Part 16 (2/2)

He was imperious in temper and, perhaps, aggressively conscious of his powers; but he was generous to a degree, when his means allowed it, and many are the existing inst.i.tutions which have good reason to call him blessed.

Handel has often been accused, and with some justice, of laying violent hands on anything he came across in the way of musical ideas that he could convert to his own use. Whether large conceptions leading to unknown possibilities, or a simple tune to be converted to immediate use, he seemed to avail himself of them with the freedom of an autocrat.

The minds of the just may be saddened by the reflection, but there is little doubt that the world at large has every reason to be thankful.

When he made the momentous resolution to devote himself to the composition of oratorio, his early experience in Italy and the knowledge he gained there, can but have been of enormous service to him. How thoroughly he had absorbed the Italian spirit and technique is, in his earlier works more particularly, evident, and that he appreciated Italian melody is equally shown by the frequency with which he annexed it.

It has often been pointed out how dissimilar his earliest sacred music is from his so-called English oratorios. Naturally. The former was written when a boy and before he had gained his Italian experience. His oratorios were not begun until he was, at least, fifty years of age. He had then been in the position to become acquainted with the great English school of ecclesiastical music, and the combination of his early German training, his absorption of the Italian school and his connection with this, seems to be quite sufficient to explain the fact. Indeed, it does not require much critical ac.u.men to detect each influence at work in his oratorios.

That he distanced everything that preceded him is, of course, needless to say, but that his work often shows signs of this spirit of opportunism, the most enthusiastic of his admirers, and these are countless, will admit.

What led Handel to devote himself to the composition of sacred music?

Had he, at last, gauged the true inwardness of the spirit of the people among whom he had elected to live the rest of his days?

Had he come to realise that, so far as they were concerned, he might go on writing operas until the crack of doom, without affecting them in the least? His genius was eclectic. He could write Italian music to delight the Italians, German music to satisfy the Germans, and now, was he determined to reach the soul of the _people_, rather than continue to cater for the amus.e.m.e.nt of a comparatively few wealthy dwellers in the metropolis? Who can tell?

That he was a man of any deep religious feeling, there had been up to this time, little to indicate. In character he was pugnacious, a.s.sertive, and intolerant of the least opposition. For years his life had been spent in continual strife, and the result had been far from commensurate with the wealth of genius and energy he had expended.

Now he was embarking on an enterprise in which he would have no rivals, and which offered as great a scope for his powers as that which he had relinquished. Well, whatever it was that decided him, the world has reason to be thankful for the momentous decision.

In any case, to attempt to explain the ways of genius is, generally, time hopelessly lost.

His first oratorios were devoted to subjects from the Old Testament. In manner and expression, they are quite like his operas. The arias might, indeed, be exchanged without any perceptible difference; the choruses, however, are on a grander scale.

So far as the English people were concerned, their attraction lay in the fact of being a.s.sociated with Biblical incidents, and thus making it possible to go and hear them, without any suspicion of irreligious motive. This first and great result was of immense import, for it laid the seeds that were, later, to bring forth such good fruit.

As regards their religious message, they might just as well have been written, great as they are, and stupendous in the case of ”Israel in Egypt,” for a pagan festival. Nevertheless, the great work was in progress, the great mission in course of fulfilment. It may be said that they were like S. John the Baptist, in that they were the forerunners of that which was to be, for the English people at least, the greatest glory in Christendom, in the sense of religious music.

THE ”MESSIAH.”

It was on April 13th, 1742, that the immortal and epoch-making work, the ”Messiah,” was produced in Dublin. Its success was immediate, and the effect produced by it extraordinary. Repet.i.tions of the performance were demanded, and its fame spread with such rapidity that the excitement was intense on the occasion of its first representation in London on March 23, 1743.

The audience embraced the highest personages in the realm, from the King downwards, and as the performance progressed, so did the excitement, which culminated during the singing of the ”Hallelujah” chorus, by the people, headed by the King, springing to their feet and remaining standing until the end.

The ”Messiah” may be said to have crowned the work that the earlier oratorios had begun. Henceforth the English people were to see, as their ancestors had before them, that music was not only great as an art, but that it could be both an aid and inspiration to religion.

It is little to be wondered at, that a people who must have been thirsting for music so long, should give vent to outbursts of emotion and enthusiasm, when it was restored to them in the form of so sublime a conception.

What an experience! to have been among those on whose ears fell for the first time those wonderfully touching and simple recitatives, in which the vision of the shepherds is described and the announcement of the birth of the Saviour made, or the more poignant one in which, to music of intense emotional power, the terrible story of the Last Agonies is related.

No other work has ever approached the ”Messiah” in the strength of its hold on the mind and imagination of the English people, and this is as true to-day as it was a hundred and fifty years ago. They know it incomparably better than any other music ever written, and the many beautiful numbers it contains, may be said to be as familiar in their mouths as household words. The ”Hallelujah” chorus, although not by any means Handel's best, still retains its old popularity, and, indeed, nearly the whole work would seem to be endowed with endless life.

There are certain numbers, it is true, of which this cannot be said, and which are usually omitted, but, seeing the extraordinary rapidity with which it was written, the amazing thing is that they are so few. It seems absolutely incredible that this, his greatest oratorio, should have been written within the short s.p.a.ce of three weeks, yet it was so.

I have written at some length on Handel and the ”Messiah,” as it is his unique distinction, through the medium of this immortal work, to have revolutionised the spirit of the English people, and helped to rid it of the Calvinistic thraldom that had enveloped it.

I must now content myself with a brief commentary on the successive oratorios, since Handel's day, that have had any distinct and abiding influence on music in England.

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