[8]
WITH A FEW exceptions Handel always deals with purely musical symbols, which he uses with such naturalness that the uninitiated will seldom be aware of the “system” at work. His innate and incorruptible musicianship was not interested in facile onomatopoetic imitation, for even the most glowingly descriptive and picturesque nature scenes are always smoothly within a musically unexceptionable texture. The stock figures of operatic “gesture music” are of course present everywhere, but Handel often charges them with an individual cast. “Eye music,” which still survived in its oldest form, is seldom used by him, but like Bach he was very fond of pictorial illustration of single words even at the expense of the rest of the text, a procedure roundly denounced by the Romantics as being a naive game. It was anything but that. Especially when used with Handel’s sparkling fluency, it is an effective agent of expressiveness. The only caution one must proffer is that to the listener the symbolism is not accessible beyond a certain point. Not even when the listener is familiar with the score can he instantly comprehend the reference, and in the case of different symbols appearing simultaneously, no one but the composer can be aware of them. But since with a composer like Handel the symbolism is almost always audibly ordered music, if the symbols have little or no meaning (though we can learn to spot them by meticulous study) the sheer grace of the music supplies such autonomous values as to preclude any awkwardness caused by the loss of symbol-recognition. Indeed, often no intellectual analysis will tell us more, for it is impossible to flush out the heart of a composer’s mystery.
Some authors intimate that the subtle “psychological” system of the doctrine of the affections and of musical imitation of life that Handel absorbed in Germany and Italy was wasted on his English audiences; but these doctrines were not only well known, understood, and spiritedly discussed in England, they lasted to the end of the century, long after the whole conception of imitation had been abandoned in Germany. Moreover, the topic was popular also with literary men, many of whom occupied themselves with the problems of expression in music. Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), anticipates Athanasius Kircher by a full generation in discussing the power of music over our emotions. The doctrine of imitation, like the doctrine of affections, was taken over from the 17th century by most philosophers, critics, and artists; the old aims, docere-delectare-mouere, were still paramount. They all believed, of course, in the other basic postulate, to express in music the meaning of the words, and from this point of view Handel’s use of symbolism and imitation was well understood by Englishmen.
Esthetics as a discipline may date from Baumgarten (1750), but many “essays,” “treatises,” and “observations” earlier published in England nevertheless dealt with esthetics. Addison, Steele, Shaftesbury, and many others not only wrote about esthetics but busied themselves with its special application to music. At times writers even used examples from Handel’s music to illustrate their views. James Harris (A Discourse on Music, Painting, and Poetry, 1744), when speaking of the power of music “to imitate Motions and Sounds,” illustrates his contentions with a reference to “the walk of the Giant Polypheme in the Pastoral Acis and Galatea .” Harris, and a number of other writers who espoused the current theories of Aristotelian mimesis, were nevertheless cautious about its application to music, for it was clear to them that music was but “imperfectly” capable of literal imitation. “Musical imitation,” says Harris, “tho’ Natural, aspires not to raise the same Ideas, but only Ideas similar and analogous.” Therefore, in the end, music is seen as gaining its power not from direct imitation but from the “raising of the Affections, to which ideas may correspond.” This was a modern conception, far ahead of those current on the Continent. Mainwaring also warns that “a close attachment to some particular words in a sentence hath often misled [the composers] from the general meaning of it,” a remark that could have been aimed at Handel, while Hawkins concludes that “these powers of imitation ... constituted but a very small part of the excellence of music.” But there were also unconditional adherents to the doctrine of imitation, among them that devoted Handelian, William Hayes, Professor of Music at Oxford, who considered the descriptive passages in Israel in Egypt the highest peaks in Handel’s art.
An examination of Handel’s music will show it teeming with musical symbolism. The simplest manifestations of the “doctrine” are easily discovered, and Examples 1, 35, and 36, illustrating motion or direction, need no commentary. The more subtle forms require a closer scrutiny. Symbolism by rhythmic differentiation can be very effective, if not so apparent. In the anthem Have mercy upon me o God, the word “wicked” stands out with dramatic plasticity by virtue of the sudden change in the notes’ rhythmic value (Example 37). Similar effects may be achieved by the use of coloratura, as in the next example where the word “wide” elicits a garland that widens the vocal line (Example 38). Even more subtle is the musical illustration that the word “pass” (“till thy people pass over, O Lord”) conjured up in Handel’s mind. Divided tenors literally pass over divided altos in a piece of “eye music” that nevertheless makes perfect musical sense (Example 39). Harmony is a powerful symbolic agent, as can be seen in Example 40, where on the word “strange” Handel places the chilling Neapolitan sixth. Finally, let us quote from the same oratorio a magnificent example of Handel’s pictorial imagination. Representing “the rosy steps” of the rising sun, the ritornel “drives away the shades of night” even before the voice enters with its explanatory words (Example 41).
Ex. 35 Saul
Ex. 36 Samson
Ex. 37 Anthem, Have mercy upon me, o God
Ex. 38 L’Allegro
Ex. 39 Israel in Egypt
Ex. 40 Theodora
Ex. 41 Theodora
[9]
IN HIS Handel biography, Romain Rolland speaks of a particular affinity Handel demonstrated toward not only French music but the French spirit in general. We know that Handel’s command of the language was good and that most of his correspondence with non-British correspondents—even with his German relatives and friends—was in French by preference. But Rolland goes much farther than that: “If Handel had come to France, I am convinced that the reform of opera would have been brought about sixty years sooner, and with a wealth of music which Gluck never possessed.” The idea, though conjectural (and surely Rolland’s “sixty years” would have to be cut by half), is entirely plausible. Unfortunately, almost all we know about the palpably strong French influence in Handel’s music rests on such nice conjectures. Müller-Blattau and Schering say that Handel was acquainted with Rameau’s music, an opinion I wholeheartedly share with them, but they can offer no more documentary evidence than can the writer of these lines. Hawkins is even more tantalizing when he says “Mr. Handel was ever used to speak of Rameau in terms of great respect” This is not only one of the very few positive opinions Handel ever deigned to express about a fellow composer, but the sole statement by a qualified observer and first-hand witness we can hold to while expressing our beliefs.
Other authors point out Handel’s consistent preference for the Lul-lian French overture as opposed to the Italian type. This is not surprising. The French overture was well known in Germany in Handel’s youth, but even the Italians used it frequently. Draghi, Ziani, Badia, Bononcini all liked it, though Handel’s exclusive preference for the French overture is indeed unusual.145 Cuthbert Girdlestone (Jean Philippe Rameau, 1957), in stating that Handel heard French opera at the court in Hanover, where Cambert’s son-in-law, Farinel, was music director, must have confused the performances of a French troupe of comedians with opera. The Hanoverian opera was brilliant under Stetfani, but with Elector Ernst August’s death in 1698 it was abandoned. By the time of Handel’s two brief stays at the court there was no trace left of opera, the fine theatre being occupied by French comedians who replaced it. Cambert’s “son-in-law” never laid eyes on Hanover; the Farinel mentioned by Girdlestone was his brother, Jean Baptiste (or Giovanni Bat
tista) Farinelli, who seems to have reverted to the family’s original Italian name.146
In Handel’s time Hanover was known solely for its fine instrumental music. Telemann says that the French style was highly regarded and cultivated there and Handel may very well have come in contact with French music, for there were several French musicians in the little orchestra under his direction. But the French elements in Handel’s music appear earlier than that—in fact, they are present from the beginning of his studies, for as we have seen the notebook he filled in Halle with model compositions contained works by Georg Muffat, a pronouncedly French-oriented musician. In Hamburg he was generously exposed to French influences. Although the Hamburg opera had performed Lully’s lyric tragedies between 1685 and 1695, this was before Handel’s time; the French influence did not really begin until Kusser was appointed director of the opera. Even then it was felt more in the divertissements and other instrumental music than in the operas themselves. Then with the advent of a superior musician, Keiser, Italian, French, and German elements began to be reconciled in the opera; Keiser’s example was not wasted on Handel; a French tone is evident in his first opera, Almira.
The French influence was not missing in London either, though the history of French music and musicians there is a very obscure one. The Restoration brought a wave of French music to England, but by the end of the century the tenacious native theatre subdued the French strain to such an extent that it is extremely difficult to follow its traces, even though some of them remain in Purcell’s stage music. We know that Robert Cambert, having run afoul of the scheming Lully, found it prudent to go into exile in London, where he lived from 1672 to his death in 1677. Upon his arrival there he teamed up with Louis Grabu, a French musician resident in London since 1665 and very much in favor at the court, to the annoyance of John Banister and others whom he displaced. The two Frenchmen founded the first Royal Academy of Music on the Parisian pattern, but it soon failed. Eventually Grabu, a mediocre musician, faded away, though not before composing the undistinguished score to Dryden’s Albion and Albanius. It appears, however, that repeated efforts were made to acclimatize French opera in London. Thomas Betterton, a highly esteemed actor and a great favorite of Charles II, was sent to Paris in 1683 to gather information on theatrical practices and to persuade a French opera troupe to come to London. It is not known whether he succeeded in engaging a French troupe, but Allardyce Nicoll, in his History of Restoration Drama, prints documents showing that Charles II attended “ye French opera” in 1685, and there are other references indicating that there was a French company playing in London and that their repertory included some of Lully’s operas. It could scarcely be mere coincidence that Jacques Rousseau, Lully’s chief scene painter, was also a resident in London about the same time. The French influence persisted, and it was strong enough when Mile Sallé’s troupe was active at Covent Garden to inspire Handel to compose his “dance operas.” Ariodante and Alcina show familiarity not only with French opera but with Rameau himself. Even earlier, the “storm music” in Riccardo I was altogether French, and in general the arias in the French dance forms and rhythms are palpably due to French models, though of course this is equally true of not a few of Bach’s compositions. Every once in a while Handel even designates his parts in the French manner; in Teseo we read haute contre and taille. I am convinced that Hawkins’s statement about Handel’s admiration for Rameau is based on fact, that Handel knew Rameau’s music and profited from it—but how and when?
Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) and Les Indes galantes (1735) are the works that obviously must be considered; they are contemporary with Handel’s “dance operas.” But there is not the slightest proof that they were performed in London during Handel’s lifetime, let alone in the ‘30s. The dates of publication are also discouraging, even assuming that the scores speedily found their way to London. Of the great theatrical works composed between 1733 and 1749, Castor et Pollux was published in 1733, Dardanus c. 1739, Les Indes galantes in 1740. Handel’s “French” operas, Ariodante and Alcina, date from January and April 1735, therefore the only possible direct source could have been Hippolyte et Aricie and Castor et Pollux. (Rameau’s harpsichord music was published earlier, 1724 and 1731, and circulated in London, but the affinities Handel shows with Rameau are with his theatre music.) Thus our evidence is rather circumstantial than direct, especially because one would expect that a composer admired by Handel would show up somewhere in a direct quotation. 147 There is only one case that may be a borrowing: the theme of “And the glory of the Lord,” in Messiah, does sound like a passage in Les Fêtes d’Hébé (Example 42).
Ex. 42 Rameau, Les Fêtes d’Hébé
Rameau himself offers no help; he was a man as reticent about his own person as was Handel. Even his wife was in the dark about her husband’s first forty years of life; he never said a word about it throughout a happy marriage contracted with a nineteen-year-old girl when he was forty. Yet the two composers had many things musical in common. The use of the free, highly dramatic accompanied recitative, the blending of recitative with aria, the combination of solo with chorus, as well as the fine sense for the pastoral. To top our quandary, there are distinctly “Handelian” traits in Rameau; particularly, some of the dances in Les Indes galantes are astonishingly Handelian. While a good deal of this must be ascribed to the ubiquitous turns and phrases of the Zeitstil, there seems surely to have been a certain relationship between Handel and Rameau that is in need of elucidation. Neither Rolland, nor Masson, nor Girdlestone, all of whom knew this territory intimately, all of whom wrote perceptively and in great detail about Rameau and knew their Handel, gives us any guidance. But then the foreign radiations of the French opera of the Lully-Rameau lineage have not yet been examined in earnest. French music was pictorial, with a tendency toward the narrative; not necessarily program music, but characterized by a general tone and attitude. Also, there was a great tradition of theatrical orchestral music quite different from the Italian even though it had been established by a native of Florence. Handel somehow acquired an acquaintance with this style, though he rejected the dense orchestration of the French. What he liked most was the pathos of the slow portion of the French overture, its ponderous, heavily accented gait, interspersed with sudden sweeping runs. This he often used not only in his overtures but also in the body of his operas and oratorios.
There can be no question that the Italian and Italian-oriented opera seria owes much to the tragédie lyrique, and French dramaturgy contributed basic ideas to the various “reforms” that began with Apostolo Zeno. The mature Gluck is unthinkable without Rameau, and in our opinion Handel was also indebted to him and to French music in general, though of course to a much lesser degree than was Gluck.
XXV
Handel’s instrumental music—Strong Italian innuence—Motivic unity—Euphony as main condition—German sources—French and English elements—Chamber music—Orchestral works—“Oboe” concertos, Opus 3 —Mixture of old and new—Twelve Grand Concertos, Opus 6—Other concertos and suites—Organ concertos—Harpsichord works
ONE WOULD EXPECT HANDEL’S INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC TO constitute a relatively small and not particularly significant part of his enormous output, no matter how fine much of it might be; for it would seem that this music could only be incidental to the dramatic works, which held his interest all his life. The external circumstances appear at first to support this view, because most of the chamber music originated in Handel’s early years, as did most of the keyboard works and some of the concertos, their dates of publication notwithstanding. The only instrumental works of a later date are the Twelve Grand Concertos, Opus 6, and some of the organ concertos. In addition, there are many transcriptions and arrangements among the instrumental compositions, and some give the impression of having been hastily composed to counter piracy.
We see the same recipe that Handel, when threatened with competition, followed with success in the theatrical works: against the pirated version he of
fered a “correct” text and “additional” numbers, a tactical move that immediately reduced the value of the competitive offering. Had it not been for his usually prompt and angry retaliation to piracy, perhaps even those few of the harpsichord works we now possess would not have been composed. The circumstances were not unlike those surrounding the beginnings of oratorio and pastoral, when Esther and Acis and Galatea, almost forgotten by Handel, were pirated by a theatrical company. This is clear from the preface to his Suites de pièces de clauecin (1720). “I have been obliged to publish some of the following Lessons, because surrepti-cious and incorrect Copies of them had got Abroad. I have added several new ones to make the Work more usefull, which if it meets with a favourable Reception; I will still proceed to publish more, reckoning it my duty, with my Small Talent, to serve a Nation from which I have receiv’d so Generous a protection.” But the promised sequel did not appear until 1733, and then only because of Walsh’s insistence. The material it contains does not redound to Handel’s fame. The first set of organ concertos, Opus 4, appeared in 1738 with the following notice: “These Six Concerto’s were publish’d by Mr. Walsh from my own Copy corrected by my self, and to him only I have given my Right therein.” At that, some of the instrumental music was published by Walsh without Handel’s knowledge and to his intense annoyance.
George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music Page 84
