Opera in Hamburg started with “sacred”—that is, biblical—song plays. German Protestant thought still steadfastly sought its values in religious sources. The sturdy Hamburg musicians, organized in their municipal and church groups and institutions, were acquainted with the new trends and introduced them into their chamber, orchestral, and church music; but they were lacking in the operatic experience needed to build up the genre in an original way. The first requisite, literary ability to provide the librettos, was sadly missing, and the Germans were not endowed with the sort of temperament that is capable of fusing theatre and music into a convincing whole, an organic emanation of public life, as was opera in Italy. They could not leave the framework of religious subjects presented in simple dialogues, for it was only in this type of music that they had some experience. The works of the first opera composer in Hamburg, Johann Theile (1646-1724), if we may judge from the remnants of his second opera, Orontes (the music for the first, Adam and Eve, or the Created, Fallen, and Redeemed Man, is unfortunately lost), give no indication of the fact that Theile, a pupil of Schütz and the teacher of Zachow, was a very able church-music composer and a master contrapuntist whose activity leads straight to Bach himself. Probably it was the unfamiliar medium and the wretched libretto that thwarted him. This early musical drama demonstrated that the German middle classes had a limited understanding for this particular form of the theatre and could not rise to the stylistic requirements of the genre except with outside help. This primitive “opera,” badly written, dramatically inept, poorly sung, and offering a hodgepodge of religious, mythological, historical, and local elements, failed to leave the ground.
Gradually the freer technique of the Latin countries began to make itself felt, and composers better equipped for opera appeared. By the time Johann Sigismund Kusser (1660-1727), a pupil of Lully (or at least a close follower) and an experienced opera man, took over the management, probably in 1694, nothing was left of the old sacred panache. Kusser, a quarrelsome fellow and a mediocre composer, was nevertheless an able musician and obviously an expert conductor and orchestral coach who brought to Germany the highly developed French style of string playing. Moreover, he was a skilful administrator who raised the Hamburg opera to the position of chief lyric stage in the North. He himself furnished several operas and saw to it that works of the leading composers were performed. Three years later, Kusser, always at odds with everyone, was succeeded by Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739), who represents the high point reached by the Hamburg opera, with the ablest operatic composition by a German before Gluck and Mozart.4
This was, then, the musical situation in Hamburg when Handel arrived in 1703. It must be made clear that by this time opera had altered the hierarchy of musical genres. The fact that the Hamburg opera collapsed a quarter of a century later does not alter the circumstances at the opening of the century.
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SOON AFTER his arrival in Hamburg, Handel met Johann Mattheson, and they became inseparable companions. The two young men exchanged their experiences, Handel teaching Mattheson the finer aspects of counterpoint while Mattheson, at twenty-two a veteran of the stage as singer, composer, and conductor, introduced Handel to the mysteries of opera. We mentioned that in his Ehrenpforte Mattheson states that when Handel arrived in Hamburg he was “strong” in harmony and counterpoint but a “poor melodist.” This may have appeared to be true —for the moment—because Handel was trained in the German cantoral tradition of functional-constructive counterpoint. (Even the young Sebastian Bach, rambling and exuberant, was deficient in this regard when compared to the Italians. Realizing this shortcoming, he improved himself by applying his superior contrapuntal ability to materials, especially themes, borrowed from Corelli, Legrenzi, and Albinoni. It was thus that he acquired his incomparable conciseness and plasticity of melodic design.) But neither Mattheson’s opinion nor that of Romain Rolland (who accepts the idea that Handel was originally a “feeble melodist”) can stand in the light of the subsequent rapid development of the arch-melodist. It is obvious that Handel was a born melodist and all he needed was an opportunity to exercise this gift.
The new Hamburg resident was not “aimless” for long; he became a member of the violin section in Keiser’s opera orchestra. Mattheson, a habitué of the Hamburg opera since his sixteenth year, must have stood by with help, though he rated Handel’s violin playing rather low. He also introduced Handel to the “English Resident,” i.e. consul, in Hamburg, John Wyche, a cultivated man with literary leanings, very fond of music, and the possessor of a fine library.5 Handel was engaged as harpsichord tutor to the diplomat’s son and was thus introduced into higher society, where he quickly gained acceptance, a facility that never left him. Within a matter of months the barrier he resented at Halle and from which he was fleeing was eliminated. He soon had a number of pupils, thus acquiring, together with the pay from the opera, a not uncomfortable, though frugal, livelihood.
The English-language biographies of Handel make short shrift of Mattheson, whom they really do not know. Even so distinguished a scholar as Edward J. Dent calls Mattheson “a voluminous pedant and an embittered critic.” A popular biographer calls Mattheson’s Das NeuEröffnete Orchestre (1713) “a book on the contemporary orchestra”! This book—and it shares its subject with all the others whether called “orchestra” or “honor portal”—represents the most enlightened and advanced treatise on musical esthetics of the age. Yet Rolland’s fine work on Handel was available to all these authors, having been published in 1910.6 In it Rolland, that great connoisseur of the 17th and 18th centuries, ranks Mattheson with Boileau and Lessing—and justly so. Indeed, Mattheson’s oeuvre provided modern musical esthetics and criticism as well as musicology with its point of departure and not a little of its subject matter. His influence on German musical thought was paramount for half a century, and it is unthinkable that Handel did not profit from his intercourse with this man, perhaps vain and egotistical, but challenging and inspiring. And besides his valuable esthetic and philosophical writings, he is our best and most trustworthy source for the musical history of the first half of the 18th century, a storehouse of information, delightfully written, on individuals and institutions as well as on the practice of music.
Mattheson was a man thoroughly versed in the classics as well as in French and English literature and philosophy, an experienced diplomat, a fine all-round musician—composer, singer, conductor, and player. If his critics among writers on Handel disdained his music, they should have inquired into his English connections, and would have seen that Mattheson must have played a part in Handel’s ultimate decision to settle in England. In Mattheson’s own words he was well acquainted with “English humour & witt,” but as a matter of fact he was one of the chief intermediaries between English and German letters in the North. Translator of Richardson, Defoe, and others, of many large historical, legal, and political tracts, he was also the founder, on English models, of the German periodical literature. Later he became so prominent and expert in diplomatic affairs that when the English Resident was in London Mattheson was left in charge of the Embassy. He was very much interested in this position and devoted to England, a sentiment that in Hamburg was easily understandable, the great German port being vitally dependent on that seafaring nation’s political and economic policies. These policies Mattheson made it his business to study closely. While of course all this was yet in the future, his connections with the English legation and his interest in English letters and institutions were already well formed when Handel was in Hamburg.
This versatile man also had a keen business sense and a great liking for wealth—he died a rich man; perhaps Handel picked up a few pointers from him. Careful reading of Mattheson’s many books discloses a wide range of ideas and incentives that must have influenced Handel. When in his Ehrenpforte Mattheson says that he “envisaged being something else than an organist,” refusing advantageous positions offered in Amsterdam, Hamburg, and other places, we may be sure that Handel n
ot only was aware of these sentiments but shared them; his somewhat older and far more experienced friend surely contributed to his decision to abandon the cantor’s career. But finally we must not forget that Mattheson was the first thoroughly “modern” musician Handel got to know and know intimately. From his early youth Mattheson was an enthusiastic champion of new music, which of course meant opera and dramatic, concerted church music, as opposed to the Lutheran musical tradition; and at the time of their association in Hamburg his experience in this modern music was very considerable. Like his great senior contemporary in Vienna, Johann Joseph Fux, Mattheson is far better known as an author than as a composer, yet this one-sided view is unjust. Brahms, always poking around in old scores, accumulating in his quiet way a wide variety of interesting music, copied parts of one of Mattheson’s oratorios, but otherwise his many works are largely unexplored.
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THE SEASON WAS long at the Hamburg opera and the experience varied and concentrated, if also a little bewildering. The organists and church musicians little adept at writing for the stage had left, and the direction was in the hands of able professionals, but the librettists were still poor, and all sorts of questionable elements crept into this German opera. The business gentry visiting in Hamburg had to be entertained, and it should be remembered that this was a “commercial,” not a court, opera. As the religious subjects were supplanted by worldly ones, the literary quality of the librettos, primitive before, now became coarse, often violating the standards of decency, while the rhymes in the lyrics defy description. Beheadings, with amply flowing artificial blood, were particularly popular, and live animals, even camels and monkeys, appeared to the delight of the audience. The opera house itself was a real Baroque theatre, with elaborate machinery and spectacular staging. The influence of the English theatre, especially the figure of the English clown, considerably vulgarized, was strong, and soon low comedy was mixed with local history, mythology, and Italian arias sung in the original language. This created a distinct if unsavory Hamburg opera type, the combination of elements being unique and not a little disconcerting. But there was also pure German and Italian opera and, what most intrigued Handel, there was an active German composer of extraordinary abilities whose work he could observe at close range.
Reinhard Keiser, a passionate, undisciplined, and profligate man of genius, began his career with church music, like the young man from Halle who was to annoy him presently, but he was irresistibly attracted to the stage. Keiser had a good schooling at St Thomas’s School in Leipzig under Cantor Schelle, but at the age of eighteen or nineteen absconded, turning up two or three years later (all his moves are conjectural) in Hamburg. Keiser was a bohemian who alternately created and caroused, always thirsting for success and money, but he was a prodigious worker and a born entrepreneur, two traits that Handel observed with interest. Of Keiser’s well over a hundred operas only twenty-six are preserved in manuscript, four of these being available in modern editions.7 These scores disclose a starkly dramatic talent that can penetrate to truly tragic depths and a tender, sensuous, and enchanting melodic invention that must have been a revelation to Handel. It is unfortunate that Chrysander, who knew these works, failed to recognize their exceptional qualities. His low opinion of Keiser has been unquestioningly accepted in the general Handel literature.
Handel was tremendously impressed by Keiser’s music and soon set about trying his hand at opera. Almira (1705), his very first venture, in which Mattheson sang the lead, met with success. It was one of those mixed affairs with a nondescript libretto, the recitatives in German, and some of the arias in Italian. The stiff German cantata style, noticeable especially in the recitatives which were quite “churchly,” was not yet eliminated. Handel was still inexperienced but could easily hold his own among German opera composers, with the exception of Keiser. This first, youthful opera was a remarkable achievement. One is particularly impressed by Handel’s already developed aural imagination—the music sounds well because it was planned for sound values. The fine set of Lul-lian dances is still fresh and elegant. Sebastian Bach knew and admired Almira, he even borrowed from it; traces show up in his cantatas and even in the Passions.
In a way that became characteristic of him, Handel immediately followed his success with another opera, Nero, once more with Mattheson in the lead role. This second opera was a resounding failure, being dropped after three performances. As a matter of fact, it disappeared altogether, for the score is lost. Only the libretto is preserved in a single copy; its miserable quality may well explain the debacle.
Now Keiser swings into action. According to biographers he was piqued by the young man’s success and was determined to take him down a peg or two. He set to music the same Almira libretto, but the text was so leaden and undramatic that the veteran maestro’s work did not meet with success. The story of Keiser’s jealousy is questionable, even though a modicum of truth may attach to it. All Handel biographers belabor poor Keiser, and Flower cannot conceal his righteous scorn. Like so many Handel legends, this one also goes back to Chrysander. When Handel left for Italy he took with him a copy of Keiser’s Octavia, from which he borrowed rather copiously for his Agrippina. Even much later, Keiser’s memory was vivid enough for Handel to use material from the latter’s La Forza della Virtù in his Joshua. Surely the extremely successful Keiser did not have to fear competition from the young ripienist in his orchestra. Setting the same libretto was a widespread custom, and in this instance both Keiser and Handel actually had an earlier Almira before them. Ruggiero Fedeli (c. 1655-1722), a Venetian who spent many years in Germany, had his opera Almira performed in Brunswick in 1703. A restless, quarrelsome, and unpredictable fellow who shared many traits with Kusser and Keiser, Fedeli was active in practically all operatic centers in Germany from Dresden to Berlin, and since he was a good composer he was well known. There is documentary proof that both Handel and Keiser were familiar with his Almira and that Handel actually built his own work on the Italian’s model. In all likelihood, Keiser, who was, after all, manager of the opera house, simply did not like Handel’s Almira. Its awkward, instrumentally conceived melodies did not suit his taste, so he set the libretto, which was originally intended for him and which, for that matter, he himself gave to Handel, in his own way.
As late as 1737, Keiser remembered Handel and gladly wrote the connecting recitatives for the latter’s Partenope, produced in Hamburg. Nor was he such an ogre and so dissolute as biographers describe him. Once more this characterization goes back to Chrysander and the Victorians, but no document supports the contention. Chrysander called him a man completely devoid of moral sense, while Flower notes with satisfaction that he “was to disappear in the slough of vice that enthralled him.” If so, why did the Hamburg cathedral appoint him minor canon and cantor as late as 1728, by which time his libertine life should have been common knowledge? That he liked luxury, good food, and women and was a spendthrift is scarcely a “vice”; men of the theatre, and even biographers, often exhibit such traits without being moral degenerates. Keiser was considered one of the top musicians of his time; the city fathers always treated him with respect, and Mattheson, who later may have become estranged from him, praised him highly and so did Telemann. Hasse, a pupil of Keiser, considered his master the greatest living composer. Long after Keiser’s death, Scheibe called him perhaps the most original genius German music had ever produced, and Burney heard similar opinions from various musicians.8
Keiser’s felicity in the musical setting of words, his observance of natural inflections, the rise and fall of the prosody, his deft use of recitation, in which he had no peer, and his colorful orchestration influenced not only Handel but Bach. The Leipzig cantor possessed a copy of Keiser’s Passion According to St. Mark, which he performed repeatedly. But what impressed Handel most was undoubtedly the older composer’s delicate and expressive lyricism, the tender pastoral scenes, and the delightfully sensuous, even erotic, melody. Keiser’s Croesus alone furnished
Handel with a number of models; this score, readily available as we have seen, deserves to be better known. And there was another thing composers, notably Handel, learned from this enigmatic musician: the architectural use of key relationships. It is unfortunate that when the Italian tidal wave became irresistible, Keiser abandoned his original style, mixing Italian songs with German, a mixture that withered the budding German opera in general and his own congenial style in particular. A great deal remains to be done by historians to rescue this important and gifted composer, whom Dent was willing to place “beside Purcell,” from undeserved neglect.
In the meantime the friendship between Handel and Mattheson underwent a crisis, moves and countermoves coming swiftly. Mattheson’s opera Cleopatra was very successful, the composer himself taking the leading role of Antonius. By this time the ripieno violinist Handel was also acting as maestro al cembalo, lending a firm helping hand to his composer friend. Mattheson, however, had displaced Handel in the favor of John Wyche and had become tutor to his son, Handel’s first pupil. But Handel was not vindictive; only in professional matters was he stubborn, and it was a professional offense that precipitated the crisis between the two friends. At the performance of Cleopatra Mattheson, vain and footlight-conscious, wanted to take over the conductor’s post at the harpsichord (occupied by Handel) as soon as his role ended on the stage, thus not only keeping himself in the public eye from beginning to end (half an act remained to be played), but also demonstrating his comprehensive talents as composer, singer, and conductor. Handel refused to yield the harpsichord. An altercation ensued; the two repaired to the Goosemarket and with drawn swords had at each other, with the opera audience that followed heckling and egging them on. “The duel might have ended very badly for us both,” says Mattheson in his Ehrenpforte, “if by God’s mercy my sword had not broken on a metal button of my adversary’s coat.” He is gracious about the affair: “It was the result of a misunderstanding such as with young and ambitious people is nothing new ... we became better friends than ever.” The two hotheads reconciled, Mattheson immediately lent a hand with Handel’s next opera, and the two continued friends for the rest of their lives, through correspondence; after Handel left Hamburg they never again saw each other.
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