Part 3 (2/2)

Never was the hostility of the English public more roused against him.

The same hateful cabal which had already thrice threatened to bring about his downfall again rose against him. They invited the fas.h.i.+onable world in London to their _fetes_, specially organised on the days when the performances of his oratorios were to have taken place, with the object of robbing him of his audience. Bolingbroke and Smollett both speak of the plots of certain ladies to ruin Handel. Horace Walpole says that it was the fas.h.i.+on to go to the Italian Opera when Handel directed his oratorio concerts. Handel, whose force of energy and genius had weakened since his first failure of 1735, was involved afresh in bankruptcy at the beginning of 1745. His griefs and troubles, and the prodigious expenditure of force which he made, seemed again on the point of turning his brain. He fell into extreme bodily prostration and lowness of spirit, similar to that of 1737, and this lasted for the s.p.a.ce of eight months, from March to October, 1745.[252] By a miracle he was able to rise out of this abyss, and by unforeseen events, where music was his only aid, he became more popular than he ever was before.

The Pretender, Charles Edward, landed in Scotland; the country rose up.

An army of Highlanders marched on London. The city was in consternation.

A great national movement arose in England, Handel a.s.sociated himself with it. On November 14, 1745, he brought to light at Drury Lane his _Song made for the Gentlemen Volunteers of the City of London_,[253]

and he wrote two oratorios, which were, so to speak, immense national hymns: the _Occasional Oratorio_,[254] where Handel called the English to rise up against invasion, and _Judas Maccabaeus_[255] (July 9 to August 11, 1746), the Hymn of Victory, written after the rout of the rebels at Culloden Moor, and for the _fete_ on the return of the conqueror, the ferocious Duke of c.u.mberland, to whom the poem was dedicated.

These two patriotic oratorios, where Handel's heart beat with that of England, and of which the second, _Judas Maccabaeus_, has retained even to our own day its great popularity, thanks to its broad style and the spirit which animates it,[256] brought more fortune to Handel than all the rest of his works together. After thirty-five years of continuous struggle, plot and counterplot, he had at last obtained a decisive victory. He became by the force of events _the national musician of England_.

Freed from material cares, which had embittered his life,[257] Handel took up the work of his composition again, with more tranquillity, and in the following years came many of his happiest works. _Alexander Balus_ (June 1 to July 4, 1747)[258] is, like _Semele_, a concert opera, well developed; the orchestration being exceptionally rich and subtle.

_Joshua_ (July 30 to August 18, 1747)[259] is a somewhat pale _replica_ of _Judas Maccabaeus_. A gentle love idyll blossoms amidst the pompous choruses. _Solomon_ (June, 1748)[260] is a musical festival, radiating poetry and gladness. _Susanna_ (July 11, 1724, to August, 1748), grave and gay by turns, realistic yet lyric, is a hybrid kind of work, but very original.

Finally, in the spring of 1749, which marks, so it seems, the end of Handel's good fortune, he wrote his brilliant Firework Music--a model for popular open-air _fetes_--produced on April 27, 1749, by a monster orchestra of trumpets, horns, oboes, and ba.s.soons, without stringed instruments, on the occasion of the Firework display given in Green Park to celebrate the Peace of Aix la Chapelle.[261]

More solemn works followed these gay pieces. At this moment of his life the spirit of melancholy raised its grey head before the robust old man, who seemed to be obsessed by the presentiment of some coming ill fortune.

On May 27, 1749, he conducted at the Foundling Hospital[262] for the benefit of waifs and strays, his beautiful _Anthem for the Foundling Hospital_,[263] which was inspired by his great pity for these little unfortunates. From June 28 to July 31 he wrote a pure masterpiece, _Theodora_, his most intimate musical tragedy, his only Christian tragedy besides _The Messiah_[264]. From the end of that same year dates also his music for a scene from Tobias Smollett's Alceste, which was never played, and from which Handel took the essential parts for his _Choice of Hercules_.[265] A little time after he made his last voyage to Halle. He arrived on German soil at the moment when Bach died, July 28, 1750. Indeed he nearly ended his life there himself in the same week by a carriage accident.[266]

He recovered quickly, and on January 21, 1751, when he commenced the score of _Jephtha_, he appeared to be in robust health, despite his sixty-six years. He wrote the first act at a stretch in thirteen days.

In eleven days more he had arrived at the last scene but one of Act II.

Here he had to break off. Already in the preceding pages he only progressed with difficulty; his writing, so clear and firm at the commencement, became sticky, confused, and trembling.[267] He had started on the final chorus of Act II: ”How dark, O Lord, are Thy Ways.”

Hardly had he written the opening _Largo_ than he had to stop working.

He wrote:

”_I reached here on Wednesday, February 13, had to discontinue on account of the sight of my left eye._”[268]

The work was broken off for ten days. On February 23 (which was his birthday) he wrote in:

”_Feel a little better. Resumed work_”;

and he wrote the music to those foreboding words:

”_Grief follows joy as night the day._”

He took hardly five days to finish this chorus, which is really sublime.

He stopped then for four months.[269] On June 18 he resumed the third act. He was again interrupted in the middle.[270] The last four airs and the final chorus took more time than a whole oratorio usually occupied.

He did not finish it until August 30, 1751. His sight was then gone.

After that, all was ended. Handel's eyes were closed for ever.[271] The sun was blotted out, ”_Total eclipse_....” The world was effaced.

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