From the year 1729 the career of Handel was to be a protracted battle,
in which he was sometimes victorious, sometimes defeated, but always
undaunted and animated with a lofty sense of his own superior power.
Let us take a view of some of the rival musicians with whom he came in
contact. Of all these Bononcini was the most formidable. He came to
England in 1720 with Ariosti, also a meritorious composer. Factions
soon began to form themselves around Handel and Bononcini, and a
bitter struggle ensued between these old foes. The same drama repeated
itself, with new actors, about thirty years afterwards, in Paris.
Gluck was then the German hero, supported by Marie Antoinette, and
Piccini fought for the Italian opera under the colours of the king's
mistress, Du Barry, while all the _littérateurs_ and nobles ranged
themselves on either side in bitter contest. The battle between Handel
and Bononcini, as the exponents of German and Italian music, was also
repeated in after-years between Mozart and Salieri, Weber and Rossini,
and to-day is seen in the acrimonious disputes going on between Wagner
and the Italian school. Bononcini's career in England came to an end
very suddenly. It was discovered that a madrigal brought out by him
was pirated from another Italian composer; whereupon Bononcini left
England, humiliated to the dust, and finally died obscure and alone,
the victim of a charlatan alchemist, who succeeded in obtaining all
his savings.
Another powerful rival of Handel was Porpora, or, as Handel used to
call him, "Old Borbora." Without Bononcini's fire or Handel's daring
originality, he represented the dry contrapuntal school of Italian
music. He was also a great singing master, famous throughout Europe,
and upon this his reputation had hitherto principally rested. He came
to London in 1733, under the patronage of the Italian faction,
especially to serve as a thorn in the side of Handel. His first opera,
"Ariadne," was a great success; but when he had the audacity to
challenge the great German in the field of oratorio, his defeat was so
overwhelming that he candidly admitted his rival's superiority. But he
believed that no operas in the world were equal to his own, and he
composed fifty of them during his life, extending to the days of
Haydn, whom he had the honour of teaching, while the father of the
symphony, on the other hand, cleaned Porpora's boots and powdered his
wig for him.
Another Italian opponent was Hasse, a man of true genius, who in his
old age instructed some of the most splendid singers in the history of
the lyric stage. He also married one of the most gifted and most
beautiful divas of Europe, Faustina Bordoni. The following anecdote
does equal credit to Hasse's heart and penetration: In after-years,
when he had left England, he was again sent for to take Handel's place
as conductor of opera and oratorio. Hasse inquired, "What! is Handel
dead?" On being told no, he indignantly refused, saying he was not
worthy to tie Handel's shoe-latchets.
There are also Dr. Pepusch, the Anglicised Prussian, and Dr. Greene,
both names well known in English music. Pepusch had had the leading
place, before Handel's arrival, as organist and conductor, and made a
distinct place for himself even after the sun of Handel had obscured
all of his contemporaries. He wrote the music of the "Beggar's Opera,"
which was the great sensation of the times, and which still keeps
possession of the stage. Pepusch was chiefly notable for his skill in
arranging the popular songs of the day, and probably did more than any
other composer to give the English ballad its artistic form.
The name of Dr. Greene is best known in connection with choral
compositions. His relations with Handel and Bononcini are hardly
creditable to him. He seems to have flattered each in turn. He upheld
Bononcini in the great madrigal controversy, and appears to have
wearied Handel by his repeated visits. The great Saxon easily saw
through the flatteries of a man who was in reality an ambitious rival,
and joked about him, not always in the best taste. When he was told
that Greene was giving concerts at the "Devil Tavern," near Temple
Bar, "Ah!" he exclaimed, "mein poor friend, Toctor Greene--so he is
gone to de Tevil!"
From 1732 to 1740 Handel's life presents the suggestive and
often-repeated experience in the lives of men of genius--a soul with a
great creative mission, of which it is half unconscious, partly
yielding to and partly struggling against the tendencies of the age,
yet gradually crystallising into its true form, and getting
consecrated to its true work. In these eight years Handel presented to
the public ten operas and five oratorios. It was in 1731 that the
great significant fact, though unrecognised by himself and others,
occurred, which stamped the true bent of his genius. This was the
production of his first oratorio in England. He was already playing
his operas to empty houses, the subject of incessant scandal and abuse
on the part of his enemies, but holding his way with steady
cheerfulness and courage. Twelve years before this he had composed the
oratorio of "Esther," but it was still in manuscript, uncared for and
neglected. It was finally produced by a society called Philharmonic,
under the direction of Bernard Gates, the royal-chapel master. Its
fame spread wide, and we read these significant words in one of the
old English newspapers--"'Esther,' an English oratorio, was performed
six times, and very full."
Shortly after this Handel himself conducted "Esther" at the Haymarket
by royal command. His success encouraged him to write "Deborah,"
another attempt in the same field, and it met a warm reception from
the public, March 17, 1733.
For about fifteen years Handel had struggled heroically in the
composition of Italian operas. With these he had at first succeeded;
but his popularity waned more and more, and he became finally the
continued target for satire, scorn, and malevolence. In obedience to
the drift of opinion, all the great singers, who had supported him at
the outset, joined the rival ranks or left England. In fact, it may be
almost said that the English public were becoming dissatisfied with
the whole system and method of Italian music. Colley Cibber, the actor
and dramatist, explains why Italian opera could never satisfy the
requirement of Handel, or be anything more than an artificial luxury
in England: "The truth is, this kind of entertainment is entirely
sensational." Still both Handel and his friends and his foes, all the
exponents of musical opinion in England, persevered obstinately in
warming this foreign exotic into a new lease of life.
The quarrel between the great Saxon composer and his opponents raged
incessantly both in public and private. The newspaper and the
drawing-room rang alike with venomous diatribes. Handel was called a
swindler, a drunkard, and a blasphemer, to whom Scripture even was not
sacred. The idea of setting Holy Writ to music scandalised the
Pharisees, who revelled in the licentious operas and love-songs of the
Italian school. All the small wits of the time showered on Handel
epigram and satire unceasingly. The greatest of all the wits, however,
Alexander Pope, was his firm friend and admirer; and in the "Dunciad,"
wherein the wittiest of poets impaled so many of the small fry of the
age with his pungent and vindictive shaft, he also slew some of the
most malevolent of Handel's foes.
Fielding, in _Tom Jones_, has an amusing hit at the taste of the
period--"It was Mr. Western's custom every afternoon, as soon as he
was drunk, to hear his daughter play on the harpsichord; for he was a
great lover of music, and perhaps, had he lived in town, might have
passed as a connoisseur, for he always excepted against the finest
compositions of Mr. Handel."
So much had it become the fashion to criticise Handel's new effects in
vocal and instrumental composition, that some years later Mr. Sheridan
makes one of his characters fire a pistol simply to shock the
audience, and makes him say in a stage whisper to the gallery, "This
hint, gentlemen, I took from Handel."
The composer's Oxford experience was rather amusing and suggestive. We
find it recorded that in July 1733, "one Handell, a foreigner, was
desired to come to Oxford to perform in music." Again the same writer
says--"Handell, with his lousy crew, a great number of foreign
fiddlers, had a performance for his own benefit at the theatre." One
of the dons writes of the performance as follows:--"This is an
innovation; but everyone paid his five shillings to try how a little
fiddling would sit upon him. And, notwithstanding the barbarous and
inhuman combination of such a parcel of unconscionable scamps, he
[Handel] disposed of the most of his tickets."
"Handel and his lousy crew," however, left Oxford with the prestige
of a magnificent victory. His third oratorio, "Athaliah," was received
with vast applause by a great audience. Some of his university
admirers, who appreciated academic honours more than the musician did,
urged him to accept the degree of Doctor of Music, for which he would
have to pay a small fee. The characteristic reply was a Parthian
arrow: "Vat te tevil I trow my money away for dat vich the blockhead
vish? I no vant!"