Arrival in Italy--_Rodrigo_--Rome: Cardinal Ottoboni and the
Scarlattis--Naples: Venice: _Agrippina_--appointment at Hanover--London:
_Rinaldo_.
Handel spent three years in Italy. The known facts about his life there are
singularly few, and his biographers have often had to draw copiously on
their imagination. They may perhaps be forgiven for doing so, since they
rightly sought to emphasise the fact that these three years were the most
formative period of Handel's personality as a composer. Handel came to
Italy as a German; he left Italy an Italian, as far as his music was
concerned, and, despite all other influences, Italian was the foundation of
his musical language until the end of his life.
On January 14, 1707, a Roman chronicler noted the arrival of "a Saxon, an
excellent player on the harpsichord and a composer of music, who has to-day
displayed his ability in playing the organ in the church of St. John
[Lateran] to the amazement of everyone." This can hardly refer to anyone
else than Handel, who throughout his sojourn in Italy was always known as
"the Saxon" (_il Sassone_). We owe the discovery of this important document
to Mr. Newman Flower. The next date known to us is that of April 11--on the
manuscript of Handel's _Dixit Dominus_, composed in Rome.
Most biographers have, however, assumed that Handel's first halt in Italy
would have been made at Florence, in view of the fact that Gian Gastone de'
Medici is known to have been at Florence from June 1705 to November 1706.
The eldest son of the Grand Duke, Prince Ferdinand, was an enthusiastic
patron of music, who employed the best musicians of the day to perform
operas in his magnificent country palace at Pratolino, some twelve miles
north of Florence. It has been suggested that Handel's first Italian opera,
_Rodrigo_, was composed for Ferdinand and performed early in 1707, but, in
view of Mr. Flower's discovery, this seems unlikely. Mr. Flower suggests,
indeed, that Ferdinand did not take much interest in Handel, otherwise he
would not have allowed him to go to Rome so soon. This is not impossible,
for we know that Ferdinand found the operas of Alessandro Scarlatti too
serious for his taste, and he may well have thought even less of Handel's
music, which (as we can see from the score of _Rodrigo_) was still very
German in style.
Rome could offer Handel no opportunities either for composing operas or
even for hearing them. Pope Clement X had permitted the opening of a public
opera-house (the Teatro Tordinona) in 1671, but it was closed five years
later by Innocent XI, who made every effort he could to suppress opera both
in public and in private. Innocent XII, who became Pope in 1691, seems to
have been, at first, less intolerant, for the theatre was rebuilt, and a
few performances were given; but in 1697 he ordered its destruction on
grounds of public morality. Except for a few performances of opera in
private in 1701 and 1702 no operas were produced in Rome until 1709.
Deprived of opera, the Romans devoted themselves to oratorio--which in
musical style was much the same thing--and to chamber music. The most
generous patron of music in Rome was the young Cardinal Ottoboni, who had
been raised to the purple in his early twenties, in 1690. He had indeed
composed an opera himself, which was performed in 1692, but he was more
competent as a poet than as a musician; in 1690 Alessandro Scarlatti had
set a libretto of his, _La Statira_.
Handel was no doubt recommended to him by Ferdinand de' Medici, and at the
Cardinal's weekly musical parties he soon came into contact with Domenico
Scarlatti, as well as with Corelli and Pasquini. Alessandro Scarlatti had
left Naples, probably for political reasons, in 1702, and at the end of
1703 Ottoboni had secured him a subordinate post at the church of Santa
Maria Maggiore, at the same time appointing him his private director of
music. Domenico was a young man of Handel's own age--"a young eagle" as
his father called him--brilliantly gifted, and (to judge from Thomas
Roseingrave's impression of him) possessed of a singular personal
fascination. "Handel," says Mainwaring, "used often to speak of this person
with great satisfaction; and indeed there was reason for it; for besides
his great talents as an artist, he had the sweetest temper, and the
genteelest behaviour." We may indeed regard his friendship with Handel
as safely authenticated. It is just possible that Handel may have met
Alessandro Scarlatti at Pratolino in the previous autumn, as his opera _Il
Gran Tamerlano_ was produced there in September; he may well have met him
between January and April of 1707. From April to September Alessandro
Scarlatti was in Urbino.
Handel's movements now become very difficult to follow. It seems probable
that his opera _Rodrigo_ was performed at Florence in the autumn of 1707;
Mainwaring says that it was composed for Ferdinand de' Medici, but there is
no record of any performance at Pratolino. As Handel is said to have been
presented to Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover at Venice, he must have been
there in October or November, as the Prince is known to have spent only
those two months in that city. Whether Handel remained at Venice over
Christmas, or whether he returned to Rome, is uncertain. Domenico Scarlatti
is said to have identified him at Venice at a masquerade by his playing of
the harpsichord. It would be most natural to suppose then that Handel
and the two Scarlattis were in Venice together for the production of
Alessandro's two operas, _Mitridate Eupatore_ and _Il Trionfo della
Libertà_, both of which were brought out at Venice in 1707, but, as it is
not known whether this took place at the beginning or at the end of the
year, there is not sufficient evidence to support such a conjecture.
During March and April 1708, Handel was the guest of Prince Ruspoli in
Rome; this has been definitely ascertained by Mr. Flower. Prince Ruspoli
was another great Roman patron of music, and Scarlatti frequently composed
works for him; his _Annunciation Oratorio_ was performed under his auspices
on March 25. On Easter Sunday, April 8, Handel made a triumphal appearance
with _La Resurrezione_, which was given on a sumptuous scale, at Ruspoli's
expense, in the Palazzo Bonelli, which he was occupying at the time.
Corelli led the orchestra.
After _La Resurrezione_, Handel seems to have returned to the patronage
of Cardinal Ottoboni, in whose palace he produced a _serenata_ (i.e. an
allegorical cantata) called _Il Trionfa del Tempo e del Disinganno_, which
he remodelled fifty years afterwards as _The Triumph of Time and Truth_.
The libretto was by Cardinal Pamphilij. It was the overture to this work
which caused so much difficulty to Corelli. Handel, irritated at his lack
of understanding, snatched the violin from his hand and played the passage
himself, to show how it should be executed; Corelli, gentlest of souls,
took no offence, although thirty-two years his senior and the greatest
violinist living, but merely observed, "My dear Saxon, this music is in the
French style, of which I have no knowledge."
It has been assumed by many biographers that Handel attended the meetings
of the Arcadian Academy, and since Prince Ruspoli was a great, benefactor
to the Academy, this is extremely probable, although there is no evidence
for it. Handel was not a member of the Academy, and various reasons for
this have been suggested, such as that he was a foreigner and also too
young to be admitted. It is more probable that his admission to that
exclusive society was never even contemplated; musicians were generally
engaged professionally for the concerts of the Italian academies, but very
seldom admitted to the honour of membership. Corelli, Pasquini and
Alessandro Scarlatti were all admitted together in 1705; they were the
three senior and most distinguished composers of the time, and as no other
musicians were then members, it may be assumed that these elections
constituted an exceptional honour.
Mainwaring relates that Cardinal Pamphili; on one occasion wrote a poem in
honour of Handel and desired him to set it to music himself; in this poem
"he was compared to Orpheus, and exalted above the rank of mortals." Later
biographers, being unable to trace any music of Handel to this poem,
assumed that Handel was too modest to sing his own praises; but he was not,
for the original manuscript of the cantata was found by the present writer
in the University Library at Münster in Westphalia. As Mainwaring informs
us, Handel is compared by the poet (whose name is not given) to Orpheus and
indeed exalted above him. "Orpheus," says the Cardinal, "could move rocks
and trees, but he could not make them sing; therefore thou art greater than
Orpheus, for thou compellest my aged Muse to song." The style of both words
and music suggests that the whole cantata was thrown off, as Mainwaring
suggests, on the spur of the moment, and this improvisation may well
have taken place at one of the Arcadians' garden parties, for there is a
well-known account of a similar improvisation by the poet Zappi and the
composer Alessandro Scarlatti.
Handel was by this time fully accepted as one of the leading musicians in
Italy, for in June he composed a pastoral, _Aci, Galatea e Polifemo_, for
the marriage of the Duke of Alvito at Naples on July 19. It was in July
1708 that the Austrian Viceroy of Naples, Count Daun, was succeeded by
Cardinal Grimani, who, towards the end of the year, persuaded Alessandro
Scarlatti to return to the service of the royal chapel. As a good friend to
Scarlatti, the Cardinal was sure to interest himself in Handel, and it was
probably through him that Handel was commissioned to write an opera for
Venice, as the Grimani were a great Venetian family and owned the principal
opera-house there. How long Handel stayed at Naples we do not know; all
that Mainwaring tells us is that he was taken up by a Spanish princess,
but, as Naples had belonged to Spain for a hundred and fifty years, Spanish
princesses can have been no rarities there, and it is impossible to
identify this lady.
From July 1708 until December 1709 we lose sight of Handel entirely. On
December 26, the first night of the carnival season, his opera _Agrippina_
was produced at Venice. The libretto was by Cardinal Grimani, who had
already written other dramas for music, all produced, like Handel's, at the
Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice. Venice was the first city which
had undertaken opera on a commercial basis, open to the public on payment,
whereas in other places it depended for many years on the munificence of
princes and nobles. At Venice there existed not one theatre, but several,
devoted to opera, each called after the name of the parish in which it was
situated, and, of these, the theatre of St. John Chrysostom, built by the
Grimani family and still standing (though much remodelled) under the name
of Teatro Malibran, was the largest and most important. The Inquisition
took a more tolerant view of opera than the Pope; a Venetian preacher
admonished actors and singers to remember that they "were abominated of
God, but tolerated by the Government by desire of those who took delight in
their iniquities."
_Agrippina_ aroused an extraordinary enthusiasm. "The theatre, at almost
every pause, resounded with shouts and acclamations of _viva il taro
Sassone!_ and other expressions of approbation too extravagant to be
mentioned" (Mainwaring). The title part was sung by Margherita Durastanti,
and another singer who appeared in the opera was Boschi, the famous bass;
both of them were to sing for Handel in London later on. It is fairly
certain that Boschi must have sung the part of Polyphemus in Handel's
Italian _Aci e Galatea_ at Naples, for it bears a striking resemblance to
other songs written for Boschi, whose voice was of exceptional range. The
opera ran for twenty-seven nights.
After this unprecedented triumph it seems surprising that Handel did not
remain in Italy, where he had so many friends who could ensure his success.
It is probable that by the time _Agrippina_ was performed, if not indeed
long before, he had been promised the post of Kapellmeister to the court of
Hanover. The actual appointment is dated June 16, 1710. But no sooner was
Handel appointed than he at once obtained leave of absence, and went on,
first to Düsseldorf, and then to London. It was probably the Elector's
intention that he should spend some time in foreign travel before taking up
regular duty.
The three years which Handel spent in Italy at the most impressionable
period of his life fixed the characteristics of his style as a composer,
and we may well suppose that they exercised a decisive influence on his
personality and character. His youth had been spent in the respectable
middle-class environment of his home at Halle; then came the three years at
Hamburg, fantastic and exciting, yet, despite all the artistic stimulus of
Keiser's opera-house, inevitably sordid and provincial. Italy introduced
him to an entirely different atmosphere--to a life of dignity and serenity
in which a classical culture, both literary and artistic, was the matured
fruit of wealth, leisure, and good breeding. That exquisite life found its
highest musical expression in Alessandro Scarlatti, who at that period was
incontestably the greatest of living musicians. On his style Handel formed
his own, and it is interesting to note that of all Scarlatti's operas the
one which most strikingly foreshadows the genius of Handel is _Mitridate_,
which Handel may possibly have seen at Venice in the winter of 1707-08.
The musical library of Handel's English friend Charles Jennens contained a
large collection of Scarlatti's manuscripts, and there can be little doubt
that it was Handel who brought them with him from Italy.
In Venice, Handel had made the acquaintance of Prince Ernest of Hanover,
younger brother of the Elector Georg Ludwig who was eventually to become
King of England as George I. With Prince Ernest was Baron Kielmansegge, who
for many years afterwards remained a firm supporter of Handel, and another
Venetian acquaintance was the Duke of Manchester, English Ambassador to the
Republic of Venice. Through Prince Ernest, and Kielmansegge, Handel was
recommended to the court of Hanover; the Duke of Manchester gave him a
pressing invitation to England. Music in Hanover was under the direction of
an Italian, Agostino Steffani, who was not only a musician but priest and
diplomatist as well. Born at Castelfranco in 1654, he was taken as a boy
to Munich, where he studied music, and, in 1680 entered the priesthood; he
produced several operas there, and about 1689 became Kapellmeister to the
court of Hanover. Here he was employed on important diplomatic business;
Pope Innocent XI made him titular Bishop of Spiga in the West Indies,
and in 1698 he was Ambassador at Brussels. In 1709 he became the Pope's
representative for North Germany, and it was doubtless owing to his heavy
ecclesiastical duties that he resigned his musical post in favour of
Handel, although Hanover remained his chief place of residence until his
death in 1728. He was in Rome in 1708 and 1709, and it has been suggested
that he made Handel's acquaintance there, but this hardly seems consistent
with Handel's own statement, recorded by Hawkins in his _History of Music_:
"When I first arrived at Hanover I was a young man under twenty; I was
acquainted with the merits of Steffani and he had heard of me. I understood
somewhat of music, and could play pretty well on the organ; he received me
with great kindness, and took an early opportunity to introduce me to the
Princess Sophia and the Elector's son, giving them to understand that I
was what he was pleased to call a virtuoso in music; he obliged me with
instructions for my conduct and behaviour during my residence at Hanover;
and being called from the city to attend to matters of a public concern,
he left me in possession of that favour and patronage which himself had
enjoyed for a series of years." These statements of Handel seem, in fact,
to point to his having visited Hanover before he went to Italy, possibly
before he went to Hamburg, or, more probably, during the course of his
Hamburg period, in which case one might conclude that the Electress Sophia
had defrayed the cost of Handel's Italian journey. Even if Handel made
a mistake as to his age, he clearly implies that his first meeting with
Steffani took place in Hanover.
At Düsseldorf, Handel was sure of a warm welcome, for the Elector Johann
Wilhelm was a close friend of Steffani, and his wife was a sister of
Ferdinand and Gian Gastone de' Medici; he was a man of extravagant tastes,
and his opera-house was maintained on the most magnificent scale. But
Handel did not stay there long; England was a greater attraction, and he
arrived in London for the first time in the autumn of 1710.
Nothing is known of Handel's early days in London, but it may be safely
assumed that he was provided with letters of introduction to persons
of influence. We meet him first in the company of Heidegger, a Swiss
adventurer who achieved notoriety through his incredible ugliness, and from
1709 onwards was concerned in the management of the opera at the Queen's
Theatre in the Haymarket. Through Heidegger, Handel was introduced to Mary
Granville, then a little girl of ten, whom he delighted by his performance
on her own spinet. Her uncle, Sir John Stanley, asked her if she thought
she should ever play as well as Mr. Handel. "If I did not think I should,"
she cried, "I would burn my instrument!" Mary Granville, who, seven years
later, married a Mr. Pendarves, and in 1743 became the wife of Dr. Delany,
was for many years one of Handel's most faithful friends and supporters.
In the reign of Queen Anne the musical life of London was developing in a
new fashion as compared with what it was in the last twenty years of the
previous century. The type of English opera which Purcell and Dryden
had created came to an end with Purcell's death in 1695. Italian music,
especially when sung by Italian singers, was gradually becoming more and
more popular with London concert-audiences, and in 1705 Thomas Clayton
produced at Drury Lane an opera called _Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus_. Clayton
had visited Italy, and had brought back with him a collection of Italian
songs; he got Peter Motteux to translate for him an old Italian opera
libretto, and adapted these songs to it. How much of _Arsinoe_ was
Clayton's own work is not known; Burney speaks of the opera with nothing
but contempt. Yet it seems to have had some fair success, and was even
revived the following year; but Clayton's _Rosamond_, to a libretto by
Addison, did not survive three performances. It was followed by a series of
Italian operas composed by Buononcini, Scarlatti, and others; at first the
operas were in English, and sung by English singers, but gradually Italian
was introduced, as at Hamburg, and in 1710 an opera called _Almahide_, the
music of which Burney ascribes conjecturally to Buononcini, was given in
Italian with an entirely Italian company. The victory of the Italians was
due mainly to the marvellous singing and acting of Nicola Grimaldi, known
as Nicolini, who first appeared in London in Scarlatti's _Pyrrhus and
Demetrius_. Nicolini was not the first _castrato_ who had been heard in
England; the famous Siface had been brought over by Queen Mary of Modena in
1687. But Nicolini was the first who appeared on the English stage, and
it was he who paved the way for Senesino, Farinelli, and the rest, and
established that annual season of Italian opera which is not yet extinct.
At the time when Handel arrived in London the opera company had migrated
from Drury Lane to Vanbrugh's new theatre in the Haymarket, where it was
under the management of Aaron Hill, an enterprising young man of Handel's
own age who was ready to pursue any sort of career that chance might offer
him, whether in literature, music, or business adventure. We may safely
hazard a guess that it was Boschi who persuaded Hill to invite Handel to
compose an opera for the Queen's Theatre, as Boschi had already sung, in
November 1710, in _Hydaspes_, an opera by Francesco Mancini, in which
Nicolini delighted his audience in a fight with a lion. Hill sketched a
plot based on Tasso's _Jerusalem Delivered_, and an Italian libretto was
hastily provided by Giacomo Rossi, Handel composing the music at the same
time, and often overtaking the poet. The music, in fact, was completed in
a fortnight, and the opera of _Rinaldo_ was first produced on the stage on
February 24, 1711. To judge from Burney's account of the preceding weeks
of the season, coupled with this astonishingly rapid collaboration, it is
probable that Hill was in a difficult situation, from which only a new and
strikingly successful opera could save him. _Rinaldo_ achieved the desired
success; it did more, it established Handel's reputation in England as a
dramatic composer, and set London a new standard in Italian opera. The
previous Italian operas had been works of little distinction, and some of
them had even been _pasticcio_ operas, as they were called, put together
from songs by various composers. Even Scarlatti's _Pyrrhus and Demetrius_
paled beside the new opera of Handel, for it had been written as far back
as 1694, and was in a style which Scarlatti himself had long abandoned.
_Rinaldo_ had fifteen performances in the course of the season. It provoked
bitter attacks from Addison in the _Spectator_ and from Steele in the
_Tatler_, but everybody knew that Addison's vanity was wounded by the
grotesque failure of _Rosamond_, and that Steele had interests in the
playhouse. It was useless at that particular moment to champion the cause
of English opera, for England happened to possess not a single composer who
was equal to the task of writing one.
The opera season came to an end in June, and Handel left London for
Germany. He did not go straight back to Hanover, but stayed at Düsseldorf
again, where the Elector was evidently desirous of keeping him as long as
possible, for the Elector himself wrote more than once to Hanover to make
excuses for Handel's prolonged absence from his official duties. Handel may
well have felt that Hanover was a dull place as compared with London. There
was no opera, and his chief function was to compose Italian chamber duets
for the Princess Caroline of Ansbach; afterwards Queen of England. But
he may well have taken pleasure in her service, for she was an excellent
musician and no mean singer. In November 1711 Handel paid a visit to Halle,
in order to stand godfather to his niece, Johanna Friderica Michaelsen, the
daughter of his surviving sister, who eventually inherited the bulk of his
fortune. Some biographers have stated that Handel had already revisited his
birthplace in 1710 before going to London. Mainwaring is their authority
for this, but Mainwaring habitually confused dates and more probably
referred to the visit of 1711, for which we have the certain evidence of
Friderica Michaelsen's baptismal register. It is clear that the alleged
visit of 1710 was suggested merely by a desire to make the most of Handel's
affection for his mother, which Mainwaring had already emphasised.
Mainwaring, however, went beyond the truth in saying that she had become
blind; she did eventually lose her sight, but not until some twenty years
later.
Handel appears to have remained at Hanover until the autumn of 1712, when
he obtained permission to go to London again "on condition that he engaged
to return within a reasonable time" (Mainwaring). What period was to be
considered reasonable we do not know. Handel had certainly been planning
this London visit for some time, as he was corresponding with friends in
England, and was also taking some trouble to improve his knowledge of the
English language. It is not surprising that he hankered after London, for
London offered him a society which bore more resemblance to the world which
he had known at Rome. The tradition of Italian culture had for generations
been more firmly implanted in England than anywhere in Germany, except
perhaps in Vienna, and, since those three years in Italy, Handel's musical
outlook had become completely Italian, as his music shows. The few attempts
which he made at German Church music present a curious contrast of style;
one could hardly believe them to be the work of that Handel whom we have
adopted as our own. German music at that date was provincial; Italian music
was the music of the great world, because it was the music of the theatre.
It was to the theatre that Handel looked forward, and London had what even
Rome had not--an opera, and an Italian opera. The success of _Rinaldo_
had shown him that London was the place where he might launch out into a
triumphal career as a composer for the stage.