Part 31

The opera in London had meantime entered upon a critical period, and Handel, who had last furnished a work for it in 1715, did not for some time turn his attention in that direction. In 1717 he accepted a position as musical director for Duke James of Chandos, at Cannons, near London. In his service, Handel wrote the greater number of his grand compositions upon the Psalms, which were styled "Anthems," a word borrowed from the English liturgy. These were not on the plan of a motette, for all the resources known to the musical art of that time were here called into requisition--chorus and solo singing, with rich instrumental accompaniment, the text being drawn from the Bible. This kind of music was not then to be found in either Italy or Germany, but was peculiar to England. The ecclesiastical spirit in a narrow sense does not however exist in the anthems of Handel; their music is characteristic, and suggests the style of the oratorios. It was in Cannons also that he wrote the first works to which the name of oratorio could properly be given. If, before this time, the Italian oratorio had maintained a sort of external relationship with the church, in so far as it was frequently employed in the service, a sermon being inserted between the two parts, Handel now showed that he would no longer tolerate even this connection. The material of one of the two works is indeed taken from the Bible, but that of the other is drawn from the mythological treasure-house of classical antiquity. Moreover, he gave a new and independent character to his oratorio by adapting it to English words, and in this he persisted to the end of his life; whereas, for the imposing array of operas which he afterwards composed, he employed from first to last the Italian language only. If his three years' stay with the Duke of Chandos was a period of great importance and laid the foundation of his future activity, it is not less true that he also gained much which contributed to his fame as a composer, through looking backward at this time. In the art-loving circles of the English nobility, whose hospitality he enjoyed, particularly at Burlington House, but certainly at the residence of the Duke of Chandos as well, he had given much pleasure by his piano playing. He had also composed many pieces for the piano, which, since he let them escape from his hand, found their way to the public. These he now collected, added new ones and issued them in his own name on the 11th of November, 1720, under the title of "_Suites de Pièces pour le clavecin_." They consist of eight series of melodies of the most varied character, and Handel never furnished a more brilliant example of what he could accomplish in the line of piano music than in this instance.

In order to procure for themselves more easily than had hitherto been possible the enjoyment of a good Italian opera, a stock company was now formed by the most illustrious and wealthiest art amateurs of London, who, in 1720, founded an academy of music. For model they had in mind the Paris _Academie de Musique_, and as the king took a box at the opera-house, paying for it a very considerable sum, they were permitted to call themselves the "Royal" Academy of Music. Before arrangements were fully completed, Handel was sent to the continent for the purpose of obtaining suitable Italian singers. The best talent possible to be procured was in request for the Royal Academy. In search of singers therefore he went again to Germany and visited Dresden, where the elector had established an Italian opera under the direction of the great Antonio Lotti; on this occasion he played at Court with great success, and received a present of one hundred ducats. Bach, who, two years before, had engaged in his famous competition with Marchand, had not been noticed by the Court. It happened oddly in this year that Bach, passing through Halle in the course of a journey, wished to seek out Handel, whom he supposed to be visiting his relatives in the place; but he arrived too late--Handel had already gone. In the spring of 1720, the opening of the Academy took place. The composers engaged for this occasion were the Italians, Bononcini and Ariosti, and the German Handel. The latter, who, during the eight years' existence of the academy, wrote fourteen operas for it, finally drove his Italian colleagues wholly out of the field. Two of the most famous prima donnas of their day were secured: Francesca Cuzzoni (1723) and Faustina Bordoni (1726). It is related of Cuzzoni, that, because she refused to sing a certain aria in his opera, "Ottone," Handel seized her and threatened to throw her out of the window. After this she was tractable through fear, and became devoted to the master through her convictions as an artist. Between herself and Bordoni, however, a rivalry existed from the beginning, which, intensified by the adherents of each, finally led to an exchange of blows between the singers on the public stage. In consequence of this and of other annoying scenes, the standing of the institute was injured. From the beginning it had encountered violent opposition from the native musicians, who saw themselves thrown in the shade by foreigners, and, the financial basis of the enterprise being insecure, it had to be abandoned in 1728.

In the meantime, King George I. had died on the eleventh of June, 1727, and was succeeded by his son, George II., for whose coronation festival Handel had composed four great anthems. The text of one of these is as follows: "Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet annointed Solomon king. And all the people rejoiced and said: God save the King, long live the King, may the King live forever! Amen, Alleluja." It soon became very popular and was called, for brevity, the anthem, "God save the King." From this arose the idea that Handel was the composer of the English national hymn, the first strophe of which ends with these words and which, for this reason, was also named from them. The idea is erroneous; the poet and composer of the hymn was the Englishman, Henry Carey, who wrote it in 1743. For the space of a year and a half, from the first of June, 1728, to the second of December, 1729, there was no Italian opera, but the public amused itself with the so-called "Beggar's Opera" of John Gay, a coarse, popular vaudeville, the musical charm of which consists in the interwoven national airs. Here was a reaction against foreign influence which plainly showed the desire of the English to impress upon their music the stamp of nationality, even though this was no longer possible. Within the next twelve years more than a hundred vaudevilles in the style of the Beggar's Opera were produced, a part of which spread over to Germany and contributed in no small degree to the development of the "_Singspiel_," which was to be moulded by Mozart and Weber into the national German opera. During the interval above mentioned Handel was not in England. He first went with Steffani to Italy, where he passed the winter. A new Italian opera enterprise was already planned, which was to be independently conducted by Heidegger and Handel, and its financial soundness to be assured by means of subscriptions. In pursuance of this plan Handel engaged singers in Italy, took up his abode for the summer of 1729 in Halle (where Bach attempted for the second time to make his personal acquaintance), and opened his theatre on the second of December with "Lotario," an opera of his own composition, furnishing in all six similar works during the four years' continuance of the enterprise. The arrogance of the Italian singers and the political opposition of all those who were angry because Handel enjoyed the favor of the royal court, finally rendered the situation unendurable. When the directors were obliged to suspend their performances, the same opposing faction, who were contending against the foreigner in the person of Handel, called into existence a rival Italian opera, for which they tried to collect the most celebrated performers in Europe. Among the singers was Cuzzoni; among the composers the husband of Faustina Bordoni, Johann Adolph Hasse, who had occupied the position of chapel-master in Dresden since 1731. When Hasse was invited to London, he is said to have asked if Handel was dead, so improbable did it seem to him that there was a place for him, great composer though he was, where his powerful compatriot was working. Nor was the latter inclined to abandon the field to his opponents. Driven by them from the Haymarket Theatre, he repaired to Covent Garden and there resumed his operatic representations on the thirtieth of October, 1733. But, though he summoned all his energies and wrote no less than nine new operas, he could not win for himself an enduring success in this sphere of activity. Not only were all his earlier savings now swallowed up, but debts were contracted, and in 1737 he was obliged to close the theatre. The opposite party, however, derived no advantage from his failure; their own undertaking was abandoned only eleven days later. Handel had made superhuman exertions to hold his own during the last few years; his strength now collapsed. A stroke of paralysis lamed one of his hands--indications of insanity appeared. Yielding to the urgent entreaties of his friends, he went to the hot baths at Aix-la-Chapelle, the effect of which was so favorable that he came away after a few months, completely cured. Returning to London, he found that Heidegger had formed from the ruins of the two opera companies a new one, with which he was giving performances at the Haymarket. Handel now wrote, partly for this company, partly at the solicitation of outsiders, six more operas, the last of which "Deidamia," was completed in 1741 and seemed the dying echo of a life-period which had ended for him four years ago.

That the full greatness of a man is only revealed when misfortune overtakes him was to be demonstrated by Handel at this trying time. His latest operas he wrote for the sake of the money. One of them, "_Serse_" (Xerxes), which was completed in the year 1738, marks what was very nearly the saddest time in his life. In order to redeem his word of honor and save himself from a debtor's prison, he worked with immoderate energy and yet with meagre material results. When he now found himself in the most pressing need, his friends advised him to give a benefit concert, a thing which Handel had never wished to engage in; on the contrary, he had often expressed himself with harshness against that sort of begging. All the more bitter was it for him that he must after all resort to it at last. On the twenty-eighth of March, 1738, in the week before Easter, the concert took place at the Haymarket Theatre. No oratorio was given by Handel on this occasion, but only a number of Italian and English songs, to which he added an organ concerto of his own composition. The interest excited was far beyond all expectation--the house so crowded that places had to be provided on the stage itself for five hundred illustrious auditors, and the receipts from the concert were estimated at eight hundred pounds. But, while Handel was thus struggling with all his might for his own existence, he had always time and strength to spare for his suffering fellow men. The brilliant successes attained by musicians within the last twenty years had allured many persons into the paths of art, who expected to acquire therein honor and riches, yet were not endowed by nature with the necessary gifts. They had therefore soon suffered shipwreck and fallen into poverty. Two English musicians, Festing and Greene, devised the plan of forming an aid society for indigent musical artists. Handel immediately entered into the project and rendered invaluable assistance to the society by performing for its benefit, on the twentieth of March, 1739, his "Alexander's Feast" and a newly composed organ concerto, on the twenty-eighth of March, 1740, "Acis and Galatea," and on the fourteenth of March, 1741, a series of minor compositions. And here let it be said that the inhabitants of London, even if they had shown themselves for a time somewhat indifferent to his music, still continued faithful in their veneration for the man. In 1738, Tyers, the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens, determined to erect in them a statue of Handel, and the universal applause which this act excited proved that it was an expression of the sentiment of the people.

The life of Handel may be resolved into three parts. The first extends to the year 1720, and is preparatory in character. The second ends in 1737, and belongs especially to the opera. The third and last is devoted almost exclusively to the oratorio. Since the earliest English oratorios which he wrote at Cannons, Handel had been long inactive in this sphere of music. It may be said of the coronation anthems of the year 1727 that they resemble the oratorio in style, but the first really new oratorios were produced in 1733. This species of musical composition was still almost unknown to the greater part of the London public, for the performances given at Cannons did not reach a wide circle of listeners. Bernard Gates, however, the director of the boy chorus belonging to the royal chapel, had taken part in the first rendering of "Esther," and the recollection of the work had never left him. He brought it out before a company of invited guests and thereby incited Handel to produce it publicly himself in May of the succeeding year. A performance of "Acis and Galatea," under his own leadership, followed a month later. It is worthy of note that the different singing societies which occupied themselves at this time with the two oratorios of Handel, attempted to put them on the stage with costumes and action, after the manner of the opera. People evidently did not yet know how to deal with this new departure in the musical line, and in Italy it was not at all unusual to produce certain oratorios in theatrical fashion, as "_agioni sacre_." Handel, meantime, disapproved of the custom and only allowed the singers to be placed upon a stage, which was suitably decorated. The two oratorios now composed as a result of the new impulse given to his activity, were "Deborah" and "Athaliah," and the former was first performed at the Haymarket on the seventeenth of March. But the subscription tickets of the opera-goers were not good on this day and, as the price of admission was fixed at one guinea, the house remained empty. At this time, too, Handel's opponents tried to draw him into the field of politics and to bring him into discredit through the accusation that he had allied himself with Minister Walpole for the purpose of draining the resources of the people in every possible way. That such ridiculous assertions could gain credence only for the moment, shows very plainly the high estimation in which Handel was then held by the London public. On the twenty-seventh of March, and on two subsequent occasions, "Deborah" was repeated, and now, for the first time received proper recognition as a work of art. The other oratorio, "Athaliah," had also its vicissitudes. The hostility to the house of Hanover which prevailed in many circles of English society had been shared up to this time by the University of Oxford, and the rector of the same, Dr. Holmes, wishing to promote more friendly relations, took advantage of the annual commencement exercises of the institution for this purpose. Handel, the favorite of the royal court, was invited to add lustre to the celebration through his art; he was also included in the number of eminent men who were to be invested with the title of Doctor at the same time. This honor would have been declined by the musician on his own personal account, but as an artist he accepted, using the title rarely. The "Athaliah," written wholly in the interest of the occasion, was performed in Oxford on the 10th of July. Singers and instrumental performers were brought from London by Handel, and the festival, in the course of which "Esther" and "Acis and Galatea," as well as the "Utrecht Te Deum" and the "Jubilate" were given, was a brilliant success. The next oratorio was "Alexander's Feast," or the "Power of Music." It was finished in January, 1736, and brought out for the first time on the 19th of February. In writing this work, Handel had in mind the popular custom of celebrating the day of St. Cecilia by means of the art of which she was the patron. It was Purcell who inaugurated musical performances of this festive character on St. Cecilia's day, and among the poets who glorified it, Dryden stands pre-eminent with his two Cecilian odes. It was the greater of these which Handel took for the foundation of his work, employing the arrangement of Newburgh Hamilton. The impression produced by the very first performance was extraordinary, and the work was repeated four times in the same season, meeting with the speediest and most widespread success of any of Handel's oratorios, although it falls within the period when his best energies were devoted to operatic works. With the production of "Saul," in 1738, commences the long, uninterrupted series of oratorios in which Handel, who, instead of becoming embittered by the hard experiences of his life, was only roused by them to a more complete expression, poured out the fulness of his genius. Immediately after the "Saul" ensued the creation, in something less than a month, of his gigantic work: "Israel in Egypt." As now known, this consists of only two parts; but as it came from the composer's hands on the first of November, 1738, it was in three divisions. For the lament over the death of Joseph with which it opened, Handel had used the funeral anthem written after the death of the noble Queen Caroline in 1737. He was probably reluctant to allow this beautiful work, which, in its original form, was only available for the occasion which called it forth, to sink into oblivion. At the same time we see that he himself must have considered the style of his anthems as very closely related to that of his oratorios. It was owing to a misunderstanding that, after the death of Handel, the second and third parts of the "Israel" were made to stand for the whole work, while the funeral anthem was printed by itself. But neither on its first performance (April 4, 1739) nor on its repetition in 1756, did "Israel in Egypt" make an impression on the public. The reason for this lies in the fact that the solo portions of the work are entirely subordinate to the chorus, which here maintains its supremacy as in no other of Handel's oratorios and rises to the highest conceivable degree of grandeur.