To the English it was not necessary to explain the tenets of the Old Testament as “pre-,” “sub-,” or “proto-Christian”; they regarded the ancient Hebrews of the Old Testament as the Italians regarded the Romans of antiquity—as their own past.52 As literature the King James Version of the Bible is superior to the original, and it surely is incomparably superior to any translation into any other language. The affinity felt with the Old Testament was so strong that kinship was claimed between Hebrew and the sturdy English of King James’s time. “It happens very luckily,” says Addision in the Spectator,
that the Hebrew Idiom run into the English Tongue with a particular Grace and Beauty. Our Language has received innumerable Elegancies and Improvements, from that infusion of Hebraism, which are derived to it from out of the Poetical Passages in Holy Writ. They give a Force and Energy to our expressions, warm and animate our Language, and convey our Thoughts in more ardent and intense Phrases, than any that are to be met with in our own Tongue.53
Almost all commentators agree on the tone of this church music, and the terms “monumental,” Kolossalstil, and so on, are freely used. To the modern musician and music lover monumentality implies mass and dynamics. But it is impossible to explain monumentality in utilitarian, i.e. spatial, terms alone. No single recipe brings about such a style, only the powerful ideal of a people, their belief in their righteousness, their optimism, their conviction of their own moral strength. The people and the composers did not get together to agree on a specific tone and manner, rather the spirit of the time and place, like all living organisms, arose naturally and developed its own proper idiom.
Some of the earlier scholars did perceive something unusual in these festive “cantatas.” Kretzschmar, who did not share the opinions still held by many of his colleagues (and not only in Germany) that the Chandos Anthems are minor works, was surprised by the nature painting so prominent in some of them, considering this Schilderung der Natur a somewhat one-sided if “grand” concept of the lordly Psalms. This refers of course to their often pastoral quality, which was found incongruous in the midst of the splendor of the other anthems. But the pastoral is as much in Handel’s poetic make-up as it is characteristic of the Psalmists’; moreover, the musical forces at Cannons were modest and some of the Chandos Anthems were written with a small ensemble in mind and are therefore gentle and intimate in texture. That Handel reworked some of them for the full complement of the Baroque “colossal style” does not change their original role. These intimate anthems point to the works of Colonna, Gasparini, Scarlatti, and Lotti, which may have led Dent to consider them “new” to England. Consciously or unconsciously, Dent must also have been swayed by the secular-Italianate quality of the pastoral scenes in the anthems, which cannot be sung in the grand style or in what Luther called the “roaring of the priests of Baal.” They are not the variety that induces “meditation,” for they are distinguished by charm, delicacy, and a pantheistic joy in nature. There is a world of difference between this intimate chamber music, with its three-part choruses and small orchestra, the chamber-music quality emphasized by frequent borrowings from Handel’s trio sonatas, and the mighty choruses of the Coronation Anthems, though what unites all of them is a quality of ceremonial solemnity that was mistaken for religious fervor.
[5]
HANDEL SAW A good deal of history enacted in his own time that he was called upon to commemorate in festive, ceremonial music. These were the “political” compositions, patriotic, or patriotic in a religious garb, which, though the type has been practiced everywhere since time immemorial, are a very special product of English social-moral conditions, with a tone all their own. Whether ode, anthem, or Te Deum—there are even entire oratorios that come under this heading—such a commemorative composition seldom misses a chance to testify to a moral, i.e. religious, world order, to be shared by the audience. The reader will notice that anthems and Te Deums are included here, but we are still dealing with political-patriotic compositions—indeed no patriotic text can be set to music in England or America without reference to God.
The official ceremonial art (though not the music) of the Louis XIV era is well known to everyone. It was a regal art, classically calm, frosty. The King placed it under a veritable dictator, Charles Le Brun, who carried out the mandate received from his sovereign: noble and elegant display of pomp. Louis also had a “superintendent of music” whom he valued highly, the Florentine Giovanni Battista Lulli, an immigrant in France like Handel in England, who as Jean Baptiste Lully became the embodiment of French music and of the spirit of the grand siècle. A good deal of Versailles’s ceremonial coldness is present in Lully too, yet among his “display” pieces, that is in his royal-official church music, are to be found some of his best works. The monotony of the solemn pathos of his lyric tragedies is largely absent in his ceremonial church pieces, which show a wonderful feeling for choral setting and brilliant orchestration, the trumpets blaring and the drums rolling. The particularly solemn ceremonial nature of this music was not lost on Pelham Humphrey, Master of the Children in the Chapel Royal, who had studied in France, and he did not fail to communicate his impressions to one of his wards at the Chapel Royal, Henry Purcell.54 Lully was bold, grandiose, and noble in the best sense of the word. Like Mansart, the great architect, he managed to combine the royal and the comfortable, the pompous and the idyllic, in a blend as attractive as it was superior to the prevailing style.
This palace art of Louis XIV eventually became the whole age’s ceremonial court art, a European style. The Baroque palace, the levees, the great assemblies and parades were repeated in every princely court, small and large, all over Europe. The ballets, plays, and operas, the odes, Te Deums, and festival “motets,” the fireworks, statues, and even the very park of Versailles were borrowed or imitated everywhere with worshipful admiration. Yet, as in every style, a particular national character makes itself felt even in this international style. England too had her grand siècle—but in her own version, one much less exclusively royal and courtly, for it rested on the middle classes as well as on the King and the aristocracy. Though a class-conscious society, the English aristocracy was not in conflict with the conditions of life of the middle classes like the French feudal aristocracy. Purcell was born and reared in this society and represented it in music that is rightfully considered among the finest manifestations of its spirit. But Handel, the immigrant, also made that spirit his own, becoming the unsurpassed master in the representation of the great forces and trends that formed his adopted country’s ideologies. But this was not a religious ideology, rather an unshakable faith in humanity and in the righteousness of English aims and progress. Handel as church musician speaks not as a private person but as the embodiment of a historical-national consciousness.
Ceremonial compositions are often on the peripheries of art, but they decidedly belong within its orbit, just as the political poem or drama does. Those who want to divorce art from everything else will come a cropper when they approach this genre. They profess that in art the subject is immaterial, the realization is everything. It is true of course that the subject is meaningless if its artistic representation is poor, for in itself a subject is not artistic. But we are dealing here with the expression of a national consciousness that permeates English music with a unique blend of the national, moral, religious, and historical and that largely determined the tone and substance of Handel’s music; therefore the “subject” cannot be ignored. And of course the moral effect is a corollary of the artistic effect —“effect” because moral value in art is never absolute. In its time a work of ephemeral artistic importance may have a tremendous moral impact, but this effect can no longer be galvanized into life generations later; it perishes with the work that caused it because it could not withstand time. Even if the esthetic effect of a work remains unimpaired across the centuries, the moral effect may have diminished or been altogether lost unless there is an uninterrupted tradition that keeps it alive.
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bsp; The political-ceremonial composition is seldom quiet, dreamy contemplation. In literature it can be satirical and comical, vicious and belligerent, but also noble and hymnic. In music all the negative features disappear; ceremonial compositions are almost always elevated in tone, and the congratulatory, patriotic, and commemorative usually, somewhat monotonously, take a religious or quasi-religious turn and tone. Since commemorated events are notoriously ephemeral, the music usually accompanies them into limbo. Nevertheless, there are not a few works that have great and enduring qualities; they are artistic and human, composed with conviction and identification with the event. Great, strong, and universal convictions do not apply to small things, and the commemorative composer usually does his best when great men and events are celebrated. In addition he must have some special gifts, his music must be direct and readily understandable, and he must have warmth and a capacity for enthusiasm. Ceremonial-commemorative music must conquer at the first attack.
Patriotic-national poems and compositions are difficult to discuss and evaluate; as a rule they are notoriously low-grade when measured by artistic standards, and often it is only their subject that protects them. (Bad church music also enjoys this safe conduct.) Moreover, as soon as they are judged by persons belonging to a different generation or to a different cultural circle, they are relegated to a very slight eminence. The festive ceremonial piece usually assumes the rhetorical pose we know so well from the monumental statuary in public places: the outstretched hand or the folded arms, the bowed head or the defiant stare. Actually, simplicity, naturalness, truth, and objectivity are just as effective in the commemorative piece as in any other genre; but in this English ceremonial music we are dealing with something that cannot be expressed without the splendor, mass, and volume it provides. The massive, statically mature forms caught the psyche of a people who seek their inspiration from history and can express this in living form with modern manners and materials. The Englishman is far more of an individualist than the Continental, yet the aggregation of these individuals forms a nation with a marked sense for the community. They do not flaunt it; they do not carry placards emblazoned with viribus unitis; but they understand and revere Britain as a historical institution based on civil liberties. The Briton is not chauvinistic like the Frenchman and refuses to be regimented like the German. At the same time, like his American cousin, he often applies a moral point of view when no other national would feel the need for it; the rhetorician and the preacher are often close to the poet and not infrequently are one and the same, something that is very rare in other Western nations.
Ordinary patriotic songs and hymns are, with few exceptions, of very low vitality though sanctioned by usage; no one takes umbrage at their artistic poverty. And there are some really splendid pieces among them: God Save the King, La Marseillaise, and Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser are everlasting songs. Such short pieces did not appeal to Handel; he never liked to traffic in miniatures. But once we advance to large-scale patriotic compositions, usually for chorus and orchestra, in England a “churchly” tone almost instantly makes itself felt, though with a tinge of the out-of-doors. That too is foreign to the German composer, especially to the Lutheran. It is a peculiar tone and mood, the significance of decisive historical moments pulsates in it. The idea expressed in these patriotic choruses, whether anthems or birthday greetings, is often dwarfed by the power of the mood. There is neither self-searching doubt nor bravado in this mood, nor easily flowing tears; what makes such compositions typically English is the frequent coupling of sobriety with imagination. This is not unusual in other types of music in many lands, but in the commemorative-patriotic-religious genre it is particularly English. There is a comfortable feeling that the Briton can take his place with confidence and pride in the national affairs thus commemorated, a place assigned by Providence, hence the religious exterior and form no matter what the occasion. This religious optimism is not synonymous with Christian hope, which fixes itself upon eternity and beyond the domain of history; it is based on the righteousness of the cause and is addressed to the immediate future. The English virtually believed that only those who are at the head of progress—that is, only they themselves—are worthy of divine grace. Did not Milton say in his Areopagitica: “What does God then but reveal Himself to His servants, and, as His Manner is, first to his Englishmen?” It is precisely this attitude that circumscribed the English National Church in Handel’s time, and the large mass of Nonconformists not unreasonably wondered whether the Established Church really believed in God, who, after all, was the God not only of King and government in Britain but also of all humanity. But when the Church produced its great ceremonial services to give thanks for Utrecht, or Aix-la-Chapelle, or Culloden, all could join, for this was in reality a patriotic-political service. This is what makes this English “church music” so difficult for non-Britons to understand, for without the political-patriotic background the genre is unthinkable and incomprehensible.
The lessons derived from the Old Testament were understood in their moral-political sense by all shades of the English public, and besides the odes and anthems they also produced what Winton Dean appropriately calls the “victory oratorios.” Thus Judas Maccabaeus was an instant success but the Christian pieces, very characteristically, were not. Messiah was at first barely acceptable, and Theodora a complete failure.
The ceremonial manner was the English “Baroque” church style par excellence; its very nature called for a large ensemble of chorus and orchestra. (Performances given with organ accompaniment, as is usual in churches nowadays, rob these works of their true physiognomy.) Ceremonial music also made its appearance in the oratorio, even though that elaborate apparatus excluded the possibility of individual characterization, the dramatist’s real preserve. Yet while the positive, festive, political-ceremonial tone of the anthems and Te Deums is present in the oratorios, and is, if anything, enhanced, Handel often makes the chorus a protagonist, even the chief protagonist, and thereby achieves dramatic force, not infrequently of a violence that is still unparalleled. In many a “sacred oratorio” when the pious trimmings are forgotten, the ceremonial-political is very much in evidence, as for instance in Solomon. The political nature of the Queen of Sheba’s visit cannot be mistaken for anything else. In fact, the entire third act of this oratorio is an apology and panegyric on the reign of George II, Handel’s sovereign and patron, and on England and her institutions. The splendor of these choruses, notably the great eight-part ones, is thrilling, their spaciousness and euphony breathtaking; they show Handel at the summit of his powers.
A particularly characteristic form in the ceremonial style is the coronation anthem, a splendid example of which is the Hallelujah Chorus in Messiah. This particular type, the archetype of the ceremonial, had been a favorite since the anthems composed for the coronation of George II in 1727. It reappeared in the earliest oratorios and never failed to rouse the public. It came to be looked upon as a drawing card. An advertisement in the newspapers in 1732, when the performance of Esther was announced, stated that “There will be no Action on the Stage, but the House will be fitted up in a decent Manner, for the Audience. The Musick to be disposed after the Manner of the Coronation Service.” We must understand that the Coronation Service is a parallel to ordination, partaking of both lay and spiritual character. The King is the wielder of the temporal sword for the protection of his Church. One should not assume, however, that the ceremonial tone must always confine itself to the brilliant, opulent, triumphal, the official tone of the Church. Within that confident tone Handel always has marvelous reserves from which constant surprises are drawn, though the surprises remain in harmony with the traditional attitude. And he could be profoundly moving even in the monumental style, as for instance in the magnificent Funeral Ode for Queen Caroline.
It is astonishing how clearly Handel recognized the nature of English ceremonial music, and how promptly he identified himself with it. Scarcely settled in his new environment, he composed
the Birthday Ode for Queen Anne and the Utrecht Te Deum, both exuding unmistakable English ceremonial tone. This quality was immediately recognized by the public, and the early Te Deum became a “repertory” item at St. Paul’s Cathedral for decades until displaced by the Dettingen Te Deum. The latter work, together with the anthem The King shall rejoice, both in what Burney called Handel’s “big bow-wow” (i.e. grand ceremonial) manner, was received with enthusiasm and admiration at its first hearing in 1743. This music and this manner the English public felt to be the very embodiment of their feelings and beliefs.
[6]
A LITTLE INQUIRY will yield the interesting fact that while anthems set to English texts were already known in the early decades of the Reformation, even before the introduction of the Prayer Book in 1549, officially the anthem did not form part of the service until Charles II established his rubric for the Church. The anthem not only fulfilled the same role in the Anglican service as did the motet in the Roman, but obviously took its departure from it. Magnificent examples of the motet-anthem can be found in the works of Tye, Tallis, Farrant, and Gibbons, but the decisive change comes with the Restoration. The enforced pause in the practice of church music during the Commonwealth greatly minimized connections with the old choral polyphony and led to the admission of new stylistic elements from the Continent. Italian cantata and opera began to do their work in England as everywhere else, even before the Commonwealth. Among the musicians attracted to the Italian style were Walter Porter (c. 1595-1659), reputedly a personal pupil of Monteverdi, and especially William Child (1606-1697), both of whom are unjustly forgotten. The Restoration anthem, enriched with a French strain, produced a literature that if not completely discounted by foreigners and Englishmen alike (all of whom see only Purcell) is at least consistently deprecated. Now the ceremonial tone dominant in the Louis XIV style was fully established in the English anthem, especially after the orchestra was substituted for the organ. The two main types of this characteristically and uniquely English form of church music, designed for the “fully appointed” cathedral service, are before us in the 17th century: the “verse anthem,” with solo alternating with the chorus, and the “full anthem,” all choral. The orchestra was evidently introduced soon after the Restoration, judging by Thomas Tudway’s account of the King’s displeasure with church music of his day. Charles II, reared in France after his father’s beheading, and accustomed to French music, “tired with the grave and solemn way which has been established by Tallis and Byrd, and others, ordered the composers of his Chapel to add symphonies etc. with instruments to their anthems.” Indeed, Lully’s influence on the Restoration anthem was considerable. Handel arrived on the scene when the genre was fully developed; he carried it to its summit, but not before a thorough study of its past and present.
George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music Page 30
