Getting a Handle on Handel

For those of limited experience with Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759), his most famous work is more associated with Christmas than Epiphany.  But as masterful and glorious a composition as Messiah is, Handel’s genius is so much more—even an epiphany in itself. But as is often the case, genius is wrapped up in a figure that would otherwise be rather lacking in appeal. Here we have a fellow who is at once outspoken and introspective, self-indulgent and overachieving, full of humor and explosive in temper, and in his later life portly and sickly.  He was not a man who physically aged gracefully, yet his musical compositions matured with every new experience.  He was not a socially personable or affable man, yet he understood so intimately the human spirit as is evidenced by his gift.

Georg Friedrich Handel

Handel was a demanding, quick-tempered bear of a man.  He did not take great care of his body and his indulgence led to failing health in his later years. It is thought he suffered a stroke that impaired his right side, although other controversy claims his indulgence in cheap port caused his to suffer from lead poisoning of his central nervous system.  He developed severe cataracts that when corrective surgery was attempted caused Handel to go completely blind. (His optician who attempted the surgery had the same unsuccessful results with Bach when he tried to remove his cataracts.) In spite of his failing health, Handel was uncompromising when it came to the performance of his music.  He would frequently be found berating his performers and even belittling his audience. When his oratorio Theodora was poorly attended, he commented, “Never mind, the acoustics will be better without the bodies.”

Handel was a contemporary and colleague of many famous baroque composers including J.S. Bach (whom Handel remarked as being little better than a country church organist), Domenico Scarlatti (who shared the same birth and death years as Handel), G.P. Telemann (whom Handel considered a friend), and Maurice Greene (whom he did not consider a friend after Greene befriended Handel’s archrival Bononcini and the two set up a rival musical society that featured music composed by virtually any composer but Handel). During his years in Italy, Handel learned from the best Italian composers and musicians of the day.  He had the occasion to hear Antonio Vivaldi play violin and claimed his talent to be a gift from God that will never be surpassed. He heard the voice of the famous castrato Farinelli and tried to lure him away from composer Nicolo Porpora, thereby earning himself the life-long enmity of yet another composer.  But not all of Handel’s professional relationships were so prickly. His mentors such as Arcangelo Corelli and Georg Philipp Telemann remained true friends and helped Handel develop his prodigious talent for composing.

Handel’s great musical passion was for composing dramatic operas.  He spent a number of years in Italy developing his skill in opera composition, and composed his first opera Almira before he turned 20. However, opera’s popularity was waning in London during his life there. By 1737 his opera company went bankrupt, and his last opera, Deidamia, was staged in 1741.  Yet some of today’s favorite operatic arias are from Handel’s operas, such as Lascia chi’o Pangia from Rinaldo and Ombra Mai Fu from the opera Serse (Xerxes).  So Handel turned to composing oratorios instead.

Oratorios, like operas, tell a dramatic story.  But operas are musical theatre with staging and all the accoutrements, whereas oratorios are strictly concert performances. Generally speaking, oratorios take their text from religious settings rather than the secular. Handel was the first to stage an oratorio in England with his production of Esther.  The Church, of course was outraged at the profanity of performing a sacred text in the theater and did their utmost to undermine Handel’s credibility.  But when the Royal family attended a production, Esther became very popular.  One could hear snatches of arias sung with garbled texts on the streets—for the line “I come, my queen, to chaste delights” became “I comb my queen to chase the lice”.  A true sign of popular admiration! Handel composed 29 oratorios in his lifetime, each a testament to his own religious fervor. Once, it is said, a woman asked him how he composed such sublime music when he had such little command of the English language.  To which he replied, “Madam, I thank God I have a little religion.”

The Battle of Culloden, 1745

Besides Esther and, of course, Messiah, one of Handel’s most well-known oratorios is Judas Maccabbeus. Handel composed the oratorio to compliment Prince Augustus upon his victorious return from the Battle of Culloden. The battle was the culmination of a 1745 Jacobite uprising in effort to return the Stuarts to the English throne.  The battle, which lasted all of an hour, took the lives of nearly 2,000 Jacobites and cost the British army only 50.  The libretto for the oratorio takes its plot from the rebellion of the Jew Mattathais who refused to worship Zeus as commanded by the Seleucid Empire which ruled Judea in 170BC.  He escaped to the hills and gathered like-minded Jews to fight against the empire for their faith.  The oratorio displays the changing fortunes of the Jews from oppressed to jubilant.  It is a token of Handel’s wry sense of humor to use this story as an analogy when the strength of faith of the Jacobites was defeated while the empire was victorious. The choral anthems See, the Conqu'ring Hero Comes! and Hallelujah, Amen are two of the more famous choruses from the oratorio.

This Sunday, the third Sunday after Epiphany, Trinity Church’s worship music will centerpiece the compositions of G.F. Handel—particularly his oratorios. The prelude will be an aria from Messiah very appropriate to Epiphany: The People that Walked in Darkness (Shall See a Great Light).  The choral anthem and the postlude are both taken from Judas Maccabeus.