George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music

by Paul Henry Lang

  At this point it may be asked where such reasoning would leave Cherubino or the Knight of the Rose. Everyone of course adores Cherubino, but this wondrous creature is a special case; he is an adolescent just discovering the attraction of women. Mozart’s uncanny sense for the psychology of characterization seized upon a moment in the boy’s life when he was about to emerge from the pupal stage: no longer an innocent, but not yet fully awakened. What better way to represent this than by the delightful ambiguity of having the part sung by a mezzo-soprano? And make no mistake, no Valkyrie can sing this part either; a quality boyish yet at the same time feminine is indispensable. The Knight of the Rose, as well as all other characters of this sort in modern opera, are descended from Cherubino, though none of them can remotely re-create the delicious ambiguity of this Mozartean miracle.

  If we accept the point of view of those who insist on replacing the castrato with female soprano or alto, we should logically go the whole way: replace the choral trebles and altos with boys and falsettists. The result would be the loss of the last vestiges of drama and excitement, antiquarianism overwhelming life. By the same reasoning we should employ boys for women’s roles as was done on the English stage, where women were not permitted to appear until the Restoration. Juliet played by a rosy-cheeked choirboy would be as strangely unreal as Julius Caesar sung by a comely soprano.

  We must also bear in mind that until the first half of the 19th century, and especially in the Baroque era, most operas were composed for performance by certain singers, in a certain theatre, before certain spectators, at a certain time. This fact, which is largely true also of the oratorio, makes it doubly difficult to approximate the original conception and conditions. But we know that when an opera or oratorio was revived from season to season the original parts were often altered to fit new singers. We are not advocating here the acceptance of the often wanton disregard Handel showed toward his own creations when tossing off a hasty revision; that was the act of the entrepreneur, not the composer. But he often made vital changes as the result of second thoughts, greatly improving an original role or scene. It is true that in the majority of cases Handel’s transpositions were upward whereas what we are suggesting is the opposite; nevertheless the principle is the same. In a world that had a topsy-turvy attitude toward the quality, nature, and range of the human voice, Handel had many more good high voices at his disposal than low ones.

  The castrato voice has disappeared forever, but the music is still here. We can never recapture the fantastic unreality of that voice, but we can salvage the music. This music can only be salvaged, however, if we substitute for the impersonal instrument a human character. The contrast between men and women is vital, there can be no drama without it—not to us. But this restoration cannot be done—as it has been done—by uninformed conductors and amateur musicologists lacking historial and theatrical insight. There is a phonograph recording of Giulio Cesare in which so much plastic surgery was practiced on the score that even the Bertillon method would be no help in tracing the original features of the work. Cuts are not only permissible but in many instances mandatory, but the utmost discretion is needed to avoid wanton dislocation of delicate tonal and other concordances. The orchestration is another matter: it must not be touched beyond the few alterations necessitated by the transposition of the castrato parts. To modernize Handel’s extraordinarily supple and imaginative orchestra would indeed “destroy” something that is neither artificial nor archaic. Finally, our custom of making earlier 18th-century opera palatable by forcing upon it ballet and choreography is completely without foundation or reason. There are some fine short ballets in several of Handel’s operas, but they are all incidental; to shift the accent from the aural to the visual violates the spirit of this opera.

  The recent successful revival of Bellini’s and other early 19th-century Italian bel canto operas shows that the sense for pure melodic expression as well as the singing skill needed for their execution can be reacquired. Handel’s infallible and profound musicality, which can catch a mood with unparalleled eloquence yet which holds fast with the utmost tenacity to the boundaries of the songlike, can also be recaptured. It would be an exaggeration to say that this melodiousness, this vocal, euphony-determined form is all there is to his dramatic lyricism, but it is the main factor in the representative summation of a long development and tradition.

  VIII

  1720-1728

  Royal Academy opens first season—Radamisto (1720)—Giovanni Bononcini joins staff—Ensuing rivalry—Second season—Third season—Floridante (1721)—Cuzzoni added to company—Fourth season—Ottone, Flavio (1723)—Fifth season—Giulio Cesare (1724)—Bononcini vanquished—Sixth season—Tamerlano, Rodelinda (1724)—Handel buys a house—Academy in financial difficulties—Bordoni engaged—Seventh season—Sctpione, Alessandro (1726)—Eighth season—Admeto (1727) —Profitable year—Handel becomes a British subject, February 20, 1727 —George I dies, George II proclaimed King, January 1727—Ninth season —Riccardo I (1727), Siroe (1728)—Collapse of Academy—Reasons for failure of Italian opera—“English opera” and “semi-opera”—The language barrier—The Beggar’s Opera—Its success seals fate of Academy

  ON HIS RETURN FROM THE RECRUITING TRIP TO DRESDEN, Handel threw his immense energies into the affairs of the Royal Academy of Music. He attended the meetings of the board and concerned himself with every aspect of the enterprise: general administration, the engagement of the singers, scenery and staging, arrangement of other composers’ music, and drilling of the orchestra and the singers. Whether these manifold activities left insufficient time for composing, or for some other reason, his new opera was not ready for the grand opening of the Academy, and the first season began on April 2, 1720, with Giovanni Porta’s Numi-tore, libretto by Rolli. Since the libretto states that Porta was in the service of the Duke of Wharton, he apparently was in London at that time. Porta was a good musician, but as an opera composer was altogether beholden to the routine aria opera, which he handled with ease and with an eye for pleasing the public.

  Then, on April 27, Radamisto, Handel’s first opera for the Academy, was presented to a full house, the King and “his ladies,” as well as the Prince of Wales, being in the audience. Mainwaring says that “several gentlemen were turned back, who had offered forty shillings for a seat in the gallery” (usually selling for two shillings and sixpence). The success was tremendous, and indeed Radamisto is one of Handel’s great operas. It has a good libretto, and the work is well and tightly composed even though the proportions are large. Radamisto contains elaborate instrumental numbers, ritornels and preludes, in addition to a wealth of great arias. Hawkins reports that Handel considered “Ombra cara” his finest melody next to “Cara sposa” from Rinaldo. As was frequent in Handel’s works, the outstanding character portrayed in the opera is that of a woman, Zenobia, Radamisto’s wife. It is quite obvious that this score was composed with minute care and elaboration and was intended to be a knockout—which in fact it was. Also, almost all of it is new music; only one of his Italian cantatas and a little from the Brockes Passion were used for fillers. The cast, consisting of Durastanti, Galerati, Anastasia Robinson, the lesser known Mrs. Turner Robinson, Lagarde, Gordon, and Baldassari, immediately attracts attention for two reasons: the absence of castratos, and the presence of English singers. Of the latter, only Anastasia Robinson, for a long time a faithful Handelian, could to some degree compete with the Italians. She was a good musician, but her vocal endowment was modest.

  At the end of April, Domenico Scarlatti’s Narciso joined the repertory. It has been proved by Frank Walker that this opera was a considerably altered version of Scarlatti’s Amor d‘un ombra e gelosia d’un’ aura, with additional music by Thomas Roseingrave, Apostolo Zeno’s original libretto having been adapted by the Academy’s resident dramatic poet, Rolli. The long-held belief that Domenico was present and thus reunited with his old friend of the happy Venetian days is now discredited.

  On the whole
, the first season of the Royal Academy of Music was a success, and at thirty-five Handel could feel that with Rinaldo, Teseo, Amadigi, and now Radamisto he had reached the commanding position he sought. In the meantime, however, the directorate of the Academy was not willing to stake everything on Handel. It was, after all, a business enterprise that had to be made profitable—there were stockholders. Accordingly, Lord Burlington was dispatched to Italy to scout for another resident composer of stature. As we have seen, the choice fell on Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747?), with whose arrival in London in the fall of 1720 the scene changed and Handel found himself facing a formidable rival.

  Bononcini was a member of a distinguished family of musicians. Giovanni Maria (1642-1678), the father, was a versatile composer and writer, whose fine cantatas and church music Handel had heard in Italy. His younger son, Antonio Maria (1675-1726), was considered by Padre Martini, the most widely influential teacher of the age, superior to the famous Giovanni. Padre Martini was a good judge, but we cannot weigh the validity of his view because, aside from some “favorite songs” from Camilla, nothing of Antonio has been printed. His Trionfo di Camilla, composed at the age of twenty, was one of the most successful operas in the Baroque era, and it undoubtedly paved the way for his brother’s engagement in London. The two Bononcinis are a musicologist’s nightmare. Several librettos were set by both of them, both were fine musicians, and at times it is most difficult to distinguish between them when the ascription refers to “Signor Bononcini.” Also, they were both excellent instrumentalists and often served together in the same place, playing, as in Berlin and Vienna, in the same orchestra.

  Giovanni had a thorough education in the Bolognese school of Colonna, and at the opening of the 18th century was one of the most famous composers in Europe, regarded as second only to Scarlatti, but he was equally admired for his sensitive and expressive cello playing. There is a little-known province of his art which nevertheless is significant to us: Bononcini was a much-admired composer of oratorios, works that Handel knew. While his charming cavatinas and little arias captivated the London public, Bononcini’s talent was by no means restricted to bonbons; he was capable of much more substantial accomplishments. Even Chrysander, who is responsible for posterity’s low opinion of this able composer, has nothing but respect for his church music (naturally, Catholic church music did not compete with any of Handel’s mature works). Indeed, Bononcini cannot be so summarily dismissed as Chrysander and some other Handel biographers are wont to do. The success of the Academy’s third season was due to his operas, and an invitation for the Royal Academy to play in Paris (which came to naught) was also largely due to his fame. Although Schering has convincingly corrected Chrysander’s misleading judgment, this worthy composer still awaits rehabilitation. Though a rather proud and restless man, he was not the intrigant and faker he was reported to be. The exact facts in the celebrated case of plagiarism that ruined his career in London have by no means been satisfactorily established. The Academy of Ancient Music investigated the affair, addressing itself directly to Antonio Lotti, whose madrigal was allegedly plagiarized in toto by Bononcini. The assembled evidence was published in a multilingual document entitled: Letters from the Academy of Ancient Music at London to Signor Antonio Lotti of Venice, with answers and testimonies, London, 1732. This was a devastating document, yet Bononcini haughtily refused to defend himself.

  The last word has not yet been said about this curious and sad affair. There are good reasons to suspect that Bononcini was the innocent victim of a vendetta raging around him. It does not seem at all probable that a composer as gifted and facile as Bononcini, who could compose a madrigal in half an afternoon, should resort to so questionable a maneuver when a deadline was not involved. The score from which the music was sung at the Academy bears no signature, and nowhere did Bononcini himself claim authorship. Maurice Greene, who became a sworn enemy of Handel and who lost no opportunity to make trouble for his erstwhile friend and idol, appears to be the culprit who caused Bononcini’s embarrassment. “No one was as industrious as [Greene] in decrying the compositions of Handel,” says Hawkins; and at another point the historian furnishes what seems to be the key to this riddle. “[Greene] was a member of the Academy of Ancient Music, and, with a view to exalt the character of Bononcini, produced in the year 1728 the madrigal ‘In una siepe ombrosa,’ which gave rise to a dispute that terminated in the disgrace of his friend.” (It must be admitted, though, that this was not the first time that a Bononcini was accused of plagiarism. The father, Giovanni Maria, published a Discorso musicale in which he defends himself against the accusation of having put together his Opus 3 from other composers’ works.) In the long run Bononcini could not stand up to Handel, and the aggregate of his misfortunes eventually drove him from London. Falling into the hands of an unscrupulous adventurer, an “alchemist,” who fleeced him of all his possessions, he wandered around in France, Italy, Portugal, and Austria, dying in Vienna, forgotten and destitute, about 1747.39

  The directors congratulated themselves on Lord Burlington’s coup in persuading Bononcini to accept the post of artistic co-regent with Handel (Ariosti joined the group later), but soon they began to wonder whether this clever move had not hatched a rivalry that, by getting out of hand, might hurt rather than help them. Bononcini’s success created a schism, though in the beginning it was among the Academy’s patrons rather than between the composers themselves. As was to happen later in the century when two honorable composers, Gluck and Piccinni, became objects of an ardent rivalry despite their mutual esteem, the Bononcini-Handel rivalry was not founded on personal envy or hostility but was the work of self-appointed partisans, though eventually the two men became personally involved. Given the clientele of the Academy, it was inevitable that politics should intrude even into its artistic policies, and since Handel was a German and a former court musician to the unpopular Hanoverian king, the Tories immediately espoused Bononcini’s cause as a form of indirect affront to the dynasty and to its chief political agent, Prime Minister Wal-pole. This being the case, the Whigs came to Handel’s defense—and the war was on. The Prince of Wales, though well disposed toward Handel, joined the Bononcini camp out of hatred for his father, a move that surely created a curious alliance, since the Tories’ real target was the royal family.

  The second season of the Academy opened at the Haymarket Theatre on November 19, 1720, with Bononcini’s Astarto, the libretto fashioned by Rolli after Zeno. Its great success is attested to by its many performances. Bononcini also had the advantage of a fine, experienced, all-Italian cast, headed by Senesino (Boschi was also back in London). Handel made use of the same outstanding cast when Radamisto, reworked and enlarged, was revived at the end of December.

  In April a new opera, Muzio Scevola, was produced with a top cast. A story has it that the directors, hoping to stimulate public interest, organized a sort of tournament in which the three acts of a libretto were set by three rival composers: Filippo Amadei, Bononcini, and Handel. Amadei (also known as Mattei), of about Handel’s age, was a very good cellist and a composer of sorts, who had joined the orchestra at the time of the founding of the Royal Academy of Music. He was a popular figure and recognized as a good “arranger,” which may account for his selection as one of the co-composers of Muzio Scevola, but it seems more plausible that he was only substituting for the logical choice, Ariosti, who was reluctant to enter into competition with Handel and Bononcini. Ariosti was in a difficult position. He had known Bononcini from the days when both were in Berlin, when he wrote the libretto for Bononcini’s successful opera Polifemo (1702), but he also felt an affection, which lasted to the end of his life, for the considerably younger Handel. Muzio Scevola did not entirely realize the hoped-for results. Amadei’s first act was poor, Bononcini’s second fair, and Handel’s third clearly far superior to either. Regrettably, Handel put a good deal of fine music into this mélange, from which at least the sparkling overture to the third act should be salvaged. While
there was undoubtedly an element of contest intended in the commissioning of Muzio Scevola, this sort of thing was by no means unknown throughout the century. It would have been quite natural for the management to court a quick success by displaying its collective hoard of talent. Bononcini’s Ciro added to the Italian’s conquest, and on this note and with this opera, the season closed on July first.

  The third season saw another revival of Radamisto, and then, on December 9, Handel presented his new opera, Floridante. This is not one of his great works, nor did Rolli’s libretto contribute to Handel’s inspiration. His plot, with its multiple concealed identity cum womanly faithfulness, was hard to manage, but Handel found some dramatic opportunities even in this concoction. It is again the women who emerge as true dramatic characters. Elmira, sung by Mrs. Robinson, is sad and lofty, Rossane (Signora Salvai) gay and friendly. The general aspects of the opera aside, it does contain much very fine music. “Notte cara” is one of Handel’s ravishing “night pieces,” a wonderful arioso in B minor full of the mystery of the night. The duets, notably “Fuor di periglio,” are idyllic pieces, in which woodwinds, strings, and harpsichord concertize in happy abandonment with the voices. In general, the accompaniments are marked by delicacy and refinement, attributes surely wasted on Handel’s audience. Handel here fell back on older practices, with the difference that he raised the old instrumental obbligato of the 17th century to the level of a flexible, capricious, and tender art. It seems as if he wanted to show in Floridante that he could ascend to the higher regions of art as well as meet Bononcini on his own ground, because some other numbers are in Bononcini’s light, easy, and elegant manner. Though given fourteen times, Floridante was not a real success, and Bononcini immediately followed up this unexpected tactical gain with two operas: Crispo, in January 1722, and Griselda, in February, both of which were enthusiastically received, especially Griselda. This, the third season of the Academy, was definitely Bononcini’s round, and he was equally successful outside the theatre. His collection of chamber duets (which Handel studied to advantage) were dedicated to the King. The set sold a number of copies unheard of in those days, in addition fetching the equally unusual price of two guineas. Handel’s answer to the situation was a strategic retreat and reorganization of his resources. He withdrew from circulation, and, realizing that new operas alone would not redress the balance, he and Heidegger engaged the famous Italian soprano, Francesca Cuzzoni.