George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music

by Paul Henry Lang

  To be sure, some of the disadvantages of Baroque opera were still present: male roles assigned to female singers and an occasional castrato part. But on the whole freedom from the restrictive practices of the opera seria is manifest everywhere. The da capo aria begins to be displaced as early as Athalia, and in some of the middle-period oratorios it is sparingly used, though Handel returns to it whenever a work, such as Semele, is closer to opera. Even here he permitted himself “liberties” and “irregularities” such as he seldom used in opera arias. Ensembles, very rare beyond duets in the operas, are somewhat more frequent in the oratorios, and all of them are modern dramatic ensemble music of the first water. Even the duets are, as a rule, more dramatic in the oratorios than in the operas. They are often part of the action, whereas in the operas they are most of the time lyric-amorous episodes. It is remarkable that the instrumental pieces in the oratorios, the “symphonies,” are far more telling dramatically than in the operas. Again, this was due to the absence of traditional rules governing the employment of instrumental pieces in the oratorio; Handel could indulge his imagination to a degree not possible in the operas. No modern composer surpasses him when it comes to such pieces as the description of the lair of the God of Sleep in Semele or the magnificent “sunrise” pieces and other nature pictures.

  The older Handel becomes, the more he concentrates his efforts on the main characters in his dramas. There is a tendency to neglect the secondary figures and an unfortunate unconcern with post-dénouement matters. Time and again a magnificently taut and dramatically ever-growing third act will simply collapse after the hero’s fate has been decided. Occasionally Handel does not even bother to mop up; he simply goes through the motions. Once he has done with the unfolding drama, his inspiration seems to flag, and he merely relies on his vast experience and facility—if he does not borrow a final chorus from some other work. This lack of interest in anything coming after the dénouement is however not a symptom of his old age. It is already present in the first, the Italian, Acis and Galatea of 1708, where, after Acis dies singing a wondrous little aria, the inspiration halts and the experienced technician takes over. Lessing said that “once the tragedy is over, our compassion ceases,” but we think that Handel’s curious unconcern was largely due to his aversion to the reigning tradition of the fin felice, the happy ending, which by its nature imposed restrictions upon the humanity of the story.

  As we have remarked, it was in Handel’s grasp to establish English opera, but he failed to do so. It is almost impossible to ascertain what prevented him from taking the few remaining steps, though the cruel rejection of Semele and Hercules may have convinced him that bona fide opera in any form was unacceptable to the English public. Still, there can be no question that the oratorio materially advanced the cause of modern opera. Schering (Die Musik, 1937) shows fine historical and stylistic insight when he—alone among musicologists—considers Gluck’s endeavors to reform the music drama to have been judged onesidedly as the result of the literary influence of the Enlightenment. Calzabigi and others certainly had their share in this new dramaturgy, but the innate dramatic instincts of the musician are overlooked. Schering maintains that if one compares Theodora (1750) with Gluck’s Orfeo (1762) one will not hesitate to ascribe to Handel’s work everything—“and perhaps even more” —that has hitherto been attributed to the younger master. It is too bad that such perceptive thoughts by a great historian must be clothed in artificial patriotic garments. Schering goes out of his way to assure his compatriots that Handel’s reforms were the result of “a pronounced German spirituality.” No German spirituality is involved here, only the plasticity of ideas and the sound theatrical sense of a born dramatist who even in the stock phrases, nay even banalities, conveys warmth and expressivity. His powers of observation and his theatrical imagination were prominent from the very beginning; all he needed was to ask himself where and how beauty resides in the details. Long before Gluck, he was fully aware that certain theatrical elements serve to enhance the main features, that they place the essential in relief, and in his later oratorios he showed an increasing tendency to model in the round. When the handwriting appears on the wall in Belshazzar, the king’s fright, the general consternation, the sense of doom, are dealt with in a purely theatrical conception that owes little to either old opera or German spirituality. Handel’s dramatic instinct and imagination were closely allied with the practical care and savoir-faire of the expert performer. At the end of a work he did not inscribe the score with Soli Deo gloria, as Bach or Haydn would, but with the exact timing of the duration of the act.

  The mixture of strains in Handel’s music, the contrast between the sensitive grace of his intimate lyricism, the power of his dramatic scenes, and the epic grandeur of his anthems, may appear at first as something rhetorical and artificial. His style, because of its simplicity and “lack of problems,” is still often unfavorably compared to Bach’s. But once we penetrate a little deeper into it we realize that this music, like all great art, was the result of profoundly serious and exacting care, preparation, and organization. Simplicity and natural fluency can be very deceiving. Renan used to have a great reputation for the clarity and easy flow of his prose, which was held up as an example of a natural spontaneous faculty. Then a set of galley proofs was discovered mounted on wide sheets of paper, and the marginal corrections contained twice as many words as the original galleys. Yet the result was an admirably light and natural style that gives the appearance of simply flowing from the tap.

  Then there is the incredible speed with which Handel worked, reflecting, surely, the facility and power of the born improviser. There is no mistaking the exaltation he felt using this power; he usually composed in some excitement, becoming burningly energetic as he raced with his subject. However, as with Mozart and Haydn, two exceptionally rapid workers, the time needed to commit a composition to paper does not tell the whole story. These musicians composed “in their heads,” but they also made sketches and notes, Handel in this regard coming closer to Beethoven than to his 18th-century colleagues. Handel’s sketches approximate the sketchbooks of Beethoven, a notoriously worrisome composer. They disclose that, while by nature a spontaneous, even explosive, composer, Handel not infrequently struggled with his material, though not so violently as Beethoven. We know that inspiration does not give the artist leave to neglect the impeccable exercise of his craft, but there was more at work here: the intellectual respectability of manipulative skill, a Baroque trait very strong in Handel, as well as a love of the opportunities offered by the moment for instantaneous exploitation, which then necessitated revision of the original ideas. In this last respect Handel fundamentally differed from Bach, his melodies in particular often growing under our eyes. They can be full of contrast, of capricious metric and rhythmic asymmetry, and they are yet of one piece. The recognition of the germ of a movement or aria, the growth of the germ in the warmth of the imagination, its attraction to itself of sidelights and reflections, its miraculous expansion quickened with emotion—all this makes Handel’s style attractive and exciting. He could make interest beget interest, form reflect form, to create in the end virtually new types and genres.

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  WHENEVER WE are faced with music as far removed from us as Handel’s we must go back to the conventions, symbols, and principles of the age that produced that music. It is impossible to penetrate to the core of a world of art without knowing a good deal about the circumstances that produced and animated that art. Training in the understanding of such a musical style is still fairly rare today, even though Handel’s musical language should be accessible to the most untutored mind. Distinguished performing musicians of the older generation who are still entirely under the spell of the esthetics of the Romantic era fail to apply their intellect, as distinguished from their instinct, to re-creation, but there are also musical inhibitions to be overcome, and these concern the younger musicians. A sense for tonal logic, for the architectural, dramatic—and express
ivel —properties of a planned tonal order as opposed to piquant harmony is rarely present in musicians reared on post-Romantic and contemporary fare. Handel cannot be properly understood without such a feeling. Conductors are always ready to cut, shift, and rearrange portions of a Handel opera or oratorio, not realizing that they may inflict fatal blows not only to the structure of the work but to its dramatic and expressive qualities. But it is not alone feeling for long-range tonal connections and logic that is disappearing; the simple tonic-dominant relationship, the fundamental principle of “tension” that governed music for centuries, is about to depart and is undoubtedly meaningless to many young musicians. The same is true of the tension created by the leading tone, which for some time has freed itself from its traditional directional thrust. With understanding for all these elements absent or considerably weakened, it is difficult for a 20th-century listener to apprehend the infinite nuances based on tonal order and relationship. This is not to say that other musical means of creating cohesion, tension, and expression are not feasible or legitimate; but lack of tonal feeling places full enjoyment of the older style in jeopardy.

  Before we categorize, we should agree that construction and organization are the result of an inalienable human instinct, but we should also bear in mind that formal arrangement does not necessarily denote inner construction, and while construction is an intellectual act, most of the time it is also a matter of “feeling” and expression. “Expression” is, however, an equivocal notion, especially when applied to music, where representation and expression are traditionally blended. Even when the composer expresses the most personal feelings, he is still following a purposeful intellectual process and not simply surrendering to the surge of spontaneous—that is, uncontrolled—creative excitement. We certainly experience great music before we understand it, before a rational accounting takes place, but the ability to experience can be trained and vastly extended.

  This is especially true in the case of a composer like Handel, whose music is a treasure trove of elements strewn among the works of many masters in several nations. The most remarkable feature of this art, which he shares with such other universal masters as Lasso and Mozart, is that these combinations agree not only when the elements are compatible, but also when they are diametrically opposed. If we compare Handel’s music to Alessandro Scarlatti’s, which was one of Handel’s chief sources, his art does not appear simply as bel canto carried to an even higher sphere. True, the cast of the melody is even nobler and can become breathtakingly beautiful, but Handel conveys this Italian art as if filtered through the entirety of the expressive taste of European music. That is, what Handel gives us is not the original Italian music but a variant in which southern sensuousness is paired with northern solidity, while the wondrous harmony of the forms, which with the Italians is a natural consequence of their composing process, is subjected to a governing authority. In Italy, where the two Saxons, Handel and Hasse, were acclaimed with enthusiasm, it was already noticed that Handel’s music, while entirely within the Italian style and manner, had a stronger fibre than either Hasse’s or Italian music in general. Indeed, even during his most hectic periods, when speed was essential to support his tottering operatic enterprise, Handel seldom fell into the suave but somewhat flat Italian manner of Hasse, the celebrated champion of Neapolitan opera. It was the same with Handel’s counterpoint, which was supposed to have issued from the German cantor’s art. Handel, however, was not a cantor but a dramatist, for whom constant or indifferent use of polyphony, especially of “formal” or “strict” fugues, would diminish the dramatic quality; he therefore almost always blends homophony with polyphony even within the fugue, in a sort of improvisation that is altogether different from traditional German counterpoint. Perhaps the most interesting of these improvisatory creations are the quasi fugues which still cause discomfort to counterpoint teachers. A good example is “Thy right hand, o Lord,” in Israel in Egypt. It begins like a fugue, the tenor commences, the soprano answers, but soon the fugue goes every which way, with many points of imitation, and what we hear is an essentially free-ranging homophonic piece full of witty turns. Handel did not have a fugue in mind at all; he improvised, but while the spirit is improvisatory, the piece is firmly and neatly anchored. In general one might say that Handel turned away instinctively but also deliberately from the stress and strain of a complicated design, even though this should have been his natural inheritance from the German cantor’s art. What he retained from this inheritance was the sovereign command of counterpoint which he used in an entirely personal way. Handel shows a marked preference for designs into which happy thoughts that come in odd moments could be fitted.

  XXIV

  Handles melody, harmony, rhythm, and metre—The improvisatory element—Counterpoint—The fugue—Choral counterpoint—Other stylistic features—The recitative—DifEcuIt change from Italian to English recitative—The aria—The da capo principle—The concerted aria—Stylized aria types—Difference between oratorio and opera arias—The ensemble—Illustrative symbolism—Hermeneutics and Affektenlehre—Arguments for and against musical hermeneutics—Handel’s use of musical symbols—Handel and French music

  HANDEL, LIKE BACH, USED COUNTLESS TRADITIONAL contrapuntal subjects, formulas, themes, and motifs, but he also created melodies of his own that tower above the everyday stock of the musical craftsmen of his time. Bach, whose melodic gifts were extraordinary, nevertheless was happiest with motifs that lent themselves to imitative-ornamental procedure, to that marvelous interplay of contrapuntal parts that is the essence of the linear conception. As soon as understanding for this phenomenal art of musical design disappeared, Bach disappeared with it and had to be rediscovered three generations after his death. The generations represented by his sons could not “feel” contrapuntally and found such a texture lacking in expressiveness. The polyphonic composer exemplified by Bach knows no discrepancy between the means and his artistic will. He is so completely identified with his “instrument,” he thinks and invents so completely from the spirit of polyphony that his individual turns, themes, and motifs lend themselves naturally to contrapuntal elaboration. He is like the good chess player who always sees the whole board. When such a composer turns to a “melody,” a “tune,” it is likely to be a reduction and simplification of a many-voiced fabric into a dominant voice, the rest of it being absorbed in the accompaniment. Quite different is a melody that arises from a direct expression of feeling rather than from the manipulation of motifs.

  A contrapuntal subject or symphonic theme is not an independent, finished entity—it has only the capacity for development. It fulfills its mission and reaches its full significance after elaboration and development; in a word, it is an element in an organism. A true melody is final, unique, a closed entity which can be developed or changed only to a limited extent, and often not at all. Particular fugue themes and symphonic subjects have been shared by many great composers, but melodies cannot be shared; at times they are borrowed, but they retain their indi-dividuality. Such melodies come to us in a flowing, streaming force straight from the composer’s soul. Yet Handel’s great melodies, though soaring and sensuous, can have a complicated structure; their constituent members are often of unequal value and disregard symmetry, but they follow their own inner blueprint to form a perfectly concentrated musical organism. These melodies are ample in gesture and like to traverse various registers in swift succession (Examples 1, 2). Particularly characteristic of Handel are certain melodies whose opening strains start with such an immense gesture that it scarcely matters what follows. Often when such an idea occurs to Handel, he himself seems to “change the subject,” embarking on a quasi-improvised continuation in a different vein from the “head-motif or motto (Example 3). Yet even such melodies are of one piece, for this arch-improviser always kept his imagination in leash.

  Ex. 1 Belshazzar

  Ex. 2 Agrippina (solo cantata)

  The heroic-pathetic Handel must always be balanced by
the suave lyricist. Melodies like those in Examples 4 and 5 are not less characteristic than his choral thunder. Nor should we forget the pastoral melodies, whose charm, whether expressive of Mediterranean languor or the quiet of the English countryside, never fades (Examples 6, 7). Those who think of Handel only as Jupiter tonans should also look at the dainty grace of the tunes in his late operas, which obviously reflect the new Neapolitan style of the buffa. They give the impression of little intimacies recounted again and again with unwearied pleasure (Examples 8, 9). Against this we must cite Handel’s Baroque penchant towards a certain melodic ecstasy that can result in a diffuse and flowery idiom, the melody luxuriantly overgrown with coloraturas. The choral melodies have an axis around which the notes are grouped. Their inner construction is tight, full of tension, yet their quality is vocal no matter what their shape.

  Ex.3 Theodora

  Ex. 4 Solomon