Three books on music, part 2: Handel in London
Handel in London: The Making of a Genius. Jane Glover, Pegasus Books, 2018. 430 pp.
Image: MSE Books
George Frideric Handel, composer of Messiah, was born as Georg Friederich Händel in 1685 in the Electorate of Saxony in eastern Germany. As a young man he received musical instruction in his birthplace of Halle an der Saale and then in the more cosmopolitan Hamburg before travelling to northern and central Italy. There he spent the formative years of his early and mid-20s, absorbing musical influences and creating his first masterpieces. But most of the works by which he is known today were written in London. He first visited the city in late 1710 on extended leave from his duties as director of music for the Elector of Hanover, and then moved there more-or-less permanently two years later. The English capital was, as Jane Glover's subtitle has it, the making of a genius.
An invitation from the British envoy to Venice after he witnessed the triumph of Handel's opera Agrippina (1709) first brought Handel to England. What kept him there was a proposal from Queen's Theatre impresario Aaron Hill, who wanted to produce a visually spectacular Italian opera. Hill chose a subject which, "by different Incidents and Passions, might afford the Musick scope to vary and display its Excellence, and fill the Eye with more delightful Prospects, so at once to give two senses equal Pleasure." [1]
Hill wrote a scenario that featured the clash between the Christian champion Rinaldo and the Saracen sorceress Armida, a story taken from Italian poet Torquato Tasso's First Crusade epic Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered). Hill probably knew the poem in Edward Fairfax's early 17th-century English translation Godfrey of Boulogne, or the Recoverie of Ierusalem.
Rinaldo, as the opera was titled, was indeed spectacular. For Armida's Act I entrance aria "Furie terribili" she appears "in the air, in a Chariot drawn by two huge Dragons, out of whose mouths issue Fire and Smoke." Later in the act Armida kidnaps the virtuous Christian maiden Almirena in front of a helpless Rinaldo: "a black Cloud descends, all fill'd with dreadful Monsters spitting Fire and Smoke on every side. The Cloud covers Almirena and Armida, and carries 'em up swiftly into the Air, leaving in their Place, two frightful Furies, who having grinn'd and mock'd Rinaldo, sink down, and disappear." [2] While Hill "filled the eye," Handel delighted the ear, accompanying these astonishing scenes with superb music, some of it borrowed from works he had composed in Italy.
Sarah Wegener performs "Furie terribili," Armida's summoning of her demons, with Ensemble Il Capriccio (but, alas, no dragons):
In Act II there is the vista of "a Calm and Sunshiny Sea" with mermaids and Sirens, who lure Rinaldo to Armida's enchanted palace in a futile attempt to rescue Almirena (Rinaldo is captured himself). In Act III "a dreadful Prospect of a Mountain, horribly steep, and rising from the Front of the Stage, to the utmost Height of the most backward Part of the Theatre; Rocks, and Caves, and Waterfalls, are seen upon the Ascent, and on the Top appear the blazing Battlements of the Enchanted Palace, Guarded by a great number of Spirits, of various Forms and Aspects." [3] The mountain splits apart and vanishes when struck by the magic wands of two Christian knights, and Almirena and Rinaldo are freed. The Saracen armies are vanquished, Jerusalem is conquered by the Crusaders, and Armida breaks her magic wand and converts to Christianity (!).
London had never seen or heard anything like it. Rinaldo ran for 15 performances in the winter and spring of 1711, and was revived four times over the next six years. Unfortunately, in a pattern that was to repeat itself, despite the success of the opera Hill lost money on the production and ultimately lost his job as well.
Handel, though, had found a welcoming new city, and a new focus: writing Italian opera for the English stage. Over the next three decades he would compose nearly three dozen operas that would showcase some of the greatest singers in the world. [4]
Portrait of Handel by Balthasar Denner, ca. 1727. Image: Wikimedia Commons
Glover situates Handel's musical activities within the context of the political upheaval in Britain during the first half of the 18th century. Riots accompanied the accession of Handel's patron Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, to the British throne as George I on the death of the Stuart Queen Anne in 1714. The right of the House of Hanover to rule Britain was contested on the battlefield during rebellions on behalf of the self-styled James III (the son of the deposed James II and the nephew of Queen Anne) against George I in 1715, and of James's son Charles against George II in 1745.
But there was conflict within the House of Hanover as well. There were bitter divisions between George I and his son George Augustus, the Prince of Wales. And after George Augustus ascended the throne as George II on his father's death in 1727, he in turn was at odds with his eldest son Frederick, the new Prince of Wales. Although Handel had strong connections to the throne, he could not afford to alienate the princes (who, after all, were in line to become the future king).
The quarrel between George II and Frederick had professional consequences for Handel, as Frederick was a major sponsor of an opera company founded in 1733 to rival Handel's. Although Frederick was clearly acting mainly to spite his father—he also supported Handel's company—in the end two Italian opera companies were two too many. When it became clear by the end of that decade that producing opera was no longer (if it had ever been) financially viable, Handel—then in his mid-50s—made a remarkable transition: he turned to the composition of the English-language oratorios (including Messiah) that became some of his most beloved works.
Mark Padmore performing "Waft her, angels, through the skies" from the oratorio Jephtha (1751), with The English Concert conducted by Andrew Manze:
Handel in London is Glover's third book, after her study of Monteverdi's student Francesco Cavalli (1978) and the excellent Mozart's Women (2005). [5] She writes about 18th-century music with a well-earned authority: she is a conductor of distinction who specializes in the period, and her discussions of Handel's operas and oratorios offer insights on every page. Handel has been well served by biographers, and if you are interested in fuller treatments of his early years in Germany and Italy you may wish to turn to the books by conductor Christopher Hogwood or musicologist Donald Burrows. But Glover has written the most sheerly readable biography of Handel I've encountered. She makes the offstage drama affecting Handel's opera companies and the sometimes knotty politics of Hanoverian Britain admirably clear, but always keeps the focus on Handel's magnificent music. Highly recommended.
Last time: Eric Siblin, The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the search for a Baroque masterpiece
Next time: Anna Beer, Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music
- Quoted in Jane Glover, Handel in London: The Making of a Genius. Pegasus Books, 2018, p. 24.
- Quoted in Glover, pp. 30-31.
- Quoted in Glover, pp. 31-33.
- For more on Handel's works for the stage, please see my posts on Acis and Galatea (1718), Floridante (1721), Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar, 1724), Tamerlano (Tamerlane, 1724), Orlando (Roland, 1733), Ariodante (1735), Alcina (1735), and Serse (Xerxes, 1738)
- In the first version of this post I had forgotten her book on Cavalli, although I've read it.
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