the national English soil. He had become a naturalized Englishman on
February 13, 1726. He wrote for the Coronation of the new King, George
II, his Coronation Anthems,[206] September 11, 1727.[207] He returned to
his plans for the English oratorios.
But he was not yet sufficiently sure of his ground, nor of the public
taste, to justify him in completely throwing over the Italian Opera, for
he realized more than before the resources of the people and what he
could do with them. Besides, the collapse of the London Academy of Opera
had not touched his personal prestige. He was regarded, not only in
England, but also in France, as the greatest man of the Lyric
Theatre.[208] His London Italian operas became known all over Europe.
_Flavius, Tamerlan, Othon, Renaud, Cesar,_
_Admete, Siroe, Rodelinde, et Richard,_
_Eternels monumens dresses a sa memoire,_
_Des operas Romains surpasserent la gloire,_
_Venise lui peut-elle opposer un rival?_[209]
One can well understand, then, that Handel was tempted by the desire of
taking on his own shoulders, without the control which hampered him, the
complete enterprise of the Italian Opera. At the end of the summer of
1728 he went to Italy in search of new arms for the strife. In the
course of this tour, which lasted nearly a year,[210] he recruited his
singers, renewed his collection of _libretti_ and Italian scores. Above
all, he refreshed his Italianism at the source of the new School of
Opera, founded by Leonardo Vinci,[211] which reacted against the concert
style in the theatre, and sought to give back to Opera a more dramatic
character, even at the risk of impoverishing the music.
Without sacrificing the richness of his style, Handel did not neglect to
profit by these examples in his new operas: _Lotario_ (December, 1729),
_Partenope_ (February, 1730), _Poro_ (February, 1731), _Ezio_ (January,
1732), which are notable (particularly the last two) by the beauty of
the melodic writing, and the dramatic power of certain pages. The
masterpiece of this period is _Orlando_ (January 27, 1733), of which the
richness and musical perfection are on a level with the insight into the
characters, and the spirited and passionate life of the piece. If the
_Tamerlano_ of 1724 awakens ideas of Gluck's tragedies, it is the
beautiful operas of Mozart which come to mind in _Orlando_.
In continuation of the strife for the Italian Opera, Handel profited by
the unexpected success with which the English people had met the
reproduction of his _Acis and Galatea_ and his _Esther_,[212] written to
English words, and he attempted again, in a more conscientious fashion
than ten years before at Chandos', to found a form of musical theatre,
freer and richer, where the lyricism of the choruses had free play. For
the reproduction of _Esther_ in 1732 he introduced into the work of 1720
the most beautiful choruses from the Coronation Anthems. In the
following year he wrote _Deborah_ (March 17, 1733), and _Athaliah_ (July
10, 1733), where the chorus took first place. These grand Biblical
dramas would have been able to have awakened in the English nation an
enthusiastic response, were it not that this attempt was damaged by a
violent quarrel inspired by personal reasons, where art counted for
nothing. A dead set was made against _Deborah_,[213] and though
_Athaliah_ succeeded at Oxford,[214] Handel did not present it in London
until two years later.
Once again Handel returned to Italian Opera. The public hatred pursued
him here also. The royal family of Hanover was detested. It added to its
own discredit by the scandalous disputes which took place between the
King and his son. The Prince of Wales, in a spirit of petty spite
against his father, who showed his affection for Handel, amused himself
by attempting to ruin the composer. Encouraged by the opposition, and
enchanted by the idea of making sport against the King, he founded a
rival opera house, and as he could no longer set Bononcini up against
Handel, as the former had been discredited by a case of flagrant
plagiarism, which had an European circulation,[215] he approached
Porpora, with a view to directing his theatre. "Then," says Lord Hervey,
"the struggle became as serious as that of the Greens against the Blues
at Constantinople under Justinian. An anti-Handelian was regarded as an
anti-Royalist, and in Parliament, to vote against the Court was hardly
more dangerous than to speak against Handel." On the other hand, the
immense unpopularity of the King redounded on Handel, and the
aristocracy combined to secure his downfall.
He accepted the challenge, and after a third tour in Italy during the
summer of 1733, again to recruit more singers, he bravely took up the
fight with Porpora, to whom was added Hasse in 1734. They were the
greatest rivals against which he had yet measured himself. But Hasse and
Porpora had strong dramatic feeling, and especially were they the most
perfect masters of the beautiful art of Italian melody and singing.[216]
Nicolo Porpora, who came from Naples, was forty-seven years old. He had
a cold but vigorous spirit, intelligent and possessing more than anyone
else, except Hasse, all the resources of the Italian singing. His style
was very beautiful, and it was not less broad than that of Handel. No
other Italian musician of his time had such ample breadth of
phrasing.[217] His writings seem of a later age than Handel's, and
approximate to the time of Gluck and Mozart. Whilst Handel, despite his
marvellous feeling for plastic beauty, often treated the voices as an
instrument, and in his development the beautiful Italian lines
occasionally became weighed down by German complexity, Porpora's music
always kept within the bounds of classic purity, though the form was a
little uninteresting in design. History has never done him sufficient
justice.[218] He was quite worthy of measuring himself against Handel,
and the comparison between Handel's _Arianna_ and that of Porpora,
played at an interval of a few weeks,[219] did not prove to the
advantage of the former. Handel's music is elegant, but one does not
find the breadth of certain airs in Porpora's _Arianna a Naxos_. The
form of these airs is perhaps of too classic a correctness, but the
right Grecian breezes blow across his Roman temples.[220] He has been
claimed as an Italian disciple of Gluck--a curious criticism which is
bestowed occasionally on precursors. It was so with Jacopo della
Quercia, who inspired Michael Angelo, and to whom the latter seems to
owe something.
Hasse was even superior to Porpora in the charm of his melody, which
Mozart alone has equalled, and in his symphonic gifts, which showed
themselves in his rich instrumental accompaniments no less melodious
than his songs.[221] Handel was not slow to discover the folly of
striving with Hasse on Italian ground. His superiority was with the
choruses; he sought to introduce them into the Opera after the French
model. The situation was even less promising for him on the departure of
his best protectrix, the Princess Anne, sister of the Prince of
Wales.[222] After having compromised Handel by the strong feeling which
she had shown in defending him, she left him to the tender cares of the
enemies which she had made for him. She left England in April, 1734, to
join her husband the Prince of Orange[223] in Holland.
Handel came to be abandoned by his old friends. His associate,
Heidegger, the proprietor of the Haymarket Theatre, took the hall for a
rival opera, and Handel, driven from the house in which he had worked
for fourteen years, had to emigrate with his troupe to John Rich's place
at Covent Garden[224]--a sort of music-hall where Opera took its turn
with all kinds of other spectacles: ballets, pantomimes, and
harlequinades. In Rich's troupe some French dancers were to be found,
amongst whom was "_la Salle_,"[225] who was shortly to arouse great
enthusiasm amongst the English public with two tragic dances:
_Pygmalion_ and _Bacchus and Ariadne_.[226] Handel, who had known the
French art[227] for a long time, saw how far he could draw on these new
resources, and he opened the season of 1734 at Covent Garden with a
first attempt in the field of the French ballet opera: _Terpsichore_
(November 9, 1734), in which "_la Salle_" took the principal _role_. A
month later a _Pasticcio_ followed, _Orestes_, where Handel gave a
similar important part to "_la Salle_," and to her expressive dances.
Finally, he intermingled the dance and the choruses closely with the
dramatic action in two masterpieces of poetry and beautiful musical
construction--_Ariodante_ (January 8, 1735), and especially _Alcina_
(April 16, 1735).
Bad luck still pursued him. Some gross national manifestations compelled
"_la Salle_" and her French dancers to leave London.[228] Handel gave up
the ballet opera. To leave at this moment, if he was to continue the
struggle with the theatre, went badly against the grain, and was
tantamount to declaring himself vanquished. At the opening of his
theatrical enterprise he had saved, so it is said, L10,000. All this was
absorbed, and already he was L10,000 more to the bad. His friends did
not understand his obstinacy, which seemed about to involve him in
complete ruin. "But," says Hawkins, "he was a man of intrepid spirit,
and in no ways a slave to mere interest. He raised himself again for the
battle rather than bow down to those whom he regarded as infinitely
beneath him." If he could no longer be conqueror, still less would he
hand the reins to his adversaries. He overcame them--but a little more
would have vanquished himself in the same stroke.
He persisted then in writing his operas,[229] of which the series spread
out until 1741, marking work after work with a growing tendency towards
the _opera-comique_ and the style of romances[230] so dear to the
people at the second half of the eighteenth century. But since 1735 he
felt more than ever that the true musical drama for him was the
oratorio. He returned victoriously with _Alexander's Feast_, which was
composed on the _Ode to St. Cecilia_, by Dryden,[231] and given for the
first time on February 19, 1736, at the Covent Garden Theatre.
Who would have believed that this work, robust and sane throughout, was
written in twenty days, that it was performed in the midst of his
business worries, within an ace of ruin, and when he was threatened with
that grave malady which was to throw the mind of Handel for evermore
into gloom?
* * * * *
For several years trouble pursued him. Work and excessive worry had
undermined an iron constitution. He tried the baths at Tunbridge Wells
during the summer of 1735, and probably also in 1736, but with no
success. He could not sleep. His theatre was always on his mind. He made
superhuman efforts to keep it going. From January, 1736, to April, 1737,
he directed two seasons of Opera, two seasons of oratorio, and composed
a song, an oratorio, a Psalm, and four operas.[232] On April 12, or 13,
1737, the machine broke down. He was smitten with paralysis, his right
side was attacked, his hand refused all service, and even his mind was
affected. In his absence his theatre closed its doors, bankrupt.[233]
During the whole of the summer Handel remained in a pitiful state of
depression. He refused to care for anything; all hope was lost. Finally,
his friends succeeded in inducing him, towards the end of August, to try
the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle. The cure had a miraculous effect. In a few
days he was restored. In October he returned to London, and immediately
the refreshed giant resumed the struggle, writing in three months two
operas, and the magnificent _Funeral Anthem_ on the death of the
Queen.[234]
Sad days were in store, however. His creditors seized him, and he was
threatened with imprisonment. Happily a sympathetic movement was
inaugurated in favour of the artist so harassed by his kind. A benefit
concert, to which his pride reluctantly submitted,[235] at the end of
March, 1738, had an unexpected success. It freed him from the most
pressing of his debts. In the following month a token of public
admiration was given him. His statue was erected in the Vauxhall
Gardens.[236] In the springtime of 1738 he began to feel, with returning
strength, confidence in the future. The horizon cleared. He was
encouraged by such faithful sympathy. He returned to life, and made his
presence felt again.
On July 23 he commenced _Saul_; on August 8 he had written two acts of
it; by September 27 the work was finished. On October 7 he began _Israel
in Egypt_; by October 28 the work was achieved. Still pushing
strenuously forward, on October 4 he launched the first volume of his
organ concertos with the publisher Walsh, and on the 7th he took to him
his _Seven Trios or Sonatas in two parts, with bass_, Opus 5. For those
who know these joyful works, which dominate like two Colossi the two
oratorios of victory, this superhuman effort had the effect of a force
of Nature, like a field which breaks into flower in a single night of
springtime.
_Saul_ is a great epic drama, flowing and powerful, where the humorous
and the tragic intermingle. _Israel_ is one immense chorale, the most
gigantic effort which has ever been made in oratorio, not only with a
single but with combined choirs.[237] The audacious originality of the
conception and its austere grandeur almost stunned the public of his
day. The living Handel breathes throughout the work.
The hopes which Handel had founded on England caused him fresh
uneasiness. Times were hard. Since the winter of 1739, theatrical
performances, and even concerts, were suspended for several months on
account of the war, and the extreme cold. Handel, to keep himself warm,
wrote in eight days the little _Ode to St. Cecilia_ (November 29, 1739);
in sixteen days _L'Allegro_, _Il Penseroso_, _ed Il Moderato_ of Milton
(January-February, 1740); in a month the _Concerti Grossi_, Opus 6.[238]
But the success of these charming works, graven out with loving care,
into which Handel had perhaps put more than into any other his own
personal feelings, his poetic and humorous reproductions of nature,[239]
was hardly sufficient yet to establish his affairs, at one time so
embarrassed. Once more, as in the time of _Deborah_ and _Arianna_, he
was attacked by a coalition of fashionable people. One does not know
how Handel had wounded them,[240] but they were resolved on his
downfall. They avoided his concerts. They even paid men to pull down his
placards in the streets. Handel, tired and disheartened, suddenly threw
up the combat.[241] He decided to leave England, where he had lived for
nearly thirty years, and where he had increased his fame so much. He
announced his last concert for April 8, 1741.[242]
* * * * *
It is a remarkable thing that often in the lives of the great men, just
at the moment when all seems lost, or things are at their lowest ebb,
they are nearest to the fulfilment of their destiny. Handel appeared
vanquished. Just at that very hour he wrote a work which was destined to
establish permanently his immortality.
He left London.[243] The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland invited him to
Dublin to direct some concerts. Thus it was, so he said, "in order to
offer this generous and polished nation something new" that he composed
_The Messiah_ on a poem by his friend Jennens.[244] They had already
given many of his religious works in Dublin for charitable
concerts.[245] Handel was received enthusiastically. The letter which he
wrote on December 29 to Jennens bubbles over with joy. The time which he
passed in Dublin was, together with his early years in Italy, the
happiest in his life. From December 23, 1741, to April 7, 1742, he gave
two series of six concerts, and always with the same success. Finally,
on April 12, the first hearing of _The Messiah_ took place in Dublin.
The proceeds of the concert were devoted to charitable objects, and the
success was very considerable.[246]
Eight days after having finished The _Messiah_ (that is to say, before
he had yet arrived in Ireland) Handel had commenced _Samson_, which was
finished in five weeks, from the end of September to the end of October,
1741. However, he did not give it in Dublin. Doubtless he could not find
the interpreters which he desired for this colossal drama, rich in
choral scenes and in difficult _roles_.[247] Perhaps also he reserved
the work for the following season in Dublin, when he hoped to return,
but the expected invitation which he awaited in London did not come, and
it was in London that _Samson_ reached its first hearing on February 18,
1743.
To this heroic oratorio, based on the sublime _Samson Agonistes_ of
Milton,[248] succeeded a light opera, which bore, nevertheless, the name
of oratorio, the libretto of which was based on a poem by Congreve:
_Semele_ (June 3 to July 4, 1743). It afforded a relief for him between
these two Herculean works. In the same month in which he finished
_Semele_, Handel wrote his monumental _Dettingen Te Deum_, to celebrate
the victory of the Duke of Cumberland over the French.[249] _Joseph_,
written in August and September of the same year, on a very touching
poem by James Miller, reveals a sweet yet melancholy fancy, a little
insipid, on which, however, the strong portrait of Simeon projects
itself forcibly.
1744 was one of Handel's most glorious years from the creative point of
view, but one of the most miserable in outward success. He wrote nearly
simultaneously his two most tragic oratorios, the great Shakespearian
drama of _Belshazzar_ (July-October, 1744), the rich poem of which was
furnished for him by his friend Jennens;[250] and the sublime tragedy of
the ancient _Hercules_, a musical drama,[251] which marks the
culmination of the Handelian musical drama, and indeed one might say of
the whole musical theatre before Gluck.
Never was the hostility of the English public more roused against him.
The same hateful cabal which had already thrice threatened to bring
about his downfall again rose against him. They invited the fashionable
world in London to their _fetes_, specially organised on the days when
the performances of his oratorios were to have taken place, with the
object of robbing him of his audience. Bolingbroke and Smollett both
speak of the plots of certain ladies to ruin Handel. Horace Walpole says
that it was the fashion to go to the Italian Opera when Handel directed
his oratorio concerts. Handel, whose force of energy and genius had
weakened since his first failure of 1735, was involved afresh in
bankruptcy at the beginning of 1745. His griefs and troubles, and the
prodigious expenditure of force which he made, seemed again on the point
of turning his brain. He fell into extreme bodily prostration and
lowness of spirit, similar to that of 1737, and this lasted for the
space of eight months, from March to October, 1745.[252] By a miracle he
was able to rise out of this abyss, and by unforeseen events, where
music was his only aid, he became more popular than he ever was before.
The Pretender, Charles Edward, landed in Scotland; the country rose up.
An army of Highlanders marched on London. The city was in consternation.
A great national movement arose in England, Handel associated himself
with it. On November 14, 1745, he brought to light at Drury Lane his
_Song made for the Gentlemen Volunteers of the City of London_,[253]
and he wrote two oratorios, which were, so to speak, immense national
hymns: the _Occasional Oratorio_,[254] where Handel called the English
to rise up against invasion, and _Judas Maccabaeus_[255] (July 9 to
August 11, 1746), the Hymn of Victory, written after the rout of the
rebels at Culloden Moor, and for the _fete_ on the return of the
conqueror, the ferocious Duke of Cumberland, to whom the poem was
dedicated.
These two patriotic oratorios, where Handel's heart beat with that of
England, and of which the second, _Judas Maccabaeus_, has retained even
to our own day its great popularity, thanks to its broad style and the
spirit which animates it,[256] brought more fortune to Handel than all
the rest of his works together. After thirty-five years of continuous
struggle, plot and counterplot, he had at last obtained a decisive
victory. He became by the force of events _the national musician of
England_.
* * * * *
Freed from material cares, which had embittered his life,[257] Handel
took up the work of his composition again, with more tranquillity, and
in the following years came many of his happiest works. _Alexander
Balus_ (June 1 to July 4, 1747)[258] is, like _Semele_, a concert opera,
well developed; the orchestration being exceptionally rich and subtle.
_Joshua_ (July 30 to August 18, 1747)[259] is a somewhat pale _replica_
of _Judas Maccabaeus_. A gentle love idyll blossoms amidst the pompous
choruses. _Solomon_ (June, 1748)[260] is a musical festival, radiating
poetry and gladness. _Susanna_ (July 11, 1724, to August, 1748), grave
and gay by turns, realistic yet lyric, is a hybrid kind of work, but
very original.
Finally, in the spring of 1749, which marks, so it seems, the end of
Handel's good fortune, he wrote his brilliant Firework Music--a model
for popular open-air _fetes_--produced on April 27, 1749, by a monster
orchestra of trumpets, horns, oboes, and bassoons, without stringed
instruments, on the occasion of the Firework display given in Green Park
to celebrate the Peace of Aix la Chapelle.[261]
More solemn works followed these gay pieces. At this moment of his life
the spirit of melancholy raised its grey head before the robust old man,
who seemed to be obsessed by the presentiment of some coming ill
fortune.
On May 27, 1749, he conducted at the Foundling Hospital[262] for the
benefit of waifs and strays, his beautiful _Anthem for the Foundling
Hospital_,[263] which was inspired by his great pity for these little
unfortunates. From June 28 to July 31 he wrote a pure masterpiece,
_Theodora_, his most intimate musical tragedy, his only Christian
tragedy besides _The Messiah_[264]. From the end of that same year dates
also his music for a scene from Tobias Smollett's Alceste, which was
never played, and from which Handel took the essential parts for his
_Choice of Hercules_.[265] A little time after he made his last voyage
to Halle. He arrived on German soil at the moment when Bach died, July
28, 1750. Indeed he nearly ended his life there himself in the same week
by a carriage accident.[266]
He recovered quickly, and on January 21, 1751, when he commenced the
score of _Jephtha_, he appeared to be in robust health, despite his
sixty-six years. He wrote the first act at a stretch in thirteen days.
In eleven days more he had arrived at the last scene but one of Act II.
Here he had to break off. Already in the preceding pages he only
progressed with difficulty; his writing, so clear and firm at the
commencement, became sticky, confused, and trembling.[267] He had
started on the final chorus of Act II: "How dark, O Lord, are Thy Ways."
Hardly had he written the opening _Largo_ than he had to stop working.
He wrote:
"_I reached here on Wednesday, February 13, had to discontinue on
account of the sight of my left eye._"[268]
The work was broken off for ten days. On February 23 (which was his
birthday) he wrote in:
"_Feel a little better. Resumed work_";
and he wrote the music to those foreboding words:
"_Grief follows joy as night the day._"
He took hardly five days to finish this chorus, which is really sublime.
He stopped then for four months.[269] On June 18 he resumed the third
act. He was again interrupted in the middle.[270] The last four airs and
the final chorus took more time than a whole oratorio usually occupied.
He did not finish it until August 30, 1751. His sight was then gone.
* * * * *
After that, all was ended. Handel's eyes were closed for ever.[271] The
sun was blotted out, "_Total eclipse_...." The world was effaced.