Second visit to London--Italian opera--George I and the _Water
Music_--visit to Germany--Canons and the Duke of Chandos--establishment of
the Royal Academy of Music.
For the greater part of the nineteenth century the Handelian type of opera
was the laughingstock of musical critics; they wondered how any audiences
could have endured to sit through it, and why the fashionable society of
London should have neglected native music for what Dr. Johnson defined as
"an exotic and irrational entertainment." The modern reader's impression
of an Italian opera of Handel's days is a story about some ancient or
mediaeval hero whose very name is often to most people unknown; if he
happens to be someone as famous as Julius Caesar, the familiar episodes
of his life are sacrificed to some imaginary and complicated intrigue
presented in the form of long and elaborate songs, thinly accompanied, and
separated by stretches of dreary recitative. But in those days persons of
culture, in England as well as in Italy, were perhaps more interested in
ancient history and in the history of the later Roman Empire than they are
now; it is significant that Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_ made its appearance
just when the fashion for operas on subjects which might have been taken
from its pages was coming to an end.
The conventional treatment of those subjects, which makes all the operas
seem exactly alike, was the result of a certain literary reform which had
tended to standardise opera libretti under the influence of Racine, and
it was really a movement towards dignity and dramatic unity after
the monstrous confusion of the earlier Venetian operas. As to the
conventionality of the music, and its forms of air and recitative, it can
only be said that all serious Italian music was written in these forms; it
was simply the normal musical style of the period, and must have been as
natural to its own audiences as the style of Puccini or Richard Strauss at
the present day. Handelian opera has often been described as a concert
in costume, and Dr. Burney, writing as late as 1789, both admits this
description and defends it.
"An opera, at the worst, is still better than a concert merely for the ear,
or a pantomime entertainment for the eye. Supposing the articulation to be
wholly unintelligible, we have an excellent union of melody and harmony,
vocal as well as instrumental, for the ear. And, according to Sir Richard
Steele's account of Nicolini's action, 'it was so significant, that a deaf
man might go along with him in the sense of the part he acted.'
"No one will dispute but that understanding Italian would render our
entertainment at an opera more rational and more complete; but without that
advantage, let it be remembered by the lovers of Music, that an opera is
the _completest concert_ to which they can go; with this advantage over
those in still life, that to the most perfect singing, and effects of a
powerful and well-disciplined band, are frequently added excellent acting,
splendid scenes and decorations, with such dancing as a playhouse, from its
inferior prices, is seldom able to furnish."
Orchestral concerts in those days did not exist; concerts of any kind were
rare, and the best were to be heard in that historic room over Thomas
Britton's small coal shop, in Clerkenwell, where Handel himself sometimes
played on a chamber-organ for the genuine musical enthusiasts of London
society. It was no wonder that Italian opera became fashionable. Italian
singers have always been unrivalled in popular favour, and in Handel's days
they were not only something new to England, but were the exponents of a
vocal art which admittedly has never been surpassed. The theatre was new
and sumptuous; society was wealthy and at the same time exclusive; at the
opera the great world met together as in a sort of club. People went to
talk and to be seen as well as to see and hear; they do so in certain
opera-houses still. And the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket possessed the
greatest opera-composer living, a greater even than Scarlatti himself.
It was a period when there was still a considerable tradition of
musicianship among the amateurs of English society. Old Countess Granville,
known to her younger relatives as "the Dragon," who had lived all through
the age of Locke and Purcell, wrote, at the age of eighty, to her cousin
Mrs. Pendarves--Handel's child friend Mary Granville--in 1734: "There is,
I think, no accomplishment so great for a lady as music, for it tunes
the mind." There were plenty of people in the great houses capable
of appreciating the merits of Handel, or at any rate of constituting
themselves his enemies.
Handel must have arrived in England at least as early as the beginning of
October 1712, for the manuscript of _Il Pastor Fido_, the first new opera
which he produced, is dated, at the end, "Londres, ce 24 Octobre." The
opera-house was now under the management of Owen MacSwiney, who seems to
have been both incompetent and unreliable. _Il Pastor Fido_ did not attract
the public, and was withdrawn after six performances, but Handel soon had
another opera ready to take its place. _Teseo_ was finished on December
19, and brought out on January 10, 1713; it was a romantic-heroic opera,
closely modelled on _Rinaldo_, with an abundance of scenic effects. After
the second performance MacSwiney disappeared, leaving the singers unpaid as
well as the scene-painters and costume-makers. The company carried on the
season undeterred, and the management was taken over by Heidegger. Handel's
opera was performed twelve times--on the last night for the composer's
benefit; between the acts he gave a performance himself on the harpsichord.
For the moment, however, the operatic situation was not encouraging, and
Handel turned his thoughts in other directions. He had stayed first at
the London house of a Mr. Andrews of Barn Elms in Surrey, but he soon
transferred himself to the house of Lord Burlington in Piccadilly. Lord
Burlington was only seventeen years of age, but he and his mother made
Burlington House an artistic and literary centre comparable with the
palaces of Cardinal Ottoboni and Prince Ruspoli at Rome. As the libretto of
_Teseo_ is dedicated to him, he must have taken Handel under his patronage
soon after his arrival in England, but the precise date at which Handel
went to live with him is uncertain. According to Hawkins, he stayed at
Burlington House for three years, meeting Pope, Gay, and Dr. Arbuthnot, as
well as many other "men of the first eminence for genius." But Gay does not
seem to have met Lord Burlington until 1715, and Pope mentions him first
in 1718. It is thought that Handel's little opera, _Silla_, may have been
written for a private performance at Burlington House in 1714, and the
dedication of _Amadigi_, Handel's next opera (1715), indicates that the
music was composed within his patron's own walls.
One of Handel's favourite haunts in London was St. Paul's Cathedral, where
Brind the organist often persuaded him to play the organ after evening
service, to the great delight of the congregation. He appears to have
made Brind's acquaintance first through young Maurice Greene, then aged
seventeen, who had been a chorister of St. Paul's, and, after his voice
broke in 1710, was articled to Brind as a pupil. After service was over,
Handel, Greene, and some of the members of the choir would repair to
the Queen's Arms Tavern close by for an evening of music and musical
conversation.
This friendly association with St. Paul's was no doubt of great value to
Handel in his next musical undertakings--the _Birthday Ode_ for Queen
Anne, and the _Te Deum_ which celebrated the Peace of Utrecht in 1713.
The Queen's patronage may very likely have been obtained for him by Lady
Burlington, as she was one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber. These two
works are important landmarks in Handel's career, as they were his first
compositions to English words, and his first compositions for English
ceremonial occasions. They marked him out as the natural successor to
Purcell, and it is evident that in each case he took Purcell's similar
composition as his model. Up till now he had been a foreigner engaged to
provide Italian opera for the amusement of fashionable society; with the
_Birthday Ode_ he became a court musician to the Queen of England, and with
the _Te Deum_ his music entered St. Paul's.
The practical result of the _Ode_ was a pension of £200 a year conferred
on him by Queen Anne. It is clear that he now regarded England as his
permanent home, regardless of the fact that he was officially the servant
of the Elector of Hanover and had undertaken to return thither "within a
reasonable time." But on August 1, 1714, the Queen died, and the Elector
was proclaimed King of England. When George I came over to his new country,
Handel did not dare to show himself at court, and all efforts on the part
of his friends to effect a reconciliation with the King were in vain. The
King went to see his new opera, _Amadigi_, which came out late in the
season of 1715, but refused to pardon him, until Handel's old Venetian
acquaintance, Baron Kielmansegge, now Master of the Horse, devised an
ingenious expedient for surprising the King into clemency.
One of the favourite amusements of London society was to make up a
water-party on the Thames, with a band of musicians in attendance. Mrs.
Pendarves describes a party of this kind in July 1722; they rowed up to
Richmond, where they had supper, and "were entertained all the time by very
good music [for wind instruments] in another barge." Baron Kielmansegge
arranged that the King should go for an excursion of this kind, and that,
without his knowledge, Handel should conduct appropriate music of his own
in a barge that followed the King's. As the Baron was often in charge of
the music for such occasions, this can have been a matter of no great
difficulty; in any case it achieved the desired result. The King was
enchanted with the music, and restored Handel to favour. As Mainwaring
tells this story just before speaking of _Amadigi_, it has generally been
assumed that this episode took place in the summer of 1715, but more
recently it has been ascribed to 1717, on the strength of a long account of
a royal water-party, with music by Handel, given in the _Daily Courant_,
a newspaper of the period. This account was copied by the Envoy of
Brandenburg at the court of St. James's and despatched by him to Berlin;
the discovery of this document has led certain writers to cast doubt on
Mainwaring's story. Streatfeild is probably right in suggesting that
Mainwaring's story refers to an earlier water-party, and that Handel
contributed music frequently for such occasions. He also points out that
the celebrated _Water Music_ was not published until 1740, and that it may
quite well have been collected from various aquatic programmes.
Hawkins relates the story of the _Water Music_, evidently copying from
Mainwaring; but Hawkins had known Handel personally, and had been supplied
by him with certain reminiscences, one of which was unknown to Mainwaring.
According to this anecdote, recorded by Hawkins, the reconciliation with
George I was due to the violinist Geminiani, who had composed a set of
sonatas dedicated to Baron Kielmansegge; Geminiani was a notoriously
difficult player to accompany, and insisted on Handel, and no other, taking
the harpsichord when he went to play the sonatas to the King.
Mr. Flower, in his life of Handel, refuses all credit to Mainwaring's
well-known tale, and takes the view that the King never had any quarrel
with Handel at all. In any case it seems certain that he confirmed the
pension granted to him by Queen Anne, and added a further £200 a year of
his own. A few years later, Handel received yet another £200 a year--from
Caroline of Ansbach, now Princess of Wales, for teaching her daughters the
harpsichord, so that he enjoyed a settled income of £600 a year for the
rest of his life.
_Amadigi_, produced May 25, 1715, did not have many performances, as the
season ended on July 9, but it attracted considerable attention, partly
because that old favourite, Nicolini, sang in it again, and also on account
of its elaborate staging. "There is more enchantment and machinery in this
opera," says Dr. Burney, "than I have ever found to be announced in any
other musical drama performed in England."
During the following season, which did not begin until February 1716, both
_Rinaldo_ and _Amadigi_ were revived, but Handel produced no new opera. The
King seems to have wished to see Nicolini in his older parts; _Pyrrhus and
Demetrius_ was revived, as well as other operas of the days before Handel's
first arrival in England. In July, at the end of the season, George I
returned to Hanover, where he remained until the end of the year. Handel
accompanied him, but seems to have had freedom to travel, for he visited
Hamburg, where he avoided meeting his old friend Mattheson, though he
corresponded with him from a safe distance. He also went to Halle, where
his mother was still living; Zachow, however, was dead, and had left his
widow in straitened circumstances, with an idle and intemperate son. Handel
helped the widow, and continued to send her money in later years, but he
eventually came to the conclusion that it was useless to do anything for
the son. From Halle he went on to Ansbach, no doubt on some commission
from the Princess of Wales. At Ansbach he found an old friend from the
University of Halle, Johann Christoph Schmidt, who was established in a
woollen business. Although Schmidt was married and had a family, he was
persuaded by Handel to leave these behind at Ansbach and to travel with
him to London, where he spent the rest of his life as Handel's faithful
secretary and copyist. His son came over later on, and, after Handel had
provided for his education, assisted his father in looking after Handel
during his old age.
During these six months in Germany, Handel reverted for a moment to German
music; he set what is known as the _Brockes Passion_, a sacred cantata
in verse by the Hamburg poet Brockes, which had already been set once
by Keiser. Later on it was set to music again by two of Handel's former
friends, first by Telemann, and then by Mattheson. Little is known about
the composition of this work; Handel apparently had a copy made after his
return to England and sent this to Mattheson, and it was performed at
Hamburg in 1717. Handel does not seem to have had it performed in England;
he used up the music afterwards for other works. Chrysander attributed to
1716 a set of nine German songs with violin _obbligato_ to semi-sacred
words by Brockes; but there is some difficulty about accepting this date,
for, although eight of the poems had already been printed by Brockes, there
is one which is found only in the second edition of the book, printed in
1724.
The King came back to London in January 1717, and it is supposed that
Handel came with him. The opera was on the verge of collapse. _Rinaldo_ and
_Amadigi_ were once more revived for Nicolini, but Handel contributed no
new work, and, after the season came to an end in July, there was no more
Italian opera in London until 1720. It was during this period that Handel
became musical director to the Duke of Chandos, for whom he composed works
of a character new both to England and to himself.
James Brydges, first Duke of Chandos, had built himself an Italian palace
at Canons, near Edgware, in which he must have outdone even the magnificent
Lord Burlington in sumptuousness and ostentation. Like a German princeling,
he kept his choir and his band of musicians, though there seems to be no
evidence that he was himself genuinely musical. The chapel of the house, a
florid Italian baroque building with frescoes in the appropriate style by
Italian painters, was opened in 1720, and the anthem for the occasion
was no doubt one of Handel's. It is not known what music of Handel's was
performed at the Duke's private concerts, but for the services of the
chapel he composed the famous _Chandos Te Deum_ and the twelve _Chandos
Anthems_. Here again Purcell was his model, but the style was Handel's
own, a style indeed so appropriate to the formal stateliness of the Duke's
establishment that these works have never become part of the ordinary
cathedral repertory. It was to Purcell, and to some extent to Scarlatti
too, that Handel owed the general plan of the anthems with their orchestral
accompaniments, but even Purcell's anthems with orchestra had by that time
been found too elaborate for general use.
To the Chandos period belongs also a work which is still one of Handel's
most popular compositions, the English _Acis and Galatea_, to words by John
Gay. It was not a revision of the _serenata_ which he wrote at Naples, but
an entirely new work. More important as a landmark in Handel's development
is the masque of _Esther_, originally called _Haman and Mordecai_. About
the early history of these works little is known; both were intended to be
acted on the stage, and they were very probably performed in this way at
Canons. The words of _Esther_ were adapted from Racine's play of the same
name, and it has been suggested that Pope was the author.
Handel's residence at Canons gave rise to two legends about him which
are still so often repeated that their absurdity must be mentioned here,
although they have been known for many years to be baseless. One is
perpetuated by an inscription on the organ in the church at Whitchurch,
to the effect that Handel composed the oratorio of _Esther_ on this
instrument. Handel was never organist at Whitchurch; the church existed in
his day, but it was an entirely separate building from the private chapel
of the Duke of Chandos which was pulled down with the house. The organ of
that chapel is now at Gosport. It need hardly be said that in any case it
was not Handel's practice to compose his works on an organ. The other, and
even more popular, legend is that of "The Harmonious Blacksmith." It was
during the Canons period that Handel published his _Suites de Pièces pour
le Clavecin_ (1720) which had probably been composed for the daughters
of the Princess of Wales, and one of these suites contains the air and
variations known by that familiar title. But the air was never called by
this name before 1820; about that time a young music-seller at Bath, who
had previously been a blacksmith's apprentice, earned the nickname of "the
harmonious blacksmith" because he was always singing that particular tune.
Somehow the name got transferred from the singer to the song, and in 1835
the story of Handel's having been inspired to compose the tune after
hearing a blacksmith at Edgware produce musical notes from his anvil was
first put into print in a letter to _The Times_. Not long afterwards an
imaginary blacksmith of Edgware was invented, and his alleged anvil sold by
auction.
Whether the air is Handel's own composition at all is a matter of
uncertainty; there would be nothing in the least unusual about any composer
taking another man's air as a theme for variations, and it has been
suggested, with some plausibility, that the tune is that of an old French
song.
On August 8, 1718, Handel's sister Dorothea Sophia died of consumption
at Halle. She was not more than thirty years of age; the other sister,
Johanna, had died in 1709. The sermon preached at Dorothea's funeral on
August 11, 1718, has been preserved, and tells us that one of her favourite
texts from the Bible, which she was often in the habit of quoting, was,
"I know that my Redeemer liveth." Chrysander suggested, and we may well
believe, that the setting of these words in _Messiah_, given to a female
voice, owed its inspiration to the memory of Dorothea Sophia. Handel was
evidently much attached to her. To attend her funeral was impossible, and
it was some months before Handel could visit Halle again; but on February
20, 1719, he wrote a letter to his brother-in-law, thanking him for all the
kindness which he had shown to his sister, and promising to come to Halle
as soon as his engagements permitted.
Handel's inability to leave London before February 1719 was due to the fact
that a new scheme for the promotion of opera in London was on foot. The
first idea was probably suggested in the circle of the Duke of Chandos
towards the end of 1718. It was the moment of the South Sea Bubble, and
speculation had become the universal fashion. To revive the Italian opera a
company was formed among members of the nobility; a capital of £50,000 was
raised in shares of £100 each, and the King himself contributed £1,000.
The new venture was called the Royal Academy of Music, in imitation of
the _Académie Royale de Musique_, under which name the Paris opera was
officially known. The French designation was obviously suggested by the
Italian "academies," or literary and musical societies of the period; the
expression _accademia di musica_ is still occasionally used in Italy to
signify a concert. The directors engaged Nicolo Haym and Paolo Rolli as
poets to provide libretti; for the music they naturally secured Handel, but
also invited Buononcini over from Rome, and Attilio Ariosti from Berlin.
Handel was sent at once to Dresden to select singers; on February 21 he is
stated to have left London for that purpose, but it is possible that he may
actually have started later, for in his letter to his brother-in-law, dated
February 20, he says, "I beg you will not judge of my desire to see you by
the delay of my departure, for to my great regret I find myself detained
here by important business on which I may say my fortune depends, and it
has dragged on longer than I expected.... I hope I shall be at the end of
it in a month from now."
Handel's exact itinerary is difficult to establish. We know that he went to
Düsseldorf, where he engaged the singer Baldassari, but whether this was on
the outward journey or later in the year is uncertain. From the letter to
Michaelsen we should imagine that he went to Halle as soon as possible;
the only authentic document which gives us any date is a letter from Count
Flemming, a court functionary at Dresden, to Melusine von Schulenburg,
daughter of George I's mistress the Duchess of Kendal, who in 1733 married
Lord Chesterfield. Melusine was a pupil of Handel in London. The letter
is dated from Dresden, October 6, 1719; the Count seems to have been much
offended by Handel's behaviour, and suggests that he was "a little mad"
(_un peu fol_). Count Flemming was evidently vain of his own musicianship,
and this made him feel all the more hurt at Handel's obstinate refusal to
accept his invitations. The Electoral Prince of Saxony was married about
this time to an Austrian Archduchess, and the Elector had invited several
of the most famous Italian singers, headed by the composer Lotti, to
Dresden to grace the occasion, hoping to make contracts with them for the
winter season. Handel's object in Dresden was to tempt these celebrities to
London by the offer of English guineas, so that he was naturally obliged to
be extremely discreet in his relations with the officials of the court.
He certainly played the harpsichord at court, for in the following February
(1720) a sum of 100 ducats was paid to him; this however cannot indicate
that he was actually in Dresden at that date, and may easily have been
a delayed payment for earlier services. Handel's negotiations with the
singers were only moderately successful, for he was unable to secure anyone
except Signora Durastanti for the opening of the London opera, even though
that was delayed until April 1720. The others remained at Dresden, but it
is probable that Handel's offers had not been without their attractions,
for the Italian singers at Dresden gave so much trouble to the management
that the Elector suddenly dismissed the whole crew in February 1720; none
of them, however, appeared in London before the autumn season.
Handel's visit to Halle this year is of peculiar interest because of
the attempt made by J. S. Bach to become acquainted with him. Forkel's
biography of Bach (1802) is the only authority for this story. Bach in 1719
was in the service of the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen; hearing that Handel was
in the neighbourhood, he went over to Halle, a distance of about twenty
miles, but found that Handel had already departed for London. The exact
date of Handel's return is not known, but as there was a meeting of the
shareholders of the opera on November 6, 1719, he may have been in England
by that time. He was not himself one of the actual directors of the
company; the only professional member of the board was Heidegger. Burney
suggests that the affairs of the company were none too prosperous even
before the season began; and it is strange that so long a delay took place
between the first initiation of the scheme in the winter of 1718 and the
first rise of the curtain on April 2, 1720. Handel, at any rate, must have
felt his own position to be secure, for it was about this time that he took
the house at what was then 57 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, where
he resided for the rest of his life. His name appears first in 1725 among
the ratepayers of the parish of St. George's, Hanover Square, but not long
ago a lead cistern was found in the house, bearing his initials and
the date 1721. On what terms he took the house is not known; it is not
mentioned in his will.