George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music

by Paul Henry Lang

  There are a number of other concertos we might call unattached, because they do not belong to any collection; since, however, they are little more than echoes of things Handel had done before, or were incorporated in other works such as the Water Music and the Royal Fireworks Music and became known as integral parts of these compositions, we shall not discuss them. Brief mention should be made of the double concertos (a due cori). In reality there are three “choirs,” two for winds and one for strings. The first of these works, in B-flat, contains transcriptions from Messiah, but the arrangement is so skilful that the piece is well worth performing. The second, in F, is even more richly orchestrated, with oboes, bassoons, and horns in addition to the strings. This is a large work, with many of its nine movements of unusual scope. The brilliance of the concerto is enhanced by the sonorous handling of the wind and string choirs, here antiphonal, there united in massive tuttis. The variety of the movements is also considerable. The other large-scale orchestral works, the Water Music and the Royal Fireworks Music, have been discussed above, pages 142 and 483.

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  THE ONLY species of keyboard and concerted music cultivated by Handel after the 1730s was the organ concerto, which he continued to produce until the end of his creative career, the last work of this kind being dated by the composer January 4, 1757.148 Like the English oratorios, these concertos represent an original genre, the like of which could be found in neither Italy nor Germany. Its birth was no doubt occasioned by the unique combination of composer, performer, and impresario in one. Handel was famous for his virtuosity on the keyboard, and his legendary ability to improvise amazed Mattheson even after hearing him “hundreds of times.” The impresario took cognizance of this asset, employing it as an added attraction by performing between the acts of oratorios. Since the orchestra was there, sitting and waiting for the oratorio to resume, the idea of combining organ with orchestra must have occurred quite naturally.

  The first collection of these concertos, the title carefully worded “for Harpsichord or Organ,” was published by Walsh in 1738 as Opus 4. Two years later another set of six concertos was issued, without opus number; the third half dozen (Opus 7) however, was not printed until 1760, after Handel’s death. While the reference to “harpsichord or organ” served business purposes, the publisher was not stretching a point. These concertos can be played on the harpsichord without any alteration, because the English organ in Handel’s time was not that “most excellent—large —plump—lusty—full-speaking” instrument Thomas Mace mentions in his Musick’s Monument but a one-manual positive without pedal board. It was especially suited for solo playing, or for accompanying a chorus, and it was part of the pit orchestra. Some of these small, bright instruments had a sort of swell box, so the player had a certain control over the expressiveness of his playing. This contrivance, known in England since 1712, first appeared attached to harpsichords, whence it was transferred to the organ. Handel is known to have been interested in it. Nevertheless, in some instances the sustained quality of the organ sound is unquestionably called for. Handel assigns long note values to the solo while the strings continue their melodic convolutions counting on the unfading tone of the solo instrument. Such passages would lose coherence if performed on the harpsichord. In the last set, especially Opus 7, No. 1, we finally have genuine organ music. Even the pedal makes its first appearance: Handel must have had access to one of the few English organs equipped with pedal board.

  Though reared among the splendid German organs especially built for polyphonic playing, and all of them equipped with pedal board, Handel never wrote anything for that instrument. In his notebook almost all the keyboard music he copied was by southern German masters or by Italians, such as Poglietti. All these were Catholics in whose repertory the great chorale preludes and paraphrases, the toccatas and fugues, of the North German school are absent, for in the Catholic service the organ was largely restricted to accompanying the choir. Thus the organ, the core of Bach’s art, was peripheral in Handel’s, even though he loved the instrument and was one of the ablest players of his age. After he heard and played the organs in Italy and then in England, all memory of the great German art of organ music seems to have left him forever; not, however, the born improviser’s desire to make use of the instrument for the joy of making music extempore.

  These organ concertos demand from the performer sound musicianship, taste, and stylistic insight, for long stretches in the solo parts are mere skeletons of what Handel’s audiences heard. Aside from the fact that Handel was his own interpreter, Baroque practice presupposed skill in embellishing and elaborating such a skeletal part. It goes without saying that the prevailingly two-voice writing in the solo part requires filling-out in the sense of the basso continuo practice. Yet while the solo part demands virtuosity, the texture must remain light and transparent, and in the fast-moving, violin-concerto-like figurations and chains of sequences the two-part setting must remain untouched. This is not polyphonic music, it does not even resemble the organ literature of the age, and of course has not even a trace of the “churchly.” Handel is usually in an easy and relaxed mood, making the organ and orchestra vie with each other in pleasant, fresh, even jaunty music that has neither great fugues nor even any elaborate structure. This is popular concert music in the best sense of the word.

  Hawkins’s description of Handel’s playing of the concertos (II, 912) is eloquent and particularly valuable because it comes from a musically trained person who was an eye witness.

  His amazing command of the instrument, the grandeur and dignity of his style, the copiousness of his imagination, and the fertility of his invention were qualities that absorbed every inferior attainment. When he gave a concerto, his method in general was to introduce it with a voluntary movement on the diapasons, which stole on the ear in a slow and solemn progression; the harmony close wrought, and as full as could possibly be expressed; the passages concatenated with stupendous art, the whole at the same time being perfectly intelligible, and carrying the appearance of great simplicity. This kind of prelude was succeeded by the concerto itself, which he executed with a degree of spirit and firmness that no one ever pretended to equal.

  It can be seen that the concerto itself was a continuation of the improvised prelude, and what we have in the printed score is little more than a sketch that enables the player to stay with the orchestra. In the D minor Concerto, Opus 7, No. 4, Handel wrote out the whole cadenza, thus giving us a good idea how these works were executed. In some of the later works the improvisation extends to whole movements, so that a two-movement concerto would actually consist of three, Handel simply indicating that between the two notated movements one may be played ad libitum. Nevertheless, many of these concertos have a firm formal design, a sort of amalgam of the concerto grosso and sonata da camera.

  The variety is considerable: pompous-pathetic largos, sparkling allegros, delicate dance movements, dialogues with solo instruments, virtuoso passage work, occasionally interspersed with tiny concerted sections for solo violin or cello, fugatos, ostinatos, and also folksong-like melodies. Like the Twelve Grand Concertos, these compositions are gloriously independent of convention, and no two of them are similar in construction and procedure. Though they have a generous share of the everyday routine of Baroque instrumental music, in the aggregate they are original and personal. The melodies are warm and expressive, and in the fast movements one repeatedly notices that the tone is bantering, even saucy—Handel was having fun. In the last concertos, dating from 1740-50, though the polyphony increases, the transition from Baroque to pre-Classic style is in evidence. Here we find a decided trend toward the sonata, thematic work, and even tonal and thematic dualism. This collection contains the finest and most original specimens of the genre. They are larger in scale, and while Opus 4 offers enlarged chamber music of a more intimate character despite the virtuosity of the solo part, Opus 7 is orchestral in nature, frequently approaching the grand style. While only the fifth and sixth conc
ertos in the first set are transcriptions, all of those in the second are in this category, the material having been taken from Opus 6. It appears that these arrangements were made by Walsh’s men without Handel’s concurrence.

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  OF ALL OF Handel’s works it is the many harpsichord pieces that may provide a glimpse of his creative youth. This is natural, because keyboard music was the German cantor’s native soil. Chrysander published a collection of these pieces, to which he gave the title Klavierbuch aus der Jugendzeit. Here we can find many prototypes and original versions of some of the pieces reworked and published later. “Reworking” is the key to the uneven quality to Handel’s output in this area, for the keyboard pieces show a wide range in quality, from the slight and insignificant to the magnificent and highly artistic. When an old piece was used in its original shape—that is, when Walsh or a Continental pirate published it without Handel’s permission—the result was unworthy of the great composer. When Handel had a chance to “correct” a youthful piece we are dealing with an altogether different kind of music, and, of course, the new pieces added to the collection by the mature master are almost all first-rate Handel. The music is no longer that of a young provincial German composer but of an elegant, experienced, and knowledgeable international composer intimately acquainted with Italian and French music.

  The success of these pieces was phenomenal; they were the most popular compositions of their sort in all Europe. Published by John Cluer and Walsh as independent volumes of “Lessons,” selections often appeared both in London anthologies and in the pirated publications of Dutch, Swiss, French, and German printers. In sales the harpsichord volumes outdid by far Couperin’s, Rameau’s, and Bach’s similar collections. As usual when the business methods of the estimable publishing house of Walsh are combined with Handel’s own ways with his musical hoard, things become hazy as to time, place, and even the identity of the composer. The first volume of suites, of 1720, was not yet within Walsh’s grasp; it was published by John Cluer “for the Author.” These suites could not have been composed before the Italian journey. Perhaps some of them were written in Hanover, but, at any rate, they surely were thoroughly gone over for the “corrected” edition. The second set, published by Walsh in 1733, without Handel’s permission, also contains eight suites, but this music is considerably weaker than the 1720 collection, undoubtedly because the material, somehow filched by Walsh, was not subjected to Handel’s usual reconditioning treatment. Among other reasons that indicate an arbitrary collection is the neglect of tonal order. The scheme in the first book of suites is carefully arranged and contrasted: A major, F major, D minor, E minor, E major, F-sharp minor, G minor, F minor. In the second book there is no orderly succession, and it is most unlikely that Handel would have agreed to pairs of consecutive suites in the same key. Of the third set, published later, not only the date is uncertain: one wonders whether these “suites” were not put together by the publisher from single, unrelated pieces. Indeed, we are not even sure that Handel had anything to do with this largely insignificant music.

  The fugues, published in 1735, this time with the composer’s consent, are another matter. We have seen how these fine pieces, embodying Handel’s conception of fugal procedure, served as a reservoir for later use in choral reincarnations. They were published as Troisième Ouvrage, a title that should be interpreted as indicating the “third set” of keyboard music in Walsh’s catalogue; Opus 3 had already been allotted to the oboe concertos. The fugues must also have been composed earlier, though probably not before 1720; Mattheson speaks of them in 1721 as “the newest of Handel’s fugues.” Most of the rest of the harpsichord music is probably spurious, the set of Fugues faciles certainly so. Handel’s keyboard music was in universal demand, and the factories were busy manufacturing Handeliana all over Europe.

  To return to the most substantial of these lessons, the first set: the feeling for and reliance on the technique and sound of the keyboard instrument is so strong as to result in a keyboard sonority par excellence. These pieces can be played on any keyboard instrument, including the modern piano, without any loss of character. As we have observed, the individual numbers are uneven. Thus the fugue in the second suite simply sparkles with wit, whereas the variations in the third suite do not venture beyond the simplest ornamentation. The fourth suite again opens with a fugal allegro that recalls the virtuoso pieces of the North German contra-puntists. The following dances are all delectable, the twenty-measure first statement of the Sarabande being one of those wide-spun Handelian melodies that nothing can stop until it has run its course. The fifth suite, neatly worked, contains the variations that became famous under the title The Harmonious Blacksmith (see above, page 141). The sixth suite, in F-sharp minor, is pensive and romantic—Handel is thoroughly engaged. Commentators have found it related to various preludes and fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier, some of which indeed have the same poetic-improvisatory tone. But if the hunt for influences is undertaken it would be advisable to remember that the final version of the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier dates from 1722, by which time Handel’s suites had been in circulation for three years (counting also the pirated edition of 1719). The seventh suite, opening with the grand, sweeping pathos of the French overture, tails off into figuration, but the eighth, in F minor, is, like the fifth, a masterpiece from beginning to end. The melodies are noble, the polyphony wonderfully suited to the keyboard, the fugue brilliant, and the dances enchanting. The second set, printed by Walsh in 1733, is considerably weaker, though there are some fine pieces here and there. Brahms borrowed the theme for his Handel Variations from the first suite in this collection. The third volume is even weaker than the second, and, as we have observed, contains either unedited youthful works or spurious compositions; no wonder Handel was angry about its publication.

  Quite in another class are the six fugues of 1735, which end Handel’s career as composer for the harpsichord. These contrapuntal studies, vigorous, idiomatic, grateful to play, and full of wit and invention, are, mutatis mutandis, Handel’s Art of Fugue. They do not present a searching examination of the final reaches and possibilities of polyphony, but a lively and altogether un-selfconscious demonstration of Handel’s conception of freely flowing polyphony that knows no restrictions or rules such as his erstwhile compatriots respected and cherished. The themes are piquant, the harmony solid, the part-writing pure fantasy (some of the three-part fugues have an occasional supernumerary fourth part), and the countersubjects always deftly contrasted. Most of them are double fugues—but in the Handelian sense; no one can tell whether he meant them to be double fugues or whether he just wanted to play with a countersubject. Mattheson, the sharp-eyed “Spectator in Music,” was for a long time the only one to see this quality in Handel’s counterpoint. Comparing Handel’s fugal writing to that of the North German school, he finds in it “an altogether different spirit, in particular one that knows and possesses all reaches of harmony so well that where others give the impression of laboring, Handel appears to be joking and playing.”

  Handel’s harpsichord music may seem relatively inconsequential, but in a sense it occupies a position of central importance in his life work. A number of these compositions serve as proving ground for his dramatic works. In them appear certain basic ideas and models that were to follow Handel throughout his career.

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  Handel’s orchestra—The concerto grosso principle—The basso continuo —Baroque orchestral balance—Harpsichord and organ—Handel’s chorus —Quality of Handel’s performances—Modern performance practices—Tempo and dynamics—Continuity—Ornamentation—The restored scores —The problem of length—“Additional accompaniment” and arrangements—The castrato parts—Bowdlerized texts

  TODAY WE ARE USED TO THE HOMOGENEOUS, WELL-BLENDED sound of the Classic-Romantic orchestra, and, though recent music shows a sharp departure from this ideal, both this new sound and that of the Baroque are somewhat strange to most of us. The moder
n listener hears the Baroque orchestra as a pleasant but undifferentiated sound, the differentiation made more difficult because of the ubiquitous presence of the keyboard continuo, whose “filling-in” lends a certain uniformity to the aural picture. Berlioz, in a letter from Berlin, where in 1843 he was invited to attend a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, exasperatedly comments on the “wearisome effect” this “wretched instrument” causes by its “constant strumming” which spreads “a thick layer of monotony over the whole, but that is doubtless one reason for not giving it up. An old custom is so sacred only when it is bad!”

  In Handel’s time, the character not only of the orchestra as a whole but of the role of the individual instruments was quite different from ours. The oboes, which we find everywhere in these scores, we play in our own manner, that is, discreetly blended with the strings. However, they were the principal melody instruments among the woodwinds, and their presence was meant to be heard, not merely suspected. The bassoons, to us the clowns of the orchestra, were considered sensuous, elegiac, and dramatic instruments. But perhaps the greatest difference—and to modern players the most forbidding—is presented by the “clarin” trumpets, great favorites with the Baroque composer. The playing of the natural trumpet, the low-pitched instrument of the 17th and early 18th centuries, was a special art reserved for trumpeters who played nothing but the highest harmonics. These musicians could play stratospheric runs with the agility of a flute. Though so-called Bach trumpets, short three-valve instruments, are being constructed by modern makers, their tone-quality leaves much to be desired, while when Baroque parts are played on the standard orchestral trumpets the constant threat of misintonation makes the players timid and cautious. As early as the late 1770s, Hiller, in editing the Utrecht Te Deum, was compelled to change the trumpet parts in a way that robbed Handel’s music of its festive tone; and, ever since, players and conductors have been uneasy about these high trumpet parts, fearful of the constant danger of derailment. While not nearly so florid as the trumpet parts, the horn parts were also relatively high because the diatonic scale was obtainable only in the highest register. When devising such passages for the usual pair of horns Handel could be more free with the open tones obtainable in that register by specially trained players than could Haydn and Mozart. The horn players were trained like the clarin players, the first horn seldom playing below the sixth harmonic, and the second not much lower.