That Prinee, whose Flags are bow’d to on the Seas,
Of all Kings shares keeps in his hands the Keys:
No King can him, he may all Kings invade,
And on his Will depends their Peace and Trade.
Trade, which does Kings and Subjeets Wealth increase;
Trade, which more necessary is than Peace.
Trade and finance did, indeed, expand, and by Handel’s time there was no limit to the profits that capitalist adventurers, triggered by personal greed and untrammelled ambition, could acquire. The scramble for wealth resulted in the rise to power of new men, like the Earl of Carnarvon, later Duke of Chandos, Handel’s patron, who carried the looting of the nation’s treasury to enormous lengths. But even to the vast majority of virtuous Englishmen, those of the middle classes, the 18th century was an age when luxury was the prize to be obtained from life.
The gradual process of democratization also created powerful opposition to the spirit of the Renaissance; at the same time it de-emphasized everything superhuman, though this denial appeared in a proper religious guise. This is the most paradoxical feature of English Protestantism, for, while always quoting Scripture, this increasingly democratic society reformed its functioning according to human power and institutions—English institutions.49 Thus man once more became the measure of all things. Catholic dogma set limits to his powers and, from a somewhat different point of view, so did Lutheranism, but the Englishman of the Church of England had no doubt of his abilities. It was man’s business to deal with the world, and he considered himself to be dealing with it quite adequately. The consequence of this proud and positive attitude was an obsession with material and political achievement that siphoned away the energies of the artistic creativity so profusely present in the Englishman of the Renaissance; the new Englishman gained political liberty but his creative individuality became considerably circumscribed.
The religion of the Church of England in Handel’s time faithfully reflected socio-economic developments; the cultic elements descended from Catholicism remained, but in reality this religion was a system of organized life that under its theocratic exterior was essentially political. The contrast with the absolutist monarchies on the Continent was startling. Louis XIV’s France was a monarchy, humanistic, allowing creative freedom to the individual, and characterized by an esthetic awareness unrivalled in the English or German courts—but allowing no personal-political freedom. As the French Revolution proved, this humanistic monarchy was not durable; the democratic monarchy, however, prevailed.
Imperialism brought with it a will for rule and power, as well as a new form of collectivism. Besides bringing material advantages, empire for the British was stimulus to idealistic experiment, for this imperialism was just as much a cultural dream as it was an economic one. It is not an accident that so many of Britain’s statesmen and public servants were—and still are—accomplished writers. The English character, its conservatism notwithstanding, is revolutionary, for a realistic spirit is the quickest to perceive new realities. It also soon discovers when old realities are no longer valid, and then, as is true nowhere but in England, it uses them for their decorative values. English philosophy has for centuries dispensed with such authoritarian tenets and ideas as hindered free thought. Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley follow one another, and then Hume. This was also the age when Newton, himself a religious man, proved the miraculous events in the Old Testament to be untenable, for by now there was a new conception of the “laws of nature.” Dean Swift, though a churchman, had doubts about everything; his A Tale of a a Tub is one of the most radical books of all time. Gibbon, too, in his gigantic historical work, magnificent not only in workmanship but also in style, can curl his lip like Voltaire. Nor does he, when speaking of Christianity, hide the ironic manifestations of his religious skepticism. And in Lord Chesterfield’s letters we see a catechism of how to succeed in the world without any moral scruples.
The audience of these flagbearers of culture was the educated bourgeoisie. The men of letters were members of the same class—a broad one—to which their audience belonged. The middle classes constituted not only the reading public but also the theatrical and musical; it was for them and about them that the writers and composers created.
The novel, rising from the national character and dealing with everyday life, with the English family, was about to become the preferred literary form in England. Essay and novel often merge; Steele’s and Addison’s essays contain the materials of novels. Unfortunately, as sober mind takes over, poetry becomes boring and tragedy rigid because everything is governed by cool reason and logic. The qualities the Englishman appreciated in the novel he also sought in the theatre. The play came to resemble the much-admired novel, only the playwrights’ talents were considerably below those of the novelists. Nevertheless, the London merchants sent their clerks and apprentices to see Lillo’s George Barnwell to learn to appreciate the rewards for faithfulness, and for thievery. The angry—and justified—attacks on the vulgarity of the Restoration theatre (even Congreve is not free of it) do not change the fact of its popularity. Besides, the most uncompromising and articulate foe of the theatre, Jeremy Collier, was totally devoid of any artistic sense. Those who read only the title of his famous tract, Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), ascribe his attitude to Puritanism, but Collier was no Puritan, rather a Tory and a High Churchman, one of the first of those new divines for whom esthetics ceased to exist. But even the Puritans’ objection to the theatre was more social and hygienic than religious and moral.
To this middle-class audience opera was not congenial; the literary world immediately challenged its justification vis-à-vis the spoken theatre and, forgetting that the English were once a “singing people,” they even questioned the validity of music’s place among the humanities. Upon hearing that Scarlatti’s Pirro e Demetrio had been performed with great success at the Haymarket Theatre, Steele expressed his displeasure in the Tatler (1709):
This intelligence is not very acceptable to us Friends of the Theatre; for the Stage being an Entertainment of the Reason, and all the Faculties, this Way of being pleased with the suspense of them for three Hours together, and being given up to the shallow satisfaction of Eyes and Ears only, seems to arise rather from the Degeneracy of our Understanding than an Improvement of our Diversions.
Two years later Addison in the Spectator makes a more direct comparison. “If the Italians have a Genius for Musick above the English, the English have a Genius for other Performances of a much higher Nature, and capable of giving the Mind a much nobler Entertainment.” Continuing, he spells out precisely the English fear that if music “would take the entire Possession of our Ears, it would make us incapable of hearing Sense ... it would exclude Arts that have a much greater Tendency to the Refinement of Human Nature.” The London Journal of February 24, 1722 stated what the average Englishman considered the proper role of music: “It should chase away ennui, and relieve clever men from the trouble of thinking.” The success of the Royal Academy of Music was observed with similar alarm. In the London Journal of February 5, 1726, a writer who signs himself “Philomuses” expresses surprise at the “reigning taste” for music at the expense of letters, “the pleasures of the Ear having prevailed over those of the Understanding.” He finally ventures the hope that “when Apollo’s Harp ceases to be valued more than his Head ... then, and not till then, may we begin to hope for an Augustan Age.”
The Burlington circle (substantially the same that gathered at Cannons) counted among its members Pope, Hughes, Arbuthnot, perhaps Swift, and a little later Gay. Gay, whose Beggar’s Opera hastened the first debacle in Handel’s operatic career, also launched Handel on his ultimate triumph by being the principal librettist of his first English pastoral, Acis and Galatea. Handel met all these men, and thus in this crucial period of acclimatization he had the opportunity to experience at first hand the agility that is perhaps the most characteristic trait
of the educated English mind. Given his association with the leading men of letters, Handel, an enthusiastic reader, must have become acquainted with such works as Arbuthnot’s John Bull (1713), and by the time Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe appeared (1719) his understanding of English was considerable, in spite of his wayward command of the spoken language.50 In this novel, Robinson Crusoe recreates the entire history of civilization in miniature, and in his isolation he practically discovers culture anew. Here Handel could not escape pondering a question that would not have presented itself to an artisan-cantor in Germany: the value of mind and culture. But while there are unmistakable signs that all this made a profound impression on his inquisitive mind, for the time being Handel was not willing to draw the consequences, and even misread the many signs that did not augur well for the future of opera, to which he continued to cling with unshakable tenacity. It is the more surprising that the English Handel is now before us practically fully developed in two genres that are directly attributable to his intercourse with the literary men and to his observations of the English character: the pastoral-masque and the anthem.
The poets of the age of Dryden and Pope concurred that, in the words of the latter, “the proper study of mankind is man.” Whatever else they spoke of, it was with man as stated reference. They understood the splendors of nature, yet they did not find the proper accents to describe them—this remained for Ambrose Philips and especially Thomson. Dryden and Pope’s treatment of nature pictures was a sophisticated intellectual play; their regard for man made them indifferent towards nature, which interested them only as it was controlled by man. In the spirit of the age the theme of the pastoral was still man, though he is here a handsome creature provided with harmless emotions which last only to the end of the piece. And the writers of pastoral verse, like the cultivators of formal English gardens, controlled their material with a firm hand. They knew that the pastoral was deception, a literary plaything, and everything had to be simple, gentle, fragrant, and elegant—nature should really imi-tate art. We shall see what consequences this association with the classical poets was to have on Handel’s poetic and dramatic muse. Absorbing this English pastoral poetry, he yet transcended the conventions of the genre in his very first English pastoral. Acis and Galatea, written at Cannons, is an incomparable masterpiece saturated with exquisite musical poetry. However, we must once more abandon chronology to permit an uninterrupted study of Handel’s pastorals and masques at a later point. Our present concern is with Handel’s church music, the result of his residence at Burlington House and at Cannons, and the bulk of it composed there. In this music we first see clearly that the impact of English society and its Church is making an English composer of the immigrant.
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DIVINE SERVICE IS worship by a congregation; the music on such an occasion should serve this congregation by binding it into one body. There can be no question that the Handelian anthem or Te Deum achieves this community to the highest degree, but is its spirit that of a churchly or religious community? The question immediately raises another and most important query: are churchly and religious values necessarily one and the same? Now we shall add a new complication to an already involved problem by asking whether religious music is at the same time churchly music, and whether churchly music is always religious?
The power of a musical personality expressed through religious texts can create a strong religious atmosphere, but we must be careful because altogether profane music in a concert hall can produce a similar effect; the slow movement in a symphony may have been intended to serve as a contrasting movement, no more, but we may hear in it a prayer. What is it that made the melting sensuousness of “Ombra mai fù” into a piece of “sacred” music, or the second movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto into a hymn? Contrafacta (literally, counterfeits), the substitutions of religious texts for the originals in secular compositions, were of course always practiced and accepted, often enriching church music, but after all, the music remains exactly the same as it was before, when it conveyed amorous languor, or, as in the case of the Beethoven concerto, nothing in particular beyond a magnificent composition in the unusual key of B major. Among other things that confuse the issue one might mention the ingrained feeling that polyphonic texture serves to heighten the churchly quality; a choral fugue usually creates a vaguely solemn or devotional sensation, effectively neutralizing the inner tension of the parts. The time-honored conception of religious music is so firmly entrenched that it is difficult for us to think in terms of personal expressiveness, for to the untrained ear only the generalized “religious” feeling is accessible. Of course the language, especially if it is archaic, has a great deal to do with making music “religious.” The sturdy old English spoken in the Bible by the prophets, kings, and psalmists of Israel when associated with almost any suitably stately music will produce a devotional impression.
The artist’s desire is to communicate and affect; this desire is already implicit in the concept of form. The important point here is the personal aim, and the degree to which the artist achieves it is, in a large measure, responsible for the work of art. Even so, it is clear that the social element must be considered, for it matters greatly what stratum of the “public” is involved, what are its feelings, thoughts, and convictions, what are the values it cherishes. Nevertheless, the beauties of an individual work can be recognized and described without calling on sociological ramifications, though its particular development, purpose, and connotations cannot. At any rate, while the difference between the two extremes, the socio-cultural and the purely esthetic concept, is probably less than their respective champions maintain, the fact remains that while Handel’s church music affects us strongly, if we lack a good knowledge of Georgian times in England much of its significance escapes us.
Though it is perhaps less apparent to the observer from afar, in another state church of the 18th century, the Evangelical-Lutheran, we are also dealing with a spirit of national life. This church, before being undermined by Pietism, was a comprehensive cultural force. In both state churches, connections with the paramount interests of the nation are so strong that artistic aims and principles are palpably influenced by them. Bach and Handel both composed Protestant music, but one is thoroughly German while the other is unmistakably English. We must proceed with care, for the socio-cultural is so entwined with the musical that either alone will surely lead us astray.
German music of the Baroque shows a tremendous capacity for absorption and development but little interest in creating its own forms. The German composer of the age does not show particular inventiveness when new modes are required for the adequate expression of the period’s feelings, but he is infinitely versatile in carrying forward the acquired, often far beyond the boundaries of the original inventors. This was recognized by the Germans themselves, witness Quantz in his Versuch: “Even if it cannot be said that the Germans have produced an individual style entirely different from that of other nations, they are all the more capable of taking whatever they like from another style, and they know how to make use of the good things in all types of foreign music.” The music of the Bach era is the result of French and, even more, of Italian inventiveness; it was the Italians who gave the world music that captivated all nations. In accepting French and Italian musical forms, idioms, and techniques, the Germans not only proved to be excellent pupils, they created from the imported cultural goods a great German art which in turn became the guiding light for generations to come. The Italians are dramatists and ravishing melodists, the French lead in the dance, but the Germans of the Baroque blended all this into what is principally a religious art of breadth and profundity. The outstanding heroes of this great art are the German composers from Schein to Bach. As we have seen, the Germans complacently add Handel to the list, though of course their sole justification is the composer’s birth certificate. It must be emphatically repeated again and again that Handel’s art was not German music composed on English soil.
To Bach and to other earnest Lutherans, God and the world were separate entities; to English Protestants, the world was a very real and comprehensive entity that included God. This latter is a religion oriented towards the external world, while the orthodox Lutheran represented the old German Christian mysticism that turns away from the external world and seeks the soul, seen as independent of the body. The Englishman no longer sought grace alone, he wanted to work out his destiny through a reasonable religion which paid proper attention to life on this earth. What to the Lutheran, and presumably to the young Handel too, was the blessing of grace, assumed to the English the character of laudable virtue. It was in music that the Lutheran spirit reached its warmest and highest human fulfillment, but to the Church of England, once it passed beyond the last remnants of the Elizabethan-Jacobean heritage, music became an accessory.
The Evangelical Kirchenlied, the Lutheran chorale, is the core of German Protestant music. The chorale was (and, though to a lesser degree, still is) far more than a musical accessory to worship; to a large section of Germany it represented a culture, a religious consciousness. The spirit of the chorale dominated not only their church music but their organ music and, to a degree, even other instrumental music. Even after the inevitable intrusion of aria and recitative from Italian opera into the German cantata and oratorio, the chorale was ever-present, lending the music an unmistakably German Protestant cast. This dependence on the chorale, the constant use of cantus firmi derived from chorales even in contexts uncongenial to such use,51 had its drawbacks, to which even Bach was not immune. To the average cantor the old art of polyphonic architecture was imposed from above, out of cultic tradition and learning, instead of arising in response to a creative desire or an instinct for shapeliness, as with the Italians. The German gearbeiteter Stil describes this very graphically. Thus for the Lutheran cantors there was a compulsion that at times limited them artistically; they were often more dutiful craftsmen than creative artists whose music coursed through their being.
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