Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project.)
[Illustration: GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL
(_From a Portrait by Mercier in the possession of the Earl of
Malmesbury._)
_Frontispiece._]]
HANDEL
BY
ROMAIN ROLLAND
TRANSLATED BY
A. EAGLEFIELD HULL
MUS. DOC. (OXON.)
_WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR_
_17 MUSICAL ILLUSTRATIONS AND 4 PLATES_
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1916
PREFACE
For a proper appreciation of the colossal work of Handel many years of
study and a book of some two hundred pages are very insufficient. To
treat at all adequately of Handel's life and work needs a whole lifetime
in itself, and even the indefatigable and enthusiastic Chrysander, who
devoted his life to this subject, has hardly encompassed the task.... I
have done what I could; my faults must be excused. This little book does
not pretend to be anything more than a very brief sketch of the life and
technique of Handel. I hope to study his character, his work, and his
times, more in detail in another volume.
ROMAIN ROLLAND.
CONTENTS
PAGE
HIS LIFE 1
HIS TECHNIQUE AND WORKS 111
(1) THE OPERAS 122
(2) THE ORATORIOS 134
(3) THE CLAVIER COMPOSITIONS 143
(4) THE CHAMBER MUSIC (SONATAS AND TRIOS) 154
(5) THE ORCHESTRAL WORKS 158
APPENDICES--
LIST OF HANDEL'S WORKS 193
BIBLIOGRAPHY 201
INDEX 204
PLATES
PORTRAIT BY THORNHILL _frontispiece_
GEORGE I AND HANDEL'S WATER MUSIC _to face page_ 69
HANDEL'S MONUMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 107
HANDEL DIRECTING AN ORATORIO 165
INTRODUCTION
BY THE EDITOR
Here in England we are supposed to know our Handel by heart, but it is
doubtful whether we do. Who can say from memory the titles of even six
of his thirty-nine operas, from whence may be culled many of his
choicest flowers of melody? M. Rolland rightly emphasises the importance
of the operas of Handel in the long chain of musical evolution, and it
seems impossible for anyone to lay down his book without having a more
all-round impression than heretofore of this giant among composers.
M. Saint-Saens once compared the position of a conductor in front of the
score of a Handel oratorio to that of a man who sought to settle with
his family in some old mansion which has been uninhabited for centuries.
The music was different altogether from that to which he was accustomed.
No nuances, no bowing, frequently no indication of rate, and often
merely a "sketched-in" bass.... Tradition only could guide him, and the
English, who alone could have preserved this, he considers, have lost
it.
Can it be recovered to any extent, and, if so, how?
Behind each towering figure of genius are to be found numbers of
eloquent men who prepared the way for him; and amongst these precursors
there is frequently discovered one who exercised a dominating influence
over the young budding genius. Such an influence was exercised by Zachau
on Handel, and M. Rolland rightly gives due importance to the
consideration of this old master's teachings and compositions, a careful
study of which should go far to supplying the right key to Handel's
music. One of the great shortcomings in the general musical listener is
a lack of the historical view of music. It is a long cry from Bach and
Handel to Debussy and Scriabin, but we shall be all the better for
looking well at both ends of the long musical chain which connects the
unvoiced expression of the past with the vague yet certain hopes of the
future.
No doubt we have hardly yet recovered from the false position into which
we have all helped to place Handel. He was never the great Church
composer which has been assumed for so long. Perhaps, rather, he leaned
to the pagan side of life in his art. As Mr. Streatfeild says, "You can
no more call the _Messiah_ a work of art than you can call the _Book of
Common Prayer_ popular as a masterpiece of literature.... Handel the
preacher is laid for ever in the tomb, but Handel the artist with his
all-embracing sympathy for human things and his delight in the world
around him lives for evermore." Handel has been greatly, almost
wilfully, misrepresented; but he has played too great a part in the
history of English music to be cast aside on this account. It is true
that there are many difficulties in the way of a clearer understanding
of his music. A two-hundred years' overgrowth of vain vocal traditions
is not going to be torn away in the space of a few years.
If the operas have been overlooked in favour of the oratorios, then his
instrumental music has been even more neglected on account of the
preponderance of his vocal movements. In a recent important contribution
to Handelian biography only a few pages are given to the instrumental
works. In this respect M. Rolland's clear and critical biography fills
in a distinct _hiatus_.
Moreover, Handel sojourned in Germany, Italy, finally (and longest) in
England--but never in France. M. Rolland, therefore, a Frenchman and the
author of that brilliant work _Histoire de l'Opera en Europe avant Lulli
et Scarlatti_, may, more than any other writer, be expected to bring a
freshness of vision and an impartial judgment to bear on Handel's works.
_And he has not disappointed us._
A. E. H.
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL
HIS LIFE
The Handel family was of Silesian origin.[1] The grandfather, Valentine
Handel, was a master coppersmith at Breslau. The father, George Handel,
was a barber-surgeon, originally attached to the service of the armies
of Saxony, then of Sweden, later of the French Emperor, and finally in
the private service of Duke Augustus of Saxony. He was very rich, and
purchased at Halle in 1665 a beautiful house, which is still in
existence. He was married twice; in 1643 he married a widow of a barber,
who was ten years older than himself (he had six children by her); and
in 1683, the daughter of a pastor who was thirty years younger than he
was: he had four children by her, of which the second was George
Frederick.
Both parents sprang from that good old _bourgeois_ stock of the
seventeenth century which was such excellent soil for genius and for
faith. Handel, the surgeon, was a man of gigantic stature, serious,
severe, energetic, religiously attached to duty, upright and affable in
his dealings with those around him.
His portrait exhibits a large clean-shaven face which has the impression
of one who never smiled. The head is carried high, the eyes morose;
prominent nose and a pleasant but obstinate mouth; long hair with white
curls falling on his shoulders; black cap, collar of lace, and coat of
black satin: the aspect of a parliamentary man of his time.--The mother
was no less sturdy a character. Of a clerical family on the maternal
side as well as on the paternal side, with a spirit imbued with the
Bible, she had a calm courage, which came out prominently when the
country was ravaged by pestilence. Her sister and her elder brother were
both carried off by the plague; her father was also affected. She
refused to leave them and remained quietly at home. She was then engaged
to be married.--This sturdy couple transmitted to their distinguished
son in place of good looks (which he certainly had not, and which never
disquieted him) their physical and moral health, their stature, their
keen intelligence and common sense, their application to work, and the
indestructible essence of their quiet, calm spirit.
* * * * *
George Frederick Handel was born at Halle on Monday, February 23,
1685.[2] His father was then sixty-three years, and his mother
thirty-four.[3]
The town of Halle occupied a singular political situation. It belonged
originally to the Elector of Saxony; by the Treaties of Westphalia it
was ceded to the Elector of Brandenburg; but it paid tribute to the Duke
Augustus of Saxony during his lifetime. After the death of Augustus in
1680, Halle passed definitely to Brandenburg; and in 1681 the Grand
Elector came to receive homage there. Handel then was born a Prussian;
but his father was in the service of the Duke of Saxony, and he retained
relationship with the son of Augustus, Johann Adolf, who moved his court
after the Prussian annexation to the neighbouring town of Weissenfels.
Thus the childhood of Handel was influenced by two intellectual forces:
the Saxon and the Prussian. Of the two the more aristocratic, and also
the more powerful was the Saxon. Most of the artists had emigrated with
the Duke to Weissenfels. It was there that the genial Heinrich Schuetz
was born and died:[4] it was there that Handel found his first impetus,
and where the calling of the child was first recognized. The precocious
musical tendencies of the little George Frederick were somewhat curbed
by the formal opposition of his father.[5] The sturdy surgeon had more
than objection--he possessed an aversion to the profession of artist.
This sentiment was shared by nearly all the sturdy men of Germany. The
calling of musician was degraded by the unedifying spectacle of many
artists in the years of relaxation which followed the Thirty Years'
war.[6] Besides which, the _bourgeois_ German of the seventeenth century
had a very different idea of music from that of our French middle
classes of the nineteenth century. It was with them a mere art of
amusement, and not a serious profession. Many of the masters of that
time, Schuetz, Rosenmueller, Kuhnau, were lawyers, or theologians, before
they devoted themselves to music; or they even followed for a time the
two professions. Handel's father wished his son to follow his own
profession, that of law; but a journey to Weissenfels overcame all his
objections. The Duke heard the little seven-year-old Handel play the
organ, with the result that he sent for the father to see him and
recommended him not to thwart the child's obvious musical talents. The
father, who had always taken these counsels very badly when they came
from anyone else, doubtless appreciated them when they came from the
lips of a prince; and without renouncing his own right over his son
(for he still had the legal plan in his head) consented to let him learn
music; and on his return to Halle he placed him under the best master in
the town, the organist Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau.[7]
* * * * *
Zachau was a broad-minded man and moreover a good musician, whose
greatness was only appreciated many years after his death.[8] His
influence on Handel was splendid. Handel himself did not conceal it.[9]
This influence affected the pupil in two ways: by his method of
teaching, and by his artistic personality. "The man was very well up in
his art," says Mattheson,[10] "and is possessed of as much talent as
beneficence."
* * * * *
Handel's devotion to Zachau was so great that he seemed never able to
show him sufficient affection and kindness. The master's first efforts
were devoted to giving the pupil a strong foundation in harmony. Then he
turned his thoughts towards the inventive side of the art; he showed
him how to give his musical ideas the most perfect form, and he refined
his taste. He possessed a remarkable library of Italian and German
music, and he explained to Handel the various methods of writing and
composing adopted by different nationalities, whilst pointing out the
good qualities and the faults of each composer; and in order that his
education might be at the same time theoretical and practical, he
frequently gave him exercises to work in such and such a style.
* * * * *
This education with a true European catholicity was not confined to one
particular musical style, but spread itself out over all schools, and
caused him to assimilate the best points of all, for who can fail to see
that the conception and practice of Handel, and indeed the very essence
of his genius, was the absorption of a hundred different styles! "One of
his manuscripts dated 1698, and preserved carefully all his life,
contains," so says Chrysander, "some airs, choruses, capriccios, and
fugues of Zachau, Alberti (Heinrich Albert), Froberger, Krieger, Kerl,
Ebner, Strungk, which he had copied out whilst studying with Zachau."
Handel could never forget these old masters, distinct traces of whom are
found from time to time in his best-known works.[11] He would doubtless
too, with Zachau, have seen the first volumes of the clavier works of
Kuhnau, which were published at that time.[12]
Moreover, it seems that Zachau knew the work of Agostino Steffani,[13]
who later on took a fatherly interest in Handel; and Zachau followed
sympathetically the dramatic musical movement in Hamburg. Thus the
little Handel had, thanks to his master, a living summary of the musical
resources of Germany, old and new; and under his direction he absorbed
all the secrets of the great contrapuntal architects of the past,
together with the clear expressive and melodic beauty of the
Italian-German schools of Hanover and Hamburg.
But the personal influence of the character and the art of Zachau
reacted no less strongly on Handel than did his methods of instruction.
One is struck by the relationship of his works[14] to those of Handel;
they are similar in character and style. The reminiscences of motives,
figures, and of subjects count for little;[15] there is the same essence
in the art of both master and pupil; there is the same feeling of light
and joy; there is nothing of the pious concentration and introspection
of Bach, who goes down into the deeps of thought, and who loves to probe
into all the innermost recesses of the heart, and--in silence and
solitude--converse with his God. The music of Zachau is the music of
great spaces, of dazzling frescoes, such as one sees on the domes of the
Italian cathedrals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but
Zachau's work contains more religion than these. His music pulses with
action like the bounding and rebounding of great springs of steel. It
has triumphant subjects with expositions of great solemnity. There are
victorious marches, carrying everything before them, which go crashing
on without stopping, ever spurring on the sparkling and joyous patterns.
There are also pastoral themes, pure and voluptuous reveries,[16]
dances, and songs accompanied by flutes, with a Grecian perfume,[17] and
a smiling virtuosity, a joy intoxicated with itself, twisting lines, and
vocal arabesques, vocalizations, trills for the voice which gambol
light-heartedly with the little wave-like arpeggios of the violins.[18]
Let us unite these two traits: the heroic and the pastoral, the
warriors' marches and the jubilant dances. There you have the Handelian
tableaux: the people of Israel and the women dancing before the
victorious army. You find in Zachau a sketch for the monumental
constructions of Handel in his Hallelujahs; those mountains of sound
which resound their joy, the colossal _Amens_ which crown his oratorios
like the dome of St. Peter at Rome.[19]
Add to this also Zachau's marked liking for instrumental music,[20]
which makes him combine it so happily with the vocal solos; and very
often he imagines the voice as an instrument, which combines and gambols
with the other instruments, thus forming a decorative garland
harmoniously woven.
To sum up, it was an art less intimate than expansive, an art newly
born; not devoid of emotion though,[21] but above all, restful, strong,
and happy--an optimistic music like that of Handel.
Truly Handel in miniature, with much less breadth, less richness of
invention, and particularly a smaller power of development. There is
nothing of the attractiveness of Handel's colossal movements, like an
army which marches and sings; and more solid strength is necessary to
carry the weight right to the end without bending. Zachau flinches on
his way; he has not the vital force of Handel, but in compensation he
has more _naivete_, more tender candour, more of the childlike
chasteness and evangelic grace.[22] Certainly there we have the master
really necessary to Handel, a master more than one great man had the
good fortune to find (it is Giovanni Santi for Raphael; it is Neefe for
Beethoven): good, simple, straightforward, a little dull, but giving a
steady and gentle light where the youth may dream in peace and abandon
himself with confidence to a guide almost fraternal, who does not seek
to dominate him, but rather strives to fan the little flame into a
greater fire; to turn the little rivulet of music into the mighty river
of genius.
* * * * *
Whilst studying with Zachau the young Handel visited Berlin. After
having paid his homage to his former master, the Elector of Saxony, he
was wise enough also to present himself to the new one, the Elector of
Brandenburg. It seems that this journey took place about 1696 when the
boy was eleven years old, and his father, being ill, did not accompany
him.
The Berlin Court lived a very short life of artistic brilliance between
the wars of the Grand Elector and those of the Prince-Regent. Music was
greatly in honour, thanks to the Electress, Sophia Charlotte, daughter
of the celebrated Sophia of Hanover. She attracted to her the best
Italian instrumentalists, singers, and composers.[23] She founded the
Berlin Opera,[24] and even conducted several concerts at Court.
Doubtless the movement was but superficial. It was only held together by
the impulse of the Electress, who had more spirit than earnestness. Art
was for her only a fond distraction; so that after her death the musical
_fetes_ in Berlin became extinct. But it was something to have lighted,
only for a brief hour, this flame of beautiful Italian art, and it was
thus that the little Handel came into contact for the first time with
the music of the South.[25] The child, who displayed his powers on the
clavecin before a princely audience, had so much success that the
Elector of Brandenburg wished him to enter his service. He offered
Handel's father to send the child to Italy to finish his studies. The
old man refused. "He had a stubborn pride, and did not desire," so says
Mainwaring, "that his son should be tied too soon to a Prince." He
wished to see his child again, as he considered that he himself might
die at any moment.
Little Handel returned. Too late! He learnt _en route_ that his father
had died on February 11, 1697. The principal obstacle in the way of his
musical vocation had now disappeared, but he had so profound a respect
for his father's wishes that he forced himself to study law for many
more years. After having completed in due course his classes at the
college he was entered for the Faculty of Law at the University of Halle
on February 10, 1702, five years after his father's death.
University life in Halle at that time was of a revolting character. But,
in spite of this, an intense life of thought and religion was also to be
found there. The Faculty of Theology was the centre of Pietism.[26] The
students devoted themselves to religious exercises which led to
ecstasy.--Handel, independent as he always was, kept clear of the brutal
amusements, just as he did of the mystic contemplation. He was religious
without being sentimental. For the rest, an artist could only listen to
the Pietists with difficulty, for their religious devotion was too often
oppressive to art. Even J. S. Bach, Pietist at heart, by his public acts
declared himself opposed to the Pietists, who were on certain marked
occasions inimical to music.[27] For a still stronger reason Handel had
no leaning towards mysticism.
Religion was not his business; Law certainly was not. However, he had
for his master the most remarkable professor in Germany, Christian
Thomasius, the advocate in the arraignment of witchcraft,[28] the
reformer of the teaching of law, who himself made a thorough study of
German customs, and who did not cease to make battle with the gross and
stupid abuses of the universities, with their spirit of caste, pedantry,
ignorance, hypocrisy, and judicial and religious acerbity. If such a
training was not of the nature to retain Handel it was certainly not the
fault of the professor; there were no more vital lessons in the whole
of the Germany of that day; none which offered a more fruitful field of
activity to a young man. Let us be sure that a Beethoven would not have
been insensible to them. But Handel was a pure musician; he was music
itself; nothing else could occupy his thoughts.
In the year in which he had completed his terms in the Faculty of Law he
found a post of organist at Halle: and in a church more than strictly
Lutheran, being of the Reformed order, where the organist had expressly
to conform to the new cult. However, he was only seventeen years
old.[29] This simple fact showed what musical authority he already
exercised in the town where he had studied law.[30] Not only was he
organist, but he was also Professor at the College of the Reformists; he
took vocal music there for two hours every week; he selected the most
gifted of his pupils and formed from them a vocal and instrumental body
which was to be heard every Sunday in one church or another of the town.
He included in his musical repertoire, chorales, Psalms, motets,
cantatas--which were changed every Sunday. Truly an excellent school for
learning to write quickly and well. Handel there formed his creative
fecundity.[31] Of hundreds of cantatas which he then wrote, none were
preserved by him.[32] But it is certain that his memory retained more
than one idea to serve in later compositions, for he never lost
anything, and from that time for the rest of his life he retained in his
mind his earlier musical ideas. This should not be attributed to his
speed in working, but to the unity of his thought and his strenuous
search for perfection.
Handel renewed neither his yearly engagement at the Cathedral of Halle
nor at the University. In his period as organist he had gauged his own
musical force and he no longer wished to constrain it. A wider field of
activity was necessary. He quitted Halle in the spring of 1703, and
guided both by his instincts and by a preference of his master
Zachau[33] he betook himself to Hamburg, the city of German Opera.
Hamburg was the Venice of Germany. A free town far from the noise of
wars, a refuge of artists, and people of large fortunes, the centre of
the commerce of Northern Europe, a cosmopolitan city where they spoke
all languages and especially the French tongue, it was in continual
relationship with both England and Italy, and particularly with Venice,
which constituted for it a model for emulation. It was by way of Hamburg
that the English ideas were circulated in Germany. It was there where
the first German newspapers appeared.[34] In the time of Handel, Hamburg
shared with Leipzig the intellectual prestige of Germany. There was no
other place in Germany where music was held in such high esteem.[35] The
artists there hobnobbed with the rich merchants. Christoph, pupil of
Schuetz, had founded there a celebrated Collegium Musicum, a Society of
Musicians, and started there in 1677-8 the first theatre of German
Opera. It was not a princely opera open only to those invited by the
prince, but a public opera, popular in spirit and in prices. It was the
example of Italy, notably that of Venice, which called forth this
foundation, but the spirits of the two theatres were very different.
Whilst that of Venice satisfied itself with fantastic melodramas,
curiously devised from the ancient mythology and history, the Hamburg
Opera retained, despite the grossness of taste and licentiousness of
manners, an old religious foundation. The Hamburg opera was inaugurated
in 1678 by the production of Joh. Theile's _Creation of the World_. The
composer was a pupil of Schuetz. From 1678 to 1692 a large number of
religious dramas were given there; some of an allegorical character,
others inspired by the Bible. In certain of these subjects one can
already see the future oratorios of Handel.[36] Feeble as these pieces
were, they were yet on the definite road for the founding of a real
German theatre. It seems to have been the idea of one of these poets,
Pastor Elmenhorst, who wished to give to the religious opera the value
of a classic form of art.[37] Unfortunately, the public spirit was on
the decline; its religious resources, however, were well protected, save
in a minority where religion took a more aggressive character as it felt
itself less able to hold people. There were two factions in the Hamburg
public; one (the most numerous) whom religion bored, and who wished to
amuse themselves at the theatre. The other party was religious and would
not have anything to do with the opera under the impression that it was
a work of Satan, _opera diabolica_.[38] The struggle was warmly
contested between the two factions, and religious opera came to grief.
The last representation took place in 1692. When Handel arrived it was
truly the _opera diabolica_ which ran with its many extravagances and
its licentious habits.
I have told elsewhere[39] the story of this period of theatrical history
in Hamburg, of which the golden age was certainly between 1692 and 1703.
Many conditions contributed to the establishment of a good Theatre and
Opera at Hamburg; money and the wealthy patrons disposed to expend it,
an excellent band of instruments, good but small in number, a scenic art
well advanced, a luxury of decoration and machinery, renowned poets,
musicians of great value, and, rarest of all, the poets and musicians
who assembled from "die sich wohl verstanden," as Mattheson wrote. The
poets were named Bressand of Wolfenbuettel, who was inspired by the
French theatre, and Christian Postel, whom Chrysander calls very
complacently a German Metastasio. The feeblest part was the singing. For
a long time the Hamburg Opera had no professional singers. The _roles_
were taken by students and artisans, by shoemakers, tailors, fruiterers,
and girls of little talent and less virtue; generally the artisans found
it more convenient themselves to take the female _roles_. Men and women
alike had a profound ignorance of music. Towards 1693 the Opera at
Hamburg was fortunately completely transformed from top to bottom by the
great Kapellmeister Sigismund Cousser, who introduced reforms in the
orchestra after the French model, and in the singing on Italian lines.
France was represented in his eyes (as for all foreign musicians) by the
personage of Lully, by whom Cousser was trained for six years in Paris.
Italy was represented by a remarkable artist settled at Hanover from
1689 to 1696, who produced ten operas; Agostino Steffani from the
province of Venice.
This dual model from Italy and France, aided by the personal example of
Cousser, played the chief part in producing the best musician of the
Hamburg Opera, Reinhard Keiser, a man who, despite his character and
presumptuous knowledge, had certainly genius.[40]
Keiser was under thirty years old when Handel arrived, but he was then
at the zenith of his fame. Kapellmeister of the Hamburg Opera since
1695, then director of the theatre since the end of 1702, very highly
gifted, but of scanty culture, dissipated, voluptuous, careless, he was
the incontestable ruler of the German Opera; the artist type of that
epoch, overflowing with material life, and devoting itself to the love
of pleasure. The influence of both Lully[41] and that of Steffani[42] is
shown in his first operas. But his own personality is easily
recognizable under these traces of borrowing. He has a very fine sense
of instrumental colour, widely differing from that of the followers of
Lully, who were a little disdainful of expressive power in the
orchestra, and were always disposed to sacrifice it to the primacy of
the voice.[43] He believed, as did his admirer and commentator,
Mattheson, that one can express the feelings by means of the orchestra
alone.[44]
He was, moreover, a true master of _recitative_; one might say that he
created the German _recitative_. He attached extreme importance to it,
saying that the expression in _recitative_ often gave the intelligent
composer much more trouble than the invention of the air.[45] He sought
to note with exactitude, accent, punctuation, the living breath itself,
without sacrificing anything of the musical beauty. His _Recitative
arioso_ takes an intermediate place between the oratorical _recitative_
of the French, and the _recitative secco_ of the Italians, and was one
of the models for the _recitative_ of J. S. Bach,[46] and even not
excepting Bach and Handel, Mattheson persists in seeing in Keiser the
master of this style.--But the real supreme gift of Keiser was his
melodic invention. In that he was one of the first artists in Germany,
and the Mozart of the first part of the eighteenth century. He had an
abundant and winning inspiration. As Mattheson said, "His true nature
was tenderness, love...." From the commencement to the end of his career
he could reproduce voluptuous feelings with such exquisite art that no
one could surpass him. His melodic style, much more advanced than that
of Handel--not only at this particular epoch but at any moment of his
life--is free, unsophisticated and happy. It is not the contrapuntal
style of Handelian Opera, but it inclines rather to that of Hasse (who
was trained entirely in it), to the symphonists of Mannheim, and to
Mozart. Never has Handel, greater and more perfect as he was, possessed
the exquisite note which breathes in the melodies of Keiser--that fresh
perfume of the simple flower of the field.[47] Keiser had the taste for
popular songs and rustic scenes,[48] but he knew also how to rise to the
very summits of classical tragedy, and some of his airs of stately
grief might have been written by Handel himself.[49] Keiser was, then,
full of lessons and of models for Handel, who was not slow to take
them,[50] but he also set him several bad examples too. The worst was
the renunciation of the national language. Whilst Postel and Schott had
been at the head of the Hamburg Opera the Italian language had been kept
within bounds,[51] but since Keiser had become Director he had changed
all that. In his _Claudius_ (1703) he made the first barbarous attempt
at a mixture of Italian and German languages. It was for him a pure
fanfare of virtuosity, and he wished to show, as he explained in his
Preface, that he was capable of beating the Italians on their own
ground. He took no account of the detriment to German Opera. Handel,
following his example, mixes, in his first operas, the airs with Italian
words with those set to German words.[52] Since that time he no longer
wrote Italian operas; and after that, his musical theatre was without
foundation and without public. The sanction of this error resulted in
Germany's neglect of Keiser's operas and even of those of Handel,
despite the genius of both composers.
* * * * *
Handel arrived at Hamburg during the summer of 1703. One can imagine him
there at that time of life as in the portrait painted by Thornhill,
which is in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge: a long face, calm, but
a little coarse, large and serious eyes, large and straight nose, ample
forehead, vigorous mouth, with thick lips, cheeks and chin already full,
very straight head without wig, and covered with a biretta after the
manner of Wagner. "He was rich in power, and strong in will," says
Mattheson, who, by the way, was the first acquaintance he made in
Hamburg. Mattheson, who was then twenty-two,[53] four years older than
Handel, came from a rich Hamburg family, and possessed vast knowledge.
He spoke English, Italian, French, was trained for the law, well
grounded in music, could play nearly all the instruments, and wrote
operas, of which he was the poet, the composer, and the actor all in
one. Above all he was a master theorist, and the most energetic critic
of German music. With an immense _amour-propre_ and many passionate
dislikes, he had a robust spirit, very sound, and very honest, a sort of
Boileau or of Lessing in music half a century before _la Dramaturgie_.
On the one side he combated scholastic routine and abstract science in
the name of nature, and laid down the rule that "music is that which
sounds well" ("Musik muesse schoen klingen").[54] He played his part in
the banishment of the obsolete theories (solmisation, ecclesiastical
modes) and the definition of our modern system.[55] On the other hand,
he was the champion of German art and German spirit. From Lessing he
derived his patriotism, his rough independence, his impetuosity, which
seemed to possess a violence almost brutal. All his books cry "Fuori
Barbari."[56] One of his works was entitled _The Musical Patriot_ (_Der
Musikalische Patriot_, 1728).
In 1722 he founded the first German musical journal, _Critica
Musica_,[57] and all his life he waged a vigorous war for good sense,
real musical intelligence, music which speaks to the heart and not to
the ear, moving and strengthening the soul of the intelligent man with
beautiful thoughts and melodies.[58] He saw in music a religious
idea.[59] By his wide culture, his knowledge of the artistic theories of
the past, his familiarity with all the important French and Italian
works, his relationships with the principal German masters, with Keiser,
Handel, J. S. Bach, by his rich practical experience, his acute critical
sense, his ardent patriotism, his virile and flowing language, he was
well fitted to be the great musical educator of Germany, and he
accomplished his task well. In the dispersion of German artists which
took place then, in addition to the many vicissitudes of their work,
there was chiefly lacking a support of political solidarity which could
cause music to rise above the fluctuations of the tastes of little towns
and the small coteries. Mattheson was then for half a century the sole
tribune of German music, the intellect where thoughts concentrated from
all quarters, and from him radiated an influence over all the country
in return. It was thus that he preserved the ideas of Keiser, which
apart from him would have fallen into oblivion without leaving any
traces of their existence. It was these traces that he rescued out of
the _debacle_ and preserved for us--a multitude of imperishable
souvenirs for the musical history of the eighteenth century--which
Mattheson gathered together and published in his monumental
_Ehrenpforte_.[60] He acted powerfully on his times. His books laid down
the law for the Kapellmeisters, the Cantors, the organists, and the
teachers.
His criticisms, his advice on style in singing, on gesture in acting,
were no less efficacious. He possessed the real "theatre" feeling. He
expected life in the stage action, attaching considerable importance to
the pantomime "which is a silent music."[61] He waged war against the
impossible action and the want of intelligence amongst the German
singers and choralists, and he desired that the composer should think
always in writing of the action of the player. "The knowledge of facial
expression by the actors on the stage," says he, "can often be a source
of good musical ideas."[62] This is indeed the language of a true man of
the theatre.[63] For the rest, Mattheson was too good a musician to
serve music in words. He sought to unite them by safeguarding the
independence of both, but ended by giving the preference to the soul
over the body, the melody over the words. The words he wrote are the
body of the discourses; the thoughts are the soul; the melody is the sun
shining on the soul, the marvellous atmosphere which envelops it all. We
have said enough to give some idea of this great critic, intelligent and
intrepid, who, with many faults, has yet many virtues. One will see how
important it was to the young Handel to meet such a guide, even though
they were both too original and too self-sufficient for the association
to last long.
* * * * *
Mattheson did Handel the honours of Hamburg. He introduced him at the
Opera, and the concerts, and it was through him that Handel entered for
the first time into negotiations with England, which was to become his
second country.[64] They helped one another mutually. Handel had
already an exceptional power on the organ, and in fugue and
counterpoint; above all, in improvisation. He shared his knowledge with
Mattheson, who in return helped him to perfect his melodic style.
Mattheson believed him to be a very feeble melodist. He wrote his
melodies at that time, "Oh, long, long, long" (_sehr lange lange
Arien_), and cantatas without end, which had neither ability nor good
taste, but perfect harmony.[65] It is very remarkable that melody was
not a natural gift with Handel, for he now appears to us as a melodic
genius. It is not necessary to believe that the simple, beautiful
melodies rushed forth without effort from his brain. The melodies of
Beethoven, which seem the most spontaneous, cost him years of thoughtful
work during which he brooded continually over them, and so Handel also
only came to his full power of melodic expression after years of severe
discipline, where he learnt as an apprentice-sculptor to model beautiful
forms, and to leave them neither complex nor unfinished.
Handel and Mattheson spent several months in intimate friendship.[66]
Handel joined Mattheson at table for meals, and in July and August,
1703, they made a journey together to Lubeck to hear the renowned
organist, Dietrich Buxtehude.[67] Buxtehude had thoughts of retiring,
and was looking for a successor. The two young men were greatly affected
by his talent, but they did not care to succeed him in the post, for it
was necessary to wed his daughter[68] to have his organ, and, said
Mattheson, "neither of them wanted her."--Two years later they would
have met on the road to Lubeck a young musician also going, like them,
to pay Buxtehude a visit, not like them, however, in a carriage, but
more humbly on foot: J. S. Bach.[69] Nothing makes us realise the
importance of Buxtehude in German music better than this magnet-like
attraction which he exercised over the German musicians of the
eighteenth century. Pirro has remarked at some length his influence on
the organ style of J. S. Bach. I consider that it was no less marked,
though quite different, on the oratorio style of Handel.[70]
Buxtehude gave at St. Mary's Church, Lubeck, his celebrated
_Abendmusiken_ (evening concerts), which took place on Sundays from St.
Martin's Day to Christmas,[71] by the request of the Merchants' Guilds
at Lubeck, which occupied themselves keenly with music.[72] His
cantatas, of which the number is considerable,[73] were all composed for
these occasions. Writing for a concert public, and not for a religious
service, he felt the need of making his music of a kind which would
appeal to everyone. Handel later on found himself in similar
circumstances, and the same need led them both to a similar technique.
Buxtehude avoided in his music the ornate and clustering polyphony which
was really his _metier_.[74] He sought nothing but clear, pleasing, and
striking designs, and even aimed at descriptive music. He willingly
sacrificed himself, by intensifying his expression, and what he lost in
abundance he gained in power. The homophonic character of his writing,
the neatness of his beautiful melodic designs of a popular clarity,[75]
the insistence of the rhythms and the repetition of phrases which sink
down into the heart in so obsessive a manner, are all essentially
Handelian traits. No less is the magnificent triumph of the ensembles,
his manner of painting in bold masses of light and shade.[76] It is to a
very high degree, as with the art of Handel, music for everyone.
But much time passed before Handel profited by the examples of
Buxtehude. On his return from Lubeck he seems to have forgotten them. It
was not so, however, for nothing was ever lost on him.
At the end of August, 1703, Handel entered the Hamburg orchestra as a
second violinist. He loved to amuse himself amongst his kind, and he
often made himself appear more ignorant than he was. "He behaved," said
Mattheson, "as if he did not even know how to count five, for he was a
'dry stick.'"[77] That year at Hamburg, Reiser's _Claudius_ was given at
the Opera, and many of the phrases registered themselves in Handel's
marvellous memory.[78]
When the season was finished, Mattheson made a journey to Holland, and
Handel profited by the absence of his young adviser to assert his own
individuality. He had made the acquaintance of the poet Postel, who,
old, ill, and troubled by religious scruples, had given up the writing
of opera _libretti_, and no longer wished to compose anything but sacred
works. Postel furnished Handel with the text for a _Passion according to
Saint John_, which Handel set to music, and performed during Holy Week
in 1704.[79] Mattheson, piqued at the _volte face_ which had happened in
his relationship with Handel, criticised the music severely, but not
unjustly.[80] Despite the intense feeling of certain pages, and the fine
dramatic nature of the choruses, the work was uneven, and occasionally
lacked good taste.
From this moment the friendship between Handel and Mattheson was
finished. Handel became conscious of his own genius, and could no longer
stand the protectorship of Mattheson. Other occurrences aggravated the
misunderstanding, which ended in a quarrel, which narrowly escaped a
fatal issue.[81] Following the altercation at the Opera on December 5,
1704, they fought a duel in the market-place at Hamburg, and Handel only
escaped being killed by a stroke of luck: for Mattheson's sword snapped
on a large metal button on Handel's coat, after which they embraced, and
the two companions, reconciled by Keiser, took part together in the
rehearsals of _Almira_, the first opera of Handel.[82] The first
representation took place on January 8, 1705, and the work was a
brilliant success. A second opera of Handel, _Nero_[83] was played on
February 25 following, but it had not quite the success of _Almira_.
Handel himself occupied the placards of the opera during the whole of
the winter season. It was a fine _debut_. Too fine indeed, and Keiser
became jealous of him. The Hamburg Opera, however, was gradually waning.
Keiser gaily led it to its ruin. He led the life of a gay libertine,
and all the artists around him rivalled him in his follies. Alone Handel
held aloof from the follies, working hard, and spending only what was
barely necessary.[84] After the success of these two operas he resigned
his post as second violin and clavecinist to the orchestra, but
continued to give lessons, and his reputation as a composer kept pace
with that of his teaching. Keiser was uneasy. Handel's increasing
reputation aroused his _amour-propre_. Nothing was more stupid, however,
than his jealousy. He was Director of the Opera, and it was in his
interest to give those pieces which were written by popular composers,
and to maintain relationships with successful composers, but jealousy
knows no reason. He reset _Almira_ and _Nero_ to music in order to put
Handel out of joint,[85] and as he had not the opportunity of publishing
his opera _in toto_ he hastily printed the most taking solos from
each.[86] But, however quickly he went, his downfall followed faster.
Before the volume of his opera airs appeared he had to fly. This was in
the end of 1706.[87] Handel and he were destined never to meet again.
* * * * *
Keiser having brought disaster to the Hamburg Opera, there was nothing
left to keep Handel in that city. The direction of the theatre had
fallen into the hands of a Philistine, who, to make money, played
musical farces. He certainly commissioned Handel for the opera _Florindo
und Daphne_, but he mutilated the work on its presentation "for fear,"
so he said in the Preface of the libretto, "that the music might tire
the hearers"; and lest the public should find the work too serious, he
intersected it with a farce in low German, _Die lustige Hochzeit_ (The
Joyous Wedding). One can well understand that Handel was little
interested in his piece so disfigured, and that he did not himself
attend the production, but quitted Hamburg. It was about the autumn of
1706 that he made the journey to Italy.[88] It was not, however, that
Italy particularly attracted him. Strange to say--it is not unique in
the history of art--this man, who was later on to be caught by the
fascination of Italy, and secure an European musical triumph in the
beautiful Italian style, had then a very strong repugnance for the
foreign art. When _Almira_ was being given, he made the acquaintance of
the Italian prince, Giovanni Gastone dei Medici, brother of the Grand
Duke of Tuscany.[89] He was astonished that Handel interested himself so
little in the Italian musicians, and bought him a collection of their
best works, offering to take him to Florence to hear them performed. But
Handel refused, saying that he could find nothing in these works which
deserved the Prince's eulogies, and that angels would be necessary to
sing them in order to make such mediocre things sound even
agreeable.[90] This disdain of Italy was not peculiar to Handel. It
characterised his generation, and above all, the cult of German
musicians who lived at Hamburg. Before then, and later on, the
fascination of Italy took hold of Germany. Even Hasler, Schuetz, Hasse,
Gluck, and Mozart made long and earnest pilgrimages to that country, but
on the other hand J. S. Bach, Keiser, Mattheson, and Telemann never went
there. The Hamburg musicians truly wished to assimilate the Italian art,
but they never wished to place themselves under the thraldom of the
Italian school. They had the laudable ambition of creating a German
style independent of foreign influences. Handel shared these great
hopes, sustained for a time by the theatre at Hamburg, but the sudden
collapse of this theatre made him see little ground on which to build up
the taste of the musical public in Germany, and against his own
inclinations, he turned his eyes towards that habitual refuge of German
artists: Italy, which the older ones so affected to disdain, that
country where music expanded itself in the sun, where it was not cheated
out of its right of existence as with the Hamburg Pietists. It
flourished in all the Italian cities, and in all classes of Italian
society with the transports of love. And all around it was an
efflorescence of the other arts, a superior civilization, a life smiling
and radiant, of which Handel had some foretaste in his dealings with the
Italian nobles who passed through Hamburg.
He departed. His leaving was so brusque that his friends knew nothing of
it. He did not even say good-bye to Mattheson.
The period at which he arrived in Italy was not the most fortunate. The
war for the Spanish Succession was in full swing, and Handel met at
Venice, in the winter of 1706, Prince Eugene and his staff-major, who
were resting after their victorious campaign in Lombardy. He did not
stay there, but went right on to Florence, where he remained till the
end of the year.[91]