Handel

Handel

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Title: Handel
Author: Edward J. Dent
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9089] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 4,
2003]
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Language: English

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HANDEL
[Illustration: G. F. HANDEL _from a woodcut by Eric King_]

BY EDWARD J. DENT

CONTENTS
Chapter I
Birth and parentage--studies under Zachow at
Halle--Hamburg--friendship and duel with
Mattheson--_Almira_--departure for Italy.
Chapter II
Arrival in Italy--_Rodrigo_--Rome: Cardinal Ottoboni and the
Scarlattis--Naples: Venice: _Agrippina_--appointment at
Hanover--London: Rinaldo.
Chapter III
Second visit to London--Italian opera--George I and the _Water
Music_--visit to Germany--Canons and the Duke of
Chandos--establishment of the Royal Academy of Music.
Chapter IV
Buononcini--Cuzzoni, Faustina, and Senesino--death of George I--_The
Beggar's Opera_--collapse of the Academy.
Chapter V

Handel naturalized--partnership with Heidegger--_Esther_--the Opera
of the Nobility--visit to Oxford--opera season at Covent
Garden--Charles Jennens--collapse of both opera-houses.
Chapter VI
Bankruptcy and paralysis--visit to Aix-la-Chapelle--the last
operas--Vauxhall Gardens--Handel's "borrowings"--visit to
Ireland--Messiah and other oratorios.
Chapter VII
_Judas Maccabaeus_--Gluck--Thomas Morell--incipient
blindness--Telemann and his garden--last oratorios--death--character
and personality.
Bibliography and List of Works

CHRONOLOGY
1685.... Birth at Halle. 1702.... Entered University; organist of the
Cathedral. 1703.... Went to Hamburg. 1705.... First opera: Almira
(Hamburg). 1707.... Arrival in Italy. 1710.... Appointment at Hanover;
first visit to London. 1711.... First London opera: Rinaldo. 1712....
Second visit to London. 1717.... Appointment to the Duke of Chandos.
1720.... Opening of Royal Academy of Music (Opera). 1726....
Naturalized as a British subject. 1728.... _The Beggar's Opera_.
Collapse of the Academy. 1732.... First public oratorio: Esther. 1733....
Festival at Oxford. 1737.... Collapse of Opera; Handel bankrupt and
paralysed. 1741.... Last opera: Deidamia. 1742.... Messiah at Dublin.
1751.... First signs of blindness. Last oratorio Jeptha. 1759.... Death in
London.

CHAPTER I
Birth and parentage--studies under Zachow at
Halle--Hamburg--friendship and duel with

Mattheson--Almira--departure for Italy.
The name of Handel suggests to most people the sound of music
unsurpassed in massiveness and dignity, and the familiar portraits of
the composer present us with a man whose external appearance was no
less massive and dignified than his music. Countless anecdotes point
him out to us as a well-known figure in the life of London during the
reigns of Queen Anne and the first two Georges. He lies buried in
Westminster Abbey. One would expect every detail of his life to be
known and recorded, his every private thought to be revealed with the
pellucid clarity of his immortal strains. It is not so; to assemble the bare
facts of Handel's life is a problem which has baffled the most laborious
of his biographers, and his inward personality is more mysterious than
that of any other great musician of the last two centuries.
The Memoirs of the Life of the late George Frederic Handel, written by
the Rev. John Mainwaring in 1760, a year after his death, is the first
example of a whole book devoted to the biography of a musician. The
author had never known Handel himself; he obtained his material
chiefly from Handel's secretary, John Christopher Smith the younger.
Mainwaring is our only authority for the story of Handel's early life.
Many of his statements have been proved to be untrue, but there is
undoubtedly a foundation of truth beneath most of them, however
misleading either Smith's memory or Mainwaring's imagination may
have been. The rest of our knowledge has to be built up from scattered
documents of various kinds, helped out by the reminiscences of Dr.
Burney and Sir John Hawkins. For the inner life of Mozart and
Beethoven we can turn to copious letters and other personal writings;
Handel's extant letters do not amount to more than about twenty in all,
and it is only rarely that they throw much light on the workings of his
mind.
The