a small work in 4 movements (1. _Affettuoso_; 2. _Vivace_; 3. _Adagio_;
4. _Allegro_), where clear Italian grace mixes itself so happily with
German _Gemueth_.
The orchestra for the cantatas seldom includes anything but the strings
with the organ or the clavier. But in general the palette of Zachau is
very rich, comprising violas, violetti, violoncello, harps, oboes,
flutes, hunting horns, bassoons and bassonetti, and even clarini (high
trumpets) and drums (Cantata: _Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar_).
Zachau amuses himself by combining the tone-colours of the different
instruments with those of the voices in the solo airs; thus a Tenor air
is accompanied by a violoncello solo; another by two hunting horns; an
air for the Bass is combined, with the bassoon _obbligato_; another with
4 drums and trumpets; a Soprano air with the bassoon and 2 bassonetti;
without mentioning innumerable airs with oboes or flutes.
Thanks to Zachau, Handel was familiarized at an early date with the
orchestra. He learnt at his house how to play all the instruments,
especially the oboe, for which he has written many charming numbers.
When he was ten years old he wrote some Trios for 2 oboes and bass. An
English nobleman travelling in Germany found a little collection of 6
Trios (Sammlung dreistimmiger Sonaten fuer Zwei Oboen und Bass, sechs
Stueck) dating from this period (Volume 28 of the Complete Handel
Edition).
[21] See his beautiful air for bass in the Cantata _Lobe den Herrn_, p.
164.
[22] Certain very simple phrases as in the Cantata for the _Visitation_,
"_Meine Seel erhebt den Herren_," the recitative for Soprano "_Denn er
hat seine elende Magd angesehen_" (p. 112) have an exquisite flavour of
virginal humility which we never find in Handel.
[23] The Torellian violinist, Antonio Pistocchi, who was one of the
masters of Italian song, the father, Attilio Ariosti, Giovanni
Bononcini, Steffani, who wrote for the Electress some famous duets, and
Corelli, who dedicated to her his last Violin Sonata, op. 5.
[24] The first representation took place June 1, 1700, with a pastoral
ballet of Ariosti. Leibnitz was present at the full rehearsal.
[25] All that one has heard of his meeting with Ariosti and Bononcini is
somewhat legendary. A. Ebert has shown that Ariosti only went to Berlin
in 1697, and that Bononcini did not arrive in Germany till November,
1697, and they were not there together before 1702. In order that Handel
should have met them there it was necessary that they should return in
1703 on their way to Hamburg. But then he was eighteen years; and the
legend of the infant prodigy being victorious over the two masters thus
disappears (_Attilio Ariosti in Berlin_, 1905, Leipzig).
[26] The broad-minded policy of the Electors of Brandenburg attracted to
their University at Halle many of the most independent men in Germany
who had been persecuted elsewhere. Thus the Pietists who were driven
from Leipzig came to Halle. Indeed they flocked there from all parts of
Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries (Volbach: _Vie de Haendel_,
and Levy-Bruhl: _L'Allemagne depuis Leibnitz_, 1890).
[27] See the fine studies of J. S. Bach by Pirro.
[28] One knows that the trial of witchcraft was one of the many blots on
this period. More than a hundred thousand victims perished in the
funeral pyres of witchcraft in one century! Frederick II said that if
women could die peacefully of old age in Germany, it was all owing to
Thomasius.
[29] The yearly contract with the Cathedral church was dated March 30,
1702, a month after he had signed the faculty of law.
[30] Telemann, passing through Halle in 1701, said that he made the
acquaintance of Handel, who was already there "a man of importance"
("Dem damahls schon wichtigen Herrn Georg Friedrich Haendel")--a
singular epithet indeed to apply to a child of sixteen years! Chrysander
had indeed reason to insist on the precocious maturity of Handel, "No
one was his equal in that, even J. S. Bach, who developed much more
slowly!"
[31] Already for several years he had composed "like the devil," as he
said of himself once.
[32] There are attributed to him two oratorios (very doubtful), one
Cantata, _Ach Herr mich armen Suender_, and a _Laudate Pueri_ for Soprano
solo, which are anterior to his departure for Hamburg.
[33] Alfred Heuss was the first to show what attraction the musical
drama had for Zachau, who introduced it even into the Church. Some of
his cantatas, the 4th, for example, _Ruhe, Friede, Freud und Wonne_,
very unjustly criticised by Chrysander, is a fragment of a fantastic
opera where one finds David tormented by evil spirits. The declamation
is expressive, and the choruses have a highly dramatic effect. Thus we
see the theatrical career of Handel was prepared in Halle, and perhaps
it was Zachau himself who sent Handel to Hamburg (A. Heuss: _Fr. Wilh.
Zachau als dramatischer Kantaten-Komponist_). (I.M.G., May, 1909).
[34] In reality under the influence of English publications, and notably
_The Spectator_ of Addison, 1711. About 1713 _The Man of Reason_
appeared in Hamburg. In 1724 to 1727 the journal _The Patriot_ of
Hamburg was founded by a patriotic society. The original intention was
to print 400 copies, but 5000 were subscribed for in Upper Saxony alone.
[35] The secular music about 1728 reckoned in its ranks 50 masters and
150 professors. In comparison, religious music was much more poorly
represented than in many other cities of north Germany.
[36] _The Birth of Christ, Michael and David, Esther._
[37] _Dramatologia antigua-hodierna_, 1688.
[38] _Theatromachia_, or _die Werke der Finsterniss_ (The Powers of
Darkness), by Anton Reiser, 1682.
[39] _Histoire de l'Opera avant Lully et Scarlatti_, 1895, pp. 217-222.
[40] Reinhard Keiser was born in 1674 at Teuchern, near Weissenfels, and
he died in 1739 at Copenhagen.
See Hugo Leichtentritt: _Reinhard Keiser in seinen Opern_, 1901, Berlin;
Wilhelm Kleefeld: _Das Orchester der ersten deutschen Oper_, 1898,
Berlin; F. A. Voigt: _Reinhard Keiser_ (1890 in the _Vierteljahrsschrift
fuer Musikwissenschaft_)--the Octavia and the _Croesus_ of Keiser have
been republished.
[41] For instance in the overtures in 3 parts, with French indications
"_Vitement, Lentement_"; also in the instrumental preludes, and perhaps
in the dances.
[42] Principally in the duets, which have a slightly contrapuntal
character.
[43] "Is it the orchestra which is the hero?" asked the theorist of
Lullyism, Lecerf de la Vieville. "No, it is the singer...." "Oh, well,
then, let the singer move me himself, and take care not to worry me with
the orchestra, which is only there by courtesy and accident. _Si vis me
flere...._" (_Comparaison de la Musique italienne et de la Musique
francaise_, 1705).
[44] "One can represent quite well with simple instruments," says
Mattheson, "the grandeur of the soul, of love, of jealousy, etc., and
render all the feelings of the heart by simple chords and their
progressions without words, in such a way that the hearer can know and
understand their trend, the sense and thought of the musical discourses
as if it were a veritably spoken one" (_Die neueste Untersuchung der
Singspiele_, 1744).
[45] The preface of the _Componimenti Musicali_ of 1706. Mattheson
exaggeratingly says that "to compose well a single recitative in keeping
with the feelings and the flow of the phrase as Keiser did, needs more
art and ability than to compose ten airs after the common practice."
[46] Compare the _recitative_ in the first great cantatas of J. S. Bach,
"Aus der Tiefe, Gottes Zeit," which cover from 1709 to 1712-14, with
such _recitatives_ from "Octavia" of Keiser (1705), notably Act II,
_Hinweg, du Dornen schwangere Krone!_ Melodic inflections, modulations,
harmonies, grouping of phrases, cadences, all in the style of J. S. Bach
even more than in that of Handel.
[47] See in _Croesus_ (1711) the air of Elmira, with flute, which calls
to mind a similar air from _Echo and Narcissus_ by Gluck.
[48] In this genre a scene from _Croesus_ is a little masterpiece in the
pastoral style of the end of the eighteenth century; and is very close
to Beethoven.
[49] Such as the _Song of the Imprisoned Croesus_, which calls to mind
certain airs in _The Messiah_.
[50] I need only cite one example: it is the air of Octavia with two
soft flutes, "Wallet nicht zu laut," one of the most poetic pages of
Keiser, which Handel reproduced several times in his works, and even in
his _Acis and Galatea_, 1720.
[51] Postel, who used seven languages in the Prologues of his Libretti,
was opposed to this mixture in poetical works, "for that which ornaments
learning," he says, "disfigures poetry."
[52] Certain German operas mix High German, Low German, French and
Italian.
[53] He was born at Hamburg in 1681, and died there in 1764. See L.
Meinardus: _J. Mattheson und seine Verdienste um die deutsche Tonkunst_,
1870; and Heinrich Schmidt: _J. Mattheson, ein Foerderer der deutschen
Tonkunst_, 1897, Leipzig.
[54] He violently attacked in the _Volkommene Kapellmeister_ (1739) the
"Pythagoreans" of whom the chief was Lor. Christoph Mizler, of Leipzig,
who attempted to work out music on the lines of mathematics and logic.
With the "Aristoxenians" (harmonists) he wished to rescue music from an
iron vice, from the hands of the skeleton of a dead science, and from
scholasticism. The ear was his law. "Let your art be encompassed where
the ear alone reigns: that should suffice. Where nature and experience
leads you, all is well. Do it, play it, sing it; for wrong doing, avoid
it, efface it" (_Das forschende Orchestre_). Against the scholastic, he
opposed the fecund and living harmonic science (_Harmonische
Wissenschaft_); he demanded that the latter should be taught in the
universities, and offered to bequeath a large sum to found a Chair for a
musical lectureship in the college of his native city.
[55] Especially in _Das neueroeffnete Orchestre_ (1713), _Das beschuetzte
Orchestre_ (1717), _Das forschende Orchestre_ (1721). We might say that
the most fruitful of his theoretical writings is _Der Vollkommene
Kapellmeister_ (1739), which might even to-day serve as the basis of a
work on musical aesthetics, and that it was the work which produced a
good part of our musicology.
[56] He warns German musicians against going to Italy, whence they
return like so many birds plucked of their feathers, with their great
weaknesses hidden, and an intolerable presumption. He reproached Germany
with not helping her national musicians, who were languishing and
becoming extinct (_Volk. Kapellm._ and _Critica Musica_).
[57] Twenty-four monthly books which appeared with interruptions from
May, 1722, to 1725, Hamburg. There were musical polemics,
correspondence, interviews with musicians, analyses of their books and
works, a shoal of letters on the last opera, on the last concert, on the
life of a musician, on a new clavier, on a singer, etc. One finds
pre-eminently very solid musical critiques, perhaps the oldest which
exist. The minute analysis of Handel's _Passion according to St. John_
was still celebrated when the work itself was forgotten. "It is
perhaps," said Marpurg in 1760, "the first good critique which was
written on choral music" since it sprang into being.
[58] _Critica Musica._
[59] "When I think as a tone-poet (Tondichter)," he says, "I think of
something higher than a great figure.... Formerly musicians were poets
and prophets." In another place he writes, "It is the property of music
to be above all sciences a school of virtue, _eine Zuchtlehre_" (_Vollk.
Kapellm._).
[60] _Grundlagen einer Ehrenpforte, worin der tuechtigsten Kapellmeister,
Komponisten, Musikgelehrten, Tonkuenstler, etc. Leben, Werke, Verdienste,
etc., erscheinen sollen, 1740._
[61] _Vollkommene Kapellmeister_, 1739--he devoted a very important
study, which he called the _Hypokritik_ (Pantomime), to it in this work.
[62] _Ibid._
[63] In theory rather than in practice: for his operas are mediocre.
Besides, he soon lost his taste for the theatre, his religious scruples
being too strong for him. He wished at first to purify the Opera, to
make the theatre something serious and sacred, which should act on the
masses in an instructive and elevating manner (_Musikalischer Patriot_,
1728). Then he saw that his conception of a moral and edifying opera had
no chance of being realised. Finally he lost his interest, and even
rejoiced in 1750 over the final ruin which overtook the Hamburg Opera.
[64] Mattheson, who spoke perfect English, and who became a little later
the secretary to the English Legation, then resident in the interim,
presented Handel to the English Ambassador, John Wich, who entrusted
them both with the instruction of his son.
[65] _Ehrenpforte._--Telemann, a co-disciple of Handel, says also that
both Handel and he worked continually at melody.
[66] With a kind of protective touch, however, on the part of Mattheson.
During the first months Handel would never have dreamt of offending him.
The style of his letters to Mattheson in March, 1704, was extremely
respectful. In fact Mattheson was then in advance of him, and his
superior in social position.
[67] See in the _Ehrenpforte_ the story of this journey, and the frolics
which happened on the way to the two joyful companions.
Buxtehude was a Dane, born at Elsinore in 1637. He settled at Lubeck,
where he remained as the organist of St. Mary's Church, from the age of
thirty years until his death in 1707.
[68] It was the custom that the organ of a church should be given with
the daughter, or the widow of the organist. Buxtehude himself, in
succeeding Tunder, had married his daughter.
[69] J. S. Bach went to Lubeck in October, 1705, and instead of staying
a month, as arranged, he spent four months there; an irregularity which
cost him his position at Celle.
[70] The organ works of Buxtehude have been republished by Spitta and
Max Seiffert, in 2 volumes by Breitkopf (see the short, but pithy, study
of Pirro in his little book on _L'Orgue de J. S. Bach_, Paris, 1895, and
Max Seiffert: _Buxtehude, Handel, Bach_, in the Peter's Annual, 1902). A
selection (too restricted) of the cantatas has been published in a
volume of the _Denkmaeler deutscher Tonkunst_. Pirro is preparing a
longer work on Buxtehude.
[71] Particularly during 1693.
[72] The part played by these free cities, Hamburg, Lubeck, the abodes
of intelligent and adventurous merchants, in the history of German
music, should be specially noticed. The part is analogous to that played
by Venice and Florence in Italian painting and music.
[73] There are about 150 manuscripts in the libraries of Lubeck, Upsala,
Berlin, Wolfenbuettel, and Brussels.
[74] His organ music bears witness to his mastery in this style.
[75] See the penetrating intimacy, the suave melody, of the cantata
_Alles was ihr tut mit Worten oder Werken_, and the tragic grandeur with
such simple means of the magnificent cantata _Gott hilf mir_.
[76] We find on page 167 of the _Denkmaeler_ volume, a _Hallelujah_ by
Buxtehude for 2 clarini (trumpets), 2 violins, 2 violas, violoncello,
organ, and 5 vocal parts, which is pure Handel, and very beautiful.
[77] Mattheson adds: "I know with certainty that if he reads these
pages, he will laugh up his sleeve, but outwardly he laughs little."
[78] Amongst others, the subject from an air in minuet form, which he
repeated exactly in the minuet of his overture to _Samson_.
[79] In the same week, Keiser and the poet Hunold gave another Passion,
_The Bleeding and Dying Jesus_, which made a scandal: for he had treated
the subject in the manner of an opera, suppressing the chorales, the
chief songs, and the person of the evangelist and his story. Handel and
Postel more prudently only suppressed the songs, but reserved the text
of the evangelist.
[80] This criticism, certainly written in 1704, was repeated by
Mattheson in his musical journal, _Critica Musica_, in 1725, and even
twenty years later on, in his _Wollkommene Kapellmeister_, in 1740.
[81] The two young men had charge of the education of the English
Ambassador's son, Mattheson in the position of chief tutor, Handel as
music master. Mattheson took advantage of the situation to inflict on
Handel a humiliating rebuke. Handel revenged himself by ridiculing
Mattheson, whose _Cleopatra_ was being given at the Opera. Mattheson
conducted the orchestra from the clavier, and took the _role_ of Antony
as well. When he played the part he left the clavier to Handel, but
after Antony had died, an hour before the end of the play, Mattheson
returned in theatrical costume to the clavier, so as not to miss the
final ovations. Handel, who had submitted to this little comedy for the
first two representations, refused on the third to give his chair to
Mattheson. In the end they came to fisticuffs. The story is told in a
rather confusing manner by Mattheson in his _Ehrenpforte_, and by
Mainwaring, who sided with Handel.
[82] _Der in Krohnen erlangte Gluecks-Wechsel, oder Almira Konigen von
Castilien_ (The Adventures of the Fortune of the Kings, or Almira, Queen
of Castile). The libretti was drawn from a comedy by Lope de Vega by a
certain Feustking, whose scandalous life Chrysander has recorded, and
also the battle of the ribald pamphlets with Barthold Feind on the
subject of this piece. Keiser ought to have written the music of
_Almira_, but, being too occupied with his business and his amusements,
he handed the book over to Handel.
Once for all I will say here that the exigences of this book will not
allow of any analysis of Handel's operas. I hope to give detailed
analyses of them in another book on Handel and his times (_Musiciens
d'autrefois_, Second Series).
[83] _Die durch Blut und Mord erlangte Liebe, oder Nero_ (Love obtained
by blood and crime, or Nero), poem by Feustking. Mattheson played the
part of Nero. The musical score is lost.
[84] In 1703 Handel returned his mother the allowance which she made
him, and added thereto certain presents for Christmas. In 1704, 1705 and
1706 he saved two hundred ducats for his travels in Italy.
[85] The new Nero was played under the title of _Die Romische Unruhe,
oder die edelmuethige Octavia_ (The troubles of Rome, or the magnanimous
Octavia). The score has been republished in the supplements to the
Complete Handel Edition by Max Seiffert with Breitkopf. _Almira_ took
the title: _Der Durchlanchtige Secretarius, oder Almira, Koenigen in
Castilien_ (His Excellency the Secretary, or Almira, Queen of Castile).
Besides these two works, Keiser wrote in two years, seven operas, the
finest he had done, an evident proof of his genius, which, however,
lacked the character and dignity worthy of it.
[86] Under the title _Componimenti Musicali_, 1706, Hamburg.
[87] For the space of two years no one knew what had become of him, for
he had taken care to elude the restraint of his creditors. At the
beginning of 1709 he quietly reappeared in Hamburg, took up again his
post and his glory, without anyone dreaming of reproaching him, but then
Handel was no longer at Hamburg.
[88] Besides the operas, and his _Passion_, Handel wrote at Hamburg a
large number of cantatas, songs, and clavier works. Mainwaring assures
us that he had two cases full of them. Mattheson doubts the truth of
this statement, but the ignorance which he shows on this subject only
goes to prove his growing estrangement from Handel, for we have since
found both in his clavier book, etc. (Volume XLVIII of the complete
works), and in the Sonatas (Volume XXVII) a number of compositions which
certainly date from the Hamburg period 1705 or 1706.
[89] He was the last of the Medici. He came to the title in 1723, but
after several years of brilliant rule he retired into solitude, sick in
body and in spirit (see Reumont: _Toscana_, and Robiony: _Gli Ultimi dei
Medici_).
[90] Later on Handel said after he had been to Italy that he never had
imagined that Italian music, which appears so ordinary and empty on
paper, could make such a good effect in the theatre itself.
[91] Mr. R. A. Streatfeild believes that he even stayed in Florence
until October, 1706, for the Prince Gastone dei Medici, who ought to
have presented him to the Grand Duke, left Florence in November, 1706.
He also places in this first sojourn in Florence the production of
Handel's _Roderigo_, of which all precise records in the archives of the
Medicis and the papers of the time are lost. I am more inclined to
follow the traditional opinion that _Roderigo_ dates from Handel's
second stay in Florence, when he commenced to work in the Italian
language and style.
[92] Bartolommeo Christofori, inventor of the pianoforte, made several
very interesting instruments for him.
[93] April 2, 1706.
[94] April 23, 1707. See Edward Dent: _Alessandro Scarlatti_.
[95] Volume LI of the Complete Works. It was pretended at the time that
this _Lucretia_ was written by one Lucretia, a singer at the court of
Tuscany, who showed Handel for the first time the great beauty of the
Italian song--and of the Italians.
[96] The whole of Europe in the commencement of the eighteenth century
had passed through a vogue of Pietism. Historians have scarcely paid
sufficient attention to local influences. It was thus that they
attributed the reawakening of the religious spirit in France entirely to
the influence of Louis XIV. Analogous phenomena were produced in Italy,
in Germany, and in England, at the same time. There were great moral
forces awakening, which, one cannot exactly say why, suddenly broke out
over the whole of the civilized world like a stroke of fever.
[97] A _Dixit Dominus_ is dated April 4, 1707; a _Laudate Pueri_, July
8, 1707.
[98] A letter from Annibale Merlini to Ferdinando dei Medici, recently
published by Mr. Streatfeild, says that on September 24, 1707, the
famous Saxon (_Il Sassone famoso_), as Handel was already called, was
still enchanting hearers in the musical evenings at Rome.
[99] Both Mr. Ademollo, in an article in the _Nuova Antologia_, July 16,
1889, and Mr. Streatfeild, have established the true name of the chief
singer in _Roderigo_. Thus the romantic story believed ever since
Chrysander of Handel's love for the famous Vittoria Tesi has been
destroyed. She was only seven years old in 1707, and did not come out
until 1716.
[100] Occasionally in St. Mark's there were six orchestras, two large
ones in the galleries with the two grand organs, four smaller ones
distributed in pairs in the lower galleries, each with two small organs.
[101] Mainwaring relates that Handel arrived _incognito_ at Venice, and
that he was discovered in a masquerade where he was playing the clavier.
Domenico Scarlatti cried out that it must either be the celebrated
Saxon, or the devil. This story, which shows that Handel was celebrated
already as a virtuoso, accords very well with his taste for mystifying
people, a marked trait in his character.
[102] This appears thoroughly established by recent researches, and
contradicts the statement of Chrysander that Handel's _Agrippina_ had
been played at the commencement of 1708 at Venice. All the documents of
that time agree in placing the first production of _Agrippina_ at the
end of 1709 or at the beginning of 1710.
[103] An autograph cantata by Handel, which is found in London, was
dated Rome, March 3, 1708.
[104] This Academy was founded at Rome in 1690 for the production and
exposition of popular poetry and rhetoric.
[105] Amongst the "shepherds" of Arcadia were counted four Popes
(Clement XI, Innocent XIII, Clement XII, Benoit XIII), nearly all the
sacred colleges, the Princes of Bavaria, Poland, Portugal; the Queen of
Poland, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and a crowd of great lords and
ladies.
[106] Scarlatti under the name of Terpandro; Corelli under that of
Archimelo; Pasquini as Protico; Marcello as Dryanti. Handel was not
inscribed on the Arcadia list because he was not yet of the regulation
age, twenty-four years.