The tale of Susanna and the Elders is one of the “additions” to the Book of Daniel. The legend, placed in the early days of the Captivity, relates the familiar story of Susanna, the beautiful, pious, and chaste wife of Joachim, who was surprised bathing in her garden by two old men, who were judges. “Inflam’d by lust” they made immoral advances, and when indignantly rejected, they spitefully had Susanna condemned by falsely charging adultery. She was about to be executed when Daniel, then a young man, by skilful cross-examination of the accusers proved the falsity of the charges. This is clearly a folk tale adapted to a specific milieu, and it must be much older than the scriptural version, which is placed by modern scholars long after the Captivity. The legend enjoyed considerable popularity—as a good tale would—and was subjected to many interpretations. During the Renaissance both painters and musicians favored it as a theme; Susanne un jour was among the most popular of chanson texts and tunes. Kenneth Levy, in his fine study in Annales Musicologiques I, mentions thirty-eight vocal settings between 1548 and 1642. It is perhaps of some importance to note that Susanne un jour originated as a “spiritual chanson”; Levy describes it as a poem intended for devotional use among Protestants. In the Catholic lands it became a decidedly secular piece, but the Huguenots’ conception was readily echoed by English Protestants, though the rich, disarming humanity of Handel’s approach to the story offers a subtle but definite shift of emphasis.
The “oratorio,” a combination of abandon and economy of means, and demonstrating the alert radiance of a new simplicity, has scenes that recall the vivacity of miniatures in an illuminated manuscript. Regrettably, the anonymous author of the libretto, probably the same person who supplied the book for Solomon, once more did Handel a disservice. His exposition presents divagations that have no connection with the core of the drama, and the gigantic choruses in these scenes do not suit the intimacy of the work. Indeed, this tone is ill mated to the manifestations of the spiritual as well as of the amorous scenes. It gives an excuse for saying that the librettist’s belief in Jehovah and in the supremacy of Heaven is merely decorative. Handel summoned his mighty thunder in the choruses and all his sensuous suavity in the love scenes. Each of these two extremes is magnificent, the élan of some of the choruses is sweeping, but the shadow of these great choral friezes lingers around and blankets some of the delectable rural badinage. The trouble was of course that since Susanna was virtually an opera, it was difficult for Handel to find adequate scope for his popular trump card, the chorus. Not until we get to the court scene is the role of the chorus fully motivated. The dramaturgical mistake of forcing the grand ceremonial style upon an intimate drama is only compounded by the majesty and power of a number of these choruses; the very first of them could stand in the greatest of Handel’s choral dramas and still rise above its surroundings. The presence of these interpolated choruses was bound to create confusion in the minds of those who are constantly on the lookout for moral-religious issues. To them—as to the librettist—an oratorio was unthinkable without a chorus of Israelites mourning, girding for battle, praising Jehovah, expressing victory or indignation. The Hellenic mould did not suit Susanna either.
But the core of Susanna is intact. Where there is real dramatic conflict and action, the growth, the fragility, the sprightly movement as well as the exquisite nature pictures of the great master are all there. The dramatist’s fidelity to character and the poetical humanity with which he invests his figures give such scenes a rare integrity of emotion. We feel increasingly the precariousness of innocence until inevitably the crisis comes. In these scenes there is neither roughness nor loose ends. Handel is preoccupied with creating a musical language that really has the stress and shape of what he feels. The comic touch is subtly present in the unmistakable travesty of such well-known types as the rage and trumpet arias. Regarded in this spirit, and with a realization of the extraneous nature of the “religious” choruses, Susanna becomes no less remarkable though considerably less edifying. However, when the play turns from internal conflict to objective commentaries, the drama can easily collapse, for the anchor is not strong enough to hold the design together.
Susanna’s role is winning for the individuality of her characterization and the climactic effect of her vindication, but even more because her inner vision, penetratingly clear, is translated into musical poetry. Her innocence and pining for her absent husband show her a gentle, accepting, and impressionable creature, but when wronged her steadfastness makes her charm come out even more freshly without sticking a single romantic-sentimental plum in her hat. Her role confirms our belief that the anonymous librettist could not have been a divine like Morell, or if so, he was an unusual one, because Susanna is gloriously aware of the facts of life. This “oratorio” is full of what the moralists called carnal love, portrayed without inhibition, though very properly within the frame of wedded bliss. Thus Handel was well served by the book, and from this point of view Susanna is an unclouded masterpiece. Susanna’s Attendant (the old operatic confidante) also turns in a haunting scene, but husband Joachim is clearly an accessory; a loving husband, yes, but not a very interesting person. He is one who, despite qualities that are not unattractive, is nevertheless destitute of any real strength of character. The two Elders are superbly characterized. The first one, the tenor, may be a lecher, but he also has a genuine horror about a passion unseemly to a man of his age. The librettist gave him a large selection of expressive metaphors—“raging fire,” “purple torrents,” “burning smart,” and so on, all of which were welcome to Handel’s pictorial imagination. But, as on other occasions, what he made of the character differs from the librettist’s intentions: this one shows an emotional instability restrained by a form of urbanity. The Second Elder, the bass, has no such inhibitions; he is after his quarry, impatient, with an air of splenetic repression about him. For once the patriarch, Susanna’s father, is not a warmly dignified old man. Handel gave Chelsias some very good music to sing, but his person remains floridly ceremonious in speech and gesture and in the end a bore. Eventually Handel threw him out of the cast, and his absence is not even noticed. Daniel, the future prophet, may be an excellent lawyer, but he is the type whom only some transient passion can illuminate. He has wit of the legal variety and, if Susanna were rightly presented on the stage, would have theatrical liveliness, but his personal character is hinted at, not established. Handel did not bother to give it imaginative expression.
After an excellent overture, Handel immediately gives our heartstrings a mighty pull: “How long, o Lord, shall Israel groan?” is a great choral passacaglia in Handel’s weightiest manner. Alas, this glorious lament on the plight of Israel is in no way connected with the subject of the drama, and Handel, unable to make a connection with the following scenes, simply drops the tone, abruptly turning to the delights of marriage. The music in this group of songs, consisting of a bouquet of da capo arias and one duet, flows most invitingly and the pieces are daintily composed, but they have charm rather than a deeply clarifying passion. They have a decided folksong quality, eschewing counterpoint even in the duet. The outstanding number is Susanna’s “Would custom bid the melting fair,” a dulcet, simple song. Love has a poignant sweetness and the young life pushes aside the old. Chelsias supplies two seriously worked contrapuntal pieces in which voice and strings are carefully integrated. “Who fears the Lord may dare all foes” reminds us of the closely imitated instrumental pieces of the North German composers. Though the air is too long, and the old man’s pious meanderings do not contribute anything to the drama, this is good music. Chelsias’s other song, “Peace, crown’d with roses,” a short, dark-colored piece, is also attractive. A reversion towards old ways of thinking and feeling, these songs are not the less impressive for that. Unfortunately, from every other point of view they are expendable. Susanna’s “Without the swain’s assiduous care” also abandons the folk tone; the almost galant piece has an engagingly elaborate accompaniment. Joachim’s simile aria, “Th
e parent bird in search of food,” offers a nice blend of folksong-like simplicity with galant elegance; the key of F-sharp minor does give it, though, a slight tension.
Susanna, left alone, is invaded by doubts and forebodings of coming evil. She asks in an accompanied recitative, “What is this weight that in my bosom lies?” The answer almost gives away what is to come as the librettist makes her divine premature death, threatened innocence, and “falling without a crime,” but Handel rises to the occasion. “Bending to the throne of glory” is a moving little ballad, sighing in gently tearful suspensions. The chorus’s “Virtue shall never long be oppressed” retains this mood. This is a fine madrigal with elaborate concerted accompaniment whose thematic subject gradually infiltrates the vocal parts. Though somewhat extraneous to the play, it is a rewarding composition.
The First Elder appears, singing a dramatic accompanied recitative, “Tyrannic love.” The rapid change of tonalities depicts his worry about the “purple torrents” that rage in his bosom. As contrast to the agitated recitative, his “Ye verdant hills, ye balmy vales, bear witness to my pain” is a simple strophic song that recalls the ballad opera. The Second Elder joins his colleague, and the two engage in a recitative, conversing like two judges discussing the day’s legal events. The First Elder politely inquires whether it was a difficult case that makes the other seem so miserable, but soon they discover that both of them are under Susanna’s “magick spell.” The Second Elder now launches into an impetuous air, “The oak that for a thousand years withstood the tempest,” another simile aria, but this time patently a buffo piece, a sly travesty on the rage aria and very characteristic of the man. Handel interrupts the running coloratura of the vocal part with some ungainly skips made very funny by the bassoons playing colla parte. The First Elder is more smitten than ever, the Second, observant and spoiling for action, spots Susanna on her way to the garden. The two decide on an ambush: “await our time, then rush upon the fair, force her to bliss, and cure our wild despair.” The First Elder now sings to himself as if to bolster his courage, “When the trumpet sounds to arms.” Handel avoided the obvious; instead of writing the customary aria with an obbligato trumpet, he only conjures up the instrument. The mock bravery is very entertaining as Handel sharpens the travesty by surrounding the trumpet-like vocal line with capricious runs and rhythms in the violins. At the end of the first act Handel again returns to the grand style of the opening. “Righteous Heaven” and the immense fugue “Tremble guilt” threaten to obliterate everything that took place before. These two choruses belong among the greatest of Handel’s many great ones, but it is difficult to account for them in their surroundings. Incidentally, here Handel once more remembered Erba and his Magnificat, but he changed the small coins into large banknotes.
The second act opens with Joachim who, away from home, reminisces; partir, c’est toujours mourir un peu. “On fair Euphrates’ verdant side” is a pleasant pastoral air with attractive accompaniment, but Joachim still does not emerge as a positive personality. The next scenes constitute a dramatically tight, well-constructed whole. Susanna, her “spirits faint beneath the burning heat,” wishes for the cool shade of the tall trees and the refreshment of the “swiftly trickling fountain.” Her song “Crystal streams in murmur flowing” is one of Handel’s most entrancing pastorals. The strings murmur delectably as they are alluringly intertwined with the voice, imitation and complementary rhythms and phrases preventing any check in the gently undulating motion. This highly sophisticated pastoral is followed by a simple strophic song. Susanna, longing for her husband, asks her Attendant to sing her the song Joachim wooed her with. This sort of thing is an old operatic recipe that never fails if the music is good; “Ask if yon damask rose” is a prizewinner. This English song is another little ballad, ineffable in its moving simplicity. Susanna’s companion understands her mistress’s frame of mind and sings her another song, this time about her own long departed lover: “Beneath the cypress’ gloomy shade.” The unadorned siciliana of sixteen measures sings of love that seems so far away as never to have been, yet she dreams of her sorrow, which will never altogether pass.
Presently Susanna sends her away to fetch the ointments while she bathes in the pool. The two Elders see their opportunity and advance, to Susanna’s consternation. The First Elder, even though seeing her in the nude, tries his luck with gentlemanly courtesy; “Blooming as the face of spring” is a suave air, and his first request is modest—he wants only a smile. Not so the excitable Second Elder, who insists that his passion is strong as the torrent, which Handel renders in a blustery “torrential” buffo aria. But in the middle portion there is an undertone of real menace as he bursts out “then yield to entreaty, you proud fair,” his voice leaping up the interval of a twelfth. Susanna, who first thought that this was a crude joke, is now enraged and denounces the “deceitful wolves.” In the ensuing trio, one of the best and brightest specimens of Handel’s wit and skill in characterization, each protagonist is provided with his own music and special accompaniment. Susanna is accompanied by delicate imitation, the First Elder’s song calls for solemn chords (he is still comme il faut), but the Second Elder sings in unison with the strings in the buffo patter manner. Then Handel combines all three with a skill not to be found that side of Mozart. Seeing that they are defeated, the old men raise an alarm, calling for witnesses to come and see the adultress whose lover, they announce, had just escaped. They want her tried on the spot.
Susanna summons courage to deal with the situation: “If guiltless blood be your intent” dispenses with ritornel and motto, starting directly as the song is directly addressed to the heart. The flower-like melody, rising and falling, is tender, and though Handel unfolds it effortlessly, a certain tension is maintained by an insistent rhythmic pattern in the accompaniment. Remarkable dramatic use is made of the da capo principle as in the middle section Susanna falters, only to regain her resolve in the reprise. Now the chorus enters with perfect naturalness; its comment, “Let justice reign,” is relevant to the action. The piece is distinguished by smooth counterpoint freely exchanged between the voices and the instruments. Needless to say, all these scenes are so theatrically conceived that in the concert hall their effect is considerably diminished.
Joachim, pondering the message he received, cannot believe that his wife should be unfaithful; he must hasten home to stand by her. “On the rapid whirlwind’s wing” is another fine nature piece. All Handel needed was the word “whirlwind”—the violins whistle with abandon not only in the elaborate ritornel but throughout the song. It is a stunning virtuoso piece. The act-ending chorus begins with a simple but effective homophonic declamation that completely ignores the stilted—almost legal—tone of the text. The following fugue, though skilfully worked out, fails to impress except for its craftsmanship. We notice, as we have in some of the other choruses, that this counterpoint has something curious and old-fashioned about it. It is perfectly singable, and the choral setting is idiomatic and euphonious, yet this fugue theme is instrumental, like an organ fugue’s, as its elaboration is also organ-like. This was of course a Baroque phenomenon, the universally adaptable musical substance, but Handel seldom used it to such an extent in a choral fugue.
The scene in the third act is the courtroom after the verdict has been pronounced. The chorus, its role again proper and plausible, announces that “The cause is decided.” There is something decisive and final in the ritornel; the violins stubbornly repeat a running figure while the oboes play an almost chorale-like solemn tune. The tone is conversational, depicting the crowd in the courtroom discussing the verdict, but every once in a while all of them dramatically unite in a shout: “Susanna is guilty, Susanna must bleed.” Handel was constantly incommoded by the exceptionally silly and stuffy lyrics, but almost always found a way to overcome them. Susanna’s largo air “Faith displays her rosy wing” is a good example of this. Handel starts the magnificent F minor recitative-arioso with a grave ritornel but does not wait unt
il it is finished; Susanna’s sad but proud song, protesting that “innocence shall never fear,” begins in the third measure, rising out of the dark background independently. This anguished yet composed woman is a sister to Theodora, Handel’s only martyred heroine. The song moves even one of the Elders, the first one, who tends to be sentimental: “Round thy urn my tears shall flow” expresses a certain sympathy for the doomed Susanna. But the music, to quote a famous statement of Gluck, “does not lie.” Handel made the air into a psychological study, modern, sophisticated, and pantomimic. The plaintive and pleasantly melancholy air has the appearance of a trim and tidy song, but no sentence is ended as its beginning would lead one to expect. Handel uses deceptive cadences, internal repeats that upset the symmetry, sudden tiny coloraturas, and other unexpected turns to prevent a clear-cut musical statement. The rascally Elder is a hypocrite who covers his true feelings with pretended sympathy. Susanna knows it: “’Tis thus the crocodile his grief displays.” She charges those “who see me over the verge of life” to tell her husband about her innocence, but the Second Elder is getting impatient: “The sentence now is past, the wretched convey to instant death.”
George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music Page 65