As can be seen, the first and third acts offer no drama whatever, but the judgment scene in the second act is flesh-and-blood drama which, though episodic, is actually the rallying point for everything happening before and after. There are several disparate elements in this work, each of which is dropped after its exposition: conjugal bliss, kingly wisdom and justice, and the eulogy of a great and well-administered realm. Aware of this, the librettist’s solution is not without merit—he bases each act upon one of these elements. At that, it is quite possible that, given its immediate purpose, there was no intention of making this oratorio a through-composed drama. By the some token, Handel was somewhat hampered by the restricted degree of characterization such unconnected acts offered. The Levite is virtually a piece of decor, but even Zadok, the high priest, is too distant; the cuts that will have to be made in performances should come largely at their expense. But even the principal figures leave something to be desired, though their music is consistently admirable. Since Handel had the gift of evoking personality at will, one wonders why Solomon, his Queen, and Nicaule, Queen of Sheba, were not drawn with a sharper stylus. Perhaps a eulogy demands more universal than particular traits; indeed Handel seldom lets us forget the symbol of the office or position held by these figures. He compensates with the choruses—linear eloquence has its own charm—and with a poetically powerful thread that goes through the entire work: the evocation of nature. He could almost always respond with a fresh immediacy to the enchantment of nature, or conceive out of the depth of his own creative mind a glittering musical landscape.
Solomon keeps a measured, unhurried stride throughout the narrative, but he can forget that he is a mighty ruler and dwell on the beauties of his domain, and can turn with ardor to his young wife. Hers is the eloquence of simple and untutored passion; she is prettily rapturous and pleasantly sensuous. It is in the characterization of the two harlots that Handel fully exerted his powers of representation. Again, one is inclined to believe that he felt free to do so because they are an accessory to the eulogy and thus true portraits can be drawn. The distribution of the singing roles is most peculiar in Solomon: the title role is given to a female mezzo soprano, all four of the other women are sopranos, Zadok is a tenor, and the insignificant Levite a bass. Such a preponderance of high voices we have not encountered since some of the operas. Herbage makes the plausible guess that “Handel seemed temporarily to lose faith in the tenor voice for his leading role.” It is quite possible that in his eagerness to rid himself of the helmeted heroes he retired the Heldentenor. And if he had tired of the tenor heroics, is not there a sly intention in making Zadok, the high priest, a dignified and official professional, a tenor? Winton Dean speculates that Handel may have assigned Solomon’s role to a female voice to emphasize the symbolic, “unnaturalistic” portrait of the King, adding that “it is possible however that this concentration on the female voice was intended to balance the weight of the double choruses.” But whatever the original reasons, they no longer have any validity for us; a baritone can easily sing Solomon’s part in his own range. The resultant masculine quality immeasurably enhances the oratorio’s effectiveness for modern audiences.
Solomon contains some of Handel’s grandest choruses; as in Israel in Egypt, they are the chief glories of the work. Handel sets them in five and eight parts, the latter predominating, sumptuous and rich. After a fine overture the oratorio opens with one of those scenes of rejoicing that Handel almost always manages to make impressive or at least interesting; “Your harps and cymbals sound” is no exception. The piece is one of the rare instances where Handel falls back on the cantor’s art of his youth: it has a sort of cantus-firmus construction with a royal scope. This is not a chorale elaboration; there is nothing “strict” about the manipulation of the tune, but the rocklike solemnity this style so well suggests is most appropriate for the occasion. The following chorus, “With pious heart and holy tongue,” separated from the first by an air of the Levite, is even more splendid. Over the steadily pulsating string accompaniment in eighth notes, the simple choral declamation in halves creates the feeling of a great hymn. The second part then becomes polyphonic, close imitation alternating with antiphonal passages. There is something insistent in this piece; “till distant nations catch the song” is stubbornly repeated, always ending in a resounding homophonic passage on “and glow with holy flame.”
Solomon appears, singing an exceptionally fine accompanied recitative-arioso, with a type of accompaniment that shows a new finesse in Handel’s orchestral art. By dividing the violas, Handel obtains a five-part string choir, to which he adds two obbligato bassoons. The descending figurations of the bassoons render this a startlingly modern operatic scene. In contradistinction, Zadok’s air “Sacred raptures cheer my breast” is a somewhat old-fashioned and extended piece that would match the insubstantial loquacity of this worthy were it not for the admirably flowing melody over a marchlike accompaniment, which suggests a subtle tongue-in-cheek intention. The concerted element is very skilfully meshed with the vocal part. Handel was obviously bored with the high priest, giving him only one other good song. The next chorus is again a marvel. “Throughout the land Jehovah’s praise” is a fugue, then again it is not, because there is nothing of that sort in any rule book. Beginning in four parts, it widens into eight, the motet-like polyphony yielding to majestic chords which on “full power” indeed exhale impressive power. The tone changes altogether in Solomon’s air “What though I trace each herb,” the first of the nature pieces. The tune is glorious and the garlands of the gently intertwining violins convey the peace of the countryside. The da capo is perhaps a trifle formal, but we are listening to a genre piece, not to an aria di carattere. To those who see in Solomon a religious work, this pantheism is a bit disturbing, but not nearly as much so as the scene that follows.
The Queen begins her air, “Bless’d the day when first my eyes saw the wisest of the wise,” which is fine and proper, but she follows this with “Bless’d the day when I was led to ascend the nuptial bed,” which was found embarrassing by the Victorians in a “sacred oratorio.” The charmingly uninhibited Queen now goes to the superlative: “But completely bless’d the day, on my bosom as he lay,” which prompted the uneasy Romantic editors of the score to exercise strict censorship. Sex, even when sanctioned by holy matrimony, does not belong in an oratorio, even though the freshness of this music and the delightful accompaniment create a tone of frank innocence. Now the amorous couple sing a bewitching duet, “Welcome as the dawn of day,” one of those melodies that stay forever with us.106 Zadok enters to offer moral advice about faith and truth dragged in by the librettist quite irrelevantly. The royal pair pays little attention to it, and the King’s “Haste to the cedar grove” is answered by the Queen: “With thee th’ unsheltered moor I’d tread.” The music continues to be utterly charming, and its youthful grace is enhanced by a borrowing from an Italian cantata from Handel’s own youth. This cluster of love songs is capped by a chorus, “May no rash intruder disturb their soft hours,” better known as the “Nightingale Chorus.” Its chaste lines are filled with tenderness, the perfect union of sentiment, design, and pictorial detail making this, perhaps the finest nature scene ever rendered in music, into an old Dutch landscape painting come to life.
This group of pieces forms a pastoral-amorous interlude, a picture rather than a story. Its purpose seems to have been to extol conjugal love after established religion had been extolled in the previous numbers. That Handel poured into them some of his loveliest music does not change the episodic nature of the entire scene, which of course should not discomfort us. To some of the biographers and critics it was nevertheless discomforting, though the musicians among them could not have remained insensible to such gems.
Now, to quote Keats, “we take but three steps from feather to iron.” The second act opens with a tremendous chorus. It is not a choral aria, like the Nightingale Chorus, but a mighty rondo-fugue in which the introduction returns
as a refrain. “From the censer curling rise grateful incense” is in Handel’s amplest anthem style, exhibiting his choral versatility at the other extreme. The piece is ceremonial-documentary, it aims not to move but to overwhelm, yet there is a ponderously playful element in the fugue theme, which Handel apparently toyed with for his own pleasure. Solomon’s aria returns to the more intimate tone of his nature scenes, though “When the sun over yonder hills pours tides” does not reach the exquisite poetry of “What though I trace.” Sung by a woman, as originally written, this is no more than a well-designed number, but a male voice gives it nobility of utterance. The Levite offers a bass aria that is altogether impersonal to the extent that some of it sounds like a two-part invention, but presently everything changes. To demonstrate the wisdom and discernment of the King, a case history is presented. This is not at all badly fitted into the general scheme, and though also episodic like the love scenes, inasmuch as it has no bearing on what follows in the oratorio, everyone, with the exception of Sir Thomas Beecham, has seen in it the dramatic core of the oratorio.
The two harlots appear before the King to seek justice. Handel here departs from the tradition that places ensembles at the culmination of dramatic plots and begins the scene with a trio, the dramatic pace controlled with admirable insight into human nature. The First Harlot, who is the true mother, begins in F-sharp minor with a magnificently pathetic and romantic song. What seems to be an aria changes into a duet when the Second Harlot, to prevent her rival’s plea from affecting the King, interjects that “false is all her melting tale.” When the King sees that this is going to be an altercation, he too joins the ensemble with a solemn warning that “Justice holds the lifted scale.” The dramatic-musical situation is one of great poignancy as the three present their individual thoughts simultaneously. The first woman, forlorn and distressed, yet with the nobility of a loving mother, sings haltingly, while the second’s fluent Neapolitan patter betrays her falseness. The King’s reiterated invocation of Justice and her lifted scale—really an ostinato—provides the anchor for the shifting intensity of the emotions. As the others drop out, the true mother is left alone to end the beautifully constructed piece as she began it, claiming “my cause is just.” The characterization is sharp, brittle, and precise, drawn with an unsparing hand. The true mother is a heartbreaking figure, but just as the false mother is mercilessly exposed for what she is, the King appears a trifle pompous. In the preceding recitative the librettist paints royal integrity a bit too thickly. The King, consenting to hear the litigants, says: “Admit them straight; for when we mount the throne, our hours are all the people’s, not our own.” This fits the description neither of the absolutist in Jerusalem nor of the constitutionalist in London, and Handel, quite knowledgeable in such matters, seems to be having a little private fun at the expense of this self-negating king.
Solomon now pronounces his celebrated verdict which the Second Harlot hastily accepts. The accompaniment, which grins like a gargoyle, well illustrates the emptiness of her soul, and the frivolous convolutions of the bass effectively contradict her concurrence, “Thy sentence, great King, is prudent and wise.” The true mother, stricken with fear for her offspring, offers to give up the child rather than see it killed. The words are trying—“Can I see my infant gored?”—but Handel simply breaks through the librettist’s snare and gives us a deeply felt and pondered piece, a remarkable dramatic juxtaposition of grief and beauty, shading from unanalytical emotion to a sense of illumination. The composer’s solicitude for a proper dramatic presentation of this song is plain from the detailed instructions he gives for the performers in the score; here he interrupts the largo aria with “adagio,” there he follows it with “risoluto.” The two women never utter a sound that is not characteristic of their diametrically opposed personalities.
Solomon, in an accompanied recitative that begins in B-flat and ends in G-sharp, solemnly pronounces sentence. Turning to the second woman, telling her that she “must be a stranger to a mother’s name,” he orders her out of sight. (With a good English sense for jurisprudence, the librettist has the King admonish her to refrain from any “further claim.”) Then Solomon restores the infant to its rightful mother, who sings a duet with the King (“Thrice blessed be the King”). The deceptively easy-flowing piece has very attractive canonic passages.
The following chorus, “from the east unto the west,” is a splendid eight-voiced composition with elaborate concerted parts for the orchestra. Distinctly popular in tone and syllabic in construction, this chorus, the quintessence of ceremonial choral art, would surely warm the heart of any king “so worthy of a throne.” It also warms Zadok’s, who “from morn to eve could enraptur’d sing the various virtues of our happy king.” Fortunately, he selects an unsacerdotal mood for his effusions, a simile aria that refers to the stately palm tree. At this point, instead of the expected act-ending paean, we are treated to a far more delectable pastoral than the priest’s. The true mother, who has somehow remained on the scene, sings a song that resembles the Pastoral Symphony in Messiah. But now the chorus takes over with an appropriately resounding piece, “Swell, swell the full chorus of Solomon’s praise,” which does justice to the text.
With the third act a new scheme is presented. Except for Solomon and the priest, the protagonists of the first two acts are omitted as a new figure, Nicaule, Queen of Sheba appears. If there ever was a “basic religious idea” in this oratorio, its last vestiges are now abandoned, for the third act is an entertainment within an entertainment, an almost self-contained masque whose motif we might call épater la reine. A bustling sinfonia introduces Sheba, whose entrance aria no critic seems to like. While it is perhaps not particularly distinguished, the air has a fluently vocal melody and a nice concerted accompaniment. “Ev’ry sight these eyes behold” is a gavotte sung by a Purcellian English princess. Now the masque commences. Solomon’s plan is to show the Queen the four temperaments as sung by his singers led by the King as the precentor. What follows is unmistakably English theatre music; Handel enriched the traditional genre with unflaggingly magnificent music. The first piece of the masque is a miniature Cecilian ode: “Music, spread thy voice around.” The delightful madrigal is in five parts, dotted with antiphonal passages. It is indebted to one of Steffani’s motets, but the exploitation of the germinal idea is altogether Handelian. The King then commands the martial mood. “Shake the dome and pierce the sky,” a double chorus, is in Handel’s full-dress manner, with all decorations and sashes worn. The thrilling piece does not really end; Handel wants to sharpen the contrast with the next number, which is introduced by a tiny recitative so as not to dull the exhilarating effect of the preceding dynamic chorus. “Draw the tear from hopeless love,” one of Handel’s greatest choruses, speaks of love but also of “death and wild despair,” a veritable Tod und Verzweiflung, creating a mysterious hush of awe and fear. As the tenors’ anguished cry wanders through all the parts we suddenly have the feeling of listening to Passion music. The fourth temperament is represented by “Thus rolling surges rise,” a charming madrigal, a Baroque La Mer with its airy and elegant counterpoint. This is the happy ending of the masque and of the command performance.
With the end comes, unfortunately, an end in Handel’s interest in what remains to be done—we are witnessing his typical post-dénouement indifference. But he still has a few tricks up his sleeve. Sheba gives her thanks for the entertainment, and the Levite pronounces both host and guest covered with eternal glory; a poor piece that is expendable. Zadok also returns, this time with a good air. “Golden columns” has a brilliant, almost jaunty, concerted accompaniment that really makes the piece. The following chorus, “Praise the Lord with harp and tongue,” is not on the same level with the great choruses but it is a massive and effective anthem, its resilience compensating for its thinness in ideas. Dean’s recommendation that this Hallelujah type of chorus should be shifted to the end is well taken. Schering thought that at “God alone is just” Handel borro
wed from the Sanctus of Luther’s Deutsche Messe. Whether or not this is so—the resemblance is tenuous—it is immaterial; the piece is in the old “Jehovah with thunder arm’d” style that is particularly English no matter whence its ingredients.
Of the rest only one number deserves particular attention: Sheba’s superb farewell song, “Will the sun forget to streak.” Here Handel once more rises to the summit as the intensity of the writing is sublimated in the ordered beauty of the form. This scene where the Queen of Sheba takes leave after having been shown the wonders, beauties, and riches of the land, having admired the piety of Zadok and the people, and above all the wisdom and statesmanship of Solomon, is an exact prefiguration of a visit of the present reigning British sovereign to one of her dominions. It is official, decorous, nothing untoward is permitted to intrude, and everything is on a high and noble tone. Yet it is real and heartwarming. It is this quality that makes Solomon so English, for in no other country do the people feel the same way about the monarchy. The following duet between the King and Sheba has none of this magic, and the final chorus is notable more for carrying power than for musical substance.
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THE DIVERSITY OF mood and content in Solomon and Susanna, composed as a pair, is as remarkable as the consistent creative and technical capacity they reveal. Susanna, which no longer runs in Hebrew-Hellenic grooves, is so difficult to fit into any survey of Handel’s oratorios that it is often allowed to drop out of the picture altogether. With this work, Handel commits himself to a tone that rings oddly against the works immediately preceding it, those that insured his final triumph. Susanna seems to show the after-effects of transplantation into a richer soil, with some consequent rankness of growth. Paradoxical as it may seem, this rankness is manifested in the choruses. Susanna seems so remote in subject matter, sentiment, and manner from nearly everything else Handel composed (except for some of the late operas) that even his most sympathetic critics have been baffled by it and a diligent search was instituted to find the antecedents. But it is useless to seek such antecedents in the old Italian oratorio; Susanna has no ancestors, it is a Handelian creation, albeit a very particular one, more a chamber opera than an oratorio. It is in effect an opera, with the largest number of da capo arias in any of the oratorios, and it has nothing whatever to do with the biblical locale. The tunes are delightfully light, in the English folksong vein which is not at all veiled by the equally pronounced elegance of the setting. The music owes a great deal to the rhythm and cadence of the language and to the kind of tunes Handel heard around him; several authors rightfully point to Arne’s influence. Though Susanna has delightful touches of unobtrusive humor, and scenes drawn with a light and whimsical hand, neither can we simply call it a comic opera. Many critics have been puzzled: is Susanna an oratorio, an opera, or perhaps a mystery play? What could have prompted Handel to set to music such a tale? The strait-laced were shocked by some of the scenes, and even to many others the oratorio’s subject matter was of doubtful character. They should have remembered what Maitland said: “Sin in some shape or other is the great staple of history and the sole subject of law.”
George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music Page 64