Chapter VI: Instrumental Music (2)

[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.