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'?V5'
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
By permission of the owner, Arthur F. Hill, Esq. HANDEL, FROM THE PAINTING BY HUDSON.
GEORGE FRIDERIC
HANDEL
HIS PERSONALITY & HIS TIMES
BY
>JEWMAN FLOWER
"Witk ova: Fifty IUa5teition5 In Colour arul l&tack and White
1925
THE WWERLEY BOOKCQLTD
96. FARRINGDOM STREET, LOrNDON.E.C4.
First published 1923
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE EDINBURGH TRESS, 9 AND II YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH
"Af. "
PREFACE
No attempt has been made in this volume to survey the works of Handel in any technical sense, nor to deal with his music in any technical form. This has already been done exhaus- tively by Dr Chrysander, Mr Rockstro, Mr Streatfeild, Mr P. Robinson, and other able pens.
I have endeavoured, rather, to outline Handel the Man — the striking personality that never admitted defeat, but rose superior to whatever powers a surfeit of enemies could and did exert. In order to convey, however poorly, this Handel, I have attempted to sketch a background of the times in which he lived, and the people with whom he had to deal.
In the course of some years of Handelian study, induced by a sincere admiration of the man's genius, I have discovered certain facts which are not included in the Handel biographies. I felt they would not be without interest to other ardent lovers of the Master, and in this belief I attempted this book. The accepted story of the Water Music, for instance, which began with Mainwaring, and has gone on ever since, is quite incorrect, as recent investigation in Germany proves. Again, Charles Jennens has always been credited by every biographer with compiHng the libretto of Messiah. That a poor parson em- ployed by Jennens did the work has not hitherto been recorded in the Handel books. Delvings into the archives of Prince di
vii
George Frideric Handel
Ruspoli at Rome have revealed some interesting details con- cerning Handel's Italian journey. I am also indebted to the authorities of Halle University for much nev^ matter bearing on Handel's birthplace. From my ov^n collection, which in- cludes the Aylesford transcripts — the copies of Handel's works made by his amanuensis Christopher Smith, and which were given to the Earl of Aylesford by Jennens after the death of the Composer — I have derived certain points of interest, especially concerning Jupiter in Argos, that mystery work of Handel's which was never performed, and of which I have the copy of the songs Smith made for him. There are many other details concerning his life and death which I believe are new to the Handel records, and these are my excuse for attempting a new life of Handel.
Handel's music is really a reflex of an extraordinary character, acting and reacting upon a beauteous and rich imagination. His actions, even in times of great adversity — actions often abrupt and motiveless superficially — reveal, on investigation, the thinking man behind them. They represent the thoughts of one who could survey Humanity and translate into music the impressions formed. It is questionable whether any music, composed in this country or imported into it, has reached the heart of the people so truly as his. He caught the moods of the world and set them to song.
To admire the music of Handel above all other is often con- sidered to be the taste of a heretic. There are some, too, who have striven, not very nobly, to show that Handel stole all his better music. Lacking such knowledge, it would be difficult for me not to appear self-conscious in the company of these comedians, so I am grateful to be numbered among the heretics.
viii
Preface
I would like to take this opportunity of acknowledging my gratitude to those who have so kindly assisted me in the research which has resulted in this volume. I am particularly indebted to Mr William C. Smith, Assistant in charge of Printed Books in the British Museum, to Mr E. van der Straeter for research in Germany and elsewhere, and to Mr L. S. Sheppard of the British Museum for research in Italy. To the Earl and Countess of Aylesford, to Earl Howe, to the Prince di Ruspoli for permitting the search in their archives, or the reproduction of pictures. To Mr Arthur F. Hill for permission to reproduce the Hudson and Denner portraits of Handel, and the portrait of Farinelli of which he is the proud possessor, and for con- tinuous help in other directions. To the Governors of the Foundling Hospital for permission to reproduce for the first time the Kneller portrait of Handel. To Herr Foss of BerHn, the direct descendant of Dorothea Michaelsen, Handel's sister, who has allowed me to include their family portrait of Handel, which has not hitherto been reproduced. This is believed to be one of the last portraits painted during the Composer's lifetime. I am also indebted to Professor Michael of Freiburg for the Water Music information, to Professor Arnold Schering and Dr Weissenborn of Halle University, to Dr Kinsky of the Haym Museum, Cologne, Professor Dr Wahl, Professor Dr Reinke of Hamburg, and Professor Werner of Bitterfeld. All these friends have made this work possible.
As regards authority for the statements made in this volume, I would refer my readers, not only to the footnotes, but to the bibliography at the end, which I think can be justifiably claimed as the most complete Handelian Biblio- graphy yet compiled.
ix
George Frideric Handel
I cannot hope by this book to bring more admirers to Handel than his own music has already found for him, but if the book helps any student or lover of Handel's work to a better understanding of this Master, then the years of re- search this volume has entailed have not been given in vain.
N. F.
CONTENTS
BOOK I.— MORNING
CHAP.
1. OF SOME RELATIONS
2. THE HALLE DAYS
3. THE HAMBURG ADVENTURE— 1703-1705
4. THE ITALIAN JOURNEY
5. THE FIRST VISIT TO LONDON .
6. THE LAST DAYS OF ANNE
7. THE "WATER MUSIC" AND A JOURNEY ABROAD
8. CANNONS .....
PAGB I
18
42
60
83
95 103
116
BOOK IL— NOON
9. THE COMING OF BONONCINI .
10. ANXIOUS DAYS AT THE ACADEMY
11. THE GREAT QUARREL .
12. THE FALL OF THE ACADEMY .
13. THE PARTNERSHIP WITH HEIDEGGER
14. THE BIRTH OF ORATORIO
15. THE VISIT TO OXFORD .
16. THE CRASH
17. THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN .
18. "AS SOME LONE SHIP" .
xi
137 149 158 168 176 188 197 216
235 242
George Frideric Handel
CHAP.
19. THE LAST OPERAS
20. "MESSIAH"
21. THE RETURN TO LONDON
22. THE SECOND FAILURE .
23. THE TIDE TURNS
24. THE " FIREWORK MUSIC
HOSPITAL
AND THE FOUNDLING
PAGE 259
268
277
284
BOOK III.— EVENING
25. THE YEARS OF BLINDNESS
26. NIGHT IN THE HILLS .
APPENDIX BIBLIOGRAPHY . INDEX
319 328
335 341 359
xu
ILLUSTRATIONS
HANDEL, FROM THE PAINTING BY HUDSON [Colour] Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
6
HANDEL'S FATHER
HANDEL'S BIRTHPLACE— THE SPURIOUS
HANDEL'S BIRTHPLACE — THE REAL .
THE LIEBFRAUENKIRCHE . . .
THE BAPTISMAL ENTRY IN THE BOOK OF THE LIEBFRAUEN KIRCHE AT HALLE ....
HANDEL'S DOOR IN THE LIEBFRAUENKIRCHE AT HALLE
OLD DOORWAY BESIDE HANDEL'S BIRTHPLACE, AT HALLE
THE ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE YARD .
THE ORGAN IN THE LIEBFRAUENKIRCHE, HALLE .
HANDEL AS A STUDENT, SIGNATURE IN REGISTER
JOHANNES MATTHESON
VIEW OF HAMBURG IN 1 727
HANDEL AT THE TIME OF HIS FIRST VISIT TO ITALY
CARDINAL OTTOBONI
AARON HILL .
PIETRO METASTASIO
DR PEPUSCH
THOMAS BRITTON
HEIDEGGER
THE EARL OF BURLINGTON
16 16 18
20 22 22 26 30 38
44 54 62 66
84 84 88 90 96 98
Xlll
George Frideric Handel
FACING PAGE
THE RESIDENCE OF THE EARL OF BURLINGTON IN PICCADILLY ....
BROOKES ......
THE DUKE OF CHANDOS ....
THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH
GIOVANNI BONONCINI ....
A PLATE BY HOGARTH DIRECTED AGAINST THE HEID EGGER MASQUERADES ....
FAUSTINA, AT THE TIME SHE JOINED HANDEL [Colour]
FAUSTINA IN LATER LIFE ....
A PAGE OF MAINWARING'S LIFE OF HANDEL
GUSTAVUS WALTZ .....
THE GOUPY CARTOON "THE CHARMING BRUTE" .
H.R.H. FREDERICK PRINCE OF WALES
THE king's THEATRE IN THE HAYMARKET
GIOVANNI CARESTINI .....
FARINELLI [Colour] .....
A HUDSON PORTRAIT OF HANDEL .
MRS CIBBER . . ...
HANDEL FROM THE PORTRAIT BY DENNER [Colour]
VAUXHALL GARDENS IN HANDEL'S DAY
AN AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM CHARLES JENNENS
JOHN BEARD ......
"THUS SAITH THE LORD," FROM THE "MESSIAH" — AS HANDEL WROTE IT ... .
" THUS SAITH THE LORD," FROM THE " MESSIAH " — AS CHRISTOPHER SMITH TRANSCRIBED IT .
CHARLES JENNENS .....
NEAL'S MUSIC HALL IN DUBLIN
xiv
Illustrations
FACING PAGE
HANDEL IN MIDDLE AGE . . . . .278
HANDEL'S HOUSE IN LONDON .... 296
THE STRUCTURE ERECTED IN THE GREEN PARK FOR THE "FIREWORK MUSIC," AND THE CELEBRATION OF THE PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE . . . 306
THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL AS IT APPEARED IN HANDEL'S
DAY . . . . . . .310
HANDEL LETTER SHOWING HIS HANDWRITING WHEN HE
FIRST CAME TO LONDON . . . . 312
HANDEL LETTER SHOWING HIS HANDWRITING AT THE
AGE OF 65 . . . . . .312
THE WORDS OF "THEODORA" IN THE AUTOGRAPH OF
THE WRITER, THOMAS MORELL . . • 314
SCORE OF "JEPHTHA," HANDEL'S LAST ORATORIO . . 320
JOHN CHRISTOPHER SMITH ..... 324
THE LAST PORTRAIT OF HANDEL [Colour] . . -330
THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF
"MESSIAH" . . . . . .332
THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HANDEL'S BURIAL . . 332
HANDEL'S PENCIL NOTES ON A TRANSCRIPTION BY
CHRISTOPHER SMITH . . . . .336
XV
BOOK I MORNING
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
CHAPTER I
OF SOME RELATIONS
Genius is seldom admitted as such save when it can achieve over Circumstance. And the Circumstance that governs the ways of Mankind is so contrived as to hinder rather than help the weakling idea. Existence, as humanly conceived, would mock at and poke into seclusion those tendrils of thought which, if developed, would produce a voice to which the world might listen.
This same Circumstance did its utmost to snuff out the genius of George Frideric Handel.^ It pegged him about from his early years with absurd obstacles. It fought him with all the strength of precedent in its favour. Nor did it yield him even the favour of happy chance. It tried to stifle a voice that ultimately turned a world to melody.
For the child who was born at the little Saxon town of Halle on 23rd February 1685 was never followed by what is known as good luck. In a gamble with chance he was safe to lose every time. But he made his way to his ultimate destiny by the triumph of sheer courage and personality.
To begin with, nothing was expected of George Frideric Handel when he was born except a commonplace yet circum- spect life. His father had reared many children, and George Frideric, following after by the grace of a second wife, was just one of a herd, as ordinary as his name. No great ability was
1 For the purpose of this book, and to avoid confusion, the name of Handel, both as applied to the composer and his relatives, is spelled in English fashion. There are documents in existence in which the composer spelled his name in several ways, notably Hendel. This form of spelling was usually adopted by his relatives, and to this day his descendant has a bookshop in Halle with the name Otto Hendel over the door. In England, however, the composer always kept to the English form of Handel.
1 A
George Frideric Handel
anticipated of him ; the suspicion of any musical genius in him would probably have shocked his father, the barber- surgeon, into disowning him. All that his parents demanded was that he should become a good citizen and pay his way in some respectable craft ; be God-fearing, if not God-chosen ; ultimately marry and rear children, and, in the fullness of time, pass to an honoured corner in the Halle churchyard, and be remembered with respect.
The Handels had always done things that way. They had never been original, but ever respectable. From the time that they first settled in Breslau in mediaeval ages, till and after grandfather Handel — ^Valentine by name — came and estab- lished the Handel respectability at Halle, they had been the same. He opened a small coppersmith's shop to which he very vigilantly attended. He was unimaginative, and un- suspecting, this man, that any grandchild of his would one day demand the silence of kings.
In 1685, when the birth of the future musician occurred in the Am Schlamm at Halle, Middle Europe was in a curious mood of unoriginality. It had its own scheme of things ; its slow progress was a change as slowly conceived. It was rather hidebound with Lutheranism, relieved with patches — very eruptive patches — of Judaism, and occasional upheavals of Catholicism and free thought. Its business was as respectable as its religion. It did not wish to do anything in a new way. It made things and sold them. This Middle Europe of 1685 wanted to go on making things and selling them in the same fashion for ever. There was no political disturbance that tore at the roots of industry and thrust them rudely up into the glare of progress. One was born and educated and trained to narrow issues, and taught above all things to be supremely care- ful. But to strike out and be a pioneer — it was one of those acts which the better circle abhorred because such peculiar conduct was not understood. It was a form of heresy usually purged from the higher families by disowning the offender. A pioneer in a Saxon family in 1685 was not talked about. The drawing-rooms, which were dovecotes of righteousness, in- sincerity and trivial scandal, did not mention these pioneers, these few. Its people were too well bred. As a matter of
2
On Ancestry
fact, the few pioneers usually drifted into the cities, became debauchees, and died very namelessly, as those families that had once owned them hoped they would do. There was a singular connivance between Fate and the smug conscience in those days.
Moreover, 1685 was a rather mean age. It was an age of snobbery in saving money. It was ungenerous. It was in- terested in the suffering, in the charities of the time, only by an occasional mild mood of religious revivalism, and extreme Church ceremony. There was no secret charity. To trample on the weak was the act of a man who really had achieved some object in getting born. The weak were there to be trampled upon, and a man was the better listened to at the dinner-table according to the heaviness of his step.
The Handels were a rather peculiar family. They suc- ceeded in Middle Europe at this age because they were so clearly typical of their age. They were extremely efficient, quiet people. They had no family scandals, no skeletons in the family cupboard. They made no noise ; they rose to no honours. They did not attempt to govern. They married just the kind of people they were themselves, for they adven- tured neither in business nor in marriage. They made their profits in their occupations, and paid their debts, and were buried, as they would have wished to be buried, with the little pompous funerals of seventeenth-century Germany. They lived very gamely and straightly round the narrow arc which their mentality perceived, and came to the same very revered end. Just dust to the earth that had yielded it. Dust and no memories.
Suddenly this very circumspect family developed an eruptive mood. Early in the seventeenth century Valentine Handel packed himself up, bag and baggage, at Breslau and went south to Halle. He followed the usual custom of the time for an apprentice who had become " Gesell " to take to the road. The Saxon town had no special call for him. But he responded to a mood. Like some irresponsible bird of passage, he did what no Handel had ever done hitherto — he went out to discover. To fight.
It is possible that en route he stopped at the neighbouring
3
George Frideric Handel
town of Eisleben and worked in the copper-mines for some time. Scarcely a year before his arrival at Halle, he married an Eisleben girl, Anne, the daughter of the master coppersmith, Samuel Beichling, who was to be the grandmother of the musician. At all events it is on record that on Tuesday after " Reminiscere " (14th March) 1609, he took the oath as a Halle citizen, and paid the citizen-right's fee of six guilders. He was then twenty-six years of age.
He arrived at Halle with his few sticks of belongings, and the knowledge of his craft as a coppersmith — the only stable things to which he had pegged his adventure. Often he must have meditated on the complete lack of object which had drawn him to Halle. It was just a call from some vague destiny, just as the sea in these days will drag a man from an office stool, or a sudden mood will send a driven city slave to the wildest ends of the earth in pursuit of a shadow.
Valentine Handel settled down in a little narrow street off the Markt-platz known as " Unter den Kleinschmieden " (street of the small smith). There were other coppersmiths there before him, but the records show that he was a brilliant craftsman in the more delicate forms of the work. He became known ; he prospered. Rapidly he climbed the ladder till the citizens of Halle held such respect for him that they put him into the council with the position of bread-weigher.^
In a short time his shop was one of the foremost of the period. We can picture this man approaching old age, busying himself in his shop, a rather mournful but efficient figure with a small, close-fitting cap on his head. A man more than a little mean, but a man whose word was his bond.
Valentine Handel made money, and he saved money. As proof of it, let it be said that he bought two of the principal houses in the adjoining main street.^ No tradesman in those days could afford to buy houses unless he were making money heavily.
The Handel stock was particularly strong in this man. He had no ideas outside his business. He did not know one note of music from another. He was conscious of no appeal from
1 Julius Otto Opel, Periodical for General History, 1885.
2 A large shop now stands on the site of these houses.
4
Valentine Handel
any Art. He lived a rather closeted, furtive life, taking no chances unless he had previously measured every step of the w^ay. But he wsis alert, and very conscious that in his epoch commercial Germany was about to be sold to the Jews. So he prospered ; he prospered because he had been manu- factured so closely to the pattern of his age. And he lived in a manner that became his lineage, a clean-trading, rather ignorant person, with ideals and beliefs in the hereafter for those who kept themselves unsullied from the Jewish vices that were breaking out in gross and disturbing fashion in the larger cities. A person rather dour and sanctimonious.
He died in the same unostentatious fashion in which he had lived, just as the Handel precedents ordained ; his financial affairs very simple and arranged, and with a clear conscience that those for whom he had worked should never be troubled with any irritating annoyances about their heritage. He had thought it all out beforehand, and so planned his death that it should be as simple and understood as his life had been. He had always been a very safe person, rather difficult to live with at times, one may gather, but worthy of the elegant inscription they put upon his tomb. And when he died at the coppersmith's shop that had borne his name for so long and honourably over its portal, he left his two elder sons, Valentine and Christoph — already trained to his own pattern as copper- smiths— to succeed him. Two other sons he had lost, but the fifth, George by name, never appears to have interested him. George had no inclinations towards the crafts of the smith. He was ambitious, dreamy ; he lived a solitary life, out of joint with the family and its affairs. Yet Destiny was to choose him for the father of one of the world's greatest musicians.
This youth had just turned fourteen years when he followed his father's bier to its last resting-place, and he was of no more importance in that procession through the Halle streets than the family cat might have been. A small, insignificant creature in a great concourse of people. A solitary child.
Valentine and Christoph, in the strenuous life which followed immediately upon taking over the business, had no use whatever for him. His mother left the shop to the sons
5
George Frideric Handel
and supported herself chiefly by distillery. He could wander from the family roof-tree as soon as he liked. And he did.
Possibly it was this solitude which built the strength of character in George Handel. Certainly it did not hinder him, for six years later he was the most respected burgher in Halle as a barber-surgeon. At the end of his life he was in his turn to pass on that strength of character to his last son George Frideric. The gift was the only thing that George did for that son of his late years.
Nevertheless it was this gift that brought ^the son in the fullness of time to Westminster Abbey.
When they had buried the old coppersmith of Halle in 1636, George, the boy of fourteen, was left more than ever to the seclusion of his own ways, his own thoughts. Whatever destiny there might be for him had given no sign. He had no one to turn toward for guidance, and, says one historian, he walked the streets and the wooded paths beside the banks of Halle's wonderful river, the Saale, " trapped by a great sense of ambition."
Then the destiny of George Handel began to shape itself. He became an apprentice to Christoph Oettinger, a barber- surgeon, one of the successful young men of Halle. He went into the Oettinger household, and began to pick up the rudi- ments of surgery. Oettinger was thrifty and prospering ; he had no dream in the world beyond money, and he hammered this boy into being what he meant him to be — just a pawn in his game of building up success for himself and a handsome substance to leave behind him. Not that there was a great deal to learn in surgery in those days — the average medical student of modern times could master in a week the whole gamut of surgery as it was then known, and be glad enough to forget it afterwards. But the life was hard ; the trivial round remorseless and unending. This was not so with the usual youth of Halle at this period. They roystered and loafed. They spent half their days and more than half their nights in the billiard-rooms, where the billardeurs^ or room-keepers, did a thriving trade plying them with tea, coffee and chocolate, and then retired, comfortably off, to senile ease.
6
HANDEL'S FATHER. George Handel, the Barber-Surtfeon.
^Autograph.)
Christoph Oettinger
Eventually and with startling suddenness, Christoph Oettinger died, and his young wife, Anna, was left with her thirty-one years and no children, but a considerable business hanging on her hands. In the ordinary way she should have disposed of it, and, with the aid of the comfortable fortune which Christoph had left, set about to find some eligible mate for her middle age.
If Christoph had been thrifty, Anna was more so. She had helped him to build up this business, and she was giving away nothing. She resolved to go on. One can imagine her seeking and striving to pick up the threads where Christoph had laid them down, without the world, which was Halle, dis- covering those deficiencies that were hers. Wrestling with this problem and that, finding something new which Christoph had never told her about, wondering, then, beaten, going to that tall, slim youth, George Handel, who alone could help her out.
And so she ran her business, relying on young Handel. More and more relying upon him. This quiet youth who said so little, yet always seemed to know. Odd thoughts must have passed through the minds of these two ; Anna just thirty- one, and George Handel not yet twenty-one. There must have been apparent to both the certain fact that union alone would make their success. Success was the one almighty god that stirred in both of them.
Christoph Oettinger had scarcely become dust before George Handel married his widow. It was the one certain thing that had to happen. And it proved to be a marriage exceptional in the fact that it was successful where the average marriage based on a business foundation is not successful. George Handel was at once a burgher of the town. Also Frau Handel held an equal importance with her husband in the conduct of a business which, under the full force of their youth and his cleverness, rose to be the principal establishment of its kind in the place. They made money rapidly. Valen- tine and Christoph in the coppersmith business discovered at last that the despised little brother had become a power in the town. They knew of him in Weissenfels ; Leipzig had spoken of him. Then doubtless they realised that there might be some pride in the relationship.
7
George Frideric Handel
This union, blessed as it had been by the object for which it was connived — on the part of George Handel an outlet for his brain without the terrible battle for a career, and on that of Anna the salvation of a business which she had helped to make — was a failure in other respects. Anna bore her husband six children, but only two of them — a boy and a girl — ever grew to maturity. Though George Handel, the barber-surgeon, with the passage of years, studied even more deeply that duty to his home, the sense of which he had gained from his fore- bears, he became with those years more morose, often bitter, intensely severe, silent, unpopular in the main. The will of Anna Handel, who had once owned the business, and who, in some sudden flight of lover-like fancy, had taken his youth to her bosom, must have wilted and died slowly, like some power reaching its extremity and then quietly subsiding.
Whereas she had owned the business in the Newmarket which was to make George Handel, she now dropped out of it, and became the subdued Hausfrau. The disappointment of their children had hit them hard ; instead of bringing the twain closer it hung as a heavy weight and forbade closer union and understanding.
As Handel grew older he became more a person to himself. He worked indef atigably. Night and day the tall, sinister figure, with the face that never smiled, was seen walking the streets, knowing no one, dreaming, just as perchance the boy had dreamed at the coppersmith's funeral. For at times the wings of death swept over Halle and would wipe out the inhabitants of half a street, just as a gust of autumn gale can clear the leaves from one side of a tree. Halle was ill-drained, its streets too narrow, and the wisp of disease would percolate from this point to that like some vile searching thing that was brought to a halt, not by the people's prayers in the Moritz- burg, but by some peculiar dispensation of God at His own particular time.
For long after her marriage Frau Handel was kept con- tinually busy with her cradles ; they were perhaps mainly re- sponsible for that gradual falling away of interest in what had now become her husband's business. But when they had been married nine years Handel had been accepted so definitely as
8
1
George Handel, the Barber-Surgeon
the finest barber-surgeon of the district that he was appointed (in 1652) the surgeon of Giebichenstein, a suburb of the town. What he achieved in Giebichenstein is not recorded, but it is significant that shortly afterwards he was appointed Surgeon- in-Ordinary and Valet-de-Chambre to Prince Augustus of Saxony, a dissolute gentleman, a past-master in the art of Love, whose mistresses were scattered high and low over the immediate district and beyond it.
Meanwhile, with the coming of afl^luence, George Handel bought himself a house in the Schlamm in 1665. This parti- cular locale is in the centre of the town, and only a couple of minutes' walk from the street in which his father had started his career in Halle as a coppersmith.
The house was known as " Zum Gelben Hirsch " (The Yellow Stag) and the barber-surgeon determined to leave no stone unturned to make money. For nearly forty years the house had been licensed as a wine-house, and when he bought it the wine-pole, which distinguished the house as a wine-inn, was attached. Then he soon found himself in difficulties with the Governors of Halle, who refused to renew the licence. The barber-surgeon went over their heads and appealed to the Elector, who ultimately — in 1668 — confirmed the privilege the house had always enjoyed.
The battle between the barber-surgeon and the town of Halle over this house went on for years. In spite of the Elector's ruling, the burghers prohibited Handel's wine from coming into the town. All kinds of lawyers from the Leipzig University were called in to settle the dispute, but they made no headway. The Elector became annoyed. He threatened the town of Halle with penalties if they did not let the barber- surgeon pursue his wine-selling in peace. But things moved slowly in those days. Halle took no notice of any Elector. It appealed to forgotten Councils, who assembled in great state and put their hands together and did nothing.
Meanwhile the barber-surgeon had been goaded into a fighting mood. That thin underlip had become thinner yet, and straight and firm. There was a smouldering fire in the eyes. Documents were prepared — pages of documents. It all cost money. The barber-surgeon, who hated parting with
9
George Frideric Handel
a pfennigs decided that his last pfennig should go to beat the town, since he was fighting for a right which he had bought with the house. The Elector wobbled. He decided once more against the town, but gave it the right to appeal. The barber-surgeon fought on.
Then some bold fellow marched up to Handel's house with a document summoning him to appear before the Town Council, and the knave threw the summons through George's window. The blood of Handel was fired anew. The insult ! If the rapscallion had only delivered the document into his hands and waited while he made suitable comments thereon ! But he had hurled in his paper and run from the lion he had prodded.
Again the barber-surgeon went to the Elector. Again the Elector was bored to tears. This silly squabble was becoming a nuisance. He wrote finally to the town of Halle and said that unless they desisted in annoying the barber-surgeon he would fine the town 500 gold florins and, if need be, put in troops.^
That ended the business. The barber-surgeon had won. Disgruntled burghers sneered at him in the streets. But the keen eye of the man never swerved or was afraid. He went on selling wine at The Yellow Stag for years, then, feeling that he could rest on his victory, he handed the licence over to the town — a victor who now performed a gracious act.''
It had been a bitter battle and a hard-earned victory ! But its record is necessary because the whole affair is so typical of the barber-surgeon. Could a man with that mouth, that violent pugnacity sit down calmly while they stole a single right from him which his money had bought ? He would have fought Europe single-handed for a case which had the vestige of right hidden somewhere in it. He was a strong man. A strong man of vast principles. Bigoted over principles. Narrow. Intensely disagreeable. If he won a victory he would, in common parlance, " rub it in." A man with a rather withered heart that blossomed weakly at times like some late October rose, unfragrant, a little stale with the day
1 Report of the case in the State Archives at Magdeburg.
2 G. F. Hertzberg, " Geschichte der Stadt Halle," vol. ii.
10
Handel's Real Birthplace
to which it had been born. This Handel never warmed to the sun of human understanding. He was a creature aloof.
Judging from the area on which it stood, the house which the barber-surgeon took to himself after his marriage must have been of considerable size, large enough, in fact, to house three families. It is doubtful if any of the original building still remains.
The biographers of George Frideric Handel, the son of this barber-surgeon, have, for some unknown reason, followed each other in making a curious mistake about the Handel-house in Halle. They have declared that the house in which the barber- surgeon lived, and in which his son George Frideric was destined to be born, was the house adjoining. They have depicted it with photograph and sketch. As a matter of fact the house that has been gilded with a fame it never earned is even now decorated with bays, with the names of George Frideric's oratorios on its plaster front, and with a bust of George Frideric over its doorway. It has been stared at, photographed, decrepit deceiving thing. But the child who was later to decoy this world with his music never stumbled down its dark passages : that child's first cry on waking to a world of hurt and distress was never heard by its walls, its low dank ceilings. True, the boy must have played often in the courtyard that lies within its gate ; the narrow cobbled street knew the patter of his feet, the roof, ageing then, and so much older now, stooped over him as if in benison, but that venerable house, with all its fabled romance, was never the Handel-house.
The mistake has continued until it is almost old enough to claim to be veracious. But recently a Professor of Halle University and a great Handel student ^ has discovered un- deniable evidence that Handel was never born in the house that claims him, but in the adjoining building, a corner house built at right angles with fronts on two streets — or, rather, in the building that stood on the site. The present house, Nicolai Strasse 5, which stands on the site of the musician's birthplace, was built in 1800.*
1 Dr Bernhard Weissenborn.
2 In an advertisement which appeared in the Wochentliche Hallische Anzeiger on December 1783, the house which stands on the site of Handel's birthplace is
11
George Frideric Handel
Eleven years after the barber-surgeon had bought his palatial house in the Schlamm, disaster overtook the district. On 2nd May 1676, a house in the quarter suddenly burst into flames.^ House after house was involved as a strong v^ind, rushing up the narrow lanes, hurled the sparks and flaming dibris in all directions. The parsimonious builders of those days had bunched the houses together in huge clusters, separ- ated only by the narrowest alleys, and in a very short time the Schlamm was a blazing cauldron. It was night— the original fire was only discovered at ten o'clock — and most of the respectable citizens of the Schlamm were in bed. In a short time the adjoining streets, the Great Ulrichstrasse, the Dachritz, the Barfiisser (Bare-foot monks' street) made a palisade of fire about the Handel mansion, and before very long thirty-eight houses lay in heaps of charred and smoking wood. Those houses which escaped actual destruction had their backs burned away ; eleven barns followed the houses to the ash- heap, and women and children were killed and injured, or dis- appeared in the flames.
How far the Handel mansion — and it undoubtedly was a mansion for the period — suffered in the conflagration there is no record, but the barber-surgeon saved himself and his family. Thereafter, the disaster was closely followed by others, which brought increasing anxiety into the lives of the Handels. Four years later Prince Augustus of Saxony died,
described as the former house of Handel, afterwards of Florke, who was the hus- band of George Frideric Handel's niece. This house then bore the number 976 ; the old number was 528, afterwards 528A. The next following building, 975 (old number 529), which was rebuilt about 1720, was put up for sale in 1801 in the Hallisches Patriotisches Wochenhlatt, and described in detail. The large courtyard, extensive garden, side wings and " a front of twelve windows " can only be applied to the building which to-day (1923) appears decorated as the " Handel-house." Through my discovery of these two advertisements it is proved that the house in which Handel was born therefore stood on the spot where the corner house stands to-day — Nicolai Strasse 5. — Dr Weissenborn.
Further evidence that the house at the corner of Nicolai Street and Kleine Ulrichst is the house in which Handel was born is to be found in this letter which was published in the Wiener Theater zeitung, 22nd October 1806, over the signa- ture of a man named Pokels. " The widow of the late Ratmeister, Mrs Reichhelm has told me that her great-uncle, the famous Handel, was born in the corner house of the ' Kleine Ulrichstrasse,' and that her late husband had for that reason caused the house to be rebuilt to dedicate it to the lasting memory of this famous man, and that he had intended to erect therein a special monument in honour of Handel, if sudden death had not overtaken him." This Mrs Reichhelm was a granddaughter of Mrs Michaelsen, Handel's elder sister. ^ Dreyhaupt, " Chronik des Saal Kreises," vol. ii.
12
Family Affairs
and the town of Halle passed from Saxony to Brandenburg. All the honours which George Handel had striven for and attained in royal circles thus fell away at a stroke, and the removal of royal patronage, even by death, was a catastrophe of the utmost magnitude in those days.
The silent surgeon of the Schlamm was not content to drop back from the proud position he had fought for. One imagines the varying emotions of depression and hopelessness that passed in succession across his mind, and can picture him daily grow- ing more morose as he had been ever morose, more difficult in the family as he always had been difficult in the family since those days when the burden of his affairs first occupied his every thought. And Anna, dropping a little more into that subservience, that easy slide downhill from the independence she had known as Christoph Oettinger's widow.
Handel was disgruntled, his pride was smashed. Then the Halle Council, consisting as it did of many of his enemies, brought a charge against him of intriguing against the late Prince by supplying information about his condition to the Elector of Brandenburg, who had become the successor. They tried to harass Handel in Halle ; perhaps they hoped to drive out so gloomy a person from their midst. But with the tough courage, which he eventually passed on to his son, the barber-surgeon refused to budge an inch.
A little later his health began to fail. Possibly it was only a mental miasma that had caught him, a melancholia provoked by the agitation at the loss of his honours. He took a bold step ; he wrote to the famous Privy-Councillor von Danckle- mann. " I wish," he said, " to thank you herewith most humbly and obediently to pray, to be so gracious, as I am an old most humble servant, and according to the will of God have only to live one or two years, that on the occasion of the present visit of His Electoral Highness (to Halle) I may receive the docu- ment," i.e. the renewal of the appointment to the various offices he held.^
It may have been the humility of his letter — had the pompous old fellow ever grovelled so completely before ? — or it may have been out of pity for an old servant of the Court,
George Frideric Handel
but the Elector gave back to the barber-surgeon all the honours he had lost. Once again George Handel became surgeon to the Court, at first without salary.
Hardly had he been reappointed than he was suddenly- taken ill. He grew worse. Would that life remaining to him, which he had said had but one year, two years to run, pass out so soon ? They prayed for him in the churches ; the Superintendent Olearius, his confessor and a distant relative, came and administered the last Sacrament. It was obvious that the old barber-surgeon was dying.
Then came an amazing change. He rallied. This man, whom they believed to be gasping out his last breath, was suddenly found walking about in his room. Death 1 Who had spoken of death ? There was so much he had to do, so much for him to think about, and Death could not interrupt these things. His recovery was a sheer achievement of will- power— the vdll-power that hustled Death away even as it peeped in at the bedroom door. He flung aside the leech, he dispensed with Superintendent Olearius, and a surprised town saw him suddenly appear, a white, slow-moving ghost, towards his seat in the Liebfrauenkirche and drop painfully to his knees, till only the shower of silver hair was visible above the pew. For long he knelt thus, thanking his Maker for his new lease of life.
Honour was restored, a new sense of ease and achievement crept into the Handel establishment, and probably no one felt the relief more than Anna. Only for a space did Fate allow the barber-surgeon any respite. Scarcely a year after the new distinction had been given, Anna Handel died suddenly. If the barber-surgeon was stupefied by the blow he did not show it. His life went on imperturbably as before. He buried her without a cofiin, without any ceremonial whatever, just as if he were hiding in the ground some finished thing that had once been a piece of his home. In his later years he had not shown the adoration for Anna which he had when she was Oettinger's widow. Now that she had gone he picked up the threads of his life, no more solitary for her loss. But a corner- stone had been knocked out of the domestic edifice which had grown about him and become so accommodating to his
14
The Plague Smites Halle
work, altering its shape, adapting itself to every call which the busy life demanded.
The upheaval did not change him ; he went steadily on without altering the lines of his life by a fraction. Possibly he spoke a little less than he did before to those about him, but otherwise there was no perceptible change in the man. The barber-surgeon never showed at any time of his life, by an expression or by an act, anything that he felt. He took his misfortune as he took his success, with a calm, even strength.
He was still floundering in the rut of misfortune when further disaster overtook him. Plague broke out in Halle, the last epidemic of plague Halle was to know. During the disaster nineteen of the principal citizens of the town formed a union for purposes of mutual help during the plague. The union came into being on 8th May 1682, and each member paid five thalers into its fund, but how the money was applied there is nothing to show. Indeed it is odd that one of the rules of the union was that the money was to be returned to the subscribers after the plague plus interest I How the plague could have been turned into a money-making concern is a problem. The members were required to invoke daily prayer hours in their establishments, and pray regularly in places of worship ; to follow with their families a moderate mode of life, consume good diet, and keep their houses stocked with good provisions. And, finally, if a member were to fail in his provisions or medicines and became infected, the others were to come to his aid from their own stores. The nineteen members were made up of doctors (including George Handel), pastors, town inspectors and grocers. Excellent fellows of high standing in the town, whose names and vocations have been preserved.^
But in spite of these precautions, these prayers, the plague swept away Gottfried, one of the barber-surgeon's two sur- viving children. The surgeon, with the years gathering as a mighty weight upon him, was left practically alone in the great house in the Schlamm, a strong, unbroken but piteous figure.
Even this blow did not bring him to his knees. He waited a
^ Hallische Tageblatt, No. 303.
15
George Frideric Handel
little while considering how he could best remedy the havoc that had been made in his life. Six months elapsed. Not for any trivial move did he wait.
All through the years since he had been made surgeon to the suburb of Giebichenstein — and exactly thirty anniversaries of the event had passed over his head — he had been a regular visitor there. And in spite of his strange reticence for finding friendships he had so far thawed as to make a friend and con- fidant of the pastor of the district, George Taust. The Taust household had for long been a kind of sanctuary, which he visited when Giebichenstein claimed his service, possibly he dined there frequently. In any case, he was a close intimate of the family.
He was now sixty years of age. The tall figure had bent, the face thinned, the mouth become more stubborn, more firm. As he aged, his long hair whitened in curls about his shoulders. He dressed always in black, with a black skull-cap, a coat of black satin and a collar of white lace.^ Early in 1683 — only a very few months after the unromantic Anna had passed to her account — George Handel announced to the few cronies who frequented his house in the Schlamm, and had his confidence, that he was engaged to be married to Dorothea Taust, a woman of thirty-two, quiet, subdued. At his age, and with his experience, George would never have tolerated any woman who was not subdued. His new era of love-making was as violent as the first had been subtle. He attempted in his strong, selfish fashion to thrust an urgent marriage upon her. But the plague, which now had been stamped out of Halle, was still lingering in the suburbs, and some of the Taust family were stricken with it.
In vain did George Handel press the matter of an immediate marriage. Subservient asjshe was, Dorothea had a greater instinct in her — that of humanity. She refused to leave her relatives till they were convalescent. Plead as he would he could make no impression. Not until April burst in loveliness over the Saale plain did George Handel make his second marriage. Certainly he had not wasted much time, for Anna had now been dead exactly six months, but he would have
^ Remain Rolland, " Handel." 16
HANDEL'S BIRTHPLACE.
The House at Halle where Handel was supposed to have been born, decorated with laurels and the names of his oratorios. And —
r/u'tos I'v t/ir Author.
■ — I'he house next door in which he was bom.
George Frideric Handel is Born
wasted less had it not been for the confounded plague which had worried and overworked him for nearly a year.
So did Dorothea Taust come to the mansion in the Schlamm, a nervous woman, very fearful of the rather cele- brated personage whom she had married, the old man with lingerings of youth in him still, his certain faithfulness, his extraordinary set sense of duty in everything.
As soon as he had married, George Handel shut himself up again to his secret life as he had done before. It possibly meant very little more to him whether Dorothea Taust faced him across the dinner-table or Anna Oettinger. He was in his fashion extremely sexless to difference in women. He had never philandered ; he had never really understood women. He had never wanted to understand them. They never intrigued him ; he would probably have lived and died a celibate but for ulterior reasons that made him respond in luke- warm fashion to their charms. Either of the two women who married him could and did always count on extreme fidelity, whatever his shortcomings as a husband — and apparently they were many — may have been.
A year after their marriage Dorothea brought into the world a son, a weak child, who died at birth. The Fates still juggled with old Handel. If it were not for the excuse that he ultimately reared one of the greatest children in the world's history, it might be said that he was never meant to bring children to maturity because he did not understand them. When his v^fe ultimately bore a child of genius he thought the child a fool.
So, when on 23rd February 1685, passers down the Nicolai- strasse or Schlamm heard the small cry of a newly-born child come from the big building at the corner, they interpreted nothing in it at all, except that they hoped, no doubt, that the doctor would have better luck this time.
Not that it could signify at all on that February morning that George Frideric Handel had been born into the world.
17
CHAPTER II
THE HALLE DAYS
On the day following the birth of the child in the Schlamm a few people gathered about the font in the Liebfrauenkirche, situated only five minutes' walk from the residence of the barber-surgeon. There was the barber-surgeon himself stand- ing white-haired beside the font and looking at the small scrap of humanity carried in the arms of his sister-in-law, Anna Taust. Anna Taust, the curious spinster lady with the warm heart, who, in the process of time, was to drift into the Handel circle and exercise a wonderful influence over this child, be- cause she understood children as neither of the Handels ever understood them.
Whatever her joy in this child may have been, however envious she may have been of her sister Dorothea, who had brought him into the world, it is doubtful if Anna Taust knew but a small part of the elation which the coming of the child had created in the heart of the barber-surgeon. This child was the child of his old age ; it marked the beginning of a new family circle which was his. After all, the family that had come to him by Anna Oettinger had ceased to count in his life. Few had survived ; those few who reached maturity had crept away and left him in his solitude ; possibly his taciturnity had hastened their departure. Only one of those children had counted in his heart, and that was his son Gottfried, whom the plague had killed three years before. Gottfried, who had done everything he had told him to do, who had become a surgeon as he meant him to be a surgeon, and who had achieved some little fame and much respectability in Halle as the Handels had before him. He had married well, this Gottfried ; he had raised unto himself a sound practice and had earned a good income. The old barber-surgeon must have seen in this son something of an ideal as it had framed itself in his mind.
18
THE LIEBFRAUENKIRCHE. The churcK on the left ot the illustration.
Visions
But when Gottfried fell before the plague-storm that swept the streets of Halle he left no issue, only a young widow. Had there been a child the old barber-surgeon might never have married a second time. He wanted some youth about him. All the taciturnity and sacrifice of self to the altar of success had left him a man desolate of heart. It was this searching for youth which made him marry Dorothea Taust of Giebichen- stein ; it was the same yearning that made him bring into the world George Frideric, whom they were baptizing this day in the Liebfrauenkirche.
" Unto us a child is born." Those words must have been very present in the mind of this man as he waited beside the font while his father-in-law, old Georg Taust, christened this child George Frideric, thereby performing an office which was to be one of the last of his official life, for within a few weeks of his leaving the church, filled as he doubtless was with the great pride of owning a first grandchild, death claimed him. " Unto us a child is born." And this very child upon whose forehead they set the cross of water now was to put those words to the most wonderful music in little over half a century's time.
He would have been a brave fellow who had suggested to the barber-surgeon that day that this child would in the ensuing years make his living by music. It would have horri- fied the barber-surgeon ; it would have been a suggestion of scandal upon the whole Handel family. Music in those days had failed to find respectability. It was a sort of pedlar's calling, cheap huckstering when all else failed. The family blacklegs turned to music ; people sang in the streets, wrote and sang ephemeral melodies in the taverns, and counted them- selves well paid when the equivalent of a few pence rewarded them. A few escaped to higher spheres, and were included in the select and exclusive choirs that earned for them some halo of respectability.
The barber-surgeon, who had lost Gottfried and found salvation in George Frideric, had higher ambitions for this son. But George Frideric was to disappoint him, he was to frivol with musical instruments ere his parent passed to the Handel tomb. Though his mother Dorothea from the Giebichenstein parsonage was to live to see this child go out
19
George Frideric Handel
and find fame in the doubtful ways of music, she never under- stood what it meant. This son was to grow up and depart from her, and would, in the fullness of time, send short messages of affection to her from his sanctuary in England. But, having no knowledge of music, she never realised his worth. He ultimately became to her a being she had created and sent forth into some strange vortex of public life. She always cared for him, though he departed from her for ever when just emerging from his teens, and when she died Death dealt the greatest blow to this son that his life ever knew.
From the time that the christening party left the Lieb- frauenkirche, life for the Handel child was to drop into the common rut of the better-bred Halle children. Ere the year had ended Pastor Taust of Giebichenstein, left weak and ill as he had been by the plague, passed quietly away, and Fraulein Anna came to live with her sister Frau Dorothea Handel at the Schlamm. Her coming banished all question of the child's education in the tender years. Frau Dorothea was occupied with other cradles. She raised two girls, one of whom was in later years to have the proud knowledge of her brother's achievements. Upon Anna Taust depended the main up- bringing of this boy, and his mother, left with the nurture of two tender children, watched the influence of Tante Anna work itself upon this first child she had been able to rear.
Of some things concerning that boy she remained unaware, even though Anna Taust clearly understood them. She did not know of his interest in Church music, she did not see him fascinated by the first dawning understanding of the notes of the organ. He went to the Liebfrauenkirche regularly ; to Frau Handel his object in doing so was to serve his Maker as he had been taught to do. That the organ music in the Liebfrauenkirche stood in the place of his Maker to the boy who groped his way to understanding never occurred to her. And, if it had, she was doubtless so shaped in her mental out- look by the creed of her husband that she would probably have sent young George Frideric to one of the lesser places of wor- ship of simple faith which existed in Halle at the time, and at which music was unknown.
It is not easy to understand immediately this dislike of the
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Handels towards any form of music, without inquiring a little into the life of Halle at the time when George Frideric was in his childhood. Halle was then a small town confined within the radius of its mediaeval town walls, a town of houses con- structed of wood and plaster covered with thatched roofs. As a house fell into disrepair it was pulled down and a new build- ing created out of the remains of the old, with the addition of more modern material.^ Thus the town kept in its own little circle, with only the suburbs of Glauchau and Neumarkt apart, and it was in the latter that the barber-surgeon had his practice.
Moreover, the people of Halle were severely solitary in their existence. They were situated in the centre of a group of warring tribes, which had fought and triumphed over each other since very early times. Halle was a sort of buffer state ringed about by the denizens of the salt-marshes, a strange people of ancient Wend and Prankish blood, who from the beginning of time had worked the salt wells, and been a law unto themselves — a people so powerful that they were able to support an army of six hundred men.* But music had always been an art, ardently pursued and much better practised at Halle than in all Saxony. The glories of the old courts, the moods of successive rulers with the pomps and ceremonies at the old Moritzburg ' in the town, whence archbishops and princes ruled with rods of iron, had kept song alive throughout Halle. And the glorious memory of Halle's court music, which lasted until shortly before the birth of the child George Frideric, was undoubtedly still alive in the people at the time of his infancy.* Many choirs existed in the town at the time when his infant intelligence first began to understand. The town choir, and choirs from the schools — choirs that sang in the streets in front of citizens' houses, and thrived on chance charity cast from the windows to put an end to what was too frequently an irritating noise. Someone was always singing somewhere in public in Halle in those days. Occasionally the singers were given pieces of cloth and a spasmodic education
1 G. F. Hertzberg. " Geschichte der Stadt Halle."
■ Brockhaus, Lexikon " Halloren."
■ Built 1478 when the Archbishop conquered the town. * Dr Weissenborn.
21
George Frideric Handel
by some ancient charity according to the regularity of their singing. To become musical, therefore, was to ally oneself with a species of street vagrants, to descend in public esteem, and to be the certain occupier of a charitable cubicle as the end of it all.
Such a prospect for their son jarred badly on the Handels. It was not entirely his fault that the barber-surgeon strove to exterminate, as he might some rank weed, the first interest in music which showed in his son. The Handel pride was considered a God-given gift above music ; it had found its birth in a great record of honourable men, and it was not going to slip into the mire of common huckstering of sounds and noises if the old barber-surgeon could help it. Aunt Anna, when she cast aside neutrality and threw all the weight of her sympathies to the child in whom the first knowledge of melody was dawning, who took him to the Liebfrauenkirche that he might listen to a wonderful organ on Sundays, and brought him back again, was risking a great deal in what she did. Had her lack of neutrality been revealed, it is certain that she would not have been tolerated for very long in the Handel household. In aiding this child to understand the meaning of music to the soul, in cultivating that new-born creed in him, she was hiding a secret sin. It is certain that the barber- surgeon did not know, and equally certain that his wife, Dorothea, did not know that the saintly Anna was leading a double life. If she did smuggle in the clavichord for the child, which the biographers will insist upon, then she was a woman of still greater daring than history has ever credited her with possessing. The barber-surgeon was weary of hearing the various choirs sing daily sacred airs in chorus manner and in parts under the conductorship of a Prsefectus at stated hours in front of the citizens' houses.^ They were a sort of public nuisance in the Schlamm, the melancholy nuisance familiar in our Christmas waits. Daily repetition may well have urged a certain decision in his mind when thinking about his son : " If that boy ever shows the first inclination towards music or noises disguised as such, I will kill it." And all the while that delightful old maid in his house. Aunt Anna, was deceiv-
1 G. F. Hertzberg, " Geschichte der Stadt Halle."
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Handel Begins School-Life
ing him, tolerating little George Frideric, if she did not actu- ally encourage him, in this awful vice. Tremendously- proud of his rebellion in her secret soul no doubt. Tram- melled about as they were by the fussation and importance of the barber-surgeon in the Schlamm House, it is so easy to see how it all happened. Probably if there had been no Aunt Anna there might have been no Westminster Abbey for George Frideric, though it is hard to believe that a soul so strewn with melody would have failed to find its destined and appointed place.
The greatest characteristic about the barber-surgeon throughout his life had been selfishness. He had been selfish from his youth, and his selfishness had been aided by great strength of personality. Everything he did — as far as history reveals — ^had been guided by self-motives. His marriage with Anna Oettinger, a diplomatic move for self ; his great honours the result of cleverness, but as cleverly planned. His second marriage, a sop to self. A supremely selfish, clever man, he had ever been with two weak women, one after the other, vainly striving to play a very inferior second fiddle, a half-dumb instrument in the family orchestra, which was all " George Handel, barber-surgeon of some renown."
When the child of his late years was seven years old a new problem occurred to the barber-surgeon. He had to educate him. Halle at that date was full of schools, both good and bad. There were poor schools and orphan schools in the Glauchau, and in the Vineyards. There was a school of Catholics, a school of French commune, a great number of private schools. There was also a Jewish school in the town conducted by a Rabbi, and free to pupils. The Rabbis usually came from Poland and were married men, whose wives and children remained in Poland. By their laws these Rabbis were compelled to return to their wives after two years in Halle,^'and live with them for at least one year. If, at the end of that time, they came to the end of their earnings they were considered free to go back to Halle for another term and so continue on the jog-trot of life, now here, now there.*
1 Dreyhaupt. 23
George Frideric Handel
There was also the Lutheran Gymnasium, or Halle Grammar School, not renowned for the breeding of its scholars, for if a boy did not enter it by legitimate means he could enter it by charity.^ If he were the son of the poorest tradesman he could arrive there by this means or that. It was denied to no one. As often as not the Alms-treasury paid the fees for the boy. The school had a good philosophical and theological library if no standing as a seminary of teaching. It had ten classes, divided irrespective of the children's social standing.
Into this mixed quarter the barber-surgeon sent his son, for no apparent reason revealed by record except to save money. There were good private schools in Halle in plenty, but he avoided them all. And, though he meant his son to be a lawyer, which in those days entailed the best education possible, he decided to save fees by sending him to the Grammar School, a carefully thought-out move which proved a boomerang. For the head of the Grammar School when young George Frideric entered was a music-loving rector Praetorius. A puritanical spirit of pietism was spreading in Halle at that date, and the head of this school had been caught up in it, and believed in the power of music to develop religious thought. It was into the hands of this man that the barber-surgeon unknowingly pushed his son, believing that all the nonsense of music would be worried out of him by the demands of school- work, as the Grammar School work was notoriously excessive and unproductive and diffuse. It led nowhere, but the pupil met and rubbed shoulders with the children of common tradesmen or nobody at all, and picked up a smattering of miscellaneous knowledge, which had no beginning and no end, because it had no object. The alms-child had as good a chance as the child of the notorious barber-surgeon.
The uncouth urchins, who were his companions, and the cramped means of education, must have given the child cause for a diversion of thoughts. They taught him at this seminary
1 Some of Handel's biographers have maintained that he was first a pupil at the Latin School at Halle, but this was not opened till 1698. The register of the Stadtkinder (town-children school) does not contain his name, consequently there is only the Lutheran Gymnasium to which he could have gone. Unfor- tunately the school register of this seminary was not kept by the Rector Praetorius during the years of Handel's childhood, and was only recontinued in 1705.
24
An Historic Courtyard
Latin and the sense of his God. The latter he had already discovered under the protection of Aunt Anna in the mysteri- ous dusk of the Liebfrauenkirche. He had never revealed it even to her. But religious music had an intense fascination for him ; the range of the organ — poor in comparison to the range of that same organ to-day — on which his fingers first learned to play, was the discovery of a new soul seeking its destiny. When he was not at the Grammar School, he seems to have been left to playing with street companions. He was, as the old barber-surgeon, his father, had been in his youth, intensely lonely. There is no record of the boy George Frideric having found a single friend in his early youth. They were just companions of youth's irresponsible pathway, who pass as unknown as they come.
He had the courtyard at the back of the Schlamm and its wide garden as a playground. Beyond it some odd barns and fields. On the town side he had an old courtyard, which still stands with its surrounding buildings as he knew it — the ancient palace of Cardinal Albrecht, a mediaeval ruffian, who played havoc with the Church and the hearts of women.
The child, of course, knew nothing of Cardinal Albrecht or his works and his love passages. But Albrecht had been a sixteenth-century demigod of Halle, who had left out of his riches a rather desolate courtyard between a cramped run of buildings, in which the child George Frideric Handel was to play. The story of that courtyard is worth telling, since it must have been one of the principal haunts of the boy. It stands now, as it stood in his day, opposite the place where he was born, dull and shabby and with all the overburdening sense of lost romance. The daintily-clad mistresses of the Cardinal who built it have gone down in the dust ; the glories of the Moritzburg, which the Cardinal inhabited, are as a tale that is told. All the memories of high rank, of riches, of life that sailed above that which Halle knew in this age have passed just as worldly things pass in their appointed time, leaving an old courtyard, melancholy, seldom stirred by the sound of feet.
The courtyard is still as he knew it ; from his bedroom window he must have viewed its solemn entrance. Originally
25
George Frideric Handel
the main building in it had been a chapel, but in the early- sixteenth century the Cardinal Albrecht found a Court favourite in one Hans von Schonitz. This fellov^ Schonitz amassed enormous wealth by transactions which did not admit of strict investigation. He built himself a palace in this courtyard, which had a single entrance from the Schlamm, and which in its day consisted of a row of stately buildings, including the Kiihlebrunnen (cool-born or well). This Kiihlebrunnen, the possession of the town, received the only wine and spirit licence apart from the Rath-cellar. To construct this palace Schonitz had used a great deal of material from the Church of St Ulrich ; he accumulated building material from anywhere without paying for it. Most of it was purloined from churches which he thought needed pulling down. Thus he slowly built his palace, an ugly, mediaeval building still. On the first floor there is a large room, where the Town Council used to hold their meetings, and underneath was their spacious cellar. In a room by the side of it used to stand in the days of the child Handel, a very old wooden bedstead — it existed until 1755. And it was in this room that the Cardinal used to visit his mistresses ; the room had a secret staircase going in from a small door in the courtyard.^
The man Schonitz had built this palace by illicit gains, and by equally illicit means he came to his fall. The Cardinal had no objection to the barefaced robbery of his purse, since he could make good the deficiencies by heavier taxation on the people of Halle. But when von Schonitz in this building, every brick of which, apart from those purloined, the Cardinal had paid for, stole away one of the Cardinal's favourite mis- tresses, the matter came to a climax. The Cardinal dragged his favourite out of his lair, and beheaded him in 1535. It was the only thing to do. Still the palace yard, no better than an East End London alley in these days, went on undisturbed and became the haunt of a lonely child, who probably knew nothing of its story. The building that was a palace and its yard still stand ; all the romance gone from the desolate windows and doorways, uncurtained and grim, changing itself not at all, but standing sure and defiant against the ravages of time, long
1 G. F. Hertzberg, "Geschichte der Stadt Halle," vol. i. 26
Photo by the Author. THE ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE YARD. Opposite Handel's birthplace at Halle, where Handel played as a child.
A Feat of Surgery
after the scuffle of those young feet over its stones had ceased.
Some miles distant from the town of Halle is Weissenfels, which at this period was celebrated chiefly because the Duke kept his Court there. Much of the pomp, which in earlier times had annoyed the citizens of Halle with endless restric- tions and ceremonies, had since passed to Weissenfels. Halle now was a town making money, with its coal and salt industries, its lace and ribbon factories, its silk and wool. It had to a great extent broken free from the serfdom, which had found its ruling from the Moritzburg. Weissenfels had taken the place of Halle since the established Court there had drawn thither many of the rich drones of public life and their accruing vice.
Meanwhile the fame of the barber-surgeon had continued to grow ; they had heard of him as far away as Leipzig. The richest people of the outlying towns came to him. Then at this period (1692) he performed an operation under peculiar circumstances, which made his repute a matter for common talk everywhere. A boy of sixteen named Andreas Rudloff, the son of a peasant of Maschvritz, near Halle, held in his mouth a fair-sized knife with a stag-horn handle. He had the misfortune to fall and the knife was pushed down his throat. Those present, finding they could not get the knife up, decided to wash it down with cold and hot beer and olive oil ! This they did and followed the beer with medicines to corrode the blade of the knife. For nearly a year the boy lived with this knife inside him, suffering greatly, and the subject of medical experiment all the time. But medicines and masters proved of no avail — the knife remained wedged at the base of the stomach. Finally a boil appeared under the heart, and on opening it the barber-surgeon Handel discovered the point of the knife. He fastened a silk thread to it, and daily attempts were made to pull the knife a little farther out. This had to be done with great care, because it caused intense pain to the patient, followed by rapid fits of fainting and vomiting. It was on 1 8th June that the barber-surgeon found the point of the knife, and he did not succeed in removing the weapon till 2nd August. The boy who had walked about with the knife
27
George Frideric Handel
in him for i year, 30 weeks and 3 days, then recovered com- pletely, was nicknamed the " Halle Sword- Swallower," and in the fullness of time became a military surgeon.^ What he had endured doubtless enthused him towards barber-surgery.
As surgeon at the Weissenfels Court the father of the child Handel travelled there at regular intervals by coach. And it was one of these journeys which decided the question of music for this child for all time. That Weissenfels journey was a divine accident or a premeditated act of equal inspiration. George Frideric Handel was at this time between seven and nine years old,^ but how it came about that he went with his father to Weissenfels there is nothing to show. Historians declare that he ran after the coach in which his father was travelling and overtook it ! ' One can scarcely imagine a boy, even of nine years of age, being able to overtake a coach, slothful as the coach must have been on the bad roads. Others declare that the coach broke down, and the boy, following on foot, came upon the benighted barber-surgeon unawares, and cried so piteously to be taken that his father had perforce to bundle him into the vehicle. This story, like the other, is probably more fragrant with romance than veracity, for no child would follow a coach blindly in the hope that it would break down. The probability is that the barber-surgeon left the house at the Schlamm with the child on the coach beside him. There were times in his life when he took a spasmodic interest in the members of his family. In a heart that had known little tenderness and much severity there were moments of human understanding, which came at intervals like the glow of a burst of sunshine over ice. He may have promised the boy the treat of a journey to Weissenfels ; or it is even possible that out of his own vanity — ^which was superb — he decided to take this child of his late years to the Court for show purposes, since his cleverness in his craft had made him a persona grata there. It is difficult to believe that he would have taken his
1 Dreyhaupt.
2 Mainwaring, Handel's first biographer, says that the child was seven years of age, Chrysander declares that he was somewhat older, but there is no record as to his actual age.
* Mainwaring, Chrysander, Schoelcher, Rockstro and Streatfeild all main- tain this story, though it probably originated in the imagination of the first- named, for there is no record to support it.
28
At Weissenfels
child to Court without some definite permission, for ceremony reigned supreme, and a presumption of this kind might have produced a crisis which the barber-surgeon could ill afford to risk. In any case the child was taken and lodged with the barber-surgeon's nephew, Georg Christian Handel, who was engaged as valet-de-chambre at the palace.
At Weissenfels the child immediately took possession of the affections of many, for he was intelligent beyond his years. Georg Christian, interested no doubt in his small relative, took him into the chapel. After that the child would go to the chapel for rehearsals, until the organist began to recognise the quaint little wondering figure. One day the organist seated the child at the instrument, and was astounded to find that he had some instinctive knowledge of music.
It was a Sunday service which was the means of drawing the Duke's attention to the child Handel. On this occasion the boy was allowed to attempt a voluntary at the end of the service. To a child something under nine, a modern organ would have been unmanageable, but the instrument in ques- tion was small, and the small fingers found melody and played.
In the chapel the Duke listened. The notion of this child seated at what was in comparison a mighty instrument, amused him. He had more than average discernment where music was concerned, and he sent for the boy and his father. When the barber-surgeon took George Frideric to Weissenfels he had no suspicion of what was going to happen. The Duke in his remarks was brief and to the point. This child, he de- clared, had abnormal gifts ; he had never known a child play in such a cultured manner before. He must be trained.
In vain the barber-surgeon expostulated as energetically as he dared. He intended the child for the law, and no minor talents must defeat what the doctor believed to be the boy's destiny. But to ignore gifts like these in a child was to fly in the face of God, the Duke declared. He produced some money and filled George Frideric's small pocket with it. Whatever passions rose in the surgeon's breast, he lost by this incident the battle for his son's future. There was nothing left for him to say. The Duke insisted that the child should be taught music, and to decline or break the command would have meant risking
29
George Frideric Handel
his post at the Court. And he was a prudent man, ready, when someone greater than himself so demanded, to sacrifice even his own incHnations. He took George Frideric back to Halle and put him into the hands of Zachow, the organist at the Liebfrauenkirche, for his musical education.
Zachow was a curious character ; a thinker, an extremely able man, with qualities far in excess of those required by his post at the Liebfrauenkirche. He was thirty years of age when the barber-surgeon came to him. about this wayward son who had begun to disappoint him with his musical proclivities. Zachow hailed from Leipzig, where his father was Stadt- musikus, and he had an extremely wide knowledge of all forms of music, and instruments ; he could, in fact, play all the instruments then in general use.^ He was a zealot of the highest order, deeply impressed by the sense of those great ones who had preceded him at the Liebfrauenkirche organ — ^Wolff Heintz, Samuel Scheldt and others. He composed regularly and well, Church cantatas and fugues, and, if his music never rose to great heights, it was at least graceful and lacking only in imagination. He adopted the boy Handel as the object for the outpourings of his whole musical soul. The boy had genius and Zachow was only second to the Duke in recognising the fact ; he gave to that genius all the service he knew, sparing himself nothing.
The result was that Handel derived far more than a musical teaching from Zachow ; he was imbued with a certain amount of his style. There is, in several of Handel's com- positions, distinct leanings towards Zachow, although Zachow's organ music, when played to-day, seems like the innocuous trifling of an inferior musician with the imagination of Handel. The latter had genius, whilst the former merely possessed talent and a great ardour. The world's debt to Zachow lies, not in his musical remains, but in the sound and strictly accu- rate tuition which he gave to the boy Handel. He worked him ruthlessly at all instruments, and in Italian and German forms of composition, so much so that, had not the hours with Zachow been a joy rather than a burden to the boy, the heavi- ness of the instruction would have broken his heart. No
1 Grove's " Dictionary of Music." 30
THE ORGAN IN THE LIEBFRAUENKIRCHE, HALLE,
On which Handel learned lo play a« a boy, under the tuition of the organist, Zachow.
Early Composing
doubt it would also have achieved what the barber-surgeon most desired — the satiation of his son with music for ever.^ Young Handel composed, so it is said, a Church Service every week, and when in his later years Lord Polworth discovered one of these volumes of his boyhood somewhere on the Continent, and Weidemann the flute-player showed it to Handel, he laughingly admitted the work as his own. " I used to write like the devil in those days," he said, by way of self-excuse.^
He had three years under Zachow — three years during which he probably achieved a greater understanding of music than Zachow himself. Zachow had taught him the rudiments of counterpoint and harmony ; he admitted now that he could teach his pupil no more. This precocious boy had a mind that thought in the same tones of music as that of his master. He desired means for expansion and it was decided that he should go to Berlin.
Most of Handel's biographers have declared that he was sent to Berlin to meet Ariosti and Bononcini, whose fame was then common talk throughout Germany. Some write of the boy Handel sitting on Ariosti's knee and being trained to the difficult ways of music, but at that period the Dominican monk was still in Italy.^ When Handel, now at eleven years of age, went to Berlin in 1696, neither of the two musicians had been there. Ariosti was the first to arrive, a year later ; not until five years afterwards did Bononcini, like some flashing fire- work, lighten the musical circles of the Electress and disappear again.* There is therefore no apparent reason for Handel having gone to Berlin ; but it would suggest a certain relin- quishing of the spirit of antagonism to music in the mood of his father. For a boy of eleven to set out on such a mysterious journey — the barber-surgeon was then too ill to accompany
1 Some proof of this is to be found in the volume of choruses, fugues and airs transcribed by Handel at this period from the works of Zachow, Alberti, Krieger, Ebner and others, which, according to Coxe, was dated 1698. It passed into the possession of Lady Rivers, who was remarkably careless of her Handel possessions, and then disappeared.
2 Burney.
8 Grove's " Dictionary of Music" is wrong in stating that Ariosti became Maestro di Cappella to the Electress of Brandenburg in 1690.
* There is a letter in existence from the Cavaliere Fra Alessandro Bichi, written from Berlin in 1695, in which he gives all the names of the painters and musicians in the city at the time, but neither Bononcini nor Ariosti are men- tioned. This would suggest that neither of them was in Berlin at that period.
31
George Frideric Handel
him — was romantic even for a romantic age. He must have gone with someone. Whom ? Did Zachow take him there to show the boy a world in which music was supreme ? Certainly the barber-surgeon must have financed the mission.
At that time Berlin was taking definite shape in European affairs as a centre of music. It was entirely the work of one woman, the Electress Sophia Charlotte, wife of the man who was to become Frederick I. of Prussia. For years she had made of her Court a " mad riot of music," to quote a historian of the period. She set all Berlin by the ears on account of her eccen- tric behaviour. She held concerts at all times — often in the dead of night — and in all places. Her husband she regarded as a puppet ; he was content to remain so, and own to a pride in the wonderful musical fervour which was making the Berlin Court talked about in London, Paris and elsewhere. , More- over, the Electress was certainly stirring the musical dovecotes of Florence, whence some of the best Italian musicians were migrating northward to the welter of colour and exclusiveness, which Berlin, under Sophia, offered to the Europe of her day. Sophia, clever and v^th a certain sense of music, had composed a few very uninspired but dignified pieces, and she had at one time been trained by Steffani, who had been Kapellmeister to her father the Elector of Hanover. She was a woman who had no belief in rank ; a creature from the gutter might play the violin well and be her friend. He could sit at her table and eat the rich foods for which the Berlin Court was famous, or if the singing of his violin were better than that of other violins he would be treated as the guest of the evening. Those who still clung to the Court, yet aware that the Court had now been turned topsy-turvy by this woman, had to bow to the figure of musical ability, who came to the table in rags if the Electress demanded, or stay away and drift towards the quiet backwaters into which those of political thought, with not a note of music in them, were slowly and certainly eddied.
All political progress at a Court concentrated to Art alone was out of question. Sophia's husband was sequestering him- self with a wealth of mistresses, while his Consort rubbed shoulders with all kinds of weird figures who carried instru- ments through the palace gates. Unknown people found some
32
I
Handel in Berlin
mysterious entree to the palace, and came away famous ; were called upon by Sophia in disreputable by-streets given over to humble lodgements. It was a kaleidoscopic Court of peoples and manners, of big drawing-rooms, where the lights blazed till the first shafts of daylight were very certain in- truders, where half the visitors could not utter a word of Ger- man, but spoke to the Consort of Germany's ruler in the notes of an instrument, and had no other means of communication with her.
That a boy of eleven should come up from what was practi- cally an unknown town, and drop directly into this vortex of cosmopolitan life is at first a little mysterious. But his coming to Berlin had, it would seem, nothing to do with the Court. That he reached that Court and was exploited was entirely due to the acumen of the Electress, searching as she always was for some feverish sensation to create a new mood in music among the members of her circle. She had compelled her husband to run an opera-theatre, or rather a theatre at which the Italian operas and Italian musicians were prominent. Probably the good man never knew the manner in which his money was being expended, but was only conscious that he was running the Italian opera by the fact that unknown figures who gabbled in a southern tongue of which he had no learning, appeared and reappeared at the palace with ever more alarming frequency.
Everything points to the fact that Handel's first perform- ances in Berlin were of the humblest nature ; he certainly did not come in with a storm of precocity under the cegis of Ariosti or Bononcini. But his remarkable skill on the clavi- chord and the organ, considering that he was only eleven years of age, began to astonish the little thatched town of twenty thousand inhabitants which Berlin then was, and he created an immediate sensation.^ The neurotic Electress, tired and distinctly nervy with a surfeit of high life, heard of him, and when she heard of a musical curiosity she sent for it. She commanded the attendance of the boy Handel, and for a wondrous hour he was the most talked of personage in Berlin.
Consider for a moment the circle into which this boy had
1 E. David, " G. F. Hiindcl. Sa Vie."
33 0
George Frideric Handel
been drawn. All the musical genius of Europe had assembled at this Court as if it had been some vast concert-room. Italy, the heart from which the music of Europe throbbed at the end of the seventeenth century, had had its best blood drawn from it by the attractions of this extraordinary Court. The boy Handel was caught up and whirled off his feet by the pane- gyrics of a people who must have appeared to him strange if not a little mad. The Electress herself directed the orchestra, the Prince and princesses played and sang, and musicians, accustomed to lead at other and inferior Courts, humbly took their places in the orchestra.^ That young Handel created a stupendous impression there is no doubt, for only a few months after his arrival in Berlin we find the Elector — inspired, no doubt, by the whims of his weird and wonderful wife — appeal- ing to the aged barber-surgeon at Halle, now laid to the bed on which he was so soon to die, to permit him to take the boy into his service. He offered at the same time to send him to Italy to have him trained — which really showed his ignorance of musical affairs, for there was very little about music at this stage which the young Handel did not know.
It is hardly possible that the barber-surgeon weighed the letter in his mind for very long. He knew the ways of Courts ; he had breathed the exotic atmosphere of such places. He knew possibly that there was something strange about this son George Frideric which he had never deeply fathomed, because he had never understood the moods of the boy. He had talents doubtless above those of the School Choir and Town Choir, whose singers came bothering him with their dim religious music in the Schlamm at all times and in all moods and weathers. These effete tuneless nuisances, as they must have appeared to his tuneless soul ! The boy had thriven with his Latin and general knowledge at the Grammar School. And quite probably Zachow, with that ardour which he always felt for his extraordinary pupil, had met the father in the street at times and expounded his revolutionary theories of what the boy ought to do in the world of music. Of one thing the barber-surgeon must have been quite certain : this boy of his had got him out of his depth. So he did what all the race of
1 W. S. Rockstro, " Life of G. F. Handel," p. 15. 34
The Return to Halle
Handels would have expected him to do : he refused the Elector's offer, and ordered his son to return to Halle forth- with.
This took place at the end of 1696. And George Frideric^ receiving the call from Halle, answered it.
It was a dreary journey by coach covering ten days, for there was no main road between Berlin and Halle at that periods Soon after George Frideric reached Halle the venerable barber- surgeon breathed his last in the house at the Schlamm. The dour old gentleman with the white locks, whose bent figure had crept rather painfully through the streets in his later years,, who was still more proud of a reputation which had extended for many leagues, than ever he was to be of a son who alone was the cause of his name being remembered, had dropped asleep for ever. For years he had been a waning figure, a man living in the memory of dead yesterdays, growing more and more to himself as the stress of age pressed in upon him. Silent, feared, remote.
A sense of infinite responsibility must have come to the child of twelve as he stood in the death-chamber. This aged father, whom he had never understood, and who had never had the first understanding of his son, had been the axis around which the Handel family revolved. He had caused the order- ing of everything without explanation. Now the boy had stepped into his shoes, and, looking to him as the head of the house, was a widowed mother, forty-five years of age, Aunt Anna, and two small sisters.
His first act was to write a poem to the memory of his father. It appeared in a pamphlet issued on 14th February 1697, three days after the barber-surgeon's death, and it was the first occasion on which the name of George Frideric Handel ever appeared in print.*
But there were more material things to be considered. There was the Handel practice to be disposed of. It would certainly never be of any use to George Frideric, and the family was in need of ready money. The barber-surgeon had left no secret store, indeed it is doubtful if in his later years he had made much money. Rearing two families, economically as he
1 Dr Weissenborn. 35
George Frideric Handel
had planned the task, had reduced his savings ; the Schlamm house had cost him a great deal to maintain, and there is even a suspicion that the restaurant of " The Yellow Stag " had been none too profitable.
Frau Handel, therefore, was left with no alternative but to sell the practice at once, and she sold it to Christopher E. MoUer. Where MoUer came from, or how far he was com- petent to carry on a practice hitherto held by a man who knew the work backwards, there is nothing to show. Nevertheless the enterprising MoUer soon found himself in trouble. No sooner had he bought the practice than he was sued by the Barbers' Company of Halle, the nearest approach to a trade union which the seventeenth century could produce. The three parishes of Halle, Neumarkt and Glauchau at that time were separate, and it was against the jurisdiction of the Halle Barbers' Company that one barber-surgeon should practise in all three.i Why Handel was ever allowed to do so, there is nothing to show, but the Barbers' Company was not willing to admit the same privilege to his successor. Handel, having rushed blithely through all trouble with the Barbers' Company, was certainly an instance of " casus singularis," which in future was not to be permitted to recur. When MoUer acquired the Handel business in Neumarkt, there was at that time no vacancy for a barber-surgeon in the place, but the Company were prepared to offer him a vacancy at Glauchau. This MoUer would not accept. Handel had always practised at Neumarkt, and he intended to do the same. The case went to the Elector, much as Handel's fight over his wine-selling had done, and he decided in MoUer's favour. A decree was issued, but the Barbers' Company appealed and had the decree rescinded.
It was an urgent little war at which the Handel family had to sit down and look on ; Frau Dorothea doubtless very bored with the stupid, sordid nature of it all, and perhaps in great anxiety lest she should have to refund some of the money she had received for the practice her husband had left her. But MoUer ultimately won his case, was satisfied with his bargain and pursued the steps of the barber-surgeon Handel before
1 All documents relating to this case are at the Geheimen Staats Archiv, Berlin, and the Staats Archiv, Magdeburg, and details have not been hitherto published.
36
Death of Handel's Father
him. What MoUer paid for the practice no one ever knew except Frau Dorothea and perhaps Aunt Anna.
Change then began to creep into the household as the influence which had ruled inviolate over it so many years departed and left nothing of its power. Frau Dorothea cut the Schlamm house into two halves ; she lived in one half with Aunt Anna and her children, and let the other. Such a thing as letting half the family domain would have shocked the pride of the dead barber-surgeon. Now that he had gone, his widow began to gain something of that sense of independence which she had never known since the days when, as Dorothea Taust, she made the barber-surgeon wait till her own chosen time for their wedding. Thirteen years of married life in the Schlamm house had not entirely crushed out that sturdiness of character which had formerly been hers in the Giebichenstein parsonage, when she arranged the affairs of the Taust household. The Schlamm house had been large and rather solitary in its extent, with its low corridors and square ugly rooms. It was imposing as the barber-surgeon had always been imposing, needing space, carrying importance. . . .
The Moller case settled, the Schlamm house divided up and made more comfortable and compact, Frau Dorothea devoted her life and energies to the training of her children, whom she educated to a belief in God and the best instincts of the home. Probably to this strong Lutheran faith of hers, which she so carefully passed on to her son, the great influence of religion began to stir in the boy, which later found its true expression in his Church music and Messiah, His first visits to the Lieb- frauenkirche with Aunt Anna, later his work there with Zachow, had made his mind ready to receive the seeds of religious thought which came from his mother, and was an influ- ence directly traced to that period which immediately followed the barber-surgeon's passing.
One unwritten commandment made by the barber-surgeon remained. The boy was to train himself for the Law, and, when the venerable figure had gone, George Frideric pursued his studies with greater zeal than ever. All his leisure from his legitimate studies he devoted to music ; so much his father had agreed. Zachow was still helping him, and Zachow was doubt-
37
George Frideric Handel
less responsible for the boy securing certain audiences for his playing which in the ordinary way he could not have obtained. Certainly he acquired, and very quickly acquired, a local reputa- tion. People came from a distance to hear him perform. Georg Philipp Telemann, who was later to achieve a great vogue in Germany by his Church music, heard the young Handel and wrote a great eulogy of him in the autobiography which, at a later date, he contributed to Mattheson's " Ehren- Pforte." Telemann was four years older than Handel. His rise was meteoric ; his Passion music a forerunner of the greater qualities of Handel. But his reputation fell away after his death with the same ease as it had arisen, because, in the main his music was artificial, and had only a certain ripeness, in- sufficient to carry the work to posterity.^ He was a person of peculiar conceit, who yet had the fairness of mind to admit the genius of Handel, and there is evidence that at a later stage a warm friendship sprang up between them, which remained unspoiled by any sense of rivalry. Indeed Handel had a keen admiration for Telemann, whom he said could " write a motet for eight voices more quickly than one could write a letter." ^ Five years almost to a day (loth February 1702) after the death of the barber-surgeon, George Frideric Handel carried out what would have been his father's most ardent wish — he entered Halle University as a student. But he did this purely for the sake of his social position, and not with the intention of embracing any particular study. His biographer, Chrysander, declares that he went to the University to study Law, but Handel did not enter himself among the Law Students, which is proof that obedience to the old barber-surgeon's dictum had ceased to count. He had already chosen his career. The University at this period was comparatively new and was the outcome of the old academy for the nobility (Ritter Akademie), which the Elector of Brandenburg had founded in 1691 . When
1 Rockstro says that Telemann heard Handel play in 1701 whilst on his way to Leipzig. But he must have been in error, for Telemann went to Leipzig in 1700. If he heard Handel play at a later date it must have been during a subse- quent visit to Halle. The fact that he came from Magdeburg and would there- fore pass through Halle on his way to Leipzig would suggest that 1700 was the year in which he met the Handel prodigy, then fifteen years of age.
* Hawkins, " A General History of the Science and Practice of Music," 1776.
38
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HANDEL AS A STUDENT,
Hi« signature — at toot of page — a« he wrote it in the book of Halle University on the day he entered as a student.
Handel as a Student
Handel signed his name on the students' record it was under the direction of Prorector Buddeus.
Student Hf e at Halle in 1 702 was far removed from drudgery or abnormal toil. Roystering was frequent, duelling openly indulged in, and sport and the copious drinking of wine and beer part and. parcel of the students' day and night. The University itself possessed a privilege for a wine and beer house, which it let yearly to a magistrate or a private individual, and so found a source of income to supplement its none too plenti- ful funds. It also ran a coffee shop. Duelling had assumed such aggravated proportion among the students here and else- where, that, six weeks after Handel joined the University, a royal decree was issued that it should be excluded from all royal Universities, but the high spirits of the students soon broke out in other directions. They made periodical attacks on the town hall and other public places, and, after ringing the " storm-bell," armed citizens had to come to the aid of the town guards to quell the disturbance.^
Not that Handel had much heart for these jousts, for the extraordinary energy which characterised his life began in these years. Barely a month after he had joined the University a scandal occurred at the Cathedral, or Dom-Kirche, attached to the Moritzburg, where one Leporin, a Leipzig musician, had presided at the organ for the past four years. Leporin was a dissolute character, but a master of the instrument. He drank, he roystered. Often when the congregation forgathered to worship, the organ was lacking a player, for Leporin was either in a drunken stupor or away on one of his regular carousals. Some of the earliest biographers of Handel threw much of the blame for Leporin's behaviour on Zachow of the Liebfrauen- kirche, with no reason at all. A more flagrant injustice cannot be imagined. Zachow at all times had been of temperate, even puritanical habits, and often absurdly mean in the matter of luxury. The man was too keen on his work to be other- wise, and when he died in 171 2 it was in peculiarly humble circumstances.
The Leporin scandal at the Dom outraged Halle. The Lutherans at the Liebfrauenkirche blamed the Calvinists, to
1 Dreyhaupt. 39
George Frideric Handel
whom the Dom belonged, for permitting such impious be- haviour to endure. In March 1702 the Calvinists took action. They threw out Leporin, and they put in the student Handel as a temporary measure, although a certain section of the Calvin- ists of the town took exception to the decision, because Handel was a Lutheran. The step had been under consideration for some time, for negotiations were in progress when he first joined the University, but his religion, his extreme youth, were points for doubt. Strictly speaking, he had no right at the Dom whatever, but as the appointment was for a year's probation at an annual salary of fifty thaler, the controversy quickly subsided, and the Calvinists continued their worship in peace. In addition, Handel was given lodging at the Moritz- burg " below by the gate," but he failed to live there ; instead, he let the apartment for sixteen thaler a year.^
For over a year he presided at the organ at the Dom. But all the while big resolves were forming in his mind. He had no desire to serve his life as an organist, much as he loved the instrument. And his ambition was goading him beyond the narrow confines of Halle, with its petty feuds and commercial smugness. Some searching instinct suggested to him that beyond the far horizon attainment might be found. He was intrigued by the stories of Italian music which had stormed Europe, of the melodious glories of Hamburg. A new school of music was seeking birth in the German city.
He was eighteen years of age — a year of decision, and against the desire for independence and travel, the home ties could offer but a poor defence.
In 1703 he resigned his post as organist at the Dom, and
1 Chrysander credits Handel with considerable activity in connection with the town music during his appointment at the Dom, but is sadly in error. He had read in Dreyhaupt (vol. i. p. 991) that the church music performances were divided among the various churches. But the Dom is not enumerated among these churches. As a matter of fact, the town choir was entrusted with these performances, and this choir belonged to the Gymnasium. Teachers of the Lutheran Gymnasium, were, according to the custom of the time, also Cantors of the town churches, and they employed their choir in the church music perform- ances. The reformed organist could have no part in these ; in consequence Handel's activity was restricted to the Dom church. Chrysander is therefore far from the mark when he says (p. 63) : "In this manner it was an easy matter for Handel to possess himself of the entire musical government. Whatever he composed was performed without delay."
40
Handel sets out for Hamburg
was succeeded by Johann Kohlhart,^ oddly enough another Lutheran. Handel wasted little time. Leaving the University he packed up his few belongings at the Schlamm, bade fare- well to his mother and sisters and Aunt Anna and set out in the early summer for Hamburg.
Happily for himself, the old barber-surgeon slept on in his grave, unknowing that all he had striven for had broken down. The son of his late years had failed him.
1 Johann Kohlhart was born at Wettin, nth January 1661 ; was Cantor at Glauchau 1682, and Octavus at the Lutheran Gymnasium 1701. Besides bis duties at the Dom church he had to take over the Cantorship of St Uhich Church in 1 7 12. He died 9th April 1732. — " Hallische Schul-Historica," iii. p. 12.
41
\
CHAPTER III
THE HAMBURG ADVENTURE
1703-1705
Hamburg was the city of adventure. In 1703 it was an evil spot for a youth of eighteen without a friend, and certainly with very little money. Moreover, there was in prospect for Handel no definite means of earning his living. He had left Halle aimlessly to find fortune, and Hamburg was the beginning of the great search.
For thirty years, Italian music had swept in a tide across musical Germany. The theatres resounded to the singing of Italian words ; Italian maestri found a welcome ; too often to the detriment of more talented musicians of native birth. But in 1703 the musical glories of Berlin were fading, and Hamburg, a city free from any subjection of its arts to Electoral control, was the centre of new and uprising thought in music. Keiser,that strange figure who produced operas — some hundred and twenty in all — as easily as he could pour water from a bottle, was on the crest of the wave. He was a force in German music. In addition to his operatic achievements he was then running concerts, where the very best music was heard, and the best food and wines could be consumed. He was making money and spending money in sensuality, yet working like a Trojan. An idol of the people who, after forty years of adula- tion in Hamburg, was to disappear in the slough of vice that enthralled him. Musicians, artists, writers, mingled in a life of gaiety and poverty, with occasional affluences, which were dissipated in debauchery of every kind. Yet Hamburg was full of clever men at the period, debauches, most of whom spent their money as they earned it, but clever for all that.
In 1690 Rathmann G. Schott had founded and owned the first opera house there, and four years later he let it to a Jew,
42
Lewdness Rampant
Jacob Kremberg, on a five years' lease with the machinery, scenes, costumes, etc., and with the additional loan of all the operas previously performed there at Schott's expense.^ Schott was very opposed to the inroad of Italian music. He had built that opera house to exploit German work, and soon after Kremberg took over the place trouble occurred. Krem- berg began to run Italian comedies, many of them lewd and lacking in cleverness. But so long as he paid his annual rental of six hundred Reichs-Thaler, Schott was more or less power- less to interfere. In vain Schott protested ; Kremberg was drawing good houses and went on. Then Schott appealed to the Syndic Lucas van Bostel to prohibit these performances. How long the squabble might have gone on there is no knowing, but Kremberg struck a bad season, ran heavily into debt and compromised with Schott. The matter, however, did not end there. In 1702 — just a year before Handel reached Ham- burg— Schott died, and hardly had they buried him than Kremberg broke out afresh with an orgy of foreign, and, in most instances, indifferent pieces. Stung to anger, Schott's widow sought an injunction against him. But it was never obeyed, and just as Handel came to the city she complained to the courts that their order had been set aside.
Handel, therefore, found the opera in a strange state of disorder. What his thoughts may have been when he dis- covered that the new heart of Germany's music was kept pulsing by dissolutes, that Art was prostituted by lewdness and debauchery of the worst type, one can imagine. He had lived a sheltered life at the Schlamm ; he had never come face to face with that gaiety of the epoch which found expression in the larger cities. Halle, with its strong Lutheran and Cal- yinistic traits, can have known nothing of it. Apart from a students' " rough house " none of the boisterousness of real youth had been known to Handel.
It was probably fortunate for him that, almost upon his arrival at Hamburg, he fell in with Johann Mattheson. For Handel it was a fortunate meeting, since he possessed the wilful self-assurance that comes to youth at eighteen — assurance which had to suffer many blows in the hard school of experi-
1 State Archive, Hamburg. 43
George Frideric Handel
ence at Hamburg. Fortunate, too, for Mattheson was this meeting, for his association with Handel has kept alive a name which otherwise never would have passed beyond the frontiers of Germany at any rate.
Mattheson was a creature of conflicting personality. He had sprung from nothing with the aid of a good education and his own cleverness. He was four years older than Handel, and his father was a collector in the Hamburg customs. At nine he had been proficient at the organ and harpsichord and possessed of a wonderful treble voice. At sixteen he was singing in opera at the Hamburg Opera House, at eighteen his first opera Die Pleiaden was produced there, with himself in one of the prin- cipal parts, and conductor of the orchestra when he was not on the stage. His was a brilliance which carried him high, only suddenly to lose its strength. He was vain with a con- suming vanity ; more than a little mean, pedantic in dress. He composed well, sang and acted well, wrote well — always a swift moving spirit that never rested or was still. If he had been gifted with genius instead of mere cleverness he would have been one of the most uplifting figures in the musical history of his age.
There was nothing Mattheson loved better than his art — except himself. Throughout his life he had a supremely good nature, which he exercised generously, because he felt that the world could produce no serious rival. Towards Handel he adopted the attitude of the experienced and worldly-wise teacher. Later, when he wrote about Handel in his " Ehren- Pforte," he appears rather like a nursemaid taking the little boy out. " Handel came to Hamburg rich in ability and good intentions," he says. " I was almost his first acquaintance and, through me, he was taken round to all the organs, choirs, operas and concerts." And later : " He composed long, long arias and absolutely endless cantatas, but he had not yet got the knack of the right taste." And later still, a gibe at Handel's poverty, sugared by an admission of help : " He mostly came for free meals to my late father's, and in return revealed to me certain special tricks of counterpoint. I for my part helped him considerably in dramatic style."
Time has proved the irony of this statement. Mattheson's
44
From t/ie tuiniatme by I/enner at Hanilmrg.
JOHANNES MATTHESON, The friend of Handel's youth.
Handel and Mattheson
vocal music has been forgotten because it was too declamatory, and Handel's " long, long arias," are even still, too often, beyond the powers of singers who attempt them.
Very soon after Handel reached Hamburg he secured a post as second violin at the opera house. How he was able to drop so readily into a salaried position, without previous experience at a theatre, and whether Mattheson was in any way respon- sible for it, no record remains to prove. It is perhaps only natural that he should have gone at once to the opera house in search of employment, for the Hamburg Opera House was most probably the Mecca he had in his mind when he shook the dust of Halle off his shoes. Musicians who wandered towards Hamburg from all parts of the country — they were many, and poverty-stricken most of them — went directly to the opera house as if it were the objective of a pilgrimage. Therefore, Handel may have gone in there, as those many others had done before him, his violin under his arm, and asked for a hearing in the ordinary way. If he had a hearing his skill would have secured him the post, especially if it were Keiser himself who first Hstened to his playing, for Keiser was a past- master in his knowledge of the instrument. Again, if Chry- sander is correct in his assertion that Mattheson and Handel first met beside the organ of Maria Magdalena Church ^ in Hamburg, then it is possible than Handel's curiosity to see the organ had led him there, and a chance conversation drew from Mattheson that help which was rather typical of his treatment of Handel in the early days.
Whatever the cause that brought them together, their friendship ripened at once. For all Mattheson's patronising behaviour and later jealousy, it was one of the greatest friend- ships in the lives of each. By ambition their minds were tuned to the same key. They were plunged together into the great conflict of jealousy and intrigue which the changing moods of music of their day provoked about them. All youth and dreams. Possessing only sufficient money to provide the needs of the hour, but very certain of themselves. Burning the midnight oil, journeying together, comparing their work, help- ing, criticising. Ardent, and secure above all the bitterness
1 Chrysander, vol. i. p. 84. 45
George Frideric Handel
that surged beneath. Zealots who meant to sweep the stars.
In the days that followed their meeting they were in- separables. Mattheson describes a period that must have been full of the joy of youth — that joy which is only complete when the soul of the one who shares it is akin to one's own. In his " Ehren-Pforte " he hints at little happenings, of no particular import, but which meant everything to the friend who shared them. Probably after jealousies and intrigue had driven a wedge between these two, Handel, with that great human nature which was always his, smiled at the remembrance, and was glad that the memories had not faded from the mind of his early friend. Mattheson recalls the pastry-cook's son who blew the bellows for them when they played at the Maria Magdalena Church at Hamburg — and this may have been, and possibly was, on the occasion of their first meeting. He writes of a water-party in those first days, and adds : " Hun- dreds of similar incidents come back to me as I write."
Whatever may have been Mattheson's shortcomings, and they were many, he always wrote of Handel in a way that suggests that he was intensely fond of him. In his later works, notably his " Critica Musica," it needs little discernment to perceive that he had a great love for this friend of his youth who rose to the heights, a love too strong to be hidden in secret.
Only a few weeks after the organ in the Maria Magdalena Church had brought them together, they went off on a great adventure. On 17th August they set out for Liibeck, because the head of the Liibeck Council, a worthy named Magnus von Wedderkopp, had asked Mattheson to compete for the post of organist to the Marienkirche in that city, in succession to the organist of the day, Dietrich Buxtehude. Mattheson writes : ^ " I am certain that if he (Handel) reads this he will laugh in- wardly, for he rarely laughs out loud. Especially if he re- members the pigeon-dealer who travelled with us by post to Liibeck."
Mattheson took Handel with him for the need of a com- panion, and it is suggestive of the friendship which existed
1 "Ehren-Pforte," p. 93. 46
"Marry and Play"
between them at this period that, although Mattheson alone had been invited to compete for the post of organist, he arranged with Handel during the journey that Handel alone should perform upon the organ, and that he should play the clavicymbal.
Had either of them been impressionable at this age the Liibeck journey might have produced an unlooked-for result. Herr Wedderkopp was a discerning person, and seems to have been attracted by the playing of both of them. But what he had as closely at heart as the necessity of good music at the Marienkirche, was the equal necessity of benefiting the city taxpayer in any way he could. The custom at Liibeck at the time was that whoever succeeded to the post of organist should marry the daughter or widow of his predecessor. There was reason and economy in this from the city's point of view, for the city maintained the female relatives of a dead organist, and therefore welcomed a release from the cost when some enterprising musician happened along and married one of the daughters as the penalty — or prize — attached to succession to the post of organist.^ Thus, before Buxtehude had been given the post at the Marienkirche he had married the daughter of his predecessor Franz Tunder.
Wedderkopp, with a shrewdness that characterised him, put the proposition fairly and squarely to Mattheson and Handel. Whichever would marry Buxtehude's daughter should have the post of organist. Buxtehude was getting old, he was becoming a martyr to rheumatics, and it could not be expected that he could hold the post much longer. As it chanced, the daughter was a buxom wench twelve years older than Mattheson. Apparently both Mattheson and Handel were too scared by the notion of marriage, to wait to set eyes on this lady, for they scuttled out of Liibeck with all possible speed, more than a little pleased that their celibacy remained in no danger of violation.
Incidentally, this did not deter Buxtehude. He meant to have his daughter's future provided for ere the organ passed to another's keeping, so three years later he asked the Church Council to favour the girl at his demise by compelling his
1 Frederick Stahl, " Franz Tunder und Dietrich Buxtehude."
47
George Frideric Handel ^
successor to marry her. He knew or guessed that his sands had nearly run, and he was Hving in the Werkhaus close to the church with a little garden in which to stretch his ageing limbs. He was terribly conscious that he had not a thaler with which to endow those dependent upon him, and that this was the best arrangement he could make. When he died a year later, a musician named Schieferdecker — one of the roues from the Keiser gang at Hamburg — took the plunge, married Buxtehude's daughter, and presided at the keyboard in his father-in-law's place at the Marienkirche.^ Had Handel yielded to this marriage as the price paid for a post which must have appealed to him all the more because of his impecunious condition, the whole course of his life, doubtless, would have been changed, but to the end of his days he shunned matri- mony as he would the plague, and Mattheson, who was not a much greater success as a gallant, remained single until at the wane of his career he married the daughter of an English clergyman.
The months that immediately followed the return from Liibeck were vital in Handel's life. They definitely shaped his career. It was a gay season, given up in the main to Keiser's Claudius^ a brilliant work which brought its composer good money. Keiser, reckless and well in funds, swept along in a wild abandon of luxury. There was no form of high living which he did not explore. And, following after him like a flock of sheep, were the people from the opera house, eating the rich dinners for which he paid, drinking his wines. Keiser knew — and no man better — the art of mixing luxurious idling with supreme hard work. He wrote his operas — and at this period they were original and striking, tender and melodious — ^with amazing speed. He would return from a bout of debauchery in the first hours of daylight, work fever- ishly as the sun rose, rehearse, organise, sleep but little, and so hustle one day into another. He had no hours — no sense of hours. His women hung about him everywhere, except in the opera house, and though his mistresses were many among
1 The same post with the same condition attached, is said to have been offered to J. S. Bach in 1705, but because of the marriage clause he refused the contract. — Spitta, i. p. 313.
48
Handel becomes Tutor
those who, for professional reasons, frequented the theatre, he kept aloof from associating with them in the precincts of the building. At the opera house he ruled. He was an uncrowned king, flattered, and aware that most of the flattery had been earned. Keiser in his greatest moods was not very far removed from genius, and he had all the madness and vice which often accompanies genius. To him, then, Handel was just a clever youth, very useful in his theatre. Mattheson was his star. And only a madman would have told him in 1703 that either of the twain would ever hurt his fame, or even arouse in him the first moods of jealousy. Ere long jealousy of Handel was to inspire most of his acts.
Licentiousness therefore, under Keiser's example, ruled at the opera house. Hamburg nights blazed with windows from which the lights never drooped till morning came. But Mattheson kept fairly free from the great stampede to vice, saved by his economical turn of mind, which would not permit him to spend money except to propitiate some little turn of vanity. He hung on to the Keiser set of debauches because it contained so many who were necessary to him in his work, and he was not of it.
As for Handel, he went quietly on v^th his fiddling. As the opera season always ran from the end of August till the Easter following, he was to some extent continuously employed. His engagement kept him in lodgement and food and little else. It was Mattheson who turned the tide for him. He intro- duced him to the household of the British representative at Hamburg, Sir Cyril Wich,i an estimable fellow of good birth and culture, who carried out consular duties in the city. Wich was a diplomat ; plausible, and possessed a wonderful library. He was unquestionably the most scholarly consul England had in her foreign offices at the time. He was enamoured by Handel's playing and promptly engaged him to teach his small son the harpsichord. To Handel, anxious to augment the slender funds he received at the opera house, the engagement was a godsend. It brought him into touch with influential people in the city, so that ere long he had a string of pupils.
1 Mattheson writes of him as Herr Johann von Wich in his " Ehren-Pforte/* but he is mistaken in the name, and Chrysander follows him in the mistake.
49 D
George Frideric Handel
The dreary round of the opera, with its ceaseless rehearsals, and the still more dreary work of teaching, would have sapped the ambition of many. But to Handel this work was merely the background against which he was going to set his career. His playing began to make him talked about, and his organ work especially attracted the attention of the aged poet Christian Postel, who had written the libretti of more operas than he could count, many of which Keiser had set and produced with marked success and profit. Postel soon discovered that Handel was a youth out of the ordinary ; this quiet fiddler in the orchestra sheltered the lamp of genius which might, if given the opportunity, shine with penetrating power. It was Postel who gave Handel his chance ; he wrote a libretto for him.
Meanwhile, the opera season was waning, and the end of the winter 1703-4 approached. Mattheson had gone off to Holland, not upon any definite task, but he had some vague idea that he would get through to London. English music was in a state of curious disorder and required a leader. He would be that leader. At any rate for a while he aspired to be that leader, and probably he would have achieved considerable success if he had gained his object. His wandering, restless spirit needed new fields to conquer ; he wanted to be alone in the limelight. But he found in Holland the success which he believed awaited him in London. He ran a series of concerts at Amsterdam which whirled him into notoriety. Dutch music, which had been but a poor echo of German melody, assumed a certain form, and acquired an interest with the cultured classes of Amsterdam. Then Haarlem came forward and offered Mattheson £1^0 a year as organist at the city church. But Mattheson did not possess the organist's soul ; he wanted the honours, the applause of audiences.
All through the latter part of the season, Handel had been working on the Postel libretto, the Passion of St John. Postel, who had written tragedies and dramas, had become a convert to religious thought. And Handel, whose consciousness to religious influence had been awakened in the Liebfrauenkirche at Halle, was ripe for Postel's words. He had finished the music in March, rehearsals were in progress for the first performance at Easter. The precocity of the youth whom he had employed
50
Keiser on the Downgrade
as a ripieno violin in his orchestra amazed Keiser, then angered him. He saw in Handel's effort a challenge to his own popu- larity. This Postel had set up the standard to which the youth should march — Postel who had shared his own successes in the past, but who now had become a sick religious aesthetic, who had withdrawn into his shell. Postel was beginning to pre- pare himself for his entrance into another world. An example which Keiser, little more than thirty years of age, and in the heyday of youth, considered it quite unnecessary to follow at the moment.
Keiser was going to seed, and the whole organisation of the opera house looked like breaking down. Had any such suggestion been made to him he would have stormed. But it was the truth. Accordingly, just as he had completed his Passion music, Handel wrote to Mattheson at Amsterdam. He wanted his friend back to share with him the joy of his first performance, and he wanted him back to save the opera before the Keiser orgies destroyed all chances of success for the next season. Mattheson records that on 2ist March he received at Amsterdam a letter from Handel in which he said : ^
" I very much wish to have the pleasure of your conversa- tion, and this loss will very soon be made good, for the time is approaching when they will be able to do nothing without you. I therefore beg you to notify me of your departure so that I may have the opportunity of fulfilling my duty, and come and meet you with Mile Stiibens."
But, in spite of the appeal, Mattheson did not return in time to be present at the performance of Handel's first work in Holy Week, and was therefore at that time unfamiliar with the music which nearly a quarter of a century later, he attacked so viciously in his " Critica Musica." Nevertheless, the entrance of Handel into the sacred circle of the composers stirred Keiser, although it is certainly probable that he was more annoyed by Postel having provided Handel with his libretto than he was by any possible rivalry Handel might offer. That he regarded Handel's own assault upon his position seriously is proved by the fact that he sat down and wrote a Passion also,'' based upon a
1 " Ehren-Pforte," p. 94.
* The Bleeding and Dying Jesus.
61
George Frideric Handel
libretto by Menantes, a poet of some quality. Neither Reiser's nor Handel's Passion achieved much success ; the former was forgotten as soon as Holy Week had passed, and the latter, possessed though it was of dignity and sweetness, bore little promise of the achievements to come.
It was a beginning, however, and it brought Handel a little local notoriety. People began to wonder whether this youth would prove a rival to Keiser. His pupils increased. And Mattheson returned to find that, in his absence, Handel had achieved at least something. His curious, inordinate vanity was hurt. If Keiser had to fall — and it certainly must have been obvious both to Mattheson and Handel that he would fall — Mattheson knew no two opinions as to who should be his successor. As soon as he reached Hamburg again he set a miserable diatribe by Friederick Feustking ^ called Cleopatra, and on the 20th October produced it at the opera house. Mattheson himself played the principal part of Antonius, and when he had accomplished his death-scene on the stage, usually returned in costume to accompany the rest of the opera for half an hour before the fall of the final curtain.
It was this action on the part of Mattheson which eventually provoked the famous duel between himself and Handel, and nearly ended in the latter losing his life.
To realise the state of tension that had sprung up between the two since Mattheson's return, it is necessary to consider some salient points. Mattheson was unquestionably irritated by Handel's Passion music, even if it had met with little success, and he retaliated. He had considerable influence with Sir Cyril Wich, whose son was Handel's principal pupil, and, in October 1704, Mattheson was made tutor to the boy, without any consideration for Handel's position. Handel was at once deposed. His chief pupil had been taken from him by his best friend — an act which can create an aching wound at the age of twenty. Yet when Mattheson produced his Cleopatra during the same month, Handel supported him at the harpsi- chord, and left the instrument when Mattheson, his part on the stage finished, resolved to fake the musical honours as well as those of the singer.
1 Feustking was a local student who showed very indifferent ability in his search for the poet's crown.
52
Handers Duel
It is obvious that Cleopatra was a success. It gave promise of filling the opera house for the season. Keiser, meanwhile, was out of the bill, and Mattheson's star was fast rising in the firmament. His vitriolic vanity was soothed by great achieve- ment. He had scored a palpable hit.
Handel seems to have repeatedly given up his place at the harpsichord to Mattheson when he came off the stage,^ but on 5th December he rebelled. What provoked rebellion has no record. Handel throughout his life was discreetly silent about the affair, and when once he referred to it in London he kept the name of his opponent secret. On the occasion in question, when Mattheson left the stage and sought the harpsi- chord, he found a raging Handel who refused to vacate the instrument. An altercation, violent and bitter, immediately sprang up. One can imagine a crowded house hugely enjoying this unrehearsed effect, for in 1704 no opera, no play carried any dignity; an encounter and fisticuffs was a common event; a foul epithet hurled by a leading lady to a rival across the stage merely a diversion. Too frequently the audience joined in what was usually only a private quarrel, finding more enter- tainment thereby than from the play itself.
The quarrel on that December night must have produced no little excitement in the theatre, for it is said to have lasted half an hour.^ The end was a sordid affair in the Goosemarket outside the theatre. A crowd — no doubt the audience, which had been regaled by the commotion — followed the angry pair to that point in the square, where they faced about and set upon each other with swords. It is odd to see Handel engaged in an affair of this sort, for his temperament was not given to violence ; but Mattheson's wounded vanity would have carried him to any adventure. Fortunately the combat quickly came to an end. Mattheson's sword struck the button on Handel's coat and splintered in his hand.*
1 Romain Rolland in his life of Handel declares that he gave up the harpsichord only on two previous occasions.
2 Chry Sander, vol. i. p. 104. Chrysander also says that Mattheson struck Handel.
3 Mattheson in his " Ehren-Pforte," p. 95, describes the episode thus : " Urged on by others when wc left the Opera we came to blows in the public market before a large audience. The duel might have ended very badly for us both, if by God's mercy my sword had not broken in coming into contact with a hard metal button of my opponent's. So no great damage was done."
53
George Frideric Handel
They spent the Christmas season in a state of enmity. But on 30th December a Town Councillor and the lessee of the opera house reconciled them. They celebrated the fresh understanding in a royal manner. Youth, so quick to fire, alone knows the full joyousness of reconciliation. They dined together at Mattheson's house, and, after the meal, went on to the rehearsal of Almira^ an opera which Handel had quickly written to a queer libretto by Feustking, on the recommenda- tion of Postel, built up — partly in Italian and partly in German — from his translation of an Italian olla podrida. From that day forward Mattheson and Handel were better friends than ever.^
They threw themselves heart and soul into the rehearsals of Almira, They were joint adventurers, searching with the brazen effrontery of youth for recognition. Little more than a week later the piece was produced, with Mattheson playing the r6le of the principal tenor. Although they were the best of friends again, the applause which greeted Handel, when, on 8th January 1705 he stood, flushed with success, at the fall of the curtain, did not enhance that friendship. Almira, from its initial performance, was a success, and Mattheson had no soul for a big dramatic success by Handel. His own Cleopatra had been followed by a work from his friend, which promised to become an equal achievement. There was a freshness in the music of Almira which was warmly welcomed by Hamburg. This youth of twenty had given the burghers something to talk about. It was evident that Keiser, and even Matthe- son, might have to look to their laurels.
Handel was fired with zeal by the reception of Almira, and he set about composing a new work to succeed it. He meant to strike while the iron was hot. It was the first expression of a characteristic in him, which became evident throughout his entire later life — to strike, and strike hard, at opportunity. He lived in the simplest manner, avoided any kind of pleasure removed from the pursuit of his art, saved money, worked all day and the greater part of the night. His energy was un- ceasing and tireless.
Although Feustking had been a weak collaborator when he
1 Mattheson, " Ehren-Pforte," p. 95. 54
i .. >>-
C
° 1
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Almira and 3\Cero
supplied the Almira libretto, Handel went to him for the book of his next work Nero, It turned out to be the poorest book Handel ever set in his life, so poor that he complained that it was painful to have to try to set music to such stuff. But it must be said in excuse for Feustking, that probably he was rushed oif his feet in his haste to produce the words for the impetuous composer. Postel, though aged, would have pro- vided Handel with a libretto of some quality, but Postel with his new tendency towards religious mania would not have been capable of so profane a work as Nero proved to be. With Alviira, Queen of Castille, filling the theatre on account of its big dramatic effects, any departure from drama in its successor would have been imprudent. Of this Handel must have been well aware.
Almira ran continuously until 25 th February, and on that day Handel's second drama Love Obtained Through Blood and Murder ; or Nero was put on. It had been better had Handel allowed Almira to run longer, but, with the impulse of youth, he took it off to make way for Nero, because he believed he had written a better work. He was probably wrong, although there is no means of comparing the two achievements, for the music of Nero is lost, but Feustking's miserable libretto exists. Mattheson sang the part of Nero, but he could not save the piece. It ran for three performances, then stopped.
The two operas, whether they were financially successful or otherwise — and as they had both been staged in an elaborate fashion there cannot have been a great deal of profit in either — provoked a storm of discussion. Handel had the fair. He was an oasis in a desert of staleness. Or he was like a crystal stream after the later turgidity of Keiser. He had shown himself able to get dramatic effect with his music as well as melody. His achievement drove Keiser to distraction. Piqued and angry, he reset Nero with a view to showing Ham- burg that, after all, he and not Handel was the master, but when his version was produced in the autumn it also failed miserably. Nothing daunted, he reset Almira under another title and produced it the following spring. Again came failure.
The outpourings of jealousy and bitterness by Keiser and the gang of kindred rouis, who still clung about him, stung
55
George Frideric Handel
Handel. The treatment began to wear him down. For eager youth, giving all its energy to the task in hand, suffers hurt so soon. Mattheson, too, was drawing away from his friend. Friendship that had been so strong had snapped under the attacks of jealousy. Handel was left in his lonely furrow, and he pursued it in his own fashion. For a while he ceased to write for the theatre. Instead, he applied himself more closely to his teaching, and his compositions were confined to sonatas and miscellaneous pieces for the use of his pupils.^ That he had no lack of pupils at this period is borne out by the evidence of Mattheson, and the fee he received for his instruc- tion was probably in the region of that of his friend, who drew the equivalent of eighteen shillings a month, or thereabouts, from every pupil.
The blast of bitterness and intrigue which now descended upon Handel would have broken the spirit of many. Keiser had always borne the honours, and, being a popular man, who, in a magnetic career, had shown amazing ability, his position would have appeared difficult to assault had Handel been pledged to attack. But no such campaign was in Handel's mind. He had revelled in the success of both Keiser and Mattheson. He envied them in a big heart that knew only the excitement of life. That they should turn upon him now, because some of his first fledglings had not failed, hurt him, but did not spoil his courage. They had yet to learn that nothing ever would spoil his courage.
The tactics of these people did, however, cause Handel to change his plans. The opera was sinking so rapidly under the Keiser regime that Handel saw himself being involved in the wreckage of disorder, and the antagonism towards himself brought decision. He had met in Hamburg during the winter of 1703-4 a wandering Italian princeling, Gaston de' Medici, who at the time was engaged in a hopeless squabble with his wife, Princess Anna Maria of Saxony-Luxemburg. No greater rascal strolled through Europe at that age than Gaston de' Medici, but, like many rogues, he had one redeeming quality, and that was his love of music. It was this redeeming feature which intrigued Handel when they met. The Prince
1 Burney states that he procured some of these at Hamburg in 1773.
56
Gaston de' Medici
had a sound knowledge of Italian music of the day. He had once played divinely upon the flute/ and he had the true instinct of the Italian for good music. He singled out Handel at once as a youth who would go far, described to him the glories of Italian music at Florence and Rome, and convinced him that he was wasting his time in Hamburg. His rightful place was that Mecca of Genius — Florence.
It was this rogue who ultimately proved to be responsible for one of the most decisive developments in Handel's life. What- ever Gaston's past may have been was of little count to Handel, in whose eyes he was redeemed by his musical knowledge. As a matter of fact, Prince Gaston was known throughout Europe by the blatancy and ostentation of his vice. He gambled heavily, he had mistresses in every city, and he wandered from one to the other in careless abandon. His wife alternately tried to reform him and then cast him out, only to take him back again. Not that Gaston ever stayed long. The call of the paths of unrighteousness was too strong. He disappeared with his mood in search of a pretty face here, or some gamester there, for whom he had no other respect than that he had money and could drink him under the table. And such cham- pions with the cup were few and far between.
It is the common story that Gaston de' Medici offered to pay Handel's expenses to Italy. But, if he ever made such an offer, de' Medici could not have intended it seriously, for he never had money to give away. To him money was only the passport to a fresh haunt of vice, so he had little to spare for the costly journey of a chance friend. Nor was he that peculiar vagabond who would spend on a friend money which he could dissipate in a fresh burst of vice. There is in existence a letter from the Prince to his sister, the wife of the Elector Palatine, which proved that he was in dire penury when he left Hamburg for Prague and Vienna in March 1705.''
But his words took root in Handel's mind. To the young musician, amidst all the riot and upheaval which had come to the opera house, Italy became a lure. He was saving money, stinting himself, his life had become a self-denial on the altar of
1 Streatfeild, " Handel," p. 24.
« Ademollo. " G. F. Haendel in Italia."
57
George Frideric Handel
ambition. He no longer received remittances from his mother at Halle ; on the contrary, he was now sending her small sums at Christmas and at other times. Keiser, hampered with debts, which had not been moderated by the absconding of his partner, Driisicke, was broken on the wheel, and the theatre passed into the hands of a Jew, Johann Saurbrey, who made it his first business to approach Handel to write him an opera. Verily the compliment must have pleased the youth after the efforts that had been made to bear him down. He wanted money — money to take him to Italy.
It was Saurbrey, a gentleman who, if he ever possessed an artistic soul, had long since pawned it to commerce, who started Handel composing again. For Saurbrey Handel wrote a long opera — so long that to perform it occupied two evenings. The enthusiasm which Keiser had striven to Ell in him had broken out anew in such violent ecstasy that he could not curtail the length of his songs. He wrote on and on. It had only re- quired the slightest encouragement to make his sensitive spirit rise like some bird afresh on the wings of the morning. Thus did Saurbrey become possessed of a work which must have frightened him not a little by its length. To produce it would require an all-night sitting of the audience, and even Hamburg, proud of its understanding of musical quality, was not prepared for that. There was only one thing for Handel to do — cut it in two : thus Florindo and Daphne come into being. Handel got his money down and, without a regret in his soul, left Hamburg. He did not even stay to bid farewell to Mattheson, whom he never saw again. Probably Matthe- son's later lament of the fact was only simulated. The tide of jealousy had been too strong.
Not until long after Handel had passed out of Hamburg as unostentatiously as he had entered it did his twin operas find production. He was then far beyond acclamation or criticism. In his absence these operas provided Hamburg's musical event of 1708. The city then had been denuded of all talent, and in the year following, Keiser, like some wandering ghost, turned up again. Hamburg did not know he had arrived till he had captured the opera house by a manoeuvre. It was a great return. His sins were forgotten ; his services to music
58
Death of Keiser
remembered. Where had he been ? No one inquired ; no one wanted to know. It was sufficient that he had returned. He rushed back to his old place. The haunts where he had ruled and patronised, found new life, the former bacchanalians crept from their secret haunts and gathered about him with their " Hail, master ! " During the year of his return Keiser composed and produced eight operas, and in some of them was the tender spirit of his old fire. He made money again, and spent it as readily. He rushed into matrimony with the daughter of one of the principal patricians of the city. But his vices, the Hamburg that was his, wore him down. The flames that came from the stirred fire dropped away into embers, and Keiser passed out, leaving a Hamburg from which the glories of its art had departed. He drifted away. He died.
A contemporary paragraph which appeared after his death best describes the wreckage : ^ " Mad. Neuberinn (Neuber) will this summer, as it is thought, produce comedies again at the opera house. Stage, costumes, and scenery are quite used up. Monza was obliged to leave Hamburg utterly destitute and covered with debts. Mme Keiser, as well as Monza, have again tried to get the opera, but up till now with- out success. The former is quite unable to do so, partly because she has no money, partly also, because she has lost all her esteem. Moreover, she has no singers. Monza, however, is amply provided with those, and might sooner attain his object, but the old debts will not permit him to return. The theatre is ruined, there are no costumes, and the building itself is very dilapidated. Some old amateurs still allow the ' Kaiserinn ' (Mme Keiser) to enjoy their former munificence, and these as well as something more (the daughters' savoir-faire) keep her."
A trail of ruin ; threadbare costumes and broken scenery and a widow trying to make a living. All that was left of what had once been Reinhold Keiser ! What an artist he had been 1 How he had loved life ! How he had worked. How he had played. He had stormed his way with the courage of a gladi- ator, and dropped out, a forgotten husk of a man.
But the youth whom he had first known as ripieno violin had now passed along the solitary way that led to the more certain memories of the great.
1 " Matthesoniana Politica " (Hamburg State and University Library).
59
CHAPTER IV
THE ITALIAN JOURNEY
Handel arrived in Italy as mysteriously as he had left Ham- burg. By what route he travelled, or how long the journey occupied him, there is no knowing. He was doubtless alone, for there was not a single soul in Hamburg in whom he had sufficient interest to solicit his companionship for the exploit. It is more probable that he embarked on the journey with the same impulse he had shown when he left Halle for Hamburg. He had no engagement in view ; no means of earning his living except by his talents, and, as this was not an age when musical talent always came by its own reward, the adventure was beset with some risks and considerable difficulty. Of material things it seemed to offer nothing. But it must be remembered that Handel was a dreamer ; throughout his life he remained a dreamer who expected or hoped to meet the realisation of his dreams at the turn of the road.
Handel's position when he reached Italy was little better than that of the strolling musician, so far as his prospects were concerned. Doubtless he had written to his erstwhile friend Prince Gaston de' Medici announcing his coming, for as soon as he reached Florence he went to the palace of Pratolino in the hills beyond the city, where Ferdinand, Prince of Tuscany, brother of Prince Gaston, kept a palace of extreme extravagance and indolence, but brightened by the most wonderful music in Italy. Doubtless, too, Handel acquainted his mother at Halle with his decision to seek fresh fortune in Italy, for he was in regular correspondence with her. One can imagine the con- sternation in the Schlamm house which such news would occasion. They must have known, Dorothea and the simple- minded Tantey that the boy had little money. Probably he
60
Handel in Rome
had told them all about the 200 ducats he had saved. To throw off the land of his birth, to seek a nation of whose lan- guage he could not speak a single word, to abandon all his Hamburg engagements and travel far with no money and only a single friend at the end of the journey, must have filled them with anxiety, if not alarm. ^ One may conceive that many prayers went from the Schlamm house to high heaven on behalf of the youthful traveller. And oft-times Frau Handel must have desired that the imperious barber-surgeon had been alive again to restrain this wild strain of adventure in their child.
Once in the atmosphere of real music again, Handel became a slave to work. He produced a score of cantatas, he re- wrote part of Almira — the only work of his which had in any way justified his belief in himself as yet. The flame of ambi- tion began to blaze up stronger than ever. But he did not remain long enough in Florence to create any impression. He went on to Rome.
There was probably sound common sense in this decision. The music at the Pratolino Court, though beautiful — the fact that Alessandro Scarlatti had been in charge of it till shortly before Handel's arrival, is sufficient proof of its quality — cannot have been of the nature likely to bring Handel any means of livelihood. The musicians there were drawn from the best talent in Italy, so that this youth, who had yet to prove his brilliance to the Italians, cannot have been very seriously regarded as a composer, however efficient he unquestionably showed himself to be as a performer. The two hundred ducats with which he had started were running low, and there was need for something more substantial than the associations of an extravagant Court. The Prince can have had little use for him at this period or he would not have let him go. Rome, on the other hand, was the home of religious music, and its musical circle was extraordinarily gifted. The wealthy Roman fami- lies gave all the time and energy to good music which such families in many other Italian cities devoted to gambling,
1 Chrysander says that Handel spent the Christmas of 1706 with his mother at Halle on his way to Italy. But this is an entirely erroneous conclusion, for he was in Rome on 14th January 1707.
61
George Frideric Handel
drinking and loose living generally. In many ways the Florentine music which Handel knew differed from that of Rome. It must have been obvious to Handel, then, that if Italy was to offer him a musical career, knowledge of Rome and her form of art was essential.
Hitherto there has been a great deal of uncertainty as to exactly when he arrived in Rome. Because he put the date nth April on the autograph of his Dixit Dominus, which was performed there at Easter, it is generally concluded that he arrived at the capital about that period. But there is an entry in the Valesio Diary in the Archivio Storico Capitolino at Rome, and dated 14th January 1707, which sets the matter at rest. The paragraph in question reads as follows :
" There has arrived in this city a Saxon, an excellent player on the cembalo and a composer of music, who has to-day displayed his ability in playing the organ in the Church of St John (Lateran) to the amazement of everyone." ^
Handel thus established himself as a musician from the time of his arrival in the capital. Moreover, the letters of introduction he carried enabled him to get into the Roman salons.2 At this period opera, as such, was forbidden in Rome under the Papal Edict, but religious music in its various forms was at its height. To this form of composition Handel at once devoted himself. He set several of the Psalms, and produced a stream of fragmentary pieces for the voice, or for this instru- ment, or for that, which showed that his versatility was break- ing out in a rapidly maturing form. Nevertheless, all that Rome gave him at this time was experience — experience in religious musical expression, which was to shape itself with the years.
There was little he could do in Rome that would prove profitable. Whilst studying the Roman music he had been
1 This information, which was found by Mr L. A. Sheppard of the British Museum, searching in Italy on my behalf, of a certainty refers to Handel, who was usually called " II Sassone " by the Italians. The point is important, be- cause if Handel arrived in Rome on or before 14th January it makes impossible Streatfeild's suggestion that his Opera Rodrigo was produced at Florence during the carnival season of this year. The fact that Handel played the organ of St John Lateran was also hitherto unknown. — Author.
2 Remain Rolland, " Handel," p. 40.
62
Frovi tne miniature by Platyer.
HANDEL AT THE TIME OF HIS FIRST VISIT TO ITALY.
^odrigo
secretly composing his first Italian opera Rodrigo.^ Who provided him with the libretto there is no record to show, and the quality of that libretto offers no claim for the preservation of the author's name. It was a wretched affair. Even the book of Nero^ which had worried Handel so extremely at Ham- burg, could not have been much worse. But in July Handel, with Rodrigo complete, left Rome and returned to Florence to produce the work under the auspices of Ferdinand, not at the PratoHno, but at a theatre in the city itself.
The Prince welcomed the wanderer. He was considerably startled by Rodrigo. There was a freshness in its airs which interested him ; the opera was different to that form of music which had ruled so long at the PratoHno. It was so unlike what he had termed the melancholy of Scarlatti, for which he had dismissed the maestro, at all events temporarily. The Florentine experts did not think so much of Rodrigo as did Ferdinand, who gave Handel the equivalent of ^50 and a porcelain dinner service for the work. They were sullen in their reception of the Saxon's achievement. Maybe, like Keiser, they saw the possibility of this youth's uprising. He had captured the Prince's approval. This at least was danger- ous to them, and might bring about any dramatic event at the hands of an employer so fickle as Ferdinand. So they quietly argued that Rodrigo might be good music, but they thought not. Even Handel was a little uncertain of the fact himself, for at a later date, when speaking of Rodrigo, he frankly confessed that he had failed thoroughly to understand the Italian style.^ As he had been in Italy less than a year this is conceivable.
Had Handel at this period confined himself to one form of musical composition he might then have achieved more success than he did, in spite of his barely twenty-two years. But he was experimenting, breaking out irresponsibly like a bird soaring and swinging now here, now there, on varying winds. From his Passion music he had passed to the romance of Almira, to the pomposity of Nero, hurrying aside into can-
1 Puliti declares that Handel composed Rodrigo in Florence. He may have begun it there, but he cannot have completed it, else he would hardly have left Florence before its production.
2 Mainwaring.
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George Frideric Handel
tatas and exquisite fragments of song, all youth, all joy. Then the influence of Rome, the dignified, sombre music of his Psalms ; then, caught by a new mood, throwing all his weight into utilising the violin as a means of expression in Rodrigo — Rodrigo with its breezy airs, its best pieces from Almira re- trieved and improved. But he knew that he had hardly begun to draw upon that tremendous treasure-house of melody which was stored in his soul. His productions so far had been a brilliant effort for a man of twenty-two. He had passed through Hamburg, then the most critical city in its musical affairs of all the cities of his homeland, had already become feared by the maestri of Florence, and had flashed through the Roman salons^ to which he was so soon to return, with the swift brilliance of a comet.
It was a period of glorious uncertainty for Handel. Indeed many have been the attempts made to crowd it with more romance than those Florentine weeks actually produced for him. Some of his biographers have charged him with a love affair that never happened, but which, by all the laws of romance, should have happened.^ They say that the great Italian contralto Vittoria Tesi fell in love with the handsome young Saxon, played in Rodrigo^ and then, bent on following him everywhere, went from Florence to Venice in his foot- steps, and played in his later work Agrippina^ laying siege to his heart the while. Nothing of the kind ever happened. Vittoria Tesi was only seven years old at the time ^ and some nine years had yet to pass before she began to appear as the woman of splendour who captivated the hearts of most of the richer-born males in Italy. From then onward she was a disturbing influence in all the Italian cities. She swept through her country, a queen of song without morals or pity, to die as such women so often* die — forgotten in her later years by the crowds that had thronged the stage door to touch the hem of her cloak. The Vittoria who did figure in Rodrigo was Vit- toria Tarquini, better known as Bombace, who had for a long time been attached as soprano to the Florentine Court. She
1 Mainwaring began the .story, and Chrysander amplified it. Even Rockstro was caught by the notion of this Court actress hunting down the young composer, and gave credence to the fabrication.
* Signor Ademollo claims to have her birth certificate.
64
I
Off to Venice
was a woman well advanced in middle-age, with nothing more than an average voice, who would probably have been the last person to make any physical impression on Handel.
At this period — one of the most illuminating in his career — Handel had no use for women. Later, when he mellowed to that tenderness towards mankind which brought out some of the best of his melodies, he had a liking for feminine society. He became the genteel gallant — never the courtier. But whilst in Florence, at any rate, he can be quite safely exoner- ated from intrigue with an actress or any other woman. His art was his life. No woman could have taken its place, or even shared that place. It drew from him everything he had to give.
In spite of the moderate stir which Rodrigo had aroused, Handel remained in Florence but a few weeks longer. He had established himself with Ferdinand, who for years afterwards was his firm friend. Ferdinand was guided in most of his motives by economy, and had apparently no desire to support another rising musician. Florence therefore had little to offer Handel, save the gathering jealousies of those whose success- ful talents or disguised mediocrity had been threatened by his coming. He had no wish for a second bout of the intrigues of Hamburg.
Venice was calling him in no uncertain voice — Venice the home of dramatic music, with its many theatres and opera houses, its regular concerts, its wealthy patronage of the musical art. At the close of the year he departed for Venice with apparently no object at all. He wrote nothing whilst there ; he did not attempt to introduce his talents into the operas which were then in full swing. How he made his living — for he can have possessed little money — no one knows. But he made a friend who came to occupy much the same place in his life, and with a greater sense of fidelity, as Mattheson had done. Domenico Scarlatti, the wonderful son of a wonderful father.!
1 The story goes that they met at a masked ball when Handel was in disguise, and that Scarlatti exclaimed : " This is either the wonderful Saxon or the devil ! " It seems rather improbable, since Scarlatti had no cause to suspect the presence of Handel in Venice.
65 E
George Frideric Handel
I
Scarlatti was Handel's senior by a couple of years. He had the same ambition that yearned for nothing save achievement in music, and the friendship, thus begun, continued for years. When later, in 1720, Handel met Scarlatti again in London they were the same friends still. It was always a great friend- ship. Handel went on to his honours in London ; Scarlatti to be maestro di capella of St Peter's in Rome. But in those first days in Venice they were inseparables. The salons received them as twin youths of exquisite quality who would go far. True, Scarlatti's harpsichord brilliance was eclipsed by Handel's equal talent on Italy's accepted instrument, the organ. But in musical endeavour Venice was not inclined to be pedantic, even if the other Italian cities suffered from a surfeit of conservative opinion and fetish.
It is not surprising that Handel wrote nothing in Venice ; the wonder is that his head was not turned by the favours heaped upon him and his companion. Prince Ernest of Hanover, a personage accompanied by two very dissolute counts during his Venetian stay, sought the acquaintance of Handel and urged a visit to Hanover when the Saxon turned again from Italy. It was the foundation of Handel's British citizenship, for Prince Ernest was the younger brother of the monarch who afterwards sat on the British throne as George I. In the same Venetian circle was the Duke of Manchester, who had just been appointed English Ambassador at Venice. He was a man of singular talent, and of whom they said that he sold his fortune to buy melody. Certainly he was a true patron of music, who proved to be one of the first English noblemen to extend the hand of greeting to Handel when ultimately he came to England.
Venice was busy with its repertoire of accepted Italian composers, the opera houses swung to the mood of a vacillating taste. Their Venetian audiences wanted some new thought in music, but those who controlled their tastes were afraid of experiment. The fame of Handel had to ring through musical Italy before Venice staged his Agripfina, But the hour for that was not yet. Accompanied by Scarlatti he went off with his old impulsiveness to Rome at the beginning of 1708. Probably both of them had in the ardour of youth
66
After the painting by J. B. Caulli. CARDINAL OTTOBONI, The Friend of Handel in Rome.
Cardinal Ottoboni
dreamed that they would sway the musical population of the Capital. And in a manner, they did.
Rome, when Handel reached it again, was turbulent with a great movement of religious music. The Papal ban against the opera was in part responsible, but the influence of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni had raised the religious music of the city to a higher level than it had ever attained before. The Cardinal was the most striking and probably the most unostentatious personality Rome produced at this period. His riches were fabulous ; he was one of the wealthiest men in Southern Europe of his day. But, however ardent he had been towards his Church, he was equally ardent in his ex- ploitation of the arts and with his open-handed generosity.
Since he was the close friend of Ferdinand, Handel claimed his interest on arrival. The Cardinal was no respecter of age. He hailed the young man of promise as he welcomed the maestro whose name was known throughout Europe. The Ottoboni menage at this time was a striking affair. Corelli, the violinist and composer, was chief of the Cardinal's music, which rivalled in grace that of the Vatican. In the palace was a concert-room where musicales were held every Monday evening. Strange gatherings of men appeared there, for the Cardinal had formed an academy of poets, painters and musicians, a circle that had no god to serve save art. Every musician of promise, be he Italian or foreigner, found himself drawn into this circle by some subtle influence. Handel's financial embarrassments were swept away by the same magic hand. Before the world knew of his talents he was in the Ottoboni circle, which included Alessandro Scarlatti, father of Handel's friend, Pasquini and others — the elect of musical Europe.
There were no half-measures about Ottoboni. If a man were clever, his music true to his Art, his standing, his affairs became of no count. He found himself in the circle, and, though he had been unable to buy himself a square meal for a month, he came in and rubbed shoulders with the rich, sat at a board where only the choicest dishes from the palace chef were served in monotonous succession, and found his
67
George Frideric Handel
glass ever brimmed with the richest wines of the south. Art and the knowledge of art was the only entree to the Ottoboni circle.
All Europe talked about Pietro Ottoboni. His powers were infinite. The nephew of a Pope, he was raised to the Purple at the age of twenty-two — almost an unprecedented happening. When Handel and Domenico Scarlatti came into his orbit in 1708, he was a little over forty — thin, ascetic, seldom seen except by those members of his coterie to whom he was just a brother in Art. He ran his circle like a modern literary or musical club, only without the same bickerings and internal jealousies. No one knew his qualities, because he kept himself and his affairs supremely aloof. He worked in a most mysterious way among the poorer classes, while his guests ate and drank untold wealth from his hospitable board. He ran a free bakery for the poor ; he kept three doctors at their beck and call. Money spilled through his fingers into the homes of the very poor by secret ways, whilst he walked about among them as the high prelate, his benevolence all unsus- pected. They accused him of pomp and power, whilst yet, unknown to them, he fed their hunger. This secret charity was a form of vice. The more mysterious it was, the more he loved it.
The kink in his brain was his subjection to art. He had begun by accumulating the most wonderful collection of historical MSS. in Europe, a library of priceless treasures. But music was his passion. He had no use for the middle classes. He loved the beggar of the streets, and he loved the genius, who in poverty warped in a hidden corner. In his secret hours he composed ; an opera, some oratorios, a mass of dis- integrated Church music without distinction. In truth, Ottoboni was a rather ordinary man trying to touch the stars.
What he achieved was a triumph of personality and wealth. Social Rome at this period was in a rotten state. The rich hectored and bullied the poor. Amusement, dances, the theatre and the like, being suppressed by the Pope, the need for excitement broke out in wilder directions. Sensualism was rife ; drinking carried to the utmost stretches of de- bauchery. Secret dancing of the lewdest order was prevalent,
68
Handel and Ottoboni
and the priests, masked, attended these orgies by permission of the Vicar-General. But Ottoboni and his circle was a rock in a muddy tide. It carried high the loftiest thinkers in religious music, just as the better always rises, sure and apart, in the days of reaction and decadency. Bribery had been brought to a fine art. If one called on a friend his servants waited at one's doorstep next day to compliment " the noble stranger " on the honour he had to see his master or mistress, and to receive in consequence la huona mancia^ i.e. the usual tips. It was even the case after an audience of the Pope. " One owes them (the servants) about 30 lires of our money each time one is admitted to an audience of his holiness," wrote I'Abbe Richard.^
Into this vast vortex of contrasts Handel was flung at a moment in his life when he was beginning to shape the power of expression that would respond to his moods. Venice, with its light operas, its baw^dry comedies was forgotten, and the religious motif th^tt moved in the Ottoboni household captured him. Among the members of the Academy was Prince Ruspoli. Until shortly before Handel's arrival the Prince had been the Marquis di Ruspoli, but an act of grace on the part of the Pope had just raised him to the principality. Prince Ruspoli was a creature of artistic soul and extreme wealth. His magnificence, his patronage rivalled that of the Cardinal himself. By some means he lured young Handel to come and stay in his palace in March 1708 — a marvellous palace of marble pillars and Grecian statuary. Handel stayed there just a month, and during that time wrote and produced for the Easter festivities La Resurezzione. It was Handel's first great religious effort. He was moved by the stress and storm of the Roman atmosphere at this hour, and he put all that was roving in his young thoughts into his notes. La Resurezzione^ which was only just sufficiently removed from being an opera to enable it to escape the Papal wrath, has a great and haunting beauty, if immature. It is the product of youth waiting at the gate.
It has always been supposed that La Resurezzione was first given at the Ottoboni palace. Most of the biographers have
1 Abb6 Jerome Richard, " Description Historique de I'ltalie."
69
George Frideric Handel
assumed that Handel was still under the Ottoboni influence, but the archives of Prince Ruspoli clearly prove that it was not so. Apart from which, the manuscript is dated as having been written for la Festa di Pasqua, held at the Marchisa Ruspoli on the 4th April 1 708. The libretto, which was written hy Carlo Sigismondo Capece, a poet of indifferent talent, states that the work was sung " nella Sala dell 'Accademia del Signor Marchese Ruspoli."
As a matter of fact, Ruspoli seems to have been more impressed by Handel's quality than any one else in Rome at the time. He had intended to amuse himself during the carnival that year by improvising comedies at his castle at Vignanello, but at the eleventh hour refrained from doing so because the Pope, being informed of what was afoot, made it understood that such productions would not meet with his approval.^ As the Prince had so shortly before been raised from the Marquisate to a Princeling, he could not incur the Papal displeasure. Therefore he decided to remain in Rome and employ Handel. This probably accounts for Handel having written La Resurezzione in such a hurry. A religious work, even if it were shaped like an opera, would provide the Prince with all the diversion he required, and at the same time escape the wrath of the Pontiff. It was another instance of Handel's growing characteristic of grasping impulsively at opportunity.
Meanwhile the Prince produced Scarlatti's oratorio Delia Santissima Annunziata in his palace on 25th March, after which he set about the preparations for Handel's work in earnest. He took Handel into his household. This was not the Palazzo Ruspoli in the Corso, but the palace in the Piazza SS. Apostoli, which the Prince had taken from the Duca Bonelli for a term of years because his own palace was in process of being restored. Such rehearsals as the shortness of time permitted, were thus carried on in his presence. He even went to the expense of constructing a temporary theatre in the palace. The Ruspoli Archives still contain the accounts of Crespineo Pavone, the carpenter who had the work in hand, and which say : " Making a theatre with raised seats
1 Diary of Valesio, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Rome.
70
At Prince Ruspoli's
on the occasion of the sacred oratorio in music which His Excellency had performed in the hall of his palace in Piazza S. Apostoli, with stage and seats for the players of various instruments, and making other conveniences and works for the same occasion." ^
Handel, it would seem, arrived at Prince Ruspoli's palace as a guest, on or about 1 8th March, for there is an entry in the Archives under that date as follows : " Paid for the carriage of the bed and other things for Monsu. Endel lo Bajocchi.^^ (Fivepence.) A little later is another entry : " Paid to the Jew for hire of the said bed and counterpanes for one month, 70 Bajocchi,^^ (2s. iid.) Obviously the Jew was not extor- tionate !
A further entry gives us definite proof of the date of production, for we find the following : " Sunday April 8, Easter Day. This evening in the Bonelli Palace at S.S. Apostoli, the Marquis ^ Ruspoli had a very beautiful musical oratorio performed, having made a well-decorated theatre in the hall for the audience. There were present many of the nobility and some cardinals."
Doubtless Ottoboni was there and all the Roman Arcadians, for the production was carried out on a more elaborate scale than any of the Arcadian productions for some time. The orchestra consisted of 20 violins, 4 violoncelli, 5 bass-viols, 5 double bass, 2 trumpets, i trombone and 4 oboes, the per- formers being paid from 2 scudi 50 (about 10 shillings) to 4 scudi 50. Arcangelo Corelli's name does not occur on this list (in the archives all the names of the performers are given), but there is a separate account signed by the Prince which reads :
" Angelo Valeri, our Steward, you will pay to Sig. Arcangelo Corelli the above-mentioned 244 scudi 50 bajocchi, that he may pay the players named, each according to his rank, for their complete and final payment of all their services rendered,
1 The present Prince di Ruspoli recently permitted a search to be made in his family archives for details of Handel's stay with his ancestors, and these details, and those that follow are the result. They are interesting as throwing new light upon Handel's movements at this time.
2 It is odd that Prince Ruspoli is here entered in the Archives as Marquis, since he had held princely rank for some months.
71
George Frideric Handel
as shown in the present list, and receiving this from the said Signor Arcangelo, they will be properly paid. This day ii April 1708."
Corelli, be it said, received 20 scudi (^4, 3s. 4d.) for his services on this occasion. The total cost of the production seems to have been 528 scudi 40 bajocchi (about ^^no), no mean sum for a private performance, taking into consideration the money values of those days. Nothing that could add to the comfort of the guests seems to have been overlooked, for among the items of expense is the cost of making fifty-six candlesticks for lighting the theatre with wax candles, while two men drew a scudo apiece for helping with the refresh- ments in the buttery at the oratorio. In fact, the Prince paid for everything, even the cost of printing and publishing the libretto^ and for a copy of it, bound in Cordovan leather, which was presented to Cardinal Gualterio, to whom it was dedicated.
Yet, in spite of the great care, one incident occurred which must have troubled the Prince a little. Among the singers a woman had been employed, and on the day after the perform- ance came the announcement : " 9 April Monday. His Holiness has issued a reproof for having a female singer in the Oratorio yesterday evening." ^ What the objection was to a female singer performing cannot be said, since women were regularly employed in performances at the time. Perhaps the Pope, irritated in the belief that Prince di Ruspoli had merely dodged his edict regarding Easter productions, found in this woman's playing an excuse for a reproof which eased his feelings.
The triumphant production oi La Resurezzione was the talk of musical Rome. The young composer — only just past his twenty- third birthday — had, in spite of his simple Lutheran faith, blended with the Cardinals of Rome, and brought them to his feet in acclamation. This, his very first produc- tion in the capital, caused him to be accorded the honours which the capital only gave to a tried composer. Not that he waited long in the Ruspoli palace to enjoy them, for, under the date of 30th April 1708, the Ruspoli records have this
1. Diary of Valesio.
72
Cardinal Panfili
entry : " Paid for return of the Jew's bed hired for Monsd. Endel 20 bajocchi. Paid for food for Monsu. Endel and com- panion 38 scudi 25 bajocchi." This would appear to be the cost of the food consumed by Handel during his visit, and for some reason, known only to the Prince, classified as a separate item in the household accounts. The entries make it clear, however, that Handel was only at the palace in the Piazza SS. Apostoli one month, and when he left at the end of April, came once more under the sway of his first patron Cardinal Ottoboni.
Instantly he set to work again. He had no longer to use his talents on indifferent libretti, such as the atrocities with which Feustking had provided him in Hamburg. His associa- tion with the Roman Arcadians made him sure of a good " book." Cardinal Panfili, who went by the name of " Fenizio " among the Arcadians, gave Handel a libretto almost as soon as the applause for La Resurezzione had died away. Panfili was an aged prelate who had known a curi- ously diverse career. He climbed down from his Cardinal dignity and wrote words for any musician who had a tuneful note in him. He wrote dramas, comedies, poetical works for the stage, and in fact anything that would put his name on a programme. Not that he was deficient in talent. True, he " pot-boiled," that he was ever present when there was any chance of figuring in a production. But in the main his work was good. His libretto for Handel, // Trionfo del Temfo e del Disinganno, was merely a flight of fancy. In it two characters. Beauty and Pleasure, vainly endeavour to seduce Time and Truth, and sing violently against their rivals throughout the attempt. It is rather surprising that Handel should rush into a thing of this sort after the careful music of La Resurezzione, which, even if hastily com- pleted, had moments of genuine harmony and thought. // Trionfo had neither. It was produced under the Ottoboni regime, and probably, fully conscious of its deficiencies, Handel put it away in his mind, only to resurrect it later in different forms during his years in London. // Trionfo did nothing in Rome, and Handel, whose sensitive nature was easily piqued, may have suffered some burning of the spirit on
73
George Frideric Handel
account of its failure.^ When the Arcadians failed to acclaim, he was possibly more conscious of failure than were his critics. Whatever the cause, he promptly hurried out of Rome. It is true that the quarrel between the Pope and the State was brewing up into a siege of Rome — the Pope had already closed many of the gates in preparation for it. Handel may have imagined he would be wise to get out of trouble, the nature of which he did not understand. So he went to Naples. The Scarlattis, father and son, are believed to have gone with him. They were probably all rather sure that a siege had no elements in it that tended toward the making of good music.
The Naples journey was merely a diversion. Handel had nothing to gain by going there, and had it not been for an accident he would not have composed a note during his sojourn. Certainly, he carried no partially completed work to Naples, and just as certain is it that he had no idea of hav- ing anything performed in the southern city. Yet he wrote his Acis^ Galatea e Polifemo, and produced it in Naples.
For years this has puzzled his biographers. But quite recently the last leaf of the serenata was recovered under peculiar circumstances, and in addition to the signature, is given the date " Napoli, H i6 di Giugno 1708," and the mysterious words : " d'Alvito." It is these words which give the key to Handel's object in composing a fragmentary work which can never be regarded as a serious effort, but which he put aside, as he did // Trionfo^ for elaboration and serious production in his later years. As it happened, d'Alvito is the title of an important Neapolitan family of great antiquity which still exists, though now known by the higher title of Prince di Colubrano. The then Duca d'Alvito was married with great festivities on 19th July 1708, which must have been almost immediately after Handel arrived in Naples.
It is not too much to surmise, therefore, that he wrote the
1 One reason for its failure may have been that much of the music was too difficult for the period. It would seem that after the success of La Resurezzione, Handel " aspired." Corelli, falling foul of some of the intricate parts, Handel is said to have snatched the violin from his hands and played the notes, to which Corelli replied : " But, dear Saxon, this music is in the French manner, which I do not understand ! " The story may be a canard, but if it is not, then Corelli was a better-tempered genius than has been thought.
74
The Fete at Naples
serenata for the occasion.^ He had come with the finest credentials from Florence and Rome. Italy, linked up as it was in matters musical at this time more closely than in political things, knew little about him. He was a youth who had blossomed out of Germany in a very mysterious way. Probably the mystery surrounding him was a pique to curio- sity. He had shown no wild uplifting by his success ; on the other hand his modesty had rather hindered his notoriety. Moreover, the Duca d'Alvito was a patron of music, since on nth September there was performed at his house a serenata by Sarro called Amore^ Eco e Narciso, on the occasion of the acknowledgment by Sardinia of the Emperor Charles.
The marriage of the Duca d'Alvito was one of the most gorgeous functions seen in Naples for years. It is hardly possible that Handel, freshly arrived in a city which was beginning to assume all the decoration of an event of distinc- tion, would wish to be out of it. Throughout his later life he was always equal to the making of music for a particular occasion, and this may have been his first attempt at topical composition.
The Naples he found was a city of flowers. The roystering in the streets went on throughout the week, for the great social marriages of Italy of that day had functions which encouraged roystering. Now, on the eventful day, the Archbishop Pignatelli went to the palace, and, in the presence of all the high society of Naples, married the Duca d'Alvito to the Donna Beatrice Sanseverino, daughter of the late Prince di Monte-Miletto. And the same evening the bride was accom- panied by all her relatives to her husband's palace at Chiaja — a building that had been sumptuously decorated, where the rich tapestries, flowered velvets, embroideries, brocades, jewels, statues, pictures and other objects were inestimable, and there they all revelled magnificently.^
What shall we surmise then, since Handel wrote " d'Alvito " at the foot of his Acis of the Neapolitan days ? He came to Naples, a youth in whom was all the romance of youth. Youth
1 Mainwaring declares that he wrote it at the behest of a Portuguese or Spanish Princess, named Donna Laura. * " Gazctta di Napoli."
75
George Frideric Handel
ever ready to suit its richness to the mood of the moment, to the solemnity of an Easter Passion, to the festa of a decorated city. Striving for opportunity. Youth so sure. And, in his case, Youth aided by the certain knowledge that it could yield as votive offering the gift of a few — music worthy of the hour of rejoicing.
He may have played his part at the ducal marriage, or he may have been just a bawler on the edge of the crowd — if his enthusiasm led him so far. But he certainly made no money in Naples. The opera, for the greater part, was passing through a wave of licentiousness. Cheap music, cheap human- ity. It had a dramatis personce of mistresses rather richly kept. Its productions were too often hatched out in drawing- rooms, where the attractions of the women were incentives to the policy of those productions. There were jealousies to be avoided, the tenderness of certain people's whims to be studied. And the result was that the Naples of 1708 produced nothing to be remembered, though Italy was stalked at that time by the feet of genius.
That Handel had little interest in Naples is fairly obvious. But at least, during the visit, he made one good friend, w^ho was to stand him in good stead. This was Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani the celebrated Viceroy. The elegance of Handel's ex- temporising attracted him at once. There were endless possi- bilities in Grimani, as Handel soon discovered. For one thing, his family owned the unsuccessful San Giovanni Grisostomo theatre at Venice. Also Grimani was a poet. Before very long the inevitable occurred — he wrote a libretto for Handel, the best libretto, be it said, with which Handel had so far been provided. Doubtless they talked the story over together long before Grimani wrote a word of it, and, full of enthu- siasm, Handel set it to music in three weeks. Thus did Agrippina come into being.
When the work was finished, Handel did not hurry into immediate production with his wonted fervour. There were difficulties at the Venetian theatre, for a heavy run of operas at the two rival theatres had captured the city. He left Naples and repaired to Rome with Agrippina in his pocket. But Rome seemed to hold little for him now — all the promise
76
Agrippina
of the future appeared to lie in Venice. In Rome, where the greater musicians and the greater performers were to be found, opera, and all the ways to opera, were still under the ban. The musical gathered at pseudo-religious oratorios, because in Rome it was the thing to do. But no theatres ever contained audi- ences so poor in enthusiasm for the players on the stage. The rich bought boxes at high prices, wherein to hold extravagant orgies. They burned candles in these boxes, and had card tables there, whereat they played for scudi, quite oblivious to what was passing on the stage. Their theatrical life was a lurid farce, and was really an excuse for licentiousness. The boxes were little used except for bawdry gatherings, which the Pope's edict had unconsciously legalised. All the rottenness of Roman life seemed to boil to a head at the instigation of opera and religious oratorio.
So Handel found Rome when he reached the capital again, and so he left it. Towards the end of 1709 he appeared suddenly at Venice, accompanied, it is said, by Cardinal Grimani. Immediate arrangements were made for staging Agrippina, which was to be the first production of the Carnival Season — a season which opened each year on 26th December.
Agrippina was an enormous success from its first perform- ance. The audience went mad, and at every pause broke into loud shouts of " Viva il caro Sassone I " and other acclamations of praise.^ The fortune of the old San Giovanni Grisostomo theatre was restored ; the attractions at the two rival houses, presided over by two of the greatest musicians and producers of their day, Gasparini and Lotti, failed to draw. Agrippina was performed for twenty-seven nights in succession, a re- markable achievement for a Venetian opera in those days. It made Handel in Italy, indeed, it carried his name through Europe. Its dramatic power and extraordinary melody appealed to the Venetians at once. They feted him, he be- came the idol of the city. This youth, who had come to Italy, goaded by a keen sense of adventure, became in a few nights the veritable ruler of the Venetian people. Agrippina was unquestionably the finest work he had produced in Italy
1 Mainwaring, p. 53.
77
George Frideric Handel
or elsewhere, and it was incidentally the means of getting] him back again to his native land.
Throughout the run of the opera Prince Ernest of Hanover — a musician to the soul — sat in a box. He never tired of the work, it possessed some extreme fascination for him. Handel had come in contact with him during his previous Venetian visit, and Agrippina confirmed the Prince in the surmise he had previously formed of Handel's possibilities when he invited him to go to Hanover. Now again he pressed the invitation.
There was nothing left for Handel in Italy. He had seen the various cities. The best musical circles of the country had accepted and been proud of him. He had achieved — ^how much more he had achieved than he had anticipated when he set out on that long journey from Hamburg ! If he had made little money, he had attained recognition. Now, strong in him, was the desire to see his own land again, and to wander to other fields.
He made up his mind. He would go to Hanover.
But Hanover was only the resting-place of a bird of passage.
Handel in his youth, as in his maturity, was all moods, and there is much to suggest that the Hanover journey w^as, as ever, the result of a mood. Witness the erratic dash from Florence to Rome, from Rome to Florence, the sudden motive- less descent on Naples. When the shouting had died down in the Venetian theatre for Agrippina^ mood caught him and flung him north again. One can almost trace the workings of his mind. He had arrived, an unadorned Lutheran, into Catholic circles and been accepted. True, efforts had been made to convert him to the Cathohc faith, but when these met v^th a blunt refusal, he was still accepted for his art. It is not a little remarkable, and certainly indicative of the musical enthusiasm of Rome at the period, that on no occasion was his reHgion a hindrance to him in the highest circles of the Roman Church. They had acclaimed him, these people, given him recognition, his first taste of the sweets of fame. And the Italy that ruled the music of Europe had fostered him. It is possible, then, that in deciding upon his journey,
78
Agostino Steffani
he was stirred by some wish to return to Germany with the same humble vestments of the prodigal son — but a prodigal who, if weary of feet, yet returned with laurels which he would not wish to hide.
Or it may have been Steffani who urged the journey. Handel is said to have met Steffani at the Ottoboni palace at Rome, although there is no authority for this, and still less for the statement that the twain were pitted against each other in musical competition there. Considering that he was fifty- four when Handel met him, and one of the truly accomplished figures in music, Steffani would scarcely be likely to hoist his dignity by an act of this sort with a rival less than half his own age. It is certain that he was in Venice during the run of Agrippina, however, and equally certain that he recognised Handel's brilliance, and gave him unstinted praise and en- couragement.
Agostino Steffani was probably the most extraordinary European of his day. He bobbed up everywhere like a cork on a sea of musical and political intrigue, religious fervour and courtly pomp. No one knew who his parents were, but he was born at Cast elf ranco just thirty years before Handel saw the light at Halle. Somebody picked the boy out of the ditch because of his beautiful voice, and made him a chorister at St Mark's, Venice. He drifted to Munich, and was edu- cated by the Elector Ferdinand Maria ; later he reappeared in Rome and turned up mysteriously at the Court as a musician. His voice in maturity proved to be even more beautiful than it had been in his youth. He composed, and his Church- music found a vogue throughout Europe, though practically none of it has remained. Still unsatisfied, he studied theo- logy and philosophy and became a priest, then turned to writing operas ! Ultimately he tired of the Munich Court and passed to that of the Elector of Hanover, who made him Kapellmeister.
Even this did not satisfy Steffani. He wanted diplomacy, so this extraordinary creature was made Ambassador to Brussels, by the Elector. There was very little he could not do, and any one more unlike an Abb^ — the rank he held — could not be imagined. He joyed in the luxurious life of the Court,
79
George Frideric Handel
dined at the royal table, and, in some subtle manner, managed to keep himself free from the intrigue which swept through the courts.
Steffani's fifty-four years had mellowed him to the ways of all peoples and all classes. One can imagine this person of experience, therefore, impressing Handel, and possibly point- ing out to him the advantages of rich patronage, which he might expect at Hanover, in preference to the wandering happy-go-lucky existence the Saxon had been leading.
Unlike Mattheson, Steifani had no sense of jealousy. There was too much of the wanderer in him. At all events, when Handel arrived at Hanover he at once put his footsteps on the right road. " When I first arrived in Hanover I was a young man," Handel said in later years,^ " Steifani received me with great kindness and introduced me to the Princess Sophia, and the Elector's son, giving them to understand that I was a virtuoso in music."
Steffani exercised a greater influence over Handel than any of the many with whom the young musician became acquainted during his Italian years. Steffani was, indeed, a master. His word was accepted everywhere. He was amiable and kind, and possessed an exquisite courtesy.^ But he had a quick temper, an easily-wounded dignity. Soon after Handel arrived at Hanover, Steffani quarrelled with his singers. The affair seems to have been due to his punctiliousness on insisting that his singers kept precisely to the score as written. Whatever the cause, the master's dignity suffered rebuff, and without waiting for further argument he threw up his post and went off to Rome.
Such an incident might have proved a musical debacle at the Court. Certainly if it had taken place a couple of years earlier it would have done. Steffani, who had ruled so long, who had brought the music of the Court to a precision hitherto unknown there, left Hanover, never to return. And Handel stepped into his shoes, at a fee equivalent to ;£300 a year. He became Kapellmeister,
For a youth of twenty-five the honour was exceptional.
1 To Sir John Hawkins. ^ Chry Sander, vol. i.
80
Affairs at Home
And in more ways than one. Handel had not proved himself to the Elector at the time the appointment was made. He was largely taken on trust, to some extent on the recom- mendation of Steffani, whose last act before leaving the Court was to urge that Handel should succeed him. He therefore had everything to satisfy him, and yet his first request was for leave of absence to go to England. No call had come to him from England, no invitation from high quarters. It was the old demand of impulse. He obtained his permission just when summer was in full blaze at Hanover, and set off at once for Halle instead of going direct to London.
Much had happened at the Schlamm house since Handel left it. His youngest sister, Johanna Christiana, had died the year previous, and his elder sister, Dorothea Sophia, had effected a successful marriage with a well-to-do official, Dr Michael Michaelsen, who later became a prominent member of the Prussian Imperial Service, War Councillor and Lord of the Manor of Eptingen. Handel found Frau Dorothea ageing fast,^ cast about as she was by penurious habits for which there does not appear to have been any real necessity. Not that she was well off, but the sale of her husband's practice to MoUer must have kept her from want. Solitude and lack of direct interest in things was doubtless responsible for her circumstances. As for Aunt Anna, she was Frau Dorothea's sole companion in the large house. Two ageing women alone, slaves to an overriding piety, so ignorant of the ways of the world that this dashing from one country to another on the part of George Frideric must have amazed them.
But into the house one day stalked George Frideric with all the dust of travel upon him. No longer the stripling who had set out for Hamburg. No longer the youth seeking fortune on a high road strange to his feet. Nevertheless he remained only a very few days, and took the mail-coach towards Diisseldorf at the invitation of the Elector Johann Wilhelm. The Elector was an ardent patron of music, and his wife, Anna Maria, was the sister of Prince Gaston, who had lured Handel from Hamburg to Italy. None of the German Courts had music
1 Mainwaring declares that Handel found his mother blind, but she did not lose her sight till 1730.
81 F
George Frideric Handel
equal to that at Diisseldorf. The Elector ran operas on a magnificent scale, but if the motive that lay behind the invita- tion to Handel was to secure his services, he failed signally, for, v^ith a gift of plate from the Elector to mark the visit, Handel left him and set out for Holland.
By that route he reached London. The autumn of 1710 was waning when he set foot on these shores, friendless, unable to speak a word of the language. Other German musicians had come before him and settled down in comparative afflu- ence. There was Pepusch, there was Haym ; both must have wondered what had drawn Handel to London. Pepusch openly mocked. He had just started his Academy of Ancient Music, and doubtless felt that he could afford to laugh at the invader.
Handel did just what he had intended. He put up an opera in London, made an extraordinary hit with it, then went quietly back to the Hanoverian Court to answer his parole.
By which time, no doubt, Pepusch had ceased to laugh, and Haym had serious thoughts of writing a libretto for the Saxon who came here and did things in this stampede fashion.
Handel was a force to be reckoned with. Haym knew it, even if Pepusch's more solemn intelligence had failed to absorb the fact.
82
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST VISIT TO LONDON
When Handel arrived in London, Purcell had been dead fifteen years.
Purcell had carried English music to the heights, and the years that followed his passing found it at its lowest point of mediocrity. Only just before his death, Purcell had said : " Music is yet in its nonage, a froward child which gives hope of what he may be hereafter in England, when the masters of it shall find more encouragement. It is now leaving Italian, which is its best master, and studying a little of the French air, to give it somewhat more of gaiety and fashion." ^
Prophetic words. After the death of Purcell, English music collapsed. The woful efforts of men who knew nothing of the first rudiments of harmony and counterpoint appeared on the London stage, failed miserably, and cost their patrons small fortunes. Itinerant Italian musicians had begun to flock to London, drawn by the knowledge that London looked to Italy to retrieve its opera from the " Slough of the devil." Operas of indifferent worth were staged with Italian and English words, so that the audiences only understood half that was sung and were bored to death.
So important was this Italian influence that Addison of Spectator fame had made a special journey to Italy to study it. When he returned he put on Rosamund to Thomas Clayton's music, a perpetration of noise which irritated audiences for three nights only, and then dropped into permanent oblivion. The failure fired Addison's blood. He hectored and advised through the Spectator on the absurdities of Italian operas. He esteemed them as no higher than the devil's artless strum- ming, so that when Handel arrived with his Italian reputa-
1 " Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne," vol. ii. p. 339.
83
George Frideric Handel
tion behind him, Addison, a slave to his liver through over- dining, and with a pen ever ready to tilt at the first excuse, settled himself into his chair and w^aited for him.
London in 1710 was in a curious state of discord. Operas had failed in strings, and their attractions were so few that the inhabitants of the town thought again before venturing into the night for a theatre with the risk of being waylaid and robbed on the way home. A wave of crime had swept over the metropolis. Robberies were enacted in Piccadilly ; houses in Bond Street openly pilfered in broad daylight. Night watchmen were trussed like fowls in the principal thoroughfares while my lady's coach on its way to the theatre passed within a few yards. The streets were ill-lit and stank of stale garbage, and the courtyards that led from them were thieves' kitchens and murder shops. One was arrested on the word of an informer for nothing at all when passing down a main London street at night. The Haymarket Theatre played continuously to a losing box-office. Drury Lane — a forbidding thoroughfare, which only the boldest would tra- verse at night — turned out failure after failure. Small wonder, then, that those who alone could keep a theatre open pre- ferred to linger over their wine and gaming, rather than venture through a gauntlet of marauders, to hear indifferent music and piffling libretti.
When Handel arrived in London every condition of the theatrical world was against him, and was heaped as a mighty load upon the burden he already had to bear in his ignorance of the language and his lack of influence. By some means he came in touch at once with Aaron Hill, who was running the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket, and finding it difficult to make the box-office balance the expenses.
Hill was a figure of opportunity, and he was precisely Handel's age. He had knocked about the world, after being left unprovided for as an urchin of fourteen in the London streets. At fifteen he went to Constantinople, where his relation. Lord Paget, was English Ambassador. Lord Paget was surprised to have this scion of his poor relations thrust upon him in a strange capital. He was considerably annoyed. Being rather a proud and pompous person he almost responded
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to his first inclination to send the hoy home by the same way as he had come. But upon second thoughts he mellowed. He found the youthful Aaron a tutor. He educated him, sent him through Palestine, Egypt and parts of the East, and brought him back to England in 1703. In 1709 young Hill astonished the London literary circles by writing " A History of the Ottoman Empire," much of the material for which he secured whilst in Constantinople. Then he published a poem in favour of the Earl of Peterborough. So easy were things achieved in those days by the critical pen, that the Earl in return put him in charge of Drury Lane Theatre, from whence he migrated in due course to the Haymarket. His mind was curious ; his adaptability unbounded. He stepped out of the theatrical orbit for a time to put on the market a patent for extracting oil from beech-mast.^ And he finished his life by running a distillery at Pitlochry, where he died.^
When Handel found him, or he found Handel, he was at the height of his vigour. The Drury Lane company had passed from that ancient street to the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket in 1708, and Aaron Hill with it. In vain he had struggled with adverse fate at the Haymarket; He knew better than anyone that there was something distinctly wrong with the musical fare that was being put before the London audiences. So, when Handel came, he hailed him as a man whose fame in Italy he had admired from afar. The next thing he did was to call Handel into the theatre, where he gave him his own English version of a play by a wandering Italian, Giacomo Rossi, who had adapted the story from Tasso. Handel set Rossi's libretto as fast as the Italian, halting and hindered by the adaptation of Italian styles to the English stage, could produce it.
And so Rinaldo came into being. It was composed in a fortnight. Handel, ripe to the new adventure, and eager to figure in an English theatre, let the music pour from him. It was a great effort. The notes of Rinaldo carried in them all Handel's surging youth, all his mentality fresh and unspoiled. The work came at a time when his whole soul was in tune
1 Rces, " Cyclopaedia."
* P. R. Drummond, " Perthshire in Bygone Days," p. 403.
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George Frideric Handel
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with his task. On the night of 24th February 171 1 Rinaldo made the name of Handel famous throughout London.
He had been lucky with his singers. There was a good deal of brilliant talent in London at the time — people to whom the bad music of the epoch denied a chance. The Rinaldo singers may have been of Aaron Hill's choosing, but they were more probably Handel's. There was Giuseppe Boschi, the greatest basso of his day in Europe ; a man whom his most violent enemies could not tear down on the score of the quality of his voice. He had just come to London from Naples with his wife, Francesca Vanini, a lady older than him- self, who possessed a worn-out contralto voice. Boschi had never sung in London. Handel may have met him in Naples ; *