Handel Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  By the Same Author

  Dedication

  Preface to the New Edition

  Acknowledgements

  List of Illustrations

  1 The Liberal Arts

  2 Caro Sassone

  3 Popery in Wit

  4 Noble Oratories

  5 A Nest of Nightingales

  6 Discords in the State

  7 Airs of a Modern Cast

  8 Music, Ladies and Learning

  9 The Fate of Harmony

  10 All for War and Admiral Haddock

  11 A British Sixpence

  12 Brave Hallelujahs

  13 Next to the Hooting of Owls

  14 Overplied in Music’s Cause

  15 Great and Good

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Footnotes

  General Index

  Index of Handel’s Works

  Picture Section

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781407020839

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  Published by The Bodley Head 2008

  24681097531

  Copyright © Jonathan Keates 2008

  Jonathan Keates has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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  First published in Great Britain in 1985 by Gollancz Ltd

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  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Non-fiction

  The Companion Guide to the Shakespeare Country

  Italian Journeys

  Tuscany

  Umbria

  Stendhal

  Purcell

  The Siege of Venice

  Fiction

  Allegro Postillions

  The Strangers’ Gallery

  Soon To Be a Major Motion Picture

  Smile Please

  To Gerard McBurney

  HANDEL

  The Man and His Music

  Jonathan Keates

  Contents

  Preface to the New Edition

  Acknowledgements

  List of Illustrations

  1 The Liberal Arts

  2 Caro Sassone

  3 Popery in Wit

  4 Noble Oratories

  5 A Nest of Nightingales

  6 Discords in the State

  7 Airs of a Modern Cast

  8 Music, Ladies and Learning

  9 The Fate of Harmony

  10 All for War and Admiral Haddock

  11 A British Sixpence

  12 Brave Hallelujahs

  13 Next to the Hooting of Owls

  14 Overplied in Music’s Cause

  15 Great and Good

  Notes

  Bibliography

  General Index

  Index of Handel’s Works

  Picture Section

  Preface to the New Edition

  Since 1985, when the first edition of this book appeared, Handel has been dramatically reclaimed, both by public awareness and through scholarly enquiry, like a submerged continent rising from under the tides of age-long neglect and ignorance. The opening of hitherto restricted archives, the recovery of lost documents, a closer attention to his creative processes and working methods, the establishment of a more precise chronology for his musical oeuvre, a firmer grasp of its context within European Baroque musical culture and of its impact on later composers, the study of his voluminous borrowings and ongoing identification of their sources, all these have enlarged our appreciation of his unique artistic achievement. More has been discovered, meanwhile, about Handel’s personal life, about his family background, education and travels, about his circle of English friends, his relations with the Hanoverian royal family, his professional career and his finances. The foundation of the Handel Institute and the opening of the Handel House Museum in London have deepened the perspective still further.

  The one area which, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, remains stubbornly off limits to us is that of the composer’s sentimental attachments. Tiny scraps of evidence hint at the existence of a private life but so far they are nothing more than scraps. I remain unconvinced by the notion that Handel’s lifelong bachelor status must indicate either homosexuality or celibacy. Theorizing of this kind nevertheless reveals just how much, during the past twenty years, we have come to need Handel, eager for him to fit a multiplicity of stereotypes, models and constructs often less appropriate to his own era than to ours. At no time in the three and a half centuries since his death has his music held such a universal appeal, filling theatres and concert halls across the world.

  It seemed a propitious moment to produce a revised version of my 1985 biography, updating and correcting it wherever possible and taking the chance to reappraise certain works in the light of new research surrounding them or of my changing experience as a critical listener. I have modified (slightly) what one of my original reviewers called the ‘chromatic’ aspect of the book’s style and softened the combative approach I adopted at a time when Handel was still a victim of what might be called the iceberg principle, with only a small proportion of his works accessible above the waterline dividing the wider musical public from academic specialists. I hope that most of the pleasure and excitement I tried to communicate in the original text is still palpable. Rewriting this book has been more enjoyable for the experience of sitting down once again with ‘the great and good Mr Handel’.

  Acknowledgements

  My leading acknowledgement must be to Hilary Engel, who commissioned the first edition of this book and was unfailing in her encouragement. I am equally grateful to David Burnett for his later adoption of the project and to Richard Wigmore, a more astute Handelian than I, for his careful editing of the third edition. Jenny Uglow’s enthusiasm for a revised version was shared by Will Sulkin; my thanks to them both for giving me the opportunity to complete this project, and to Drummond Moir for his editorial patience.

  Winton Dean r
ead this book in its earliest stage and, in offering much useful criticism, showed a courtesy towards an upstart amateur which all scholars might study to emulate. I was also grateful for advice, in the actual process of writing, from Robin Lane Fox and Gerard McBurney. My special thanks to Michael Rose for professional wisdom and the loan of vital sources. Ariane Bankes allowed me to consult the notes made, after reading the original typescript, by an anonymous Handel expert (whose name has since been identified for me). His comments were more helpful and illuminating than he may have imagined or intended. Colin Dunn provided useful source material at a crucial moment and John Lee furnished me with interesting detail as to Handel in Derbyshire.

  At City of London School thanks are due to my colleagues present and past, Anthony Gould, Nicholas Byrne, Roy Reardon, Alison Heaf and David Rose. Elsewhere to the following for information, assistance and encouragement at various stages: Edoardo Betti, Rupert Christiansen, John and Thekla Clark, Sarah Connolly, Mark Elder, Mrs G. Fallows, James Fenton, John Fleming, Margaret Gardiner, Gianni Guidetti, Eleazar Gutwirth, Hugh Honour, James Loader, Maria Maschietto, Patrick O’Connor, Richard Portes, Nicholas Salaman and Mary Sandys. Special thanks to my seventeen companions on the Martin Randall trip to the Halle Festival in May 2007: the earliest version of this book was written before we met, but their delight in Handel’s music makes them its ideal readers.

  My thanks also to the staff of the British Library, the London Library, the Cambridge University Library, the National Archive, the public libraries of Oxford, Kensington and Islington, the Biblioteca Marciana and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice), the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini (Florence), the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York), the New York Public Library and the Handel House Museum. My particular gratitude to the staff of the Music Reading Room in the Bodleian Library (Oxford), where most of my preparatory work was carried out.

  List of Illustrations

  Handel, by Balthasar Denner, c. 1726–8 © National Portrait Gallery

  Georg Händel, by J. Sandrart © The Trustees of the British Museum

  Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj, by Jacques Blondeau © The Trustees of the British Museum

  John Walsh’s score of the overture and arias in Rinaldo, 1711 © British Library

  Lord Burlington’s House in Piccadilly, by Johannes Kip © Guildhall Library, City of London

  Handel’s autograph score of Acis and Galatea, 1718 © British Library

  Giovanni Bononcini, attributed to Bartholemew Dandridge © Royal College of Music

  Francesco Bernardi, ‘il Senesino’, attributed to Antonio Maria Zanetti © National Portrait Gallery

  Model of Handel for the Vauxhall Gardens Statue, by L. F. Roubiliac, c. 1737 © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

  ‘The Charming Brute’ (colour etching) by English School, (18th century) © Private Collection/ The Bridgeman Art Library

  Susannah Cibber, by Thomas Hudson, before 1749 © National Portrait Gallery

  Elisabeth Duparc, ‘La Francesina’, by John Faber © National Portrait Gallery

  Handel’s autograph score of Music for the Royal Fireworks, 1749 © British Library

  Handel’s autograph score of Jephtha, 1751 © British Library

  1

  The Liberal Arts

  On 2 May 1696, the Oberpräsident Eberhard von Danckelmann, treasurer to the Margrave of Brandenburg, was sent a request for the payment of an outstanding bill; the letter ran as follows:

  Most worthy sir, You have received from Herr Dr Wiesener a most humble request for payment of 100 thalers from the privy purse for the cure of Andreas Rudeluff, the knife swallower. Since I, as surgeon, have done my best in this two-year cure, and have brought out the swallowed knife from his stomach and body, with God’s help and a careful hand, and thereby cured him completely, and have most humbly given His Highness the knife in its original form in a case, in your presence, I would therefore most humbly request His Highness to grant me the favour, as much as seems fit, to recompense me for my painstaking operation, in your position as highly esteemed patron. I shall thank you most humbly, and shall ask God, from the depths of my heart, to give you health and long life. I remain Your Excellency’s most obedient servant, Georg Händel, medical practitioner.

  The subject of the doctor’s operation was a sixteen-year-old peasant boy from the village of Maschwitz, near the city of Halle in Upper Saxony. One day, while playing with his friends, he had swallowed a horn-handled knife, and his parents had taken him, after ineffectual doses of warm beer and cotton wool, to Wiesener and Händel, who then began their prolonged but ultimately successful treatment. The boy, who must have been remarkably tough, was slowly cured by the use of magnetic plasters, which drew the instrument out of the oesophagus into the throat. Finally, with the release of much ‘überaus stinckende Materie’ the knife was pulled out and young Andreas, we are told, rejoiced and praised God. A rather touching close to the whole episode is provided by the fact that he was impressed enough by his doctors to become a surgeon himself, and lived till a ripe old age.

  Georg Händel was one of the most renowned doctors in the Germany of his time. His parents, the blacksmith Valtin (or Valentin) Händel and Anna Beichling, had moved to Halle from Breslau in Silesia (now the Polish city of Wrocław) during the early stages of the Thirty Years War, in search of a religious climate more favourable to their devout Protestantism. Valtin’s business prospered and he became a member of Halle’s town council. Georg, his third son, born in 1622, was apprenticed to a surgeon, gaining his first medical experience as a Feldscher, or military sawbones, in one of the Saxon regiments then on campaign. Study at Hamburg and Lübeck under the famous physician Andreas Konigen was followed by a spell as a ship’s barber on a merchant vessel trading to Portugal.

  Valtin Händel died in 1636 during one of the frequent plague epidemics following in the wake of the various armies, Catholic or Protestant, as the war continued its dreary and inconclusive course. Halle was by now under the control of Swedish forces led by King Gustavus Adolphus. Returning from his travels in 1642, young Georg Händel set up as a surgeon, earning local fame for mending the broken arm of Elector August I of Saxony, one of the foremost Protestant champions. The delighted Elector recommended him to the three princes of Anhalt and the neighbouring Count Stollberg. Soon he was appointed physician at the courts of Brandenburg and Weissenfels, and became official doctor to the village of Giebichenstein on the outskirts of Halle. In the city itself, at the Zum gelben Hirsch (The Yellow Hart) next to his house in the Kleine Klausstrasse, he was granted a licence to sell local and foreign wines.

  A prosperous and gifted young doctor could have had no trouble in looking for a wife. Händel, following the custom of the day, chose within his own profession and married – ‘through priestly copulation’, according to the quaint expression used by the preacher of his funeral sermon – Frau Anna Oettinger, widow of the surgeon to whom he had been apprenticed. Medicine remained a family business: of Georg and Anna Händel’s six children, two of the daughters married doctors and the two sons who survived childhood followed their father’s calling. It would have surprised nobody in Halle that, on Anna’s death in 1682, the elderly surgeon should forthwith have contemplated a second marriage. Disparity in age was unimportant in seventeenth-century wedlock, and in any case we have little record of the feelings of thirty-one-year-old Dorothea Taust as she prepared for priestly coupling with a man of sixty and became stepmother to a grown-up family.

  The Tausts, like the Händels, had been refugees from the Habsburg empire ‘for love of the pure evangelical truth’, and Dorothea’s father was now the pastor of Giebichenstein and Crollwitz, villages just outside Halle. His daughter was pious, cultivated and intelligent. ‘She always took pains to ensure that as she grew older she also grew in goodness,’ the preacher of her funeral sermon later noted, ‘therefore when her father became aware that his child had been gifted with an alert mind and a good memory, far superior to many of her sex, he not only
allowed her access to a private teacher, but also, as far as the duties of his office allowed, he helped her to study’. Dorothea was the object of a good many proposals before the doctor’s, but had rejected them all through an intense loyalty to her parents, which kept her at the parsonage even when a fever epidemic carried off a brother and sister. Doubtless it was during this period that Georg Händel met her. Some persuasion and a little private prayer seem to have brought her round to the idea of marrying him and on St George’s Day 1683, Pastor Taust conducted the ceremony himself, in the church of St Bartolomaeus at Giebichenstein.

  Four children were born to the Händels (it was later calculated that the old man could lay claim to thirty grandchildren and great-grandchildren). Of the two daughters Johanna Christiana died in 1709 when barely twenty and the elder, Dorothea Sophia, later married a local lawyer, Dietrich Michaelsen. A son born a year after the Giebichenstein wedding only lived for an hour. In 1685 Dorothea Händel gave birth to her second son, Georg Friedrich.

  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but since the register of the Liebfrauenkirche in Halle records his baptism on Tuesday, 24 February, it is thought that he must have been born on the previous day. He was christened Georg after his father and maternal grandfather and Friedrich, probably in honour of his father’s princely patron of Brandenburg. The godparents were his Aunt Anna, Philipp Fehrsdorff, one of the Elector of Saxony’s stewards, and Zacharias Kleinhampel, a medical colleague of Dr Händel’s. The birth probably took place in his parents’ house on the corner of the Kleine Klausstrasse and Kleine Ulrichstrasse, a tall, roomy building with early medieval foundations and one of those lofty attic storeys so typical of its period.

  This attic, indeed, provides the scene for the first anecdote in a Handelian chronicle. John Mainwaring, the composer’s earliest biographer, tells us that ‘from his very childhood HANDEL had discovered such a strong propensity to Music, that his father, who always intended him for the study of the Civil Law, had reason to be alarmed’. The doctor ‘strictly forbad him to meddle with any musical instrument’, but young Georg Friedrich contrived to ‘get a little clavichord privately conveyed to a room at the top of the house’. Clavichords, however modestly proportioned, are not easily smuggled anywhere, and since a more or less identical circumstance is related of Handel’s younger contemporary, Thomas Augustine Arne (in his case it was apparently a spinet) the story, pointing out that the young musician’s clandestine keyboard practice ‘made such farther advances as were no slight prognostics of his future greatness’, has a slightly suspect flavour. Mainwaring seems, however, to have based the early sections of his book (published in 1760) on Handel’s personal recollections, so doubtless the episode is an authentic one. It certainly reveals a stubbornness and persistence in the boy, which became marked character traits of the grown man.