The setting of this literary gem caused heavy weather for the composer; he toiled with difficulty, borrowing left and right. Alexander Balus has few choruses, is destitute of fine counterpoint, and reverts to the long-abandoned formal opera scheme, with the da capo aria returned to its prominence. The work as a whole suffers through being strung on a very slender thread of continuity, and in the first two acts is it apt to run into shallows of expression. The hero of the drama, Alexander Balus, never emerges. Morell’s fatuous moralizing left Handel cold; but the German Handelians took it to heart, constructing upon it a strained mysticism purporting to represent a struggle between spiritual and destructive powers, “the divine order of the world” being the victor. Far from being steeped in nebulous spiritual struggle, Alexander Balus is pure opera, insignificant and wayward in the first two acts, magnificent in the third. In the first two acts the main props of the Handelian music drama, accompanied recitative and actively participating chorus, are either missing or greatly reduced, while the routine of the da capo aria returns. But in the third act Handel takes a firm hold and is once more in top form. The figure responsible for the return of full creative force and imagination was Cleopatra, so in the end, the Maccabean heroism and the heavy moralizing notwithstanding, Alexander Balus is the tragedy of a woman.
“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety,” says Shakespeare’s Enobarbus of Cleopatra. Handel remembered the seductress from his Giulio Cesare (see above, p. 181), and the lush, sensuous oriental tone returns as the exquisite orchestra of strings, oboes, bassoons, trumpets, and drums is augmented by mandolin, harp, and flutes. The same charm of mysticism mingled with sensuality also returns, but Handel adds to her “infinite variety” the affectionate intimacy of a woman in love. In her rich radiance the male heroes turn pale. Once Handel rediscovered her, the divine Weltordnung—if there ever was such a thing in his mind—is thrown to the winds as both she and Handel come to life.
We get a glimpse of her attraction in the first act. Her song “Hark, hark! he strikes the golden lyre” is a charming piece drenched in color. There is little else in this act that deserves attention, though it must be admitted that even the dull numbers show a most remarkable elegance of workmanship that recalls the texture of the last operas. In the second act there is not much more of interesting music, but “O calumny” is in a class with the other two great “jealousy” choruses from Saul and Hercules. Its tremendous ostinato theme rumbles inexorably, the whole creating an atmosphere charged with fear and a sense of overwhelming desolation.
In the third act everything changes as Handel’s sensitivity, stretched on the rack of experience yet determined to be true to the reality of its intense moments, makes itself felt. It opens with Cleopatra’s “Here amid the steady woods,” a song that has all the bucolic Handel’s delicate, exact, and fragile beauty of expression. The noisy festival atmosphere disappears; these are ideas that may be played with, there is no need of urgency, and the composer’s skill and grace find their proper scope. But the gentle and poetic musing is suddenly shattered as Cleopatra is set upon and seized by Ptolemy’s henchmen; a very dramatic scene of real theatre. Alexander’s air “Fury with red-sparkling eyes” is a fine rage aria, presto, with a sharply contrasting larghetto middle section that makes the da capo quite proper. Then Aspasia, Cleopatra’s companion, meditates on the “strange reverse of human fate,” but Jonathan must give the situation an “ideological” turn—Alexander’s heathen gods are not powerful enough to deal with this problem. In “To God, who made the radiant sun” he beseeches Jehovah; the grand piece, even if perhaps a little stiff melodically and its hymnic quality a little voulu, did not miss its intended effect.
The following chorus, “Sun, moon, stars,” is also a very fine piece, but it is Cleopatra who really dominates everything. She constantly increases in stature, and by the time she confronts her father, the clash is between two marked personalities. Ptolemy rages in “O sword”; he is no Polyphemus but an authentic villain whom Handel fully realized in music. His daughter’s reply, “Shall Cleopatra ever smile again?” has simplicity, masterful serenity, and a thrilling stillness. Fate presently strikes with brutal terror: a messenger brings word of Alexander’s death. “O take me from this hateful light,” sings Cleopatra; we feel all the tenderness and wistfulness that underlie the pain and sorrow of a woman trembling like the windblown river reed. Handel is now really fired, developing Cleopatra’s character “from bride to widow” (Schering) with sympathy and penetration. Scarcely realizing the full meaning of her bereavement, now she learns that Ptolemy, her cruel tormentor but nevertheless her father, is also dead. Her lament, “Convey me to some peaceful shore,” is a song of broken-hearted ecstasy; rapture and sorrow alike seem to have lost their meaning in the unutterable grief. Jonathan praises God and the chorus sings a fine Hallelujah and an Amen fugue, but both of these are subdued, for the end is still altogether under the spell of Cleopatra’s tragedy.
So the tragic moment passes without being followed by the forcible means so often employed in some of the other oratorios to end in exultation. Indeed, Cleopatra’s charm radiates all around her and is reflected by the initially somewhat insubstantial Aspasia, her confidante. In the second part of Aspasia’s fine aria “So grace the sweet attractive smile,” the light, fluent manner of Bononcini, but even more the neo-Neapolitans’ narrow-gauge but very attractive melody, with capricious inner repetitions, take us back to the delightful texture of Faramondo and Serse. Ptolemy aside, the men are much less interesting. Handel was undecided about Alexander; the lover is quite pleasant, but the military hero is not alive. The martial trumpeting in his aria “Mighty love now calls to arm” does not quite take care of this lack of characterization. Jonathan is too saintly for human nature’s daily food; it is difficult to feel any friendliness towards him.
The orchestration is throughout interesting, modern, and piquant; especially in Cleopatra’s music, where delectable combinations of the plucked instruments with pizzicato strings and woodwinds once more remind us that Handel treated the heathen with fondness. Whenever he deals with “Asiates” (as the heathen of the Middle East were called), counterpoint is banished and color takes over, the tunes become lively, even catchy, and the orchestra scintillates.
And yet this “sacred oratorio” was stillborn. Some librettos fail to affect because they turn too much light on at once, others because they turn on too little. Alexander Balus is one of the latter; the first two acts cannot be salvaged. A performance of the third act, preceded by excerpts from the first two, as part of a concert would be very worthwhile, or perhaps a good one-acter could be made of it for the stage. Anything that would preserve the remarkable third act would be welcome, but revival of the entire score would be a very doubtful enterprise, though it has been done. Composed in June 1747, Alexander Balus was performed on March 13, 1748, that is, after Joshua, with Casarini (Cleopatra), Sibilla (Aspasia), Galli (Alexander), Lowe (Jonathan), and Reinhold (Ptolemy). There were two repeats, but the work’s reception was cool and remained so whenever Handel attempted a revival.
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Joshua, composed July-August 1747, is a continuation of the Judas Maccabaeus scheme, the last of Morell’s victory oratorios. This libretto, too, is very bad. It has the same poor construction and lack of dramatic content, with a makeshift love story added to the clamorous acclaim for the Israelite-English arms. Handel obviously disliked it, and this time he made it short, did not exert himself unduly, and borrowed a great deal. There is a tenuousness in this work, as if the deeper mysteries of the spirit at war with itself demanded a firmer imaginative grasp. The story is taken from the Book of Joshua; historically unreliable, it is nothing but a recital of wars of extermination offering little scope for a dramatic plot. The combination of this with Morell’s lack of dramatic sense resulted in another anemic text aggravated by a gauche love story. Joshua does at times, however, rise to great imaginative intensity, though not without frequent l
apses, for the work reveals a deficiency in that easy ample power which yields lasting creations. We do not find in it the great individual hero who as a central organ nourishes the drama; the characters are squeezed to fit the situations. There are certain aspects of character that a dramatist, even a Shakespeare or a Handel, is greatly hampered in depicting. Joshua is an oracle rather than a leader, and oracularly ambiguous. At times when he is supposed to represent the divine beatitude of wisdom he appears more like an egregious prig. The emotions he expresses have no proper foundation, and the strategic humility he occasionally shows makes him a forerunner of the modern Socialist lords. And his image lacks precision. Handel made no attempt to impose symmetry on the naturally formless personality depicted by the libretto. Caleb, being a patriarch, had the good fortune to be made into a dignified basso, while Achsah and Othniel are youthful lovers rather innocent of any deeper passion.
Handel went to work on the libretto with the same lack of real enthusiasm he displayed in the first act of Alexander Balus. The recitatives are uninspired routine, like those in Judas Maccabaeus, but this laissez aller is extended, as it is not in that work, to many of the choruses, and Handel depends a good deal on borrowings. But where there is a semblance of drama he musters all his power, and an undimmed power it was.
The libretto presents the story of the conquest of Canaan under Joshua with Caleb as chief of staff. Caleb’s daughter, Achsah, is betrothed to a young warrior named Othniel, but he has yet to prove that he is worthy of the prize. In this oratorio the ratio of solo to chorus is restored to almost normal proportions, and Joshua opens with a fine polyphonic piece (“Ye sons of Israel”) with elaborately refined motivic work. The solo numbers that follow are unimpressive, but the chorus “To long posterity we here record” once more rises above the average. The ensuing episode with the angelic messenger, “Awful, pleasing being, say,” is a little awkward, while “The Lord commands,” in which Joshua is designated to lead the Jews in battle, has a share of Anglican anthem solidity; therefore the love episode between Achsah and Othniel comes as a welcome relief in this act, which contains plenty of warlike noise but few inspired pages. As usual the love music is pastoral and charming with its “birds” and “limpid streams.” Even in the victory oratorios, whenever Handel turns to such intimate scenes, a delicate chamber-music style relieves the somewhat perfunctory bellicose setting.
The second act picks up noticeably, and we hear some sounds of a supreme and characteristic beauty. Now Joshua commands the storming of Jericho. Muffat’s Componimenti furnished the material for the march, but after that Handel takes charge, unmistakably and with a vengeance. “Glory to God” is one of his most powerful choruses—no wonder the walls of Jericho tumble. The middle section, “The nations tremble,” gave him opportunity for some grand descriptive music that deeply impressed Haydn when he heard Joshua in London in 1791. The following arias of Caleb and Achsah are not particularly moving, but the Passover feast is celebrated by a fine ostinato chorus, “Almighty ruler of the skies,” in Handel’s best form. As in Judas Maccabaeus, at this point there is a military reverse, the Jewish arms are defeated at Ai; we have to start all over again. But Handel rises to the occasion, the mourning chorus is a striking triumph over the agreeable pieties that reign in this oratorio; a fine piece in which acute emotional sensibility is matched by a poetical freshness of sympathy. The Jews take heart: “We with redoubled rage return.” It is a pity that the choragus who introduces these fine choruses should be such a self-important person as Joshua, who dwells on heavenly rhetoric and contents himself with a mere summary of the stirring actions he has set in motion.
Now the clanging of weapons and the hortatory tone are given a rest as Handel jettisons the heavy historical ballast he is compelled to drag along, to indulge in the gentle lyricism of young lovers. But Caleb soon warns that this is not the time for amorous dallying, and Othniel obediently turns to a higher moral sphere. His song encompasses all known and accepted virtues, but Handel’s music attenuates the homily. Though “Heroes, when with glory burning” is based on a conventional melody, it is a fine piece. The military music returns (this time it is taken from Riccardo I), but the finale is a matchless masterpiece. This is the famous scene where Joshua bids the sun and moon to stand still so that the battle will not have to be fought in darkness. The effect is marvelous, almost graphically representative, like the slow opening of a fan disclosing the landscape pattern upon it; the expression is concentrated, the picture almost impressionistic. Handel employs the whole store of his pictorial technique, but this is not “eye music”; the technique is used with incomparable felicity and the impression is completely aural. As so often with this composer, a single word suggestive of imagery unlocks his imagination. The exact balance between musical effect and exquisite scenic harmony, between conception and execution, is struck with perfect accuracy of touch and security of hand.
The third act opens with an anthem, “Hail mighty Joshua,” which though well set is not impressive, as in general in this act Handel again relapses into routine. But Caleb’s great song “Shall I in Mamre’s fertile plain” and its connected chorus are an incisive caesura which brightens the drabness with a clear note of poetry. Now it is found that still another victory is needed, and since Othniel’s status as a warrior must be raised so that he can claim Achsah’s hand, he is charged with the conquest of Debri, the city of the giants. Othniel is ready: “Place danger around me.” The piece is nice enough though it seems more concerned with the bride than with the fearful giants. This gives the chorus an opportunity to pray for the young warrior, which it does most impressively in “Father of mercy.” Particularly attractive is the fine antiphonal prayer with the choral sopranos acting as precentors. Achsah’s song “O had I Jubal’s lyre” is again a charmingly gliding piece—in general, elegance and poetic orchestration are not wanting in any of the victory oratorios after Judas Maccabaeus. This aria quotes materials from Handel’s earliest youth, but it is fresh and new even after half a century of repeated reworkings.
Othniel succeeds, of course, in conquering the giants, hence “See the conquering hero comes,” which was expressly composed for this spot, but which we were compelled to discuss when dealing with Judas Maccabaeus where it has been preserved for two hundred years. The final chorus offers the customary praise of Jehovah and its tonality of D is mandatory because of the trumpets. It is a short piece and what looks like a double fugue (at “the great Jehovah”) is not developed in earnest. It seems as if Handel got tired of the oratorio before the listener would have been likely to and merely coasted to the end on momentum. But Joshua, first performed in Covent Garden on March 9, 1748, with Galli, Casarini, Lowe, and Reinhold, was a great success, and remained so for some years. Although not one of the great oratorios, it deserves to be better known, for alongside the many routine pieces there are some that represent Handel at his best. The alto-soprano combination makes the pair of lovers a little abstract for modern audiences, but that could be remedied, and with some of the deadwood removed, the great pieces would easily carry Joshua.
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As WE LOOK BACK UPON this phase of Handel’s career we realize that considerable stress seems to have been placed on what should be a minor thread in his life work. He should not be represented here solely as the great-souled mouthpiece of freedom and patriotism but as an artist awakening from a brief creative slumber to reassert himself. His librettist misled him with books quite exceptionally unserviceable for dramatic purposes. Though at first they held a quality of delusive promise, soon we see the tendency to lose the reality of the experience in the embellishments of it. At this stage there is often more windy rhetoric than tempered steel in the writing, and the surface emotions of joy and elation that abound in Morell’s texts forced Handel to bow to a somewhat tortured respectability. Nor was the cumbrous movement of Morell’s lyrics suited to musical setting. Many of them make little pretense of being verse apart from being cut up into lines. Their gra
celess grace called forth in Handel a neat simplicity in the solo pieces, too neat to be expressive. There is a good deal in them that reminds us of the more formal aspects of opera. The airs may contain poetic ornament but they are not very often poetry. The “helmeted phrases” of Milton, which elicited such a bounty of great music, are missing in Morell’s vocabulary, and if he slips gleanings from Milton and Shakespeare into the body of his books, they merely sound an alien and puzzling note. Indeed, he saddled Handel with words that surely must have sounded ridiculous even then, although in many cases the composer somehow managed to overcome this handicap.102
On the other hand, the characterization of the great historical figures is, if not unconvincing, conspicuously bald in spite of the moral-religious significance read into them by some critics. These figures act and speak with high-sounding sentiments and almost exasperating complacence quite detached from the environment, which is often no more than an unconvincing backdrop to the story. The rush of events exceeded the activity of critical control, and borrowings are frequent. In most instances Handel retold the old musical stories gracefully but he did not reconceive them. We must not forget, though, that all these were pièces de circonstance, and since they were overcharged with the emotional atmosphere of the times, they have a typical quality which gives them an empirical significance and interest. That is, indeed, the only note of unity in these works, without which they would stumble. There were some acute observers who realized this at the time. The Reverend William Harris remarks in a letter that “had not the Duke carried his point triumphantly, the [Occasional] Oratorio could not have been brought out.” (Deutsch, p. 630.) Indeed, when we look at the ensemble of these four oratorios, we recall a statement made by Edmund Waller which, though coined in quick-witted self-defense, expresses a lesson applicable to this case. When asked by Charles II why the eulogy he wrote on Cromwell was superior to the poem addressed to the King on his return, Waller answered, “Sir, we poets never succeed so well in writing truth as in fiction.”
George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music Page 62