned on the one hand, popular or +pseudo-popular on the other—was found in an even greater degree in +London amongst the musicians of Handel’s time. In the circle of the +<i>Academy of Antient Musick</i> there was quite a mania of archaic +eclectism. One of these members, the composer Roseingrave, even went to +the length of having the walls of his rooms and all his furniture +covered with bars of music, extracted from the works of Palestrina. At +the same period there was felt all over Europe a reaction of popular +taste against that of the savants. It was the day of the little <i>lieder</i> +by Bononcini or by Keiser. Handel took sides with neither extravagances, +but chose whatever was alive in both movements.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> Letter from Lady Luxborough to the poet Shenstone in +1748—quoted by Chrysander.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> His passion of collecting increased with age and fortune. +A letter of 1750 reveals him buying some beautiful pictures, including a +fine Rembrandt. It was the year before he was smitten with blindness.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> From the “<i>Hauts tilleuls</i>” of <i>Almira</i> up to the Night +Chorus in <i>Solomon</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> A study of the MS. of <i>Jephtha</i> (published in <i>facsimile</i> +by Chrysander) affords an opportunity of noticing Handel’s speed of +working at composition. On these very pages one reads various +annotations in Handel’s own handwriting. At the end of the first act, +for instance, he writes: “<i>Geendiget</i> (finished) 2 February.” Again, on +the same page one reads: “<i>Völlig</i> (complete) 13th August, 1751.” There +were then two different workings; one the work of invention, the other a +work of completion. It is easy to distinguish them here on account of +the illness which changed the handwriting of Handel after February 13, +1751. Thanks to this circumstance, one sees that with the Choruses he +wrote the entire subjects in all the voices at the opening; then he let +first one fall, then another, in proceeding; he finished hastily with a +single voice filled in or even the bass only.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> It was so with the melody: <i>Dolce amor che mi consola</i> in +<i>Roderigo</i>, which became the air: <i>Ingannata una sol volta</i> in +<i>Agrippina</i>—and also with the air: <i>L’alma mia</i> from <i>Agrippina</i>, which +was used again for the <i>Resurrection</i>, for <i>Rinaldo</i> and for <i>Joshua</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> The Eastern Dance in <i>Almira</i> became the celebrated +<i>Lascia ch’io pianga</i> in <i>Rinaldo</i>; and a joyful but ordinary melody +from <i>Pastor Fido</i> was transformed to the touching phrase in the +<i>Funeral Ode</i>: “Whose ear she heard.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> One can examine here in detail the two very +characteristic instrumental interludes from Stradella’s <i>Serenata a 3 +con stromenti</i> which had the fortune of blossoming out into the +formidable choruses of the Hailstones and the Plague of Flies in +<i>Israel</i>. I have made a study of this in an article for the S.I.M. +review (May and July, 1910), under the title of <i>Les plagiats de +Handel</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> There is reason to believe that he was not absolutely +free in the matter. In 1732, when the Princess Anne wished to have +<i>Esther</i> represented at the opera the Archbishop (Dr. Gibson) opposed +it, and it was necessary to fall back to giving the work at a concert.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> An anonymous letter published in the <i>London Daily Post</i> +in April, 1739, dealing with <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, defends Handel against +the opposition of the bigots, who were then very bitter. The writer +protests “that the performance at which he was present was the noblest +manner of honouring God ... it is not the house which sanctifies the +prayer, but the prayer which sanctifies the house.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> Is not even <i>Joseph</i> entitled “a sacred Drama,” and +<i>Hercules</i> “a musical Drama”?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> At the end of his second volume of the Life of Handel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> See the vocal distribution of some of the London Operas: +</p><p> +<i>Radamisto</i> (1720): 4 Sopranos (of which 3 parts are male characters), 1 +Alto, 1 Tenor, 1 Bass. +</p><p> +<i>Floridante</i> (1722): 2 Sopranos, 2 Contraltos, 2 Basses. +</p><p> +<i>Giulio Cesare</i> (1724): 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, 1 Contralto (Cæsar’s rôle), +2 Basses. +</p><p> +<i>Tamerlano</i> (1724): 2 Sopranos, 1 Contralto (male <i>rôle</i>), 1 Alto +(Tamerlano), 1 Tenor, 1 Bass. +</p><p> +<i>Admeto</i> (1727): 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, 1 Contralto (Admeto), 2 Basses. +</p><p> +<i>Orlando</i> (1732): 2 Sopranos, 1 Alto (Medora), 1 Contralto (Orlando), 1 +Bass. +</p><p> +<i>Deidamia</i> (1747): 3 Sopranos (one is Achilles’ <i>rôle</i>), 1 Contralto +(Ulysses), 2 Basses. +</p><p> +It is the same in the Oratorios, where one finds such a work as <i>Joseph</i> +(1744) written for 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, l Contralto (Joseph), 2 Tenors, +and 2 Basses. +</p><p> +Thus, without speaking of the shocking inconsistencies of the parts thus +travestied, the balance of voices tends to fall off as we go from high +to low.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> In 1729 he went to Italy to find an heroic tenor, Pio +Fabri; unfortunately he could not secure him for two years.—<i>Acis and +Galatea</i> (1720) is written for 2 Tenors, 1 Soprano, and 1 Bass.—The +most tragic <i>rôle</i> in <i>Tamerlano</i> (1724) (that of Bajazet) was written +for the Tenor, Borosini.—<i>Rodelinda</i>, <i>Scipione</i>, <i>Alessandro</i>, all +contain Tenor <i>rôles</i>.—On the other hand, Handel was not satisfied with +having in his theatre the most celebrated basses of the century, the +famous Boschi and Montagnana, for whom he wrote such fine <i>rôles</i>, such +as that of Zoroaster in <i>Orlando</i>, and Polyphemus in <i>Acis and Galatea</i>; +but he aimed at having several important <i>rôles</i> all taken by Basses in +the same Opera. In his first version of <i>Athaliah</i> (1733) he had written +a duet for Basses for Joad and Mathan. But the defection of Montagnana +obliged him to give up this idea, which he could only realise in <i>Israel +in Egypt</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> See also <i>Giulio Cesare</i>, <i>Atalanta</i>, or <i>Orlando</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> Especially in certain concert operas, such as <i>Alcina</i> +(1735), and also in the last work of Handel, in which one feels his +final torpor, <i>The Triumph of Time</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> See those Oratorios in which he is not afraid, when +necessary, of introducing little popular songs, as that of the little +waiting-maid in <i>Susanna</i> (1749).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> See the air of Medea at the beginning of the second act +of <i>Teseo</i>; <i>Dolce riposo</i>. See also <i>Ariodante</i> and <i>Hercules</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> Such as the air at the opening of <i>Radamisto</i>; <i>Sommi +Dei</i>.—I will mention also the airs written over a Ground-Bass +accompaniment without <i>Da Capo</i>, of which the most beautiful type is the +<i>Spirito amato</i> of Cleofide, in <i>Poro</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> For example the air, <i>Per dar pregio</i>, in <i>Roderigo</i>. The +oboe plays a great part in these musical jousts. Such an air as that in +<i>Teseo</i> is like a little Concerto for Oboe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> They are extremely short. Some are popular songs. Others +in <i>Agrippina</i> have just a phrase. Many of these <i>arietti da capo</i>, in +<i>Teseo</i>, in <i>Ottone</i>; make one think of those in Gluck’s <i>Iphigénie en +Aulide</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> In <i>Rinaldo</i>, the air, <i>Ah crudel il pianto mio</i>, the +first part is a sorrowful <i>largo</i>, the second a furious <i>presto</i>.—The +finest example of this freedom is the air of Timotheus at the beginning +of the second act of <i>Alexander’s Feast</i>. The two parts in this air +differ not only by the movements but by the instrumental colouring, by +the harmonic character, and by the very essence of the thought; they are +two different poems which are joined together, but each being complete +in itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> Examples; <i>Teseo</i>, Medea’s <i>Moriro, ma vendicata</i>; +<i>Amadigi</i> air, <i>T’amai quant’il mio cor</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> <i>Riccardo I</i>, air, <i>Morte, vieni</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> In the airs <i>da capo</i> of <i>Ariodante</i>, the second part is +restricted to five bars.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> <i>L’Allegro ed Penseroso</i>, 1st air, Part 3, <i>Come with +native lustre shine</i>; after the 2nd part comes a recitative, then the +chorus sings the <i>Da Capo</i>.—In <i>Alexander’s Feast</i> the air, <i>He sung +Darius, great and good</i>; after the 2nd part comes a recitative, then the +<i>Da Capo</i> with Chorus, but altogether free; to speak truly, the <i>Da +Capo</i> is only in the instrumental accompaniment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> Handel has found a musical language passing by +imperceptible steps from <i>recitativo secco</i>, almost spoken, to +<i>recitativo accompagnato</i>, then to the air. In <i>Scipione</i> (1726) the +phrases of the accompanied <i>recitative</i> are enshrined in small +frameworks of spoken <i>recitative</i> (see p. 23 of the Complete Handel +Edition, the air, <i>Oh sventurati</i>). The final air in the first act is a +compromise between speech and song. The accompanied <i>recitative</i> runs +naturally into the air.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> In the chain of Recitatives and Airs of all kinds which +succeed or mingle themselves with it, with an astonishing freedom +reflecting one after another, or even at the same time the contradictory +ideas which course through Roland’s mind, Handel does not hesitate to +use unusual rhythms, as the 5-8 here which gives a stronger impression +of the hero’s madness.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> It is necessary to consider to some extent the <i>Arias +buffi</i>. Some have denied Handel the gift of humour. They cannot know him +well. He is full of humour, and often expresses it in his works. In his +first opera, <i>Almira</i>, the <i>rôle</i> of Tabarco is in the comic style of +Keiser and of Telemann. It is the same feeling which gives certain +traits a little <i>caricaturesque</i> to the <i>rôle</i> of St. Peter in the +<i>Passion after Brockes</i>. The Polyphemus in <i>Acis and Galatea</i> has a fine +amplitude of rough buffoonery. But in <i>Agrippina</i> Handel derived his +subtle irony from Italy; and the light style with its minute touches and +its jerky rhythms from Vinci and Pergolesi (to the letter) appear with +Handel in <i>Teseo</i> (1713). <i>Radamisto</i>, <i>Rodelinda</i>, <i>Alessandro</i>, +<i>Tolomeo</i>, <i>Partenope</i>, <i>Orlando</i>, <i>Atalanta</i> afford numerous examples. +The scene where Alexander and Roxane are asleep (or pretend to be) is a +little scene of musical comedy. <i>Serse</i> and <i>Deidamia</i> are like +tragi-comedies, the action of which points to <i>opéra comique</i>. But his +gift of humour takes another turn in his oratorios, where Handel not +only creates complex and colossal types, such as <i>Delilah</i> or <i>Haraphah</i> +in <i>Samson</i>, or as the two old men in <i>Susanna</i>, but where his Olympian +laugh breaks out in the choruses of <i>L’Allegro</i>, shaking the sides of +the audience with irresistible laughter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> See especially Hugo Goldschmidt: <i>Treatise on Vocal +Ornaments</i>, Volume I, 1907; Max Seiffert: <i>Die Verzierung der +Sologesänge in Haendels Messias</i> (I.M.G., July-September, 1907, and +Monthly Bulletin of I.M.G., February, 1908); Rudolf Wustmann: <i>Zwei +Messias-probleme</i> (Monthly Bulletin I.M.G., January, February, 1908).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> M. Seiffert has given a description of the whole series +of copies of Handel Operas and Oratorios in the Lennard collection of +the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. There are to be found there (in +pencil) the indication of the ornaments and vocalises executed by the +singers. According to M. Seiffert these indications were by Christopher +Smith, the friend and factotum of Handel. According to Mr. Goldschmidt +they were put in at the end of the eighteenth century. In any case they +show a vocal tradition which affords a good opportunity of preserving +for us the physiognomy of the musical ornaments of Handel’s time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> This is especially true of the oratorios. In the operas, +the ornamentation was much more elaborate and more irrelevant to the +expression.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> The first, by Mr. Seiffert; the second, by Mr. +Goldschmidt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> <i>Teseo</i>, duet, <i>Addio, mio caro bene</i>; <i>Esther</i>, duet by +Esther and Ahasuerus: “Who calls my parting soul?”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> <i>Arminio</i> (1737), duet from Act III. It is to be noticed +that <i>Arminio</i> opens also with a duet, a very exceptional thing. +</p><p> +Other duets are in the Sicilian style, as, for instance, that in <i>Giulio +Cesare</i>, or in the popular English style of the hornpipe, as that of +Teofane and Otho in <i>Ottone</i>; <i>A’teneri affetti</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> There are to be found also some fine trios in a serious +yet virile style in the <i>Passion according to Brockes</i> (trio of the +believing souls: <i>O Donnerwort</i>!) and in the <i>Chandos Anthems</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> See also the quartet in Act I of <i>Semele</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> With the exception of the Italian operas played at +Venice, in which (thanks to Fux) the tradition of vocal polyphony is +maintained—a tradition to be put to such good use later by Hasse and +especially Jommelli.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> The 5-8 time in <i>Orlando</i>; the 9-8 in <i>Berenice</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> The Introduction to <i>Riccardo I</i> represents a vessel +wrecked in a tempestuous sea.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> <i>Giulio Cesare</i>: Scene on Parnassus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> <i>Ariodante</i>, <i>Alcina</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> See <i>Israel in Egypt</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> <i>Belshazzar</i>, <i>Susanna</i>, <i>L’Allegro</i>, <i>Samson</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> <i>Saul</i>, <i>Theodora</i>, <i>Athalia</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> <i>Passion according to Brockes</i>, <i>Chandos Anthems</i>, +<i>Funeral Anthem</i>, <i>Foundling Anthem</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> <i>Anthems</i>, <i>Jubilate</i>, <i>Israel in Egypt</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, <i>Messiah</i>, <i>Belshazzar</i>, <i>Chandos +Anthems</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> <i>Samson</i>, <i>Saul</i>, <i>Israel in Egypt</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> <i>L’Allegro</i>, <i>Susanna</i>, <i>Belshazzar</i>, <i>Alexander Balus</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> <i>Solomon</i>, <i>L’Allegro</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> <i>Hercules</i>, <i>Saul</i>, <i>Semele</i>, <i>Alexander Balus</i>, +<i>Solomon</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> I have noticed above the Chorus-Dances in <i>Giulio +Cesare</i>, <i>Orlando</i>, <i>Ariodante</i>, <i>Alcina.</i> There are also veritable +choral dances in <i>Hercules</i>, <i>Belshazzar</i>, <i>Solomon</i>, <i>Saul</i> (the Bell +scene), <i>Joshua</i> (Sacred dance in Act II over a Ground-Bass).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> So in <i>Athalia</i>, <i>Alexander’s Feast</i>, <i>L’Allegro</i>, +<i>Samson</i> (Michel’s rôle).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> <i>Jubilate</i>, <i>Funeral Anthem</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> Quoted by M. Bellaigue in <i>Les Époques de la Musique</i>, +Vol. I, page 109.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> In the time of Lully and his school, the French were the +leaders in musical painting, especially for the storms. Addison made fun +of it, and the parodies of the <i>Théâtre de la Foire</i> often amused people +by reproducing in caricature the storms of the <i>Opéra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_345" id="Footnote_345_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_345"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> Extract from a pamphlet published in London (1751) on +<i>The art of composing music in a completely new manner adapted even to +the feeblest intellects</i>. +</p><p> +Already Pope in 1742 compared Handel with Briareus. +</p> + +<p><br /> +“Strong in new arms, lo! Giant <span class="smcap">Handel</span> stands,<br /> +Like bold Briareus with his <i>hundred hands</i>.”</p> + +<p> +At the time of <i>Rinaldo</i> (1711) Addison accused Handel of delighting in +noise.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_346" id="Footnote_346_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_346"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> “.... You refuse to submit to rules; you refuse to let +your genius be hampered by them.... O thou Goth and Vandal!... You also +allow nightingales and canaries on the stage and let them execute their +untrained natural operas, in order that you may be considered a +composer. A carpenter with his rule and square can go as far in +composition as you, O perfect irregularity!” (<i>Harmony in Revolt: a +letter to Frederic Handel esquire, ... by Hurlothrumbo-Johnson</i>, +February, 1734).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_347" id="Footnote_347_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_347"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> Soon Handel was obliged to publish these works, because +fraudulent and faulty copies were being sold. It was so with the first +volume of <i>Suites de pièces pour le clavecin</i>, published in 1720, and +the first volume of Organ Concertos published in 1738. Some of these +publications had been made in a bare-faced manner without Handel’s +permission by publishers who had pilfered them. So it was with the +second volume of <i>Suites de pièces pour le clavecin</i>, which Walsh had +appropriated and published in 1733 without giving Handel an opportunity +of correcting the proofs. It is very remarkable that, notwithstanding +the great European success achieved by the first volume for the +Clavecin, Handel did not trouble to publish the others.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_348" id="Footnote_348_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_348"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> All his contemporaries agree in praising the wonderful +genius with which Handel adapted himself instinctively in his +improvisations to the spirit of his audience. Like all the greatest +Virtuosos he soon placed himself in the closest spiritual communion with +his public; and, so to speak, they collaborated together.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_349" id="Footnote_349_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_349"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> Geminiani’s Preface to his <i>Ecole de violon</i>, or <i>The Art +of Playing on the Violin, Containing all the Rules necessary to attain +to Perfection on that Instrument, with great variety of Compositions, +which will also be very useful to those who study the violoncello, +harpsichord, etc.</i> Composed by F. Geminiani, Opera IX, London, MDCCLI.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_350" id="Footnote_350_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_350"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> Geminiani himself had attempted to represent in music the +pictures of Raphael and the poems of Tasso.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_351" id="Footnote_351_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_351"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> For example, the <i>Allegro</i> of the First Organ Concerto +(second volume published in 1740), with its charming dialogue between +the cuckoo and the nightingale, or the first of the Second Organ +Concerto (in the same volume), or several of the <i>Concerti Grossi</i> +(referred to later).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_352" id="Footnote_352_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_352"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> Vol. XLVII of the Complete Handel Edition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_353" id="Footnote_353_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_353"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> It is a manuscript of 21 pages, the writing appearing to +date from about 1710. It is certainly a copy from some older works. +Chrysander published it in Volume XLVIII of the Complete Edition. It is +probable that Handel had given to an English friend a selection from the +compositions of his early youth. They were passed from hand to hand, and +were even fraudulently published, as Handel tells us himself in the +Edition of 1720: “I have been led to publish some of the following +pieces, because some faulty copies of them have been surreptitiously +circulated abroad.” In this number appear, for example, the Third Suite, +the Sarabande of the Seventh Suite, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_354" id="Footnote_354_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_354"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> It is said that Handel wrote these for the Princess Anne, +whom he taught the clavecin; but Chrysander had observed that the +princess was only eleven years old at the time. It is more probable that +these pieces were written for the Duke of Chandos or for the Duke of +Burlington.—It is in the second book of Clavier Pieces that we find the +much easier pieces written for the princesses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_355" id="Footnote_355_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_355"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> In their republication of the <i>Geschichte der +Klaviermusik</i> by Weitzmann (1899), in which the chapter devoted to +Handel contains the fullest information of any description of the +Clavier works.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356_356" id="Footnote_356_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_356"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> Influences of Krieger and of Kuhnau, particularly in the +Halle period (see Vol. XLVIII, pp. 146, 149); French influences in the +Hamburg Period (pp. 166, 170); influences of Pasquini (p. 162); and of +Scarlatti (pp. 148, 152), about the time of his Italian visits. The +influence of Kuhnau is very marked, and Handel had all his life a +well-stocked memory of this music, and particularly of Kuhnau’s +<i>Klavier-Uebung</i> (1689-1692), and the <i>Frischen Klavier-Früchte</i> (1696), +which were then widely known and published in numerous editions. Here is +the same limpid style, the same neat soberness of line. Kuhnau’s +Sarabandes especially are already completely Handelian. It is the same +with certain Preludes, certain Gigues, and some of the airs (a trifle +popular).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357_357" id="Footnote_357_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_357"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> For the German influence, see the Suites 1, 4, 5, 8 (four +dance movements preceded by an introduction). For the Italian, see the +Suites 2, 3, 6, 7, of which the form approximates to the <i>Sonata da +camera</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358_358" id="Footnote_358_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_358"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> M. Seiffert adds that none of these elements predominate. +I would rather follow the opinion of Chrysander, who notices in this +fusion of three national styles a predominant tendency to the Italian, +just as Bach inclines most to the French style.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359_359" id="Footnote_359_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_359"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> One finds there, cycles of variations on Minuets, on +Gavottes, especially on Chaconnes and many other Italian forms. The +Gigue of the Sixth Suite (in G minor) comes from an air in <i>Almira</i> +(1705). One notices also that the Eighth Suite in G major is in the +French style (particularly the Gavotte in rondo with five variations). +</p><p> +It is necessary to follow this second volume by the third, which +contains works of widely different periods: <i>Fantasia</i>, <i>Capriccio</i>, +<i>Preludio e Allegro</i>, <i>Sonata</i>, published at Amsterdam in 1732, and +dating from his youthful period (the Second Suite was inspired by an +<i>Allemande</i> of Mattheson): <i>Lessons composed for the Princess Louisa</i> +(when aged twelve or thirteen years) about 1736; <i>Capriccio in G minor</i> +(about the same date); and <i>Sonata in C major</i> in 1750. +</p><p> +Finally, there should be added to these volumes, various clavier works +published in Vol. XLVIII of the Complete Edition under the title: +<i>Klaviermusik und Cembalo Bearbeitungen</i>. There is also a selection of +the best arrangements of symphonies and airs from the operas of Handel +by Babell (about 1713 or 1714).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360_360" id="Footnote_360_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_360"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> Mattheson in 1722 quoted the Fugue in E minor as quite a +recent work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361_361" id="Footnote_361_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_361"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> Handel himself told his friend Bernard Granville so, when +he made him a present of Krieger’s work: <i>Anmuthige Clavier-Uebung</i>, +published in 1699.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362_362" id="Footnote_362_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_362"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> The Fugue in A minor was used for the Chorus, <i>He smote +all the firstborn in Egypt</i>, in <i>Israel in Egypt</i>, and the Fugue in G +minor. The Chorus, <i>They loathed to drink at the river</i>. Another (the +4th) served for the Overture to the <i>Passion after Brockes</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363_363" id="Footnote_363_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_363"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> The indications: <i>ad libitum</i>, or <i>cembalo</i>, found time +after time in his scores, marked the places reserved for the +improvisation. +</p><p> +Despite Handel’s great physical power, his touch was extraordinarily +smooth and equal. Burney tells us that when he played, his fingers were +“so curved and compact, that no motion, and scarcely the fingers +themselves, could be discovered” (<i>Commemoration of Handel</i>, p. 35). M. +Seiffert believes that “his technique, which realised all Rameau’s +principles, certainly necessitated the use of the thumb in the modern +style,” and that “one can trace a relationship between Handel’s arrival +in England and the adoption of the Italian fingering which soon became +fully established there.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364_364" id="Footnote_364_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_364"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> A fourth was published by Arnold in 1797; but part of the +works which it contains are not original. Handel had nothing to do with +the publication of the Second Set. +</p><p> +Vol. XXVIII of the Complete Edition contains the Six Concertos of the +First Set, Op. 4 (1738) and the Six of the Third Set, Op. 7 (1760). Vol. +XLVIII comprises the concertos of the Second Set (1740), an experiment +at a Concerto for two organs and orchestra, and two Concertos from the +Fourth Set (1797). +</p><p> +Many of the Concertos are dated. Most of them were written between 1735 +and 1751; and several for special occasions; the sixth of the First Set +for an <i>entr’acte</i> to <i>Alexander’s Feast</i>; the fourth of the First Set, +a little before <i>Alcina</i>; the third of the Third Set for the Foundling +Hospital. The Concerto in B minor (No. 3) was always associated in the +mind of the English public with <i>Esther</i>; for the minuet was called the +“Minuet from Esther.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365_365" id="Footnote_365_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_365"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> May 8, 1735. It was the year when Handel wrote and +performed his first Concertos of the First Set.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366_366" id="Footnote_366_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_366"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> Hawkins wrote further: “Music was less fashionable than +it is now, many of both sexes were ingenuous enough to confess that they +wanted this sense, by saying, ‘I have no ear for music.’ Persons such as +these, who, had they been left to themselves, would have interrupted the +hearing of others by their talking, were by the performance of Handel +not only charmed into silence, but were generally the loudest in their +acclamations. This, though it could not be said to be genuine applause, +was a much stronger proof of the power of harmony, than the like effect +on an audience composed only of judges and rational admirers of his art” +(<i>General History of Music</i>, p. 912).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367_367" id="Footnote_367_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_367"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> In the Tenth Concerto there are two violoncellos and two +bassoons. The same in the Concerto for two Organs. In the long Concerto +in F major (Vol. XLVIII) we find two horns.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368_368" id="Footnote_368_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_368"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> Sometimes the name is found marked there. See the Eighth +Concerto in Vol. XXVIII and the Concerto in F major in Vol. XLVIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369_369" id="Footnote_369_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_369"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> Vol. XLVIII, page 51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370_370" id="Footnote_370_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_370"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> Mr. Streatfeild was, I believe, the first to notice an +autograph MS. of the Fourth Organ Concerto to which is attached a +Hallelujah Chorus built on a theme from the concerto itself. This MS., +which is found at the British Museum, dates from 1735, and appears to +have been used for the revival in 1737 of the <i>Trionfo del Tempo</i> to +which the Concerto serves for conclusion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371_371" id="Footnote_371_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_371"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> Scriabin also.—<i>Translator.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372_372" id="Footnote_372_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_372"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> <i>Six Sonatas or Trios for two Hoboys with a thorough bass +for the Harpsichord.</i> Published in Vol. XXVII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373_373" id="Footnote_373_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_373"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> Volume XLVIII, page 112.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374_374" id="Footnote_374_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_374"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> Volume XLVIII, page 130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375_375" id="Footnote_375_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_375"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> Volume XXVII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376_376" id="Footnote_376_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_376"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> <i>VII Sonatas à 2 violons, 2 hautbois, ou 2 flûtes +traversières et basse continue, composées par G. F. Handel, Second +ouvrage.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377_377" id="Footnote_377_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_377"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> Later on, Walsh made arrangements of favourite airs from +Handel’s Operas and Oratorios as “Sonatas” for flute, violin and +harpsichord. Six Vols.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378_378" id="Footnote_378_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_378"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> In eleven sonatas out of sixteen. One sonata (the third) +is in three movements. Three are in five movements (the first, the fifth +and the seventh). One is in seven movements (the ninth).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_379_379" id="Footnote_379_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_379"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> In the first Sonata, the final <i>Presto</i> in common time +uses the theme of the <i>Andante</i> in 3-4, which forms the second movement. +In the second Sonata, the final <i>Presto</i> in common time is built on the +subject of the <i>Andante</i> in 3-4, slightly modified.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_380_380" id="Footnote_380_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_380"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> The fifth Sonata is in five movements—<i>larghetto</i>, +<i>allegro</i> (3-8), <i>adagio</i>, <i>allegro</i> (4-4), <i>allegro</i> (12-8).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381_381" id="Footnote_381_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_381"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> From five to seven movements.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382_382" id="Footnote_382_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_382"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> A Gavotte concludes the first, second, and third trios. A +Minuet ends the fourth, sixth, and seventh. A Bourrée finishes the +fifth. There are also found two Musettes and a March in the second Trio, +a Sarabande, an Allemande and a Rondo in the third; a Passacaille and a +Gigue in the fourth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383_383" id="Footnote_383_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_383"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> It was the æsthetic of the period. Thus M. Mennicke +writes: “Neutrality of orchestral colour characterises the time of Bach +and Handel. The instrumentation corresponds to the registration of an +Organ.” The Symphonic orchestra is essentially built up on the strings. +The wind instruments serve principally as <i>ripieno</i>. When they used the +wood-wind <i>obbligato</i>, it went on throughout the movement and did not +merely add a touch of colour here and there.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384_384" id="Footnote_384_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_384"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> One finds in the middle of the <i>Trionfo del Tempo</i> an +instrumental Sonata for 2 Oboes, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello, Basso, and +Organ. In the Solo of the Magdalene in the <i>Resurrection</i>, Handel uses +two flutes, two violins (muted), <i>viola da gamba</i> and cello; the cello +is occupied with a pedal-note of thirty-nine bars at the opening, and +then joins the clavecin. In the middle of the air, the <i>viola da gamba</i> +and the flutes play by themselves.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385_385" id="Footnote_385_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_385"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> In <i>Radamisto</i> (1720) Tiridate’s air: <i>Alzo al colo</i>, and +final chorus. In <i>Giulio Cesare</i>, 4 horns. +</p><p> +I do not suppose that Handel was the first to use the clarionets in an +orchestra, as this appears very doubtful. One sees on a copy of +<i>Tamerlano</i> by Schmidt: <i>clar. e clarini</i> (in place of the <i>cornetti</i> in +the autograph manuscript). But it is feasible that just as with the +“<i>clarinettes</i>” used by Rameau in the <i>Acanthe et Céphise</i>, the high +trumpets are intended. Mr. Streatfeild mentions also a concerto for two +“clarinets” and <i>corno di caccia</i>, the MS. being in the Fitzwilliam +Museum at Cambridge.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386_386" id="Footnote_386_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_386"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> <i>Alcina</i>, <i>Semele</i>, <i>L’Allegro</i>, <i>Alexander’s Feast</i>, the +little <i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i>, etc. Usually Handel imparts to the cello +either an amorous desire or an elegiac consolation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387_387" id="Footnote_387_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_387"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> Thus, in the famous scene which opens the second Act of +<i>Alexander’s Feast</i> (second part of the air in G minor), evoking the +host of the dead who have wandered at night from their graves, there are +no violins, no brass; just 3 bassoons, 2 violas, cello, bassi and +organ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388_388" id="Footnote_388_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_388"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> In Saul, the scene of the Sorcerer, apparition of the +spirit of Samuel.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389_389" id="Footnote_389_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_389"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> The <i>violette marine</i> (little violas very soft) in +<i>Orlando</i> (1733).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390_390" id="Footnote_390_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_390"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> The monster instruments used for the colossal +performances at Westminster. The double bassoon by Stainsby made in 1727 +for the coronation celebrations. Handel borrowed from the Captain of +Artillery some huge drums preserved at the Tower of London, for <i>Saul</i> +and for the <i>Dettingen Te Deum</i>. Moreover, like Berlioz, he was not +afraid of using firearms in the orchestra. Mrs. Elizabeth Carter wrote: +“Handel has literally introduced firearms into <i>Judas Maccabæus</i>; and +they have a good effect” (<i>Carter Correspondence</i>, p. 134), and +Sheridan, in a humorous sketch (Jupiter) represents an author who +directs a pistol-shot to be fired behind the scenes, as saying, “See, I +borrowed this from Handel.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391_391" id="Footnote_391_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_391"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> For the scene of Cleopatra’s apparition on the Parnassus, +at the opening of Act II of <i>Giulio Cesare</i>, Handel has two orchestras, +one on the stage; Oboe, 2 Violins, Viola, Harp, Viola da gamba, Theorbo, +Bassoons, Cellos; the other, in front. The first air of Cleopatra in +<i>Alexander Balus</i> is accompanied by 2 Flutes, 2 Violins, Viola, 2 +Cellos, Harp, Mandoline, Basses, Bassoon and Organ.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392_392" id="Footnote_392_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_392"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> Fritz Volbach: <i>Die Praxis der Hændel-Aufführung</i>, 1899.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393_393" id="Footnote_393_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_393"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> In addition to two parts for Flutes, two for Oboes, two +for Bassoons, Violas, Cellos and Basses, Cembalo, Theorbo, Harp and +Organ; in all, fifteen orchestral parts to accompany a single voice of +<i>Esther</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394_394" id="Footnote_394_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_394"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> For the Angel’s Song.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395_395" id="Footnote_395_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_395"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> In <i>Saul</i>, “<i>viola II per duoi violoncelli ripieni</i>.” +(See Volbach, <i>ibid.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396_396" id="Footnote_396_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_396"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> Study from this point of view the progress from the very +simple instrumentation of <i>Alexander’s Feast</i>, where at first two Oboes +are used with the strings, then appear successively two Bassoons (air +No. 6), two Horns (air No. 9), two Trumpets and Drums (Part II), and, +for conclusion, with the heavenly apparition of St. Cecilia, two +Flutes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397_397" id="Footnote_397_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_397"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> Dr. Hermann Abert has found the first indication: +<i>crescendo il forte</i> in Jommelli’s <i>Artaserse</i>, performed at Rome in +1749. In the eighteenth century the Abbé Vogler and Schubart already had +attributed the invention of the <i>Crescendo</i> to Jommelli.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398_398" id="Footnote_398_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_398"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> See Lucien Kamiensky: <i>Mannheim und Italien</i> +(<i>Sammelbände der I.M.G.</i>, January-March, 1909).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399_399" id="Footnote_399_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_399"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> M. Volbach has noticed in the overture to the <i>Choice of +Hercules</i>, second movement: <i>piano</i>, <i>mezzo forte</i>, <i>un poco più forte</i>, +<i>forte</i>, <i>mezzo piano</i>, all in fourteen bars. In the chorus in <i>Acis and +Galatea</i>, “Mourn, all ye muses,” one reads <i>forte</i>, <i>piano</i>, <i>pp.</i>—The +introduction of <i>Zadock the Priest</i> shows a colossal <i>crescendo</i>; the +introductory movement to the final chorus in <i>Deborah</i>, a very broad +<i>diminuendo</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400_400" id="Footnote_400_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_400"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> H. Riemann: <i>Zur Herkunft der dynamischen Schwellzeichen</i> +(I.M.G., February, 1909).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401_401" id="Footnote_401_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_401"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> Carle Mennicke notices the same sign for <i>decrescendo</i> +((>) on a long note in the Overture to Rameau’s <i>Acanthe et Céphise</i> +(1751).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402_402" id="Footnote_402_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_402"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> Geminiani says of the <i>forte</i> and the <i>piano</i>: “They are +absolutely necessary to give expression to the melody; for all good +music being the imitation of a fine discourse, these two ornaments have +for their aim the varied inflections of the speaking voice.” Telemann +writes: “Song is the foundation of music, in every way. What the +instruments play ought to be exactly after the principles of expression +in singing.” +</p><p> +And M. Volbach shows that these principles governed music then in +Germany with all kinds of musicians, even with the trompettist +Altenburg, whose <i>School for the Trumpet</i> was based on the principle +that instrumental performance ought to be similar to vocal rendering.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403_403" id="Footnote_403_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_403"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> Max Seiffert: <i>Die Verzierung der Sologesänge in Haendels +Messias</i> (<i>Sammelbände der I.M.G.</i>, July-September, 1907).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404_404" id="Footnote_404_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_404"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> Fritz Volbach reckons for the <i>Concerto Grosso</i>, 8 first +violins, 8 seconds, 6 violas, 4 to 6 cellos, 4 basses—and for the +<i>Ripienists</i>, 6 first violins, 6 seconds, 4 violas, 3 or 4 celli, and 3 +basses. +</p><p> +These numbers are much greater than that of Handel’s own performances. +The programmes of a performance of the <i>Messiah</i> at the Foundling +Hospital, May 3, 1759, a little after Handel’s death, give only 56 +executants, of which 33 were instrumentalists and 23 singers. The +orchestra was divided into 12 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, 4 oboes, 4 +bassoons, 2 trumpets, 2 horns and drums (see <i>Musical Times</i>, May, +1902).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405_405" id="Footnote_405_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_405"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> “<i>Leichtigkeit der Bewegung und Beweglichkeit des +Ausdrucks</i>,” as Volbach tells us (suppleness of time and fluidity of +expression); these are the essential qualities which alone will revive +the true rendering of Handel’s works.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406_406" id="Footnote_406_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_406"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> <i>12 Grand Concertos</i> for stringed instruments and clavier +(Vol. XXX of the Complete Edition), written from September 29 to October +20, 1739, between the little <i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i> and <i>L’Allegro</i>. They +appeared in April, 1740. Another volume, of which we will speak later, +is known under the name of <i>Oboe Concertos</i>, and contains six <i>Concerti +Grossi</i> (Vol. XXI of the Complete Edition). Max Seiffert has published a +well-edited practical edition of these concertos (Breitkopf).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407_407" id="Footnote_407_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_407"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> The <i>Concertino</i> consists of a trio for two violins and +bass <i>soli</i>, with <i>Cembalo Obbligato</i>. The Germans introduced wood-wind +into the <i>concertino</i>, combining thus a violin, an oboe, a bassoon. The +Italians remained faithful, generally speaking, to the stringed +instruments alone.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408_408" id="Footnote_408_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_408"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> The <i>Concerti Grossi</i>, Op. 6, of Corelli, published in +1712, represent his lifelong practice. About 1682, George Muffat, +visiting Rome, sought to make acquaintance there with the <i>Concerti +Grossi</i> of Corelli, who already wrote them for instrumental masses of +considerable size. Burney speaks of a concert of 150 string instruments +conducted by Corelli at the Palace of Christine of Sweden in 1680 (see +Arnold Schering’s excellent little book: <i>Geschichte des +Instrumentalkonzerts</i>, 1905, Breitkopf).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409_409" id="Footnote_409_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_409"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> Geminiani caused three volumes of Corelli’s Concertos to +be published: Op. 2 (1732), Op. 3 (1735), Op. 7 (1748).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410_410" id="Footnote_410_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_410"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> Arnold Schering has noted the relationship between a +subject of Geminiani and one in Handel’s <i>Concerto Grosso</i>, No. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411_411" id="Footnote_411_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_411"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> Volume XXI of the Complete Edition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412_412" id="Footnote_412_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_412"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> About 1682, Muffat published at Salzburg his <i>Armonico +tributo</i>, Chamber Sonatas, where he mingled the style of the Lullian +Trio with the style of the Italian <i>Concertino</i>. And in 1701, at Passau, +he published some <i>Concerti Grossi</i> in the Italian manner after the +example of Corelli.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413_413" id="Footnote_413_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_413"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> <i>Concerti Grossi</i>, Amsterdam, 1721.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414_414" id="Footnote_414_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_414"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> Antonio Vivaldi of Venice (1680-1743), choirmaster of the +Ospedale della Pieta from 1714, began to be known in Germany between +1710 and 1720. The arrangements of his <i>Concerti Grossi</i>, which J. S. +Bach made, date from the time when Bach was at Weimar, that is between +1708 and 1714.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415_415" id="Footnote_415_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_415"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> Locatelli and Vivaldi came under the influence of the +Italian Opera. Vivaldi himself wrote thirty-eight operas. One of the +<i>Concerti</i> of Locatalli (Op. 7, 1741) was named <i>Il pianto d’Arianna</i>. +In the <i>Cimento dell’Armonia</i> of Vivaldi four Concertos describe the +four seasons, a fifth paints <i>La Tempesta</i>, a sixth <i>Il Piacere</i> +(Pleasure). In Vivaldi’s Op. 10 a Concerto represents <i>La Notte</i> +(Night), another <i>Il Cardellino</i> (The Goldfinch). And Arnold Schering +notices Vivaldi’s influence in Germany on a Graupner at Darmstadt, and +on Jos. Gregorius Werner in Bohemia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416_416" id="Footnote_416_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_416"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> See the following dates: September 29, 1739, Concerto I +in G major; October 4, Concerto II in F major; October 6, Concerto III +in E minor; October 8, Concerto IV in A minor; October 12, Concerto VII +in B flat major; October 15, Concerto VI in G minor; October 18, +Concerto VIII in C minor; October 20, Concerto XII in B minor; October +22, Concerto X in D minor; October 30, Concerto XI in A major (Vol. XXX +of Complete Edition).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417_417" id="Footnote_417_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_417"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> One sees French influences particularly in the Tenth +Concerto (in D minor), which has an Overture (<i>Grave</i> in 4-4 time and +Fugue in 6-8). The whole movement preserves an abstract and irregular +character. The last of the six movements—an <i>Allegro Moderato</i>, with +Variations (very pretty)—resembles a tune for a musical box.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418_418" id="Footnote_418_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_418"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> See even the Third Concerto in E minor, so vivacious, +with its <i>Larghetto</i> 3-2, melancholy and serene, its <i>Andante</i> 12-8 +Fugue with an elaborate theme of twirling designs which gives the +impression of the fancies of a capricious and gloomy soul, its <i>Allegro</i> +in 4-4, with a humour a little grotesque—its picturesque Polonaise on a +pedal-bass, and its final <i>allegro ma non troppo</i> of which the rhythm +and unexpected modulations make one think of certain dances in the later +quartets of Beethoven.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419_419" id="Footnote_419_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_419"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> The Fifth Concerto in D major may be styled the Concerto +to St. Cecilia; for three out of the six movements (the two first and +the beautiful final minuet) are found again in the Overture to the +little <i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420_420" id="Footnote_420_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_420"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> Arnold Schering believes that the idea of this Musette +was given to Handel by a <i>ritournelle</i> from Leonardo Leo’s <i>S. Elena il +Calvaroa</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421_421" id="Footnote_421_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_421"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> The two last <i>allegri</i> conclude the work a trifle +brusquely. The order of the movements with Handel is often very +surprising. It is as though he followed the caprice of the moment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422_422" id="Footnote_422_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_422"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> We cannot continue here the analysis of the other volumes +of Orchestral Concertos. I satisfy myself with merely enumerating them: +The <i>6 Concerti grossi con due violini e violoncello di concertino +obligati e due altri violini viola e basso di concerto grosso, op. 3</i>, +known under the name of Oboe Concertos (notwithstanding that the oboe +does not play a very prominent <i>rôle</i>), were published in 1734, and +seemed to have been performed at the Wedding of the Prince of Orange +with the Princess Anne in 1733. But, as we are told, their composition +was previous to this; for not only do we find in the third and the fifth +the reproduction of fugues from the Clavier Pieces, but the fourth +served in 1716 as the second overture to <i>Amadigi</i>, and the first +movement of the fifth was played in 1722 in the opera <i>Ottone</i>. The form +of these Concertos, even less set than with the preceding <i>Concerti +Grossi</i>, varies from two to five movements, and their orchestration +comprises, besides the strings, two oboes, to which are occasionally +added two flutes, two bassoons, the organ and the clavecin. It is only +exceptional that the oboe plays a solo part; more often it has to +satisfy itself by reinforcing the violins. +</p><p> +To this volume we must add a number of other concertos, which appeared +at different times, and are brought together in Volume XXI of the +Complete Works; especially the celebrated Concerto of <i>Alexander’s +Feast</i>, written in January, 1736, of which the style has the same +massive breadth as the oratorio itself. And four little concertos, two +of which are interesting by being youthful works, from 1703 to 1710, +according to Chrysander.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423_423" id="Footnote_423_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_423"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> Handel’s Overtures were so much appreciated that the +publisher Walsh issued a volume of them for the clavier(65 Overtures). A +good specimen of these transcriptions is found in Volume XLVIII of the +Complete Edition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424_424" id="Footnote_424_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_424"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> Both movements are rudimentary.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425_425" id="Footnote_425_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_425"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> This device is often used by Handel to make the +transition between the orchestra and the voice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426_426" id="Footnote_426_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_426"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> Scheibe, who was, with Mattheson, the greatest of German +musical critics in Handel’s time, states that the overture ought in its +two first movements “to mark the chief character of the work”; and in +the third movement “to prepare for the first scene of the piece” (<i>Krit. +Musikus</i>, 1745). Scheibe himself composed in 1738 some <i>Sinfonie</i> “which +expressed to some extent the contents of the works” (<i>Polyeuctes, +Mithridates</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427_427" id="Footnote_427_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_427"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> <i>Andante</i>, <i>larghetto</i>, <i>allegro</i> (fugue).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428_428" id="Footnote_428_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_428"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> Only whereas a modern composer would not have omitted the +opportunity of exposing his programme in an organic manner (by +presenting turn by turn the two rival themes, then by bringing them into +conflict, and finally terminating with the triumph of Israel’s theme), +Handel contents himself in exposing the two subjects without seeking to +establish any further sequence. If he finishes his overture with the +theme of Baal, it is because it is a gigue movement, and because the +gigue serves well there for concluding; and because Israel’s song being +an <i>adagio</i> is better placed as the second movement. It is such +architectural considerations which guide him rather than dramatic ones. +It is the same with nearly all the symphonies of the eighteenth century. +In the same manner even Beethoven in his <i>Eroica</i> symphony allows his +hero to die and be buried in the second movement, and then celebrates +his acts and his triumphs in the third and fourth movements.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429_429" id="Footnote_429_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_429"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> Amongst the other overtures, which have the character of +introduction to the work proper, I will mention the Overture to +<i>Athalie</i>, which is in perfect accordance with the tragedy;—that of +<i>Acis and Galatea</i>, which is a Pastoral Symphony evoking the Pagan life +of nature;—that of the <i>Occasional Oratorio</i>, a warlike overture with +two marches, trumpet calls, and a Prayer of distress. There is also the +outline of a programme in the Overture to <i>Judas Maccabæus</i>, of which +the first movement is related to the Funeral Scene which opens the first +act, and of which the second movement (Fugue) is connected with one of +the warlike choruses of Act I. +</p><p> +The Overture of <i>Riccardo I</i> (1727), in two movements, contains a +tempest in music painted in a powerful and poetic manner, which opens +the first act after the manner of the Tempest in <i>Iphigénie en Tauride</i>, +and on the last rumblings of which the dialogue between the heroes +commences. +</p><p> +Finally one finds occasionally in the course of the works some other +<i>Sinfonie</i> which have a dramatic character. The most striking is that +which opens the third act of the <i>Choice of Hercules</i>. It depicts turn +by turn the fury of Hercules and the sad force of Destiny which weighs +down on his soul.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430_430" id="Footnote_430_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_430"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> Volume XLVIII of the Complete Works.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431_431" id="Footnote_431_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_431"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> The work was an immediate success. A first Edition very +incorrect and incomplete was published in London about 1720, by Walsh. +Arrangements for harpsichord with variations by Geminiani were also +published. Both the Water Music and the Firework Music are published in +Volume XLVII of the Complete Edition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432_432" id="Footnote_432_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_432"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> One may add to these monumental pieces the <i>Sinfonie +diverse</i> (pp. 140-143 of Vol. XLVIII) and the Concerto in F major in the +form of an Overture and Suite (pp. 68-100, <i>ibid.</i>), but particularly +the <i>3 Concerti für grosses Orchester</i> and the <i>2 Concerti a due cori</i> +of Vol. XLVII. The <i>Concerti für grosses Orchester</i> have been, so to +speak, the sketch books for the Water Music and for the Firework Music. +The first Concerto dates from about 1715, and furnished two movements +for the Water Music. It is written for two horns, two oboes, bassoon, +two violins, violas and bass. The second Concerto in F major (for four +horns, two oboes, bassoons, two violins, violas, cellos, basses and +organ); and the third Concerto in D major (for two trumpets, four horns, +drums, two oboes, bassoons, two violins, violas, cellos, organ) contains +already nearly all the Firework Music with a less important orchestra, +but with the Organ in addition. +</p><p> +The two Concertos for two horns (<i>Concerti a due cori</i>) were made from +the important choruses of the Oratorios transcribed for double +orchestra—ten orchestral parts for the first group, twelve for the +second (four horns, eight oboes, bassoons, etc.). Thus the appearance of +God in <i>Esther</i>: “Jehovah crowned in glory bright,” and the connected +chorus: “He comes to end our woes.” There are there colossal dialogues +between the two orchestras.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433_433" id="Footnote_433_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_433"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> The autograph MS., published in XLVII of the Complete +Edition, contains: 2 parts for trumpets with 3 trumpets to a part +(<i>i.e.</i> 6 trumpets); 3 <i>Prinzipali</i> (low trumpets); 3 drums; 3 parts for +horns with 3 to a part (<i>i.e.</i> 9 Horns); 3 parts for oboes with 12 for +the first part, 8 for the second and 4 for the third (<i>i.e.</i> 24 oboes); +2 parts for bassoons with 8 for the first and 4 for the second (<i>i.e.</i> +12 bassoons). Total, 70 wind instruments. There were about 100 players +for the performance on April 27, 1749. +</p><p> +Later on, Handel reproduced the work for concert use by adding the +string orchestra to it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434_434" id="Footnote_434_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_434"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> Written for 9 horns in three sections, 24 oboes in two +sections, and 12 bassoons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435_435" id="Footnote_435_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_435"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> It would not be difficult to add other analogous works by +Handel and Beethoven. There exists a fine repertoire of popular +classical music for open-air <i>fêtes</i>. But, nevertheless, it is +completely disregarded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436_436" id="Footnote_436_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_436"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> The Gavotte theme from the Overture to <i>Ottone</i> was +played all over England and on all kinds of instruments, “even on the +pan’s-pipes of the perambulating jugglers.” It was found even at the end +of the eighteenth century as a French vaudeville air. (see the +<i>Anthologie françoise ou Chansons choisies</i>, published by Monnet, in +1765, Vol. I, p. 286). The March from <i>Scipio</i>, as also that from +<i>Rinaldo</i>, served during half a century for the Parade of the Life +Guards. The minuets and overtures from <i>Arianna</i> and Berenice had a long +popularity. One sees in the English novels of the time (especially in +Fielding’s <i>Tom Jones</i>) to what an extent Handel’s music had permeated +English country life, even from the small country squires to the county +magnates, so absolutely cut off as they were from <i>all</i> artistic +influences.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437_437" id="Footnote_437_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_437"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> Paul Marie Masson has noticed that about the date of +1716, in a volume of <i>Recueil d’airs serieux et à boire</i>. (Bibl. Nat. +Vm. 549), an <i>Aria del Signor Inden</i> (sic), “<i>air ajouté au ballet de +l’Europe Galante</i>.” The <i>Meslanges de musique latine, françoise et +italienne</i> of Ballard (in 1728), contains amongst the Italian airs <i>Arie +de Signor Endel</i> (p. 61). All the airs of the <i>Chasse du cerf</i> by Sere +de Rieux (1734) are Handel airs adapted to French words. An article by +Michel Brenet, <i>La librairie musicale en France de 1653 à 1790, d’après +les registres de priviléges</i> (<i>Sammelbände I.M.G.</i>, 1907) gives a series +of French Editions of Handel from 1736, 1739, 1749, 1751, 1765. In 1736 +and in 1743 in <i>Concerts Spirituels</i> some of his airs and his <i>Concerti +Grossi</i> were given (Brenet: <i>Les Concerts en France sous l’ancien +régime</i>, 1900). A number of his airs were arranged for the flute by +Blavet in his three <i>Receuils de pièces, petits airs, brunettes, +minuets, etc., accommodés pour les flutes traversières, violins, etc.</i>, +which appeared between 1740 and 1750. Handel was so well known in Paris +that they sold his portrait there in 1739. (See a tradesman’s +advertisement in the <i>Mercure de France</i>, June, 1739, Vol. II, page +1384.)</p></div> + +</div> +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Handel, by Romain Rolland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANDEL *** + +***** This file should be named 39671-h.htm or 39671-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/6/7/39671/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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100644 index 0000000..a3cc0c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/39671-h/images/ill_p186_sml.jpg diff --git a/39671-h/images/ill_p68_lg.jpg b/39671-h/images/ill_p68_lg.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..01f5cd5 --- /dev/null +++ b/39671-h/images/ill_p68_lg.jpg diff --git a/39671-h/images/ill_p68_sml.jpg b/39671-h/images/ill_p68_sml.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..694f51f --- /dev/null +++ b/39671-h/images/ill_p68_sml.jpg diff --git a/39671.txt b/39671.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4125a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/39671.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8020 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Handel, by Romain Rolland + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Handel + +Author: Romain Rolland + +Translator: A. Eaglefield Hull + +Release Date: May 11, 2012 [EBook #39671] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANDEL *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL + +(_From a Portrait by Mercier in the possession of the Earl of +Malmesbury._) + +_Frontispiece._]] + + + + +HANDEL + +BY + +ROMAIN ROLLAND + +TRANSLATED BY +A. EAGLEFIELD HULL + +MUS. DOC. (OXON.) + +_WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR_ + +_17 MUSICAL ILLUSTRATIONS AND 4 PLATES_ + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +1916 + + + + +PREFACE + + +For a proper appreciation of the colossal work of Handel many years of +study and a book of some two hundred pages are very insufficient. To +treat at all adequately of Handel's life and work needs a whole lifetime +in itself, and even the indefatigable and enthusiastic Chrysander, who +devoted his life to this subject, has hardly encompassed the task.... I +have done what I could; my faults must be excused. This little book does +not pretend to be anything more than a very brief sketch of the life and +technique of Handel. I hope to study his character, his work, and his +times, more in detail in another volume. + +ROMAIN ROLLAND. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +HIS LIFE 1 + +HIS TECHNIQUE AND WORKS 111 + + (1) THE OPERAS 122 + + (2) THE ORATORIOS 134 + + (3) THE CLAVIER COMPOSITIONS 143 + + (4) THE CHAMBER MUSIC (SONATAS AND TRIOS) 154 + + (5) THE ORCHESTRAL WORKS 158 + + +APPENDICES-- + + LIST OF HANDEL'S WORKS 193 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 201 + +INDEX 204 + + + + +PLATES + + +PORTRAIT BY THORNHILL _frontispiece_ + +GEORGE I AND HANDEL'S WATER MUSIC _to face page_ 69 + +HANDEL'S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 107 + +HANDEL DIRECTING AN ORATORIO 165 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +BY THE EDITOR + + +Here in England we are supposed to know our Handel by heart, but it is +doubtful whether we do. Who can say from memory the titles of even six +of his thirty-nine operas, from whence may be culled many of his +choicest flowers of melody? M. Rolland rightly emphasises the importance +of the operas of Handel in the long chain of musical evolution, and it +seems impossible for anyone to lay down his book without having a more +all-round impression than heretofore of this giant among composers. + +M. Saint-Saens once compared the position of a conductor in front of the +score of a Handel oratorio to that of a man who sought to settle with +his family in some old mansion which has been uninhabited for centuries. +The music was different altogether from that to which he was accustomed. +No nuances, no bowing, frequently no indication of rate, and often +merely a "sketched-in" bass.... Tradition only could guide him, and the +English, who alone could have preserved this, he considers, have lost +it. + +Can it be recovered to any extent, and, if so, how? + +Behind each towering figure of genius are to be found numbers of +eloquent men who prepared the way for him; and amongst these precursors +there is frequently discovered one who exercised a dominating influence +over the young budding genius. Such an influence was exercised by Zachau +on Handel, and M. Rolland rightly gives due importance to the +consideration of this old master's teachings and compositions, a careful +study of which should go far to supplying the right key to Handel's +music. One of the great shortcomings in the general musical listener is +a lack of the historical view of music. It is a long cry from Bach and +Handel to Debussy and Scriabin, but we shall be all the better for +looking well at both ends of the long musical chain which connects the +unvoiced expression of the past with the vague yet certain hopes of the +future. + +No doubt we have hardly yet recovered from the false position into which +we have all helped to place Handel. He was never the great Church +composer which has been assumed for so long. Perhaps, rather, he leaned +to the pagan side of life in his art. As Mr. Streatfeild says, "You can +no more call the _Messiah_ a work of art than you can call the _Book of +Common Prayer_ popular as a masterpiece of literature.... Handel the +preacher is laid for ever in the tomb, but Handel the artist with his +all-embracing sympathy for human things and his delight in the world +around him lives for evermore." Handel has been greatly, almost +wilfully, misrepresented; but he has played too great a part in the +history of English music to be cast aside on this account. It is true +that there are many difficulties in the way of a clearer understanding +of his music. A two-hundred years' overgrowth of vain vocal traditions +is not going to be torn away in the space of a few years. + +If the operas have been overlooked in favour of the oratorios, then his +instrumental music has been even more neglected on account of the +preponderance of his vocal movements. In a recent important contribution +to Handelian biography only a few pages are given to the instrumental +works. In this respect M. Rolland's clear and critical biography fills +in a distinct _hiatus_. + +Moreover, Handel sojourned in Germany, Italy, finally (and longest) in +England--but never in France. M. Rolland, therefore, a Frenchman and the +author of that brilliant work _Histoire de l'Opera en Europe avant Lulli +et Scarlatti_, may, more than any other writer, be expected to bring a +freshness of vision and an impartial judgment to bear on Handel's works. +_And he has not disappointed us._ + +A. E. H. + + + + +GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL + + + + +HIS LIFE + + +The Handel family was of Silesian origin.[1] The grandfather, Valentine +Handel, was a master coppersmith at Breslau. The father, George Handel, +was a barber-surgeon, originally attached to the service of the armies +of Saxony, then of Sweden, later of the French Emperor, and finally in +the private service of Duke Augustus of Saxony. He was very rich, and +purchased at Halle in 1665 a beautiful house, which is still in +existence. He was married twice; in 1643 he married a widow of a barber, +who was ten years older than himself (he had six children by her); and +in 1683, the daughter of a pastor who was thirty years younger than he +was: he had four children by her, of which the second was George +Frederick. + +Both parents sprang from that good old _bourgeois_ stock of the +seventeenth century which was such excellent soil for genius and for +faith. Handel, the surgeon, was a man of gigantic stature, serious, +severe, energetic, religiously attached to duty, upright and affable in +his dealings with those around him. + +His portrait exhibits a large clean-shaven face which has the impression +of one who never smiled. The head is carried high, the eyes morose; +prominent nose and a pleasant but obstinate mouth; long hair with white +curls falling on his shoulders; black cap, collar of lace, and coat of +black satin: the aspect of a parliamentary man of his time.--The mother +was no less sturdy a character. Of a clerical family on the maternal +side as well as on the paternal side, with a spirit imbued with the +Bible, she had a calm courage, which came out prominently when the +country was ravaged by pestilence. Her sister and her elder brother were +both carried off by the plague; her father was also affected. She +refused to leave them and remained quietly at home. She was then engaged +to be married.--This sturdy couple transmitted to their distinguished +son in place of good looks (which he certainly had not, and which never +disquieted him) their physical and moral health, their stature, their +keen intelligence and common sense, their application to work, and the +indestructible essence of their quiet, calm spirit. + + * * * * * + +George Frederick Handel was born at Halle on Monday, February 23, +1685.[2] His father was then sixty-three years, and his mother +thirty-four.[3] + +The town of Halle occupied a singular political situation. It belonged +originally to the Elector of Saxony; by the Treaties of Westphalia it +was ceded to the Elector of Brandenburg; but it paid tribute to the Duke +Augustus of Saxony during his lifetime. After the death of Augustus in +1680, Halle passed definitely to Brandenburg; and in 1681 the Grand +Elector came to receive homage there. Handel then was born a Prussian; +but his father was in the service of the Duke of Saxony, and he retained +relationship with the son of Augustus, Johann Adolf, who moved his court +after the Prussian annexation to the neighbouring town of Weissenfels. +Thus the childhood of Handel was influenced by two intellectual forces: +the Saxon and the Prussian. Of the two the more aristocratic, and also +the more powerful was the Saxon. Most of the artists had emigrated with +the Duke to Weissenfels. It was there that the genial Heinrich Schuetz +was born and died:[4] it was there that Handel found his first impetus, +and where the calling of the child was first recognized. The precocious +musical tendencies of the little George Frederick were somewhat curbed +by the formal opposition of his father.[5] The sturdy surgeon had more +than objection--he possessed an aversion to the profession of artist. +This sentiment was shared by nearly all the sturdy men of Germany. The +calling of musician was degraded by the unedifying spectacle of many +artists in the years of relaxation which followed the Thirty Years' +war.[6] Besides which, the _bourgeois_ German of the seventeenth century +had a very different idea of music from that of our French middle +classes of the nineteenth century. It was with them a mere art of +amusement, and not a serious profession. Many of the masters of that +time, Schuetz, Rosenmueller, Kuhnau, were lawyers, or theologians, before +they devoted themselves to music; or they even followed for a time the +two professions. Handel's father wished his son to follow his own +profession, that of law; but a journey to Weissenfels overcame all his +objections. The Duke heard the little seven-year-old Handel play the +organ, with the result that he sent for the father to see him and +recommended him not to thwart the child's obvious musical talents. The +father, who had always taken these counsels very badly when they came +from anyone else, doubtless appreciated them when they came from the +lips of a prince; and without renouncing his own right over his son +(for he still had the legal plan in his head) consented to let him learn +music; and on his return to Halle he placed him under the best master in +the town, the organist Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau.[7] + + * * * * * + +Zachau was a broad-minded man and moreover a good musician, whose +greatness was only appreciated many years after his death.[8] His +influence on Handel was splendid. Handel himself did not conceal it.[9] +This influence affected the pupil in two ways: by his method of +teaching, and by his artistic personality. "The man was very well up in +his art," says Mattheson,[10] "and is possessed of as much talent as +beneficence." + + * * * * * + +Handel's devotion to Zachau was so great that he seemed never able to +show him sufficient affection and kindness. The master's first efforts +were devoted to giving the pupil a strong foundation in harmony. Then he +turned his thoughts towards the inventive side of the art; he showed +him how to give his musical ideas the most perfect form, and he refined +his taste. He possessed a remarkable library of Italian and German +music, and he explained to Handel the various methods of writing and +composing adopted by different nationalities, whilst pointing out the +good qualities and the faults of each composer; and in order that his +education might be at the same time theoretical and practical, he +frequently gave him exercises to work in such and such a style. + + * * * * * + +This education with a true European catholicity was not confined to one +particular musical style, but spread itself out over all schools, and +caused him to assimilate the best points of all, for who can fail to see +that the conception and practice of Handel, and indeed the very essence +of his genius, was the absorption of a hundred different styles! "One of +his manuscripts dated 1698, and preserved carefully all his life, +contains," so says Chrysander, "some airs, choruses, capriccios, and +fugues of Zachau, Alberti (Heinrich Albert), Froberger, Krieger, Kerl, +Ebner, Strungk, which he had copied out whilst studying with Zachau." +Handel could never forget these old masters, distinct traces of whom are +found from time to time in his best-known works.[11] He would doubtless +too, with Zachau, have seen the first volumes of the clavier works of +Kuhnau, which were published at that time.[12] + +Moreover, it seems that Zachau knew the work of Agostino Steffani,[13] +who later on took a fatherly interest in Handel; and Zachau followed +sympathetically the dramatic musical movement in Hamburg. Thus the +little Handel had, thanks to his master, a living summary of the musical +resources of Germany, old and new; and under his direction he absorbed +all the secrets of the great contrapuntal architects of the past, +together with the clear expressive and melodic beauty of the +Italian-German schools of Hanover and Hamburg. + +But the personal influence of the character and the art of Zachau +reacted no less strongly on Handel than did his methods of instruction. +One is struck by the relationship of his works[14] to those of Handel; +they are similar in character and style. The reminiscences of motives, +figures, and of subjects count for little;[15] there is the same essence +in the art of both master and pupil; there is the same feeling of light +and joy; there is nothing of the pious concentration and introspection +of Bach, who goes down into the deeps of thought, and who loves to probe +into all the innermost recesses of the heart, and--in silence and +solitude--converse with his God. The music of Zachau is the music of +great spaces, of dazzling frescoes, such as one sees on the domes of the +Italian cathedrals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but +Zachau's work contains more religion than these. His music pulses with +action like the bounding and rebounding of great springs of steel. It +has triumphant subjects with expositions of great solemnity. There are +victorious marches, carrying everything before them, which go crashing +on without stopping, ever spurring on the sparkling and joyous patterns. +There are also pastoral themes, pure and voluptuous reveries,[16] +dances, and songs accompanied by flutes, with a Grecian perfume,[17] and +a smiling virtuosity, a joy intoxicated with itself, twisting lines, and +vocal arabesques, vocalizations, trills for the voice which gambol +light-heartedly with the little wave-like arpeggios of the violins.[18] +Let us unite these two traits: the heroic and the pastoral, the +warriors' marches and the jubilant dances. There you have the Handelian +tableaux: the people of Israel and the women dancing before the +victorious army. You find in Zachau a sketch for the monumental +constructions of Handel in his Hallelujahs; those mountains of sound +which resound their joy, the colossal _Amens_ which crown his oratorios +like the dome of St. Peter at Rome.[19] + +Add to this also Zachau's marked liking for instrumental music,[20] +which makes him combine it so happily with the vocal solos; and very +often he imagines the voice as an instrument, which combines and gambols +with the other instruments, thus forming a decorative garland +harmoniously woven. + +To sum up, it was an art less intimate than expansive, an art newly +born; not devoid of emotion though,[21] but above all, restful, strong, +and happy--an optimistic music like that of Handel. + +Truly Handel in miniature, with much less breadth, less richness of +invention, and particularly a smaller power of development. There is +nothing of the attractiveness of Handel's colossal movements, like an +army which marches and sings; and more solid strength is necessary to +carry the weight right to the end without bending. Zachau flinches on +his way; he has not the vital force of Handel, but in compensation he +has more _naivete_, more tender candour, more of the childlike +chasteness and evangelic grace.[22] Certainly there we have the master +really necessary to Handel, a master more than one great man had the +good fortune to find (it is Giovanni Santi for Raphael; it is Neefe for +Beethoven): good, simple, straightforward, a little dull, but giving a +steady and gentle light where the youth may dream in peace and abandon +himself with confidence to a guide almost fraternal, who does not seek +to dominate him, but rather strives to fan the little flame into a +greater fire; to turn the little rivulet of music into the mighty river +of genius. + + * * * * * + +Whilst studying with Zachau the young Handel visited Berlin. After +having paid his homage to his former master, the Elector of Saxony, he +was wise enough also to present himself to the new one, the Elector of +Brandenburg. It seems that this journey took place about 1696 when the +boy was eleven years old, and his father, being ill, did not accompany +him. + +The Berlin Court lived a very short life of artistic brilliance between +the wars of the Grand Elector and those of the Prince-Regent. Music was +greatly in honour, thanks to the Electress, Sophia Charlotte, daughter +of the celebrated Sophia of Hanover. She attracted to her the best +Italian instrumentalists, singers, and composers.[23] She founded the +Berlin Opera,[24] and even conducted several concerts at Court. +Doubtless the movement was but superficial. It was only held together by +the impulse of the Electress, who had more spirit than earnestness. Art +was for her only a fond distraction; so that after her death the musical +_fetes_ in Berlin became extinct. But it was something to have lighted, +only for a brief hour, this flame of beautiful Italian art, and it was +thus that the little Handel came into contact for the first time with +the music of the South.[25] The child, who displayed his powers on the +clavecin before a princely audience, had so much success that the +Elector of Brandenburg wished him to enter his service. He offered +Handel's father to send the child to Italy to finish his studies. The +old man refused. "He had a stubborn pride, and did not desire," so says +Mainwaring, "that his son should be tied too soon to a Prince." He +wished to see his child again, as he considered that he himself might +die at any moment. + +Little Handel returned. Too late! He learnt _en route_ that his father +had died on February 11, 1697. The principal obstacle in the way of his +musical vocation had now disappeared, but he had so profound a respect +for his father's wishes that he forced himself to study law for many +more years. After having completed in due course his classes at the +college he was entered for the Faculty of Law at the University of Halle +on February 10, 1702, five years after his father's death. + +University life in Halle at that time was of a revolting character. But, +in spite of this, an intense life of thought and religion was also to be +found there. The Faculty of Theology was the centre of Pietism.[26] The +students devoted themselves to religious exercises which led to +ecstasy.--Handel, independent as he always was, kept clear of the brutal +amusements, just as he did of the mystic contemplation. He was religious +without being sentimental. For the rest, an artist could only listen to +the Pietists with difficulty, for their religious devotion was too often +oppressive to art. Even J. S. Bach, Pietist at heart, by his public acts +declared himself opposed to the Pietists, who were on certain marked +occasions inimical to music.[27] For a still stronger reason Handel had +no leaning towards mysticism. + +Religion was not his business; Law certainly was not. However, he had +for his master the most remarkable professor in Germany, Christian +Thomasius, the advocate in the arraignment of witchcraft,[28] the +reformer of the teaching of law, who himself made a thorough study of +German customs, and who did not cease to make battle with the gross and +stupid abuses of the universities, with their spirit of caste, pedantry, +ignorance, hypocrisy, and judicial and religious acerbity. If such a +training was not of the nature to retain Handel it was certainly not the +fault of the professor; there were no more vital lessons in the whole +of the Germany of that day; none which offered a more fruitful field of +activity to a young man. Let us be sure that a Beethoven would not have +been insensible to them. But Handel was a pure musician; he was music +itself; nothing else could occupy his thoughts. + +In the year in which he had completed his terms in the Faculty of Law he +found a post of organist at Halle: and in a church more than strictly +Lutheran, being of the Reformed order, where the organist had expressly +to conform to the new cult. However, he was only seventeen years +old.[29] This simple fact showed what musical authority he already +exercised in the town where he had studied law.[30] Not only was he +organist, but he was also Professor at the College of the Reformists; he +took vocal music there for two hours every week; he selected the most +gifted of his pupils and formed from them a vocal and instrumental body +which was to be heard every Sunday in one church or another of the town. +He included in his musical repertoire, chorales, Psalms, motets, +cantatas--which were changed every Sunday. Truly an excellent school for +learning to write quickly and well. Handel there formed his creative +fecundity.[31] Of hundreds of cantatas which he then wrote, none were +preserved by him.[32] But it is certain that his memory retained more +than one idea to serve in later compositions, for he never lost +anything, and from that time for the rest of his life he retained in his +mind his earlier musical ideas. This should not be attributed to his +speed in working, but to the unity of his thought and his strenuous +search for perfection. + +Handel renewed neither his yearly engagement at the Cathedral of Halle +nor at the University. In his period as organist he had gauged his own +musical force and he no longer wished to constrain it. A wider field of +activity was necessary. He quitted Halle in the spring of 1703, and +guided both by his instincts and by a preference of his master +Zachau[33] he betook himself to Hamburg, the city of German Opera. + +Hamburg was the Venice of Germany. A free town far from the noise of +wars, a refuge of artists, and people of large fortunes, the centre of +the commerce of Northern Europe, a cosmopolitan city where they spoke +all languages and especially the French tongue, it was in continual +relationship with both England and Italy, and particularly with Venice, +which constituted for it a model for emulation. It was by way of Hamburg +that the English ideas were circulated in Germany. It was there where +the first German newspapers appeared.[34] In the time of Handel, Hamburg +shared with Leipzig the intellectual prestige of Germany. There was no +other place in Germany where music was held in such high esteem.[35] The +artists there hobnobbed with the rich merchants. Christoph, pupil of +Schuetz, had founded there a celebrated Collegium Musicum, a Society of +Musicians, and started there in 1677-8 the first theatre of German +Opera. It was not a princely opera open only to those invited by the +prince, but a public opera, popular in spirit and in prices. It was the +example of Italy, notably that of Venice, which called forth this +foundation, but the spirits of the two theatres were very different. +Whilst that of Venice satisfied itself with fantastic melodramas, +curiously devised from the ancient mythology and history, the Hamburg +Opera retained, despite the grossness of taste and licentiousness of +manners, an old religious foundation. The Hamburg opera was inaugurated +in 1678 by the production of Joh. Theile's _Creation of the World_. The +composer was a pupil of Schuetz. From 1678 to 1692 a large number of +religious dramas were given there; some of an allegorical character, +others inspired by the Bible. In certain of these subjects one can +already see the future oratorios of Handel.[36] Feeble as these pieces +were, they were yet on the definite road for the founding of a real +German theatre. It seems to have been the idea of one of these poets, +Pastor Elmenhorst, who wished to give to the religious opera the value +of a classic form of art.[37] Unfortunately, the public spirit was on +the decline; its religious resources, however, were well protected, save +in a minority where religion took a more aggressive character as it felt +itself less able to hold people. There were two factions in the Hamburg +public; one (the most numerous) whom religion bored, and who wished to +amuse themselves at the theatre. The other party was religious and would +not have anything to do with the opera under the impression that it was +a work of Satan, _opera diabolica_.[38] The struggle was warmly +contested between the two factions, and religious opera came to grief. +The last representation took place in 1692. When Handel arrived it was +truly the _opera diabolica_ which ran with its many extravagances and +its licentious habits. + +I have told elsewhere[39] the story of this period of theatrical history +in Hamburg, of which the golden age was certainly between 1692 and 1703. +Many conditions contributed to the establishment of a good Theatre and +Opera at Hamburg; money and the wealthy patrons disposed to expend it, +an excellent band of instruments, good but small in number, a scenic art +well advanced, a luxury of decoration and machinery, renowned poets, +musicians of great value, and, rarest of all, the poets and musicians +who assembled from "die sich wohl verstanden," as Mattheson wrote. The +poets were named Bressand of Wolfenbuettel, who was inspired by the +French theatre, and Christian Postel, whom Chrysander calls very +complacently a German Metastasio. The feeblest part was the singing. For +a long time the Hamburg Opera had no professional singers. The _roles_ +were taken by students and artisans, by shoemakers, tailors, fruiterers, +and girls of little talent and less virtue; generally the artisans found +it more convenient themselves to take the female _roles_. Men and women +alike had a profound ignorance of music. Towards 1693 the Opera at +Hamburg was fortunately completely transformed from top to bottom by the +great Kapellmeister Sigismund Cousser, who introduced reforms in the +orchestra after the French model, and in the singing on Italian lines. +France was represented in his eyes (as for all foreign musicians) by the +personage of Lully, by whom Cousser was trained for six years in Paris. +Italy was represented by a remarkable artist settled at Hanover from +1689 to 1696, who produced ten operas; Agostino Steffani from the +province of Venice. + +This dual model from Italy and France, aided by the personal example of +Cousser, played the chief part in producing the best musician of the +Hamburg Opera, Reinhard Keiser, a man who, despite his character and +presumptuous knowledge, had certainly genius.[40] + +Keiser was under thirty years old when Handel arrived, but he was then +at the zenith of his fame. Kapellmeister of the Hamburg Opera since +1695, then director of the theatre since the end of 1702, very highly +gifted, but of scanty culture, dissipated, voluptuous, careless, he was +the incontestable ruler of the German Opera; the artist type of that +epoch, overflowing with material life, and devoting itself to the love +of pleasure. The influence of both Lully[41] and that of Steffani[42] is +shown in his first operas. But his own personality is easily +recognizable under these traces of borrowing. He has a very fine sense +of instrumental colour, widely differing from that of the followers of +Lully, who were a little disdainful of expressive power in the +orchestra, and were always disposed to sacrifice it to the primacy of +the voice.[43] He believed, as did his admirer and commentator, +Mattheson, that one can express the feelings by means of the orchestra +alone.[44] + +He was, moreover, a true master of _recitative_; one might say that he +created the German _recitative_. He attached extreme importance to it, +saying that the expression in _recitative_ often gave the intelligent +composer much more trouble than the invention of the air.[45] He sought +to note with exactitude, accent, punctuation, the living breath itself, +without sacrificing anything of the musical beauty. His _Recitative +arioso_ takes an intermediate place between the oratorical _recitative_ +of the French, and the _recitative secco_ of the Italians, and was one +of the models for the _recitative_ of J. S. Bach,[46] and even not +excepting Bach and Handel, Mattheson persists in seeing in Keiser the +master of this style.--But the real supreme gift of Keiser was his +melodic invention. In that he was one of the first artists in Germany, +and the Mozart of the first part of the eighteenth century. He had an +abundant and winning inspiration. As Mattheson said, "His true nature +was tenderness, love...." From the commencement to the end of his career +he could reproduce voluptuous feelings with such exquisite art that no +one could surpass him. His melodic style, much more advanced than that +of Handel--not only at this particular epoch but at any moment of his +life--is free, unsophisticated and happy. It is not the contrapuntal +style of Handelian Opera, but it inclines rather to that of Hasse (who +was trained entirely in it), to the symphonists of Mannheim, and to +Mozart. Never has Handel, greater and more perfect as he was, possessed +the exquisite note which breathes in the melodies of Keiser--that fresh +perfume of the simple flower of the field.[47] Keiser had the taste for +popular songs and rustic scenes,[48] but he knew also how to rise to the +very summits of classical tragedy, and some of his airs of stately +grief might have been written by Handel himself.[49] Keiser was, then, +full of lessons and of models for Handel, who was not slow to take +them,[50] but he also set him several bad examples too. The worst was +the renunciation of the national language. Whilst Postel and Schott had +been at the head of the Hamburg Opera the Italian language had been kept +within bounds,[51] but since Keiser had become Director he had changed +all that. In his _Claudius_ (1703) he made the first barbarous attempt +at a mixture of Italian and German languages. It was for him a pure +fanfare of virtuosity, and he wished to show, as he explained in his +Preface, that he was capable of beating the Italians on their own +ground. He took no account of the detriment to German Opera. Handel, +following his example, mixes, in his first operas, the airs with Italian +words with those set to German words.[52] Since that time he no longer +wrote Italian operas; and after that, his musical theatre was without +foundation and without public. The sanction of this error resulted in +Germany's neglect of Keiser's operas and even of those of Handel, +despite the genius of both composers. + + * * * * * + +Handel arrived at Hamburg during the summer of 1703. One can imagine him +there at that time of life as in the portrait painted by Thornhill, +which is in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge: a long face, calm, but +a little coarse, large and serious eyes, large and straight nose, ample +forehead, vigorous mouth, with thick lips, cheeks and chin already full, +very straight head without wig, and covered with a biretta after the +manner of Wagner. "He was rich in power, and strong in will," says +Mattheson, who, by the way, was the first acquaintance he made in +Hamburg. Mattheson, who was then twenty-two,[53] four years older than +Handel, came from a rich Hamburg family, and possessed vast knowledge. +He spoke English, Italian, French, was trained for the law, well +grounded in music, could play nearly all the instruments, and wrote +operas, of which he was the poet, the composer, and the actor all in +one. Above all he was a master theorist, and the most energetic critic +of German music. With an immense _amour-propre_ and many passionate +dislikes, he had a robust spirit, very sound, and very honest, a sort of +Boileau or of Lessing in music half a century before _la Dramaturgie_. +On the one side he combated scholastic routine and abstract science in +the name of nature, and laid down the rule that "music is that which +sounds well" ("Musik muesse schoen klingen").[54] He played his part in +the banishment of the obsolete theories (solmisation, ecclesiastical +modes) and the definition of our modern system.[55] On the other hand, +he was the champion of German art and German spirit. From Lessing he +derived his patriotism, his rough independence, his impetuosity, which +seemed to possess a violence almost brutal. All his books cry "Fuori +Barbari."[56] One of his works was entitled _The Musical Patriot_ (_Der +Musikalische Patriot_, 1728). + +In 1722 he founded the first German musical journal, _Critica +Musica_,[57] and all his life he waged a vigorous war for good sense, +real musical intelligence, music which speaks to the heart and not to +the ear, moving and strengthening the soul of the intelligent man with +beautiful thoughts and melodies.[58] He saw in music a religious +idea.[59] By his wide culture, his knowledge of the artistic theories of +the past, his familiarity with all the important French and Italian +works, his relationships with the principal German masters, with Keiser, +Handel, J. S. Bach, by his rich practical experience, his acute critical +sense, his ardent patriotism, his virile and flowing language, he was +well fitted to be the great musical educator of Germany, and he +accomplished his task well. In the dispersion of German artists which +took place then, in addition to the many vicissitudes of their work, +there was chiefly lacking a support of political solidarity which could +cause music to rise above the fluctuations of the tastes of little towns +and the small coteries. Mattheson was then for half a century the sole +tribune of German music, the intellect where thoughts concentrated from +all quarters, and from him radiated an influence over all the country +in return. It was thus that he preserved the ideas of Keiser, which +apart from him would have fallen into oblivion without leaving any +traces of their existence. It was these traces that he rescued out of +the _debacle_ and preserved for us--a multitude of imperishable +souvenirs for the musical history of the eighteenth century--which +Mattheson gathered together and published in his monumental +_Ehrenpforte_.[60] He acted powerfully on his times. His books laid down +the law for the Kapellmeisters, the Cantors, the organists, and the +teachers. + +His criticisms, his advice on style in singing, on gesture in acting, +were no less efficacious. He possessed the real "theatre" feeling. He +expected life in the stage action, attaching considerable importance to +the pantomime "which is a silent music."[61] He waged war against the +impossible action and the want of intelligence amongst the German +singers and choralists, and he desired that the composer should think +always in writing of the action of the player. "The knowledge of facial +expression by the actors on the stage," says he, "can often be a source +of good musical ideas."[62] This is indeed the language of a true man of +the theatre.[63] For the rest, Mattheson was too good a musician to +serve music in words. He sought to unite them by safeguarding the +independence of both, but ended by giving the preference to the soul +over the body, the melody over the words. The words he wrote are the +body of the discourses; the thoughts are the soul; the melody is the sun +shining on the soul, the marvellous atmosphere which envelops it all. We +have said enough to give some idea of this great critic, intelligent and +intrepid, who, with many faults, has yet many virtues. One will see how +important it was to the young Handel to meet such a guide, even though +they were both too original and too self-sufficient for the association +to last long. + + * * * * * + +Mattheson did Handel the honours of Hamburg. He introduced him at the +Opera, and the concerts, and it was through him that Handel entered for +the first time into negotiations with England, which was to become his +second country.[64] They helped one another mutually. Handel had +already an exceptional power on the organ, and in fugue and +counterpoint; above all, in improvisation. He shared his knowledge with +Mattheson, who in return helped him to perfect his melodic style. +Mattheson believed him to be a very feeble melodist. He wrote his +melodies at that time, "Oh, long, long, long" (_sehr lange lange +Arien_), and cantatas without end, which had neither ability nor good +taste, but perfect harmony.[65] It is very remarkable that melody was +not a natural gift with Handel, for he now appears to us as a melodic +genius. It is not necessary to believe that the simple, beautiful +melodies rushed forth without effort from his brain. The melodies of +Beethoven, which seem the most spontaneous, cost him years of thoughtful +work during which he brooded continually over them, and so Handel also +only came to his full power of melodic expression after years of severe +discipline, where he learnt as an apprentice-sculptor to model beautiful +forms, and to leave them neither complex nor unfinished. + +Handel and Mattheson spent several months in intimate friendship.[66] +Handel joined Mattheson at table for meals, and in July and August, +1703, they made a journey together to Lubeck to hear the renowned +organist, Dietrich Buxtehude.[67] Buxtehude had thoughts of retiring, +and was looking for a successor. The two young men were greatly affected +by his talent, but they did not care to succeed him in the post, for it +was necessary to wed his daughter[68] to have his organ, and, said +Mattheson, "neither of them wanted her."--Two years later they would +have met on the road to Lubeck a young musician also going, like them, +to pay Buxtehude a visit, not like them, however, in a carriage, but +more humbly on foot: J. S. Bach.[69] Nothing makes us realise the +importance of Buxtehude in German music better than this magnet-like +attraction which he exercised over the German musicians of the +eighteenth century. Pirro has remarked at some length his influence on +the organ style of J. S. Bach. I consider that it was no less marked, +though quite different, on the oratorio style of Handel.[70] + +Buxtehude gave at St. Mary's Church, Lubeck, his celebrated +_Abendmusiken_ (evening concerts), which took place on Sundays from St. +Martin's Day to Christmas,[71] by the request of the Merchants' Guilds +at Lubeck, which occupied themselves keenly with music.[72] His +cantatas, of which the number is considerable,[73] were all composed for +these occasions. Writing for a concert public, and not for a religious +service, he felt the need of making his music of a kind which would +appeal to everyone. Handel later on found himself in similar +circumstances, and the same need led them both to a similar technique. +Buxtehude avoided in his music the ornate and clustering polyphony which +was really his _metier_.[74] He sought nothing but clear, pleasing, and +striking designs, and even aimed at descriptive music. He willingly +sacrificed himself, by intensifying his expression, and what he lost in +abundance he gained in power. The homophonic character of his writing, +the neatness of his beautiful melodic designs of a popular clarity,[75] +the insistence of the rhythms and the repetition of phrases which sink +down into the heart in so obsessive a manner, are all essentially +Handelian traits. No less is the magnificent triumph of the ensembles, +his manner of painting in bold masses of light and shade.[76] It is to a +very high degree, as with the art of Handel, music for everyone. + +But much time passed before Handel profited by the examples of +Buxtehude. On his return from Lubeck he seems to have forgotten them. It +was not so, however, for nothing was ever lost on him. + +At the end of August, 1703, Handel entered the Hamburg orchestra as a +second violinist. He loved to amuse himself amongst his kind, and he +often made himself appear more ignorant than he was. "He behaved," said +Mattheson, "as if he did not even know how to count five, for he was a +'dry stick.'"[77] That year at Hamburg, Reiser's _Claudius_ was given at +the Opera, and many of the phrases registered themselves in Handel's +marvellous memory.[78] + +When the season was finished, Mattheson made a journey to Holland, and +Handel profited by the absence of his young adviser to assert his own +individuality. He had made the acquaintance of the poet Postel, who, +old, ill, and troubled by religious scruples, had given up the writing +of opera _libretti_, and no longer wished to compose anything but sacred +works. Postel furnished Handel with the text for a _Passion according to +Saint John_, which Handel set to music, and performed during Holy Week +in 1704.[79] Mattheson, piqued at the _volte face_ which had happened in +his relationship with Handel, criticised the music severely, but not +unjustly.[80] Despite the intense feeling of certain pages, and the fine +dramatic nature of the choruses, the work was uneven, and occasionally +lacked good taste. + +From this moment the friendship between Handel and Mattheson was +finished. Handel became conscious of his own genius, and could no longer +stand the protectorship of Mattheson. Other occurrences aggravated the +misunderstanding, which ended in a quarrel, which narrowly escaped a +fatal issue.[81] Following the altercation at the Opera on December 5, +1704, they fought a duel in the market-place at Hamburg, and Handel only +escaped being killed by a stroke of luck: for Mattheson's sword snapped +on a large metal button on Handel's coat, after which they embraced, and +the two companions, reconciled by Keiser, took part together in the +rehearsals of _Almira_, the first opera of Handel.[82] The first +representation took place on January 8, 1705, and the work was a +brilliant success. A second opera of Handel, _Nero_[83] was played on +February 25 following, but it had not quite the success of _Almira_. +Handel himself occupied the placards of the opera during the whole of +the winter season. It was a fine _debut_. Too fine indeed, and Keiser +became jealous of him. The Hamburg Opera, however, was gradually waning. +Keiser gaily led it to its ruin. He led the life of a gay libertine, +and all the artists around him rivalled him in his follies. Alone Handel +held aloof from the follies, working hard, and spending only what was +barely necessary.[84] After the success of these two operas he resigned +his post as second violin and clavecinist to the orchestra, but +continued to give lessons, and his reputation as a composer kept pace +with that of his teaching. Keiser was uneasy. Handel's increasing +reputation aroused his _amour-propre_. Nothing was more stupid, however, +than his jealousy. He was Director of the Opera, and it was in his +interest to give those pieces which were written by popular composers, +and to maintain relationships with successful composers, but jealousy +knows no reason. He reset _Almira_ and _Nero_ to music in order to put +Handel out of joint,[85] and as he had not the opportunity of publishing +his opera _in toto_ he hastily printed the most taking solos from +each.[86] But, however quickly he went, his downfall followed faster. +Before the volume of his opera airs appeared he had to fly. This was in +the end of 1706.[87] Handel and he were destined never to meet again. + + * * * * * + +Keiser having brought disaster to the Hamburg Opera, there was nothing +left to keep Handel in that city. The direction of the theatre had +fallen into the hands of a Philistine, who, to make money, played +musical farces. He certainly commissioned Handel for the opera _Florindo +und Daphne_, but he mutilated the work on its presentation "for fear," +so he said in the Preface of the libretto, "that the music might tire +the hearers"; and lest the public should find the work too serious, he +intersected it with a farce in low German, _Die lustige Hochzeit_ (The +Joyous Wedding). One can well understand that Handel was little +interested in his piece so disfigured, and that he did not himself +attend the production, but quitted Hamburg. It was about the autumn of +1706 that he made the journey to Italy.[88] It was not, however, that +Italy particularly attracted him. Strange to say--it is not unique in +the history of art--this man, who was later on to be caught by the +fascination of Italy, and secure an European musical triumph in the +beautiful Italian style, had then a very strong repugnance for the +foreign art. When _Almira_ was being given, he made the acquaintance of +the Italian prince, Giovanni Gastone dei Medici, brother of the Grand +Duke of Tuscany.[89] He was astonished that Handel interested himself so +little in the Italian musicians, and bought him a collection of their +best works, offering to take him to Florence to hear them performed. But +Handel refused, saying that he could find nothing in these works which +deserved the Prince's eulogies, and that angels would be necessary to +sing them in order to make such mediocre things sound even +agreeable.[90] This disdain of Italy was not peculiar to Handel. It +characterised his generation, and above all, the cult of German +musicians who lived at Hamburg. Before then, and later on, the +fascination of Italy took hold of Germany. Even Hasler, Schuetz, Hasse, +Gluck, and Mozart made long and earnest pilgrimages to that country, but +on the other hand J. S. Bach, Keiser, Mattheson, and Telemann never went +there. The Hamburg musicians truly wished to assimilate the Italian art, +but they never wished to place themselves under the thraldom of the +Italian school. They had the laudable ambition of creating a German +style independent of foreign influences. Handel shared these great +hopes, sustained for a time by the theatre at Hamburg, but the sudden +collapse of this theatre made him see little ground on which to build up +the taste of the musical public in Germany, and against his own +inclinations, he turned his eyes towards that habitual refuge of German +artists: Italy, which the older ones so affected to disdain, that +country where music expanded itself in the sun, where it was not cheated +out of its right of existence as with the Hamburg Pietists. It +flourished in all the Italian cities, and in all classes of Italian +society with the transports of love. And all around it was an +efflorescence of the other arts, a superior civilization, a life smiling +and radiant, of which Handel had some foretaste in his dealings with the +Italian nobles who passed through Hamburg. + +He departed. His leaving was so brusque that his friends knew nothing of +it. He did not even say good-bye to Mattheson. + +The period at which he arrived in Italy was not the most fortunate. The +war for the Spanish Succession was in full swing, and Handel met at +Venice, in the winter of 1706, Prince Eugene and his staff-major, who +were resting after their victorious campaign in Lombardy. He did not +stay there, but went right on to Florence, where he remained till the +end of the year.[91] + +Doubtless he bore these offers of protection in mind which the Prince +Gastone dei Medici had made him. Was such protection as useful to Handel +as he had hoped? One may be allowed to doubt it. In truth the son of the +Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, was a musician. He played the clavier +well;[92] he had caused an opera house to be built in his villa at +Pratolino; he chose the _libretti_, advised the composers, corresponded +with Alessandro Scarlatti, but he had never a very reliable taste. He +found Scarlatti's style too learned. He begged him to write some easier +music, and, as far as possible, lighter.[93] He himself did not continue +the fastidiousness of the Medici, his ancestors. He somewhat stinted his +outlay on music. He decided not to appoint Scarlatti his chapel-master, +and when this great artist asked for money at a period of embarrassment +he responded "that he would pray for him."[94] One can scarcely believe +that he was less economical in his dealings with Handel, who had less +reputation than Scarlatti. He seems to have paid little attention to him +during his first visit. The Prince himself seemed out of his element in +this new world. It was necessary for him to catch up with his times. +Handel certainly wrote some cantatas, only one of which, _Lucretia_, +with a dramatic character, was very popular in Italy and in Germany +later on.[95] Its style was nearly completely German. + +From Florence he went to Rome for the Easter festivals in April, 1707. +Even there the moment was not very favourable for him. The Grand Opera +House, the _Tor di Nona_, had been destroyed as immoral by an edict of +Pope Innocent XII ten years before. Since 1700, things had been a little +easier for the musicians, but in 1703 a terrible earthquake had +desolated the country, and reawakened religious qualms.[96] Even in +1709, during the whole of Handel's sojourn in Italy, there was not a +single representation of Opera at Rome. On the other hand, religious +music and chamber music were enjoying a great vogue. Handel, during the +first months, listened and studied the religious music at Rome, and +tried his hand on similar works. From this period dated his Latin +Psalms.[97] Thanks to the letters of recommendation he had from the +Medici, he had also been introduced into the Roman _salons_. He became +famous there, more on account of his _virtuoso_ powers on the keyboard +than of those of composer. He remained at Rome until the autumn of +1707.[98] Doubtless, he returned to Florence in the month of October, +and it appears that he then produced _Roderigo_ for the first time. +Handel had then been nearly a year in Italy. He set about writing an +opera in Italian. His boldness was justified. _Roderigo_ was successful. +Handel gained through it the favour of the Grand Duke, and the love of +the Prima Donna, Vittoria Tarquini.[99] Fortified by his first victory +he went on to try his luck at Venice. + +Venice was then the musical metropolis of Italy. It was in a way the +real kingdom of Opera. The first public opera house had been already +open there for half a century, and after it, fifteen other opera houses +had sprung into being. During the Carnival no less than seven opera +houses were open each evening there. Every night also a musical union +was held at the Academy of Music, and occasionally twice or even three +times in one evening. Every day in the churches, musical solemnities +and concerts, which lasted for many hours, with several orchestras, many +organs, and numerous full and echo choirs,[100] and on Saturday and +Sunday the famous Vespers of the Hospitals, those conservatoires for +women where they taught music to orphans and foundlings, or, more +frequently, to the girls who had fine voices. They gave orchestral and +vocal concerts, over which all Venice raved. Venice, indeed, was bathed +in music, the entire life was threaded with it. Life was a perpetual +round of pleasure. + +When Handel arrived, the greatest of the Italian musicians, Alessandro +Scarlatti, was about to produce at St. John Chrysostom's Theatre his +chief work, _Mitridate Eupatore_, one of the rare Italian operas of +which the dramatic beauty is on a par with the musical value. Was +Alessandro Scarlatti still in Venice when Handel met him? We do not +know, but in any case he encountered him at Rome some months later, and +it appears that at that time Handel was tied by bonds of friendship to +the son of Alessandro,--Domenico.[101] He also made many other +encounters in Venice, which were destined to change his life. The +Prince of Hanover, Ernest Augustus, and the Duke of Manchester, the +English Ambassador Extraordinary at Venice, were both passionate +music-lovers, and interested themselves in Handel. The first invitations +which Handel received to go to Hanover, and to London, dated doubtless +from that time. + +But if the visit to Venice was not fruitless to the future of Handel, it +brought him very little at the time. Handel could produce nothing at any +of the seven opera houses.[102] He was much happier at Rome, where he +returned at the beginning of March, 1708.[103] The renown of his +_Roderigo_ had preceded him. All the Italian merchants strove to receive +him with honour. He was the guest of the Marquis Ruspoli, whose gardens +on the Esquilino formed the bond of reunion for the Academy of the +Arcadians.[104] Handel found himself agreeably placed amongst the most +illustrious men which Italy boasted in literature, the arts, and in the +aristocracy. Arcadia, which united the nobility and the artists,[105] in +a spiritual brotherhood, counted amongst its members, Alessandro +Scarlatti, Archangelo Corelli, Bernardo Pasquini, and Benedetto +Marcello.[106] A similar _elite_ society was found at the _soirees_ of +the Cardinal Ottoboni.[107] Every Monday, in the palace of Ottoboni, as +at the meetings of the Arcadia, concerts and poetical recitations were +given. The Cardinal Prince, Superintendent of the Pontifical chapel, had +in his service the finest orchestra in Italy,[108] and the singers of +the Sistine Chapel. At the Arcadia there was also to be heard a numerous +orchestra, under the direction of Corelli, of Pasquini, or of Scarlatti. +Musical and poetical improvisation was also given there. It was that +which provoked the artistic jousts between poets and musicians.[109] It +was for the concerts at the palace of Ottoboni that Handel wrote his +two Roman oratorios, _The Resurrection_ and _The Triumph of Time and +Truth_,[110] which were really but disguised operas. One finds traces of +the Arcadia _coterie_ in the compositions which are perhaps the most +characteristic of this period in the life of Handel: the Italian +cantatas,[111] of which the reputation spread itself very wide, for J. +S. Bach made a copy of one of them before 1715.[112] Handel passed three +or four months at Rome. He was friendly with Corelli, and with the two +Scarlattis, especially with the son, Domenico, who made many trials of +virtuosity with him.[113] Perhaps he also played with Bernardo Pasquini, +whom he doubtless heard more than once on his organ at Great St. Mary's. +He was interested in the life of the Vatican, and they tried to convert +him to Catholicism, but he refused. Such was the friendly tolerance +which prevailed then at the Court of Rome that, notwithstanding the war +between the Pope and Emperor, this refusal did not alter the friendly +relationships between the young German Lutheran and the Cardinals, his +patrons. He became so attached to Rome, that it was difficult for him to +leave it until the war which approached the city obliged him to take his +way in the month of May or June, 1708, to Naples. One of the Italian +cantatas entitled _Partenza_ shows his grief at leaving the lovely +banks, the dear walls, and the beautiful waters of the Tiber. + +Soon after his arrival at Naples, Alessandro Scarlatti returned to +settle there after seven years of absence.[114] + +Thanks to this friendship, and his membership of the Arcadia, Handel was +received into the best circles of Neapolitan society. He remained at +Naples for nearly a year, from June, 1708, to the spring of 1709, +enjoying princely hospitality, "which placed at his disposal," says +Mainwaring, "a palace, a well-supplied table, and a coach." If the +softness of the Italian life enervated him, he appears to have wasted no +time. Not only did he assimilate the style of his friend Corelli--he +conceived in Italy a passionate love of pictures[115]--but he attempted +with a carefully cultivated dilettantism the most diverse styles, with +which the cosmopolitan society of Naples amused its careless curiosity. +Spanish and French influence fought for the honours of this city. +Handel, as indifferent as Scarlatti to the victory of either of these +parties, tried to write in the style of both.[116] He interested himself +also in the Italian popular songs and noted down the rustic melodies of +the Calabrian _Pifferari_.[117] For the Arcadians of Naples he wrote his +beautiful serenata, _Acis and Galatea_.[118] Finally he had the good +fortune to please the Viceroy of Naples--the Cardinal Grimani. He was a +Venetian and his family owned the theatre of San Grisostomo at Venice. +Grimani wrote for Handel the libretto of the opera _Agrippina_, of which +Handel probably composed part of the music at Naples. A similar +collaboration assured it of being produced at Venice without trouble. + +He left Naples in the springtime, and returned to Rome, where he met, at +the Palace of the Cardinal Ottoboni, Bishop Agostino Steffani, who by a +curious combination of attributes was at the same time Kapellmeister at +the Court of Hanover, and charged with secret missions by different +German princes.[119] Steffani was one of the most finished musicians of +his time. He established a firm friendship with Handel, possibly when +travelling together to Venice, where Handel's _Agrippina_ was played at +the opening of the Carnival season, 1709-10, at the theatre of San +Giovanni Grisostomo.[120] The success exceeded all anticipations. +Mainwaring says that he took all his hearers by storm. There were great +acclamations, and cries of _Viva il caro Sassone_ and extravagances +impossible to record. The grandeur of the style struck them all like +thunder. The Italians had good reason to rejoice, for they found in +Handel a most brilliant exponent, and _Agrippina_ is the most melodious +of his Italian operas. Venice then made and unmade reputations. The +enthusiasm aroused by the representations at San Giovanni Grisostomo's +spread itself out over the whole of musical Europe. Handel remained the +whole of the winter at Venice. He seemed undecided as to what course to +follow. It was quite on the cards that he should pass through +Paris.[121] Handel had familiarised himself with the French +language.[122] He showed, as it happened, a singular attraction for the +most beautiful subjects of our French tragedy.[123] With his prodigious +adaptability, and his Latin qualities, the clarity of his lines, his +eloquence, logic, and his passionate love for form, he would have +rejoiced exceedingly in assimilating the tradition of our art, and +taking it up with an irresistible vigour.[124] But at Venice, whilst he +was still hesitating what to do, he encountered the Hanoverian nobles, +amongst whom was the Baron Kielmansegg, who invited him to follow them. +Steffani himself had offered him with a charming grace his post as +Kapellmeister at the Court of Hanover. Handel went then to Hanover. + + * * * * * + +There were four brothers who became in turn Dukes of Hanover: Christian +Louis, George William, John Frederick, and Ernest Augustus.[125] All +four were under the spell of France and Italy. They passed the greater +part of their time away from their own States, choosing Venice for +preference. George William married morganatically a French lady of the +noble family of Poitou, Eleonora d'Olbreuse. John Frederick was +pensioned by Louis XIV, and became Catholic. He took Versailles for his +model, and founded an Opera in 1672 at Hanover. He had also the acumen +to call Leibnitz into his States,[126] but he took great care on his +side that he should remain there. He died in the course of a journey to +Venice. Ernest Augustus, who succeeded him, in 1680, was the patron of +Steffani. He married the beautiful and intelligent Duchess Sophia, a +Palatine princess, stepdaughter of James I Stuart, aunt of the Palatine +of France, and sister of the Princess Elizabeth, friend of +Descartes.[127] She herself was the friend and correspondent of +Leibnitz, who admired her. She had great intellectual gifts, spoke seven +languages, read widely, and had a natural taste for the beautiful. "No +one had greater gifts," said Madame her niece, Michel de Montaigne. With +great lucidity of thought, decidedly outspoken, she professed an +epicurean materialism of great superiority and intelligence.[128] Her +husband valued her little, but he was brilliant and ostentatious. They +were the most polished and distinguished couple in Germany at the Court +of Hanover.[129] Both loved music, but Ernest Augustus seems never to +have dreamt that it existed anywhere outside of Italy, and he might +almost as well have been called the "Duke of Venice" as the Duke of +Hanover, for he was constantly in Venice, and never wished to leave it +for long.[130] + +The Hanover people began to murmur. The only means they could find of +keeping their Prince at home with them was to build a magnificent opera +house where spectacles and _fetes_ resembling those in Venice could be +given. The idea was good. Ernest Augustus warmly took up the scheme for +his opera house, which, built and decorated by the Italians between 1687 +and 1690, was the most beautiful in all Germany.[131] For this opera +house Steffani was engaged as Kapellmeister.[132] Agostina Steffani is +one of the most curious figures in history.[133] Born in 1653 at +Castelfranco, near Venice, of a poor family, after being a choir-boy at +St. Mark's, he was taken in 1667 to Munich by the Count of Tattenbach, +who had been the pupil of Ercole Bernabei, a master brought up in the +purest Roman style.[134] At the same time he had been given a very +complete education in literature, science, and theology, for he was +destined for the priesthood, and with a view to becoming Abbe.[135] He +was appointed organist at the Court, and music-director. Since 1681 a +set of his operas, played at Munich (and especially _Servio Tullio_ in +1685[136]), spread his renown through Germany. The Duke of Hanover +enticed him to his Court, and in 1689 the new Hanoverian theatre was +inaugurated by one of Steffani's operas, for which the Duchess Sophia +furnished, it is said, the patriotic subject _Henrico Leoni_.[137] Then +followed a set of fifteen operas of which the _mise en scene_ and music +had an amazing popularity in Germany.[138] Cousser introduced them at +Hamburg as models of true Italian song, and Keiser modelled himself +partly on them, ten years before Handel in his turn followed Keiser's +pattern. The Opera did not enjoy a long life at Hanover. The Duke alone +liked it. The Duchess Sophia had much less sympathy for this kind of +art.[139] The ballets and the masquerades put the Opera to shame. +Steffani was otherwise occupied with more serious business elsewhere. In +the Treaty of Augsburg, Ernest Augustus of Hanover had taken sides with +the Emperor. To recompense his fidelity the Emperor bestowed on him the +dignity of Prince-Elect, but in the confusion of the Empire it was not +easy to clear up the situation. It was necessary to send an Ambassador +Extraordinary to the great German Courts. The choice of all fell on +Steffani, who, being a Catholic Abbe, could more easily serve as +intermediary between the Protestant Court of Hanover and the Catholic +Courts;[140] his mission was so well accomplished that in 1697 the Duke +of Hanover obtained for him the title of Elector. This astonishing +diplomat had found the means of writing operas. After the death of +Ernest Augustus in 1698 he gave up opera writing, but continued to +occupy himself with politics. He became in 1703 the secret adviser to +the Elector Palatine, the President of the Religious Council, who was +created a noble. At the same time Pope Innocent II made him in 1706 +Bishop of Spiga.[141] The Elector Palatine created him his Grand Almoner +and gave him charge of the Italian and Latin correspondence with the +Duke of Brunswick. From November, 1708, to April, 1709, Steffani stayed +at Rome, where the Pope crowded honours on him, making him Prelate of +the Chamber, Assistant to the Throne, Abbe of St. Steffano in Carrara, +and Apostolic Vicar of the north of Germany, with the supervision of the +Catholics in Palatine, Brunswick, and Brandenburg.[142] Then it was, as +we have seen, that he met Handel. It is necessary to sketch briefly the +life of this extraordinary personage, who was at the same time Abbe, +Bishop, Apostolic Vicar, intimate Councillor and Ambassador of Princes, +organist, Kapellmeister, musical critic,[143] chief singer,[144] and yet +composer--not only for the interest of his personality, but because he +exercised considerable influence on Handel, who always retained a +pleasant remembrance of him. + +The feature in Steffani's art, and that by which he is superior to all +of his own time, is his mastery of the art of singing. Well accustomed +as all the Italians were to it, none wrote so purely for the voice as +he. Scarlatti was not concerned with carrying the voice to its full +limits, either for an expressive purpose or with a concerted intention. +Thus in Steffani, as Hugo Goldschmidt says, "the singer held the pen." +His work is the most perfect picture of Italian song in a golden age, +and Handel owes to it his very refined feeling for the _bel canto_. In +truth Steffani's operas gained little by this virtuosity. They were +mediocre from the dramatic point of view, not very expressive, abused +the vocalisation, and were essentially operas for singers.[145] They +revealed a curious harmonic vein, and a contrapuntal alertness, which +strongly contrasted with the nearly homophonic writing of Lully,[146] +but the principal glory of Steffani was in his chamber vocal music, and +especially in his duets.[147] These duets are of various types, and of +various lengths. One is a single piece. Others are in the _Da Capo_ +form. Some are veritable cantatas with recitatives, soli, and duets. +Others are consecutive pieces, forming, as it were, little song-cycles. +The writing in this form was evolved from Schuetz and Bernabei to Handel +and Telemann, but their inner construction is usually the same: the +first voice announces alone the first phrase, which reflects the poetic +emotion of the piece; the second voice repeats the subject in the unison +or in the octave; with the second subject the voices leave the unison +and indulge in canonic imitations which are freely treated. Then a +return is made to the first part, which concludes the piece. When the +duet is more developed, after the first air in the minor key, a second +one comes in the major, where virtuosity is given free play, after which +the minor air recurs. These works possess an admirable melodic beauty, +and an expression often quite profound. In the lighter subjects Steffani +has an easy gracefulness, the elegant fancy of Scarlatti. In his sad +moments he reaches the highest models: from Schuetz, from Provenzale, +even to J. S. Bach. He is one of the greatest lyricists in the music of +the seventeenth century.[148] These duets set the style in this form of +work. The _role_ played by Steffani in music can very well be compared +with that of Fra Bartolommeo in painting;--both applied themselves with +perfect art, and steadfast spirit, to find the laws of composition in +limited and restrained forms: Fra Bartolommeo sought for the balance of +groups, and the harmony of lines in scenes, with three or four persons +grouped in a round picture; Steffani concentrated all the efforts of his +ingenuity, invention, and artistic science into the somewhat limited +form of the duet. These two religious artists both have a luminous art; +both are sure of themselves, have learning and simplicity, with little +or no passion. Their souls are noble, pure, a little impersonal. They +were intended to prepare the way for others. As Chrysander says, "Handel +walked in the steps of Steffani, but his feet were larger." + + * * * * * + +Handel made only a short stay at Hanover in 1710. Hardly had he taken up +his duties when he asked and obtained leave to go to England, from +whence proposals had been made to him. He crossed Holland, and arrived +at London at the end of the autumn, 1710. He was then twenty-five years +old. The English musical era was broken off. Fifteen years before, +England had lost its greatest musician, Henry Purcell, who died +prematurely at the age of thirty-six.[149] + +In his short life he had produced a considerable amount of work: operas, +cantatas, religious music, and instrumental pieces. He was a cultured +genius, and intimately acquainted with Lully, Carissimi, and the Italian +sonatas, at the same time very English, possessing the gift of +spontaneous melody, and never losing contact with the spirit of the +British race. His art was full of grace and delicacy, much more +aristocratic than that of Lully. He is the Van Dyck of music. Everything +of his is of extreme elegance, refinement, ease, slightly _exsangue_. +His art is natural: always steeped in the country life which is indeed +the source of the English inspiration. There are no operas of the +seventeenth century where one finds fresher melodies which are more +inspired and yet of a popular character. This charming artist was +delicate, of a weak constitution, somewhat feminine in character, +feeble, and of little stamina. His poetic languor was his strongest +appeal, and at the same time his weak point; he was prevented from +following his artistic progress with the tenacity of a Handel. Most of +his works lack finish. He never tried to break down the final barriers +which separated him from perfection. His musical compositions are +sketches of genius with strange weaknesses. He produced many hastily +finished operas with singular awkwardnesses in the manner of treating +the instruments and the voice,--ill-fitting cadences, monotonous +rhythms, a spoilt harmonic tissue, and, finally, in his larger pieces +and those of grander scale, there is a lack of breath, a sort of +physical exhaustion, which prevents him reaching the end of his superb +ideas. But it is necessary to take him for what he is, one of the most +poetic figures in music--smiling, yet a little elegiac--a miniature +Mozart eternally convalescent. Nothing vulgar, nothing brutal, ever +enters his music. Captivating melodies, coming straight from the heart, +where the purest of English souls mirrors itself. Full of delicate +harmonies, of caressing dissonances, a taste for the clashing of +sevenths and seconds, of incessant poising between the major and minor, +and with delicate and varied nuances of a pale tint, vague and slightly +blurred, like the springtime sun piercing through a light mist.[150] He +only wrote one real opera, the admirable _Dido and AEneas_, of 1680.[151] +His other dramatic works, very numerous, were music for the stage, and +the most beautiful type of this kind is that which he wrote for Dryden's +_King Arthur_ in 1691. This music is nearly all episodical. One cannot +remove it without causing the essential action to suffer. The English +taste was impatient of operas sung from one end to the other, and in +Handel's time Addison endeavoured to voice this national repugnance in +his _Spectator_. + +It was a good thing that Handel had an altogether different idea of +opera, and that his personality differed greatly from that of Purcell, +which left him no point for profiting (as he had done with others) by +the genius of his predecessor. Arriving in a strange country, of which +he did not even know the language or the spirit, it was natural that he +should take the English master as his guide. Hence the analogies between +them. Purcell's Odes often give one the impression of being merely a +sketch of the cantatas and oratorios of Handel. One finds there the same +architectural style, the same contrast of movements, of instrumental +colours, of large ensembles, and of _soli_. Certain dances,[152] some of +the heroic airs, with irresistible rhythms and triumphant fanfares,[153] +are there already before Handel, but they are only there as brilliant +flashes with Purcell. Both his personality and his art were different. +Like so many fine musicians of that time, he has been swallowed up in +Handel, just as a stream of water loses itself in a river. But there was +nevertheless in this little spring a poetry peculiar to England, which +the entire work of Handel has not--nor can have. + +Since the death of Purcell the fount of English music had dried up. +Foreign elements submerged it.[154] A renewal of Puritanical opposition +which attacked the English stage contributed to the discouragement and +abdication of the national artists.[155] The last master of the great +epoch, John Blow, an estimable artist, famous in his time, whose +personality is a little grey and faded, was not wanting in distinction +or in expressive feeling--but he had then withdrawn himself into his +religious thoughts.[156] + +In the absence of English composers, the Italians took possession of the +field.[157] An old musician of the Chapel Royal, Thomas Clayton, brought +from Italy some opera _libretti_, scores, and singers. He took an old +_libretto_ from Boulogne, caused it to be translated into English by a +Frenchman, and clumsily adapted it to music of little worth; and, such +as it was, he proudly called it "The first musical drama which has been +entirely composed and produced in England in the Italian style, +_Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus_." This nullity, played at Drury Lane in 1705, +had a great success, which even exceeded the authentic Italian opera +given in the following year in London, _Camilla, regina de' Volsci_, by +Marc Antonio Bononcini.[158] Vainly Addison tried to battle against the +Italian invasion. By writing skits on the snobbism of the public with +pleasant irony, he endeavoured to oppose the Italian Opera with a +national English one.[159] He was defeated, and with him the entire +English theatre collapsed.[160] "Thomyris" in 1707 inaugurated the +representations half in Italian and half in English, and after the +_Almahade_ in January, 1710, all was in Italian. No English musician +attempted to continue the struggle.[161] + +When Handel arrived then, at the end of 1710, national art was dead. It +would be absurd to say, as some have often done, that he killed English +music. There was nothing left to kill. London had not a single composer. +On the other hand, she was rich in excellent players. Above all she +possessed one of the best troupes of Italian singers which could be +found in Europe. Having been presented to the Queen Anne, who loved +music, and played the clavier well, Handel was received with open arms +by the Director of the Opera, Aaron Hill. He was an extraordinary +person, who travelled in the East, wrote a history of the Ottoman +Empire, composed tragedies, translated Voltaire, founded the "Beech Oil +Company" for extracting the oil from the wood of the beech, mixing it +with chemicals and using it for the construction of ships. This +orchestral man composed during a meeting the plan of an opera, after +_Jerusalem Delivered_. It was _Rinaldo_, which was written, poem and +music, in fourteen days, and played for the first time on February 24, +1711, at the Haymarket. + +Its success was immense. It decided the victory of the Italian Opera in +London, and when the singer, Nicolini, who took the _role_ of Renaud, +left England he carried the score to Naples, where he had it produced in +1718, with the aid of young Leonardo Leo. The _Rinaldo_ marked a +turning-point in musical history. The Italian Opera, which had conquered +Europe, began to be conquered in its turn by foreign musicians, who had +been formed by it--the Italianised Germans. After Handel it was Hasse, +then Gluck, and finally Mozart; but Handel is the first of the +conquerors.[162] After _Rinaldo_, and until the time when Handel had +settled definitely in London, that is to say, between 1711 and the end +of 1716, was an indecisive period which oscillated between Germany and +England, and between religious music and the Opera. + +Handel, who bore the title of Kapellmeister of Hanover, returned to his +post in June, 1711.[163] At Hanover he found the Bishop Steffani again, +and attempted to write in his style. In this imitation he composed some +twenty chamber duets, which did not come up to their model, and some +beautiful German songs on the poems by Brockes.[164] Several of his best +instrumental pages, his first Oboe Concertos, his Sonatas for Flute and +Bass,[165] seem to date from this time. The cavaliers of the Court of +Hanover were ardent flautists, and the orchestra, under the direction of +Farinel, was excellent; especially had the oboes reached a high degree +of virtuosity, which has hardly been approached at the present day. On +the other hand, the Opera at Hanover was closed, and Handel could not +even give _Rinaldo_. + +He had a taste of the theatre, and did not like abandoning his plan; so +he turned his eyes again towards London. Having tested the soil of +England, and judged it favourable, Handel decided to establish himself +there. He received regular news from England whilst in Hanover.[166] +Since his departure no opera could hold its own except _Rinaldo_. The +English amateurs recalled him, and Handel, burning to depart, asked for +a new leave from the Court of Hanover. This was granted on the easiest +of terms: "on condition that he returned after a reasonable time."[167] + +He returned to London towards the end of November, 1712, in time to +supervise the representation of a pastoral, _Il Pastor Fido_, a hasty +work, from which he abstracted the best airs later on.[168] Twenty days +later he had finished writing _Teseo_, a tragic opera in five very short +acts,[169] full of haste and of genius, which was given in January, +1713. + +Handel endeavoured to settle himself firmly in England. He associated +himself with the loyalty and pride of the nation by writing for +political celebrations. The conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht, a +glorious day for England, approached. Handel prepared a _Te Deum_, which +was already finished in January, 1713, but the laws of England forbade +a foreigner to be charged with composing music for official ceremonies. +Parliament alone could authorise the representation of this production. +Handel cleverly wrote the flattering Ode for the anniversary of the +birth of Queen Anne, _Birthday Ode of Queen Anne_. The Ode was performed +at St. James's on February 6, 1713, and the Queen, enchanted with the +work, commanded Handel to write the _Te Deum_ and the _Jubilate_ for the +Peace of Utrecht, which was played on July 7, 1713, at a solemn service +at St. Paul's, on which occasion the Members of Parliament attended. +These works, in which Handel was helped by the example of Purcell,[170] +were his first great efforts in the monumental style. + +Handel had succeeded in securing, despite precedent, the post of +Official Composer to the English Court. But he had not acted without +grave neglect of his duties towards other masters, the princes of +Hanover, in whose services he still was. The relationship was extremely +strained between the cousin by heritage and her poor parents at Hanover. +Queen Anne had taken a dislike to them, especially as she could not +endure the intelligent Duchess Sophia. She made up songs about her, and +dealt secretly with the Pretender Stuart, for whom she wished to secure +the Heritage. In remaining in her service then, Handel took sides +against his sovereign at Hanover. Certain historians have even breathed +the word "treason." It is the only fault which his biographer, +Chrysander, does not excuse, for it wounded his German patriotism. But +it is very necessary to say here that of German patriotism Handel had +hardly any. He had the mentality of the great German artists of his +time, for whom the country was art and religion; the State mattered +little to him. + +He lived then amongst the English patrons--for a year with a wealthy +music lover in Surrey--then in Piccadilly at Lord Burlington's palace. +He remained there three years. Pope and Swift were familiars in the +house, which Gay had described. Handel performed there on the organ and +clavecin before the _elite_ of London society by whom he was much +admired--with the exception of Pope, who did not like music. He composed +a little,[171] being satisfied to exist, as in his sojourn at Naples, +waiting without hurry to be saturated by the English atmosphere. Handel +was one of those who can write three operas in two months, and then do +nothing more for a year. It is the rule of the torrential river which +sometimes overflows, and then runs dry. He awaited the course of events. +The inheritors of Hanover seemed decidedly ousted. The Duchess Sophia +died on June 7, 1714, Chrysander says of grief (but it was certainly +also apoplexy)--convinced that the Stuart would attain the coveted +heritage. Less than ever did Handel breathe a word of returning to +Hanover, but chance upset all his plans. Two months after the death of +the Duchess Sophia, Queen Anne died suddenly on August 1, 1714. The same +day, in the confusion into which events had thrown the Stuart party, +George of Hanover was proclaimed King by the secret council. On +September 20 he arrived in London. He was crowned at Westminster on +October 20, and Handel, very perturbed at the thought of his _Ode to +Queen Anne_, had the mortification of seeing that had he waited another +year his _Te Deum_ would have served for the enthronement of the new +dynasty. + +To do him full justice, he did not seem much discomfited by this turn of +fortune's wheel. He did not put himself about to ask for pardon. He set +to work instead and wrote _Amadigi_. It was the very best way for him to +plead his cause. George I of Hanover had many faults, but he had one +good quality. He loved music sincerely, and this passion was shared by +very many of the people more or less notable in his Court. Music had +always been for Germany the fountain where soiled hearts purified +themselves, the redemption from the petty basenesses of "the daily +round, the common task." Whatever King George thought of Handel, he +could not punish him without punishing himself. After the success of his +charming _Amadigi_, played for the first time on May 25, 1715, he had +not the courage to harbour malice any longer against his musician. They +were reconciled.[172] Handel resumed his post of Kapellmeister at +Hanover by now acting as the music master to the little princesses, and +when the King went to Hanover in July, 1716, Handel travelled with him. + +[Illustration: GEORGE I., IN HIS ROYAL BARGE, LISTENING TO HANDEL'S +"WATER-MUSIC." + +(_From a Painting._)] + +It was not that he had much occupation at the Court. The King was too +engrossed in State business, and with hunting. He did not even find time +to be anxious about his old retainer, Leibnitz, who died at Hanover on +November 14, 1716, unnoticed at Court. Handel took advantage of this +leisure to renew his acquaintance with the German art. + +There was then in Germany a fashion for musical Passions. There was a +religious and theatrical tendency at that time. One cannot separate the +influence of Pietism and that of the Opera. Keiser, Telemann, Mattheson, +all wrote Passions, which caused a great stir[173] at Hamburg, on the +famous text of the Senator Brockes. Following their example, perhaps in +order to measure himself with these men, who had all three been rivals +or friends,[174] Handel took the same text and wrote on it in 1716 his +_Passion after Brockes_. This powerful and disparate work, where bad +taste mingles with the sublime, where affectation and pomposity are +mingled with the most profound and serious art--a work which J. S. Bach +knew well, and very carefully remembered--was for Handel a decided +experience. He felt in writing it what a great gulf separated him from +the Pietist German art, and on his return to England[175] he composed +the _Psalms_ and _Esther_. + + * * * * * + +This was the principal epoch of his life. Between 1717 and 1720, whilst +he was in the service of the Duke of Chandos,[176] he made a careful +examination of his own personality, and created a new style in music, +and for the theatre. + +The Chandos Anthems or Psalms[177] stand, in relationship to Handel's +oratorios, in the same position as his Italian cantatas stand to his +operas: they are splendid sketches of the more monumental works. In +these religious cantatas, written for the Duke's chapel, Handel gives +the first place to the choruses: it is the exact words of the Bible +which they sing. Strong heroic words, freed from all the commentary and +sentimental effusions with which German Pietism had loaded them. There +is already in them the spirit and the style of _Israel in Egypt_, the +great monumental lines, the popular feeling. + +It was only a step from this to the colossal Biblical dramas. Handel +took the step with _Esther_, which in its first form was entitled _Haman +and Mordecai, a masque_.[178] + +Quite possibly the work had its first presentation at the Duke of +Chandos', but on August 29, 1720, it was presented on the stage. It was +in any case one of the greatest tragedies in the old style which had +been written since the Grecian period. It was as though the spirit of +Handel had been led insensibly towards the Hellenic ideal, for he +composed nearly at the same time his pastoral tragedy _Acis and +Galatea_, to which he also gave the name of masque,[179] and which did +not disengage itself from the complete idea of a free theatre. This +little masterpiece of poetry,[180] and of music, where the beautiful +Sicilian legend unfolds itself in pictures smiling and mournful, has a +classical perfection which Handel never surpassed. + + * * * * * + +_Esther_ and _Acis_ bore witness to Handel's desire to bring to the +surface of dramatic action all the powers of choral and symphonic music. +Even in these two works, which unquestionably opened up the way for his +future oratorios, it is not the oratorio which is his aim, but the +opera. Always attracted by the theatre, only a succession of disasters +of accumulating ruin thrust him away later against his will. So it is +natural to find him at the same time when he was writing _Esther_ and +_Acis_, also undertaking the musical direction of a theatre enterprise, +which led later on to one of the most important steps of his life, the +Academy of Italian Opera.[181] + +Handel saw, it is said, in the year 1720 the end of his years of +apprenticeship; he certainly terminated (although he knew it not) his +years of tranquillity. Up to then he had led the life of numberless +other great musicians, who lived under the protection of princes, and +wrote for a select audience. He had only occasion to leave this path, +with his religious and national works, where he had voiced a people's +feelings. After 1720, and indeed up to the time of his death, all the +rest of his art belonged to everybody. He put himself at the head of a +theatre, and opened a struggle with the public at large. He exerted +prodigious vitality, writing two or three operas every year, knocking +into shape an undisciplined troupe of _virtuosi_ smothered with pride, +harassed with intrigues, hindered by bankruptcy, using his genius for +twenty years in the paradoxical task of thrusting on London a shaky and +shallow Italian opera, which could not live under a sun and in a climate +unsuitable to it. At the end of this strife, enraged, conquered, but +invincible, sowing on his way all his masterpieces, he reached the +pinnacle of his art--those grand oratorios which rendered him immortal. + +After a voyage in Germany to Hanover, to Halle, to Duesseldorf, and to +Dresden, to recruit for his troupe of Italian singers,[182] Handel +inaugurated at the Haymarket Theatre the London Opera of April 27, 1720, +with his _Radamisto_, which was dedicated to the King.[183] The rush of +the public was very great indeed, but it was due more to curiosity than +to the turn of the fashion. Soon the snobbishness of the amateurs could +no longer content itself with Italianized German as the representative +of Italian Opera, and finally Lord Burlington, Handel's former patron, +went to Rome to induce the king of the Italian style, Giovanni +Bononcini, to come over.[184] + +Bononcini came from Modena. He was about fifty years old,[185] son of an +artist of great merit, Giovanni Bononcini, whose premature death cut +short a career rich with promise.[186] Brought up with an almost +paternal affection by one of the first masters of that epoch, one of the +few who had preserved the cult and the science of the past, Giampaolo +Colonna, organist of St. Pietronio at Bologna, he had benefited early in +life by a high princely, even Imperial,[187] protection. More precocious +even than Handel, he published his first works at the age of thirteen, +was member of the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna at fourteen, and +master of the Chapel at fifteen. His first works were instrumental. This +was his speciality, having inherited his gift from his father.[188] He +only reached the Opera after having tried all the other styles. It was +not with him a natural calling. He was a born concert musician, and he +remained so even in the Opera. His tours in Germany and in Austria, +where he was created Imperial Composer in 1700, and gave his _Polifemo_ +at Berlin in 1703,[189] fully established his renown in Europe. His +music spread in France after 1706 and excited there an almost incredible +infatuation.[190] When in Italy his reputation surpassed even that of +Scarlatti, who himself, according to Mr. Dent, came under his influence +to a small extent. He had a European vogue for about ten or fifteen +years. He was, so to speak, the reflection of the society of his time. + +What strikes one in his music, if we are to believe Lecerf de la +Vieville, is the boldness of his modulations, the abundance of his vocal +ornaments, the unruliness of his mind. His style seemed to the Lullyists +that of the affected and distorted order as opposed to the school of +common sense. Bononcini was a "verticalist" then, differing from the +"horizontalists" of the preceding epoch.[191] He was essentially a +sensuous musician, and an anti-intellectualist. Right from the +beginning, as an instrumental composer he always remained indifferent to +his poems, to his subjects, and to everything which was outside of +music. In his music he set a pleasing sonority above everything;[192] +and it was evidently on this account that his work required less effort +of the intelligence than was necessitated by the severe art of +Scarlatti, or the recitative and expressive art of Lully.[193] In him +was inaugurated the reaction of fashionable good taste in the general +public against that of the savant.[194] Contrast the grand airs _Da +Capo_, broadly developed in a more or less contrapuntal fashion, with +his tiny little airs, also _Da Capo_, but in miniature, easy to +understand, which touched the popular feeling for melody. He carefully +perfumed it and served it up for the taste of the elegant and +fashionable.[195] This distinguished simplicity, this delicate +sensibility, rather feeble, always so correct in its audacities and +restrained in its pleasures, made Bononcini a drawing-room favourite, a +fashionable revolutionary. The more he worked, the more his traits were +accentuated, and became permanent. As happens to all artists who enjoy +too much success, this reacted on his art, and imposed on him the +repetition of certain fixed patterns. The natural laziness of Bononcini +only exaggerated this tendency, so that from year to year this +affectedness appeared in his art, making it quite mechanical. His music, +often beautiful and gracious, always harmonious, never expressive, +unrolled itself as a succession of elegant and highly finished subjects, +all cut out as if with scissors on the same pattern, and indefinitely +repeated. At first in London one was only conscious of his charm. The +personality of the musician added to the attractions of his music. The +gentle Italian had polished manners, a quality at once lovable, and +penetrated by a bold courage. He was a _virtuoso_ like Handel, but on an +instrument more distinguished than the clavier--on the violoncello; and +he was listened to with respect in the aristocratic _salons_. He was, so +to speak, the author _a la mode_; and his _Astarto_,[196] given at the +end of 1720, erased the impression made by Handel's _Radamisto_. + +Handel had his work cut out. He was not suited to strive with Bononcini +on the ground of Italianism. However, he was up against the wall. The +English public, always keen on bear fights, cock fights, and _virtuoso_ +contests, amused themselves by arranging a joust between Bononcini and +Handel. They were to be tested by an opera written in combination. +Handel took up the glove--and was beaten. His _Muzio Scevola_[197] +(March, 1721) is very feeble, and the _Floridante_ which followed +(December 9, 1721) is little better. The success of the Italian +increased his fame, and the pretty _Griselda_ (February, 1722) +consummated Bononcini's glory. He benefited by the strenuous opposition +of the English _litterateurs_, and the leading aristocrats, against the +Hanoverian Court and the German artists. + +Handel's situation was much involved, but he took his revenge with the +melodious opera _Ottone_ (January 12, 1723), which was the most popular +of all his operas. Victorious then,[198] he went straight ahead without +troubling himself about Bononcini, and he composed, one after another, +three masterpieces in which he inaugurated a new musical theatre, as +musically rich, and more dramatic than that of Rameau, some ten years +later: _Guilio Cesare_ (February 20, 1724); _Tamerlano_ (October 21, +1724), and _Rodelinda_ (February 13, 1725). The last of _Tamerlano_ is a +magnificent example of the great music drama, an example nearly unique +before Gluck, in its poignancy and passion. Bononcini's party was +definitely ruined,[199] but the greatest difficulties now began for +Handel. The London Opera was delivered over into the hands of _Castrati_ +and _Prime Donne_, and the extravagances of their supporters. In 1726 +there arrived the most celebrated Italian singer of the time, the famous +Faustina.[200] From this moment the London representations became mere +jousts of song between Faustina and Cuzzoni--jousts as strenuous as the +shouting of their various partisans. Handel wrote his _Alessandro_ (May +5, 1721) for an artistic duel between the two stars of his troupe, who +acted as the two mistresses of _Alessandro_.[201] In spite of all, his +dramatic genius won the day by several sublime scenes from _Almeto_ +(January 31, 1727), the grandeur of which veritably seized hold of the +public. But the rivalry of the singers, far from being appeased, +redoubled in fury. Each party had its hired pamphleteers, who let loose +on the adversary the most degrading libels. Cuzzoni and Faustina +reached such a state of rage that on June 6, 1727, during the play, they +fought and tore each other's hair unmercifully, amidst the yells of the +audience, the Princess of Wales being present.[202] + +After this everything went to the dogs. Handel tried hard to take the +reins, but, as his friend Arbuthnot said, "the devil was loose, and +could never be caged again." The battle was lost, despite three new +works of Handel, where his genius again shone forth: _Riccardo I_ +(November 11, 1727); _Siroe_ (February 17, 1728); and _Tolomeo_ (April +30, 1728). A little venture by John Gay and by Pepusch, _The Beggar's +Opera_ (A War Opera) finished the defeat of the London Academy of +Opera.[203] This excellent operetta, spoken in dialogue, with popular +songs interspersed, was at the same time a trenchant satire on Walpole, +and a spirited parody of the ridiculous sides of the opera.[204] Its +immense success took the character of a national manifestation. It was +a reaction of popular common sense against the pompous childishnesses of +the Italian Opera, and against the snobbishness which attempted to +impose it on other nations. We see in this the first blow struck at the +triumphant Italianism. Nationality awoke. In 1729 the _Passion according +to St. Matthew_ was given. Some years later Handel's earlier oratorios +were performed, and also the first operas of Rameau. In 1728 to 1729 +Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann entered the campaign against Italian Opera with +his famous pamphlets. After him, Mattheson re-entered the ring: _The +Goths and their Hippogriffs to be purified in the crater of Etna_. But +nowhere was this national reaction so widely spread as in England, where +it roused itself with such robust humour, as with Swift and with Pope, +those famous layers of ghosts[205] and dreams. + + * * * * * + +Handel felt this. After 1727 he sought steadily to establish himself on +the national English soil. He had become a naturalized Englishman on +February 13, 1726. He wrote for the Coronation of the new King, George +II, his Coronation Anthems,[206] September 11, 1727.[207] He returned to +his plans for the English oratorios. + +But he was not yet sufficiently sure of his ground, nor of the public +taste, to justify him in completely throwing over the Italian Opera, for +he realized more than before the resources of the people and what he +could do with them. Besides, the collapse of the London Academy of Opera +had not touched his personal prestige. He was regarded, not only in +England, but also in France, as the greatest man of the Lyric +Theatre.[208] His London Italian operas became known all over Europe. + + _Flavius, Tamerlan, Othon, Renaud, Cesar,_ + _Admete, Siroe, Rodelinde, et Richard,_ + _Eternels monumens dresses a sa memoire,_ + _Des operas Romains surpasserent la gloire,_ + _Venise lui peut-elle opposer un rival?_[209] + +One can well understand, then, that Handel was tempted by the desire of +taking on his own shoulders, without the control which hampered him, the +complete enterprise of the Italian Opera. At the end of the summer of +1728 he went to Italy in search of new arms for the strife. In the +course of this tour, which lasted nearly a year,[210] he recruited his +singers, renewed his collection of _libretti_ and Italian scores. Above +all, he refreshed his Italianism at the source of the new School of +Opera, founded by Leonardo Vinci,[211] which reacted against the concert +style in the theatre, and sought to give back to Opera a more dramatic +character, even at the risk of impoverishing the music. + +Without sacrificing the richness of his style, Handel did not neglect to +profit by these examples in his new operas: _Lotario_ (December, 1729), +_Partenope_ (February, 1730), _Poro_ (February, 1731), _Ezio_ (January, +1732), which are notable (particularly the last two) by the beauty of +the melodic writing, and the dramatic power of certain pages. The +masterpiece of this period is _Orlando_ (January 27, 1733), of which the +richness and musical perfection are on a level with the insight into the +characters, and the spirited and passionate life of the piece. If the +_Tamerlano_ of 1724 awakens ideas of Gluck's tragedies, it is the +beautiful operas of Mozart which come to mind in _Orlando_. + +In continuation of the strife for the Italian Opera, Handel profited by +the unexpected success with which the English people had met the +reproduction of his _Acis and Galatea_ and his _Esther_,[212] written to +English words, and he attempted again, in a more conscientious fashion +than ten years before at Chandos', to found a form of musical theatre, +freer and richer, where the lyricism of the choruses had free play. For +the reproduction of _Esther_ in 1732 he introduced into the work of 1720 +the most beautiful choruses from the Coronation Anthems. In the +following year he wrote _Deborah_ (March 17, 1733), and _Athaliah_ (July +10, 1733), where the chorus took first place. These grand Biblical +dramas would have been able to have awakened in the English nation an +enthusiastic response, were it not that this attempt was damaged by a +violent quarrel inspired by personal reasons, where art counted for +nothing. A dead set was made against _Deborah_,[213] and though +_Athaliah_ succeeded at Oxford,[214] Handel did not present it in London +until two years later. + +Once again Handel returned to Italian Opera. The public hatred pursued +him here also. The royal family of Hanover was detested. It added to its +own discredit by the scandalous disputes which took place between the +King and his son. The Prince of Wales, in a spirit of petty spite +against his father, who showed his affection for Handel, amused himself +by attempting to ruin the composer. Encouraged by the opposition, and +enchanted by the idea of making sport against the King, he founded a +rival opera house, and as he could no longer set Bononcini up against +Handel, as the former had been discredited by a case of flagrant +plagiarism, which had an European circulation,[215] he approached +Porpora, with a view to directing his theatre. "Then," says Lord Hervey, +"the struggle became as serious as that of the Greens against the Blues +at Constantinople under Justinian. An anti-Handelian was regarded as an +anti-Royalist, and in Parliament, to vote against the Court was hardly +more dangerous than to speak against Handel." On the other hand, the +immense unpopularity of the King redounded on Handel, and the +aristocracy combined to secure his downfall. + +He accepted the challenge, and after a third tour in Italy during the +summer of 1733, again to recruit more singers, he bravely took up the +fight with Porpora, to whom was added Hasse in 1734. They were the +greatest rivals against which he had yet measured himself. But Hasse and +Porpora had strong dramatic feeling, and especially were they the most +perfect masters of the beautiful art of Italian melody and singing.[216] +Nicolo Porpora, who came from Naples, was forty-seven years old. He had +a cold but vigorous spirit, intelligent and possessing more than anyone +else, except Hasse, all the resources of the Italian singing. His style +was very beautiful, and it was not less broad than that of Handel. No +other Italian musician of his time had such ample breadth of +phrasing.[217] His writings seem of a later age than Handel's, and +approximate to the time of Gluck and Mozart. Whilst Handel, despite his +marvellous feeling for plastic beauty, often treated the voices as an +instrument, and in his development the beautiful Italian lines +occasionally became weighed down by German complexity, Porpora's music +always kept within the bounds of classic purity, though the form was a +little uninteresting in design. History has never done him sufficient +justice.[218] He was quite worthy of measuring himself against Handel, +and the comparison between Handel's _Arianna_ and that of Porpora, +played at an interval of a few weeks,[219] did not prove to the +advantage of the former. Handel's music is elegant, but one does not +find the breadth of certain airs in Porpora's _Arianna a Naxos_. The +form of these airs is perhaps of too classic a correctness, but the +right Grecian breezes blow across his Roman temples.[220] He has been +claimed as an Italian disciple of Gluck--a curious criticism which is +bestowed occasionally on precursors. It was so with Jacopo della +Quercia, who inspired Michael Angelo, and to whom the latter seems to +owe something. + +Hasse was even superior to Porpora in the charm of his melody, which +Mozart alone has equalled, and in his symphonic gifts, which showed +themselves in his rich instrumental accompaniments no less melodious +than his songs.[221] Handel was not slow to discover the folly of +striving with Hasse on Italian ground. His superiority was with the +choruses; he sought to introduce them into the Opera after the French +model. The situation was even less promising for him on the departure of +his best protectrix, the Princess Anne, sister of the Prince of +Wales.[222] After having compromised Handel by the strong feeling which +she had shown in defending him, she left him to the tender cares of the +enemies which she had made for him. She left England in April, 1734, to +join her husband the Prince of Orange[223] in Holland. + +Handel came to be abandoned by his old friends. His associate, +Heidegger, the proprietor of the Haymarket Theatre, took the hall for a +rival opera, and Handel, driven from the house in which he had worked +for fourteen years, had to emigrate with his troupe to John Rich's place +at Covent Garden[224]--a sort of music-hall where Opera took its turn +with all kinds of other spectacles: ballets, pantomimes, and +harlequinades. In Rich's troupe some French dancers were to be found, +amongst whom was "_la Salle_,"[225] who was shortly to arouse great +enthusiasm amongst the English public with two tragic dances: +_Pygmalion_ and _Bacchus and Ariadne_.[226] Handel, who had known the +French art[227] for a long time, saw how far he could draw on these new +resources, and he opened the season of 1734 at Covent Garden with a +first attempt in the field of the French ballet opera: _Terpsichore_ +(November 9, 1734), in which "_la Salle_" took the principal _role_. A +month later a _Pasticcio_ followed, _Orestes_, where Handel gave a +similar important part to "_la Salle_," and to her expressive dances. +Finally, he intermingled the dance and the choruses closely with the +dramatic action in two masterpieces of poetry and beautiful musical +construction--_Ariodante_ (January 8, 1735), and especially _Alcina_ +(April 16, 1735). + +Bad luck still pursued him. Some gross national manifestations compelled +"_la Salle_" and her French dancers to leave London.[228] Handel gave up +the ballet opera. To leave at this moment, if he was to continue the +struggle with the theatre, went badly against the grain, and was +tantamount to declaring himself vanquished. At the opening of his +theatrical enterprise he had saved, so it is said, L10,000. All this was +absorbed, and already he was L10,000 more to the bad. His friends did +not understand his obstinacy, which seemed about to involve him in +complete ruin. "But," says Hawkins, "he was a man of intrepid spirit, +and in no ways a slave to mere interest. He raised himself again for the +battle rather than bow down to those whom he regarded as infinitely +beneath him." If he could no longer be conqueror, still less would he +hand the reins to his adversaries. He overcame them--but a little more +would have vanquished himself in the same stroke. + +He persisted then in writing his operas,[229] of which the series spread +out until 1741, marking work after work with a growing tendency towards +the _opera-comique_ and the style of romances[230] so dear to the +people at the second half of the eighteenth century. But since 1735 he +felt more than ever that the true musical drama for him was the +oratorio. He returned victoriously with _Alexander's Feast_, which was +composed on the _Ode to St. Cecilia_, by Dryden,[231] and given for the +first time on February 19, 1736, at the Covent Garden Theatre. + +Who would have believed that this work, robust and sane throughout, was +written in twenty days, that it was performed in the midst of his +business worries, within an ace of ruin, and when he was threatened with +that grave malady which was to throw the mind of Handel for evermore +into gloom? + + * * * * * + +For several years trouble pursued him. Work and excessive worry had +undermined an iron constitution. He tried the baths at Tunbridge Wells +during the summer of 1735, and probably also in 1736, but with no +success. He could not sleep. His theatre was always on his mind. He made +superhuman efforts to keep it going. From January, 1736, to April, 1737, +he directed two seasons of Opera, two seasons of oratorio, and composed +a song, an oratorio, a Psalm, and four operas.[232] On April 12, or 13, +1737, the machine broke down. He was smitten with paralysis, his right +side was attacked, his hand refused all service, and even his mind was +affected. In his absence his theatre closed its doors, bankrupt.[233] +During the whole of the summer Handel remained in a pitiful state of +depression. He refused to care for anything; all hope was lost. Finally, +his friends succeeded in inducing him, towards the end of August, to try +the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle. The cure had a miraculous effect. In a few +days he was restored. In October he returned to London, and immediately +the refreshed giant resumed the struggle, writing in three months two +operas, and the magnificent _Funeral Anthem_ on the death of the +Queen.[234] + +Sad days were in store, however. His creditors seized him, and he was +threatened with imprisonment. Happily a sympathetic movement was +inaugurated in favour of the artist so harassed by his kind. A benefit +concert, to which his pride reluctantly submitted,[235] at the end of +March, 1738, had an unexpected success. It freed him from the most +pressing of his debts. In the following month a token of public +admiration was given him. His statue was erected in the Vauxhall +Gardens.[236] In the springtime of 1738 he began to feel, with returning +strength, confidence in the future. The horizon cleared. He was +encouraged by such faithful sympathy. He returned to life, and made his +presence felt again. + +On July 23 he commenced _Saul_; on August 8 he had written two acts of +it; by September 27 the work was finished. On October 7 he began _Israel +in Egypt_; by October 28 the work was achieved. Still pushing +strenuously forward, on October 4 he launched the first volume of his +organ concertos with the publisher Walsh, and on the 7th he took to him +his _Seven Trios or Sonatas in two parts, with bass_, Opus 5. For those +who know these joyful works, which dominate like two Colossi the two +oratorios of victory, this superhuman effort had the effect of a force +of Nature, like a field which breaks into flower in a single night of +springtime. + +_Saul_ is a great epic drama, flowing and powerful, where the humorous +and the tragic intermingle. _Israel_ is one immense chorale, the most +gigantic effort which has ever been made in oratorio, not only with a +single but with combined choirs.[237] The audacious originality of the +conception and its austere grandeur almost stunned the public of his +day. The living Handel breathes throughout the work. + +The hopes which Handel had founded on England caused him fresh +uneasiness. Times were hard. Since the winter of 1739, theatrical +performances, and even concerts, were suspended for several months on +account of the war, and the extreme cold. Handel, to keep himself warm, +wrote in eight days the little _Ode to St. Cecilia_ (November 29, 1739); +in sixteen days _L'Allegro_, _Il Penseroso_, _ed Il Moderato_ of Milton +(January-February, 1740); in a month the _Concerti Grossi_, Opus 6.[238] +But the success of these charming works, graven out with loving care, +into which Handel had perhaps put more than into any other his own +personal feelings, his poetic and humorous reproductions of nature,[239] +was hardly sufficient yet to establish his affairs, at one time so +embarrassed. Once more, as in the time of _Deborah_ and _Arianna_, he +was attacked by a coalition of fashionable people. One does not know +how Handel had wounded them,[240] but they were resolved on his +downfall. They avoided his concerts. They even paid men to pull down his +placards in the streets. Handel, tired and disheartened, suddenly threw +up the combat.[241] He decided to leave England, where he had lived for +nearly thirty years, and where he had increased his fame so much. He +announced his last concert for April 8, 1741.[242] + + * * * * * + +It is a remarkable thing that often in the lives of the great men, just +at the moment when all seems lost, or things are at their lowest ebb, +they are nearest to the fulfilment of their destiny. Handel appeared +vanquished. Just at that very hour he wrote a work which was destined to +establish permanently his immortality. + +He left London.[243] The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland invited him to +Dublin to direct some concerts. Thus it was, so he said, "in order to +offer this generous and polished nation something new" that he composed +_The Messiah_ on a poem by his friend Jennens.[244] They had already +given many of his religious works in Dublin for charitable +concerts.[245] Handel was received enthusiastically. The letter which he +wrote on December 29 to Jennens bubbles over with joy. The time which he +passed in Dublin was, together with his early years in Italy, the +happiest in his life. From December 23, 1741, to April 7, 1742, he gave +two series of six concerts, and always with the same success. Finally, +on April 12, the first hearing of _The Messiah_ took place in Dublin. +The proceeds of the concert were devoted to charitable objects, and the +success was very considerable.[246] + +Eight days after having finished The _Messiah_ (that is to say, before +he had yet arrived in Ireland) Handel had commenced _Samson_, which was +finished in five weeks, from the end of September to the end of October, +1741. However, he did not give it in Dublin. Doubtless he could not find +the interpreters which he desired for this colossal drama, rich in +choral scenes and in difficult _roles_.[247] Perhaps also he reserved +the work for the following season in Dublin, when he hoped to return, +but the expected invitation which he awaited in London did not come, and +it was in London that _Samson_ reached its first hearing on February 18, +1743. + +To this heroic oratorio, based on the sublime _Samson Agonistes_ of +Milton,[248] succeeded a light opera, which bore, nevertheless, the name +of oratorio, the libretto of which was based on a poem by Congreve: +_Semele_ (June 3 to July 4, 1743). It afforded a relief for him between +these two Herculean works. In the same month in which he finished +_Semele_, Handel wrote his monumental _Dettingen Te Deum_, to celebrate +the victory of the Duke of Cumberland over the French.[249] _Joseph_, +written in August and September of the same year, on a very touching +poem by James Miller, reveals a sweet yet melancholy fancy, a little +insipid, on which, however, the strong portrait of Simeon projects +itself forcibly. + +1744 was one of Handel's most glorious years from the creative point of +view, but one of the most miserable in outward success. He wrote nearly +simultaneously his two most tragic oratorios, the great Shakespearian +drama of _Belshazzar_ (July-October, 1744), the rich poem of which was +furnished for him by his friend Jennens;[250] and the sublime tragedy of +the ancient _Hercules_, a musical drama,[251] which marks the +culmination of the Handelian musical drama, and indeed one might say of +the whole musical theatre before Gluck. + +Never was the hostility of the English public more roused against him. +The same hateful cabal which had already thrice threatened to bring +about his downfall again rose against him. They invited the fashionable +world in London to their _fetes_, specially organised on the days when +the performances of his oratorios were to have taken place, with the +object of robbing him of his audience. Bolingbroke and Smollett both +speak of the plots of certain ladies to ruin Handel. Horace Walpole says +that it was the fashion to go to the Italian Opera when Handel directed +his oratorio concerts. Handel, whose force of energy and genius had +weakened since his first failure of 1735, was involved afresh in +bankruptcy at the beginning of 1745. His griefs and troubles, and the +prodigious expenditure of force which he made, seemed again on the point +of turning his brain. He fell into extreme bodily prostration and +lowness of spirit, similar to that of 1737, and this lasted for the +space of eight months, from March to October, 1745.[252] By a miracle he +was able to rise out of this abyss, and by unforeseen events, where +music was his only aid, he became more popular than he ever was before. + +The Pretender, Charles Edward, landed in Scotland; the country rose up. +An army of Highlanders marched on London. The city was in consternation. +A great national movement arose in England, Handel associated himself +with it. On November 14, 1745, he brought to light at Drury Lane his +_Song made for the Gentlemen Volunteers of the City of London_,[253] +and he wrote two oratorios, which were, so to speak, immense national +hymns: the _Occasional Oratorio_,[254] where Handel called the English +to rise up against invasion, and _Judas Maccabaeus_[255] (July 9 to +August 11, 1746), the Hymn of Victory, written after the rout of the +rebels at Culloden Moor, and for the _fete_ on the return of the +conqueror, the ferocious Duke of Cumberland, to whom the poem was +dedicated. + +These two patriotic oratorios, where Handel's heart beat with that of +England, and of which the second, _Judas Maccabaeus_, has retained even +to our own day its great popularity, thanks to its broad style and the +spirit which animates it,[256] brought more fortune to Handel than all +the rest of his works together. After thirty-five years of continuous +struggle, plot and counterplot, he had at last obtained a decisive +victory. He became by the force of events _the national musician of +England_. + + * * * * * + +Freed from material cares, which had embittered his life,[257] Handel +took up the work of his composition again, with more tranquillity, and +in the following years came many of his happiest works. _Alexander +Balus_ (June 1 to July 4, 1747)[258] is, like _Semele_, a concert opera, +well developed; the orchestration being exceptionally rich and subtle. +_Joshua_ (July 30 to August 18, 1747)[259] is a somewhat pale _replica_ +of _Judas Maccabaeus_. A gentle love idyll blossoms amidst the pompous +choruses. _Solomon_ (June, 1748)[260] is a musical festival, radiating +poetry and gladness. _Susanna_ (July 11, 1724, to August, 1748), grave +and gay by turns, realistic yet lyric, is a hybrid kind of work, but +very original. + +Finally, in the spring of 1749, which marks, so it seems, the end of +Handel's good fortune, he wrote his brilliant Firework Music--a model +for popular open-air _fetes_--produced on April 27, 1749, by a monster +orchestra of trumpets, horns, oboes, and bassoons, without stringed +instruments, on the occasion of the Firework display given in Green Park +to celebrate the Peace of Aix la Chapelle.[261] + +More solemn works followed these gay pieces. At this moment of his life +the spirit of melancholy raised its grey head before the robust old man, +who seemed to be obsessed by the presentiment of some coming ill +fortune. + +On May 27, 1749, he conducted at the Foundling Hospital[262] for the +benefit of waifs and strays, his beautiful _Anthem for the Foundling +Hospital_,[263] which was inspired by his great pity for these little +unfortunates. From June 28 to July 31 he wrote a pure masterpiece, +_Theodora_, his most intimate musical tragedy, his only Christian +tragedy besides _The Messiah_[264]. From the end of that same year dates +also his music for a scene from Tobias Smollett's Alceste, which was +never played, and from which Handel took the essential parts for his +_Choice of Hercules_.[265] A little time after he made his last voyage +to Halle. He arrived on German soil at the moment when Bach died, July +28, 1750. Indeed he nearly ended his life there himself in the same week +by a carriage accident.[266] + +He recovered quickly, and on January 21, 1751, when he commenced the +score of _Jephtha_, he appeared to be in robust health, despite his +sixty-six years. He wrote the first act at a stretch in thirteen days. +In eleven days more he had arrived at the last scene but one of Act II. +Here he had to break off. Already in the preceding pages he only +progressed with difficulty; his writing, so clear and firm at the +commencement, became sticky, confused, and trembling.[267] He had +started on the final chorus of Act II: "How dark, O Lord, are Thy Ways." +Hardly had he written the opening _Largo_ than he had to stop working. +He wrote: + +"_I reached here on Wednesday, February 13, had to discontinue on +account of the sight of my left eye._"[268] + +The work was broken off for ten days. On February 23 (which was his +birthday) he wrote in: + +"_Feel a little better. Resumed work_"; + +and he wrote the music to those foreboding words: + +"_Grief follows joy as night the day._" + +He took hardly five days to finish this chorus, which is really sublime. +He stopped then for four months.[269] On June 18 he resumed the third +act. He was again interrupted in the middle.[270] The last four airs and +the final chorus took more time than a whole oratorio usually occupied. +He did not finish it until August 30, 1751. His sight was then gone. + + * * * * * + +After that, all was ended. Handel's eyes were closed for ever.[271] The +sun was blotted out, "_Total eclipse_...." The world was effaced. + +He had never suffered so much as in the first year of his illness, when +he was not yet completely blind. In 1752 he was unable to play the organ +at the productions of his oratorios, and the public, moved by sympathy, +saw him tremble and blanch in listening to the admirable complaint of +his blind Samson. But in 1753, when the evil was incurable, Handel +regained his self-possession. He played the organ again at the twelve +performances of oratorios which he gave each year in Lent, and he kept +up this custom until his death. + +But with his vanished sight he had lost the best source of his +inspiration. This man, who was neither an intellectual nor a mystic, one +who loved above all things light and nature, beautiful pictures, and the +spectacular view of things, who lived more through his eyes than most of +the German musicians, was engulfed in deepest night. From 1752 to 1759 +he was overtaken by the semi-consciousness which precedes death. He only +wrote in 1758 a duet and chorus for _Judas Maccabaeus_, "Zion now her +head shall raise," and reviving in that the happy times of other days he +took up a work of his youth, the _Trionfo del Tempo_,[272] which he now +gave in a new version in March, 1757: _The Triumph of Time and +Truth_.[273] + +[Illustration: HANDEL'S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. + +(_In the "Poets' Corner."_)] + +On April 6, 1759, he again took the organ at a production of _The +Messiah_. His powers failed him in the middle of a movement. He soon +recovered himself and improvised (it is said) with his habitual +grandeur. Returned home he took to bed. On April 11 he added a last +codicil to his will,[274] bequeathing munificently L1000 sterling to +the Society for the Maintenance of Poor Musicians, and expressing, with +tranquillity, his desire of being buried in Westminster Abbey. He said: +"I want to die on Good Friday in the hope of rejoining the good God, my +sweet Lord and Saviour, on the day of his Resurrection." His wish was +accomplished. On Holy Saturday, April 14, at eight in the morning, the +sweet singer of _The Messiah_ slept with his Lord. + + * * * * * + +His glory spread after his death. On April 20 he was interred in +Westminster Abbey, as he had requested.[275] The annual performances of +his oratorios continued in Lent under the direction of his friend, +Christopher Smith. Popular performances of them were soon given. The +great festival of his Commemoration celebrated at Westminster Abbey and +in the Pantheon, from May 26 to June 5, 1784, for the centenary of his +birth,[276] was observed all over Europe. New festivals took place in +London in 1785, 1786, 1787, 1790, and 1791. On the last occasion more +than a thousand executants[277] took part. Haydn was present, and he +said, through his tears, "He is master of us all." + +The English performances attracted the attention of Germany. Two years +after the Commemoration, Johann Adam Hiller produced _The Messiah_ in +the Cathedral Church at Berlin, then at Leipzig, and then at Breslau. +Three years later, in 1789, Mozart made his arrangements of _The +Messiah_, of _Acis and Galatea_, of the _Ode to St. Cecilia_, and of +_Alexander's Feast_.[278] The first complete edition of Handel was +commenced in 1786. A strong feeling of emulation made itself felt in +Germany to imitate the English festivals, and to restore choral singing, +and to found the _Singakademien_ for the preservation of the national +glories.[279] The rendering of Handel's oratorios inspired Haydn to +write _The Creation_. Beethoven at the end of his life said of Handel: +"See there is the truth."[280] Poets also vied equally in rendering him +homage. Goethe admired him, and Herder devoted a chapter to him in his +_Adrastea_ of 1802. The wars of Independence gave an access of favour to +the oratorio of freedom, to _Judas Maccabaeus_. + +With romanticism the feeling for the genius of Handel was lost. Berlioz, +who, if he had but known him truly, and had found a model for that grand +popular style which he sought, never understood him. Of all other +musicians, those who approached to the spirit of Handel nearest were +Schumann and Liszt,[281] but they were exceptional in the lucidity of +their perception, and their generous sympathies. It might be said that +Handel's art, distorted by the editions and false renderings--quite as +much those in Germany as the ridiculously colossal representations in +England--would have been completely lost except for the foundation in +1856 of the Handel Society, which devoted itself to the object of +publishing an exact and complete edition of the works of the master. +Gervinus was the promoter and Friedrich Chrysander alone accomplished +the task. It did not aim at being a critical edition of his works. His +ardent apostle sought simply to revive them in their pristine +force.[282] He was seconded by the choral societies of north Germany, +particularly by the Berlin _Singakademien_, which from 1830 to 1860 +never ceased to perform all the oratorios of Handel. On the contrary, +Austria remained a long way behind. In 1873, Brahms conducted the first +production of _Saul_ in Vienna, but the veritable awakening of Handel's +art in Germany only dates back about half a score years. One recognized +his grandeur, and did not doubt that he had lived. It was chiefly (so it +seems) at the first Handel Festival of Mayence in 1895, where _Hercules +and Deborah_ were given, that his astounding dramatic genius was first +truly felt there. + +To us in France we still await the full revelation of the living scenes +of this great and luminous tragic art, so akin to the aims of Ancient +Greece.[283] + + + + +HIS TECHNIQUE AND WORKS + + +No great musician is more impossible to include in the limits of one +definition, or even of several, than Handel. It is a fact that he +reached the complete mastery of his style very early (much earlier than +J. S. Bach), although it was never really fixed, and he never devoted +himself to any one form of art. It is even difficult to see a conscious +and a logical evolution in him. His genius is not of the kind which +follows a single path, and forges right ahead until it reaches its +object. For his aim is none other than to do well whatever he undertook. +All ways are good to him--from his early steps at the crossing of the +ways, he dominated the country, and shed his light on all sides, without +laying siege to any particular part. He is not one of those who impose +on life and art a voluntary idealism, either violent or patient; nor is +he one of those who inscribe in the book of life the formula of their +campaign. He is of the kind who drink in the life universal, +assimilating it to themselves. His artistic will is mainly objective. +His genius adapts itself to a thousand images of passing events, to the +nation, to the times in which he lived, even to the fashions of his day. +It accommodates itself to the various influences, ignoring all +obstacles. It weighs other styles and other thoughts, but such is the +power of assimilation and the prevailing equilibrium of his nature that +he never feels submerged and overweighted by the mass of these strange +elements. Everything is duly absorbed, controlled, and classified. This +immense soul is like the sea itself, into which all the rivers of the +world pour themselves without troubling its serenity. + +The German geniuses have often had this power of absorbing thoughts and +strange forms,[284] but it is excessively rare to find amongst them the +grand objectivism, and this superior impersonality, which is, so to +speak, the hall-mark of Handel. Their sentimental lyricism is better +fitted to sing songs, to voice the thoughts of the universe in song, +than to paint the universe in living forms and vital rhythms. Handel is +very different, and approaches much more nearly than any other in +Germany the genius of the South, the Homeric genius of which Goethe +received the sudden revelation on his arrival at Naples.[285] This +capacious mind looks out on the whole universe, and on the way the +universe depicts itself, as a picture is reflected in calm and clear +water. He owes much of this objectivism to Italy, where he spent many +years, and the fascination of which never effaced itself from his mind, +and he owes even more to that, sturdy England, which guards its emotions +with so tight a rein, and which eschews those sentimental and +effervescing effusions, so often displayed in the pious German art; but +that he had all the germs of his art in himself, is already shown in his +early works at Hamburg. + +From his infancy at Halle, Zachau had trained him not in one style, but +in all the styles of the different nations, leading him to understand +not only the spirit of each great composer, but to assimilate the styles +by writing in various manners. This education, essentially cosmopolitan, +was completed by his three tours in Italy, and his sojourn of half a +century in England. Above all he never ceased to follow up the lessons +learnt at Halle, always appropriating to himself the best from all +artists and their works. If he was never in France (it is not absolutely +proved), he knew her nevertheless. He was anxious to master their +language and musical style. We have proofs of that in his +manuscripts,[286] and in the accusations made against him by certain +French critics.[287] Wherever he passed, he gathered some musical +souvenir, buying and collecting foreign works, copying them, or rather +(for he had not the careful patience of J. S. Bach, who scrupulously +wrote out in his own hand the entire scores of the French organists and +the Italian violinists) copying down in hasty and often inexact +expressions any idea which struck him in the course of his reading. This +vast collection of European thoughts, which only remains in remnants at +the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, was the reservoir, so to speak, +from which his creative genius continually fed itself. Profoundly German +in race and character, he had become a world citizen, like his +compatriot Leibnitz, whom he had known at Hanover, a European with a +tendency for the Latin culture. The great Germans at the end of that +century, Goethe and Herder, were never more free, or more universal, +than this great Saxon in music, saturated as he was with all the +artistic thoughts of the West. + +He drew not only from the sources of learned and refined music--the +music of musicians; but also drank deeply from the founts of popular +music--that of the most simple and rustic folk.[288] He loved the +latter. One finds noted down in his manuscripts the street cries of +London, and he once told a friend that he received many inspirations for +his best airs from them.[289] Certain of his oratorios, like _L'Allegro +ed Il Penseroso_, are threaded with remembrances of his walks in the +English country, and who can ignore the _Pifferari_ (Italian peasant's +pipe) in _The Messiah_, the Flemish carillon in _Saul_, the joyous +popular Italian songs in _Hercules_, and in _Alexander Balus_? Handel +was not an artist lost in introspection. He watched all around him, he +listened, and observed. Sight was for him a source of inspiration, +hardly of less importance than hearing. I do not know any great German +musician who has been as much a visual as Handel. Like Hasse and +Corelli, he had a veritable passion for beautiful pictures. He hardly +ever went out without going to a theatre or to a picture sale. He was a +connoisseur, and he made a collection, in which some Rembrandts[290] +were found after his death. It has been remarked that his blindness +(which should have rendered his hearing still more sensitive, his +creative powers translating everything into sonorous dreams) soon +paralysed his hearing when its principal source of renewal was +withdrawn. + +Thus, saturated in all the European music of his time, impregnated with +the music of musicians, and the still richer music which flows in all +Nature herself, which is specially diffused in the vibrations of light +and shade, that song of the rivers, of the forest, of the birds, in +which all his works abound, and which have inspired some of his most +picturesque pages with a semi-romantic colour,[291] he wrote as one +speaks, he composed as one breathes. He never sketched out on paper in +order to prepare his definite work. He wrote straight off as he +improvised, and in truth he seems to have been the greatest improviser +that ever was. Whether extemporising on the organ at the midday services +in St. Paul's Cathedral, or playing the _capriccios_ during the +_entr'actes_ of his oratorios at Covent Garden--or improvising on the +clavier in the orchestra at the opera, at Hamburg or in London, or "when +he accompanied the singers in a most marvellous fashion, adapting +himself to their temperament and virtuosity, without having any written +notes," he astounded the connoisseurs of his time; and Mattheson, who +may hardly be suspected of any indulgence towards him, proclaimed that +he had no equal in this. One can truly say that "he improvised every +minute of his life." He wrote his music with such an impetuosity of +feeling, and such a wealth of ideas, that his hand was constantly +lagging behind his thoughts, and in order to keep pace with them at all +he had to note them down in an abbreviated manner.[292] But (and this +seems contradictory) he had at the same time an exquisite sense of form. +No German surpassed him in the art of writing beautiful, melodic lines. +Mozart and Hasse alone were his equals in this. It was to this love of +perfection that we attribute that habit which, despite his fertility of +invention, causes him to use time after time, the same phrases (those +most important, and dearest to him) each time introducing an +imperceptible change, a light stroke of the pencil, which renders them +more perfect. The examination of these kinds of musical _eaux-fortes_ in +their successive states is very instructive for the musician who is +interested in plastic beauty.[293] It shows also how certain melodies, +once written down, continued to slumber in Handel's mind for many years, +until they had penetrated his subconscious nature, were applied at +first, by following the chances of his inspiration, to a certain +situation, which suited them moderately well. They are, so to speak, in +search of a body where they can reincarnate themselves, seeking the true +situation, the real sentiment of which they are but the latent +expression; and once having found it, they expand themselves with +ease.[294] + +Handel worked no less with the music of other composers than with his +own. If one had the time to study here what superficial readers have +called his plagiarisms, particularly taking, for example, _Israel in +Egypt_, where the most barefaced of these cases occur, one would see +with what genius and insight Handel has evoked from the very depths of +these musical phrases, their secret soul, of which the first creators +had not even a presentiment. It needed his eye, or his ear, to discover +in the serenade of Stradella its Biblical cataclysms. Each read and +heard a work of art as it is, and yet not as it is; and one may conclude +that it is not always the creator himself who has the most fertile idea +of it. The example of Handel well proves this. Not only did he create +music, but very often he created that of others for them. Stradella and +Erba were only for him (however humiliating the comparison) the flames +of fire, and the cracks in the wall, through which Leonardo saw the +living figures. Handel heard great storms passing through the gentle +quivering of Stradella's guitar.[295] + +This evocatory character of Handel's genius should never be forgotten. +He who is satisfied with listening to this music without _seeing_ what +it expresses--who judges this art as a purely formal art, who does not +feel his expressive and suggestive power, occasionally so far as +hallucination, will never understand it. It is a music which paints +emotions, souls, and situations, to see the epochs and the places, which +are the framework of the emotions, and which tint them with their own +peculiar moral tone. In a word, his is an art essentially picturesque +and dramatic. It is scarcely twenty to thirty years since the key to it +was found in Germany, thanks to the Handel Musical Festivals. As Heuss +says, concerning a recent performance at Leipzig, "For a proper +comprehension no master more than Handel has greater need of being +performed, and _well_ performed. One can study J. S. Bach at home, and +enjoy it even more than at a good concert, but he who has never heard +Handel well performed can with difficulty imagine what he really is, for +really good performances of Handel are excessively rare." The intimate +sense of his works was falsified in the century which followed his death +by the English interpretations, strengthened further still in Germany by +those of Mendelssohn, and his numerous following. By the exclusion of +and systematic contempt for all the operas of Handel, by an elimination +of nearly all the dramatic oratorios, the most powerful and the +freshest, by a narrow choice more and more restrained to the four or +five oratorios, and even here, by giving an exaggerated supremacy to +_The Messiah_, by the interpretation finally of these works, and notably +of _The Messiah_ in a pompous, rigid, and stolid manner, with an +orchestra and choir far too numerous and badly balanced, with singers +frightfully correct and pious, without any feeling or intimacy, there +has been established that tradition which makes Handel a church +musician after the style of Louis XIV, all decoration--pompous columns, +noble and cold statues, and pictures by Le Brun. It is not surprising +that this has reduced works executed on such principles, and degraded +them to a monumental tiresomeness similar to that which emanates from +the bewigged Alexanders, and the very conventional Christs of Le Brun. + +It is necessary to turn back. Handel was never a church musician, and he +hardly ever wrote for the church. Apart from his _Psalms_ and his _Te +Deum_, composed for the private chapels, and for exceptional events, he +only wrote instrumental music for concerts and for open-air _fetes_, for +operas, and for those so-called oratorios, which were really written for +the theatre. The first oratorios he composed were really acted: _Acis +and Galatea_ in May, 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, with scenery, +decoration, and costumes, under the title of _English Pastoral +Opera--Esther_, in February, 1732, at the Academy of Ancient Music after +the manner of the Grecian tragedy, the chorus being placed behind the +stage and the orchestra. And if Handel resolutely abstained from +theatrical representation[296]--which alone gives the full value to +certain scenes, such as the orgie and the dream of Belshazzar, expressly +conceived for acting--on the other hand he stood out firmly for having +his oratorios at the theatre and not in the church. There were not +wanting churches any less than dissenting chapels in which he could give +his works, and by not doing so he turned against him the opinion of +religious people who considered it sacrilegious to carry pious subjects +on to the stage,[297] but he continued to affirm that he did not write +compositions for the church, but worked for the theatre--a free +theatre.[298] + +This briefly dramatic character of Handel's works has been well +comprehended by the German historians who have studied him during recent +times. Chrysander compares him to Shakespeare,[299] Kretzschmar calls +him the reformer of musical drama, Volbach and A. Heuss see in him a +dramatic musician, and claim for the performance of his oratorios +dramatic singers. Richard Strauss, in his introduction to Berlioz's +_Treatise of Orchestration_, opposes the great polyphonic and symphonic +stream issuing from J. S. Bach with that homophonic and dramatic one +which comes from Handel. We hope that the readers of this little book +have found here in nearly all these pages a confirmation of these ideas. + + * * * * * + +It remains for us, after having attempted to indicate the general +characteristics of Handel's art, to sketch the technique of the +different styles in which he worked. + +To speak truly, it is difficult to speak of the opera or of the oratorio +of Handel. It is necessary to say: _of the operas or of the oratorios_, +for we do not find that they point back to any single type. We can +verify here what we said at the commencement of this chapter, about the +magnificent vitality of Handel in choosing amongst his art forms the +different directions of the music of his times. + +All the European tendencies at that time are reflected in his operas: +the model of Keiser in his early works, the Venetian model in his +_Agrippina_, the model of Scarlatti and Steffani in his first early +operas; in the London works he soon introduces English influences, +particularly in the rhythms. Then it was Bononcini whom he rivalled. +Again, those great attempts of genius to create a new musical drama, +_Giulio Cesare_, _Tamerlano_, _Orlando_; later on, those charming +ballet-operas inspired by France, _Ariodante_, _Alcina_; later still, +those operas which point towards the _opera comique_ and the light style +of the second half of the century, _Serse Deidamia_.... Handel continued +to try every other style, without making any permanent choice as did +Gluck, with whom alone he can be compared. + +Without doubt (and it is his greatest fault in the theatre) he was +constrained by the conventions of the Italian Opera at tunes and by the +composition of his troupe of singers to overlook his choruses, and to +write operas for solo voices, of which the principal _roles_ were cast +for the Prima Donna and for the contralto,[300] but whenever he could, +he wrote his operas with choruses, like _Ariodante_, _Alcina_, and he +only owed it to himself that he did not give to the tenor or to the bass +their place in the concert of voices.[301] If it was not possible to +break the uniformity of the solo voices by the addition of choruses, +still he enlivened these solos by the flexibility and the variety of his +instrumental accompaniments. Such of his most celebrated airs, as the +Garden scene in _Rinaldo_, "_Augelletti che cantate_," are only in truth +an orchestral tone picture. The voice mingles itself only as an +instrument,[302] and with what art Handel always decides his melodies in +disengaging the beautiful lines, drawing all the parts possible in pure +tone colours from single instruments, and from the voice isolated,--then +united,--and what of his silences! + +The appeal of his melodies is much more varied than one usually +believes. If the _Da Capo_ form abounds in his works,[303] it is +necessary to admit that it was practically the only one of that period. +In _Almira_, Handel uses the form of a little strophic song, very +happily. For this, Keiser supplied him with models, and he never +renounces the use of these little melodies, so simple and touching, +almost bare, which speak direct to the soul. He seems to return to them +even with special predilection in his last operas, _Atalanta_, +_Giustina_, _Serse_, _Deidamia_.[304] He gives also to Hasse and to +Graun the model of his six cavatinas, airs in two parts,[305] which they +later on brought into prominence. We find his dramatic airs also have +the second part and the repeat.[306] + +Even in the _Da Capo_, however, he gives us a variety of forms! Not only +does Handel use all styles, but how well does he blend the voices with +the instruments in those airs of great brilliance and free +virtuosity![307] With what predilection does he ply all these beautiful +and learned contrapuntal tissues, as in the _Cara sposa_ from _Rinaldo_ +or the _Ombra cara_ from _Radamisto_; but he ever seeks new combinations +for the old form. He was one of the first to adopt the little Airs _da +capo_, which with Bononcini seems to have been so much the fashion at +the commencement of the eighteenth century, and of which _Agrippina_ and +_Ottone_ furnish such delightful examples.[308] To the second part of +the air he gave a different character and movement from that of the +first part.[309] Still further, in either of the parts several +movements were combined.[310] Sometimes the second part was +recitative,[311] or it was extremely condensed.[312] When Handel had +choruses at his disposal in his oratorios, he often entrusted the _Da +Capo_ to the Chorus.[313] He went further: in _Samson_, after Micah has +sung in the second act the first two parts of the air "Return, O God of +Hosts," the chorus takes up the second part at the same time as Micah +returns to the first part. Finally he attempts to divide the _Da Capo_ +between two characters, thus in the second act of _Saul_, Jonathan's +solo "Sin not, O King, against the youth," is followed by Saul's solo, +then appearing note for note. + +But the most glorious feat of Handel in vocal solos is the "recitative +scene." + +It was Keiser who taught him the art of those moving _recitative-ariosi_ +with orchestra, which he had already used in _Almira_, and of which, +later on, J. S. Bach was to take from him the style. He never ceased to +employ it in his London operas, and he gave the form a superb amplitude. +They are not merely isolated recitatives or preambles to an extended +solo.[314] The story of Caesar in the third act of _Giulio Cesare, +Dall'ondoso periglio_ is one large musical picture, which expresses in +its frame a symphonic prelude, a recitative, the two first parts of an +air over the symphonic accompaniment of the opening, a second +recitative, then the _Da Capo_. The scene of Bajazet's death in the last +act of _Tamerlano_ is composed of a series of recitatives with +orchestra, and of airs joined together, and passes through all the +nuances of feeling, forming from one stage to the other a veritable +ladder of life. The scene of Admetes' agony at the opening of the opera +of the same name equals in profundity, emotion, and dramatic liberty, +the finest recitative scenes of Gluck. The "mad scene" in +_Orlando_,[315] and that of Dejanira's despair in the third act of +_Hercules_, surpasses them in boldness of realism, and frenetic passion. +In the first, burlesque and tragic elements commingle with a truly +Shakespearean art. The second is a mighty foaming river, raging with +fury and grief. Neither of these two scenes have any analogy in the +whole of the musical theatre of the eighteenth century. And _Teseo_, +_Rodelinda_, _Alessandro_, _Alcina_, _Semele_, _Joseph_, _Alexander +Balus_, _Jephtha_, all present recitative scenes, or combinations in the +same scene of recitatives and very free airs, with instrumental +interludes, no less original. Finally a sort of presentiment of the +_leit-motiv_, and its psychological employment in _Belshazzar_, should +be noticed, where certain instrumental phrases and recitatives seem +attached to the character of Nitocris.[316] + + * * * * * + +The study of Handel's recitatives and airs raises perhaps the greatest +problem of artistic interpretation--that of vocal ornamentation. + +We know that Handelian singers used to decorate his melodies with graces +and melismatic figures, and cadenzas (often very considerable) which +have disappeared for the greater part. Chrysander, in editing Handel's +works, found them given as alternatives, and either suppressed them +(those which were false to the historic sense of the text) or else +rewrote them himself. It was in this last point that he stopped short of +all possible guarantees of exactness, or at least of true resemblance. +But his revisions found few supporters, and a discussion on his +treatment of this subject has been recently raised amongst German +musical writers.[317] This debate, the examination of which cannot be +entered into in this volume, authorised, it seems, the following +conclusions: + + (1) The vocal ornaments were not improvised and left to the fancy + of the singer, as is often asserted, but they were marked with + precise indications in the singer's parts, and also in the score of + the accompanying clavecinist:[318] + + (2) They were not mere caprices of empty virtuosity but the result + of a reflective virtuosity, and subject to the general style of the + piece. They served to accentuate more deeply the expression of the + principal melodic lines.[319] + +Yet what would be the advantage of restoring these ornaments? Our taste +has changed since then, and a stricter reverence forbids us to risk +tampering with works of the past by following slavishly such details of +tradition and habit which have become meaningless and old-fashioned. Is +it better to impose on the public of to-day the older works with all +their marks of age improved away by the learning of later +generations--or to adapt them soberly in the manner of true feeling, so +as to enable them to continue to exercise on us their elevating power? +Both sides have been well supported.[320] For myself I consider the +first proposition bears on the publication of the scores, and the second +on the musical renderings. The mind ought to seek and find out exactly +what used to be the case, but when this is done the living are justified +in claiming their rights, and by being allowed to reject ancient usages, +only preserving such as render these works of genius truly vital. + + * * * * * + +The vocal ensemble pieces hold a much humbler place in Italian Opera, +and Handel has made fewer innovations on this ground than in the vocal +solo. However, one finds some very interesting experiments here. His +duets are often written in an imitative style, serious and rather sad, +in the old Italian school of Provenzale and Steffani,[321] or in the +Lully style, where the two voices mingle together note by note with +exactitude.[322] But _Atalanta_ and _Poro_ furnish us also with duets of +an alluring freedom and uncommon artistry. And in the duet in the third +act of _Orlando_, Handel attempts to differentiate the characters of the +weeping Angelica and the furious Roland.--Similarly with the trios +written in the strict style of imitation, like that in _Alcina_, Act +III, the trio in _Acis and Galatea_ carefully defines the couple of +lovers from the colossal figure of Polyphemus, the trio in _Tamerlano_ +contrasts the exasperated Tamerlano with Bajazet and with Asteria, who +aggravated him, and the trio in the judgment of Solomon distinguishes +the three diverse characters: the calm power of Solomon, the aggressive +cries of the wicked mother, and the sorrowful supplications of the good +mother. The trio from _Susanna_ is no less free, but in the humorous +style: one of the two old men madrigalises whilst the other menaces. The +_ensemble_ forms altogether a most vivid little scene which Mozart +himself would not have disowned.[323] Quartets are rare. There are two +little ones in the _Triumph of Time_, written in Rome. In _Radamisto_ +Handel made the attempt at a dramatic quartet, but rather clumsily, and +with repeated _Da Capo_.[324] The most moving quartet is found in the +second act of _Jephtha_. It is in _Jephtha_ also, Act III, where the +only quintet which he wrote is to be found. + +The choruses in the Italian opera of the eighteenth century[325] were +reduced to a rudimentary stage, and they consist merely of the union of +the voices of soloists at the end of a piece, with certain banal and +brilliant acclamations during the course of the action. Notwithstanding +this, Handel wrote some stronger ones in _Alcina_; those of _Giulio +Cesare_, _Ariodante_, and _Atalanta_, were also exceptional in the +operas of his time. So with the final choruses Handel arranged after a +fashion to escape from the current banality: that of _Tamerlano_ is +written in a melancholy dramatic vein; that of _Orlando_ strives to +preserve the individual character of their personality; that of _Giulio +Cesare_ is tacked on to a duet. There are also choruses of people; the +Matelots in _Giustino_; that of the hunters in _Deidamia_, where the +choruses take up the refrain from the air announced by the solo voice. +It is the same in _Alessandro_, where the soldiers' chorus repeats +Alessandro's hymn, slightly curtailed. + +Finally, Handel frequently attempted to build up great musical +architecture, raising it by successive stages from solos to ensemble +pieces, and then to choruses. At the end of the first act of +_Ariodante_, a duet (gavotte style) is taken up by the chorus, then +danced without voices; finally sung and danced. The close of Act III +from the same opera gives us a chain of processions, dances, and +choruses. The final scenes of _Alessandro_ constitute a veritable opera +_finale_, 2 duets and a trio running into a chorus. + +But it is in his oratorios that Handel attempted these ensemble vocal +combinations on the larger scale, and principally that mixture of +movements where the powerful contrasts of soli and chorus are grouped +together in the same picture. + +One sees what a variety of forms and styles he used. Handel was too +universal and too objective to believe that one kind of art only was the +true one. He believed in two kinds of music only, the good and the bad. +Apart from that he appreciated all styles. Thus he has left masterpieces +in every style, but he did not open any new way in opera for the simple +reason that he went a long way in nearly all paths already opened up. +Constantly he experimented, invented, and always with his singularly +sure touch. He seemed to have an extraordinary penetrating knowledge in +invention, and consequently few artistic regions remained for him to +conquer. He made as masterly a use of the recitative as Gluck, or of the +_arioso_ as Mozart, writing the acts of _Tamerlano_, which are the +closest and most heartrending dramas, in the manner of _Iphigenie en +Tauride_, the most moving and passionate scenes in music such as certain +pages of _Admeto_ and _Orlando_, where the humorous and tragic are +intermingled in the manner of _Don Giovanni_. He has experimented very +happily here in new rhythms.[326] There were new forms, the dramatic +duet or quartet, the descriptive symphony opening the opera,[327] +refined orchestration,[328] choruses and dances.[329] Nothing seems to +have obsessed him. In the following opera we find him returning to the +ordinary forms of the Italian or German opera of his time. + + * * * * * + +Still less can we say that he held to a rigid form with his operas, +which were continually adapted to the changing tastes of the theatre +public of his age, and of the singers which he had at his disposal, but +when he left the opera for the oratorio he varied no less. It was a +perpetual experiment of new forms in the vast framework of the free +theatre (_theatre en liberte_) of the concert drama; and the sort of +instinctive ebb and flow in creation seems to have caused his works to +succeed one another in groups of analogous or related compositions, each +work in a nearly opposite style of feeling and form. In each one Handel +indulged momentarily in a certain side of his feelings, and when that +was finished he found himself in the possession of other feelings which +had been accumulating whilst he was drawing on his first. He thus kept +up a perpetual balance, which is like the pulsation of life itself. +After the realistic _Saul_ comes the impersonal epic of _Israel in +Egypt_. After this colossal monument appear the two little _genre_ +pictures, _The Ode to Cecilia_ and _L'Allegro ed Penseroso_. After the +Herculean _Samson_, an heroic and popular tragic comedy sprang forth, +the charming flower of _Semele_, an opera of romanticism and gallantry. + +But if the oratorios are so wonderfully varied they have one +characteristic in common even more than the operas, they are musical +dramas. It was not that religious thought turned Handel to this choice +of Biblical subjects, but as Kretzschmar has well shown, it was on +account of the stories of the Bible heroes being a part of the very +life-blood of the people whom he addressed. They were known to all, +whilst the ancient romantic stories could only interest a society of +refined and spoilt _dilettanti_. Without doubt, these oratorios were not +made for representation, did not seek scenic effects, with rare +exceptions, as for instance the scene of the orgy of _Belshazzar_, where +one feels that Handel had drawn on the direct vision of theatrical +representation, but passions, spirits, and personalities were +represented always in a dramatic fashion. Handel is a great painter of +characters, and the Delilah in _Samson_, the Nitocris in _Belshazzar_, +the Cleopatra in _Alexander Balus_, the mother in _Solomon_, the +Dejanira in _Hercules_, the beautiful Theodora, all bear witness to the +suppleness and the profundity of his psychological genius. If in the +course of the action, and the depicting of the ordinary sentiments, he +abandoned himself freely to the flow of pure music, in the moments of +passionate crises he is the equal of the greatest masters in musical +drama. Is it necessary to mention the terrible scenes in the third act +of _Hercules_, the beautiful scenes of _Alexander Balus_, the Dream of +_Belshazzar_, the scenes of _Juno_ and the death of _Semele_, the +recognition of Joseph and his brothers, the destruction of the temple in +Samson, the second act of _Jephtha_, the prison scenes in _Theodora_, or +in the first act of _Saul_, and dominating all, like great pictures, +certain of the choruses in _Israel in Egypt_, in _Esther_, and in +_Joshua_, and in the _Chandos Anthems_, which seem veritable tempests of +passion, great upheavals of overpowering effect? It is by these choruses +that the oratorio is essentially distinguished from the opera. It is in +the first place a choral tragedy. These choruses, which are nearly +eliminated in Italian Opera during the time of the Barberini, held a +very important place in French Opera, but their _role_ was limited to +that of commentator or else merely decorative. In the oratorio of Handel +they became the very life and soul of the work. Sometimes they took the +part of the ancient classical chorus, which exposed the thought of the +drama when the hidden fates led on the heroes to their destinies--as in +_Saul_, _Hercules_, _Alexander Balus_, _Susanna_. Sometimes they added +to the shock of human passions the powerful appeal of religion, and +crowned the human drama with a supernatural aureole, as in _Theodora_ +and _Jephtha_. Or finally they became the actual actors themselves, or +the enemy-people and the God who guided them. It is remarkable that in +his very first oratorio _Esther_, Handel had this stroke of genius. In +the choruses there we see the drama of an oppressed people and their God +who led them by his voice superbly depicted. In _Deborah_ and _Athaliah_ +also, two nations are in evidence. In _Belshazzar_ there are three, but +in his chief work of this kind, _Israel in Egypt_, the greatest choral +epic which exists, is entirely occupied by Jehovah and His people. + +The choruses are in the most diverse styles. Some are in the church +style, and a little antiquated;[330] others tend towards the opera--even +the _opera bouffe_;[331] some exhale the perfume of the madrigals at the +end of the sixteenth century,[332] and the Academy of Ancient Music in +London sought to sustain this art in honour. On the other hand, Handel +has frequently used them in the form of a chorale, simple or +varied,[333] above all, he employs the choral double fugue in a most +astounding manner,[334] and he carries everything on with that +impetuosity of genius which drew to him the admiration of the sternest +critics of his time, such as Mattheson. His instinct as a great +constructor loved to alternate homophonic music with fugal +choruses,[335] the massive columns of musical harmony with the moving +contrapuntal in superimposed strata, very cleverly framing his dramatic +choruses in a most imposing architecture of decorative and impersonal +character. His choruses are sometimes tragic scenes,[336] or comedy (see +the _Vaudeville_),[337] sometimes _genre_ pictures.[338] Handel knew +most admirably how to weave in popular motives,[339] or to mingle the +dance with the song.[340] + +But what belongs chiefly to him--not that he invented it, but made the +happiest use of it--is the musical architecture of solo and chorus +alternating and intermingled. Purcell and the French composers had given +him this idea. He attempted it in his earliest religious works, +especially in his _Birthday Ode for Queen Anne_, 1713, where nearly +every solo air is taken up again by the following chorus.[341] He had a +great feeling for light and pleased himself by introducing in the middle +of his choral masses, solo songs which soared up into the air like +birds.[342] His dramatic genius knew, when required, how to draw from +this combination the most astounding effects. Thus in the _Passion after +Brockes_, 1716, where the dialogue of the Daughter of Sion and the +chorus _Eilt ihr angefochten Seelen_, with its questions, its responses, +its AEschylian interjections, served as Bach's model for his St. Matthew +Passion. At the end of _Israel in Egypt_, after those great choral +mountains of sounds, by an ingenious contrast a female voice is heard +alone without accompaniment, and then a hymn alternating with the chorus +which repeats it. It is the same again at the end of the little short +_Ode to St. Cecilia_. + +In the _Occasional Oratorio_ a duet for Soprano and Alto alternates with +the choruses, but it is in _Judas Maccabaeus_ where he best achieves this +combination of solos and the chorus. In this victorious epic of an +invaded people, who rose up and overcame their oppressors, the +individualities are scarcely distinguished from the heroic soul of the +nation, and the chiefs of the people are only the choralists, whose +songs set dancing the enormous ensembles which unfold themselves in +powerful and irresistible progressions, like a giant's procession up a +triumphal staircase. + +It follows then that when the orchestra is added to the dialogue of +solos and of choruses, the third element enters into the psychological +drama, sometimes in apparent opposition to the two others. Thus in the +second act of _Judas Maccabaeus_ the orchestra which sounds the battle +calls makes a vivid contrast to the somewhat funereal choruses on which +they are interposed: _We hear the pleasing dreadful call_, or to put it +better, they complete them, and fill in the picture. After Death--Glory. + +The oratorio being a "free theatre," it becomes necessary for the music +to supply the place of the scenery. Thus its picturesque and descriptive +_role_ is strongly developed and it is by this above all that Handel's +genius so struck the English public. Camille Saint-Saens wrote in an +interesting letter to C. Bellaigue,[343] "I have come to the conclusion +that it is the picturesque and descriptive side, until then novel and +unreached, whereby Handel achieved the astonishing favour which he +enjoyed. This masterly way of writing choruses, of treating the fugue, +had been done by others. What really counts with him is the colour--that +modern element which we no longer hear in him.... He knew nothing of +exotism. But look at _Alexander's Feast_, _Israel in Egypt_, and +especially _L'Allegro ed Penseroso_, and try to forget all that has been +done since. You find at every turn a striving for the picturesque, for +an effect of imitation. It is real and very intense for the medium in +which it is produced, and it seems to have been unknown hitherto." + +Perhaps Saint-Saens lays too much weight on the "masterly way of writing +his choruses," which was not so common in England, even with Purcell. +Perhaps he accentuates too much also the real influence of the French in +matters of picturesque and descriptive music and the influence which it +exerted on Handel.[344] Finally, it is not necessary to represent these +descriptive tendencies of Handel as exceptional in his time. A great +breath of nature passed over German music, and pushed it towards +tone-painting. Telemann was, even more than Handel, a painter in music, +and was more celebrated than Handel for his realistic effects. But the +England of the eighteenth century had remained very conservative in +music, and had devoted itself to cultivating the masters of the past. +Handel's art was then more striking to them on account of "its colour" +and "its imitative effects." I will not say with Saint-Saens that "there +was no question of exotism with him," for Handel seems to have sought +this very thing more than once; notably in the orchestration of certain +scenes for the two Cleopatras, of _Giulio Cesare_, and of _Alexander +Balus_. But that which was constantly with him was tone-painting, the +reproduction through passages of music of natural impressions, a +painting very characterised, and, as Beethoven put it, "more an +expression of feelings than of painting," a poetic evocation of the +raging tempests, of the tranquillity of the sea, of the dark shades of +night, of the twilight which envelops the English country, of the parks +by moonlight, of the sunrise in springtime, and of the awakening of +birds. _Acis and Galatea_, _Israel in Egypt_, _Allegro_, _The Messiah_, +_Semele_, _Joseph_, _Solomon_, _Susanna_, all offer a wondrous picture +gallery of nature, carefully noted by Handel with the sure stroke of a +Flemish painter, and of a romantic poet at the same time. This +romanticism struck powerfully on his time with a strength which would +not be denied. It drew upon him both admiration and violent criticism. A +letter of 1751 depicts him as a Berlioz or Wagner, raising storms by +his orchestra and chorus. + +"He cannot give people pleasure after the proper fashion," writes this +anonymous author in his letter, "and his evil genius will not allow him +to do this. He imagines a new _grandioso_ kind of music, and in order to +make more noise he has it executed by the greatest number of voices and +instruments which one has ever heard before in a theatre. He thinks thus +to rival not only the god of musicians, but even all the other gods, +like Ioele, Neptune, and Jupiter: for either I expected that the house +would be brought down by his tempest, or that the sea would engulf the +whole. But more unbearable still was his thunder. Never have such +terrible rumblings fallen on my head."[345] + +Similarly Goethe, irritated and upset, said, after having heard the +first movement of the Beethoven C Minor symphony, "It is meaningless. +One expected the house to fall about one's ears." + +It is not by chance that I couple the names of Handel and Beethoven. +Handel is a kind of Beethoven in chains. He had the unapproachable +manner like the great Italian artists who surrounded him: the Porporas, +the Hasses, and between him and them there was a whole world.[346] +Under the classic ideal with which he covered himself burned a romantic +genius, precursor of the _Sturm und Drang_ period; and sometimes this +hidden demon broke out in brusque fits of passion--perhaps despite +himself. + + * * * * * + +Handel's instrumental music deserves very close notice: for it is nearly +always wrongly assessed by historians, and badly understood by artists, +who treat it for the most part as a merely formal art. + +Its chief characteristic is that of a perpetual improvisation. If it was +published, it was more in spite of Handel than at his instigation.[347] +It was not made to be played and judged coldly, but to be produced at +white heat to the public. They were free sketches, in which the form was +never completely tightened up, but remained always moving and living, +modifying itself at the concert, as the two sensibilities--the artist +and the public--came into touch with one another.[348] It is necessary +then to preserve in this music a certain measure of the character of +living improvisation. What we too often do, on the contrary, is to +petrify them. One cannot say that they are a caricature of the work of +Handel. They are rather a negation of it. When one studies with a minute +care every detail of the work, when one has attained from the orchestra +a precision of attack, an ensemble, a justness, an irreproachable +finish, we have yet done nothing more than raise up the mere figure of +this genial improvisator. + +Further, there is with his instrumental music, as with his vocal music, +nearly always an intimate and picturesque expression. For Handel, as +with his friend Geminiani, "the aim of instrumental music is not only to +please the ear, but to express the sentiments, the emotions, to paint +the feelings."[349] It reflects not only the interior world, but it also +turns to the actual spectacle of things.[350] It is a precise poetry, +and if one cannot define the sources of his inspiration, one can often +find in certain of his instrumental works the souvenir of days and +journeys, and of scenes visited and experienced by Handel. It was here +that he was visibly inspired by Nature.[351] + +Others have a relationship with vocal and dramatic works. Certain of the +heroic fugues in the fourth book of the Clavier pieces published in 1735 +were taken up again by Handel in his _Israel in Egypt_ and clothed with +words which agreed precisely with their hidden feeling. The first +_Allegro_ from the Fourth Organ Concerto (the first book appeared in +1738) soon became shortly afterwards one of the prettiest of the +choruses in _Alcina_. The second and monumental concerto for two horns +in F Major[352] is a reincarnation of some of the finest pages from +_Esther_. It was quite evident to the public of his time that the +instrumental works had an expressive meaning, or that as Geminiani +wrote, "all good music ought to be an imitation of a fine discourse." +Thus the publisher Walsh was justified in issuing his six volumes of +Favourite Airs from Handel's operas and oratorios, arranged as _Sonatas +for the flute, violin, and harpsichord_, and Handel himself, or his +pupil, W. Babell, arranged excellently for the clavier, some suites of +airs from the operas, binding them together with preludes, interludes, +and variations.--It is necessary always to keep in view this intimate +relation of the instrumental works of Handel with the rest of his music. +It ought to draw our attention more and more to the expressive contents +of these works. + + * * * * * + +The instrumental music of Handel divides itself into three classes: +firstly--music for the clavier (the clavecin and organ); +secondly--chamber music (sonatas and trios); thirdly--orchestral music. +The compositions for clavier are the most popular works of any that +Handel wrote, and these have achieved the greatest number of European +editions. Although they comprise three volumes, yet there is only one, +the first, which represents him properly, for it is the only one which +he prepared himself, and supervised. The others, more or less +fraudulently published, misrepresent him. + +This First Volume, published in November, 1720, under the French title +_Suites_, etc., affords us the means of appreciating the two most +striking of Handel's traits: his precocious maturity, which hardly +developed at all in the course of time; and the European universality of +character which distinguished his art even at an epoch when the great +artists were less national than they are to-day. For the first trait one +would remark in fine that these Clavier Pieces published in 1720 had +already been written some time, certainly before 1700. One discovers a +part of them in the _Jugendbuch_ of the Lennard Collection.[353] Others +come from _Almira_, 1705. Naturally Handel enlarged and revised, and +carefully grouped all these pieces in his edition of 1720. The interest +of the _Jugendbuch_ is chiefly that it shows us the first sketches of +the pieces, and how Handel perfected them. Side by side with the oldest +pieces there are others more recent, composed, it may be, in Italy or in +England.[354] One can trace in these pages the course of the different +influences. Seiffert and Fleischer have noted some of them,[355] German +influences, French, and Italian.[356] In England even, sometimes +Italian elements, sometimes German, predominated with him.[357] The +order of the dances varies in each Suite, and also the central point, +the kernel of the work. The introductory pieces are sometimes preludes, +sometimes fugues, overtures, etc. The dances and the airs are sometimes +related to one another, and sometimes independent, and nevertheless the +prevailing impression of the work, so varied in its texture, is its +complete unity. The personality of Handel holds it all together and +welds the most diverse elements--polyphony and richness of German +harmony, Italian homophony, and Scarlattian technique, the French rhythm +and ornamentation[358] with English directness and practicability. Thus +the work made its impression on the times. Before this time, there had +perhaps been more original volumes of pieces for the clavier, but their +inspiration was nearly always very much circumscribed by the limits of +their national art. Handel was the first of the great German classics of +the eighteenth century. He did for music what the French writers and +philosophers of the eighteenth century did for literature. He wrote for +all and sundry, and his volume took the place on the day of its +publication which it has held since, that of a European classic. + +The following volumes are less interesting for the reasons I have given. +The Second Volume published in 1733 by Walsh, _unknown_ to Handel, and +in a very faulty manner, gives us little pieces which we find in the +_Jugendbuch_, and which date from the time of Hamburg and Halle.[359] +They lack the setting which Handel had certainly planned for them: +preludes and fugues. + +This arrangement was ready; and Handel, frustrated by this publisher, +resigned himself to publishing them later on, as an Appendix to the +preceding work: _Six Fugues or Voluntaries for the Organ or Harpsichord, +1735, Opus 3._ These fugues date from the time when Handel was at Canons +before 1720, the second in G Major was from the period of his first +sojourn in England. They became celebrated at once, and were much +circulated in manuscript even in Germany.[360] Handel had trained +himself in fugue in the school of Kuhnau, and specially with Johann +Krieger.[361] Like them he gave his Fugues an essentially melodic +character. They are so suited for singing that two of them, as we have +said, afterwards served for two choruses in the first part of +_Israel_,[362] but Handel's compositions possess a far different +vitality from that of his German forerunners. They have a charming +intrepidity, a fury, a passion, a fire which belongs only to him. In +other words they live. "All the notes talk," says Mattheson. These +fugues have the character of happy improvisations, and in truth they +were improvised. Handel calls them Voluntaries, that is fanciful and +learned caprices. He made frequent use of double fugues with a masterly +development. "Such an art rejoices the hearer and warms the heart +towards the composer and towards the executant," says Mattheson again, +who, after having heard J. S. Bach, found Handel the greater in the +composition of the double fugue and in improvisation. This habit of +Handel--one might say almost a craving--for improvising, was the origin +of the grand Organ Concertos. After the fashion of his time, Handel +conducted his operas and oratorios from the clavier. He accompanied the +singers with a marvellous art, blending himself to their fancy, and when +the singer had done, he delivered his version.[363] From the interludes +on the clavier in his operas, he passed to the fantasies or caprices on +the organ in the _entr'actes_ of his oratorios, and his success was so +great that he never again abandoned this custom. One might say that the +public were drawn to his oratorios more by his improvisations on the +organ than by the oratorios themselves. Two volumes of the Organ +Concertos were published during the lifetime of Handel, in 1738 and in +1740; the third a little after his death, in 1760.[364] To judge them +properly it is necessary to bear in mind that they were destined for +the theatre. It would be absurd to expect works in the strict, vigorous, +and involved style of J. S. Bach. They were brilliant _divertissements_, +of which the style, somewhat commonplace yet luminous and pompous, +preserves the character of oratorio improvisations, finding their +immediate effect on the great audience. "_When he gave a concerto_," +says Hawkins, "_his method in general was to introduce it with a +voluntary movement on the diapasons, which stole on the ear in a slow +and solemn progression; the harmony close wrought, and as full as could +possibly be expressed; the passages concatenated with stupendous art, +the whole at the same time being perfectly intelligible, and carrying +the appearance of great simplicity. This kind of prelude was succeeded +by the concerto itself, which he executed with a degree of spirit and +firmness that no one can ever pretend to equal_." Even at the height of +the cabal which was organised against Handel, the Grub Street Journal +published an enthusiastic poem on Handel's Organ Concertos.[365] + + "_Oh winds, softly, softly raise your golden wings among the branches!_ + _That all may be silent, make even the whisperings of Zephyrs to cease._ + _Sources of life, suspend your course...._ + _Listen, listen, Handel the incomparable plays!..._ + _Oh look, when he, the powerful man, makes the forces of the + organ resound,_ + _Joy assembles its cohorts, malice is appeased, ..._ + _His hand, like that of the Creator, conducts his noble work with + order, with grandeur and reason...._ + _Silence, bunglers in art! It is nothing here to have the favour of + great lords. Here, Handel is king._" + +It is necessary then to view these Organ Concertos in the proper sense +of magnificent concerts for a huge public.[366] Great shadows, great +lights, strong and joyous contrasts, all are conceived in view of a +colossal effect. The orchestra usually consists of two oboes, two +violins, viola, and basses (violoncellos, bassoons, and cembalo), +occasionally two flutes, some contrabassos and a harp.[367] The +concertos are in three or four movements, which are generally connected +in pairs. Usually they open with a _pomposo_, or a _staccato_, in the +style of the French overture,[368] often an _allegro_ in the same style +follows. For the conclusion, an _allegro moderato_, or an _andante_, +somewhat animated, sometimes some dances. The _adagio_ in the middle is +often missing, and is left to be improvised on the organ. The form has a +certain relation with that of the sonata in three movements, +_allegro-adagio-allegro_, preceded by an introduction. The first pieces +of these two first concertos published in Volume XLVIII of the Complete +Edition (second volume) are in a picturesque and descriptive style. The +long Concerto in F Major in the same volume has the swing of festival +music, very closely allied to the open-air style. Finally, one must +notice the beautiful experiment, unfortunately not continued, of the +Concerto for two organs,[369] and that, more astonishing still, of a +Concerto for Organ terminated by a Chorus,[370] thus opening the way for +Beethoven's fine Symphony, and to his successors, Berlioz, Liszt, and +Mahler.[371] + + * * * * * + +The chamber music of Handel proves to be of the same precocious maturity +as his clavier music. + +Six Sonatas in Trio for two oboes and harpsichord[372] appear to date +from about 1696, when he was eleven years old, and while he was still at +Halle, where he wrote as he said, "like the devil," above all for the +oboe, his favourite instrument. They are in four movements: _adagio_, +_allegro_, _adagio_, _allegro_. The slow movements are often very short, +and the second between them is sometimes a mere transition. The Sonata +for _Viola da Gamba_, and _Cembalo Concertato_ in C Major[373] probably +belongs to 1705, when Handel was at Hamburg. It is the only one of its +kind in the works of Handel, which shows him as a forerunner of Bach. +The sonata is in trio form. The clavier plays a second _obbligato_ +besides the bass part, as Seiffert notes: "Ten years before Bach worked +at his Sonatas with accompaniment for _cembalo obbligato_, Handel had +already a clear perception of their value." + +Three Sonatas for Flute and Bass,[374] of an elegiac grace, also perhaps +date from the Halle period, and according to Chrysander seem to have +been continued up to 1710 at Hanover. + +But the chief instrumental chamber works written by Handel were +published in London between 1732 and 1740, and they comprise three +volumes:[375] + + (1) Fifteen sonatas or solos for a German flute, oboe or violin, + with a thorough bass for the harpsichord, or bass violin, Op. 1. + + (2) Nine sonatas or trios for two violins, flutes, or oboes, with a + thorough bass for the harpsichord, or violoncello, Op. 2. + + (3) Seven sonatas or trios for two violins, or German flutes, with + a thorough bass for the harpsichord, or violoncello, Op. 5. + +The first volume contains very old pieces, of which some date from the +time when Handel was at Burlington and Chandos. Others might have been +intended for the Prince of Wales, whose violin teacher, John Dubourg, +was a friend of Handel, as they date from about 1730. The second volume +appeared at first in Amsterdam, afterwards in London with Walsh, under a +French title[376] in 1733. + +The third volume was composed in 1738, and published about the beginning +of 1739.[377] + +The first feature to notice in general is the want of definition in the +choice of instruments for which this music was written. Following the +same abstract aesthetic of his time, the composer left it to the players +to choose the instruments. However, there was no doubt that in the first +conception of Handel certain of these pieces were made for the flute, +others for the violin, and others for the oboe. + +In the volume Op. 1 of the solo sonatas (for the flute or oboe, or +violin) with bass (harpsichord or violoncello), the usual form is +generally in four movements:[378] _adagio_, _allegro_, _adagio_, +_allegro_. The slow pieces are very short. Several are inspired by the +airs of Italian cantatas and operas. Some of the pieces are joined +together.[379] The harmony is often thin, and requires to be filled in. + +The second and third volumes have a much greater value, containing trios +or sonatas in two parts (for two violins, or two oboes, or two +_flauti-traversi_) with Bass (harpsichord or violoncello). All the +sonatas in the second volume, with only one exception,[380] have four +movements, two slow and two fast alternatively, as in the Opus 1. +Sometimes they are inspired by the airs of the operas, or of the +oratorios; at other times they have furnished a brief sketch for them. +The elegiac _Largo_ which opens the First Sonata is found again in +_Alessandro_, the _allegro_ which finishes the Third Sonata forms one of +the movements in the overture of _Athaliah_, the larghetto of the Fourth +serves for the second movement of the _Esther_ overture. Other pieces +have been transferred to the clavier or other instrumental works, where +they are joined to other movements. The finest of these Trios are the +First and the Ninth, both of enchanting poetry. In the second movement +of the Ninth Trio, Handel has utilised very happily a popular English +theme. + +The Seven Trios from the third volume afford a much greater variety in +the style and in the number[381] of the pieces. Dances occupy a great +part.[382] They are indeed veritable Suites. They were composed in the +years when Handel was attracted by the form of ballet-opera. The +Musette and the _Allegro_ of the Second Sonata come from _Ariodante_. +Some of the other slow and pompous movements are borrowed from his +oratorios. The two _Allegri_ which open the Fourth Sonata are taken from +the Overture of _Athaliah_. On the other hand, Handel inserts in the +final movement of _Belshazzar_ the beautiful _Andante_ which opens his +First Sonata. + +Whoever wishes to judge these works historically or from the +intellectual point of view, will find, like Chrysander, that Handel has +not invented here any new forms, and, as he advanced, he returned to the +form of the Suite, which already belonged to the past, instead of +continuing on his way towards the future Sonata. But those who will +judge them artistically, for their own personal charm, will find in them +some of the purest creations of Handel, and those which best retain +their freshness. Their beautiful Italian lines, their delicate +expression, their aristocratic simplicity, are refreshing alike to the +mind and to the heart. Our own epoch, tired of the post-Beethoven and +post-Wagnerian art, can find here, as in the chamber music of Mozart, a +safe haven, where it can escape the sterile agitation of the present and +find again quiet peace and sanity. + + * * * * * + +The orchestral music of Handel comprises twelve _Concerti Grossi_ +(1740), the six Oboe Concertos (1734), the Symphonies from his operas, +oratorios, and his open-air music--Water-Music (1715 or 1717), Firework +Music (1749),--and _Concerti_ for two horns. + +Although Handel was in art a visualist, and though his music had a +highly descriptive and evocatory power, he only made a very restrained +use of instrumental tone-colour.[383] However, he showed on occasion a +refined intelligence in its use. The two oratorios written at Rome when +he found himself in the society of the Cardinal Ottoboni, and his great +_virtuoso_ works, _The Triumph of Time_ and _The Resurrection_ of 1708, +have a fine and well-varied orchestration.[384] In London he was one of +the first to introduce the use of the horn into the orchestra of the +opera.[385] "He was the first," says Volbach, "to assert the expressive +personality of the violoncello."[386] From the viola he knew how to +secure many curious effects of indefinite and disquieting +half-tones,[387] he gave to the bassoons a lugubrious and fantastic +character,[388] he experimented with new instruments, small[389] and +great,[390] he used the drum (_tambour_) solo in a dramatic fashion for +Jupiter's oath in _Semele_. For special situations, by instrumental +tone-colours, he secures effects not only of dramatic expression, but +also of exotism and local colour. It is so in the two scenes from the +two Cleopatras, _Giulio Cesare_ (1724)[391] and _Alexander Balus_ +(1748). + +But great painter as Handel was he did not work so much through the +brilliancy, variety, and novelty of his tone-colours as by the beauty of +his designs, and his effects of light and shade. With a voluntarily +restrained palette, and by satisfying himself with the sober colours of +the strings, he yet was able to produce surprising and thrilling +effects. Volbach has shown[392] that he had less recourse to the +contrast and mixing of instruments than to the division of the same +family of instruments into different groups. In the introductory piece +movement to his second _Esther_ (1732) the violins are divided into five +groups;[393] in _The Resurrection_ (1708), into four divisions;[394] the +violas are sometimes divided into two, the second being reinforced by +the third violin, or by the violoncellos.[395] On the other hand, +Handel, when he considered it advisable, reduced his instrumental forces +by suppressing the viola and the second violin, whose places were taken +by the clavecin. All his orchestral art is in the true instinct of +balance and economy, which, with the most restricted means in managing a +few colours, yet knows how to obtain as powerful impressions as our +musicians of to-day, with their crowded palette.[396] Nothing, then, is +more important, if we wish to render this music truly, than the +avoidance of upsetting the equilibrium of the various sections of the +orchestra under the pretext of enriching it and bringing it up to date. +The worse fault is to deprive it, by a useless surplus of tone-colours, +of that suppleness and subtlety of nuance which is its principal charm. + +One is prone to accept too readily the idea, that expressive nuance is a +privilege of the modern musical art, and that Handel's orchestra knew +only the great theatrical contrasts between force and sweetness, or +loudness and softness. It is nothing of the kind. The range of Handel's +nuances is extremely varied. One finds with him the _pianissimo_, the +piano, the _mezzo piano_, the _mezzo forte_, _un poco piu F_, _un poco +F_, _forte_, _fortissimo_. We never find the orchestral _crescendo_ and +_decrescendo_, which hardly appears marked expressly until the time of +Jommelli,[397] and the school of Mannheim; but there is no doubt that it +was practised long before it was marked in the music.[398] The President +of Brosses wrote in 1739 from Rome: "The voices, like the violins, used +with light and shade, with unconscious swelling of sound, which augments +the force from note to note, even to a very high degree, since its use +as a nuance is extremely sweet and touching." And endless examples occur +in Handel of long _crescendi_ and _diminuendi_ without its expression +being marked in the scores.[399] Another kind of _crescendo_ and +_diminuendo_ on the same note was very common in the time of Handel, and +his friend, Geminiani, helped to set the fashion. Volbach, and with him +Hugo Riemann,[400] has shown that Geminiani used in the later editions +of his first Violin Sonatas in 1739, and in his Violin School in 1751, +the two following signs: + +Swelling the sound [=\=] + +Diminishing (falling) the sound [=/=] + +[Illustration] + +As Geminiani explains it, "The sound ought to commence softly, and +should swell out in a gradual fashion to about half its value, then it +should diminish to the end. The movement of the bow should continue +without interruption." + +It happens thus, that by a refinement of expression, which became a +mannerism of the Mannheim school, but which also became a source of +powerful contrast with the Beethovenians, the swelling stopped short of +its aim, and was followed instead by a sudden piano, as in the following +example from the Trio Sonatas of Geminiani. + +[Illustration] + +It is more than probable that the virtuoso players of Handel's orchestra +also used this means of expression,[401] though we need not assume that +Handel used them as abundantly as Geminiani or as the Mannheim players, +whose taste had become doubtless a little affected and exaggerated. But +what is certain is that with him, as with Geminiani, and indeed with all +the great artists of his time, especially with the Italians and their +followers, music was a real discourse, and ought to be rendered with +inflections as free and as varied as natural speech.[402] + +[Illustration: HANDEL DIRECTING AN ORATORIO. + +Handel is seen (on the left) seated at a cembalo with two keyboards in +the midst of his musicians. At his right hand he has the "concertino" +group (consisting of the 'cellist, two violinists and two flautists). On +his near left (quite close to the cembalo) are the vocal soloists. The +rest of the instrumentalists are out of his sight.] + +How was it possible to realise all the suppleness and subtleties of +elocution on the orchestra? To understand this it is necessary to +examine the disposition and placing of the orchestra of that time. It +was not, as with us, centralised under the control of a single +conductor. Thus, as Seiffert tells us,[403] in Handel's time it was the +principle of decentralisation which ruled. The choruses had their +leaders, who listened to the organ, from which they took their cue, and +so sustained the voices. The orchestra was divided into three sections, +after the Italian method. Firstly, the _Concertino_, comprising a first +and a second violin, and a solo violoncello; secondly, the _Concerto +Grosso_, comprising the instrumental choir; thirdly, the _Ripienists_ +strengthening the _Grosso_.[404] + +A picture in the British Museum, representing Handel in the midst of his +musicians, depicts the composer seated at the clavier (a cembalo with +two keyboards, of which the lid is raised). He is surrounded by the +violoncellist (placed at his right-hand side), two violins and two +flutes, which are placed just before him, under his eye. The solo +singers are also near him, on his left, quite close to the clavecin. The +rest of the instrumentalists are behind him, out of his sight. Thus his +directions and his glances would control the _Concertino_, who would +transmit in their turn the chief conductor's wishes to the _Concerto +Grosso_, and they in their turn to the _Ripienists_. In place of the +quasi-military discipline of modern orchestras, controlled under the +baton of a chief conductor, the different bodies of the Handelian +orchestra governed one another with elasticity, and it was the incisive +rhythm of the little _Cembalo_ which put the whole mass into motion. +Such a method avoided the mechanical stiffness of our performances. The +danger was rather a certain wobbling without the powerful and infectious +will-power of a chief such as Handel, and without the close sympathy of +thought which was established between him and his capable sub-conductors +of the _Concertino_ and of the _Grosso_. + +It is this elasticity which should be aimed at in the instrumental works +of Handel when they are executed nowadays.[405] + + * * * * * + +We will first take his _Concerti Grossi_.[406] None of his works are +more celebrated and less understood. Handel attached to them a +particular value, for he published them himself by subscription, a means +which was usual in his day, but which he himself never adopted except +under exceptional circumstances. + +One knows that the kind of _Concerti Grossi_, which consists chiefly in +a dialogue between a group of solo instrumentalists (the _Concertino_) +and the full body of instruments (_Concerto Grosso_), to which is added +the cembalo,[407] was, if not invented, at least carried to its +perfection and rendered classical by Corelli.[408] The works of Corelli, +aided by the efforts of his followers, had become widely known in +Europe. Geminiani introduced them into England,[409] and without doubt +Handel did not hesitate to profit by the example of Geminiani, who was +his friend;[410] but it is much more natural to think that he learnt the +_Concerto Grosso_, at its source at Rome, from Corelli himself during +his sojourn there in 1708. Several of his Concertos in his Opus 3[411] +date from 1710, 1716, 1722. The same feature shows itself right up to +the time of his apprenticeship at Hamburg: in any case he might have +already known the Corellian style, thanks to the propaganda of George +Muffat, who spread this style very early in Germany.[412] After Corelli, +Locatelli,[413] and especially Vivaldi,[414] have singularly transformed +the _Concerto Grosso_ by giving it the free character of programme +music[415] and by turning it resolutely towards the form of the Sonata +in three parts. But when the works of Vivaldi were played in London in +1723, and the works which aroused such a general enthusiasm became +thoroughly known to Handel, it was always to Corelli that he gave the +preference, and he was very conservative in certain ways even about him. +The form of his Concerto, of which the principal movements varied from +four to six, oscillated between the Suite and the Sonata, and even +glanced towards the symphonic overture. It is this for which the +theorists blame him, and it is this for which I praise him. For he does +not seek to impose a uniform cast on his thoughts, but leaves it open to +himself to fashion the form as he requires, and the framework varies +accordingly, following his inclinations from day to day. The spontaneity +of his thought, which has already been shown by the extreme rapidity +with which the _Concerti_ were composed--each in a single day at a +single sitting, and many each week[416]--constitutes the great charm of +these works. They are, in the words of Kretzschmar, grand impression +pictures, translated into a form, at the same time precise and supple, +in which the least change of emotion can make itself easily felt. Truly +they are not all of equal value. Their conception itself, which depended +in a way on mere momentary inspiration, is the explanation of this +extreme inequality. One ought to acknowledge here that the Seventh +Concerto, for example (the one in B flat major), and the last three have +but a moderate interest.[417] They are amongst those least played; but +to be quite just we must pay homage to these masterpieces, and +especially to the Second Concerto in F major, which is like a +Beethovenian concerto: for we find there some of the spirit of the Bonn +master. For Kretzschmar the ensemble calls to mind a beautiful autumn +day--the morning, where the rising sun pierces its way through the +clouds--the afternoon, the joyful walk, the rest in the forest, and +finally the happy and belated return. It is difficult in fact not to +have natural scenes brought before one's eyes in hearing these works. +The first _Andante Larghetto_, which predicts, at times, the Pastoral +Symphony of Beethoven, is a reverie on a beautiful summer's day. The +spirit lulls itself with nature's murmur, becomes intoxicated with it, +and goes to rest. The tonality rocks between F major to B flat major and +G minor. To render this piece well it is necessary to give the time +plenty of play, often retarding it, and following the composer's reverie +in a spirit of soft leisurely abandon. + +[Illustration: _Andante larghetto_] + +The _Allegro_ in D minor which follows is a spirited and delicate little +play, a dialogue leaping from the two solo violins of the _Concerto_, +then on to the _Concertino_ and the _Grosso_ in turn. There, also, +certain passages in the Bass, robust, rollicking, and rustic, again +bring to mind the Pastoral Symphony. + +[Illustration: _Allegro_] + +[Illustration: _Largo_] + +The third movement, a _Largo_ in B flat major, is one of the most +intimate of Handel's instrumental pages. After seven bars of _Largo_, in +which the _Concertino_ alternates dreamily with the _Tutti_, two bars +_adagio_, languorously drawn out, cause the reverie to glide into a sort +of ecstasy, + +[Illustration: _Adagio_] + +then a _larghetto andante e piano_ breathes out a tender and melancholy +song. + +[Illustration: _Larghetto andante_] + +The _Largo_ is resumed. There is in this little poem a melancholy which +seems to revive Handel's personal remembrances.--The _allegro ma non +troppo_ with which it finishes is, on the contrary, of a jovial feeling, +entirely Beethovenish; it sings joyfully as it bounds along in +well-marked three-four time, with a _pizzicato_-like rhythm. + +[Illustration: _Allegro ma non troppo_] + +In the middle of this march a phrase occurs on the two violins of the +_Concertino_ which is like a hymn of reverent and tender gratitude. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +The Fourth Concerto in A minor is not less intimate with its _Larghetto +affettuoso_, which ought to be played with the _rubato_, _rallentando_ +and short pauses--its _allegro_ fugue, which spreads out and +over-shadows all by its powerful tread--and after a _Largo_ of antique +graveness the _allegro_ three-four which finishes is the veritable last +movement of the Beethoven sonata, romantic, capricious, passionate, and +more and more unrestrained as it approaches the end, _accelerando_ +nearly _prestissimo_,--inebriated.[418] + +[Illustration: _Allegro_] + +[Illustration] + +But one ought to know especially the Sixth Concerto in G minor, the most +celebrated of all on account of its magnificent Musette. It opens with a +beautiful _Larghetto_, full of that melancholy which is one of the +dominant sentiments with Handel, and one of the least observed by most +people: melancholy that is, in the sense of the _Malinconia_ of Duerer, +or of Beethoven--less agitated, but still profound. We have already +encountered it in the Second, in the Third, and in the Fourth +Concerto.[419] Here it is found in an elegiac monologue, punctuated by +pedal points; + +[Illustration: _Largo affettuoso_] + +then in the dialogues of the _Concertino_ and of the _Tutti_ responding, +like the groups of the ancient classical chorus. The _allegro ma non +troppo_ fugue which follows it, on a twisting chromatic theme, is of the +same sombre colour. But it is the lusty march of the disciplined fugue +which dispels the fantastic shadows. + +[Illustration: _Allegro ma non troppo_] + +Then comes the _Larghetto_, three-four time in E flat major, which +Handel calls a Musette, and which is one of the most delightful dreams +of pastoral happiness.[420] A whole day of poetic and capricious events +gradually unrolls itself over the beautiful echoing refrain, + +[Illustration: _Larghetto_] + +then the movement slackens, nearly going to sleep, then presses forward +again, acquiring a strong, joyous rhythm, a pulsating dance of robust +youths, full of bounding life. + +In the midst of this picture an episode, rustic and frolicsome, is +introduced. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: _Un poco piu allegro_] + +[Illustration] + +Then the broad subject of the Introduction recurs with its refrain of +quiet joy, nature's own smile.[421] + +Such works are truly pictures in music. To understand them it does not +suffice to have quick ears; it is necessary to have the eyes to see, and +the heart to feel.[422] + + * * * * * + +The Symphonies of the operas and oratorios of Handel are extremely +varied. Still, the Lully form predominates.[423] This form consists, as +is well known, of a first slow movement, grave, pompous, and majestic, +followed by a second (quick) movement, full of life, and usually in +fugal style, with a return to the slow movement for conclusion. It +appears in the _Almira_ of 1705, and Handel uses it with variations in +all the most celebrated works of his maturity, such as in the _Messiah_, +and _Judas Maccabaeus_, and even has recourse to it again in his last +work of all, _The Triumph of Time_ (1757), but he does not confine +himself entirely to this form alone. The _Symphonia of Roderigo_ (1707) +adds to the Lully-like overture a _Balletto_ in the Italian style, a +veritable Suite of Dances: Jig, Sarabande, Matelot, Minuet, Bourree, +Minuet, Grand Passacaille. The Overture to _The Triumph of Time_ of 1708 +is a brilliant Concerto, where the _Concertino_ and the _Grosso_ +converse in a most entertaining and graceful fashion. The Overture to +_Il Pastor Fido_, 1712, is a Suite in eight movements. That of _Teseo_, +1713, contains two Largos, each followed by a playful movement of +imitation. That of the _Passion after Brockes_, 1716, consists of a +single fugued allegro,[424] which is joined to the first chorus by the +link of a declamatory solo on the oboe.[425] The Overture to _Acis and +Galatea_, 1720, is also a single movement. The Overture to _Giulio +Cesare_, 1724, is joined on to the first chorus, which is in the form of +the third movement, the Minuet. The Overture to _Atalanta_, 1736, has a +charming sprightliness, similar to an instrumental suite for a _fete_, +like the Firework Music, of which we shall speak later. The Overture to +_Saul_, 1738, is a veritable Concerto for organ and orchestra, and the +sonata form is adopted in the first movement.--We see then a very marked +effort on the part of Handel, particularly in his youth, to vary the +form of his Overture from one work to another. + +Even when he uses the Lully type of Overture (and he seems to turn +towards it more and more in his maturity) he transforms it by the spirit +which animates it. He never allows its character to be purely +decorative. He introduces therein always expressive and dramatic +ideas.[426] If one cannot exactly call the splendid Overture to +_Agrippina_, 1709, a Concert Overture of programme music, one cannot +deny its dramatic power. The second movement bubbles with life. It is no +longer an erudite _divertissement_, a movement foreign to the action, +but it has a tragic character, and the response of the fugue is apparent +in the severe and slightly restless subject of the first piece. For +conclusion the slow movement is recalled by a solo on the oboe, which +announces it out in the pathetic manner made so well known in certain +_recitatives_ of J. S. Bach. + +[Illustration: _Adagio_] + +Many people have seen in the three movements[427] of the Overture to +_Esther_, 1720, a complete programme, which Chrysander gives thus in +detail: firstly, the wickedness of Haman; secondly, the complaints of +Israel; thirdly, the deliverance. I will content myself by saying that +the ensemble of this symphony is thoroughly in the colour and spirit of +the tragedy itself--but it is not possible to doubt that, with the +Overture of _Deborah_ and with that of _Belshazzar_ that Handel wished +to work to a complete programme; for of the four movements of the +_Deborah_ Overture, the second is repeated later on as the Chorus of the +Israelites, and the fourth as the Chorus of Baal's priests. Thus in his +very first pages he places in miniature in the Overture the duality of +the nations, whose antagonism forms the subject of the drama.[428] It +seems also true that the Overture to _Belshazzar_ aims at painting the +orgy of the feast of Sesach, and the apparition of the Divine Hand which +wrote the mystic words of fire on the wall. In every case dramatic +intentions are very evident; by the three repeats; the interrupted flow +of the orchestra is intersected by three short chords, _piano_; and, +then after the sudden silence, three bars of solemn and soft music are +heard like a religious song.[429] + +[Illustration: _Allegro_] + +[Illustration] + +We now come to our last class of Handel's instrumental music, to which +historians have given far too little attention, and in which Handel +shows himself a precursor, and at the same time a model. I refer to the +open-air music. + +This took a prominent place in the English life. The environs of London +were full of gardens, where, Pepys tells us, "vocal and instrumental +concerts vied with the voices of the birds." Concerts were given at +Vauxhall; at South Lambeth Palace on the Thames; at Ranelagh, near +Chelsea, about two miles from the city; at Marylebone Garden; and Handel +was always welcome there. From 1738 the proprietor of Vauxhall, Jonathan +Tyer, erected in its gardens a statue of Handel, and this was hardly +done when the _Concerti Grossi_ became the favourite pieces at the +concerts of Marylebone, Vauxhall, and Ranelagh. Burney tells us that he +often heard them played by numerous orchestras. Handel wrote pieces +especially intended for these garden concerts. Generally speaking, he +attached little importance to them. They were little symphonies or +unpretentious dances, like the Hornpipe, composed for the concert at +Vauxhall in 1740.[430] An anecdote related by Pohl and also by +Chrysander, shows Handel pleasantly engaged on this music, which gave +him no trouble at all. + +But he composed on these lines some works tending towards a much vaster +scale: from 1715 or 1717 the famous Water Music, written for the royal +procession of barges on the Thames,[431] and the Firework Music made to +illustrate the firework display given in Green Park on April 27, 1749, +in celebration of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.[432] + +The Water Music has a grand Serenade in the form of a suite comprising +more than twenty movements. It opens with a pompous Opera-overture; +then come some dialogues, with echoes of horns and drums, where the +brass and the rest of the orchestra, which are arranged in two sections, +respond. Then follow happy and soothing songs, dances, a Bourree, a +Hornpipe, Minuets, popular songs, which alternate and contrast with the +joyful and powerful fanfares. The orchestra is very nearly the same as +in his usual symphonies, except that considerable importance is given to +the brass. One even finds in this work certain pieces written in the +chamber-music style, or in the theatrical manner. + +With the Firework Music the character of open-air music is even more +definitely asserted, quite as much by the broad style of the piece as by +the orchestration, which is confined entirely to the wind +instruments.[433] The composition is divided into two parts: an Overture +which was to be played before the grand firework display, and a number +of little pieces to be played during the display, and which corresponded +to certain allegorical set pieces. The Overture is a sort of stately +march in D major, and has some resemblance to the Overture of the +_Ritterballet_ (Huntsman's Dance) of Beethoven, and which is, like it, +joyful, equestrian, and very sonorous. The shorter movements comprise a +Bourree, a _Largo a la Siciliana_, entitled _Peace_,[434] of a beautiful +heroic grace, which lulls itself to sleep; a very sprightly _Allegro_ +entitled _The Rejoicing_, and two Minuets for conclusion. It is an +interesting work for the organisers of our popular _fetes_ and open-air +spectacles to study.[435] If we have said that after 1740 Handel wrote +hardly any other instrumental music than the Firework Music, and the two +monumental concertos, _a due cori_ (for two horns) we have the feeling +that the last evolution of his thought and instrumental style led him in +the direction of music conceived for great masses, wide spaces, and huge +audiences. He had always in him a popular vein of thought. I immediately +call to mind the many popular inspirations with which his memory was +stored, and which vivify the pages of his oratorios. His art, which +renewed itself perpetually at this rustic source, had in his time an +astonishing popularity. Certain airs from _Ottone_, _Scipione_, +_Arianna_, _Berenice_, and such other of his operas, were circulated and +vulgarised not only in England,[436] but abroad, and even in France +(generally so unyielding to outside influences).[437] + +It is not only of this popularity, a little banal, of which I wish to +speak, which one could not ignore--for it is only a stupid pride and a +small heart which denies great value to the art which pleases humble +people;--what I wish to notice chiefly in the popular character of +Handel's music is that it is always truly conceived for the people, and +not for an _elite dilettanti_ as was the French Opera between Lully and +Gluck. Without ever departing from his sovereign ideas of beautiful +form, in which he gave no concession to the crowd, he reproduced in a +language immediately "understanded of the people" those feelings in +which all could share. This genial improvisor, compelled during the +whole of his life (a half-century of creative power) to address from the +stage a mixed public, for whom it was necessary to understand +immediately, was like the orators of old, who had the cult of style and +instinct for immediate and vital effect. Our epoch has lost the feeling +of this type of art and men: pure artists who speak _to_ the people and +_for_ the people, not for themselves or for their confreres. To-day the +pure artists lock themselves within themselves, and those who speak to +the people are most often mountebanks. The free England of the +nineteenth century was in a certain measure related to the Roman +republic, and indeed Handel's eloquence was not without relation to that +of the epic orators, who sustained in the form their highly finished and +passionate discourses, who left their mark on the shuddering crowd of +loiterers. This eloquence did on occasion actually thrust itself into +the soul of the nation as in the days of the Jacobite invasion, where +_Judas Maccabaeus_ incarnated the public feeling. In the first +performances of _Israel in Egypt_ some of the auditors praised the +heroic virtues of this music, which could raise up the populace and lead +armies to victory. + +By this power of popular appeal, as by all the other aspects of his +genius, Handel was in the robust line of Cavalli and of Gluck, but he +surpassed them. Alone, Beethoven has walked in these broader paths, and +followed along the road which Handel had opened. + + + + +LIST OF HANDEL'S WORKS + + +I. OPERAS + +In chronological order, with the dates and places of the first +performance. + +(The figures in brackets refer to the number of the Volume in the +Complete Edition of Handel's Works.) + + 1. _Almira_ (55) Hamburg, 1705. + 2. _Nero_ (lost) " 1705. + 3. _Florinda_ (lost) " about 1706. + 4. _Daphne_ (lost) " about 1706. + 5. _Roderigo_ (56) Florence, 1707. + 6. _Agrippina_ (57) Venice, 1708. + 7. _Rinaldo_ (58) London, 1711. + 8. _Il Pastor Fido_ (59) " 1712. + 9. _Teseo_ (60) " 1713. +10. _Silla_ (61). Never performed in + public (probably privately performed + at Canons). +11. _Amadigi_ (62) London, 1715. +12. _Radamisto_ (63) " 1720. + (There are three versions.) +13. _Muzio Scaevola_ (64) " 1721. +14. _Floridante_ (65) " 1721. +15. _Ottone_ (66) " 1723. +16. _Flavio_ (67) " 1723. +17. _Giulio Cesare_ (68) " 1724. +18. _Tamerlano_ (69) " 1724. +19. _Rodelinda_ (70) London, 1725. +20. _Scipione_ (71) " 1726. +21. _Alessandro_ (72) " 1726. +22. _Admeto_ (73) " 1727. +23. _Riccardo Primo, Re d'Inghilterra_ " 1727. +24. _Siroe_ (75) " 1728. +25. _Tolomeo, Re d'Egitto_ (76) " 1728. +26. _Lotario_ (77) " 1729. +27. _Partenope_ (78) " 1730. +28. _Rinaldo_ (new version) (58) " 1731. +29. _Poro_ (79) " 1731. +30. _Ezio_ (80) " 1732. +31. _Sosarme_ (81) " 1732. +32. _Orlando_ (82) " 1733. +33. _Arianna_ (83) " 1734. +34. _Terpsichore_ (84) +35. _Ariodante_ (85) " 1735. +36. _Alcina_ (86) " 1735. +37. _Atalanta_ (87) " 1736. +38. _Giustino_ (88) " 1737. +39. _Arminio_ (89) " 1737. +40. _Berenice_ (90) " 1737. +41. _Faramondo_ (91) " 1738. +42. _Serse_ (92) " 1738. +43. _Imeneo_ (93) " 1740. +44. _Deidamia_ (94) " 1741. +45. _Jupiter in Argos_ (MS. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. + Advertised but never performed), 1739. +46. _Tito._ Unperformed and unpublished. +47. _Alfonso Imo._ Unperformed and unpublished. +48. _Flavio Olibrio._ Unperformed and unpublished. +49. _Honorius._ Unperformed and unpublished. +50. An unnamed opera (MS. Fitzwilliam Museum). +51. Eleven Pasticcios, arranged at various times between + 1730 and 1747. + + +II. ORATORIOS + + 1. _Passion according to St. John_ (9) Hamburg, 1704. + 2. _Resurrezione_ (32) Rome, 1708. + 3. _Il Trionfo del Tempo_ (24) " 1708. + 4. _The Passion of Christ_ (15) Hamburg, 1717. + 5. _Esther_ (First Version) Canons, 1720. + 6. _Esther_ (Second Version) King's Theatre, London, 1733. + 7. _Deborah_ (29) King's Theatre, London, 1733. + 8. _Athaliah_ (5) Oxford, 1733. + 9. _Saul_ (13) King's Theatre, London, 1739. +10. _Israel in Egypt_ (16) " " 1739. +11. _Messiah_ Dublin, 1742. +12. _Samson_ (10) Covent Garden, 1743. +13. _Joseph_ (42) " " 1744. +14. _Belshazzar_ (19) King's Theatre, 1745. +15. _Occasional Oratorio_ (43) Covent Garden, 1746. +16. _Judas Maccabaeus_ (22) " " 1747. +17. _Joshua_ (17) " " 1748. +18. _Alexander Balus_ (33) " " 1748. +19. _Solomon_ (26) " " 1749. +20. _Susanna_ (1) " " 1749. +21. _Theodora_ (8) " " 1750. +22. _Jephtha_ (44) " " 1752. +23. _Triumph of Time and Truth_ (20) " " 1757. + + +III. ODES, SERENATAS, AND OCCASIONAL PIECES + + 1. _Acis, Galatea e Polifemo_ (53) Naples, 1708. + 2. _Birthday Ode for Queen Anne_ (46a) St. James' Palace, 1713. + 3. _Acis and Galatea_ (3) Canons, 1720. + 4. _The Alchemist_ Covent Garden, 1732. + 5. _Il Parnasso in Festa_ (54) King's Theatre, 1734. + 6. _Alexander's Feast_ (12) Covent Garden, 1736. + 7. _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_ (23) Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1739. + 8. _Praise of Harmony_ " " about 1739. + 9. _L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il + Moderato_ (6) Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1740. +10. _Hymen_ Dublin, 1742. +11. _Semele_ (7) Covent Garden, 1744. +12. _Hercules_ (4) King's Theatre, 1745. +13. _Alceste_ (46b). Incidental music to play. + (Never performed) 1749 or 1750. +14. _Choice of Hercules_ (18). An Interlude Covent Garden, 1751. + + +IV. CHURCH MUSIC + + 1. _Laudate Pueri in F_ Halle, 1702. + 2. _Dixit Dominus_ (38) Rome, 1707. + 3. _Nisi Dominus_ (38) Rome or Halle. + 4. _Laudate Pueri in D_ (38) Rome, 1707. + 5. _Silete venti_ (38) " 1708. + 6. _Six Alleluias_ (38). For voice and harpsichord. + 7. _Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate_ (31) St. Paul's Cathedral, 1713. + 8. _Te Deum in D_ (37) About 1714. + 9. _Fifteen Chandos Anthems_ (34). For chorus, organ + and orchestra Canons, 1716-18. +10. _Te Deum in B flat_ (37) 1716-18. +11. _Four Coronation Anthems_ (14). + For seven-part chorus and large + orchestra Westminster Abbey, 1727. +12. _Te Deum in A_ (37) About 1727. +13. _O Praise the Lord, Ps. CIII._, etc. + (36). Anthem for chorus and + orchestra. +14. _Wedding Anthem, Ps. XLV._, etc. + (36). Eight-part chorus, solos, + orchestra, and organ Wedding of Princess Anne, 1734. +15. _Wedding Anthem, Ps. LXVIII._, etc. + Chorus, solos, and orchestra + Wedding of the Prince of Wales, 1736. +16. _Funeral Anthem_ (II) Death of Queen Caroline, 1737. +17. _Dettingen Te Deum_ (25) 1743. +18. _Dettingen Anthem, Ps. X. and XI._, + etc. (36) 1743. +19. _Foundling Hospital Anthem, Ps. + XLI._, etc. (36) 1749. +20. Three Hymns. MS. in Fitzwilliam Museum. Words + by the Rev. C. Wesley. "Sinners, obey the + Gospel word," "O Love divine, how sweet thou + art," "Rejoice, the Lord is King." + + +V. VOCAL CHAMBER MUSIC + +1. Seventy-two Solo Cantatas for one or two voices + with instruments (52 a, b, c). Italian. No. 8 is + English; No. 18 is Spanish with guitar accompaniment. + +2. Twenty-two Italian Duets and two Trios with + harpsichord and violoncello (32). + +3. Seven Italian Sonatas. Unpublished. MSS. in + Fitzwilliam Museum. + + +VI. INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC + + 1. Six Sonatas for two oboes with thorough-bass for + harpsichord (73) 1696. + 2. Sonata for viola-da-gamba and cembalo concertata in + C (48) Hamburg, 1705. + 3. _Klavierbuch aus der Jugendzeit_ (48) 1710. + 4. Three Sonatas for flute and harpsichord + (48) Probably Hanover, about 1710. + 5. Water Music (47) 1715. + 6. _Suites de pieces pour clavecin_ (2) Published 1720. + 7. Fifteen Solos for a German flute, oboe or violin, + with a thorough-bass for harpsichord or bass violin (27) 1724. + 8. Six Concertos (21), Op. 3. _Concerti grossi con due + violini e violoncello di concertino e due altri violini, + viola e basso di concerto grosso ad arbitrio_, known as + the Oboe Concertos Walsh, 1729. + 9. Nine Sonatas or Trios for two violins, flutes, or + oboes, with a thorough-bass for harpsichord or + violoncello, Op. 2 (27) Walsh, 1733. +10. _Suites de pieces pour clavecin_ (2). Second + volume pilfered by Walsh in 1733. +11. _Pieces pour clavecin_ (2). Five pieces Witvogel + in Amsterdam, 1733. Several clavecin pieces still + remain in MS. at Buckingham Palace and Fitzwilliam + Museum. + +12. Overture for the pasticcio _Oreste_ (48) 1734. +13. Six "Fugues or Voluntaries for the organ or harpsichord," + Op. 3a (2) Walsh, 1735. +14. Overture in G minor for the pasticcio _Alessandro + Severo_ (48) 1738. +15. Six Organ Concertos, Op. 4 (48) Walsh, 1738. +16. Seven Sonatas or Trios for two violins or German flutes, + with a thorough-bass for the harpsichord or violoncello, + Op. 5 (27) Walsh, 1739. +17. Hornpipe, composed for the concert at Vauxhall (48). + For strings in three parts 1740. +18. Six Concertos for organ arranged by Walsh from the + Orchestral Concertos 1740. +19. Twelve Grand Concertos, Op. 6a (30). For strings only, + in seven parts Walsh, 1740. +20. _Pieces pour le clavecin_ (2) Cluer, 1742. +21. Forest Music (47) 1742. +22. Fire Music (47) 1749. +23. Concerto for two organs and orchestra in D minor (48). + Movement only exists. +24. Overture in B minor (48). Adapted by Walsh from the + Overture to _Trionfo del Tempo_. +25. Organ Concerto in D minor (48). Two movements. +26. Organ Concerto in F (48). +27. Partita in A (48). +28. Six little Fugues. (Dubious.) +29. Concerto for trumpets and horns. +30. Concerto for horns and side-drums. +31. _Sinfonie diverse_ (48). Eight short pieces for orchestral + instruments. +32. Overture in five movements (incomplete) for two clarionets + and corno di caccia. MS. in Fitzwilliam Museum. + + * * * * * + +The COMPLETE HANDEL EDITION contains as supplements several volumes of +works by various Italian and German composers, which Handel has utilised +in his compositions, namely:-- + +1. _Magnificat_ said to be by Erba. +2. _Te deum_ said to be by Urio. +3. _Serenata_ by Stradella. +4. _Duetti_ by Clari. +5. _Componimenti musicali_ by G. Muffat. +6. _Octavia_ by Reinhard Keiser. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +FRIEDRICH CHRYSANDER, _G. F. Handel_. 3 vols., 1858-67, Leipzig. + +(The name of Chrysander ought to be attached permanently to that of +Handel, for his life was entirely devoted to him. It was he who founded +in 1856, with Gervinus, the GERMAN HANDEL SOCIETY and who accomplished +nearly the whole of the Complete Edition of the Works of Handel in one +hundred volumes by himself alone. His biography is a monument of science +and devotion comparable with Philipp Spitta's _J. S. Bach_ and Otto +Jahn's _Mozart_. Unfortunately the work remained unfinished: it stopped +at the year 1740. Max Seiffert completed it.) + +SCHOELCHER, _The Life of Handel_. 1857. + +(Schoelcher's works, anterior to those of Chrysander, are valuable on +account of their collection of documents rather than that of the general +laying out of the works. As we have seen, the priceless collection of +these documents is housed at the Paris Conservatoire.) + +HERMANN KRETZSCHMAR, _Georg Friedrich Handel_ (published in the +_Sammlung musikalischer Vortraege_ by Paul Graf Waldersee). + +FRITZ VOLBACH, _Georg-Friedrich Haendel_ (Collection: _Harmonie_. 1898, +Berlin). + +(These two last works are excellent little _resumes_ of the life and +works of Handel.) + +J. A. FULLER-MAITLAND, _The Age of Bach and Handel_ (The Oxford History +of Music, Vol. IV). 1902, Oxford. + +R. A. STREATFEILD, _Handel_. 1909, London. + +(This book is one of the first in England which has freed the figure of +Handel from the false mass of moralising and teaching under which the +author of the _Messiah_ was buried. He shows the richness and freedom of +Handel's work and rectifies several points in the German biographies.) + +ADIMOLO, _G. F. Handel in Italia_. + +SEDLEY TAYLOR, _The Indebtedness of Handel to Works by other Composers_. +1906, Cambridge. + +P. ROBINSON, _Handel and his Orbit_. 1908, London. (These two last books +are concerned with the question of Handel's plagiarisms.) + +F. VOLBACH, _Die Praxis der Haendel-Auffuehrung_, 1889. Thesis for +Doctorate. + +(On the Orchestra of Handel.) + +HUGO GOLDSCHMIDT, _Die Lehre von der vocalen Ornamentik_. 1907. + +(On the vocal execution of Handel's works, and particularly on the +question of Handel's ornaments. This matter has been the subject of +numerous discussions in the numbers of the _International Musical +Gazette_, especially by Max Seiffert.) + +WEITZMANN, _Geschichte der Klaviermusik_, Vol. 1, 1899 (continued and +completed by Seiffert and Fleischer). (For the Clavier Works of Handel.) + +ERNEST DAVID, _Handel_. 1884. + +CAMILLE BELLAIGUE, _Les Epoques de la Musique_, Vol. I, 1909. + +For readers desirous of consulting the sources of the biographies of +Handel, the most interesting works written by his contempories are: + +JOHANN MATTHESON, _Handel_ (in his _Ehrenpforte_, 1740). + +MAINWARING, _Memoirs of the Life of the late G. F. Handel_. London, +1760. (Translated into German with annotations by Mattheson, 1761; into +French by Arnaud and Suard in 1778.) + +BURNEY, _Commemoration of Handel_. London, 1785. + +HAWKINS, _General History of Music_. London, 1788. + +W. COXE, _Anecdotes of G. F. Handel and Smith_. London, 1799. + + + + +INDEX + + +A + +Academy of Ancient Music, 54, 137 + +Academy of Italian Opera, 73 + +_Acis and Galatea_, 7, 46, 72, 85, 108, 120, 182 + +Addison, 16, 60 + +_Agrippina_, 46, 183 + +Airs adapted to French words, 191 n. + +Alberti, 6 + +_Alceste_, 104 + +_Alcina_, 91, 122, 127 + +_Alexander Balus_, 102 + +_Alexander's Feast_, 92, 108, 93 n., 160 n. + +_Almahade_, 62 + +_Almira_, 33, 34, 36, 124 + +Amadigi, 68 + +Amsterdam, 149 + +Ademollo, 40 + +Arbuthnot, Dr., 81 n. + +Architecture, Musical, 138 + +_Arianna_, 88, 95 + +_Arias Buffi_, 128 + +_Arietti Da Capo_, 125 + +_Ariodante_, 91, 122 + +_Arioso_, 133 + +Ariosti, 11 + +Aristoxenians, 24 + +_Arminio_, 91, 93 n. + +Arne, 96 n. + +_Arsinoe_, 62 + +_Astarto_, 78 + +_Atalanta_, 91, 93, 124, 131, 182 + +_Athaliah_, 85, 86 + +_Athalie_, 48 + +Augsburg, 53 + +Augustus of Saxony, Duke, 1, 3, 42 + + +B + +Babell, Wm., 145, 149 n. + +_Bacchus und Ariadne_, 90 + +Bach, 3, 21, 29, 56, 70, 104, 113, 119, 121, 150, 152 + +Ballet-Operas, 122 + +Bankruptcy, 93, 100 + +Bartolommeo, 57 + +Bass soloists, 123 n. + +Bassoons, 160 + +Battle of Dettingen, 99 n. + +Beech Oil Company, 63 + +Beethoven, 10, 108, 142, 154, 176, 192 + +Beethovenians, 164 + +_Beggar's Opera_, 62, 81 + +_Belshazzar_, 99, 128, 135, 136, 184 + +_Berenice_, 91, 93 n. + +Berlin, 11, 108 + +Berlioz, 109, 121, 142, 154 + +Bernabei, 51, 56 + +Bernhard, 16 + +Bible, 2 + +Biblical dramas, 71, 85 + +Birds, 187 + +_Birthday Ode to Queen Anne_, 66, 138 + +Blindness, 105 + +Bolingbroke, 100 + +Bologna, 75 + +_Bonduca_, 59 + +Bononcini, 62, 74, 75, 79, 86 n., 122 + +Brandenburg, 3, 12 + +Breslau, 108 + +British Museum, 165 + +Brockes, 64 + +Burlington, Lord, 67, 74 + +Burney, 187 + +Buxtehude, 29, 30, 31 + + +C + +Cadenzas, 128 + +_Camilla, Regina de Volsei_, 62 + +Canons, 149 + +_Cara sposa (Rinaldo)_, 125 + +Carey, 96 + +Caricature of Handel's art, 144 + +Carriage-accident to Handel, 104 + +Carillon in _Saul_, 115 + +_Castrati_, 80 + +Cavalli, 193 + +Chaconnes, 149 n. + +_Chandos Anthems_, 71, 85, 136 + +Characters, 135 + +_Choice of Hercules_, 104, 187 n. + +Choruses, 132, 140 + +Chrysander, 57, 110 + +Cibber, Colley, 81 n. + +Classical chorus, 136 + +Clavier pieces, 145 + +Clayton, 61 + +_Cleopatra_, 32, 160 + +Colour, 140, 141 + +Comic style of Keiser, 128 + +Commemoration festival, 107 + +Composing music, 142 n. + +Concert overture, 183 + +_Concerti Grossi_, 95, 165, 166 + +_Concertino_, 165 + +Concerto, 168, 190, 188 + +Concerto for two organs, 154 + +Concerto for organ with chorus, 154 + +Concerto for two horns, 145, 159 + +Concerto for organ, 183 + +Conductor, 165 + +Corelli, 11, 115, 168 + +_Coronation Anthems_, 83, 85 + +Cousser, 18 + +Covent Garden Theatre, 92 + +_Creation_, Haydn's, 108 + +_Crescendo_, 163 + +_Critica Musica_, 24 + +Culloden Moor, 101 + +Cuzzoni, 80 n. + + +D + +_Da Capo_ form, 56, 77, 124, 132 + +Dances, 133 + +Death, Handel's, 107 + +_Deborah_, 85, 95, 110, 184 + +_Deidamia_, 91 n., 95, 122, 124 + +Dent, Edward, 38 + +Descartes, 49 + +_Dettingen Te Deum_, 99, 160 n. + +_Dido and AEneas_, 59 + +_Die lustige Hochzeit_, 35 + +_Diminuendo_, 163 + +_Dioclesian_, 59 + +_Divertissement_, 183 + +Domenico Scarlatti, 44 + +Double fugue, 150 + +Drums, 160 + +Drury Lane Theatre, 81 n. + +Dryden, 92 + +Dublin, 97 + +Dubourg, 156 + +Duchess Sophia, 67 + +Duel with Mattheson, 33 + +Duets, Vocal, 131 + +Duke of Chandos, 71, 72 + +Duke of Cumberland, 101 + +Dukes of Hanover, 49 + +Duerer, 176 + + +E + +Education, 6 + +_Ehrenpforte_, 26 + +England, 70, 109, 112, 113, 148, etc. + +English taste, 59 + +English country, 114 + +Ensemble pieces, 133 + +_Entr'actes_, 151 + +Erba, 118 + +Ernest Augustus, Duke, 49 + +_Esther_, 48, 70, 71, 72, 120, 161, 184 + +Eugene, Prince, 37, 157 + +Exotism, 160 + +_Ezio_, 84 + + +F + +_Faramondo_, 91, 93 + +Faustina, 80 + +Festivals, 107 + +Fifth Concerto, 176 + +_Finale_, 133 + +Fire-arms in orchestra, 160 + +Firework music, 103, 159, 189 + +First Sonata, 157 + +Flemish carillon in _Saul_, 115 + +Florence, 39 + +_Floridante_, 79 + +_Florindo und Daphne_, 35 + +Forms, 133, 134, 158, 168 + +Foundling Hospital, 103, 105 n., 165 + +France, 122 + +Fraudulent copies, 143 n. + +Free theatre, 121, 134, 139 + +French dances, 91 + +French influences, 14 + +French language, 48 + +French model, 89 + +French organists, 113 + +French rhythm, 148 + +French style, 148 + +French vocal style, 48 + +Froberger, 6 + +Fugues, 149 + +_Funeral Anthem_, 93, 93 n. + + +G + +Garden scene, _Rinaldo_, 124 + +Gay, 67, 72 n. + +Geminiani, 144, 163, 164 + +_Genre_ pictures, 135, 138 + +George of Hanover, 68 + +German geniuses, 112 + +German Handel Society, 109, 201 + +German influences, 147, 148 n. + +German patriotism, Handel's lack of, 67 + +Germany, 109, 142 + +Gervinus, 110, 201 + +_Giulio Cesare_, 79, 122, 127, 182 + +_Giustina_, 93, 124 + +Gluck, 36, 99, 101, 122, 127, 191, 192 + +Goethe, 109, 112 + +Goldschmidt, 55 + +Graces, 128 + +Grattan-Flood, 97 + +Graun, 124 + +Greece, 110 + +Green, Maurice, 96 + +Green Park, 198 + +Grimani, 46 + +Griselda, 79 + +_Grub Street Journal_, 152 + + +H + +Hailstone chorus, 118 + +Halle, 14, 64, 66, 69, 74, 113 + +_Haman_, 71 + +Hamburg, 7, 15, 18, 35, 113 + +Handel Society, 109, 201 + +Handel musical festivals, 119 + +Handel's joust with Bononcini, 79 + +Hanover, 19, 42, 49, 51 + +Hanoverian nobles, 49 + +_Harmony in revolt_, 143 n. + +Harp, 160 n. + +Hasler, 36 + +Hasse, 36, 45, 87, 115, 117, 124 + +Hawkins, Sir J., 91, 152 + +Haydn, 108 + +Haymarket Theatre, 74, 89 + +Heidegger, 89 + +_Henrico Leoni_, 52 + +_Hercules_, 8, 99, 110, 127 + +Herder, 109 + +Hill, Aaron, 63 + +Hiller, 108 + +Holland, 31, 58 + +Horn, 159 + +Hornpipe, 187 + +House of Hanover, 65 + +Humour in Handel, 128 + + +I + +_Il Pastor Fido_, 65, 182 + +_Imeneo_, 91 n., 95 n. + +Imitative effects, 141 + +Improvisation, 143, 150, 152 + +Improviser, 116 + +Independence, Handel's, 109 + +Instrumental music, 9, 143, 144, 146 + +Ireland, 97 + +_Israel in Egypt_, 71, 94, 95, 118, 137, 145, 150 + +Italian homophony, 148 + +Italian influences, 147 + +Italian musicians, 36 + +Italian songs in _Hercules_, 115 + +Italian violinists, 113 + +Italy, 37, 112, 113 + +Italianised Germans, 63 + +Italians, 61, 148 + + +J + +James I, Stuart, 49 + +Jennens, 97, 99 + +_Jephtha_, 104, 116 + +_Jerusalem Delivered_, 63 + +John Frederick, Duke of Hanover, 49 + +_Joseph_, 99, 127 + +_Joshua_, 80, 102 + +_Jubilate_, 66 + +_Judas Maccabaeus_, 101, 102, 106, 109, 139, 184, 192 + +_Jugendbuch_, 146, 149 + + +K + +Keiser, 17, 19, 21, 31, 35, 122, 126 + +Kerl, 6 + +Kielmansegg, 49 + +_King Arthur_, 59, 60 + +Krieger, 6, 150 + +Kuhnau, 7 + + +L + +_L'Allegro_, 95, 114 + +Languages, 22 + +_La Salle_, 90 + +Latin Psalms, 39 + +Law, 14 + +Lawyers, 4 + +Leibnitz, 69 + +_Leit-motiv_, 128 + +_Leider_, 77 n. + +Leipzig, 16, 108 + +Lent, 106, 107 + +Leo, 178 + +Leonardo, 118 + +Light and shade, 161 + +Liszt, 109, 154 + +Local colour, 160 + +Locatelli, 168 + +London, 42, 58, 65, etc. + +London Academy of Opera, 83 + +_London Daily Post_, 96 + +London operas, 126 + +_Lotario_, 84 + +Lubeck, 28 + +_Lucretia_, 39 + +Lully, 18, 19, 181 + + +M + +Mad scene in _Orlando_, 127 + +Mahler, 154 + +Mainwaring, 47 + +Manchester, Duke of, 42 + +Mandoline, 160 n. + +Mannheim players, 164 + +Marcello, 3 + +Marylebone, 167 + +Mattheson, 5, 18, 21, 23, 27, 82 + +Mayence, 110 + +Medici, 36 + +Mendelssohn, 119 + +Melodic lines, 117 + +Melodist, 28 + +_Messiah_, 8, 59, 97, 98, 104, 108, 119, etc. + +Miller, 99 + +_Mitridate Eupatore_, 41 + +Modulations, 76 + +Muffat, 168 + +Mozart, 21, 36, 88, 108, 117 + +Munich, 51, 52 + +Musette, 178 + +Musical architecture, 132 + +Musical comedy, 128 + +Musical dramas, 135 + +_Musical Patriot, The_, 24, 27 + +_Muzio Scevola_, 79 + + +N + +Naples, 112, 145 + +National musician of England, The, 102 + +Natural scenes, 170 + +_Nero_, 33, 34 + +Newspapers, The first, 16 + +Nicolini, 63 + +_Nitocris_, 128 + +Nuance, 163 + + +O + +Objective art, 133 + +Oboe concertos, 64, 158 + +_Occasional Oratorio_, 101, 139, 185 n. + +_Ode to Queen Anne_, 68 + +_Ode to St. Cecilia_, 92, 95 + +_Ombra cara_ from _Radamisto_, 125 + +Open-air fetes, 120, 190 + +Open-air music, 187 + +_Opera Buffa_, 137 + +_Opera Comique_, 91, 122, 128 + +_Opera Diabolica_, 17 + +Opera houses, 51, 102 + +Oratorios, 120, 122, 136, etc. + +Orchestra, 9, 103, 153, 165 + +Orchestral concertos, 181 n. + +Orchestral music, 158 + +Organ, 105 + +Organ concertos, 150-153 + +Organ music, 30 + +_Orlando_, 84, 122 + +Ottoboni, Cardinal, 43, 46 + +_Ottone_, 79, 190 + + +P + +Pagan life, 185 + +Painting in music, 141 + +Painting, 185 + +Palestrina, 114 n. + +Pantheon, 107 + +_Parnasso in festa_, 89 n., 96 n. + +_Partenope_, 84 + +_Partenza_, 45 + +Pasquini, 43, 44 + +_Passion according to St. John_, 25, 32 + +_Passion after Brockes_, 70, 138, 182 + +Passionate scenes, 133 + +_Passions_, 69 + +_Pastor Fido_, 89 + +_Pastoral Symphony_, 170 + +Pepusch, 96 + +Piccadilly, 67 + +Pictures, Love of, 115 + +Pietism, 12, 39, 71 + +_Pifferari_, 46, 114 + +Pirro, 13 + +Pistocchi, 11 + +Pistol-shot in orchestra, 160 n. + +Plagiarisms, 118 + +_Polifemo_, 76 + +Pope, 67, 82, 142 n. + +_Poro_, 84 + +Porpora, 87, 88 + +Postel, 22, 31 + +Pratolino, 38 + +Pretender, Charles Edward, 100 + +Princess of Wales, 81 + +Programme music, 184, 185 n. + +Psalms, 70, 120 + +Purcell, 58, etc. + +Puritanical opposition, 61 + +_Pygmalion_, 90 + +Pythagoreans, 24 + + +Q + +Quartets, 131 + +Queen Anne, 65, 68 + +Quintet, 132 + + +R + +_Radamisto_, 74, 78 + +Rameau's _Acanthe_, 164 n. + +Ranelagh, 187 + +Raphael, 10 + +Recitative, 20 + +_Recitative-arioso_, 126 + +Recitatives and airs, 128 + +Relationship with vocal, 145 + +Resurrection, 44, 159, 161 + +Rhythms, 134 + +_Riccardo I_, 81, 186 n. + +Rich's theatre, 90 + +Rigid and stolid manner of rendering Handel's works, 119 + +_Rinaldo_, 63, 64 + +_Roderigo_, 40, 42, 182 + +_Rodelinda_, 80 + +Roles, Singers', 123 + +Romances, 91 + +Rome, 39 + +_Rosamunde_, 62 + +Roseingrave, 114 n. + +Rosenmueller, 4 + +Roubiliac, 107 + +Ruspoli, Cardinal, 42 + + +S + +St. John Chrysostomo's Theatre, 41, 47 + +St. Paul's Cathedral, 66 + +Saint-Saens, 140, 141 + +_Samson_, 31, 98, 126 + +_San Giovanni Grisostomo_, 41, 47 + +_Saul_, 94, 126, 183 + +Scarlatti, 38, 41, 43, 76, 122, 127 + +Schott, 22 + +Schumann, 109 + +Schuetz, 36, 56 + +_Second Concerto in F major_, 170 + +_Semele_, 127, 135 + +Semi-romantic colour, 115 + +_Serse_, 91 n., 122, 124, 98 n. + +_Servio Tullio_, 52 + +Seven Trios or Sonatas in two parts, 94 + +_Seventh Concerto_, 169 + +Shakespeare, 121 + +Sicilian legend, 72 + +Sight gone, 105 + +_Singakademien_, 108, 110 + +_Siroe_, 81 + +Six Fugues or Voluntaries, 149 + +Six Sonatas in Trio, 154 + +_Sixth Concerto in G minor_, 176 + +Smith, C., 107 + +Smollett, 100 + +Society for the Maintenance of Poor Musicians, 96, 107 + +Solo voices, 123 + +_Solomon_, 102, 131 + +Sonata for Viola da Gamba, 154 + +Sonatas or trios for two violins, flutes, 155 + +Sonatas or trios for two violins, 155 + +Sonatas for the flute, violin, and harpsichord, 145 + +Sonatas for flute and bass, 64, 155 + +Sophia Charlotte, Princess, 11 + +Speed of working, Handel's, 116 + +Steffani, 7, 11, 19, 46, 51, 64, 122 + +Storms, Musical, 142 + +Streatfeild, 37, 40 + +Strungk, 6 + +Stuart party, 68 + +Stuart, James I, 66 + +Strauss, R., 121 + +Stradella, 118 + +_Sturm und Drang period_, 143 + +Styles, 133, 134, 137 + +Suites, etc., 146 + +_Suites de pieces pour le clavecin_, 143 + +_Susanna_, 102 + +Symphonies, 158 + +Swift, 67, 82 + + +T + +_Tamerlano_, 79, 84, 122, 127 + +Tarquini, 40 + +_Te Deum_, 65, 66, 68, 120 + +Telemann, 56, 141 + +Tendencies, 122 + +Tenor, 123 + +_Terpsichore_, 90 + +_Teseo_, 65, 127 + +Theatre, 120 + +Theatre closed, Handel's, 93 + +Theile's _Creation_, 17 + +_Theodora_, 48, 104, 135 + +Theologians, 4 + +Theology, 12 + +_The Triumph of Time and Truth_, 106, 159, 160, 161 + +Third Violin, Part for, 161 + +Thirty Years' War, 4 + +Thornhill, 23 + +_Tomomeo_, 81 + +Tone-colour, 159, 160, 161 + +_Tor di Nona_, 39 + +Touch, 151 + +_Trionfo del Tempo_, 106 + +Trios, 131 + +Tunbridge Wells, 92 + +Tyer, 187 + + +U + +Utrecht, 66 + + +V + +Vatican, 44 + +_Vaudeville_, 138 + +Vauxhall Gardens, 94, 100, 101, 107, 187 + +Venice, 40, 42 + +_Vierge d'Martyre_, 48 + +Vinci, 84 + +Viola, 160, 161 + +Violoncellist, 75 + +Violoncello, 160 + +_Violette marine_, 160 n. + +_Virtuoso_ powers, 40, 49 + +Vivaldi, 168 + +Vocal _ensemble_ pieces, 130 + +Vocal ornamentation, 128, 129 + + +W + +Wagner, 142 + +Walpole, 81 + +Walsh, 145, 149, 181 n. + +Water music, 68 n., 158, 188 + +Weissenfels, 3 + +Westminster Abbey, 107 + +Witchcraft, 13 + + +Z + +Zachau, 5, 15, 113 + +_Zadock the Priest_, 109 n. + +Zappi, 43 + + +THE MUSIC LOVER'S LIBRARY + +A series of small books on various musical subjects written in a popular +style for the general reader. + +EDITOR: A. EAGLEFIELD HULL, MUS. DOC. (OXON.) + +Each about 200 pages. + +1. SHORT HISTORY OF MUSIC. By the EDITOR. + +2. SHAKESPEARE: HIS MUSIC AND SONG. By A. H. MONCUR-SIME. + +3. THE UNFOLDING OF HARMONY. By CHARLES MACPHERSON, F.R.A.M., +Sub-Organist St. Paul's Cathedral. + +4. THE STORY OF MEDIAEVAL MUSIC. By R. R. TERRY, Mus. Doc. (Dublin), +Director of Music at the pro-Cathedral, Westminster. + +5. MUSIC AND RELIGION. By W. W. LONGFORD, D.D., M.A. + +6. MODERN MUSICAL STYLES. By the EDITOR. + +7. ON LISTENING TO AN ORCHESTRA. By M. MONTAGU-NATHAN. + +8. EVERYMAN AND HIS MUSIC. By P. A. SCHOLES. + +9. MUSIC AND AESTHETICS. By J. B. MCEWEN, M.A., F.R.A.M. + +10. THE VOICE IN SONG AND SPEECH. By GORDON HELLER. + +11. DESIGN OR CONSTRUCTION IN MUSIC. By the EDITOR. + +KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD., LONDON + + PRINTED BY +WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD. + PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND + + * * * * * + +These typographical errors were corrected by the text transcriber: + +constituted for it a model for emulatation=>constituted for it a model +for emulation + +Hinweg, du Dornen schwangre Krone!=>Hinweg, du Dornen schwangere Krone! + +his voice suberbly depicted=>his voice superbly depicted + +George Moffat=>Muffat [Muffat, Georg (1653-1704)] + +Vivaldi's influence in Germany on a Granpuer=> Vivaldi's influence in +Germany on a Graupnuer [Graupner (Christoph, 1683-1760)] + +_Te deum_ said to be by Vrio.=>_Te deum_ said to be by Urio. [Urio, +Francesco Antonio, 1631-1719] + +Domenio Scarlatti=>Domenico Scarlatti + +Andimollo, Andimolo=>Ademollo + +Christoph Bernhart, pupil of Schuetz=>Christoph Bernhard, pupil of Schuetz + +Bernhardt, 16=>Bernhard, 16 + +He stayed at Dusseldorf with the Elector=>He stayed at Duesseldorf with +the Elector + +Locatalli and Vivaldi came under the influence of the Italian +Opera.=>Locatelli and Vivaldi came under the influence of the Italian +Opera. + +of Locatalli (Op. 7, 1741) was named _Il pianto d'Arianna_.=>of +Locatelli (Op. 7, 1741) was named _Il pianto d'Arianna_. + +(1890 in the _Vierteljahrsschrift fuer Musikwissenfchaft_)=>(1890 in the +_Vierteljahrsschrift fuer Musikwissenschaft_) + +Abbe Prevost=>Abbe Prevost + +Reinhaerd Keiser=>Reinhard Keiser + +Max Seifiert: Haendels Verhaeltnis zu Tonwerken aelterer deutscher +Meister=>Max Seiffert: Haendels Verhaeltnis zu Tonwerken aelterer +deutscher Meister + +_Siroe_, 81=>_Siroe_, 81 + +Pratelino, 38=>Pratolino, 38 + + +that Lecerf de la Vieville wrote his _Comparaison de la musique +francaise et de la musique italienne_=>that Lecerf de la Vieville wrote +his _Comparaison de la musique francaise et de la musique italienne_ + + * * * * * + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] The genealogical tree of Handel has been prepared by Karl Eduard +Foerstemann: _Georg Friedrich Haendel's Stammbaum_, 1844, Breitkopf. + +The name of Handel was very common at Halle in different forms +(_Hendel_, _Hendeler_, _Haendeler_, _Hendtler_). One would say that its +derivation signified "merchant." G. F. Handel wrote it in Italian +_Hendel_, in English and French _Handel_, in German _Haendel_. + +[2] It is interesting to note that Johann Sebastian Bach was born at +Eisenach on March 21, 1685. + +[3] Of the four children by the second marriage, the first died at +birth. George Frederick had two sisters: one, two years, the other, five +years younger than himself. + +[4] He died in 1672. + +[5] Legendary anecdotes of the little Handel are often quoted, showing +him rising from his bed in the middle of the night to play a little +clavichord, which was concealed in an upper garret. + +[6] See the Preface which the choirmaster of the Thomas School at +Leipzig, Tobias Michael, wrote to the second part of his _Musikalische +Seelenlust_ (1637); and in the life of Rosenmueller the story of the +scandalous affair which in 1655 forced this fine musician to flee from +his country (August Horneffer: _Johann Rosenmueller_, 1898). + +[7] F. W. Zachau was born in 1663 at Leipzig, and died prematurely in +1712. His father came from Berlin. The original spelling of the name was +_Zachoff_. + +[8] Since the publication of the works of Zachau by Max Seiffert in the +_Denkmaeler deutscher Tonkunst_, Vols. XXI and XXII, 1905, Breitkopf. + +[9] Matheson refers to this briefly also, but the later historians, +Chrysander, Volbach, Kretzschmar, Sedley Taylor have not taken any +account of these words, which they attribute to the generosity of +Handel, and to the malevolence of Matheson. In their judgment he did not +even know the works of Zachau--this is very hard on Handel's master. +Since the publication of the _Denkmaeler_ it is impossible not to +recognize in Zachau the true originator of his style, and even, so to +speak, of the genius of Handel. + +[10] _Lebensbeschreibung Haendels_ (1761). + +[11] One notices many of Kerl's themes in one of Handel's Organ +concertos, and in a Concerto Grosso. A _canzone_ of Kerl; also a +_capriccio_ of Strungk has been transferred bodily into two choruses of +_Israel in Egypt_ (Max Seiffert: _Haendels Verhaeltnis zu Tonwerken +aelterer deutscher Meister_, Jahrbuch Peters, 1907). + +[12] The two parts of the Clavier Exercises of Kuhnau appeared in 1689 +and 1692. The new Clavier Pieces in 1696 and the Bible Sonatas in 1700. +(See the Edition of Kuhnau's clavier works by Karl Pasler in the +_Denkmaeler deutscher Tonkunst_, 1901). + +[13] See Chrysander. We shall speak later on of the work of Steffani and +its relation to Handel. + +[14] The volume of his published works comprises 12 cantatas for +orchestra, soli, and chorus, and a _capella_ (unaccompanied) Mass, a +chamber work (trio for flute, bassoon, and continuo), 8 preludes, +fugues, fantasias, capriccios for clavecin or organ, and 44 choral +variations. + +[15] Compare the Tenor air _O du werter Freudengeist_ (p. 71) and +accompaniment, and _ritornello_ of the _violini unisoni_ in the 4th +cantata _Ruhe, Friede, Freud und Wonne_ with the air of Polyphemus in +Handel's _Acis and Galatea_; compare also the subject in the Bass air of +the 8th cantata (p. 189) with the well-known instrumental piece which +Handel used for the Symphony in the Second Act of _Hercules_; also the +Tenor solo with horn, _Kommt jauchzet_ (p. 181) in the 8th cantata: +_Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele_ with the soprano air in _The Messiah_. One +also finds in the cantata _Ruhe, Friede_ (p. 83) the sketch for the +famous chorus of the destruction of the walls of Jericho in _Joshua_. + +[16] _Ruhe, Friede_, p. 122. + +[17] _Ibid._, pp. 113, 183. + +[18] _Ibid._, pp. 110, 141, 254, 263. + +[19] _Ibid._ 8th Cantata. _Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele_, p. 166, the +German _Hallelujah_ with its fine flow of jubilant +vocalizing--especially on page 192, the great final chorus. + +[20] See his pretty trio for flute, bassoon and clavier (p. 313). It is +a small work in 4 movements (1. _Affettuoso_; 2. _Vivace_; 3. _Adagio_; +4. _Allegro_), where clear Italian grace mixes itself so happily with +German _Gemueth_. + +The orchestra for the cantatas seldom includes anything but the strings +with the organ or the clavier. But in general the palette of Zachau is +very rich, comprising violas, violetti, violoncello, harps, oboes, +flutes, hunting horns, bassoons and bassonetti, and even clarini (high +trumpets) and drums (Cantata: _Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar_). + +Zachau amuses himself by combining the tone-colours of the different +instruments with those of the voices in the solo airs; thus a Tenor air +is accompanied by a violoncello solo; another by two hunting horns; an +air for the Bass is combined, with the bassoon _obbligato_; another with +4 drums and trumpets; a Soprano air with the bassoon and 2 bassonetti; +without mentioning innumerable airs with oboes or flutes. + +Thanks to Zachau, Handel was familiarized at an early date with the +orchestra. He learnt at his house how to play all the instruments, +especially the oboe, for which he has written many charming numbers. +When he was ten years old he wrote some Trios for 2 oboes and bass. An +English nobleman travelling in Germany found a little collection of 6 +Trios (Sammlung dreistimmiger Sonaten fuer Zwei Oboen und Bass, sechs +Stueck) dating from this period (Volume 28 of the Complete Handel +Edition). + +[21] See his beautiful air for bass in the Cantata _Lobe den Herrn_, p. +164. + +[22] Certain very simple phrases as in the Cantata for the _Visitation_, +"_Meine Seel erhebt den Herren_," the recitative for Soprano "_Denn er +hat seine elende Magd angesehen_" (p. 112) have an exquisite flavour of +virginal humility which we never find in Handel. + +[23] The Torellian violinist, Antonio Pistocchi, who was one of the +masters of Italian song, the father, Attilio Ariosti, Giovanni +Bononcini, Steffani, who wrote for the Electress some famous duets, and +Corelli, who dedicated to her his last Violin Sonata, op. 5. + +[24] The first representation took place June 1, 1700, with a pastoral +ballet of Ariosti. Leibnitz was present at the full rehearsal. + +[25] All that one has heard of his meeting with Ariosti and Bononcini is +somewhat legendary. A. Ebert has shown that Ariosti only went to Berlin +in 1697, and that Bononcini did not arrive in Germany till November, +1697, and they were not there together before 1702. In order that Handel +should have met them there it was necessary that they should return in +1703 on their way to Hamburg. But then he was eighteen years; and the +legend of the infant prodigy being victorious over the two masters thus +disappears (_Attilio Ariosti in Berlin_, 1905, Leipzig). + +[26] The broad-minded policy of the Electors of Brandenburg attracted to +their University at Halle many of the most independent men in Germany +who had been persecuted elsewhere. Thus the Pietists who were driven +from Leipzig came to Halle. Indeed they flocked there from all parts of +Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries (Volbach: _Vie de Haendel_, +and Levy-Bruhl: _L'Allemagne depuis Leibnitz_, 1890). + +[27] See the fine studies of J. S. Bach by Pirro. + +[28] One knows that the trial of witchcraft was one of the many blots on +this period. More than a hundred thousand victims perished in the +funeral pyres of witchcraft in one century! Frederick II said that if +women could die peacefully of old age in Germany, it was all owing to +Thomasius. + +[29] The yearly contract with the Cathedral church was dated March 30, +1702, a month after he had signed the faculty of law. + +[30] Telemann, passing through Halle in 1701, said that he made the +acquaintance of Handel, who was already there "a man of importance" +("Dem damahls schon wichtigen Herrn Georg Friedrich Haendel")--a +singular epithet indeed to apply to a child of sixteen years! Chrysander +had indeed reason to insist on the precocious maturity of Handel, "No +one was his equal in that, even J. S. Bach, who developed much more +slowly!" + +[31] Already for several years he had composed "like the devil," as he +said of himself once. + +[32] There are attributed to him two oratorios (very doubtful), one +Cantata, _Ach Herr mich armen Suender_, and a _Laudate Pueri_ for Soprano +solo, which are anterior to his departure for Hamburg. + +[33] Alfred Heuss was the first to show what attraction the musical +drama had for Zachau, who introduced it even into the Church. Some of +his cantatas, the 4th, for example, _Ruhe, Friede, Freud und Wonne_, +very unjustly criticised by Chrysander, is a fragment of a fantastic +opera where one finds David tormented by evil spirits. The declamation +is expressive, and the choruses have a highly dramatic effect. Thus we +see the theatrical career of Handel was prepared in Halle, and perhaps +it was Zachau himself who sent Handel to Hamburg (A. Heuss: _Fr. Wilh. +Zachau als dramatischer Kantaten-Komponist_). (I.M.G., May, 1909). + +[34] In reality under the influence of English publications, and notably +_The Spectator_ of Addison, 1711. About 1713 _The Man of Reason_ +appeared in Hamburg. In 1724 to 1727 the journal _The Patriot_ of +Hamburg was founded by a patriotic society. The original intention was +to print 400 copies, but 5000 were subscribed for in Upper Saxony alone. + +[35] The secular music about 1728 reckoned in its ranks 50 masters and +150 professors. In comparison, religious music was much more poorly +represented than in many other cities of north Germany. + +[36] _The Birth of Christ, Michael and David, Esther._ + +[37] _Dramatologia antigua-hodierna_, 1688. + +[38] _Theatromachia_, or _die Werke der Finsterniss_ (The Powers of +Darkness), by Anton Reiser, 1682. + +[39] _Histoire de l'Opera avant Lully et Scarlatti_, 1895, pp. 217-222. + +[40] Reinhard Keiser was born in 1674 at Teuchern, near Weissenfels, and +he died in 1739 at Copenhagen. + +See Hugo Leichtentritt: _Reinhard Keiser in seinen Opern_, 1901, Berlin; +Wilhelm Kleefeld: _Das Orchester der ersten deutschen Oper_, 1898, +Berlin; F. A. Voigt: _Reinhard Keiser_ (1890 in the _Vierteljahrsschrift +fuer Musikwissenschaft_)--the Octavia and the _Croesus_ of Keiser have +been republished. + +[41] For instance in the overtures in 3 parts, with French indications +"_Vitement, Lentement_"; also in the instrumental preludes, and perhaps +in the dances. + +[42] Principally in the duets, which have a slightly contrapuntal +character. + +[43] "Is it the orchestra which is the hero?" asked the theorist of +Lullyism, Lecerf de la Vieville. "No, it is the singer...." "Oh, well, +then, let the singer move me himself, and take care not to worry me with +the orchestra, which is only there by courtesy and accident. _Si vis me +flere...._" (_Comparaison de la Musique italienne et de la Musique +francaise_, 1705). + +[44] "One can represent quite well with simple instruments," says +Mattheson, "the grandeur of the soul, of love, of jealousy, etc., and +render all the feelings of the heart by simple chords and their +progressions without words, in such a way that the hearer can know and +understand their trend, the sense and thought of the musical discourses +as if it were a veritably spoken one" (_Die neueste Untersuchung der +Singspiele_, 1744). + +[45] The preface of the _Componimenti Musicali_ of 1706. Mattheson +exaggeratingly says that "to compose well a single recitative in keeping +with the feelings and the flow of the phrase as Keiser did, needs more +art and ability than to compose ten airs after the common practice." + +[46] Compare the _recitative_ in the first great cantatas of J. S. Bach, +"Aus der Tiefe, Gottes Zeit," which cover from 1709 to 1712-14, with +such _recitatives_ from "Octavia" of Keiser (1705), notably Act II, +_Hinweg, du Dornen schwangere Krone!_ Melodic inflections, modulations, +harmonies, grouping of phrases, cadences, all in the style of J. S. Bach +even more than in that of Handel. + +[47] See in _Croesus_ (1711) the air of Elmira, with flute, which calls +to mind a similar air from _Echo and Narcissus_ by Gluck. + +[48] In this genre a scene from _Croesus_ is a little masterpiece in the +pastoral style of the end of the eighteenth century; and is very close +to Beethoven. + +[49] Such as the _Song of the Imprisoned Croesus_, which calls to mind +certain airs in _The Messiah_. + +[50] I need only cite one example: it is the air of Octavia with two +soft flutes, "Wallet nicht zu laut," one of the most poetic pages of +Keiser, which Handel reproduced several times in his works, and even in +his _Acis and Galatea_, 1720. + +[51] Postel, who used seven languages in the Prologues of his Libretti, +was opposed to this mixture in poetical works, "for that which ornaments +learning," he says, "disfigures poetry." + +[52] Certain German operas mix High German, Low German, French and +Italian. + +[53] He was born at Hamburg in 1681, and died there in 1764. See L. +Meinardus: _J. Mattheson und seine Verdienste um die deutsche Tonkunst_, +1870; and Heinrich Schmidt: _J. Mattheson, ein Foerderer der deutschen +Tonkunst_, 1897, Leipzig. + +[54] He violently attacked in the _Volkommene Kapellmeister_ (1739) the +"Pythagoreans" of whom the chief was Lor. Christoph Mizler, of Leipzig, +who attempted to work out music on the lines of mathematics and logic. +With the "Aristoxenians" (harmonists) he wished to rescue music from an +iron vice, from the hands of the skeleton of a dead science, and from +scholasticism. The ear was his law. "Let your art be encompassed where +the ear alone reigns: that should suffice. Where nature and experience +leads you, all is well. Do it, play it, sing it; for wrong doing, avoid +it, efface it" (_Das forschende Orchestre_). Against the scholastic, he +opposed the fecund and living harmonic science (_Harmonische +Wissenschaft_); he demanded that the latter should be taught in the +universities, and offered to bequeath a large sum to found a Chair for a +musical lectureship in the college of his native city. + +[55] Especially in _Das neueroeffnete Orchestre_ (1713), _Das beschuetzte +Orchestre_ (1717), _Das forschende Orchestre_ (1721). We might say that +the most fruitful of his theoretical writings is _Der Vollkommene +Kapellmeister_ (1739), which might even to-day serve as the basis of a +work on musical aesthetics, and that it was the work which produced a +good part of our musicology. + +[56] He warns German musicians against going to Italy, whence they +return like so many birds plucked of their feathers, with their great +weaknesses hidden, and an intolerable presumption. He reproached Germany +with not helping her national musicians, who were languishing and +becoming extinct (_Volk. Kapellm._ and _Critica Musica_). + +[57] Twenty-four monthly books which appeared with interruptions from +May, 1722, to 1725, Hamburg. There were musical polemics, +correspondence, interviews with musicians, analyses of their books and +works, a shoal of letters on the last opera, on the last concert, on the +life of a musician, on a new clavier, on a singer, etc. One finds +pre-eminently very solid musical critiques, perhaps the oldest which +exist. The minute analysis of Handel's _Passion according to St. John_ +was still celebrated when the work itself was forgotten. "It is +perhaps," said Marpurg in 1760, "the first good critique which was +written on choral music" since it sprang into being. + +[58] _Critica Musica._ + +[59] "When I think as a tone-poet (Tondichter)," he says, "I think of +something higher than a great figure.... Formerly musicians were poets +and prophets." In another place he writes, "It is the property of music +to be above all sciences a school of virtue, _eine Zuchtlehre_" (_Vollk. +Kapellm._). + +[60] _Grundlagen einer Ehrenpforte, worin der tuechtigsten Kapellmeister, +Komponisten, Musikgelehrten, Tonkuenstler, etc. Leben, Werke, Verdienste, +etc., erscheinen sollen, 1740._ + +[61] _Vollkommene Kapellmeister_, 1739--he devoted a very important +study, which he called the _Hypokritik_ (Pantomime), to it in this work. + +[62] _Ibid._ + +[63] In theory rather than in practice: for his operas are mediocre. +Besides, he soon lost his taste for the theatre, his religious scruples +being too strong for him. He wished at first to purify the Opera, to +make the theatre something serious and sacred, which should act on the +masses in an instructive and elevating manner (_Musikalischer Patriot_, +1728). Then he saw that his conception of a moral and edifying opera had +no chance of being realised. Finally he lost his interest, and even +rejoiced in 1750 over the final ruin which overtook the Hamburg Opera. + +[64] Mattheson, who spoke perfect English, and who became a little later +the secretary to the English Legation, then resident in the interim, +presented Handel to the English Ambassador, John Wich, who entrusted +them both with the instruction of his son. + +[65] _Ehrenpforte._--Telemann, a co-disciple of Handel, says also that +both Handel and he worked continually at melody. + +[66] With a kind of protective touch, however, on the part of Mattheson. +During the first months Handel would never have dreamt of offending him. +The style of his letters to Mattheson in March, 1704, was extremely +respectful. In fact Mattheson was then in advance of him, and his +superior in social position. + +[67] See in the _Ehrenpforte_ the story of this journey, and the frolics +which happened on the way to the two joyful companions. + +Buxtehude was a Dane, born at Elsinore in 1637. He settled at Lubeck, +where he remained as the organist of St. Mary's Church, from the age of +thirty years until his death in 1707. + +[68] It was the custom that the organ of a church should be given with +the daughter, or the widow of the organist. Buxtehude himself, in +succeeding Tunder, had married his daughter. + +[69] J. S. Bach went to Lubeck in October, 1705, and instead of staying +a month, as arranged, he spent four months there; an irregularity which +cost him his position at Celle. + +[70] The organ works of Buxtehude have been republished by Spitta and +Max Seiffert, in 2 volumes by Breitkopf (see the short, but pithy, study +of Pirro in his little book on _L'Orgue de J. S. Bach_, Paris, 1895, and +Max Seiffert: _Buxtehude, Handel, Bach_, in the Peter's Annual, 1902). A +selection (too restricted) of the cantatas has been published in a +volume of the _Denkmaeler deutscher Tonkunst_. Pirro is preparing a +longer work on Buxtehude. + +[71] Particularly during 1693. + +[72] The part played by these free cities, Hamburg, Lubeck, the abodes +of intelligent and adventurous merchants, in the history of German +music, should be specially noticed. The part is analogous to that played +by Venice and Florence in Italian painting and music. + +[73] There are about 150 manuscripts in the libraries of Lubeck, Upsala, +Berlin, Wolfenbuettel, and Brussels. + +[74] His organ music bears witness to his mastery in this style. + +[75] See the penetrating intimacy, the suave melody, of the cantata +_Alles was ihr tut mit Worten oder Werken_, and the tragic grandeur with +such simple means of the magnificent cantata _Gott hilf mir_. + +[76] We find on page 167 of the _Denkmaeler_ volume, a _Hallelujah_ by +Buxtehude for 2 clarini (trumpets), 2 violins, 2 violas, violoncello, +organ, and 5 vocal parts, which is pure Handel, and very beautiful. + +[77] Mattheson adds: "I know with certainty that if he reads these +pages, he will laugh up his sleeve, but outwardly he laughs little." + +[78] Amongst others, the subject from an air in minuet form, which he +repeated exactly in the minuet of his overture to _Samson_. + +[79] In the same week, Keiser and the poet Hunold gave another Passion, +_The Bleeding and Dying Jesus_, which made a scandal: for he had treated +the subject in the manner of an opera, suppressing the chorales, the +chief songs, and the person of the evangelist and his story. Handel and +Postel more prudently only suppressed the songs, but reserved the text +of the evangelist. + +[80] This criticism, certainly written in 1704, was repeated by +Mattheson in his musical journal, _Critica Musica_, in 1725, and even +twenty years later on, in his _Wollkommene Kapellmeister_, in 1740. + +[81] The two young men had charge of the education of the English +Ambassador's son, Mattheson in the position of chief tutor, Handel as +music master. Mattheson took advantage of the situation to inflict on +Handel a humiliating rebuke. Handel revenged himself by ridiculing +Mattheson, whose _Cleopatra_ was being given at the Opera. Mattheson +conducted the orchestra from the clavier, and took the _role_ of Antony +as well. When he played the part he left the clavier to Handel, but +after Antony had died, an hour before the end of the play, Mattheson +returned in theatrical costume to the clavier, so as not to miss the +final ovations. Handel, who had submitted to this little comedy for the +first two representations, refused on the third to give his chair to +Mattheson. In the end they came to fisticuffs. The story is told in a +rather confusing manner by Mattheson in his _Ehrenpforte_, and by +Mainwaring, who sided with Handel. + +[82] _Der in Krohnen erlangte Gluecks-Wechsel, oder Almira Konigen von +Castilien_ (The Adventures of the Fortune of the Kings, or Almira, Queen +of Castile). The libretti was drawn from a comedy by Lope de Vega by a +certain Feustking, whose scandalous life Chrysander has recorded, and +also the battle of the ribald pamphlets with Barthold Feind on the +subject of this piece. Keiser ought to have written the music of +_Almira_, but, being too occupied with his business and his amusements, +he handed the book over to Handel. + +Once for all I will say here that the exigences of this book will not +allow of any analysis of Handel's operas. I hope to give detailed +analyses of them in another book on Handel and his times (_Musiciens +d'autrefois_, Second Series). + +[83] _Die durch Blut und Mord erlangte Liebe, oder Nero_ (Love obtained +by blood and crime, or Nero), poem by Feustking. Mattheson played the +part of Nero. The musical score is lost. + +[84] In 1703 Handel returned his mother the allowance which she made +him, and added thereto certain presents for Christmas. In 1704, 1705 and +1706 he saved two hundred ducats for his travels in Italy. + +[85] The new Nero was played under the title of _Die Romische Unruhe, +oder die edelmuethige Octavia_ (The troubles of Rome, or the magnanimous +Octavia). The score has been republished in the supplements to the +Complete Handel Edition by Max Seiffert with Breitkopf. _Almira_ took +the title: _Der Durchlanchtige Secretarius, oder Almira, Koenigen in +Castilien_ (His Excellency the Secretary, or Almira, Queen of Castile). + +Besides these two works, Keiser wrote in two years, seven operas, the +finest he had done, an evident proof of his genius, which, however, +lacked the character and dignity worthy of it. + +[86] Under the title _Componimenti Musicali_, 1706, Hamburg. + +[87] For the space of two years no one knew what had become of him, for +he had taken care to elude the restraint of his creditors. At the +beginning of 1709 he quietly reappeared in Hamburg, took up again his +post and his glory, without anyone dreaming of reproaching him, but then +Handel was no longer at Hamburg. + +[88] Besides the operas, and his _Passion_, Handel wrote at Hamburg a +large number of cantatas, songs, and clavier works. Mainwaring assures +us that he had two cases full of them. Mattheson doubts the truth of +this statement, but the ignorance which he shows on this subject only +goes to prove his growing estrangement from Handel, for we have since +found both in his clavier book, etc. (Volume XLVIII of the complete +works), and in the Sonatas (Volume XXVII) a number of compositions which +certainly date from the Hamburg period 1705 or 1706. + +[89] He was the last of the Medici. He came to the title in 1723, but +after several years of brilliant rule he retired into solitude, sick in +body and in spirit (see Reumont: _Toscana_, and Robiony: _Gli Ultimi dei +Medici_). + +[90] Later on Handel said after he had been to Italy that he never had +imagined that Italian music, which appears so ordinary and empty on +paper, could make such a good effect in the theatre itself. + +[91] Mr. R. A. Streatfeild believes that he even stayed in Florence +until October, 1706, for the Prince Gastone dei Medici, who ought to +have presented him to the Grand Duke, left Florence in November, 1706. +He also places in this first sojourn in Florence the production of +Handel's _Roderigo_, of which all precise records in the archives of the +Medicis and the papers of the time are lost. I am more inclined to +follow the traditional opinion that _Roderigo_ dates from Handel's +second stay in Florence, when he commenced to work in the Italian +language and style. + +[92] Bartolommeo Christofori, inventor of the pianoforte, made several +very interesting instruments for him. + +[93] April 2, 1706. + +[94] April 23, 1707. See Edward Dent: _Alessandro Scarlatti_. + +[95] Volume LI of the Complete Works. It was pretended at the time that +this _Lucretia_ was written by one Lucretia, a singer at the court of +Tuscany, who showed Handel for the first time the great beauty of the +Italian song--and of the Italians. + +[96] The whole of Europe in the commencement of the eighteenth century +had passed through a vogue of Pietism. Historians have scarcely paid +sufficient attention to local influences. It was thus that they +attributed the reawakening of the religious spirit in France entirely to +the influence of Louis XIV. Analogous phenomena were produced in Italy, +in Germany, and in England, at the same time. There were great moral +forces awakening, which, one cannot exactly say why, suddenly broke out +over the whole of the civilized world like a stroke of fever. + +[97] A _Dixit Dominus_ is dated April 4, 1707; a _Laudate Pueri_, July +8, 1707. + +[98] A letter from Annibale Merlini to Ferdinando dei Medici, recently +published by Mr. Streatfeild, says that on September 24, 1707, the +famous Saxon (_Il Sassone famoso_), as Handel was already called, was +still enchanting hearers in the musical evenings at Rome. + +[99] Both Mr. Ademollo, in an article in the _Nuova Antologia_, July 16, +1889, and Mr. Streatfeild, have established the true name of the chief +singer in _Roderigo_. Thus the romantic story believed ever since +Chrysander of Handel's love for the famous Vittoria Tesi has been +destroyed. She was only seven years old in 1707, and did not come out +until 1716. + +[100] Occasionally in St. Mark's there were six orchestras, two large +ones in the galleries with the two grand organs, four smaller ones +distributed in pairs in the lower galleries, each with two small organs. + +[101] Mainwaring relates that Handel arrived _incognito_ at Venice, and +that he was discovered in a masquerade where he was playing the clavier. +Domenico Scarlatti cried out that it must either be the celebrated +Saxon, or the devil. This story, which shows that Handel was celebrated +already as a virtuoso, accords very well with his taste for mystifying +people, a marked trait in his character. + +[102] This appears thoroughly established by recent researches, and +contradicts the statement of Chrysander that Handel's _Agrippina_ had +been played at the commencement of 1708 at Venice. All the documents of +that time agree in placing the first production of _Agrippina_ at the +end of 1709 or at the beginning of 1710. + +[103] An autograph cantata by Handel, which is found in London, was +dated Rome, March 3, 1708. + +[104] This Academy was founded at Rome in 1690 for the production and +exposition of popular poetry and rhetoric. + +[105] Amongst the "shepherds" of Arcadia were counted four Popes +(Clement XI, Innocent XIII, Clement XII, Benoit XIII), nearly all the +sacred colleges, the Princes of Bavaria, Poland, Portugal; the Queen of +Poland, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and a crowd of great lords and +ladies. + +[106] Scarlatti under the name of Terpandro; Corelli under that of +Archimelo; Pasquini as Protico; Marcello as Dryanti. Handel was not +inscribed on the Arcadia list because he was not yet of the regulation +age, twenty-four years. + +[107] Cardinal Ottoboni was a Venetian, and nephew of the Pope Alexander +VIII. A good priest, very benevolent, and ostentatious art patron whose +prodigalities were celebrated even in England, where Dryden eulogised +them in 1691 in the Prologue of Purcell's _King Arthur_. He was a great +_dilettante_, and even wrote an opera himself, _Il Columbo, overo +l'India scoperta_, 1691. Alessandro Scarlatti set to music his libretto +of _Statira_, and composed for him his _Rosaura_, and his _Christmas +Oratorio_. He was particularly intimate with Corelli, who lived with +him. + +[108] Corelli took the first violin, and Francischiello, the +violoncello. + +[109] At one meeting of the Arcadia in April, 1706, Alessandro Scarlatti +seated himself at the keyboard, whilst the poet Zappi improvised a poem. +Hardly had Zappi finished reciting the last verse than Scarlatti +improvised music on the verses--similarly at Ottoboni's house Handel +improvised many secular cantatas whilst the Cardinal Panfili improvised +the verses. It is related that one of these poems constituted a +Dithyrambic eulogy, and that Handel, unperturbed, amused himself by +setting it to music, and doubtless singing it. + +[110] The manuscript of _The Resurrection_ bears this superscription: +April 11, 1708, _La Festa de Pasque dal Marche Ruspoli_ (The Easter +Festival at the Marquis Ruspoli's). + +[111] They occupy four volumes in the great Breitkopf edition--two +volumes of cantatas, of solo cantatas, with single bass for clavier, and +two volumes of cantatas _Con stromenti_, of which certain are serenatas +for two or three parts. + +[112] The _Armida abbandonata_. The copy, very carefully penned in the +writing of Bach, is now lodged in the house of Breitkopf. + +[113] It is related that at one of the Ottoboni evenings there was a +contest on the clavier and on the organ between Domenico Scarlatti and +Handel. The result was undecided on the clavier, but for the organ +Scarlatti himself was the first to declare Handel the victor. After +that, whenever Scarlatti spoke of him he always made the sign of the +Cross. + +[114] Scarlatti was attached to the Royal Chapel of Naples as principal +Organist in December, 1708. Then he was reinstated in this post in +January, 1709, and in the course of the same year he was nominated +master of the Conservatoire of _Poveri di Gesu Cristo_. + +[115] All his life one of his chief hobbies--as with Corelli and +Hasse--was to visit picture galleries. It is necessary to note this +visual intelligence with the great German and Italian musicians of this +period, since one does not find it with those of the end of the +eighteenth century. + +[116] One of his cantatas is preserved, _Cantata spagnola a voce sola a +chitarra_ (Spanish Cantata for solo voice and guitar, published in the +second volume of Italian cantatas _Con stromenti_), and seven French +songs in the style of Lully, with accompaniment of Figured Bass for the +clavier. One copy of these songs is found in the Conservatoire Library, +Paris (Fonds Schoelcher). + +[117] One of them forms the inspiration for the Pastoral Symphony of +_The Messiah_. Handel also acquired in Italy his taste for the +Siciliano, which became the rage in Naples, and which he used, after +_Agrippina_, in nearly all his operas, and even in his oratorios. + +[118] The _Acis and Galatea_ of 1708 has no relation to the one of 1720, +but in taking up the later work in 1732 Handel made a rearrangement of +his Italian serenade, and gave it in London, mingling with it the +English airs of his other _Acis_. + +[119] Concerning Steffani, see page 51 and following. It seems quite +compatible with this meeting with Handel at Rome in 1709 to relate the +story made by Handel of a concert at Ottoboni's, where Steffani supplied +the improvisation of one of the chief singers with a consummate art. +Chrysander places this story at the time of the second Italian journey +of Handel in 1729, but that is impossible, for Steffani died in +February, 1728. + +[120] That is to say on December 26, 1709. That is the date which the +recent researches of Mr. Ademollo and Mr. Streatfeild have established +in accordance with the indications of the contemporary histories of +Handel by Mattheson, Marpurg, and Burney, of the date inscribed on the +_libretto_ itself. This contradicts the statement of Chrysander adopted +on his authority by most of the musical writers of our own time, stating +that _Agrippina_ was played at Venice in the Carnival of 1708. + +[121] There was so much probability of this that he tried his hand on +the French vocal style by writing seven French songs, of which the +manuscript was carefully revised by him, for the sheets contain +evidences of a close revision in pencil. How changed things would have +been there if he had really come and settled in the interregnum between +Lully and Rameau. He had that quality which none of the French musicians +possessed--a superabundance of music, and he had not that which they had +got--lucid intelligence and a penetration into the true need of the +musical drama and its possibilities. (It was at that time that Lecerf de +la Vieville wrote his _Comparaison de la musique francaise et de la +musique italienne_, of which certain pages forestall the musical creed +of Gluck.) If Handel had come to France, I am convinced that that reform +would have been brought about sixty years sooner, and with a wealth of +music which Gluck never possessed. + +[122] It is the language which he used in his correspondence, even with +his own family, and his style, always very correct, had the fine +courtesy of the court of Louis XIV. + +[123] _Esther, Athalie, Theodore, Vierge d'Martyre._ + +[124] Even in 1734 Sere de Rieux wrote of Handel: "His composition, +infinitely clever and gracious, seems to approach nearer to our taste +than any other in Europe" (p. 29 of _Enfants de Latone_, poems dedicated +to the King). Handel particularly pleased the French because his +Italianism was always restrained by reason, and French musicians loved +to think that logic was totally French. + +"Son caractere fort, nouveau, brillant, egal, +Du sens judicieux suit la constante trace, +Et ne s'arme jamais d'une insolente audace." + +_Ibid._ (pp. 102-3.) + + +[125] See the book abounding in picturesque documents by Georg Fischer, +_Musik in Hannover_, Second Edition, 1903. + +[126] In 1676, Leibnitz was then thirty years old. He received the title +of Councillor and President of the Library at the Castle. + +[127] Moreover, by the quaintnesses of the Treaties of Westphalia, this +Protestant Princess found herself under the care of the Catholic Bishop +of Osnabruck. + +[128] Madame Arvede Barine has given an amusing portrait of her, +although a little severe, in her charming studies on _Madame Mere du +Regent_, 1909 (Hachette). See particularly the Memoirs of the Duchess +Sophia, written by the same author in French. + +[129] Thus a French traveller, the Abbe Tolland, in 1702, expresses it. + +[130] Created Duke in 1680, he left the same year for Venice. He +returned there at the end of 1684, and remained there until about +August, 1685. He returned three months later, in December, and only left +it in September, 1686. He lived at the palace Foscarini, with a numerous +following, his ministers, his poets, his musicians, his chapel. He spent +enormous sums. He gave _fetes_ to the Venetians, and took boxes by the +year in five theatres in Venice. In return he lent his subjects as +soldiers to Venice; and his son, Maximilian, was a General in the +Republic. When the Grand Marshal of the Court of Hanover wrote to the +Prince of the discontent of his people, Ernest Augustus answered: "I +very much wish that Monsieur the Grand Marshal would come here, then he +would no longer write so often to me about coming home. M. the Grand +Marshal can have no idea how amusing it is here, and if he only came +once he would never want to return to Germany." + +[131] Barthold Feind says in 1708: "Of all the German opera houses, the +Leipzig one is the poorest, that of Hamburg the largest, the Brunswick +the most perfect, and that of Hanover the most beautiful." The Opera of +Hanover had four tiers of boxes, and was capable of accommodating 1300 +people. + +[132] The orchestra was composed chiefly of French musicians, and they +were conducted by a Frenchman, Jean Baptiste Farinel, son-in-law of +Cambert. + +[133] A. Einstein and Ad. Sanberger have just republished in the +_Denkmaeler der Tonkunst in Bayern_ a selection of Steffani's works. +Arthur Neisser has devoted a little book to Steffani. Apropos of one of +his operas _Servio Tullio_, Leipzig, 1902. See also the studies of +Robert Eitner in the _Allg. Deutsche Biographie_; of Chrysander in his +_Haendel_ (Volume I), and also Fischer in his _Musik in Hannover_. + +[134] Munich had become the centre of Italian music in Germany since the +Prince-Elector Ferdinand had married in 1652 an Italian princess, +Adelaide of Savoy. See Ludwig Schiedermair: _Die Anfange der Muenchener +Oper_ (_Sammelb. der I.M.G._, 1904). + +[135] In 1680. + +[136] One finds the list of Steffani's operas, together with an analysis +of the _Servio Tullio_, in the book of Arthur Neisser. + +[137] This opera was played for the fifth centenary of the Siege of +Bardwick by Henry Lion-heart in 1089. The Elector of Brandenburg was at +the first representation. Steffani treated other German subjects, such +as the _Tassilone_ of 1709. + +[138] The manuscripts of most of these operas are preserved in the +libraries of Berlin, Munich, London, Vienna, and Schwerin. It is +astonishing that they have never been published, notwithstanding their +importance in the history of German opera. Chrysander has given some +specimens of the _libretti_. The music has only been slightly studied by +Neisser, who makes the mistake of not knowing the music of the +contemporaries of Steffani, and in consequence is frequently at fault in +his appreciation of him. + +[139] Leibnitz neither, although he had certain intuition of what was +possible in this style of theatre-piece, which united all the means of +expression: beauty of words, of rhymes, of music, of paintings and +harmonious gestures (letter of 1681). In general he regarded music from +the attitude of our Encyclopaedists at the time of Rameau. His musical +ideal was simple melody. "I have often remarked," says he, "that men of +note have little esteem for things which are touching. Simplicity often +makes more effect than elaborate ornaments" (letter to Henfling). + +[140] The testimony of his contemporaries agrees in depicting him as a +man of agreeable physique, small, of a debilious constitution, which the +excess of study had aggravated, of a superior nature, but altogether +lovable in his manners, full of wit and of gentleness, clear and calm in +speech, possessing exquisite tact and perfect politeness, from which he +never departed, an accomplished man of the court, and further very well +informed, passionately interested in philosophy and mathematics. +Leibnitz taught him German political law. We find in Fischer's _Musik in +Hannover_ a reproduction of a very rare portrait of Steffani in an +episcopal costume. + +[141] Bishop _in partibus_. Spiga was a district in the Spanish West +Indies. + +[142] He ended by abdicating his post as Vicar, which cost him more +annoyance than pleasure. He travelled afresh in Italy in 1722. In 1724 +he was nominated President for life of the Academy of Ancient Music, +founded in London by his pupil, Galliard. He dedicated to the Academy +several of his compositions, but since he was made Bishop he no longer +signed them; they appeared under the name of his secretary, Lagorio +Piva. He returned to Hanover in 1725, after having lived on a grander +scale than his revenues sufficed to maintain. He became embarrassed, and +had to sell his beautiful collection of pictures and statuary, among +which were found, it is said, some of Michael Angelo's. The English king +settled some of his debts. Steffani died of apoplexy in the middle of a +journey to Frankfort on February 12, 1728. + +[143] A little work by him in the form of a letter is known. It is +entitled _Quanta certezza habbia de suoi Principii la Musica et in qual +pregio fosse percio presso gli Antichi_, and was published in 1695 at +Amsterdam. Again in 1700 in German. He therefore advanced the value of +music not only as an art, but also as a science. + +[144] His singing was celebrated. If his voice was feeble, the purity +and finish of his style, his delicate and chaste expression, were +incomparable, if we are to believe Handel. + +[145] They caused in truth a grand gathering of singers. _Servius +Stallius_ alone required twenty-five, of which six were sopranos +(Nicer). _Op. cit._ + +[146] On the other hand, the symphonic pieces, and particularly the +overtures, are in the Lully style, and afforded the models for Handel. +The French style reigned in the orchestra at Hanover. Telemann says, "at +Hanover is the art of French science." + +[147] Steffani seems to have written these duets as music master of the +Court ladies, and several were composed for the Electress of +Brandenburg, Sophia Dorothea. The poems were the work of the great +lords, or the Italian Abbes. These duets were regarded in their time as +masterpieces, and numerous copies were made of them. One finds the +bibliography in the first volume of choice works of Steffani published +by Breitkopf by A. Einstein and A. Zanberger. The Paris Conservatoire +alone possesses six volumes of manuscript duets by Steffani. + +[148] See the airs _Lungi dall'idol_, _Occhi perche piangete_, and +particularly _Forma un mare_, which offer a striking analogy to one of +the more beautiful _lieder_ of Philip Heinrich Erlebach: _Meine Seufzer_ +(published by Max Friedlander in his History of the Song of the +Eighteenth Century). There is every reason to believe that Steffani +afforded one of the models for Erlebach. + +One should notice the predilection of Steffani (like the great Italians +of his time) for chromaticism and his contrapuntal taste. Steffani was +one of the artists of the time nearest to the spirit of the ancient +music, yet opening the way to the new, and it was characteristic that he +was chosen as President of the Academy of Ancient Music of London, which +took for its models the art of Palestrina and the Madrigalians of the +end of the sixteenth century. I do not doubt that Handel learnt much, +even in this, from Steffani. + +[149] Henry Purcell was born about 1658, and died in 1695. + +[150] See the Prelude or the Dance in _Dioclesian_ and the overture to +_Bonduca_. + +[151] English art has never produced anything more worthy of being +placed side by side with the masterpieces of the Italian art than the +scene of Dido's death. + +[152] _King Arthur_: Grand Dance, or final Chaconne; _Dioclesian_: trio +with final chorus. + +[153] Particularly the famous song of St. George in _King Arthur_--"St. +George, the patron of our isle, a soldier and a saint." + +[154] It was no longer French influence, which, very powerful at the +time of the Stuarts, had very nearly disappeared during the Revolution +of 1688; but the Italian. + +[155] The celebrated pamphlet of the priest Jeremias Collier appeared in +1688: "A short view of the immorality and profaneness of the English +stage with the sense of Antiquity," had made an epoch because it +expressed with an ardent conviction the hidden feelings of the nation. +Dryden, the first, did humble penitence. + +[156] See the Preface to his _Amphion Britannicus_ in 1700. Blow died in +1708. + +[157] There had been several efforts on the part of Italian opera +companies in London under the Restoration of 1660 and 1674. None had +succeeded, but certain Italians were installed in London, and had some +success: about 1667 G. B. Draghi, about 1677 the violinist Niccolo +Matteis, who spread the knowledge in English of the instrumental works +of Vitali and of Bassani; the family of Italian singers, Pietro Reggio +de Genes, and the famous Siface (Francesco Grossi), who in 1687 was the +first to give Scarlatti in London; Marguerita de l'Espine, who during +1692 gave Italian concerts; but it was in 1702 that the infatuation for +the Italians commenced. + +[158] He was the brother of the celebrated Bononcini (Giovanni). + +[159] This was _Rosamunde_, played in 1707, which had only three +representations. Addison, very little of a musician, had taken as his +collaborator the insipid Clayton. His satires against the Italian opera +appeared in March and April, 1710, in the _Spectator_. + +[160] The struggle was put into evidence in 1708, three years before the +Haymarket Theatre was founded under the patronage of the Queen, by the +poet Congreve, who gave there the old English plays. In 1708 the English +drama left the place and opera installed itself. + +[161] Two German musicians established in England, and naturalized, Dr. +Christoph Pepusch and Nichilo Francesco Haym, pushed certain of their +compositions on to the Italian opera stage in London. They were found +there later. Pepusch, founder of the Academy of Ancient Music in 1710, +was badly disposed against Handel, whose operas he ridiculed in the +famous _Beggars' Opera_ of 1728. Haym, who wished to publish in 1730 a +great history of music, was one of Handel's librettists. + +The Library of the Paris Conservatoire possessed a volume of airs from +the principal Italian operas displayed in London from 1706 to 1710 +(London, Walsh). + +[162] When the poet Barthold Feind gave in 1715 the translation of +_Rinaldo_ at Hamburg, he did not neglect to call him the universally +celebrated Mr. Handel, known to the Italians as "_l'Orfeo del nostro +secolo_" and "_un ingegno sublime_." + +[163] He did not hurry. He stayed at Duesseldorf with the Elector +Palatine (A. Einstein, etc., April, 1907), then in the later months of +the year he went to see his family at Halle. + +[164] To speak truly, they were more like little cantatas than _lieder_. +The Collection Schoelcher in the Library of the Paris Conservatoire +possesses these copies. + +[165] Volumes XXVII and XLVIII of the Complete Handel Edition. + +[166] One sees by the letters of 1711 that Handel applied himself, even +in Germany, to perfecting his knowledge of English. + +[167] The House of Hanover was, as one knows, an aspirant for the +succession to the throne of England, and it behoved it to keep on good +terms with Queen Anne, who was partial to Handel. + +[168] For his second version of this work in 1734 he then added some +choruses. + +[169] It is the only opera of Handel's which is in five acts. The poem +was by Haym. + +[170] Purcell had written in 1694 a _Te Deum_ and _Jubilate_. + +[171] He wrote, it is said, for the little amateur theatre of Burlington +an opera _Silla_, 1714, of which he reproduced the best parts in +_Amadigi_. One can also date from this time a certain number of clavier +pieces, which appeared in a volume in 1720. + +[172] The legend records that Handel composed in August, 1715, the +famous Water Music to regain the favour of the King. Installed on a +boat, with a small "wind" orchestra, he had this work performed during +one of the King's state processions on the Thames. The King was +delighted, and renewed his friendship with Handel. Unfortunately, the +Water Music appears to have been written two years later than the return +to Court of Handel, and the scene placed by Chrysander on August 22, +1715, in his first volume--in October, 1715, by Fischer, _Musik in +Hannover_--is changed by Chrysander in his third volume to July 17, +1717, with a cutting from one of the newspapers of that time, which does +not seem, however, convincing to the others. Be that as it may, the work +is from this period, and the first publication of it appeared about +1720. + +[173] Keiser in 1712, _Der fuer die Suenden der Welt gemarterte und +sterbende Jesus_ (Jesus Crucified and Dying for the Sins of the World). +Then Telemann in 1716, some months after Handel's arrival; a little +later, Mattheson. Handel's _Passion_ was executed for the first time at +Hamburg during Lent 1717, when Handel had already returned to England. +The four Passions of Keiser, Telemann, Mattheson, and Handel, were given +in 1719 at the Hamburg Cathedral, Mattheson being choirmaster. + +[174] Handel and Mattheson exchanged some correspondence. Mattheson was +about to engage in a musical polemic with the organist and theorist, +Buttstedt. He proved the need of building on the sound foundations of +the German music. He proposed a suggestion for an enquiry on the Greek +modes of Solmisation. Handel, pressed on these questions, responded +tardily in 1719; he sided with Mattheson, a declared modernist against +the old modal period. Mattheson also asked for details of his life for +the purpose of including him in his biographical dictionary which he had +in view. Handel excused himself on account of the concentration +necessary. He merely promised in a vague manner to relate later on the +principal stages which he had taken in the course of his profession, but +Mattheson drew nothing more from this source. + +[175] At the end of 1716. In the course of this sojourn in Germany, +where he had assisted the widow of his former master, Zachau, then +fallen into great poverty, he also succoured at Anspach an old +University friend, Johann Christoph Schmidt, who carried on a woollen +business, and who left all--fortune, wife, and child--to follow him to +London. Schmidt remained attached to Handel all his life, conducting his +business affairs for him, recopying his manuscripts, taking care of his +music, and afterwards his son, Schmidt (or Smith) Junior, took on the +same good offices with equal devotion, a striking instance of the +attractive powers which Handel excited on others. + +[176] The Duke of Chandos was a Croesus, enriched in his office of +Paymaster-General to the army in the reign of Queen Anne, and by his +vast speculations in the South Sea Company. He built a magnificent +castle at Cannons, a few miles from London. He had the _entourage_ of a +prince, and was surrounded by a guard of a hundred Swiss soldiers. His +ostentation, indeed, was a little ridiculous. Pope made fun of it. + +[177] The Anthems occupied three volumes of the Complete Handel edition. +The third is reserved for the later works of this epoch, with which we +are concerned here. The two first volumes contained eleven Chandos +anthems, of which two have a couple of versions and one has three. +Handel wrote at the same time three _Te Deums_. + +[178] Masques were secular compositions very much in the fashion in +England at the time of the Stuarts. They were part played and part +danced, as theatre plays, and partly sung as concert pieces (see Paul +Reyher: _Les_, etc., Paris, 1909). + +Handel took up his _Esther_ in 1732 and recast it. The first _Esther_ +had a single part, it comprised six scenes. The second _Esther_ had +three acts, each preceded and terminated by a full chorus in the ancient +manner. Some have asserted that the poem was by Pope. + +[179] Later on, when he took up this work again in 1733, he called it an +English opera. + +[180] The pretty poem is by Gay. + +[181] This was a society with a capital of L50,000 by shares of L100 +subscribed for fourteen years, each share giving the use of one seat in +the theatre. At the head of it, as President, was the Lord Chamberlain, +Duke of Newcastle. (Until 1723, when he entered the Ministry, and was +replaced by the Duke of Grafton.) The second President, the real +director, was Lord Bingley. He was assisted on the Council of +Administration by twenty-four directors re-elected yearly. The whole +scheme was under the protection of the King, who paid L1000 a year for +his box. The dividends paid to the shareholders reached in 1724 7%, but +speculation endangered the work, and indeed led to its ruin. + +Handel was charged with the complete musical direction until 1728, when +he took on his shoulders the whole direction of the opera, financial and +musical. + +[182] This voyage took place from February, 1719, to the end of the same +year. When Handel was staying at Halle, J. S. Bach, who was then at +Cothen, about four miles away, was informed of it, and went there to see +him, but he only arrived at Halle the very day when Handel was about to +leave. Such at least is the story of Forkel. + +[183] The poem was by Haym. From 1722 the work was given at Hamburg with +a translation of Mattheson. + +[184] Before him Domenico Scarlatti had already visited London, where he +had given unsuccessfully an opera, _Narcissus_, 1720. + +[185] He was born in 1671 or 1672, for his first opus appeared in 1684 +or 1685, when he was little more than thirteen years old. + +Giovanni Bononcini was far from being well known. He was not a +celebrated musician, on which account there are many disagreements. +Bononcini was the name of a long string of musicians, and one has been +frequently confounded with the other. Such mistakes are found even in +the critical work of Eitner (where they rest on a great error in +reading) and in the most recent Italian works, as that of Luigi Torchi, +who in his instrumental music in Italy, 1901, confounds all the +Bononcini together. Luigi Francesco Valdreghi's monograph _I Bononcini +in Modena_, 1882, is more reliable, although very incomplete. + +[186] Gianmaria Bononcini was Chapel-Master of the Cathedral of Modena, +and attached to the service of Duke Francis II. A fine violinist, author +of instrumental sonatas in suites, to which Mr. Torchi and Sir Hubert +Parry attribute great historical importance. He had a reflective spirit, +and dedicated in 1673 to the Emperor Leopold I a treatise on Harmony and +Counterpoint, entitled _Musico Practico_, which was afterwards +reprinted. He died in 1678, less than forty years old. + +[187] Several of his early works are dedicated to Francis II of Modena, +and his 8th opus, _Duetti da Camera_, 1691, is dedicated to the Emperor +Leopold I, who caused him to be engaged for the Court Chapel. + +[188] He was a celebrated violoncellist. + +[189] Alfred Ebert: _Attilo Ariosto in Berlin_, 1905, Leipzig. + +[190] See Lecerf de la Vieville: _Eclaircissement sur Bononcini_, +published in the 3rd part of his _Comparaison de la musique francaise +avec la musique italienne_ (1706). + +[191] "Like Corelli," says Lecerf, "he had a few fugues, contra fugues, +based on conceits, frequently in other Italian works, and he made many +delicious things from all the lesser used intervals, the most valiant +and the most strange. His dissonances struck fear." + +[192] See the gentle suspension of notes in the Cantata _Dori e Aminta_ +(manuscript in the Library of the Conservatoire of Paris), or the +_Cantata Care luci (ibid.)_. + +[193] "What is necessary in music," said _The London Journal_ of +February 24, 1722, "is that it should chase away _ennui_, and relieve +clever men from the trouble of thinking." + +[194] It is the eternal struggle between the art of knowledge and the +pseudo-popular art. It recurred again a little later with Rousseau. The +principal difference between the two phases of the strife is that in the +epoch with which we are occupied the champion of the anti-learned art +was a well-instructed musician who did not uphold his cause by +ignorance, but by laziness and by profligacy. + +[195] "To study this more closely," says Hugo Goldschmidt (_Vocal +Ornamentation_, 1908), "Bononcini's songs are really _lieder_, to which +is applied, for good or evil, the old form of the Aria Da Capo, or the +Cavatina: the taste for little airs in the form of a song spread itself +widely during the end of the seventeenth century in Germany and in +England." Bononcini, who was always led naturally by fashion, and by his +indolent facility, abandoned himself to it still more in England, and +suited it to the English taste. + +[196] The work had already been given in Italy about 1714. It was then +that Lord Burlington heard it, and became the champion of Bononcini when +he decided to come to England. + +[197] Handel wrote the third act, Bononcini the second, the first had +been already set by a certain Signor Pippo (Phillipo Matti?). + +[198] The victory of Handel began for the most part with the engagement +of his new interpreter, Francesca Cuzzoni, of Parma, a great and +vigorous artist, violent and passionate, whose excellent soprano voice +excelled particularly in pathetic _cantabile_ music. She was twenty-two +years old, and came to London, where she made her debut in _Ottone_. Her +quarrels with Handel, and how he treated her by threatening to throw her +out of the window, are well known. + +Handel gave again in May another opera, _Flavio_, of little importance. +On his side Bononcini produced _Erminia and Attilio_, _Aristosi_, +_Coreolanus_, in which the prison scene reduced the ladies to tears, and +inspired numerous analogous scenes in the following operas of Handel. + +[199] Bononcini gave his last piece, _Kalfernia_, on April 18, 1724. +Ariosti says possibly in 1725. On the other hand, in 1725 there +commenced to be played in London the works of Leonardo Vinci, and +Porpora, patronized by Handel himself. + +[200] Faustina Bordoni was born in 1700 at Venice. She had been educated +in the school of Marcello. In 1730 she married Hasse. Her singing had an +incredible agility. No one could repeat the same note with such +rapidity, and she seemed able to hold on sounds to any extent. Less +concentrated and less profound than Cuzzoni, she had an art more moving +and brilliant. + +[201] Two months before Handel had given the opera _Scipione_ (March 12, +1726). + +[202] The Director of the Drury Lane Theatre, Colley Cibber, produced, a +month later, a farce called _The Contretemps, or The Rival Queens_, +where the two singers were depicted tearing their chignons, and Handel +saying in anger to them, whom he wished to separate, "Leave them alone, +when they are tired their fury will spend itself out," and, in order +that the strife might be definitely finished, he wound it up with great +strokes on the drum. Handel's friend, Dr. Arbuthnot, also published on +this subject one of his best pamphlets, "The Devil let loose at St. +James's" (see Chrysander, Volume II). + +[203] The last representation at the Academy took place on June 1, 1728, +with _Almeto_. + +[204] Amongst others, the accompanied recitative, the air _Da Capo_, the +opera duets, the farewell scenes, the great prison scenes, the +inconsequent ballads. Pepusch even took an air of Handel and parodied +it. In the second act a band of robbers came together in the tavern, and +solemnly defiled before their chiefs to the sound of the March of the +Crusaders' Army in _Rinaldo_--_The Beggar's Opera_, given for the first +time on January 29, 1728, was played all over England, and aroused +violent polemics. Swift became a passionate champion for it. After the +success appeared in the following years a number of operas with +songs--Georgy Kalmas has dedicated a very complete article to _The +Beggar's Opera_ in his _Sammelbaende der I.M.G._ (January to March, +1907). + +[205] The first three books of the _Dunciad_ of Pope appeared in 1728; +_The Voyages of Gulliver_ in 1726. Swift did not forget the musical +folly in his satire on the kingdom of Lilliputia. + +[206] The Coronation Anthems comprised four hymns, of which we do not +know the exact order. Handel arranged for their presentation at +Westminster by forty-seven singers, and a very considerable orchestra. + +[207] _Riccardo I_, played in November of the same year (see p. 81), was +also a national opera, dedicated to King George II, and celebrating, +_apropos_ of Richard Coeur de Lion, the annals of Old England. + +[208] See page 48, note 4, the opinions held by Sere de Rieux. + +[209] Sere de Rieux: _les Dons les infants de Latone; la Musique et la +Chasse du cerf_, poems dedicated to the King, 1734, Paris, p. 102-3. + +[210] During this voyage, where he sojourned a considerable time at +Venice, he learned that his mother was stricken with paralysis. He +hastened to Halle, so that he might see her again, but she could no +longer see him. For several years she had been blind. She died the +following year, December 27, 1730. Whilst Handel was at Halle watching +over his mother, he received a visit from Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who +came on behalf of his father, to invite him to come to Leipzig. One can +well understand that Handel declined the invitation under his sad +circumstances. + +[211] Born in 1690 at Strongoli in Calabria, he died in 1730. He was the +master of the Chapel Royal at Naples, where he preceded Pergolesi and +Hasse. I have spoken of Vinci in another volume. + +[212] _Acis and Galatea_ was reproduced in 1731, then given again in +1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, with the scenery and costumes, under the +title of _An English Pastoral Opera_. The representation had taken place +without the consent of Handel, who in response to the event, gave the +work himself a little later. As for _Esther_, a member of the Academy of +Ancient Music, Bernard Gates who had formerly sung in the piece at the +Duke of Chandos' and who possessed a copy of it, produced it at the +Hostelry of the Crown and Anchor, on February 23, 1732. In his turn +Handel directed the work on May 2, 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, under +the title of English _Oratorio_. These presentations did not appease the +interest of the public. + +[213] In the "first place there were in all," said a pamphlet, "260 +persons, of whom many had free tickets, and others were even paid to +come." Handel tried to give the work again at reduced prices. This +brought him no advantage. The English patrons repeated already their +exultation over the Saxon, and caused him to return to Germany. + +[214] _Athaliah_ was written for the University feasts at Oxford, to +which Handel had been invited. They wished to confer on him there the +title of Doctor of Music. One does not know exactly what happened to +Handel, having always refused the honour. It is certain, however, that +Handel did not receive the title. + +[215] Bononcini had been received into the Academy of Ancient Music at +London. To secure his footing he offered the Academy in 1728 a Madrigal +in five voices. Unfortunately for him, three years after, a member of +the Academy found this Madrigal in a book of duets, trios, madrigals of +Antonio Lotti, published in 1705 at Venice. Bononcini persisted in +claiming the authorship of the work. A long enquiry was instituted, in +which Lotti himself and a great number of witnesses were examined. The +result was disastrous for Bononcini, who threw up all and disappeared +from London towards the end of 1732--the whole of the correspondence +relating to this affair was published by the Academy in Latin, Italian, +French and English, under the title "Letters from the Academy of Ancient +Music at London to Signor Antonio Lotti of Venice, with answers and +testimonies, London, 1732." + +[216] Porpora was the most famous Italian teacher of singing of the +eighteenth century. Hasse was himself a great singer, and married one of +the most celebrated Prima Donnas who ever lived, Faustina. + +[217] Contrast with the short and restricted phrases of Benedetto +Marcello in his _Arianna_, the amplitude of Porpora's treatment of the +same subject. + +[218] Chrysander, who did not know him well, speaks with a disdain +absolutely unjustifiable. + +[219] Handel's _Arianna_, January 26, 1734. Porpora's _Arianna a Naxos_, +a little later. + +[220] Thus the Invocation of Theseus to Neptune: _Nume che reggi'l +mare_, and the air: _Spetto d'orrore_. + +[221] Johann Adolf Hasse was born March 23, 1699, at Bergedorf, near +Hamburg, and died on December 16, 1783, at Venice. He came to London in +October, 1734, where he gave his _Artaserse_, which was played until +about 1737. He also gave in England his Siroe, 1736, and two comic +_intermezzi_. I do not attach much importance to him, for his life and +his art are a little outside the scope of this work. Despite the efforts +of Handel's enemies, Hasse always avoided posing as the rival of his +great countryman, and their art remains independent of each other. I +will hold over (till some time later on) the study of the work of this +admirable artist, for posterity has been even more unjust to him than to +Porpora, for no one had his wonderful sense of melodic beauty in such a +degree, and in his best pages he is the equal of the very greatest. + +[222] She was Handel's pupil and friend. An excellent musician, she +conducted the orchestra at public concerts given by her every evening in +Holland. + +[223] Handel composed for the marriage of the Princess Anne _The Wedding +Anthem_ (March 14, 1734), which is a _pasticcio_ of old works, +especially _Athaliah_. He gave also for the marriage _fetes_ the +serenata, _Parnasso in festa_, and a revised form of _Pastor Fido_, with +choruses. + +[224] It was John Rich who had produced here the _Beggar's Opera_ of Gay +and Pepusch in 1728--that parody of Handel's operas. + +[225] She was the pupil of Mlle Prevost, and made her debut in 1725 with +Rich. See the study of M. Emile Dacier: _Une danseuse francaise a +Londres, au debut du XVIII siecle_ (French number of the S.I.M. May and +July, 1907). + +[226] It is interesting to notice that it was with the same subjects of +_Pygmalion_ and of _Ariadne_ that J. J. Rousseau and Georg Benda +inaugurated in 1770-1775 the Melodrama or "opera without singing." + +[227] He has been accused of knowing it too well. The Abbe Prevost wrote +exactly at this same period in _Le Pour et le Contre_ (1733): "...Certain +critics accuse him of having taken for his basis an infinite number of +beautiful things from Lully, and especially from our French cantatas, +and of having the effrontery of disguising them in the Italian manner...." + +[228] "_La Salle_" returned to Paris, where she made her reappearance at +the Academie de Musique in August, 1735, in _les Indes galantes_ of +Rameau. It is quite remarkable that some pages of this work, such as the +superb chaconne at the end, have a character quite Handelian. + +[229] _Atalanta_ (May 12, 1736), _Arminio_ (January 12, 1737), +_Giustino_ (February 16, 1737), _Berenice_ (May 18, 1737), _Faramondo_ +(January 7, 1738), _Serse_ (April 15, 1738), _Imeneo_ (November 22, +1740), _Deidamia_ (January 10, 1741). + +[230] Especially in _Serse_ and _Deidamia_. + +[231] Dryden the poet wrote this brilliant poem in 1697 in a night of +inspiration. Clayton had set it to music in 1711; and again about 1720 +Benedetto Marcello wrote a cantata in the ancient manner on an Italian +adaptation of the English ode by the Abbe Conti. A friend of Handel, +Newburgh Hamilton, arranged Dryden's poem with great discretion for +Handel's oratorio. + +Handel had already written several times in honour of St. Cecilia. Some +fragments of four cantatas to St. Cecilia are to be found in Vol. LII of +the great Breitkopf edition (_Cantate italiane con stromenti_). They +were all written in London, the first about 1713. + +[232] _Alexander's Feast_ (January, 1736), _Atalanta_ (April), _Wedding +Anthem_ (April), _Giustino_ (August), _Arminio_ (September), _Berenice_ +(December). + +[233] June 1, 1737. But on June 11 the rival opera also closed its +doors, ruined. Handel, like Samson, dragged down in his own fall the +enemy whom he wished to annihilate. + +[234] On November 15, 1737, Handel commenced _Faramondo_; from December +7 to 17 he wrote the _Funeral Anthem_. On December 24 he finished +_Faramondo_. On December 25 he commenced _Serse_. + +[235] He said that these kinds of concerts were but a way of begging. + +[236] Vauxhall was a beautiful garden on the Thames, the meeting place +of London Society. Every evening except Sunday from the end of April to +the beginning of August, vocal, orchestral, and organ concerts were +given. The manager of these entertainments, Tyers, caused a white marble +statue of Handel by the sculptor Roubiliac to be placed in a niche of a +large grotto. The same sculptor later on executed Handel's statue for +his monument in Westminster Abbey. + +[237] In the first part of _Israel in Egypt_ there is not a single solo +air to be found. In the whole work there are nineteen choruses against +four solos and three duets. The poem of _Saul_ which Chrysander at first +attributed to Jennens appears to have been, as he discovered later on, +the work of Newburgh Hamilton. For _Israel_, Handel entirely dispensed +with a librettist, taking the pure Bible text. + +[238] Written between September 29 and October 30, 1739. Handel further +prepared in November, 1740, the Second Volume of Organ Concertos (six). +The same month he opened his last season of opera, giving on November 22 +_Imeneo_, which was only played twice, and on January 14, 1741, +_Deidamia_, which was only given three times. + +[239] Especially in the _Allegro_ and in certain _Concerti Grossi_. + +[240] An anonymous letter published in the _London Daily Post_ of April +4, 1741, alludes to a single false step made without premeditation. + +[241] In the midst of his misery he still thought of those more +miserable than himself. In April, 1738, he founded with other well-known +English musicians, Arne, Greene, Pepusch, Carey, etc., the Society of +Musicians for the succour of aged and poor musicians. Tormented as he +was himself, he was more generous than all the others. On March 20, +1739, he gave _Alexander's Feast_ with a new Organ Concerto for the +benefit of the Society. On March 28, 1740, he conducted his _Acis and +Galatea_ and his little _Ode on Cecilia's day_. On March 14, 1741, in +his worst days he gave the _Parnasso in festa_, a gala spectacle very +onerous for him with five Solo Concertos by the most celebrated +instrumentalists. Later on he bequeathed L1000 to the Society. + +[242] A clumsy friend tried to raise a public charity in an anonymous +letter to the _London Daily Post_ (see above). He made excuses for +Handel, and thus gave the composer the most cruel blow of all. (The +clumsiness of a bear!) This letter is found at the end of Chrysander's +third volume. + +[243] On November 4, 1741, he still had time to see, before his +departure, the reopening of the Italian Opera, under the direction of +Galuppi, supported by the English nobility. + +[244] Handel wrote the _Messiah_ between August 22 and September 14, +1741. Certain historians have attributed the composition of the +_libretto_ to him. There is no reason for robbing Jennens, a man of +intelligence, author of the excellent poem of _Belshazzar_, of this +honour, and of that shown by the fact that Handel changed none of the +text which Jennens gave him. A letter of March 31, 1745, to a friend +(quoted by Schoelcher) shows that Jennens found the music of the +_Messiah_ hardly worthy of his poem. + +[245] The great Musical Society of Dublin, the Philharmonic, gave only +benevolent concerts. For Handel they made a special arrangement. It +suited them that Handel reserved one concert for charity. Handel was +engaged there with gratefulness by promising "some better music." This +"better music" was the _Messiah_. See an article on _Music in Dublin_ +from 1730 to 1754 by Dr. W. H. Gratten-Flood, I.M.G. (April-June, 1910). + +[246] But not at London, where Handel gave the _Messiah_ only three +times in 1743, twice in 1745, and not again until 1749. The cabals of +the pious tried to stifle it. He was not allowed to put the title of the +oratorio on the bills. It was called A Sacred Oratorio. It was only at +the close of 1750 that the victory of the _Messiah_ was complete. Handel +all his life preserved his connection with charitable objects. He +conducted it once a year for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. Even +when he was blind he remained faithful to this noble practice, and in +order to better preserve the monopoly of the work for the Hospital he +forbade anyone to publish anything from it before his death. + +Since then one knows what a number of editions of the _Messiah_ have +appeared. The Schoelcher collection in the Paris Conservatoire has +brought together sixty-six published between 1763-1869. + +[247] The character of Delilah is one of the most complex which Handel +has created, and the parts of Samson and Harapha require exceptional +voices. + +[248] Milton's poem had been adapted by Newburgh Hamilton. + +[249] The Battle of Dettingen took place on June 27, 1743. Handel had +already finished on July 17 his _Te Deum_, which was solemnly performed +on the following November 27 in Westminster Abbey. + +[250] Too slowly for the liking of Handel, who composed it bit by bit as +the acts were sent him. There are five letters from him to Jennens dated +June 9, July 19, August 21, September 13 and October 2, 1744, where he +presses him to send at once the rest of the poem, expressing his own +admiration for the second act, which he said provides new means of +expression and furnishes the opportunity of giving some special ideas, +"finally asking him to cut down the work a little, as it was too long" +(see Schoelcher). + +[251] Handel wrote it during the forced pauses in the composition of +_Belshazzar_, and produced it at the commencement of 1745. + +[252] The letters quite recently published throw much light on this +troublous period in Handel's life (William Barclay-Squire: Handel in +1745, in the H. Riemann Festschrift, 1909, Leipzig). + +[253] Two examples of the song appear in the Schoelcher Collection at +the Paris Conservatoire. + +Handel also wrote in July, 1746, for the return of the Duke of +Cumberland, a song on the victory over the rebels by His Royal Highness +the Duke of Cumberland, which was given at Vauxhall (a copy of this song +also appears in the Schoelcher Collection). + +[254] Finished in the early days of December, 1745, and given in +February, 1746. The text was founded partly on the Psalms of Milton and +partly on the Bible. Handel inserted in the third part several of the +finest pages from _Israel in Egypt_. In one of the solos the principal +theme of Rule Britannia which was later to be composed by Arne appears. + +[255] The poem, very mediocre, was by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Morell, who +was the librettist for the last oratorios of Handel. + +[256] It was not one of Handel's oratorios, of which the style was in +the popular vein, and where one finds further grand ensembles and solos +closely connected with the Chorus. + +Gluck journeyed to London at the end of 1745. He was then thirty-one +years old. He gave two operas in London, _La Caduta de'Giganti_ and +_Artamene_. (Certain solos from them are to be found in the very rare +collection of _Delizie dell'opere_, Vol. II, London, Walsh, possessed by +the library of the Paris Conservatoire.) This journey of Gluck in +England has no importance in the story of Handel, who showed himself +somewhat scornful in his regard for Gluck's music. But it was not so for +Gluck, who all his life professed the most profound respect for Handel. +He regarded him as his master; he even imagined that he imitated him +(see Michael Kelly: _Reminiscences_, I, 255), and certainly one is +struck by the analogies between certain pages in Handel's oratorios +written from 1744 to 1746 (notably _Hercules_ and _Judas Maccabaeus_) and +the grand operas of Gluck. We find in the two funeral scenes from the +first and second acts of _Judas Maccabaeus_ the pathetic accents and +harmonies of Gluck's _Orpheus_. + +[257] After 1747 Handel, abandoning his system of subscriptions, turned +his back on his aristocratic clientele, which had treated him so +shamefully, and opened his theatre to all. It paid him. The middle +classes of London responded to his appeal. After 1748 Handel had full +houses at nearly all his concerts. + +[258] Poem founded on the book of Maccabees by Thomas Morell. The first +performance March 23, 1748. + +[259] Poem by Thomas Morell, first performances March 9, 1748. + +[260] The poem, apparently, by Thomas Morell, notwithstanding its want +of mention in his notes. First performance March 17, 1749. + +[261] The Firework Music has been published in Volume XLVII of the +Complete Handel Edition. For the performance on April 27, 1749, the +orchestra numbered one hundred. Schoelcher has published a +correspondence on the subject of this work between Lord Montague, +General-in-chief of the Artillery, and Charles Frederick, Controller of +the King's fireworks. One sees there that very serious differences arose +between Handel and Lord Montague. + +[262] The Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 by an old mariner, +Thomas Coram, "for the maintainance and education of abandoned +children." Handel devoted himself to this institution, and gave +performances of the _Messiah_ annually for its funds. In 1750 he was +elected a Governor of the Hospital, after he had made it a gift of an +organ. + +[263] Vol. XXXVI of the Complete Handel Edition. The Foundling Anthem, +of which more than one page is taken from the Funeral Anthem, finishes +with the Hallelujah from the _Messiah_ in its original form. + +[264] The libretto was inspired by the _Theodore vierge et martyre_ of +Corneille. + +[265] Written between June 28 and July 5, and produced on March 1, to +follow Alexander's feast as "a new act added." + +[266] A paragraph in the _General Advertiser_ of August 21, 1750, tells +us that Handel was very seriously hurt between La Haye and Amsterdam, +but that he was already out of danger. + +[267] The facsimile of the autograph manuscript was published by +Chrysander, for the second centenary of Handel in 1885. + +[268] Page 182 of MS. + +[269] To occupy himself he directed two performances of the _Messiah_ +for the funds of the Foundling Hospital--on April 18 and May 16, "with +an improvisation on the organ." He also tried the cure at Cheltenham. + +[270] Page 244 of MS. + +[271] He underwent an operation for cataract, the last time on November +3, 1752. A newspaper stated in January, 1753: "Handel has become +completely blind." + +[272] Written in 1708 at Rome. + +[273] Handel had already regiven the Italian work with some +rearrangements and editions in 1737. Thomas Morell adapted the poem to +English, and extended the two acts into three. + +[274] This will was written since 1750. Handel added codicils to it in +August, 1756, March and August, 1757, April, 1759. He nominated his +niece, Johanna Friderica Floerchen, of Gotha, _nee_ Michaelsen, his +sole executor. He made several gifts to his friends--to Christopher +Smith, to John Rich, to Jennens, to Newburgh Hamilton, to Thomas Morell, +and others. He did not forget any of his numerous servants. He left a +fortune of about twenty-five thousand pounds, which he had made entirely +in his last ten years; he possessed also a fine collection of musical +instruments and a picture gallery in which were two Rembrandts. + +[275] A monument, somewhat mediocre, was erected to him. It was the work +of Roubiliac, who had already done the statue of Handel for the Vauxhall +Gardens. + +[276] They were celebrated in reality a year too soon. Burney devoted a +whole book to describing these festivals. + +[277] The number of performers never ceased to increase after the +festivals of 1784, when there were 530 or 540, right up to the famous +festivals in the Sydenham Crystal Palace, when the number reached 1035 +in 1854, 2500 in 1857, and 4000 in 1859. Remember that during the +lifetime of Handel the _Messiah_ was performed by thirty-three players +and twenty-three singers. They manufactured for these gigantic +performances some monster instruments; a double bassoon (already +invented in 1727), a special contrabass, some bass trumpets, drums tuned +an octave lower, etc + +[278] These arrangements, executed for the Baron van Swieten, are far +from being irreproachable, and show that Mozart, despite the assertions +of Rochlitz, had not a deep understanding of Handel's works. However, he +wrote an "Overture in the style of Handel," and suddenly remembered him +when he composed his _Requiem_. + +[279] The first was the Singakademie of Berlin, founded in 1790 by +Fasch. + +[280] In the _Harmonicon_ of January, 1824, one finds Beethoven's +opinion (quoted by Percy Robinson): "Handel is the greatest composer who +has ever lived. I should like to kneel at his tomb." And in a letter +from Beethoven to an English lady (published in the _Harmonicon_ of +December, 1825): "I adore Handel." We know that after the 9th Symphony +he had the plan of writing some grand oratorios in the style of Handel. + +[281] Schumann wrote to Pohl in 1855, that _Israel in Egypt_ was his +"ideal of a choral work," and, wishing to write a work called _Luther_, +he defined this music thus, of which he found the ideal realized by +Handel: "A popular oratorio that both country and town-people can +understand.... A work of simple inspiration, in which the effect depends +entirely on the melody and the rhythm, without contrapuntal artifice." + +Liszt, _apropos_ of the Anthem _Zadock the Priest_, goes into ecstasies +over "the genius of Handel, great as the world itself," and very rightly +perceives in the author of the _Allegro_ and of _Israel_, a precursor of +descriptive music. + +[282] See, in Chrysander's work, an article by Emil Krause, in the +_Monatshefte fuer Musikwissenschaft_, 1904. + +[283] A Societe G. F. Handel was founded in Paris in 1909, under the +direction of two conductors full of zeal and intelligence, MM. F. Borrel +and F. Raugal. It has already done much to awaken the love of Handel in +France by giving the large works hitherto unknown in France, such as +_Hercules_, the _Foundling Anthem_, and the model performances of the +_Messiah_ at the Trocadero. + +[284] Lessing, in the Preface to his _Beitraege zur Historie und Aufnahme +des Theaters_ (1750), gives as the principal characteristic of the +German, "that he appreciates whatever is good, particularly where he +finds it, and when he can turn it to his profit." + +[285] See the _Voyage en Italie_, May 18, 1787, letter to Herder. + +[286] French Songs (MSS. in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge): copies in +the Schoelcher Collection, in the library of the Paris Conservatoire. + +[287] See the Abbe Prevost: _Le Pour et le Contre_, 1733. + +[288] These are not traits special to Handel alone. The double +stream--encyclopaedic and learned on the one hand, popular or +pseudo-popular on the other--was found in an even greater degree in +London amongst the musicians of Handel's time. In the circle of the +_Academy of Antient Musick_ there was quite a mania of archaic +eclectism. One of these members, the composer Roseingrave, even went to +the length of having the walls of his rooms and all his furniture +covered with bars of music, extracted from the works of Palestrina. At +the same period there was felt all over Europe a reaction of popular +taste against that of the savants. It was the day of the little _lieder_ +by Bononcini or by Keiser. Handel took sides with neither extravagances, +but chose whatever was alive in both movements. + +[289] Letter from Lady Luxborough to the poet Shenstone in 1748--quoted +by Chrysander. + +[290] His passion of collecting increased with age and fortune. A letter +of 1750 reveals him buying some beautiful pictures, including a fine +Rembrandt. It was the year before he was smitten with blindness. + +[291] From the "_Hauts tilleuls_" of _Almira_ up to the Night Chorus in +_Solomon_. + +[292] A study of the MS. of _Jephtha_ (published in _facsimile_ by +Chrysander) affords an opportunity of noticing Handel's speed of working +at composition. On these very pages one reads various annotations in +Handel's own handwriting. At the end of the first act, for instance, he +writes: "_Geendiget_ (finished) 2 February." Again, on the same page one +reads: "_Voellig_ (complete) 13th August, 1751." There were then two +different workings; one the work of invention, the other a work of +completion. It is easy to distinguish them here on account of the +illness which changed the handwriting of Handel after February 13, 1751. +Thanks to this circumstance, one sees that with the Choruses he wrote +the entire subjects in all the voices at the opening; then he let first +one fall, then another, in proceeding; he finished hastily with a single +voice filled in or even the bass only. + +[293] It was so with the melody: _Dolce amor che mi consola_ in +_Roderigo_, which became the air: _Ingannata una sol volta_ in +_Agrippina_--and also with the air: _L'alma mia_ from _Agrippina_, which +was used again for the _Resurrection_, for _Rinaldo_ and for _Joshua_. + +[294] The Eastern Dance in _Almira_ became the celebrated _Lascia ch'io +pianga_ in _Rinaldo_; and a joyful but ordinary melody from _Pastor +Fido_ was transformed to the touching phrase in the _Funeral Ode_: +"Whose ear she heard." + +[295] One can examine here in detail the two very characteristic +instrumental interludes from Stradella's _Serenata a 3 con stromenti_ +which had the fortune of blossoming out into the formidable choruses of +the Hailstones and the Plague of Flies in _Israel_. I have made a study +of this in an article for the S.I.M. review (May and July, 1910), under +the title of _Les plagiats de Handel_. + +[296] There is reason to believe that he was not absolutely free in the +matter. In 1732, when the Princess Anne wished to have _Esther_ +represented at the opera the Archbishop (Dr. Gibson) opposed it, and it +was necessary to fall back to giving the work at a concert. + +[297] An anonymous letter published in the _London Daily Post_ in April, +1739, dealing with _Israel in Egypt_, defends Handel against the +opposition of the bigots, who were then very bitter. The writer protests +"that the performance at which he was present was the noblest manner of +honouring God ... it is not the house which sanctifies the prayer, but +the prayer which sanctifies the house." + +[298] Is not even _Joseph_ entitled "a sacred Drama," and _Hercules_ "a +musical Drama"? + +[299] At the end of his second volume of the Life of Handel. + +[300] See the vocal distribution of some of the London Operas: + +_Radamisto_ (1720): 4 Sopranos (of which 3 parts are male characters), 1 +Alto, 1 Tenor, 1 Bass. + +_Floridante_ (1722): 2 Sopranos, 2 Contraltos, 2 Basses. + +_Giulio Cesare_ (1724): 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, 1 Contralto (Caesar's role), +2 Basses. + +_Tamerlano_ (1724): 2 Sopranos, 1 Contralto (male _role_), 1 Alto +(Tamerlano), 1 Tenor, 1 Bass. + +_Admeto_ (1727): 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, 1 Contralto (Admeto), 2 Basses. + +_Orlando_ (1732): 2 Sopranos, 1 Alto (Medora), 1 Contralto (Orlando), 1 +Bass. + +_Deidamia_ (1747): 3 Sopranos (one is Achilles' _role_), 1 Contralto +(Ulysses), 2 Basses. + +It is the same in the Oratorios, where one finds such a work as _Joseph_ +(1744) written for 2 Sopranos, 2 Altos, l Contralto (Joseph), 2 Tenors, +and 2 Basses. + +Thus, without speaking of the shocking inconsistencies of the parts thus +travestied, the balance of voices tends to fall off as we go from high +to low. + +[301] In 1729 he went to Italy to find an heroic tenor, Pio Fabri; +unfortunately he could not secure him for two years.--_Acis and Galatea_ +(1720) is written for 2 Tenors, 1 Soprano, and 1 Bass.--The most tragic +_role_ in _Tamerlano_ (1724) (that of Bajazet) was written for the +Tenor, Borosini.--_Rodelinda_, _Scipione_, _Alessandro_, all contain +Tenor _roles_.--On the other hand, Handel was not satisfied with having +in his theatre the most celebrated basses of the century, the famous +Boschi and Montagnana, for whom he wrote such fine _roles_, such as that +of Zoroaster in _Orlando_, and Polyphemus in _Acis and Galatea_; but he +aimed at having several important _roles_ all taken by Basses in the +same Opera. In his first version of _Athaliah_ (1733) he had written a +duet for Basses for Joad and Mathan. But the defection of Montagnana +obliged him to give up this idea, which he could only realise in _Israel +in Egypt_. + +[302] See also _Giulio Cesare_, _Atalanta_, or _Orlando_. + +[303] Especially in certain concert operas, such as _Alcina_ (1735), and +also in the last work of Handel, in which one feels his final torpor, +_The Triumph of Time_. + +[304] See those Oratorios in which he is not afraid, when necessary, of +introducing little popular songs, as that of the little waiting-maid in +_Susanna_ (1749). + +[305] See the air of Medea at the beginning of the second act of +_Teseo_; _Dolce riposo_. See also _Ariodante_ and _Hercules_. + +[306] Such as the air at the opening of _Radamisto_; _Sommi Dei_.--I +will mention also the airs written over a Ground-Bass accompaniment +without _Da Capo_, of which the most beautiful type is the _Spirito +amato_ of Cleofide, in _Poro_. + +[307] For example the air, _Per dar pregio_, in _Roderigo_. The oboe +plays a great part in these musical jousts. Such an air as that in +_Teseo_ is like a little Concerto for Oboe. + +[308] They are extremely short. Some are popular songs. Others in +_Agrippina_ have just a phrase. Many of these _arietti da capo_, in +_Teseo_, in _Ottone_; make one think of those in Gluck's _Iphigenie en +Aulide_. + +[309] In _Rinaldo_, the air, _Ah crudel il pianto mio_, the first part +is a sorrowful _largo_, the second a furious _presto_.--The finest +example of this freedom is the air of Timotheus at the beginning of the +second act of _Alexander's Feast_. The two parts in this air differ not +only by the movements but by the instrumental colouring, by the harmonic +character, and by the very essence of the thought; they are two +different poems which are joined together, but each being complete in +itself. + +[310] Examples; _Teseo_, Medea's _Moriro, ma vendicata_; _Amadigi_ air, +_T'amai quant'il mio cor_. + +[311] _Riccardo I_, air, _Morte, vieni_. + +[312] In the airs _da capo_ of _Ariodante_, the second part is +restricted to five bars. + +[313] _L'Allegro ed Penseroso_, 1st air, Part 3, _Come with native +lustre shine_; after the 2nd part comes a recitative, then the chorus +sings the _Da Capo_.--In _Alexander's Feast_ the air, _He sung Darius, +great and good_; after the 2nd part comes a recitative, then the _Da +Capo_ with Chorus, but altogether free; to speak truly, the _Da Capo_ is +only in the instrumental accompaniment. + +[314] Handel has found a musical language passing by imperceptible steps +from _recitativo secco_, almost spoken, to _recitativo accompagnato_, +then to the air. In _Scipione_ (1726) the phrases of the accompanied +_recitative_ are enshrined in small frameworks of spoken _recitative_ +(see p. 23 of the Complete Handel Edition, the air, _Oh sventurati_). +The final air in the first act is a compromise between speech and song. +The accompanied _recitative_ runs naturally into the air. + +[315] In the chain of Recitatives and Airs of all kinds which succeed or +mingle themselves with it, with an astonishing freedom reflecting one +after another, or even at the same time the contradictory ideas which +course through Roland's mind, Handel does not hesitate to use unusual +rhythms, as the 5-8 here which gives a stronger impression of the hero's +madness. + +[316] It is necessary to consider to some extent the _Arias buffi_. Some +have denied Handel the gift of humour. They cannot know him well. He is +full of humour, and often expresses it in his works. In his first opera, +_Almira_, the _role_ of Tabarco is in the comic style of Keiser and of +Telemann. It is the same feeling which gives certain traits a little +_caricaturesque_ to the _role_ of St. Peter in the _Passion after +Brockes_. The Polyphemus in _Acis and Galatea_ has a fine amplitude of +rough buffoonery. But in _Agrippina_ Handel derived his subtle irony +from Italy; and the light style with its minute touches and its jerky +rhythms from Vinci and Pergolesi (to the letter) appear with Handel in +_Teseo_ (1713). _Radamisto_, _Rodelinda_, _Alessandro_, _Tolomeo_, +_Partenope_, _Orlando_, _Atalanta_ afford numerous examples. The scene +where Alexander and Roxane are asleep (or pretend to be) is a little +scene of musical comedy. _Serse_ and _Deidamia_ are like tragi-comedies, +the action of which points to _opera comique_. But his gift of humour +takes another turn in his oratorios, where Handel not only creates +complex and colossal types, such as _Delilah_ or _Haraphah_ in _Samson_, +or as the two old men in _Susanna_, but where his Olympian laugh breaks +out in the choruses of _L'Allegro_, shaking the sides of the audience +with irresistible laughter. + +[317] See especially Hugo Goldschmidt: _Treatise on Vocal Ornaments_, +Volume I, 1907; Max Seiffert: _Die Verzierung der Sologesaenge in +Haendels Messias_ (I.M.G., July-September, 1907, and Monthly Bulletin of +I.M.G., February, 1908); Rudolf Wustmann: _Zwei Messias-probleme_ +(Monthly Bulletin I.M.G., January, February, 1908). + +[318] M. Seiffert has given a description of the whole series of copies +of Handel Operas and Oratorios in the Lennard collection of the +Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. There are to be found there (in pencil) +the indication of the ornaments and vocalises executed by the singers. +According to M. Seiffert these indications were by Christopher Smith, +the friend and factotum of Handel. According to Mr. Goldschmidt they +were put in at the end of the eighteenth century. In any case they show +a vocal tradition which affords a good opportunity of preserving for us +the physiognomy of the musical ornaments of Handel's time. + +[319] This is especially true of the oratorios. In the operas, the +ornamentation was much more elaborate and more irrelevant to the +expression. + +[320] The first, by Mr. Seiffert; the second, by Mr. Goldschmidt. + +[321] _Teseo_, duet, _Addio, mio caro bene_; _Esther_, duet by Esther +and Ahasuerus: "Who calls my parting soul?" + +[322] _Arminio_ (1737), duet from Act III. It is to be noticed that +_Arminio_ opens also with a duet, a very exceptional thing. + +Other duets are in the Sicilian style, as, for instance, that in _Giulio +Cesare_, or in the popular English style of the hornpipe, as that of +Teofane and Otho in _Ottone_; _A'teneri affetti_. + +[323] There are to be found also some fine trios in a serious yet virile +style in the _Passion according to Brockes_ (trio of the believing +souls: _O Donnerwort_!) and in the _Chandos Anthems_. + +[324] See also the quartet in Act I of _Semele_. + +[325] With the exception of the Italian operas played at Venice, in +which (thanks to Fux) the tradition of vocal polyphony is maintained--a +tradition to be put to such good use later by Hasse and especially +Jommelli. + +[326] The 5-8 time in _Orlando_; the 9-8 in _Berenice_. + +[327] The Introduction to _Riccardo I_ represents a vessel wrecked in a +tempestuous sea. + +[328] _Giulio Cesare_: Scene on Parnassus. + +[329] _Ariodante_, _Alcina_. + +[330] See _Israel in Egypt_. + +[331] _Belshazzar_, _Susanna_, _L'Allegro_, _Samson_. + +[332] _Saul_, _Theodora_, _Athalia_. + +[333] _Passion according to Brockes_, _Chandos Anthems_, _Funeral +Anthem_, _Foundling Anthem_. + +[334] _Anthems_, _Jubilate_, _Israel in Egypt_. + +[335] _Israel in Egypt_, _Messiah_, _Belshazzar_, _Chandos Anthems_. + +[336] _Samson_, _Saul_, _Israel in Egypt_. + +[337] _L'Allegro_, _Susanna_, _Belshazzar_, _Alexander Balus_. + +[338] _Solomon_, _L'Allegro_. + +[339] _Hercules_, _Saul_, _Semele_, _Alexander Balus_, _Solomon_. + +[340] I have noticed above the Chorus-Dances in _Giulio Cesare_, +_Orlando_, _Ariodante_, _Alcina._ There are also veritable choral dances +in _Hercules_, _Belshazzar_, _Solomon_, _Saul_ (the Bell scene), +_Joshua_ (Sacred dance in Act II over a Ground-Bass). + +[341] So in _Athalia_, _Alexander's Feast_, _L'Allegro_, _Samson_ +(Michel's role). + +[342] _Jubilate_, _Funeral Anthem_. + +[343] Quoted by M. Bellaigue in _Les Epoques de la Musique_, Vol. I, +page 109. + +[344] In the time of Lully and his school, the French were the leaders +in musical painting, especially for the storms. Addison made fun of it, +and the parodies of the _Theatre de la Foire_ often amused people by +reproducing in caricature the storms of the _Opera_. + +[345] Extract from a pamphlet published in London (1751) on _The art of +composing music in a completely new manner adapted even to the feeblest +intellects_. + +Already Pope in 1742 compared Handel with Briareus. + +"Strong in new arms, lo! Giant HANDEL stands, +Like bold Briareus with his _hundred hands_." + +At the time of _Rinaldo_ (1711) Addison accused Handel of delighting in +noise. + +[346] ".... You refuse to submit to rules; you refuse to let your genius +be hampered by them.... O thou Goth and Vandal!... You also allow +nightingales and canaries on the stage and let them execute their +untrained natural operas, in order that you may be considered a +composer. A carpenter with his rule and square can go as far in +composition as you, O perfect irregularity!" (_Harmony in Revolt: a +letter to Frederic Handel esquire, ... by Hurlothrumbo-Johnson_, +February, 1734). + +[347] Soon Handel was obliged to publish these works, because fraudulent +and faulty copies were being sold. It was so with the first volume of +_Suites de pieces pour le clavecin_, published in 1720, and the first +volume of Organ Concertos published in 1738. Some of these publications +had been made in a bare-faced manner without Handel's permission by +publishers who had pilfered them. So it was with the second volume of +_Suites de pieces pour le clavecin_, which Walsh had appropriated and +published in 1733 without giving Handel an opportunity of correcting the +proofs. It is very remarkable that, notwithstanding the great European +success achieved by the first volume for the Clavecin, Handel did not +trouble to publish the others. + +[348] All his contemporaries agree in praising the wonderful genius with +which Handel adapted himself instinctively in his improvisations to the +spirit of his audience. Like all the greatest Virtuosos he soon placed +himself in the closest spiritual communion with his public; and, so to +speak, they collaborated together. + +[349] Geminiani's Preface to his _Ecole de violon_, or _The Art of +Playing on the Violin, Containing all the Rules necessary to attain to +Perfection on that Instrument, with great variety of Compositions, which +will also be very useful to those who study the violoncello, +harpsichord, etc._ Composed by F. Geminiani, Opera IX, London, MDCCLI. + +[350] Geminiani himself had attempted to represent in music the pictures +of Raphael and the poems of Tasso. + +[351] For example, the _Allegro_ of the First Organ Concerto (second +volume published in 1740), with its charming dialogue between the cuckoo +and the nightingale, or the first of the Second Organ Concerto (in the +same volume), or several of the _Concerti Grossi_ (referred to later). + +[352] Vol. XLVII of the Complete Handel Edition. + +[353] It is a manuscript of 21 pages, the writing appearing to date from +about 1710. It is certainly a copy from some older works. Chrysander +published it in Volume XLVIII of the Complete Edition. It is probable +that Handel had given to an English friend a selection from the +compositions of his early youth. They were passed from hand to hand, and +were even fraudulently published, as Handel tells us himself in the +Edition of 1720: "I have been led to publish some of the following +pieces, because some faulty copies of them have been surreptitiously +circulated abroad." In this number appear, for example, the Third Suite, +the Sarabande of the Seventh Suite, etc. + +[354] It is said that Handel wrote these for the Princess Anne, whom he +taught the clavecin; but Chrysander had observed that the princess was +only eleven years old at the time. It is more probable that these pieces +were written for the Duke of Chandos or for the Duke of Burlington.--It +is in the second book of Clavier Pieces that we find the much easier +pieces written for the princesses. + +[355] In their republication of the _Geschichte der Klaviermusik_ by +Weitzmann (1899), in which the chapter devoted to Handel contains the +fullest information of any description of the Clavier works. + +[356] Influences of Krieger and of Kuhnau, particularly in the Halle +period (see Vol. XLVIII, pp. 146, 149); French influences in the Hamburg +Period (pp. 166, 170); influences of Pasquini (p. 162); and of Scarlatti +(pp. 148, 152), about the time of his Italian visits. The influence of +Kuhnau is very marked, and Handel had all his life a well-stocked memory +of this music, and particularly of Kuhnau's _Klavier-Uebung_ +(1689-1692), and the _Frischen Klavier-Fruechte_ (1696), which were then +widely known and published in numerous editions. Here is the same limpid +style, the same neat soberness of line. Kuhnau's Sarabandes especially +are already completely Handelian. It is the same with certain Preludes, +certain Gigues, and some of the airs (a trifle popular). + +[357] For the German influence, see the Suites 1, 4, 5, 8 (four dance +movements preceded by an introduction). For the Italian, see the Suites +2, 3, 6, 7, of which the form approximates to the _Sonata da camera_. + +[358] M. Seiffert adds that none of these elements predominate. I would +rather follow the opinion of Chrysander, who notices in this fusion of +three national styles a predominant tendency to the Italian, just as +Bach inclines most to the French style. + +[359] One finds there, cycles of variations on Minuets, on Gavottes, +especially on Chaconnes and many other Italian forms. The Gigue of the +Sixth Suite (in G minor) comes from an air in _Almira_ (1705). One +notices also that the Eighth Suite in G major is in the French style +(particularly the Gavotte in rondo with five variations). + +It is necessary to follow this second volume by the third, which +contains works of widely different periods: _Fantasia_, _Capriccio_, +_Preludio e Allegro_, _Sonata_, published at Amsterdam in 1732, and +dating from his youthful period (the Second Suite was inspired by an +_Allemande_ of Mattheson): _Lessons composed for the Princess Louisa_ +(when aged twelve or thirteen years) about 1736; _Capriccio in G minor_ +(about the same date); and _Sonata in C major_ in 1750. + +Finally, there should be added to these volumes, various clavier works +published in Vol. XLVIII of the Complete Edition under the title: +_Klaviermusik und Cembalo Bearbeitungen_. There is also a selection of +the best arrangements of symphonies and airs from the operas of Handel +by Babell (about 1713 or 1714). + +[360] Mattheson in 1722 quoted the Fugue in E minor as quite a recent +work. + +[361] Handel himself told his friend Bernard Granville so, when he made +him a present of Krieger's work: _Anmuthige Clavier-Uebung_, published +in 1699. + +[362] The Fugue in A minor was used for the Chorus, _He smote all the +firstborn in Egypt_, in _Israel in Egypt_, and the Fugue in G minor. The +Chorus, _They loathed to drink at the river_. Another (the 4th) served +for the Overture to the _Passion after Brockes_. + +[363] The indications: _ad libitum_, or _cembalo_, found time after time +in his scores, marked the places reserved for the improvisation. + +Despite Handel's great physical power, his touch was extraordinarily +smooth and equal. Burney tells us that when he played, his fingers were +"so curved and compact, that no motion, and scarcely the fingers +themselves, could be discovered" (_Commemoration of Handel_, p. 35). M. +Seiffert believes that "his technique, which realised all Rameau's +principles, certainly necessitated the use of the thumb in the modern +style," and that "one can trace a relationship between Handel's arrival +in England and the adoption of the Italian fingering which soon became +fully established there." + +[364] A fourth was published by Arnold in 1797; but part of the works +which it contains are not original. Handel had nothing to do with the +publication of the Second Set. + +Vol. XXVIII of the Complete Edition contains the Six Concertos of the +First Set, Op. 4 (1738) and the Six of the Third Set, Op. 7 (1760). Vol. +XLVIII comprises the concertos of the Second Set (1740), an experiment +at a Concerto for two organs and orchestra, and two Concertos from the +Fourth Set (1797). + +Many of the Concertos are dated. Most of them were written between 1735 +and 1751; and several for special occasions; the sixth of the First Set +for an _entr'acte_ to _Alexander's Feast_; the fourth of the First Set, +a little before _Alcina_; the third of the Third Set for the Foundling +Hospital. The Concerto in B minor (No. 3) was always associated in the +mind of the English public with _Esther_; for the minuet was called the +"Minuet from Esther." + +[365] May 8, 1735. It was the year when Handel wrote and performed his +first Concertos of the First Set. + +[366] Hawkins wrote further: "Music was less fashionable than it is now, +many of both sexes were ingenuous enough to confess that they wanted +this sense, by saying, 'I have no ear for music.' Persons such as these, +who, had they been left to themselves, would have interrupted the +hearing of others by their talking, were by the performance of Handel +not only charmed into silence, but were generally the loudest in their +acclamations. This, though it could not be said to be genuine applause, +was a much stronger proof of the power of harmony, than the like effect +on an audience composed only of judges and rational admirers of his art" +(_General History of Music_, p. 912). + +[367] In the Tenth Concerto there are two violoncellos and two bassoons. +The same in the Concerto for two Organs. In the long Concerto in F major +(Vol. XLVIII) we find two horns. + +[368] Sometimes the name is found marked there. See the Eighth Concerto +in Vol. XXVIII and the Concerto in F major in Vol. XLVIII. + +[369] Vol. XLVIII, page 51. + +[370] Mr. Streatfeild was, I believe, the first to notice an autograph +MS. of the Fourth Organ Concerto to which is attached a Hallelujah +Chorus built on a theme from the concerto itself. This MS., which is +found at the British Museum, dates from 1735, and appears to have been +used for the revival in 1737 of the _Trionfo del Tempo_ to which the +Concerto serves for conclusion. + +[371] Scriabin also.--_Translator._ + +[372] _Six Sonatas or Trios for two Hoboys with a thorough bass for the +Harpsichord._ Published in Vol. XXVII. + +[373] Volume XLVIII, page 112. + +[374] Volume XLVIII, page 130. + +[375] Volume XXVII. + +[376] _VII Sonatas a 2 violons, 2 hautbois, ou 2 flutes traversieres et +basse continue, composees par G. F. Handel, Second ouvrage._ + +[377] Later on, Walsh made arrangements of favourite airs from Handel's +Operas and Oratorios as "Sonatas" for flute, violin and harpsichord. Six +Vols. + +[378] In eleven sonatas out of sixteen. One sonata (the third) is in +three movements. Three are in five movements (the first, the fifth and +the seventh). One is in seven movements (the ninth). + +[379] In the first Sonata, the final _Presto_ in common time uses the +theme of the _Andante_ in 3-4, which forms the second movement. In the +second Sonata, the final _Presto_ in common time is built on the subject +of the _Andante_ in 3-4, slightly modified. + +[380] The fifth Sonata is in five movements--_larghetto_, _allegro_ +(3-8), _adagio_, _allegro_ (4-4), _allegro_ (12-8). + +[381] From five to seven movements. + +[382] A Gavotte concludes the first, second, and third trios. A Minuet +ends the fourth, sixth, and seventh. A Bourree finishes the fifth. There +are also found two Musettes and a March in the second Trio, a Sarabande, +an Allemande and a Rondo in the third; a Passacaille and a Gigue in the +fourth. + +[383] It was the aesthetic of the period. Thus M. Mennicke writes: +"Neutrality of orchestral colour characterises the time of Bach and +Handel. The instrumentation corresponds to the registration of an +Organ." The Symphonic orchestra is essentially built up on the strings. +The wind instruments serve principally as _ripieno_. When they used the +wood-wind _obbligato_, it went on throughout the movement and did not +merely add a touch of colour here and there. + +[384] One finds in the middle of the _Trionfo del Tempo_ an instrumental +Sonata for 2 Oboes, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello, Basso, and Organ. In the +Solo of the Magdalene in the _Resurrection_, Handel uses two flutes, two +violins (muted), _viola da gamba_ and cello; the cello is occupied with +a pedal-note of thirty-nine bars at the opening, and then joins the +clavecin. In the middle of the air, the _viola da gamba_ and the flutes +play by themselves. + +[385] In _Radamisto_ (1720) Tiridate's air: _Alzo al colo_, and final +chorus. In _Giulio Cesare_, 4 horns. + +I do not suppose that Handel was the first to use the clarionets in an +orchestra, as this appears very doubtful. One sees on a copy of +_Tamerlano_ by Schmidt: _clar. e clarini_ (in place of the _cornetti_ in +the autograph manuscript). But it is feasible that just as with the +"_clarinettes_" used by Rameau in the _Acanthe et Cephise_, the high +trumpets are intended. Mr. Streatfeild mentions also a concerto for two +"clarinets" and _corno di caccia_, the MS. being in the Fitzwilliam +Museum at Cambridge. + +[386] _Alcina_, _Semele_, _L'Allegro_, _Alexander's Feast_, the little +_Ode to St. Cecilia_, etc. Usually Handel imparts to the cello either an +amorous desire or an elegiac consolation. + +[387] Thus, in the famous scene which opens the second Act of +_Alexander's Feast_ (second part of the air in G minor), evoking the +host of the dead who have wandered at night from their graves, there are +no violins, no brass; just 3 bassoons, 2 violas, cello, bassi and organ. + +[388] In Saul, the scene of the Sorcerer, apparition of the spirit of +Samuel. + +[389] The _violette marine_ (little violas very soft) in _Orlando_ +(1733). + +[390] The monster instruments used for the colossal performances at +Westminster. The double bassoon by Stainsby made in 1727 for the +coronation celebrations. Handel borrowed from the Captain of Artillery +some huge drums preserved at the Tower of London, for _Saul_ and for the +_Dettingen Te Deum_. Moreover, like Berlioz, he was not afraid of using +firearms in the orchestra. Mrs. Elizabeth Carter wrote: "Handel has +literally introduced firearms into _Judas Maccabaeus_; and they have a +good effect" (_Carter Correspondence_, p. 134), and Sheridan, in a +humorous sketch (Jupiter) represents an author who directs a pistol-shot +to be fired behind the scenes, as saying, "See, I borrowed this from +Handel." + +[391] For the scene of Cleopatra's apparition on the Parnassus, at the +opening of Act II of _Giulio Cesare_, Handel has two orchestras, one on +the stage; Oboe, 2 Violins, Viola, Harp, Viola da gamba, Theorbo, +Bassoons, Cellos; the other, in front. The first air of Cleopatra in +_Alexander Balus_ is accompanied by 2 Flutes, 2 Violins, Viola, 2 +Cellos, Harp, Mandoline, Basses, Bassoon and Organ. + +[392] Fritz Volbach: _Die Praxis der Haendel-Auffuehrung_, 1899. + +[393] In addition to two parts for Flutes, two for Oboes, two for +Bassoons, Violas, Cellos and Basses, Cembalo, Theorbo, Harp and Organ; +in all, fifteen orchestral parts to accompany a single voice of +_Esther_. + +[394] For the Angel's Song. + +[395] In _Saul_, "_viola II per duoi violoncelli ripieni_." (See +Volbach, _ibid._) + +[396] Study from this point of view the progress from the very simple +instrumentation of _Alexander's Feast_, where at first two Oboes are +used with the strings, then appear successively two Bassoons (air No. +6), two Horns (air No. 9), two Trumpets and Drums (Part II), and, for +conclusion, with the heavenly apparition of St. Cecilia, two Flutes. + +[397] Dr. Hermann Abert has found the first indication: _crescendo il +forte_ in Jommelli's _Artaserse_, performed at Rome in 1749. In the +eighteenth century the Abbe Vogler and Schubart already had attributed +the invention of the _Crescendo_ to Jommelli. + +[398] See Lucien Kamiensky: _Mannheim und Italien_ (_Sammelbaende der +I.M.G._, January-March, 1909). + +[399] M. Volbach has noticed in the overture to the _Choice of +Hercules_, second movement: _piano_, _mezzo forte_, _un poco piu forte_, +_forte_, _mezzo piano_, all in fourteen bars. In the chorus in _Acis and +Galatea_, "Mourn, all ye muses," one reads _forte_, _piano_, _pp._--The +introduction of _Zadock the Priest_ shows a colossal _crescendo_; the +introductory movement to the final chorus in _Deborah_, a very broad +_diminuendo_. + +[400] H. Riemann: _Zur Herkunft der dynamischen Schwellzeichen_ (I.M.G., +February, 1909). + +[401] Carle Mennicke notices the same sign for _decrescendo_ ((>) on a +long note in the Overture to Rameau's _Acanthe et Cephise_ (1751). + +[402] Geminiani says of the _forte_ and the _piano_: "They are +absolutely necessary to give expression to the melody; for all good +music being the imitation of a fine discourse, these two ornaments have +for their aim the varied inflections of the speaking voice." Telemann +writes: "Song is the foundation of music, in every way. What the +instruments play ought to be exactly after the principles of expression +in singing." + +And M. Volbach shows that these principles governed music then in +Germany with all kinds of musicians, even with the trompettist +Altenburg, whose _School for the Trumpet_ was based on the principle +that instrumental performance ought to be similar to vocal rendering. + +[403] Max Seiffert: _Die Verzierung der Sologesaenge in Haendels Messias_ +(_Sammelbaende der I.M.G._, July-September, 1907). + +[404] Fritz Volbach reckons for the _Concerto Grosso_, 8 first violins, +8 seconds, 6 violas, 4 to 6 cellos, 4 basses--and for the _Ripienists_, +6 first violins, 6 seconds, 4 violas, 3 or 4 celli, and 3 basses. + +These numbers are much greater than that of Handel's own performances. +The programmes of a performance of the _Messiah_ at the Foundling +Hospital, May 3, 1759, a little after Handel's death, give only 56 +executants, of which 33 were instrumentalists and 23 singers. The +orchestra was divided into 12 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, 4 oboes, 4 +bassoons, 2 trumpets, 2 horns and drums (see _Musical Times_, May, +1902). + +[405] "_Leichtigkeit der Bewegung und Beweglichkeit des Ausdrucks_," as +Volbach tells us (suppleness of time and fluidity of expression); these +are the essential qualities which alone will revive the true rendering +of Handel's works. + +[406] _12 Grand Concertos_ for stringed instruments and clavier (Vol. +XXX of the Complete Edition), written from September 29 to October 20, +1739, between the little _Ode to St. Cecilia_ and _L'Allegro_. They +appeared in April, 1740. Another volume, of which we will speak later, +is known under the name of _Oboe Concertos_, and contains six _Concerti +Grossi_ (Vol. XXI of the Complete Edition). Max Seiffert has published a +well-edited practical edition of these concertos (Breitkopf). + +[407] The _Concertino_ consists of a trio for two violins and bass +_soli_, with _Cembalo Obbligato_. The Germans introduced wood-wind into +the _concertino_, combining thus a violin, an oboe, a bassoon. The +Italians remained faithful, generally speaking, to the stringed +instruments alone. + +[408] The _Concerti Grossi_, Op. 6, of Corelli, published in 1712, +represent his lifelong practice. About 1682, George Muffat, visiting +Rome, sought to make acquaintance there with the _Concerti Grossi_ of +Corelli, who already wrote them for instrumental masses of considerable +size. Burney speaks of a concert of 150 string instruments conducted by +Corelli at the Palace of Christine of Sweden in 1680 (see Arnold +Schering's excellent little book: _Geschichte des Instrumentalkonzerts_, +1905, Breitkopf). + +[409] Geminiani caused three volumes of Corelli's Concertos to be +published: Op. 2 (1732), Op. 3 (1735), Op. 7 (1748). + +[410] Arnold Schering has noted the relationship between a subject of +Geminiani and one in Handel's _Concerto Grosso_, No. 4. + +[411] Volume XXI of the Complete Edition. + +[412] About 1682, Muffat published at Salzburg his _Armonico tributo_, +Chamber Sonatas, where he mingled the style of the Lullian Trio with the +style of the Italian _Concertino_. And in 1701, at Passau, he published +some _Concerti Grossi_ in the Italian manner after the example of +Corelli. + +[413] _Concerti Grossi_, Amsterdam, 1721. + +[414] Antonio Vivaldi of Venice (1680-1743), choirmaster of the Ospedale +della Pieta from 1714, began to be known in Germany between 1710 and +1720. The arrangements of his _Concerti Grossi_, which J. S. Bach made, +date from the time when Bach was at Weimar, that is between 1708 and +1714. + +[415] Locatelli and Vivaldi came under the influence of the Italian +Opera. Vivaldi himself wrote thirty-eight operas. One of the _Concerti_ +of Locatalli (Op. 7, 1741) was named _Il pianto d'Arianna_. In the +_Cimento dell'Armonia_ of Vivaldi four Concertos describe the four +seasons, a fifth paints _La Tempesta_, a sixth _Il Piacere_ (Pleasure). +In Vivaldi's Op. 10 a Concerto represents _La Notte_ (Night), another +_Il Cardellino_ (The Goldfinch). And Arnold Schering notices Vivaldi's +influence in Germany on a Granpuer at Darmstadt, and on Jos. Gregorius +Werner in Bohemia. + +[416] See the following dates: September 29, 1739, Concerto I in G +major; October 4, Concerto II in F major; October 6, Concerto III in E +minor; October 8, Concerto IV in A minor; October 12, Concerto VII in B +flat major; October 15, Concerto VI in G minor; October 18, Concerto +VIII in C minor; October 20, Concerto XII in B minor; October 22, +Concerto X in D minor; October 30, Concerto XI in A major (Vol. XXX of +Complete Edition). + +[417] One sees French influences particularly in the Tenth Concerto (in +D minor), which has an Overture (_Grave_ in 4-4 time and Fugue in 6-8). +The whole movement preserves an abstract and irregular character. The +last of the six movements--an _Allegro Moderato_, with Variations (very +pretty)--resembles a tune for a musical box. + +[418] See even the Third Concerto in E minor, so vivacious, with its +_Larghetto_ 3-2, melancholy and serene, its _Andante_ 12-8 Fugue with an +elaborate theme of twirling designs which gives the impression of the +fancies of a capricious and gloomy soul, its _Allegro_ in 4-4, with a +humour a little grotesque--its picturesque Polonaise on a pedal-bass, +and its final _allegro ma non troppo_ of which the rhythm and unexpected +modulations make one think of certain dances in the later quartets of +Beethoven. + +[419] The Fifth Concerto in D major may be styled the Concerto to St. +Cecilia; for three out of the six movements (the two first and the +beautiful final minuet) are found again in the Overture to the little +_Ode to St. Cecilia_. + +[420] Arnold Schering believes that the idea of this Musette was given +to Handel by a _ritournelle_ from Leonardo Leo's _S. Elena il Calvaroa_. + +[421] The two last _allegri_ conclude the work a trifle brusquely. The +order of the movements with Handel is often very surprising. It is as +though he followed the caprice of the moment. + +[422] We cannot continue here the analysis of the other volumes of +Orchestral Concertos. I satisfy myself with merely enumerating them: The +_6 Concerti grossi con due violini e violoncello di concertino obligati +e due altri violini viola e basso di concerto grosso, op. 3_, known +under the name of Oboe Concertos (notwithstanding that the oboe does not +play a very prominent _role_), were published in 1734, and seemed to +have been performed at the Wedding of the Prince of Orange with the +Princess Anne in 1733. But, as we are told, their composition was +previous to this; for not only do we find in the third and the fifth the +reproduction of fugues from the Clavier Pieces, but the fourth served in +1716 as the second overture to _Amadigi_, and the first movement of the +fifth was played in 1722 in the opera _Ottone_. The form of these +Concertos, even less set than with the preceding _Concerti Grossi_, +varies from two to five movements, and their orchestration comprises, +besides the strings, two oboes, to which are occasionally added two +flutes, two bassoons, the organ and the clavecin. It is only exceptional +that the oboe plays a solo part; more often it has to satisfy itself by +reinforcing the violins. + +To this volume we must add a number of other concertos, which appeared +at different times, and are brought together in Volume XXI of the +Complete Works; especially the celebrated Concerto of _Alexander's +Feast_, written in January, 1736, of which the style has the same +massive breadth as the oratorio itself. And four little concertos, two +of which are interesting by being youthful works, from 1703 to 1710, +according to Chrysander. + +[423] Handel's Overtures were so much appreciated that the publisher +Walsh issued a volume of them for the clavier(65 Overtures). A good +specimen of these transcriptions is found in Volume XLVIII of the +Complete Edition. + +[424] Both movements are rudimentary. + +[425] This device is often used by Handel to make the transition between +the orchestra and the voice. + +[426] Scheibe, who was, with Mattheson, the greatest of German musical +critics in Handel's time, states that the overture ought in its two +first movements "to mark the chief character of the work"; and in the +third movement "to prepare for the first scene of the piece" (_Krit. +Musikus_, 1745). Scheibe himself composed in 1738 some _Sinfonie_ "which +expressed to some extent the contents of the works" (_Polyeuctes, +Mithridates_). + +[427] _Andante_, _larghetto_, _allegro_ (fugue). + +[428] Only whereas a modern composer would not have omitted the +opportunity of exposing his programme in an organic manner (by +presenting turn by turn the two rival themes, then by bringing them into +conflict, and finally terminating with the triumph of Israel's theme), +Handel contents himself in exposing the two subjects without seeking to +establish any further sequence. If he finishes his overture with the +theme of Baal, it is because it is a gigue movement, and because the +gigue serves well there for concluding; and because Israel's song being +an _adagio_ is better placed as the second movement. It is such +architectural considerations which guide him rather than dramatic ones. +It is the same with nearly all the symphonies of the eighteenth century. +In the same manner even Beethoven in his _Eroica_ symphony allows his +hero to die and be buried in the second movement, and then celebrates +his acts and his triumphs in the third and fourth movements. + +[429] Amongst the other overtures, which have the character of +introduction to the work proper, I will mention the Overture to +_Athalie_, which is in perfect accordance with the tragedy;--that of +_Acis and Galatea_, which is a Pastoral Symphony evoking the Pagan life +of nature;--that of the _Occasional Oratorio_, a warlike overture with +two marches, trumpet calls, and a Prayer of distress. There is also the +outline of a programme in the Overture to _Judas Maccabaeus_, of which +the first movement is related to the Funeral Scene which opens the first +act, and of which the second movement (Fugue) is connected with one of +the warlike choruses of Act I. + +The Overture of _Riccardo I_ (1727), in two movements, contains a +tempest in music painted in a powerful and poetic manner, which opens +the first act after the manner of the Tempest in _Iphigenie en Tauride_, +and on the last rumblings of which the dialogue between the heroes +commences. + +Finally one finds occasionally in the course of the works some other +_Sinfonie_ which have a dramatic character. The most striking is that +which opens the third act of the _Choice of Hercules_. It depicts turn +by turn the fury of Hercules and the sad force of Destiny which weighs +down on his soul. + +[430] Volume XLVIII of the Complete Works. + +[431] The work was an immediate success. A first Edition very incorrect +and incomplete was published in London about 1720, by Walsh. +Arrangements for harpsichord with variations by Geminiani were also +published. Both the Water Music and the Firework Music are published in +Volume XLVII of the Complete Edition. + +[432] One may add to these monumental pieces the _Sinfonie diverse_ (pp. +140-143 of Vol. XLVIII) and the Concerto in F major in the form of an +Overture and Suite (pp. 68-100, _ibid._), but particularly the _3 +Concerti fuer grosses Orchester_ and the _2 Concerti a due cori_ of Vol. +XLVII. The _Concerti fuer grosses Orchester_ have been, so to speak, the +sketch books for the Water Music and for the Firework Music. The first +Concerto dates from about 1715, and furnished two movements for the +Water Music. It is written for two horns, two oboes, bassoon, two +violins, violas and bass. The second Concerto in F major (for four +horns, two oboes, bassoons, two violins, violas, cellos, basses and +organ); and the third Concerto in D major (for two trumpets, four horns, +drums, two oboes, bassoons, two violins, violas, cellos, organ) contains +already nearly all the Firework Music with a less important orchestra, +but with the Organ in addition. + +The two Concertos for two horns (_Concerti a due cori_) were made from +the important choruses of the Oratorios transcribed for double +orchestra--ten orchestral parts for the first group, twelve for the +second (four horns, eight oboes, bassoons, etc.). Thus the appearance of +God in _Esther_: "Jehovah crowned in glory bright," and the connected +chorus: "He comes to end our woes." There are there colossal dialogues +between the two orchestras. + +[433] The autograph MS., published in XLVII of the Complete Edition, +contains: 2 parts for trumpets with 3 trumpets to a part (_i.e._ 6 +trumpets); 3 _Prinzipali_ (low trumpets); 3 drums; 3 parts for horns +with 3 to a part (_i.e._ 9 Horns); 3 parts for oboes with 12 for the +first part, 8 for the second and 4 for the third (_i.e._ 24 oboes); 2 +parts for bassoons with 8 for the first and 4 for the second (_i.e._ 12 +bassoons). Total, 70 wind instruments. There were about 100 players for +the performance on April 27, 1749. + +Later on, Handel reproduced the work for concert use by adding the +string orchestra to it. + +[434] Written for 9 horns in three sections, 24 oboes in two sections, +and 12 bassoons. + +[435] It would not be difficult to add other analogous works by Handel +and Beethoven. There exists a fine repertoire of popular classical music +for open-air _fetes_. But, nevertheless, it is completely disregarded. + +[436] The Gavotte theme from the Overture to _Ottone_ was played all +over England and on all kinds of instruments, "even on the pan's-pipes +of the perambulating jugglers." It was found even at the end of the +eighteenth century as a French vaudeville air. (see the _Anthologie +francoise ou Chansons choisies_, published by Monnet, in 1765, Vol. I, +p. 286). The March from _Scipio_, as also that from _Rinaldo_, served +during half a century for the Parade of the Life Guards. The minuets and +overtures from _Arianna_ and Berenice had a long popularity. One sees in +the English novels of the time (especially in Fielding's _Tom Jones_) to +what an extent Handel's music had permeated English country life, even +from the small country squires to the county magnates, so absolutely cut +off as they were from _all_ artistic influences. + +[437] Paul Marie Masson has noticed that about the date of 1716, in a +volume of _Recueil d'airs serieux et a boire_. (Bibl. Nat. Vm. 549), an +_Aria del Signor Inden_ (sic), "_air ajoute au ballet de l'Europe +Galante_." The _Meslanges de musique latine, francoise et italienne_ of +Ballard (in 1728), contains amongst the Italian airs _Arie de Signor +Endel_ (p. 61). All the airs of the _Chasse du cerf_ by Sere de Rieux +(1734) are Handel airs adapted to French words. An article by Michel +Brenet, _La librairie musicale en France de 1653 a 1790, d'apres les +registres de privileges_ (_Sammelbaende I.M.G._, 1907) gives a series of +French Editions of Handel from 1736, 1739, 1749, 1751, 1765. In 1736 and +in 1743 in _Concerts Spirituels_ some of his airs and his _Concerti +Grossi_ were given (Brenet: _Les Concerts en France sous l'ancien +regime_, 1900). A number of his airs were arranged for the flute by +Blavet in his three _Receuils de pieces, petits airs, brunettes, +minuets, etc., accommodes pour les flutes traversieres, violins, etc._, +which appeared between 1740 and 1750. Handel was so well known in Paris +that they sold his portrait there in 1739. (See a tradesman's +advertisement in the _Mercure de France_, June, 1739, Vol. II, page +1384.) + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Handel, by Romain Rolland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANDEL *** + +***** This file should be named 39671.txt or 39671.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/6/7/39671/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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