George Frideric Handel

by Paul Henry Lang

Overview

"I was so impressed by what Dr. Lang has done in his new and very fresh approach to Handel, his life and works, that I can find only one word to express my feeling about it: Monumental!" — Eugene Ormandy.
Universally known and admired for his great oratorio Messiah, George Frideric Handel (1695–1759) ranks among the greatest composers of all time. Over a career of more than 50 years, most of it spent in England, the German-born master composed numerous other oratorios, operas, concertos, chamber music, orchestral suites, cantatas, and more. But until now, far less has been known about the man "possessed of a central calm" but whose "driving force was incalculable."
In this immensely thorough and readable biography — considered by many scholars the definitive work on Handel — renowned musicologist Paul Henry Lang penetrates the mystery of Handel's life to paint a vivid portrait of the great composer, while offering expert analysis of Handel's music — its sources, nature, forms, and influence.
Detailed, meticulously researched discussions cover Handel's birth and childhood in Halle; his early musical training and years at university; sojourns in Italy and meetings with Corelli, Scarlatti, and other major composers; Handel's adoption of England as his home; his business dealings in London; his somewhat puzzling relations with women; the onset of blindness in 1751 and the end of his artistic career; his death in 1759 and burial in Westminster Abbey; and many other aspects of his long and complex life.
In addition to the breadth of biographical material, Dr. Lang offers detailed discussions of Handel's music, of both its general characteristics and the specific features of such masterworks as the oratorios Messiah, Israel in Egypt, Solomon and Judas Maccabaeus; the operas Giulio Cesare and Rinaldo; the orchestral suites Royal Fireworks Music and Water Music;the pastoral Acis and Galatea; the odes Alexander's Feast and Ode for St. Cecilia's Day; and many other compositions. Perceptive, extremely thorough and obviously a labor of love, this masterly biography belongs in the library of every musician, music lover, and student of music and music history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486144597
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	04/02/2012
Series:	Dover Books On Music: Composers
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	784
File size:	10 MB

Read an Excerpt

George Frideric Handel

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By Paul Henry Lang

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1994 Anne Lang
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14459-7

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CHAPTER 1

1685-1703

Halle—Handel's family—Earliest youth—Apprenticed to Zachow—Zachow as teacher—Handel's notebook and its contents—Fellow students—Visit to Berlin—Meeting electoral couple and Italian composers—Appointed organist at Halle Cathedral—The university student—Compositions in Halle period—Decision to leave Halle

EVERYTHING GREAT MEN ACHIEVE DURING THEIR RECORDED public lives is the transformation into negotiable currency of forces and capabilities they gathered when they were as yet neither great nor famous. If we want to judge the individuality of great men without the images their greatness and fame thrust upon them, so far as this is possible, we must begin our investigation in that period of their lives when in the darkness of anonymity they prepared themselves, consciously or unconsciously, for their future vocations.

If an artist could live to read his biography, he would recognize not so much himself as the mask that covered his face. Where is his true face? We see it in his works, which testify to the gifts he was endowed with, which made him what he is. Here we discover that humility, that patience, that disinterestedness and love to which are opposed the many rivalries of life. It is for these reasons the artist's creative work is called a confession, for in the work of art he is purely himself. To write a biography of a great composer without constantly exploring the music that accompanies the stations of his life is an idle undertaking; it is one of the chief reasons Handel is so little understood in the English-speaking world. But biography presents problems that become all the more acute if it is attempted in an unorthodox and unsystematic way. Where is the emphasis to be thrown? On the personality of the subject or on the measure of his work? There is the biographical thrill of demonstrating how personality gradually broadens out into the event. Yet there is the danger that a biographer may attempt to organize and arrange history.

Handel steps into history suddenly, already full-grown, in the first decade of the 18th century. To the average lover of music this date must be advanced farther, to the time of the successful oratorios, but even some of the well-informed Handelian authors in England and America deal perfunctorily with the youthful experiences that were vital to his future career. The twenty-five-year-old Handel who arrived in England was a mature master, but even the twenty-one-year-old who ventured into Italy was an accomplished composer capable of plunging immediately into the thick of the highly competitive Italian musical life and holding his own. And now we must turn the clock back still farther: the eighteen-year-old Handel, scarcely more than an adolescent, who left his home town to seek his fortune in the Hanseatic metropolis was a superbly trained, confident musician and virtuoso player with far more practical experience, knowledge, and assurance than most professionals many years his senior. He is never spoken of as a child prodigy, but in fact he was one, and at eighteen had all the assurance and savoir-faire of that miraculous youngster in the second half of the century: Mozart.

How had this style, already so mature, been formed? Surely this compels the historian to take a much more searching look at Handel's "German phase" than is customary among our English and American authors. Hitherto, for English readers, the period of Handel's apprenticeship as a composer has been shrouded in a certain mystery. They had a vague knowledge of his studies with Zachow and of his years of wandering in Italy, where he made the acquaintance of great musicians, but for them the curtain really rose on Handel's career with his arrival in England.

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GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL was born February 23, 1685, in Halle, the second issue of his father's second marriage, to a pastor's daughter thirty years his junior. The family and surroundings into which he was born were conservative, steady, thrifty, unadventurous, and unimaginative, a typical provincial Saxon petit bourgeois existence. But his father, Georg, a barber-surgeon, was a man of strength, if lacking in warmth. Iron self-discipline, force of character, robust health, pugnacious will to fight for a cause, courage, infinite capacity for work, as well as an astute business sense, the son inherited from the father, though fortunately not his morose, misanthropic disposition. His mother came from a dynasty of Lutheran pastors. Equally sturdy and courageous, she was a good and pious woman whom Handel remembered with warm affection, even though he saw very little of her after leaving Halle in his early youth. Obviously, his kind and hearty nature came from the maternal stock. His musical abilities must have been noticed at an early age, but the dour surgeon paid no attention to such frivolities as music; that sort of thing was not encouraged in a solid professional family, and he preferred a lawyer's career for his son.

The boy must have taken part in the singing at grammar school and heard the Sunday music in Our Lady's Lutheran church where the family worshipped, but where and in what manner he acquired his early proficiency at the keyboard is unknown. There are many romantic stories, such as one about a clavichord hidden in the attic, but none of them can be proved. One important fact is known: the barber-surgeon held a court appointment, and therefore often journeyed to nearby Weissenfels, where the duke had established his residence after Prussia annexed the city of Halle. Georg Händel undoubtedly took his son with him on many occasions, because a relative of his first wife was employed at the court and could look after the youngster while the father made his professional rounds. On one of these occasions when young Handel was permitted to play the postlude to a service, the duke happened to be lingering and was impressed that an eight- or nine-year-old child should play with such ease and fluency. His Serene Highness summoned the elder Händel, suggesting he encourage such a manifest talent. Ducal hints are not to be disregarded, especially by such a hard-bitten status seeker as the court surgeon, so upon their return to Halle the boy was turned over for musical instruction to the organist of the Händels' parish church. Here we have arrived at the first important turn in the future great composer's life but also at the first crucial biographical, artistic, and historical lacuna in the Handel literature.

Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663-1712), Handel's first and only teacher, was still a young man of about thirty when the new student was entrusted to him, but he was already widely known as a fine organist and a rather original composer in the "new style." This man, who is referred to as "lacking in imagination," whose music, "innocuous and trifling," "never rose to great heights," whom even Friedrich Chrysander, the editor of Handel's collected works, held in low esteem, was actually one of the most cultivated, learned, and imaginative musicians in Germany at the end of the century. Nor was Zachow an ordinary cantor, for he enthusiastically embraced the new concerted, dramatic style. His cantatas, often highly dramatic, are distinguished by very imaginative choral writing, colorful orchestration, and skilful handling of the concerted element. Many traits we consider typically Handelian are present in Zachow's music; it is spacious, euphonious, its melody sturdily designed yet sensuous, it can be suave but also monumental. Above all, this music is healthy and communicative; Zachow too had the ability—and the power—to be simple yet effective. He understood the Italians and managed to unite their art felicitously with his German heritage.

This distinguished musician was also an excellent, understanding, and solicitous teacher of both composition and performance. He taught the boy harpsichord and organ (as well as other instruments), which Handel played so capably that by his eleventh year he was able to substitute for Zachow on the organ when the need arose. Handel's first compositions date from this same year, 1696. He received from his master a solid grounding in harmony, counterpoint, and choral writing, as well as in very imaginative orchestration. This consisted not only in writing for a full ensemble with all the winds but also in the subtle art of coaxing varied effects from a simple string orchestra. More than that, Zachow inculcated in his young pupil an intellectual curiosity, a desire to know all styles of music in all countries, an interest he always retained. And there was something else he received from Zachow that became his for the rest of his life: the cool discipline, the artistic brakes to tame the wayward flights of a rich imagination. It is amusing to read in a popular Handel biography that "Zachow had taught him the rudiments of counterpoint and harmony," as if the instruction had been something like a college course for freshmen. The thorough training he received at Zachow's hand formed the boy's musical nature for life.

These studies were copious and severe, but the disciple could not get too much of them and composed steadily. "I used to write like the devil in those days," reminisced Handel many years later, and in view of the enormous productivity of the years of his full maturity, reams of note paper must have been covered for daily exercises with Zachow. Handel's admiration for his teacher was boundless and reverential. After Zachow's death in 1712, Handel, famous London composer, sent "frequent remittances" to his widow.

The manner in which Zachow dealt with Handel shows that he recognized the child's exceptional musical talents. There was a system in this instruction as rare as it was enlightened and thorough. Zachow possessed an unusually well-stocked library of music that reflected both the catholicity of his taste and the inquisitive turn of his mind. During the years of his apprenticeship, Handel became methodically acquainted with the contents of this library, thus acquiring as comprehensive a knowledge of styles and techniques as possible. Apparently, besides strenuous exercises in the strenger Satz, the cantor's traditional art in fugue and cantus firmus work, the master made the pupil copy what he considered significant and instructive scores by all manner of composers. Here we are dealing with actual documents, particularly with a notebook dating from 1698, which Handel kept all his life. While unfortunately lost, the book was sufficiently well described so that we know whose airs, choruses, fugues, and other works it contained.

Now let us examine the panorama offered by the notebook, which is in fact the panorama of music Handel beheld in the most impressionable years of his life. There were, of course, the works of his teacher, but we also encounter some of the key figures in German musical history.

There is Johann Krieger (1652-1735), who, according to Mattheson, excelled all the "brave old masters" in fugues. Indeed, Handel took a copy of Krieger's Clavier-Übung with him to England, later presenting it to his friend Bernard Granville. Granville wrote on the flyleaf: "The printed book is by one of the celebrated Organ players of Germany; Mr. Handel in his youth formed himself a good deal on his plan, and said that Krieger was one of the best writers of his time for the organ." Krieger's counterpoint is smooth and fluent, the handling of the themes, especially counter-subjects, individual and incisive, and he shows considerable inventiveness and originality in the devising of fugal episodes. Unfortunately, his harmonic sense was not venturesome. Handel was undoubtedly also acquainted with Krieger's cantatas, of which there were over two hundred, though scarcely three dozen survive. However, at least one, Geliebet sei der Herr (printed in the Bavarian Denkmäler, VI/1), was preserved in a copy made by Zachow. Handel did not miss the remarkable triple fugue contained in this work.

Johann Caspar Kerll (1627-1693), the much-travelled disciple of Valentini, Carissimi, and Frescobaldi, is another significant German master represented in the notebook who looms large in Handel's initial musical formation. With him Handel was introduced to the southern style and manner, for Kerll, though born a Saxon, spent ten years in Italy and was so thoroughly converted to the southern way that he even became a Catholic. Kerll's keyboard works were highly regarded and soon became known in the north, where Zachow and Handel studied them avidly. Handel remembered this music for a long time, borrowing not only bits but an entire movement, which he used in Israel in Egypt. Kerll's bold, even romantic, treatment of dissonance fascinated Bach too, who not only studied Kerll's works but, like Handel, borrowed from them.

Still another keyboard composer who appears in the notebook is Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667). In his works, Handel, who later became a past master of the art, could observe the working of the mind of an internationally oriented musician who, like himself, was receptive to ideas, no matter what source they came from, that he could reconcile and fuse in a logical and well-balanced style. Once more, both Handel and Bach (together with Zachow and Buxtehude, whose wondrous preludes and toccatas cannot be imagined without Froberger's example) studied this music closely and with considerable profit. Another southerner appearing in the notebook was Froberger's Viennese colleague Wolfgang Ebner (1612-1665). But Ebner, though less well known than Froberger, surely must be considered co-founder of this 17th-century Viennese keyboard school; besides, he was the originator of Viennese ballet music.

Vocal composers were not neglected. Handel was introduced to Heinrich Albert (1604-1651), the most popular and admired song composer of his time, virtually the founder of the modern German song. Albert's songs and arias appeared in practically every anthology, were printed and pirated for two centuries, and many of them are still alive as folksongs. Handel must have been attracted by the irregular period structure, the highly expressive and free recitative encountered in Albert's works, all of which became part and parcel of his own style.

Adam Krieger (1634-1666), a disciple of Samuel Scheidt, was one of the most engaging song composers of the German Baroque. Handel studied his so-called ritornel constructions and later used them in the formal articulation of some of his choral movements. Johann Philipp Krieger (1649-1725), who in the seventies was active in Halle and later in nearby Weissenfels where he stayed for forty-five years until his death, was a prolific opera and cantata composer. He impressed Handel both as an instrumental and as a vocal composer. Aside from studying his works with Zachow, Handel must have heard—even met—the court conductor in Weissenfels; it is hard to believe that the duke did not consult his court musician before summoning the elder Händel to that memorable audience. The fugal Amens or Hallelujah choruses in Krieger's cantatas (of which he wrote at least six times as many as Bach), simple but solid and very effective, lingered in Handel's capacious memory. Krieger was an experienced, worldly-wise musician quite different from his home-bred colleagues. This could not have escaped Handel, no matter how young. Also, Krieger had the "Handelian" characteristic of dominating the musical scene around him.

The notebook also contained music by Georg Muffat (1653-1704), in whose works the young student could observe the entire formative process of the age he was about to enter. Muffat, whose distant ancestors were Catholic Scots who fled from Elizabethan Britain, was born (of a French mother) in Savoy, but always professed himself a German, and indeed, aside from his years of study, his professional life was spent within the German orbit. Since he studied with Lully, Corelli, and Pasquini, his music is as many-sided as his ancestry, a remarkable combination of Italian, French, and German elements that made him a style builder of the rank of a Froberger. It seems that the French accents we encounter in Handel owe their inception to Muffat's works, which abound in them. Muffat's easy and imaginative synthesis of suite, sonata, and fugue found a ready echo in the younger man.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
Halle -Handel's family -Earliest youth -Apprenticed to Zachow -Zachow as teacher -Handel's notebook and its contents -Fellow students -Visit to Berlin­Meeting electoral couple and Italian composers -Appointed organist at Halle Cathedral-The university student -Compositions in Halle period -Decision to leave Halle --Hamburg -Music in Hamburg -Handel arrives in 1703 -Friendship with Mattheson -Handel joins opera orchestra -Keiser, his influence on Handel­First attempt at opera, Almira (1705) -Handel-Keiser relationship -Altercation and reconciliation with Mattheson -Debacle of Nero -Handel resigns from Hamburg opera -Composes St. John Passion -State of oratorio-Passion in Germany -The Passion in Handel's life work -Handel leaves for Italy --Italy at the opening of the 18th century -Hegemony of opera and concerto­German vs. Italian music -The process of assimilation -Handel in Florence­Rome -Papal court, academies, patrons -Prohibition of opera -The Arcadian Academy -Handel meets Corelli, Scarlatti, Pasquini -Begins his study of Italian music -The cantata -Mood and melody -The Florentine cantatas -Roman cantatas -Handel's patrons -Large cantata-serenatas -Church music -Spirit of Latin-Italian church music -The "bilingual" composers -Survival of Palestrina ideal-Maturing of Handel's choral writing
IV (-1710)
The Italian oratorio -Dramatic-theatrical elements -Role of the Scriptures­Carissimi -The Old Testament in thc Italian oratorio -Italian works heard by Handel-La Resurrezione (1708) -Second visit to Florence -Rodrigo ­Naples -Opera and church music in Naples -Composes Ad, Galatea, e Polifemo and Agrippina -Venice -Agrippina produced December 1709­Friendship with Domenico Scarlatti -Musical life in Venice -Opera­Conservatories -The late Venetian madrigal-Instrumental music -Italian musical language completely absorbed -Aspects of Handel's decision to abandon Italy -Religious and artistic reasons -Handel leaves for Hanover --Hanover -Elector Georg Ludwig -His wife, Caroline -Brief stay in Hanover­Conjectures concerning voyage to London -Visit to Halle and Dusseldorf -Arrival in London, fall of 1710 -State of Italian opera in London -Entrepreneurs on the scene -The Haymarket and Drury Lane Theatres -Handel makes contact with Haymarket Theatre -The intermediaries -Handel's first London opera, Rinaldo (February 1711) -John Walsh, the publisher-Opposition to Italian opera -Handel begins to move in social circles -Thomas Britton and his concerts -Handel's leave of absence ends -Second stay in Hanover -Back in London, fall of 1712 -Compositions in Hanover
VI (1712-1720)
Handel in Burlington House -II Pastor fida -Tesea (1713) -First financial crisis -Birthday Ode and Utrecht Te Deum (1713) -Handel assumes Purcell's legacy -The English tone appears in Handel's music -Queen Anne dies, Georg Ludwig proclaimed King, August 1714 -George I arrives in London­Truant Hanoverian conductor's dilemma -Handel composes Silla for Burlington, Amadigi for Haymarket (1715) -Handel firmly in saddle -Begins his financial investments -Jacobite rebellion put down -The King leaves for Hanover followed by Handel-Travels to Halle and Ansbach -Meeting Christoph Schmidt -Disputed visit to Hamburg -The German Passion in the 18th century -Brackes Passion (1716?) -Handel returns to London, end of 1716-Opera season of 1717 -Cannons -The Duke of Chandos and his establishment -The "English" compositions -Handel's sister Dorothea dies (summer of 1718)­Water Music, Concertos, Opus 3 -Formation of Royal Academy of Music­Handel goes to the Continent to recruit a troupe, June 1719 -Returns late in fall -Academy ready to open VII
Baroque opera, its nature, dramaturgy, and esthetics -Comparison of Baroque with modern opera -Obstacles to our understanding -The aria -Role of Alessandro Scarlatti -Italian melody, Handelian melody -General form of Handel's opera -The castrato
174 Royal Academy opens first season -Radamisto (1720) -Giovanni Bononcini joins staff -Ensuing rivalry -Second season -Third season -Flaridante (1721) -Cuzzoni added to company -Fourth season -OUone, Flavia (1723) -Fifth season -Giulio Cesare (1724) -Bononcini vanquished -Sixth season­
Tamerlano, Rodelinda (1724) -Handel buys a house -Academy in financial difficulties -Bordoni engaged -Seventh season -Scipione, Alessandro (1726)­Eighth season -Admeto (1727) -Profitable year -Handel becomes a British subject, February 20, 1727 -George I dies, George II proclaimed King, January 1727-Ninth season-Riccardo 1(1727), Siroe (1728) -Collapse of Academy­Reasons for failure of Italian opera -"English opera" and "semi-opera" -The language barrier -The Beggar's Opera -Its success seals fate of Academy IX
Beginnings of "English" Handel-Standards of Augustan Age -Class society and religion -Capitalism -The bourgeoisie -Literature -The Burlington circle -Its influence on Handel-About church music -German music of the Baroque -The cantor's art -The Church of England -Its secular spirit in Handel's time -Nonconformists and Puritans -Handel's conception of Anglican church music -Commemorative-ceremonial-patriotic compositions -Ode and anthem­Chandos Anthems -Other anthems -Te Deums -Handel's English church music compared to Continental-His indebtedness to English composers
Handel and Heidegger take over defunct Academy -Trip to Italy to recruit singers -Finds Italian opera changed -Aged mother's illness hastens departure­Visit to Halle -Return to London -Second Academy opens, end of 1729­Lotario (1729), Partenope (1730) -Poor season -New singers improve second season -Walsh as Handel's principal publisher -Poro (1731) -Season closes successfully-Handel's mother dies-Ezio, Sosarme (1732), Orlando (1733)­Interlude from opera: Deborah (1733) -Renewed operatic rivalry -Opera of the Nobility -Fourth season ends with Handel's Singers deserting -Invitation to Oxford -Tremendous success with English compositions -Athalia (1733), first full-fledged oratorio -Handel ignores success, resumes battle for opera­Formidable competition led by POl"pOra -The two Ariannas (1734) -Parnasso in Festa -Heidegger dissolves partnership, Handel joins Covent Garden­Ariodante, Alcina (1735) -Lenten season of English works -Opposition grows stronger, Handel's health begins to fail-Handel turns to English works­Alexander's Feast (1736) -Despite success, Handel returns to opera -Atalanta ( 1736) -Balance turns in his favor, Porpora retreats -Arminio, Giustino, Berenice (1737) -Both opera companies bankrupt -Handel collapses in mind and health -Leaves for Aix XI
Cannons -Masque and pastoral-Handel's pantheism -Culture and nature as concentric forces -Pictorialism in music -Acis and Galatea -Use of the chorus -Mozart's edition -Modern fallacies in performance -Esther­Libretto and music poorly organized -Much borrowed material-Historical importance -Bernard Gates performs Esther (1732) -Subsequent piratical production arouses Handel-First appearance of religious issue -Bishop of London and his edict -Second unauthorized production: Acis -Handel destroys competition -Deborah -New role of chorus -Racine and the return of Greek drama -Athalia successful, but Handel returns to opera -Alexander's Feast
XII (1737-1741)
Aachen -Remarkable recovery -Handel returns to London -Renews partnership with Heidegger -Queen Caroline dies -Funeral Anthem (1737) -Faramondo (1738) -Roubiliac's statue -Handel's popularity -Serse (1738) -Opera disappears in London for two years -Handel begins Saul-Charles Jennens­Saul, Israel in Egypt (1739) -Handel leases Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre-Ode for St. Cecilia's Day (1739), L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato (1740)­Influence of Purcell-Handel suddenly returns to opera -Imeneo (1740), Deidamia (1741) -Final opera season ends in spring of 1741 -Inception of "conversion" theory with Hawkins -The "oratorio way" XIII (1741-1742)
Messiah (1741) -Circumstances surrounding composition of Messiah-Arguments supporting special purpose -The legends -Dublin at the time of Handel's visit -Local musical scene -Charitable societies -Handel's trip to Dublin -First public concerts -Subscription sold out -Second series of concerts -Messiah first performed, April 13, 1742 -The libretto -The music -Critical appreciation of Messiah in modern literature -Handel returns to London
XIV
The oratorio since the Romantic era -Religious-moral-didactic conceptions­English views of the Old Testament -Comparison of English and German oratorio -The historical-scriptural drama -Handel and the Old Testament­Classifications of the Handelian oratorio -Its constituent strains -Classical antiqUity -The Augustan Age and classicism -Classical dramatic tradition in England -Greek drama as refiected in Handel's oratorio -Attic drama and English Bible -Racine reintroduces chorus -The Handelian oratorio and the Old Testament -English conceptions of the role of the Old Testament in Christianity­Oratorio vis-a-vis stage and church -Handelian oratorio as music drama
XV (1742-1744)
Handel returns from Dublin -Milton and his Samson Agonistes -Hamilton's libretto for Samson -The music -Handel's changed dramaturgical ideas­Tenor displaces castrato -Samson (1743) a success -First Messiah in London­Dettingen Te Deum (1743) -Radical change of style: Semele (1744)­Con greve' s libretto arranged -The music -Renewed opera war -Ruthlessness of Middlesex party -Moral opposition from public and clergy to Semele -Joseph and his Brethren (1744) -Middlesex company collapses, Handel leases Haymarket Theatre -Twenty-four subscription concerts announced
Hercules (1745) -Broughton's libretto-The music-Failure leads to cancellation of concert series -Public rallies and Handel resumes performances­Belshazzar (1745) -Jennens's libretto -The music -Failure again forces suspension of concerts -Handel vacates Haymarket Theatre -Suffers another physical collapse XVII (1745-1748)
Handel recovers but is a changed man -Shuns public and does not compose­Stuart rebellion rouses dormant creative instinct -The "victory" oratorios­Occasional Oratorio (1746) -Battle of Culloden commemorated in Judas Maccabaeus (April 1746) -Morell's libretto -The music -Instant success­Handel abandons subscription system -Mixed opinions about Judas Maccabaeus­Handel and Morell continue with successful recipe : Alexander Balus (1748)­The music-Joshua (1748) -End of "occasional" oratorio phase-Handel's life and position changed -His status unassailable -Gluck visits London-New singers trained by Handel -His calm and serene life XVIII (1748-1749)
Solomon (1749)-Librettist unknown-The music-Susanna (1749)­Anonymous librettist -The music -Handel acquiesces in public's indolence­Proved successes carry the oratorio seasons -Political events claim his attention -Royal Fireworks Music (1749) -Made Governor of Foundling Hospital­The admired master XIX (1749-1750)
New tone in last oratorios -Theodora (1750) has non-biblical Christian subject­
Comparison of two "Christian" oratorios: Theodora and Messiah -Morell's
libretto -The music -Theodora Handel's favorite oratorio -Final castrato role­
Theodora complete failure-Entr'acte: Smollett's Alceste (1749), reworked as
The Choice of Hercules -The music -Handel purchases Rembrandt picture­
Presents organ to Foundling Hospital-Conducts Messiah to overflowing houses­
Yearly performance of Messiah becomes tradition -Handel makes his will, June
1750 -Last visit to Germany Last oratorio, Jephtha -Handel takes leave of his artistic career -New serenity­
The religious element in Jephtha-Prototypes-Morell's libretto-MoreU's
miscalculations righted by Handel-The music -Borrowings from Habermann­
Onslaught of blindness -Oratorio seasons held despite Handel's infirmity -1752
season comes to end with death of Prince of Wales -Jephtha presented in 1752
XXI (1752-1759)
Handel undergoes unsuccessful eye surgery -No failure of creative imagination­Additions to revised oratorios dictated -First codicil to will, August 1756 -The Triumph of Time and Truth (1756), last "new" work-Morell's libretto-The music -Second and third codicils -Handel supposedly operated on by Taylor, summer of 1758 -Last oratorio season ends, April 6, 1759 -Final codicil­Handel dies on April 14, 1759, and is buried in Westminster Abbey
XXII
Handel the man, his friends, his surroundings -Handel the conductor, the entrepreneur, the businessman -Relationship with English musicians -Handel and women; the heroines in his works -Handel and nature, his genre scenes­Spirit of rural England -Handel's English -Handel's religion -Impresario VS. creative artist -Deism -Handel's mutilation of his own scores­Borrowings -The moral issue -"Invention" and "imagination" in the 18th century -Handel's transplanting technique
XXIII
Handel's style -The operas -Problem of opera in England -Handel and the Italian tradition -Changed style in last operas -Ensemble and chorus­Recitative, aria, arioso, scena -His opera librettists -Absence of buffa vein­English oratorio a personal creation -The oratorio librettists -Survival of operatic elements in oratorio -Handel's difficulties with post-denouement matters -The happy ending -Handel's role in the operatic reform ascribed to Gluck­Inhibitions faced by modern musicians approaching Handelian style XXIV
Handel's melody, harmony, rhythm, and metre -The improvisatory element­Counterpoint -The fugue -Choral counterpoint -Other stylistic features­The recitative -Difficult change from Italian to English recitative -The aria -The da capo principle -The concerted aria -Stylized aria types -Difference between oratorio and opera arias -The ensemble -Illustrative symbolism­Hermeneutics and Affektenlehre -Arguments for and against musical hermeneutics -Handel's use of musical symbols -Handel and French music
XXV
Handel's instrumental music -Strong Italian influence -Motivic unity -Euphony as main condition -German sources -French and English elements -Chamber music -Orchestral works -"Oboe" concertos, Opus 3 -Mixture of old and new -Twelve Grand Concertos, Opus 6 -Other concertos and suites -Organ concertos -Harpsichord works XXVI
Handel's orchestra -The concerto grosso principle -The basso continuo­Baroque orchestral balance -HarpSichord and organ -Handel's chorus -Quality of Handel's performances -Modern performance practices -Tempo and dYnanJics -Continuity -Ornamentation -The restored scores -The problem of length -"Additional accompaniment" and arrangements -The castrato parts­Bowdlerized texts
XXVII
Handelian biography -Chrysander and Serauky -The English Handelians: Rockstro, Streatfeild, Flower -Winton Dean -Bach and Handel, the inevitable comparison -Handel and English music -Who "crushed" music in England?­Handel and Purcell-Failure to establish English opera -Handel's contemporaries in England
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
INDEX OF HANDEL'S WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS BOOK
GENERAL INDEX