George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music

by Paul Henry Lang

  There is, however, an indistinct figure in the background who has given rise to speculation. The reader will remember that through Mattheson and John Wyche Handel found entrée into high intellectual and social circles. It was thus that he made the acquaintance of Prince Gastone de’ Medici. It is possible that this prince extended an invitation to Handel to come to Florence, though it is very unlikely that he had the means to support the invitation or any authority to place the Medici court at Handel’s disposal. Gastone was in fact a black-sheep Medici, the sickly, dissolute second son of Grand Duke Cosimo III of Tuscany. The wastrel was practically exiled from Florence and heartily despised by the reigning family and the court. When Cosimo’s first-born son died childless, the aged Duke was so loath to permit Gastone to succeed him that he seriously entertained the idea of reconstituting the Florentine Republic; but the leading European powers, perfectly aware of the vulnerability of Tuscany if Gastone ascended the throne, would not hear of that. Eventually Gastone did succeed Cosimo III, but that was in 1723, long after Handel’s visit to Italy. Nor could Gastone have held out hopes to Handel about a career at the Medici court, for the undisputed ruler in artistic matters at the court was the Crown Prince, Ferdinando, especially devoted to music. It was in the latter’s palace that Bartolomeo Cristofori, in charge of the Prince’s collection of musical instruments, built the first pianoforte (c. 1710). Ferdinando, who died in 1713, thus throwing the succession to Gastone, was very unlikely to have accepted suggestions from his despised brother concerning a totally unknown young German musician. We must dismiss this poor wretch, whose reign gave the coup de grâce to Tuscany’s independence when Spanish and Austrian troops occupied the duchy; he could have had very little influence on Handel, though he may have contributed to the idea of an Italian sojourn. As usual it was Handel’s powers of observation and his purposeful planning that led to the decision. As Mainwaring quaintly says, he chose to go to Italy “on his own bottom.”

  From his early youth Handel was aware that many of the composers he admired and whose works he copied in the sketchbook had worked in Italy before achieving fame, and of course he well knew that Italy was the land of opera. This was not a perilous leap into uncharted regions. Hamburg could not offer him further advancement; besides, he clearly sensed the debacle toward which Keiser and even the Hamburg theatre itself were headed. The composer who could not compromise in the Passion could not accept the ungainly hybrid that was German opera in Hamburg, with Italian arias inserted at random into the body of a German stage work. Italy was the answer, and to Italy he went in the fall of 1706, quietly but determinedly, without even taking leave of Mattheson.

  III

  1706—

  Italy at the opening of the 18th century—Hegemony of opera and concerto—German vs. Italian music—The process of assimilation—Handel in Florence—Rome—Papal court, academies, patrons—Prohibition of opera—The Arcadian Academy—Handel meets Corelli, Scarlatti, Pasquini—Begins his study of Italian music—The cantata—Mood and melody—The Florentine cantatas—Roman cantatas—Handel’s patrons —Large cantata-serenatas—Church music—Spirit of Latin-Italian church music—The “bilingual” composers—Survival of Palestrina ideal—Maturing of Handel’s choral writing

  ALL LIGHT, IT IS SAID, COMES FROM THE EAST, BUT surely all beauty comes from the south. Musicians, painters, poets, and architects have always known this, and for a long time foreign artists could be found all over the Italian peninsula. This boundless, and in a way inexplicable, love of the Mediterranean has drawn many a musician to Italy, but few of them found it as congenial as did certain German Protestants, born and raised in a totally different milieu. The situation was altogether different with the southern Germans; they were Catholics and lived in a region for centuries either contiguous to Italy or strongly under her influence. (Salzburg is a bit of Italy nestled in the Austrian mountains.) But it must be borne in mind that many a northern pine transplanted to the Mediterranean did not change its needles to broad leaves. Diirer and Goethe, Keats and Handel became what they were in Italy, but for the Germans and the English, not the Italians. Italy became an apocalyptic dream to Handel, which remained with him to the end of his life—but it always remained a dream.

  Ruskin, who recognized four types of landscape, calls Italy a blue region, and the Mediterranean blue is indeed irresistible. Nature adorns herself under this blue sky with multicolored flowers and fruits, inducing man to adorn himself and his possessions with bright colors. The farther south the traveller goes the more colorful the garments, the more profuse the ornaments, the more lighthearted the decorations. When Goethe visited Italy, he still travelled in a coach painted Pompeian red, the harness gilded, the horses wearing enormous bouquets on their heads, while in their manes were woven many tiny flags that fluttered. To northern taste this riot of color seems almost barbarous—as indeed it would be in the north—but under the azure of the Italian skies nothing is too colorful for nothing can outdo the sun’s fire.

  But there is another attraction to the Italian countryside, whether in Sicily or Tuscany, that fascinates the northern visitor. The Italians are closer to plants and animals than it is ever possible for Germans, or even for other Latins to be. It is the supreme virtue of the Italian nation that it can afford to let Nature be a full partner in life. Foreigners could only watch this partnership with worshipful amazement. While Goethe with all his perceptive admiration and enjoyment remained mostly a spectator (the impressions gained in Italy came to creative fruition through a complicated process of metathesis), in Handel Italians found a German who could live their life, play their own game—and beat them at it. And he discovered what at home he only divined: worldly values that see the earth not as a vale of tears but as the rich treasury of life’s beauties. What in the Latin school in Halle he studied as monuments of a long-departed civilization he found to be a living tradition—the pagan world was always alive in Italy. Another thing he discovered was pathos. In Italian pathos there seems to the northerner an element of pose, but since pathos is almost always the expression of a sincere passion, it must be accepted as serious, even if the proportion between passion and expression does not seem natural. The Italian spirit can represent its ideas with great energy and immediacy; it is moving and “showy” as no other.

  There was Handel, in this Italian world, in Venice, the city rich with the creations of a phenomenal school of music, which sat in judgment over the foreigners who came to the promised land of opera to try their hand right at the source. Most of the pilgrims appeared in vain; whether respected mature masters or fiery youths, the Transalpines could not quite win their case before the court, for few are among the elect. But this young Saxon, whom they will call il caro Sassone, settled among the legion of the obscure with secure calm and confidence, and when Venice judged the court found in his favor. Then one day, without hesitation, Handel sat down on the throne in the royal palace of opera and, almost before anyone was aware of it, put on the king’s robe. Now the robe was his and could have been for life, but as we shall see, for some mysterious reason he laid it down soon after his possession of it was recognized all over Italy, to return to the Germanic world.

  Earlier, when he arrived in Rome, Handel went to the great churches. He knew churches at home: the sturdy and cool Calvinist cathedral, Our Lady’s Lutheran Church in Halle, and the many in Hamburg and other North German cities. But in these Roman churches he again discovered what was all round him in Italy: color—red, white, green, and black slabs of marble lining the walls, the golden altars, the mosaics, the statues and pictures, and the hundreds of candles. He had a good eye for such things, and all his life he was interested in paintings, roaming the galleries and even indulging in a bit of collecting himself—he was very proud of the pictures he later owned in London. To the German cantor uniform, quiet colors, uninterrupted lines, and well-filled surfaces stood for monumentality. Handel was searching for something else and found it in Italy in the sharp delineation of col
ors, in the concentrated energy of the lines, in the absolute clarity of the expression. He saw that the paintings represented not only the gentle embossing of the surfaces of the human body but also the energetic and immediately perceptible plasticity of the forms, the clear and pure disclosure of the structure of those bodies. He realized that there is disciplined passion in the great Renaissance paintings, the resolution of powerful conflicts, but he also noted that the Baroque liberated this suppressed drama—the figures step out of their suggestive immobility—and that all this could be expressed in music. At first his figures do not move, they have only static gestures, but before long he begins to animate them, and the illusion of a third dimension materializes.

  Among the rising national styles of music the Italian was most capable of representing clearly the aspirations of the age. Italy’s ancient culture, her vivacious and susceptible mentality, early assured her a more developed social life than could be found elsewhere in Europe. Her numerous small states with their independent and competitive intellectual lives made her culture many-sided, rich, and decentralized. The Italian sense of form combined with an instinct for basic artistic expression to achieve the ideally beautiful. Europe became her vassal, followed her lead, imitated her music with feverish joy, and tried to derive from her the laws of beauty. Thus Italy’s goals and inclinations became of international validity. The primordial instinct of Latin-Italian society, unlike the German, is individualistic, an instinct that early raised political and artistic life in the small states to a high level. Italian musical sense is by nature individualistic; more precisely, it is more suited to the conveying of individual passions than of permanent, collective feelings. Besides this, Italy is the home of singing, of homophony, of melody. Musicians from all over Europe journeyed to Italy to learn the secrets of this magic, and Italian musicians carried all over Europe their warm and sensuous art. Since the Italian genius is not contemplative, since its ability to shape is pronounced and facile, and since it always seeks out the essential, the guiding lines, it tends to found schools and methods of wide adaptability and acceptability.

  This was the reason for Italy’s musical hegemony, and it was her art that largely determined a manner of music and music making that best fitted the demands of the times. On the other hand, the insecure political conditions, the frequent domination of parts of the country by foreign powers, made it difficult for the Italian musician to do work of a consistently national character, and his frequent subjection to foreign interests developed in him a certain unrestrained, adventurous trait for which he had a penchant anyway. In the face of the lameness of national policies, Italy became the site of an unreal world basking in the light and warmth of artistic life. Although all northerners and westerners felt the irresistible attraction of this fairy world, so far as music is concerned the interesting fact remains that of all peoples it was the Germans who proved capable of assimilating that spirit and that art most felicitously—Handel, John Christian Bach, Mozart. (Just as interestingly, the Germans who remained at home steadfastly insisted on the frivolity and low value of Italian music, and in the north even the Viennese, obviously tainted by welscher Tand, were scarcely less derided.)

  With her erstwhile far-flung commerce in decline, the economy of Italy failed to support this overflowing artistic productivity; as a result she became an artistic export nation furnishing all of Europe with music and musicians, and by the 17th century their language had become the international language of music. The magnificent sonority of the Italian language, its pliable and easily pronounced constellation of vowels and consonants that never form harsh and grating clusters, was born for music, and this smoothness is quite characteristic both of the Italian’s music and his nature in general. The Italian seeks external light and a responsive public, always aiming at the most advantageous and prominent display of his personality. He loves pomp, festivities, elaborate services, all of which show in his music, which insinuates itself into our favor, is easy to understand, effective, and particularly suitable for public representation. The most original and important phenomena of the musical Baroque, opera and concerted music, are altogether Italian inventions; starting in the 17th century, these new genres embarked on a world conquest, captivating all and sundry with their sensuous charm.

  The Germans’ musical style was also determined to a considerable extent by their language, but this was not a brilliant language, and its rather heavy, thoughtful manner of construction is characteristic of the music itself. Since this music was not colorful it preferred to remain in smaller circles; it is inward in character and until the 18th century did not find its most personal expression in soaring melody but rather in artful construction. It was the German masters who preserved the medieval tradition of polyphony and, especially in the Protestant north and center, remained quite faithful to their conservative chorale-based art even when it diligently assimilated the progressive currents coming from Italy and France. The Italians were the leaders in music; they never attempted to rival German music, which to the Catholic south was strange and remote. But the greatness and independence of German music were built precisely on its chorale-born polyphonic art.

  The remarkable proclivity of the Germans for synthesis, the manner in which they accept, filter, and assimilate foreign influences, led, when combined with their innate intimacy of feeling, to the incomparable art of a Schütz and a Bach, but the most essential ingredient in this great music, the counterpoint born of a profound religious feeling, was not transferable; it was too deeply rooted in the hymns of German Protestantism to become a conquering force beyond that specific cultural territory. In their sequestered, intimate life, the Germans guarded a secret treasure without wanting to claim a part of the glory of the international world of music. Italian music—like Italian religion—was a community affair, whereas German music and faith were, so to speak, a family matter, though the influence radiating from Italy, notably opera and the concerto, eventually changed this—Buxtehude’s famous Abendmusiken were already concerts, not service music. By the time a successor to Kuhnau was to be chosen in Leipzig, the authorities at the Thomasschule wanted a “modern” cantor; it was only because they could not secure the services of a more fashionable musician that, somewhat reluctantly, they settled on Sebastian Bach, considered a good but conservative musician of the old school.

  [2]

  HANDEL WENT TO Italy in quest of this modern music. Nothing is known about the circumstances of his departure or arrival, nor are we well informed about his wanderings through Italy from the autumn of 1706 till the spring of 1710. Having made up his mind in his usual taciturn but positive way, he simply turned his back on Hamburg and the next thing we know of is his appearance in Florence. So, the “great search” continued, initially under circumstances even more insecure than when he abandoned Halle for Hamburg. The times were bad. The War of the Spanish Succession was at its height, and as usual, Italy was one of the battlegrounds. Soon Handel was to learn that even St. Peter’s See could be besieged and sacked, for the Holy Roman Emperor or his underlings were wont periodically to remind the Pope that he reigned not so much by the grace of God as by the political convenience of the Catholic monarchs.

  All Handel brought with him were a few scores—some of his own, some of Keiser’s—and of course his phenomenal performing ability, which was the only negotiable currency he possessed at that time. He arrived in the promised land a totally unknown German musician, though he had one “contact,” the black-sheep Medici, Prince Gastone, whom, as we have seen, he met in Hamburg. He may have revived the acquaintance, because a visit in Florence is the first station of his journey where the historian catches up with the elusive traveller. But as we noted earlier, that noble’s influence with Prince Ferdinand was negligible. Moreover, the court was literally teeming with excellent musicians, so that an unknown German Protestant musician had very little to recommend him, even though where artists were concerned the Italians were always far more liberal towards religious
deviation than other nations. There was not much room for Handel, and he soon left Florence for Rome.

  Nevertheless, the first stopover in Italy was of considerable importance. It was here that he got his first taste of the reigning musical tendencies, and of the culture, the nobility of life, and the intellectual and social graces of the highest stratum of Italian society. The brief experience in Florence prepared him for the resplendent gatherings of Roman aristocracy, the hierarchy, the great Maecenases, poets, artists, and adventurers, for the academies with their highly selective membership, the bucolic and classicistic delights of the High Baroque, statues and fountains, elaborate feasts and festivities, masquerades—all saturated with music. André Pirro’s wonderfully succinct characterization of the attraction of this music, though written about the impact of the Italian concerto on Bach, is equally valid when applied to Handel. For he too was overwhelmed by the Italian

  fecundity, by the magnificence of the ideas and the indefatigable energy. In these Italian works one finds the fluent prattling, the ability to say nothing, inexhaustible eloquence, the plenitude of the rhetoricians of antiquity. The smallest idea is amplified, transformed, ennobled, everything radiating and whirling in a grand splendor of sonority.

  The three and a half years spent in this environment had a decisive influence on the rest of Handel’s life. And of course he met the men who made this music. Almost all of them were helpful, and some of them became his friends.

  [3]

  HANDEL UNDOUBTEDLY arrived in Rome with some recommendations from Prince Ferdinand and others, but his great performing skill would have opened the doors in any case. All he had to do was to go to a church and play the organ, and he became known. Newman Flower found a Roman diary entry for January 14, 1707, stating that “a Saxon played the organ at San Giovanni di Laterano to universal admiration.” The picture that greeted him in Rome must have been confusing. On the one hand, the spirit of the Counter-Reformation ruled the Vatican, though it also had a Pietism of its own. On the other, some of the very persons who embraced this spirit with fervor indulged in the most extravagant secular, humanistic, social-artistic cult. Thus while opera was prohibited in Rome by the Pope on grounds not materially different from those the Fundamentalist clergy professed in Germany, oratorio, almost entirely patterned on opera, flourished. Innocent XI, who in 1697 ordered the Roman opera house, Tor di Nona, demolished in the name of morality, actually encouraged oratorio though he must have known that it was a form of subterfuge. A visiting cardinal attending a performance of Colonna’s Caduta di Gerusalemme was so outraged by the violation of the spirit of Lent, the presence of women in the cast, and the eating, drinking, and dancing at the close of the performance that though the event took place in a private residence he demanded that Colonna be thrown into jail. However, the cardinal was a Pole and while his indignation was shared, he could not get his Italian colleagues too much excited about it. Giovanni Paolo Colonna (1637-1695), a pupil of Benevoli and Carissimi, was a widely known and admired composer of oratorios (which, incidentally, Handel surely encountered), and no Italian prelate would have wanted to harm him.