CHAPTER XIV
HANDEL AND THE ORATORIO

In myriad ways the seventeenth century had wrought a mighty task. Founding their practice upon the technique acquired by previous generations, its composers had evolved definite styles of composition, both in the polyphonic and the monodic schools. The demand for greater sonority had caused them to exploit the harmonic resources of music more than before; the perfection of instruments and instrumental technique had stimulated melodic invention and rhythmic variety, and this increased technique had in turn been applied to vocal music, which, beginning with Caccini in 1600, had developed a marvellous virtuosity demanding ever greater means of display. While the old vocal polyphony had largely yielded its sway to the more individualistic art of solo singing, its technique and ideals were preserved in the instrumental forms of chamber music, which, as we have seen, crystallized during the course of the century, and, as the same composers were bound to essay both styles, a union of the two had, in a measure, been effected.

In such a period of transition there was little chance for ultimate perfection; it was an age of innovators rather than masters. Yet the century had produced some great men, too: Alessandro Scarlatti and Arcangelo Corelli in Italy, Lully, Rameau and Couperin in France, Schütz, Froberger, and Kuhnau were men of no small attainments. Their work had sufficient power and charm to gain acceptance for the new styles and to popularize them. But it remained for another generation to bring forth two men great enough to make them survive through posterity, to give them lasting life. Those two men were Georg Friedrich Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach. It is notable that both came of the same spiritual stock, that of the Thuringian church organists—that contemplative, sequestered school of artists,—imbued with a homely philosophy and influenced by the sweet quietude of German domesticity,—which wrought for the glory of God and the uplift of the human soul. Handel[141] and Bach were born within one month of each other, and within a very short distance, for Eisenach is less than an hour’s run from Halle, where Handel saw the light of day, February 23d, 1685. They were as nearly contemporaries, in the literal sense, as men can be—Bach died but nine years before his colleague,—but in spirit they were generations removed from one another. Curious as it is that they never in their life met, though well acquainted with each other’s work, we may find a psychological explanation for the fact in that Handel represented the spirit and apogee of his age, summing up the achievements of the generations immediately gone before, while Bach, penetrating into the very essence of the music of past ages, evolved from it a new art that should inspire the musicians of generations to come, that should go surging down through the centuries like a mighty everlasting stream from which the genius of composers could draw continuous inspiration without the danger of exhaustion, an art so great that it had to break all the shackles and restrictions of its time and build for itself a new system, create a new language.

I

Who shall say which of the two men had the greater talent? Their difference is one of character, not of degree. Bach, exploring quietly the resources of his own soul, hardly stirred from his narrow surroundings; Handel, of infinite flexibility and adaptability, appropriated every style, every trick, every brilliant effect he heard, imbuing it with new power. Restlessly he roamed to Berlin and Hamburg, to Italy, and finally to England, everywhere sweeping up in his mighty grasp the achievements of men gone before him, indefatigably composing and rousing a wondering world to new enthusiasms. Bach, unmindful of the public taste, retiring, profound, inexorable; Handel constantly trimming his sails to the wind of public favor, achieving success after success, not by new means, but by using those at his command with the full power of genius. From early youth he felt the stirrings of that genius; before he was seven, indeed, he had taught himself to play upon the harpsichord,—surreptitiously, we are told, for his father, village surgeon at Giebichenstein, near Halle, intent upon the social advancement of his son, was so fearful of his son’s developing a ‘non-productive’ talent that he even refused to send him to school, lest he should learn his notes. Well known is the story of how admiring friends smuggled the harpsichord into the garret, where young Georg would delight his heart in the still hours of the night. No less known, also, are the circumstances of his father’s journey to the court of Saxe-Weissenfels, where a son by a former marriage was valet-de-chambre to the duke. Young Handel insisted on following the carriage on foot until his father relented and took him to the court, where he came in contact with the duke’s musicians and was permitted to play upon the organ. It was at the duke’s peremptory advice that the father finally consented to give his boy a musical training. F. W. Zachau, the organist of the Liebfrauenkirche, which raises its tall spires in the market-place of Halle, where opposite it we now behold Handel’s monument, became his master. For three years he was made to compose a sacred motet every week, by way of exercise. When, in 1696, Handel was sent on a visit to Berlin, he already astounded musicians like Attilio Ariosti by his powers of improvisation, though the famous Bononcini, who was later to become his bitter rival, seems already to have looked upon the boy with suspicion, for he gave him the difficult test of playing a newly composed fugue at sight, which Handel promptly fulfilled. The elector of Brandenburg desired to attach him to his court and send him to Italy for further study, but to forestall this he was summoned to return home, and again placed in charge of the competent Zachau. In the next year his father died, and, obliged to support himself and his mother, he secured, on probation, the post of organist at the Dom- und Schlosskirche, at the same time entering the university—that university so closely identified with Protestant theology—as a student.

Handel’s nature was not one to tolerate the comparative seclusion and retirement of Halle for long. Moreover, it inclined to a style of music less austere than that of the Lutheran church—so that when echoes of quite a different school, joined to reports of brilliant successes, reached his ears, he gave them ready heed. Such reports came from Hamburg, now the chief stronghold of Italian opera in Germany. In order to explain its existence we must for a moment turn the reader’s mind back to the already related importation of opera into Germany in 1627 and its first exponent there—Heinrich Schütz. This event had been followed by operatic performances—in Italian—at Regensburg (L’inganno d’amore, by Ferrari, 1653); Vienna (Antonio Draghi’s Alcindo and Cloridia, 1655); and Munich (Giulio Riva’s Adelaida Regia Principiosa di Susa). But no further attempt at opera in German was made till the appearance at Hamburg of Johann Teile’s singspiel, Adam und Eva, in 1678. By virtue of this composer’s efforts Hamburg attained the operatic supremacy of Germany. Names now all but forgotten, Johann Förtsch, Johann Franck, Johann Cousser, were staunch pioneers in the cause of German art at this northern output, though their Germanism no doubt suffered a generous admixture of Italian influence. The same is true of the work of the triumvirate of the Hamburg opera—Keiser, Mattheson, and Telemann—which held sway there from the early sixties on. The first of these produced no less than 116, and probably more, operas for Hamburg during 1694-1734. To him especially the opera house owed its word-wide fame—to his work as impresario perhaps more than as composer, for, from Basilius (first performed at Wolfenbüttel in 1693 and the next year in Hamburg) to Circe, his swan song of forty years after, all the works that were able to arouse enthusiasm in his time are but names to us. Nevertheless Keiser may well count as having placed German opera upon a firm foundation. The style of his works, rediscovered in 1810, is more German than that of his colleagues and, though less remarkable for rhetorical perfection, compares favorably with Lully’s in the matter of variety of expression and dramatic truth.

Handel had already met Telemann, Keiser’s colleague, who passed through Halle in 1701, and it was not unlikely that he received from that exponent of the operatic style an impulse toward greater melodiousness than he was likely to receive from Zachau. Agostino Steffani, another melodist, also visited Halle in 1703. In the same year we see Handel set out for Hamburg, in order to have himself thoroughly ‘made over’ under the influence of its famous operatic school. He joined the orchestra of Keiser’s Opera House as violino ripieno, passing himself off as a novice, but, when Keiser went into hiding from his creditors, Handel promptly took his place at the harpsichord and shone forth as conductor so brilliantly that he was retained upon Keiser’s return. Here he also met Mattheson, the brilliant composer and theorist, then slightly older than himself. An anecdote of their early friendship recounts how the two went to Lübeck to apply for an organist’s position, but speedily returned when they learned that the new incumbent was obliged to marry his predecessor’s daughter. This friendship came to a sudden end when, during a performance of Mattheson’s ‘Cleopatra,’ in which the composer was wont to conduct and also to sing the rôle of Antonio while Handel substituted at the harpsichord. Upon one occasion the latter stubbornly refused to yield his place, after the supposed death of Antonio, to the resuscitated hero, and a quarrel ensued, resulting in a duel in which it is said Handel’s life was barely saved by the protection afforded by a brass button.

It was not long before Handel made his own début in opera: both ‘Almira’ and ‘Nero’ were produced in 1705. Keiser’s influence is felt in these works. They are distinguished by much of the melodious charm which has saved the favorite Lascia ch’io pianga from oblivion. This rare gem was originally composed as a sarabande in one of Handel’s early chamber works; its use in the opera preludes what was to become a common practice with Handel in musical economy. That Keiser was already jealous of his young rival is evidenced by the fact that he himself reset the libretto of ‘Nero’ and performed it at the Hamburg opera in place of Handel’s.

We may remind the reader at this point that the German opera in Hamburg, despite its many incongruities, was the only opera at that time aiming at dramatic fidelity. Public taste had run to vocalization pure and simple, and singers were the sole arbiters of operatic style. In the Hamburg opera the recitatives, which fully explained the story, were sung in German, while the arias, in the prevailing florid Italian style, were sung in Italian, as the vernacular was not considered a suitable medium for vocal display. The orchestra was a combination of instruments aiming at quantitative rather than qualitative sonority, the string body consisting of two violin parts, and ‘cellos and basses playing in unison, while the wood wind—chiefly oboes and bassoons—usually doubled the string parts. What the effect must have been can be imagined when we consider that in one of Handel’s operas he used twenty-six oboes, while there were but six flutes, generally used only as an obbligato instrument. The harmonic basis was furnished, as in the oldest Italian operas, by the Figured Bass played upon the harpsichord, which formed the centre of the orchestra. Two other Handel operas were performed at Hamburg during 1705-1706, namely, ‘Daphne’ and ‘Florinda.’ In the latter year we already see him on his way to Italy.

In the meantime, however, Handel had essayed another form of composition then popular in Germany—the passion oratorio. The Lutheran church had adopted from the Catholic the practice of reciting the history of the passion at vespers during holy week. This had given an opportunity to composers for a peculiarly profound religious expression in music. Heinrich Schütz must be named as the chief representative of passion music before Bach, though nearly sixty works of similar character have been preserved to us from before his time. The narrative was divided into three parts representing Christ, the Evangelist, and the people, which originally had been sung in chorus, but, with the rise of monody, the first two were chanted by single voices. Except a few introductory words, the entire text was made up of scriptural narrative, but later the beautiful chorale tunes sung by the Lutheran congregation were interspersed by way of reflective comment. This all became so fast-bound a convention that when Keiser produced his passion set to the words of Menantes at Hamburg in 1704 the church censured him severely for omitting the chorale element. Entirely original music had been used for the passion service, however, as early as 1672 by Sebastiani.

Handel’s Ein kleines Passions-Oratorium, composed in 1704, was arranged from the Gospel of St. John, into which he introduced contemplative airs, instead of chorales. The chorus is mostly in five parts; the part of Pilate is taken by an alto, Christ by a tenor, and the Evangelist by a bass. He introduces a more elaborate accompaniment for the dramatically heightened ecce homo passage, while the biblical speeches are set in aria form. There are also duets, and a fugato chorus is sung by the soldiers casting lots for the vestment. The passion poems written by Brockes about this time were set to music no less than thirty times between 1712 and 1727 and among the most important of these is one by Handel written in 1716 while in attendance upon the elector at Hanover, to which we shall recur later. Suffice it to say that with every new work, such as Keiser’s, the dramatic element becomes more prominent. The meditative portions are now allotted to a definite character, such as ‘Daughter of Zion,’ or a ‘Faithful Soul,’ to be superseded still later by Mary Magdalen, the Disciple, the Virgin, etc. It may be said, then, to approach more nearly to the form of the oratorio, which, as we have seen in a previous chapter, had been cultivated in Italy by Carissimi and his followers. There, however, it had so nearly developed into the prevailing operatic form that it was distinguished from it only by the lack of scenery. The chorus, after being reduced to mere fragments, finally disappeared as it had done in the opera. These were the materials from which Handel’s genius was later to evolve virtually a new form of art.

II

It is to Italy that Handel now turns his steps. That country had flooded Europe with singers that won the public’s heart wherever they appeared and even the musicians of Germany could not assail their stronghold, reinforced by popular approval. An offer by Prince Gaston de Medici in 1705 had been proudly refused by Handel, unwilling to assume the position of a servant. He now undertook the journey at his own expense, and, visiting not only Florence, but Rome, Venice, and Naples in turn, composed constantly both secular and sacred music. No less than a dozen solo cantatas—those charming little melodic sketches, miniature operas, in a sense, consisting of simple recitative and arioso over a figured bass—were produced at Florence, and upon his return after a short stay in Rome he produced ‘Rodrigo,’ his first Italian opera. Its overture shows the influence of Lully, being in the form established by that composer (see Chap. XIII, p. 409) and forthwith adopted by Handel for all his operas and oratorios. In this case it closed with a suite of dances, including a gigue, a sarabande, a sailor’s dance, a minuet, two bourrées and a passecaille. The elaborateness of the accompaniments to many of the arias gave evidence of Handel’s increased appreciation of brilliant orchestral effects. ‘Rodrigo’ was an unqualified success, which was as real as it may have been surprising to Handel. ‘Agrippina,’ produced in Venice, whither he went in 1708, appealed so strongly to the audience that at every cessation of the music there were loud cries of ‘viva il caro Sassone!’ (long live the dear Saxon). This enthusiastic reception of a German composer argues well for the broad judgment of the Italians, whose domination of the European musical world at that time was bitterly resented. But it was not an isolated instance, for twenty years later another German, Johann Adolph Hasse, was similarly honored, and subsequent instances are frequent down to our present day, when the Italian enthusiasm for Wagner is hardly surpassed in Germany itself.

On the other hand, there could have been but little that was strange to the Italian public in Handel’s work. All through his Hamburg career he had been influenced by the Italian school. That school had long departed from the ideals of melodic expressiveness and dramatic verisimilitude and was now given over to prescribed conventions made for the benefit of the performer. It had become simply a string of set arias and recitatives alternated in such a way as to provide the desired variety of the vocal exhibition. These rules as summarized by Rockstro,[142] exacted that there must always be six principal characters—three of each sex. The first woman must be a high soprano, the first man an artificial soprano, though he is the hero of the piece. The second man and the second woman might be either sopranos or contraltos; the third man sometimes was a tenor, and a bass would be included only when four men were in the cast. In each act all the principal singers had to sing at least one of the arias, all of which were in the conventional da capo forms. These were the aria cantabile, aria di portmento, aria di mezzo, carattere, aria parlante, and aria di bravura. There had to be always a duet for the leading man and woman and an ensemble (coro) of all the leading singers at the end.

These limitations are sufficient explanation for the hopeless oblivion into which the operas of this period, including Handel’s, have descended. Even of the individual arias only a few are such as to interest or charm the modern listener. A few melodic gems like Lascia ch’io pianga, Mio cara bene and two or three more are the sum total that is of value in all this tremendous bulk of operatic works which occupied the greater part of Handel’s life. Posterity’s verdict is just in these matters, nor need we feel any sense of regret at the loss, when we consider the astounding rapidity with which these compositions were ground out—‘Agrippina’ had been completed within three weeks—and that the technique acquired in their writing must have yielded richer fruit in those works which remain as the master’s monument. Hence we need pass but rapidly over the list of operas, serenate and oratorios composed by Handel during this period. All of them lie within the domain of Italian influence. He never attempted to develop the form further or reform it in any way. But, as we shall see later, he used it as the starting point for the new Handelian oratorio, which was the outstanding creation of his genius.

The one important fact of Handel’s Italian period is the influence he received from the composers of that country. While there he met Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Lutti, Marcello, Pasquini, Corelli, and Steffani, whom he already knew and who befriended him. In the genial circle of the ‘Arcadian’ academy, in the homes of the music-loving Marquis Ruspoli and the talented Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome, he absorbed Italian ideals and acquired Italian technique. In Rome, where the performance of opera was forbidden by ecclesiastical authority, he composed Il Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, which he afterward made over into an English oratorio entitled ‘The Triumph of Time and Truth’ and another serenata Aci, Galatea, e Polifemo, really a cantata for three voices with orchestra, was written in Naples. This work, however, has no connection with the work of a similar name which belongs to a later period.

‘Agrippina,’ the opera mentioned above, did service in furnishing melodies for an oratorio, La Resurrezione, at once an outstanding instance of Handel’s transition from opera to oratorio and of his somewhat ruthless practice of using musical material for widely varying purposes. The use of Agrippina’s air, both words and music, for the character of Mary Magdalen is little calculated to recommend Handel’s early works for devotional expression. But it surpassed in dramatic intensity anything in that form produced so far, for with the Italian melodic suavity Handel combined from the first the rich harmonic sonority peculiar to the Germans, so happily fusing the old polyphonic and new monodic ideals that many of his early works already ‘bear,’ as Riemann says, ‘the stamp of classicism.’ It is interesting to note, however, that in Resurrezione Handel makes such scant use of his contrapuntal powers that we find but two brief choruses in the entire work. It is an open question whether this oratorio was originally intended for presentation in a theatre, or, minus all action, in a church; nor is it known whether or not it was ever publicly performed.

After a stay of almost five years Handel prepared to return to Germany, for, through the good offices of Steffani, who held the post of kapellmeister to the Duke of Hanover, Handel secured that position as Steffani’s successor in 1710. As he had, however, already had several invitations to go to London, then the great stronghold of Italian opera, he accepted his new post only on condition that he might visit that metropolis. He did so in the same year and was so occupied and so carried away with success that he remained six months. As this is practically the beginning of Handel’s English period, we may preface it by a few remarks upon the state of music in England at that time.

III

Following the death of Henry Purcell (in 1695), who had produced thirty-nine English operas, or ‘half-operas,’ as Chrysander calls them, since they consisted of drama interspersed with ‘musical scenes’—music in England had for several years been confined to vocal and instrumental concerts and comic singing and dancing entertainments. Thus the beautiful seed of Purcell’s genius had fallen upon barren ground; the promise of an English school of opera which seemed to lie in his work remained unfulfilled. Taste had degenerated to such a degree that the time was ripe for the successful introduction of Italian opera, the ‘exotic and irrational entertainment’ which Johnson made the subject of his caustic censure. Beginning with 1705 the Drury Lane Theatre and later the Haymarket became the scenes of triumph for Italian singers displaying their art in the degenerate works of their countrymen. With the production of ‘Thamyris, Queen of Scythia,’ in which airs of Scarlatti and Bononcini were used in arrangements by John Pepusch[143] there came into vogue that confusion of tongues which Addison ridiculed in the Spectator. After commenting upon the rhetorical absurdities of the erstwhile translations, he says: ‘The next step to our refinement was the introducing of Italian actors into our opera who sung their parts in their own language at the same time that our countrymen performed theirs in our native tongue. The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian and his slaves answered him in English. The lover frequently made his court and gained the heart of his princess in a language which she did not understand. One would have thought it very difficult to have carried on dialogues after this manner without an interpreter between the persons that conversed together, but this was the state of the English stage for about three years. At length the audience grew tired of understanding half the opera and, therefore, to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of thinking, have so ordered it at present that the whole opera is performed in an unknown tongue. We no longer understand the language of our own stage, insomuch that I have often been afraid when I have seen our Italian performers chattering in the vehemence of action, that they have been calling us names and abusing us among themselves....’ A little further on he says, ‘At present our notions of music are so very uncertain that we do not know what it is we like, only, in general, we are transported with anything that is not English, so it be of a foreign growth, let it be Italian, French, or High Dutch, it is the same thing. In short, our English music is quite rooted out and nothing yet planted in its stead.’

This was indeed the state of things when Handel settled in London. No wonder, then, that ‘Rinaldo,’ composed by him in the space of two weeks to the words of Aaron Hill, the director of the Haymarket Theatre, was a tremendous success. The popularity of the music was such that the stirring march occurring in the score was adapted by the Life Guards as their regimental march to be used for nearly half a century thereafter. But we are prone to think that the public’s enthusiasm was at least equally due to the vocal pyrotechnics of Niccolini Grimaldi, who, as Rinaldo, electrified his hearers in Cara sposa and many other splendid arias, and the gorgeous staging, which presented, among other things, a garden filled with live birds. ‘Rinaldo’ held the boards of the Haymarket for fifteen consecutive nights and was afterward revived in Hamburg and Naples. When Handel returned to Hanover at the close of the opera season his taste for the duties of kapellmeister had evidently been spoiled by his English experience, for he soon applied for and received permission for a second visit, on condition that he return within a reasonable time. He went there in November, 1712, and produced another opera, Il pastor fido, which was not so successful.[144] He was as much admired in other directions, however, as, for instance, when he would play the closing voluntaries at St. Paul’s Cathedral upon the invitation of the organist, Maurice Greene, who, it is said, even volunteered to blow the organ so that he might hear Handel play.

Meantime Handel showed no intention to return to Hanover. Upon the conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht, March 31, 1713, he was commanded to write music for its celebration by Queen Anne, for whom he had already written a birthday ode in February of the same year. The Te Deum and Jubilate, largely based on Purcell’s composition of that name, which is still being annually performed at St. Paul’s, was the result, and he was rewarded by the queen with a life annuity of £200. He had not yet made up his mind to end his somewhat prolonged leave of absence when his patron appeared in London as George I of England, for, in the meantime, Queen Anne had died and the Hanoverian dynasty was brought in by the Whigs, to whom the Peace of Utrecht and Queen Anne, both sources of Handel’s favor, were most obnoxious. Naturally Handel was now in disfavor at court, but, through the good offices of his friend, the Baron Kielmannsegge, matters were adjusted in this wise. Handel was persuaded to compose a series of short instrumental pieces to be played in a barge following the king during a nocturnal excursion upon the Thames. This ‘Water Music’ so pleased the king that he inquired as to its composer, and, finding that he was none other than his former kapellmeister, demanded him into his presence to bestow upon him a pension equal to that which he had received from Queen Anne. His engagement as music master to the daughter of the prince of Wales soon brought his income up to £600. In 1716 he accompanied the king on a visit to Hanover and there composed his famous Brockes’ passion Der für die Sünden der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus.

Further impetus for the composition of sacred music came to Handel through his appointment as chapel-master to the wealthy duke of Chandos, who lived in extraordinarily magnificent style at his palace, Cannons, in Edgeware, where he had built a private chapel after the Italian manner. With a splendid organ, good singers, and competent orchestra at his command Handel was in a position to furnish fittingly magnificent music. Here he composed two Te Deums and the twelve Chandos Anthems set for chorus and solos after the style developed since Purcell, in which we may see the root form of the English oratorio soon to follow. The first of these, indeed, followed soon after. It was a setting of a text by Humphrey arranged from Racine’s ‘Esther.’ Much of the music was taken from his earlier Passion, though its former use was radically different. After its original performance at Cannons in August, 1720, when the duke made Handel a present of £1,000 as a token of his appreciation, ‘Esther’ was performed several times in public. The serenata ‘Acis and Galatea’ also belongs to the Chandos period, which was the stepping-stone to Handel’s final and greatest mission, the creation of oratorio. First, however, we must briefly review the remainder of his operatic career.

The Royal Academy of Music, formed for the production of Italian opera, engaged Handel’s services in 1719, as well as those of the celebrated Bononcini, who now also took up his residence in London.[145] As impresario Handel visited Dresden, where Italian opera flourished,[146] in order to secure a first-class company of singers, among whom were the famous male sopranos Senesino and Berselli, and Signora Salvai. ‘Radamisto’ was the first opera of Handel’s to be performed. It created a sensation which was without precedent in England. It is difficult for us to comprehend the success of this work, dead as it is to-day. Nevertheless, the applause was tremendous, the theatre was packed to the doors, and persons were finally allowed to sit on the stage. The critics considered it superior to anything yet seen on an English stage, and Handel himself considered one of its arias, Ombra cara, the best he had ever composed. Whatever our opinion to-day, there is no question that many of the forty-odd operas of which ‘Radamisto’ was the first were far superior to those of any of his contemporaries. Indeed, his star shone so brightly that it dimmed the light of every other upon the operatic firmament of Europe. Two of the operas, ‘Rinaldo’ and ‘Radamisto,’ deserve special mention for breadth of conception as well as intrinsic musical value. In these two Handel has reached at least a degree of dramatic power. He has treated with consummate skill the various sources and degrees of human passion and led his audience into a carefully woven web in which they became partakers in the subtleties of anxiety, joy, anger, and pathos. The remaining forty or so we may dismiss with a mere mention. Floridante (1721), Ottone (1723), Flavio (1723), Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano (1724), Alessandro (1726), Riccardo, Primo, Re d’Inghilterra (1727), all produced at the Royal Academy, are simply names to us. They have to-day not even a historical significance.

Of interest because of the story connected with it is Muzio szevola, in which the third act was written by Handel, the other two being supplied by his rivals, Ariosti and Bononcini. Ariosti, naturally, was out of the running, but the acts by Bononcini and Handel, both of whom had hosts of partisans, now became the subjects of a heated and general controversy which caught the entire English society in its whirl. The affair reminds of the war of Gluckists and Piccinists which at a later period set all Paris a-flutter, but, while in that case a general principle was at stake, the personal merits of the two composers were the only issue here. The triviality of the discussion is reflected in the contemporary verse of John Byron, the Lancashire poet:

The public soon surfeited of this affair, and, indeed, of Italian opera altogether—the Academy became defunct in 1728. But Handel stubbornly held out. He formed a partnership with Heidegger, the manager of the Haymarket, risked his all, and with mad industry continued to supply an imaginary demand. Late in that year he hurried to Italy, stopping at Halle to visit his old mother, now stricken with blindness, on the way, and incidentally came to know the Neapolitan school of opera at its apogee under Scarlatti. He returned to London with a fresh personnel for the Academy, and during the following four seasons produced ‘Lotario’ (1729), ‘Partenope’ (1730), ‘Poro’ and ‘Ezio’ (1731), ‘Sosarme’ and ‘Orlando’ (1732). Here the venture lagged. Bononcini’s open rivalry in another theatre aggravated the situation, and various dissatisfactions, squabbles with singers, etc., which need not occupy us here, resulted in the dissolution of the partnership and the evacuation of the field in the enemy’s favor.[147] After a second trip to Italy another attempt was made by Handel alone, in a theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, and later in Covent Garden, where, besides a new version of ‘Il Pastor Fido,’ ‘Terpsichore’ and six more operas, he produced ‘Alexander’s Feast,’ composed to the words of Dryden’s ode. During 1735 and 1736 Handel was troubled with illness; the following year saw him bankrupt. Cuzzoni, and Faustina, the wife of Hasse, those rivals whom Handel had propitiated by diplomatically composing music for both in one opera that should show their several excellencies without outshining each other; Senesino, the spoiled child of the London public, by offending whom Handel had alienated his aristocratic friends; the wonderful Farinelli, and all the Italian crew left England in disgust. Handel himself, worn out by renewed efforts as composer and impresario, was forced to seek recuperation in Aix-la-Chapelle. After his return he made several more feeble essays at opera, of which ‘Imeneo’ (1740) and ‘Deidamia’ (1741) were the last. The failure of the last years was in a measure offset by the success of a benefit concert given in 1738 at the instance of loyal friends. Moreover, the fact that Handel’s statue was erected in Vauxhall Gardens at this time—an unprecedented honor for a living man—betokened the high popular regard for his genius.

IV

The glories of that genius were in fact yet to be unfolded in their fullness, and in a field hitherto barely touched. Thoroughly chastened by his late failures, Handel gradually reached the conclusion that ‘sacred music was best for a man in failing years.’ Chrysander describes how, toward the end of his operatic activity, he began to comprehend his true mission to be ‘the union of the entire musical art, secular and ecclesiastic, of the preceding centuries in the form newly created by him (the oratorio).’ Whether we are skeptical about the sincerity of Handel’s philosophy or not, he certainly had had ample opportunity to feel the public’s pulse. As early as 1732 Aaron Hill had written him urging that ‘the English language was soft enough for opera and that it was time the country were delivered from Italian bondage.’ That which now fastened Handel’s attention upon the oratorio was more than anything else the changing taste of the English public, which primarily meant nothing but a demand for opera in English—a reaction against the incomprehensible Italian warble, and the falseness, the dramatic absurdity of the prevalent school of opera.[148]

As we have already pointed out, the immediate source of the Handelian oratorio lay in the Italian opera. ‘Though externally the course of Handel’s career till 1740 was determined by the composition of opera,’ says Riemann,[149] ‘in retrospect it appears as a preparation for oratorio, and all his activities resolved themselves into that.’

His previous essays in Italian and in German oratorio (La resurrezione and the Brockes’ Passion) would seem to portend a fusion of the two forms. Another important ingredient, however, was the sacred music of Purcell, the imitation of which—in Queen Anne’s birthday ode, the Utrecht Te Deum, etc.—had led Handel to form a style of choral composition. For the outstanding difference, the distinguishing characteristic of Handel’s oratorio is the essential employment of the chorus, which rises to ever greater eminence till at last in the crowning works of the master, in the ‘Messiah’ and in ‘Samson,’ we see a grand choral drama interspersed with occasional solo passages. Handel had by that time conceived a choral fabric of such stupendous dimensions as would give the oratorio a place among the grandest art forms in existence.