Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians — George Handel, Part 1

GEORGE HANDEL

When generations have been melted into tears, or raised to religious fervor--when courses of sermons have been preached, volumes of criticisms been written, and thousands of afflicted and poor people supported by the oratorio of "The Messiah"--it becomes exceedingly difficult to say anything new.

Yet no notice of Handel, however sketchy, should be written without some special tribute of reverence to this sublime treatment of a sublime subject.

Bach, Graun, Beethoven, Spohr, Rossini and Mendelssohn have all composed on the same theme.

But no one in completeness, in range of effect, in elevation and variety of conception, has ever approached Handel's music upon this one subject.

--_Rev.

H.

R.

Haweis_ GEORGE HANDEL

"Did you meet Michelangelo while you were in Rome?"

asked a good Roycroft girl of me the other day.

"No, my dear, no," I answered, and then I gulped hard to keep back some very foolish tears.

"No, I did not meet Michelangelo," I said, "I expected to, and was always looking for him; but these eyes never looked into his, for he died just three hundred years before I was born."

But how natural was this question from this bright, country girl!

She had been examining a lot of photographs of the Sistine Chapel, and had seen pictures of "Il Penseroso," the "Night" and "Morning," the "Moses"; and then she had seen on my desk a bronze cast of the hand of the "David"--that imperial hand with the gently curved wrist.

These things lured her--the splendid strength and suggestion of power in it all, had caught her fancy, and the heroic spirit of the Master seemed very near to her.

It all meant pulsating life and hope that was deathless; and the thought that the man who did the work had turned to dust three centuries ago, never occurred to this naive, budding soul.

"Did you see Michelangelo while you were in Rome?"

No, dear girl, no. But I saw Saint Peter's that he planned, and I saw the result of his efforts--things worked out and materialized by his hands--hands that surely were just like this hand of the "David."

The artist gives us his best--gives it to us forever, for our very own.

He grows aweary and lies down to sleep--to sleep and wake no more, deeding to us the mintage of his love.

And as love does not grow old, neither does Art.

Fashions change, but hope, aspiration and love are as old as Fate who sits and spins the web of life.

The Artist is one who is educated in the three H's--head heart and hand.

He is God's child--no less are we--and he has done for us the things we would have liked to do ourselves.

The classic is that which does not grow old--the classic is the eternally true.

"Did you meet Michelangelo in Rome?"

Why, it is the most natural question in the world!

At Stratford I expected to see Shakespeare; at Weimar I was sure to meet Goethe; Rubens just eluded me at Antwerp; at Amsterdam I caught a glimpse of Rembrandt; in the dim cloisters of Saint Mark's at Florence I saw Savonarola in cowl and robe; over Whitehall in London I beheld the hovering smoke of martyr-fires, and knew that just beyond the walls Ridley and Latimer were burned; and only a little way outside of Jerusalem a sign greets the disappointed traveler, thus: "He is risen--He is not here!"

* * * * * In one of his delightful talks--talks that are as fine as his feats of leadership--Walter Damrosch has referred to Handel as a contemporary.

Surely the expression is fitting, for in the realm of truth time is an illusion and the days are shadows.

George Frederick Handel was born in Sixteen Hundred Eighty-five, and died in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine.

His dust rests in Westminster Abbey, and above the tomb towers his form cut in enduring marble.

There he stands, serene and poised, accepting benignly the homage of the swift-passing generations.

For over a hundred years this figure has stood there in its colossal calm, and through the cathedral shrines, the aisles, and winding ways of dome and tower, Handel's music still peals its solemn harmonies.

At Exeter Hall is another statue of Handel, seated, holding in his hand a lyre.

At the Foundling Hospital (which he endowed) is a bust of the Master, done in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-eight; and at Windsor is the original of still another bust that has served for a copy of the very many casts in plaster and clay that are in all the shops.

There are at least fifty different pictures of Handel, and nearly this number were brought together, on the occasion of a recent Handel and Haydn Festival, at South Kensington.

When Gladstone once referred to Handel as our greatest English Composer, he refused to take it back even when a capricious critic carped and sneezed.

Handel essentially belongs to England, for there his first battles were fought, and there he won his final victory.

To be sure, he did some preliminary skirmishing in Germany and Italy; but that was only getting his arms ready for that conflict which was to last for half a century--a conflict with friends, foes and fools.

But Handel was too big a man to be undermined by either the fulsome flattery of friends, or the malice of enemies, who were such only because they did not understand.

And so always to the fore he marched, zigzagging occasionally, but the Voice said to him, as it did to Columbus, "Sail on, and on, and on."

Like the soul of John Brown, the spirit of Handel goes marching on.

And Sir Arthur Sullivan was right when he said, "Musical England owes more to Father Handel than to any other ten men who can be named--he led the way for us all, and cut out a score that we can only imitate."

* * * * * At the Court of George of Brunswick, at Hanover, in Seventeen Hundred Nine, was George Frederick Handel, six feet one, weight one hundred eighty, rubicund, rosy, and full of romp, aged twenty-four.

George of Brunswick was to have the felicity of being King George the First of England, and already he was straining his gaze across the Channel.

At his Court were divers and sundry English noblemen.

Handel was a prime favorite with every one in the merry company.

The ladies doted on him.

A

few gentlemen, possibly, were slightly jealous of his social prowess, and yet none pooh-poohed him openly, for only a short time before he had broken a sword in a street duel with a brother musician, and once had thrown a basso profundo, who sang off key, through a closed window--all this to the advantage of a passing glazier, who, being called in, was paid his fee three times over for repairing the sash.

It's an ill wind, etc. Handel played the harpsichord well, but the organ better.

In fact, he played the organ in such a masterly way that he had no competitor, save a phenomenal yokel by the name of Johann Sebastian Bach.

These men were born just a month apart.

Saint Cecilia used to whisper to them when they were wee babies.

For several years they lived near each other, but in this life they never met.

Handel was an aristocrat by nature, even if not exactly so by birth, and so had nothing to do with the modest and bucolic Bach--even going so far, they do say, as to leave, temporarily, the City of Halle, his native place, when a contest was suggested between them.

Bach was the supreme culminating flower of two hundred fifty years of musical ancestors--servants to this Grand Duke or that.

But in the tribe of Handel there was not a single musical trace.

George Frederick succeeded to the art, and at it, in spite of his parents.

But never mind that!

He had been offered the post as successor to Buxtehude, and Buxtehude was the greatest organist of his time.

He accepted the invitation to play for the Buxtehude contingent.

A musical jury sat on the case, and decided to accept the young man, with the proviso that Handel (taught by Orpheus) should take to wife the daughter of Buxtehude--this in order that the traditions might be preserved.

Young Handel declined the proposition with thanks, declaring he was unworthy of the honor.

Young Handel had spent two years in Italy, had visited most of the capitals of Europe, had composed several operas and numerous songs.

He was handsome, gracious and talented.

Money may use its jimmy to break into the Upper Circles; but to Beauty, Grace and Talent that does not shiver nor shrink, all doors fly open.

And now the English noblemen requested--nay, insisted--that Handel should accompany them back to Merry England.

He went, and being introduced as Signore Handello, he was received with salvos of welcome.

There is a time to plant, and a time to reap.

There is a time for everything--launch your boat only at full of tide.

London was ripe for Italian Opera.

Discovery had recently been made in England that Art was born in Italy.

It had traveled as far as Holland, and so Dutch artists were hard at work in English manor-houses, painting portraits of ancestors, dead and living.

Music, one branch of Art, had made its way up to Germany, and here was an Italian who spoke English with a German accent, or a German who spoke Italian--what boots it, he was a great musician!

Handel's Italian opera, "Rinaldo," was given at a theater that stood on the site of the present Haymarket.

The production was an immense success.

All educated people knew Latin (or were supposed to know it), and Signore Handello announced that his Italian was an improvement on the Latin.

And so all the scholars flocked to see the play, and those who were not educated came too, and looked knowing.

In order to hold interest, there were English syncopated songs between the acts--ragtime is a new word, but not a new thing.

Handel was very wise in this world's affairs.

He assured England that it was the most artistic country on the globe.

He wrote melodies that everybody could whistle.

Airs from "Rinaldo" were thrummed on the harpsichord from Land's End to John O'Groat's. The grand march was adopted by the Life Guards, and at least one air from that far-off opera has come down to us--the "Tascie Ch'io Pianga," which is still listened to with emotion unfeigned.

The opera being uncopyrighted, was published entire by an enterprising Englishman from Dublin by the name of Walsh.

At two o'clock one morning at the "Turk's Head," he boasted he had cleared over two thousand pounds on the sale of it.

Handel was present and responded, "My friend, the next time you will please write the opera and I will sell it."

Walsh took the hint, they say, and sent his check on the morrow to the author for five hundred pounds.

And the good sense of both parties is shown in the fact that they worked together for many years, and both reaped a yellow harvest of golden guineas.

On the birthday of Queen Anne, Handel inscribed to her an ode, which we are told was played with a full band.

The performance brought the diplomatic Handel a pension of two hundred pounds a year.

Next, to celebrate the peace of Utrecht, the famous "Te Deum" and "Jubilate" were produced, with a golden garter as a slight token of recognition.

But Good Queen Anne passed away, as even good queens do, and the fuzzy-witted George of Hanover came over to be King of England, and transmit his fuzzy-wuzzy wit to all the Georges.

About his first act was to cut off Handel's pension, "Because," he said, "Handel ran away from me at Hanover."

A time of obscurity followed for Handel, but after some months, when the Royal Barge went up the Thames, a band of one hundred pieces boomed alongside, playing a deafening racket, with horse-pistol accompaniments.

The King made inquiries and found it was "Water-Music," composed by Herr Handel, and dedicated in loving homage to King George the First.

When the Royal Barge came back down the river, Herr Handel was aboard, and accompanied by a great popping of corks was proclaimed Court Musician, and his back-pension ordered paid.

The low ebb of art is seen in that, in the various operas given about this time by Handel, great stress is made in the bills about costumes, scenery and gorgeous stage-fittings.

When accessories become more than the play--illustrations more than the text--millinery more than the mind--it is unfailing proof that the age is frivolous.

Art, like commerce and everything else, obeys the law of periodicity.

Handel saw the tendency of the times, and advertised, "The fountain to be seen in 'Amadigi' is a genuine one, the pump real and the dog alive."

Three hours before the doors opened, the throng stood in line, waiting.