[1] The genealogical tree of Handel has been prepared by Karl Eduard Förstemann: Georg Friedrich Haendel’s Stammbaum, 1844, Breitkopf.

The name of Handel was very common at Halle in different forms (Hendel, Hendeler, Händeler, Hendtler). One would say that its derivation signified “merchant.” G. F. Handel wrote it in Italian Hendel, in English and French Handel, in German Händel.

[2] It is interesting to note that Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach on March 21, 1685.

[3] Of the four children by the second marriage, the first died at birth. George Frederick had two sisters: one, two years, the other, five years younger than himself.

[4] He died in 1672.

[5] Legendary anecdotes of the little Handel are often quoted, showing him rising from his bed in the middle of the night to play a little clavichord, which was concealed in an upper garret.

[6] See the Preface which the choirmaster of the Thomas School at Leipzig, Tobias Michael, wrote to the second part of his Musikalische Seelenlust (1637); and in the life of Rosenmüller the story of the scandalous affair which in 1655 forced this fine musician to flee from his country (August Horneffer: Johann Rosenmüller, 1898).

[7] F. W. Zachau was born in 1663 at Leipzig, and died prematurely in 1712. His father came from Berlin. The original spelling of the name was Zachoff.

[8] Since the publication of the works of Zachau by Max Seiffert in the Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst, Vols. XXI and XXII, 1905, Breitkopf.

[9] Matheson refers to this briefly also, but the later historians, Chrysander, Volbach, Kretzschmar, Sedley Taylor have not taken any account of these words, which they attribute to the generosity of Handel, and to the malevolence of Matheson. In their judgment he did not even know the works of Zachau—this is very hard on Handel’s master. Since the publication of the Denkmäler it is impossible not to recognize in Zachau the true originator of his style, and even, so to speak, of the genius of Handel.

[10] Lebensbeschreibung Haendels (1761).

[11] One notices many of Kerl’s themes in one of Handel’s Organ concertos, and in a Concerto Grosso. A canzone of Kerl; also a capriccio of Strungk has been transferred bodily into two choruses of Israel in Egypt (Max Seiffert: Haendels Verhältnis zu Tonwerken ælterer deutscher Meister, Jahrbuch Peters, 1907).

[12] The two parts of the Clavier Exercises of Kuhnau appeared in 1689 and 1692. The new Clavier Pieces in 1696 and the Bible Sonatas in 1700. (See the Edition of Kuhnau’s clavier works by Karl Pasler in the Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst, 1901).

[13] See Chrysander. We shall speak later on of the work of Steffani and its relation to Handel.

[14] The volume of his published works comprises 12 cantatas for orchestra, soli, and chorus, and a capella (unaccompanied) Mass, a chamber work (trio for flute, bassoon, and continuo), 8 preludes, fugues, fantasias, capriccios for clavecin or organ, and 44 choral variations.

[15] Compare the Tenor air O du werter Freudengeist (p. 71) and accompaniment, and ritornello of the violini unisoni in the 4th cantata Ruhe, Friede, Freud und Wonne with the air of Polyphemus in Handel’s Acis and Galatea; compare also the subject in the Bass air of the 8th cantata (p. 189) with the well-known instrumental piece which Handel used for the Symphony in the Second Act of Hercules; also the Tenor solo with horn, Kommt jauchzet (p. 181) in the 8th cantata: Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele with the soprano air in The Messiah. One also finds in the cantata Ruhe, Friede (p. 83) the sketch for the famous chorus of the destruction of the walls of Jericho in Joshua.

[16] Ruhe, Friede, p. 122.

[17] Ibid., pp. 113, 183.

[18] Ibid., pp. 110, 141, 254, 263.

[19] Ibid. 8th Cantata. Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, p. 166, the German Hallelujah with its fine flow of jubilant vocalizing—especially on page 192, the great final chorus.

[20] See his pretty trio for flute, bassoon and clavier (p. 313). It is a small work in 4 movements (1. Affettuoso; 2. Vivace; 3. Adagio; 4. Allegro), where clear Italian grace mixes itself so happily with German Gemüth.

The orchestra for the cantatas seldom includes anything but the strings with the organ or the clavier. But in general the palette of Zachau is very rich, comprising violas, violetti, violoncello, harps, oboes, flutes, hunting horns, bassoons and bassonetti, and even clarini (high trumpets) and drums (Cantata: Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar).

Zachau amuses himself by combining the tone-colours of the different instruments with those of the voices in the solo airs; thus a Tenor air is accompanied by a violoncello solo; another by two hunting horns; an air for the Bass is combined, with the bassoon obbligato; another with 4 drums and trumpets; a Soprano air with the bassoon and 2 bassonetti; without mentioning innumerable airs with oboes or flutes.

Thanks to Zachau, Handel was familiarized at an early date with the orchestra. He learnt at his house how to play all the instruments, especially the oboe, for which he has written many charming numbers. When he was ten years old he wrote some Trios for 2 oboes and bass. An English nobleman travelling in Germany found a little collection of 6 Trios (Sammlung dreistimmiger Sonaten für Zwei Oboen und Bass, sechs Stück) dating from this period (Volume 28 of the Complete Handel Edition).

[21] See his beautiful air for bass in the Cantata Lobe den Herrn, p. 164.

[22] Certain very simple phrases as in the Cantata for the Visitation, “Meine Seel erhebt den Herren,” the recitative for Soprano “Denn er hat seine elende Magd angesehen” (p. 112) have an exquisite flavour of virginal humility which we never find in Handel.

[23] The Torellian violinist, Antonio Pistocchi, who was one of the masters of Italian song, the father, Attilio Ariosti, Giovanni Bononcini, Steffani, who wrote for the Electress some famous duets, and Corelli, who dedicated to her his last Violin Sonata, op. 5.

[24] The first representation took place June 1, 1700, with a pastoral ballet of Ariosti. Leibnitz was present at the full rehearsal.

[25] All that one has heard of his meeting with Ariosti and Bononcini is somewhat legendary. A. Ebert has shown that Ariosti only went to Berlin in 1697, and that Bononcini did not arrive in Germany till November, 1697, and they were not there together before 1702. In order that Handel should have met them there it was necessary that they should return in 1703 on their way to Hamburg. But then he was eighteen years; and the legend of the infant prodigy being victorious over the two masters thus disappears (Attilio Ariosti in Berlin, 1905, Leipzig).

[26] The broad-minded policy of the Electors of Brandenburg attracted to their University at Halle many of the most independent men in Germany who had been persecuted elsewhere. Thus the Pietists who were driven from Leipzig came to Halle. Indeed they flocked there from all parts of Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries (Volbach: Vie de Haendel, and Levy-Bruhl: L’Allemagne depuis Leibnitz, 1890).

[27] See the fine studies of J. S. Bach by Pirro.

[28] One knows that the trial of witchcraft was one of the many blots on this period. More than a hundred thousand victims perished in the funeral pyres of witchcraft in one century! Frederick II said that if women could die peacefully of old age in Germany, it was all owing to Thomasius.

[29] The yearly contract with the Cathedral church was dated March 30, 1702, a month after he had signed the faculty of law.

[30] Telemann, passing through Halle in 1701, said that he made the acquaintance of Handel, who was already there “a man of importance” (“Dem damahls schon wichtigen Herrn Georg Friedrich Haendel”)—a singular epithet indeed to apply to a child of sixteen years! Chrysander had indeed reason to insist on the precocious maturity of Handel, “No one was his equal in that, even J. S. Bach, who developed much more slowly!”

[31] Already for several years he had composed “like the devil,” as he said of himself once.

[32] There are attributed to him two oratorios (very doubtful), one Cantata, Ach Herr mich armen Sünder, and a Laudate Pueri for Soprano solo, which are anterior to his departure for Hamburg.

[33] Alfred Heuss was the first to show what attraction the musical drama had for Zachau, who introduced it even into the Church. Some of his cantatas, the 4th, for example, Ruhe, Friede, Freud und Wonne, very unjustly criticised by Chrysander, is a fragment of a fantastic opera where one finds David tormented by evil spirits. The declamation is expressive, and the choruses have a highly dramatic effect. Thus we see the theatrical career of Handel was prepared in Halle, and perhaps it was Zachau himself who sent Handel to Hamburg (A. Heuss: Fr. Wilh. Zachau als dramatischer Kantaten-Komponist). (I.M.G., May, 1909).

[34] In reality under the influence of English publications, and notably The Spectator of Addison, 1711. About 1713 The Man of Reason appeared in Hamburg. In 1724 to 1727 the journal The Patriot of Hamburg was founded by a patriotic society. The original intention was to print 400 copies, but 5000 were subscribed for in Upper Saxony alone.

[35] The secular music about 1728 reckoned in its ranks 50 masters and 150 professors. In comparison, religious music was much more poorly represented than in many other cities of north Germany.

[36] The Birth of Christ, Michael and David, Esther.

[37] Dramatologia antigua-hodierna, 1688.

[38] Theatromachia, or die Werke der Finsterniss (The Powers of Darkness), by Anton Reiser, 1682.

[39] Histoire de l’Opèra avant Lully et Scarlatti, 1895, pp. 217-222.

[40] Reinhard Keiser was born in 1674 at Teuchern, near Weissenfels, and he died in 1739 at Copenhagen.

See Hugo Leichtentritt: Reinhard Keiser in seinen Opern, 1901, Berlin; Wilhelm Kleefeld: Das Orchester der ersten deutschen Oper, 1898, Berlin; F. A. Voigt: Reinhard Keiser (1890 in the Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft)—the Octavia and the Croesus of Keiser have been republished.

[41] For instance in the overtures in 3 parts, with French indications “Vitement, Lentement”; also in the instrumental preludes, and perhaps in the dances.

[42] Principally in the duets, which have a slightly contrapuntal character.

[43] “Is it the orchestra which is the hero?” asked the theorist of Lullyism, Lecerf de la Viéville. “No, it is the singer....” “Oh, well, then, let the singer move me himself, and take care not to worry me with the orchestra, which is only there by courtesy and accident. Si vis me flere....” (Comparaison de la Musique italienne et de la Musique française, 1705).

[44] “One can represent quite well with simple instruments,” says Mattheson, “the grandeur of the soul, of love, of jealousy, etc., and render all the feelings of the heart by simple chords and their progressions without words, in such a way that the hearer can know and understand their trend, the sense and thought of the musical discourses as if it were a veritably spoken one” (Die neueste Untersuchung der Singspiele, 1744).

[45] The preface of the Componimenti Musicali of 1706. Mattheson exaggeratingly says that “to compose well a single recitative in keeping with the feelings and the flow of the phrase as Keiser did, needs more art and ability than to compose ten airs after the common practice.”

[46] Compare the recitative in the first great cantatas of J. S. Bach, “Aus der Tiefe, Gottes Zeit,” which cover from 1709 to 1712-14, with such recitatives from “Octavia” of Keiser (1705), notably Act II, Hinweg, du Dornen schwangere Krone! Melodic inflections, modulations, harmonies, grouping of phrases, cadences, all in the style of J. S. Bach even more than in that of Handel.

[47] See in Croesus (1711) the air of Elmira, with flute, which calls to mind a similar air from Echo and Narcissus by Gluck.

[48] In this genre a scene from Croesus is a little masterpiece in the pastoral style of the end of the eighteenth century; and is very close to Beethoven.

[49] Such as the Song of the Imprisoned Croesus, which calls to mind certain airs in The Messiah.

[50] I need only cite one example: it is the air of Octavia with two soft flutes, “Wallet nicht zu laut,” one of the most poetic pages of Keiser, which Handel reproduced several times in his works, and even in his Acis and Galatea, 1720.

[51] Postel, who used seven languages in the Prologues of his Libretti, was opposed to this mixture in poetical works, “for that which ornaments learning,” he says, “disfigures poetry.”

[52] Certain German operas mix High German, Low German, French and Italian.

[53] He was born at Hamburg in 1681, and died there in 1764. See L. Meinardus: J. Mattheson und seine Verdienste um die deutsche Tonkunst, 1870; and Heinrich Schmidt: J. Mattheson, ein Förderer der deutschen Tonkunst, 1897, Leipzig.

[54] He violently attacked in the Volkommene Kapellmeister (1739) the “Pythagoreans” of whom the chief was Lor. Christoph Mizler, of Leipzig, who attempted to work out music on the lines of mathematics and logic. With the “Aristoxenians” (harmonists) he wished to rescue music from an iron vice, from the hands of the skeleton of a dead science, and from scholasticism. The ear was his law. “Let your art be encompassed where the ear alone reigns: that should suffice. Where nature and experience leads you, all is well. Do it, play it, sing it; for wrong doing, avoid it, efface it” (Das forschende Orchestre). Against the scholastic, he opposed the fecund and living harmonic science (Harmonische Wissenschaft); he demanded that the latter should be taught in the universities, and offered to bequeath a large sum to found a Chair for a musical lectureship in the college of his native city.

[55] Especially in Das neueröffnete Orchestre (1713), Das beschützte Orchestre (1717), Das forschende Orchestre (1721). We might say that the most fruitful of his theoretical writings is Der Vollkommene Kapellmeister (1739), which might even to-day serve as the basis of a work on musical æsthetics, and that it was the work which produced a good part of our musicology.

[56] He warns German musicians against going to Italy, whence they return like so many birds plucked of their feathers, with their great weaknesses hidden, and an intolerable presumption. He reproached Germany with not helping her national musicians, who were languishing and becoming extinct (Volk. Kapellm. and Critica Musica).

[57] Twenty-four monthly books which appeared with interruptions from May, 1722, to 1725, Hamburg. There were musical polemics, correspondence, interviews with musicians, analyses of their books and works, a shoal of letters on the last opera, on the last concert, on the life of a musician, on a new clavier, on a singer, etc. One finds pre-eminently very solid musical critiques, perhaps the oldest which exist. The minute analysis of Handel’s Passion according to St. John was still celebrated when the work itself was forgotten. “It is perhaps,” said Marpurg in 1760, “the first good critique which was written on choral music” since it sprang into being.

[58] Critica Musica.

[59] “When I think as a tone-poet (Tondichter),” he says, “I think of something higher than a great figure.... Formerly musicians were poets and prophets.” In another place he writes, “It is the property of music to be above all sciences a school of virtue, eine Zuchtlehre” (Vollk. Kapellm.).

[60] Grundlagen einer Ehrenpforte, worin der tüchtigsten Kapellmeister, Komponisten, Musikgelehrten, Tonkünstler, etc. Leben, Werke, Verdienste, etc., erscheinen sollen, 1740.

[61] Vollkommene Kapellmeister, 1739—he devoted a very important study, which he called the Hypokritik (Pantomime), to it in this work.

[62] Ibid.

[63] In theory rather than in practice: for his operas are mediocre. Besides, he soon lost his taste for the theatre, his religious scruples being too strong for him. He wished at first to purify the Opera, to make the theatre something serious and sacred, which should act on the masses in an instructive and elevating manner (Musikalischer Patriot, 1728). Then he saw that his conception of a moral and edifying opera had no chance of being realised. Finally he lost his interest, and even rejoiced in 1750 over the final ruin which overtook the Hamburg Opera.

[64] Mattheson, who spoke perfect English, and who became a little later the secretary to the English Legation, then resident in the interim, presented Handel to the English Ambassador, John Wich, who entrusted them both with the instruction of his son.

[65] Ehrenpforte.—Telemann, a co-disciple of Handel, says also that both Handel and he worked continually at melody.

[66] With a kind of protective touch, however, on the part of Mattheson. During the first months Handel would never have dreamt of offending him. The style of his letters to Mattheson in March, 1704, was extremely respectful. In fact Mattheson was then in advance of him, and his superior in social position.

[67] See in the Ehrenpforte the story of this journey, and the frolics which happened on the way to the two joyful companions.

Buxtehude was a Dane, born at Elsinore in 1637. He settled at Lubeck, where he remained as the organist of St. Mary’s Church, from the age of thirty years until his death in 1707.

[68] It was the custom that the organ of a church should be given with the daughter, or the widow of the organist. Buxtehude himself, in succeeding Tunder, had married his daughter.

[69] J. S. Bach went to Lubeck in October, 1705, and instead of staying a month, as arranged, he spent four months there; an irregularity which cost him his position at Celle.

[70] The organ works of Buxtehude have been republished by Spitta and Max Seiffert, in 2 volumes by Breitkopf (see the short, but pithy, study of Pirro in his little book on L’Orgue de J. S. Bach, Paris, 1895, and Max Seiffert: Buxtehude, Handel, Bach, in the Peter’s Annual, 1902). A selection (too restricted) of the cantatas has been published in a volume of the Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst. Pirro is preparing a longer work on Buxtehude.

[71] Particularly during 1693.

[72] The part played by these free cities, Hamburg, Lubeck, the abodes of intelligent and adventurous merchants, in the history of German music, should be specially noticed. The part is analogous to that played by Venice and Florence in Italian painting and music.

[73] There are about 150 manuscripts in the libraries of Lubeck, Upsala, Berlin, Wolfenbüttel, and Brussels.

[74] His organ music bears witness to his mastery in this style.

[75] See the penetrating intimacy, the suave melody, of the cantata Alles was ihr tut mit Worten oder Werken, and the tragic grandeur with such simple means of the magnificent cantata Gott hilf mir.

[76] We find on page 167 of the Denkmäler volume, a Hallelujah by Buxtehude for 2 clarini (trumpets), 2 violins, 2 violas, violoncello, organ, and 5 vocal parts, which is pure Handel, and very beautiful.

[77] Mattheson adds: “I know with certainty that if he reads these pages, he will laugh up his sleeve, but outwardly he laughs little.”

[78] Amongst others, the subject from an air in minuet form, which he repeated exactly in the minuet of his overture to Samson.

[79] In the same week, Keiser and the poet Hunold gave another Passion, The Bleeding and Dying Jesus, which made a scandal: for he had treated the subject in the manner of an opera, suppressing the chorales, the chief songs, and the person of the evangelist and his story. Handel and Postel more prudently only suppressed the songs, but reserved the text of the evangelist.

[80] This criticism, certainly written in 1704, was repeated by Mattheson in his musical journal, Critica Musica, in 1725, and even twenty years later on, in his Wollkommene Kapellmeister, in 1740.

[81] The two young men had charge of the education of the English Ambassador’s son, Mattheson in the position of chief tutor, Handel as music master. Mattheson took advantage of the situation to inflict on Handel a humiliating rebuke. Handel revenged himself by ridiculing Mattheson, whose Cleopatra was being given at the Opera. Mattheson conducted the orchestra from the clavier, and took the rôle of Antony as well. When he played the part he left the clavier to Handel, but after Antony had died, an hour before the end of the play, Mattheson returned in theatrical costume to the clavier, so as not to miss the final ovations. Handel, who had submitted to this little comedy for the first two representations, refused on the third to give his chair to Mattheson. In the end they came to fisticuffs. The story is told in a rather confusing manner by Mattheson in his Ehrenpforte, and by Mainwaring, who sided with Handel.

[82] Der in Krohnen erlangte Glücks-Wechsel, oder Almira Konigen von Castilien (The Adventures of the Fortune of the Kings, or Almira, Queen of Castile). The libretti was drawn from a comedy by Lope de Vega by a certain Feustking, whose scandalous life Chrysander has recorded, and also the battle of the ribald pamphlets with Barthold Feind on the subject of this piece. Keiser ought to have written the music of Almira, but, being too occupied with his business and his amusements, he handed the book over to Handel.

Once for all I will say here that the exigences of this book will not allow of any analysis of Handel’s operas. I hope to give detailed analyses of them in another book on Handel and his times (Musiciens d’autrefois, Second Series).

[83] Die durch Blut und Mord erlangte Liebe, oder Nero (Love obtained by blood and crime, or Nero), poem by Feustking. Mattheson played the part of Nero. The musical score is lost.

[84] In 1703 Handel returned his mother the allowance which she made him, and added thereto certain presents for Christmas. In 1704, 1705 and 1706 he saved two hundred ducats for his travels in Italy.

[85] The new Nero was played under the title of Die Romische Unruhe, oder die edelmüthige Octavia (The troubles of Rome, or the magnanimous Octavia). The score has been republished in the supplements to the Complete Handel Edition by Max Seiffert with Breitkopf. Almira took the title: Der Durchlanchtige Secretarius, oder Almira, Königen in Castilien (His Excellency the Secretary, or Almira, Queen of Castile).

Besides these two works, Keiser wrote in two years, seven operas, the finest he had done, an evident proof of his genius, which, however, lacked the character and dignity worthy of it.

[86] Under the title Componimenti Musicali, 1706, Hamburg.

[87] For the space of two years no one knew what had become of him, for he had taken care to elude the restraint of his creditors. At the beginning of 1709 he quietly reappeared in Hamburg, took up again his post and his glory, without anyone dreaming of reproaching him, but then Handel was no longer at Hamburg.

[88] Besides the operas, and his Passion, Handel wrote at Hamburg a large number of cantatas, songs, and clavier works. Mainwaring assures us that he had two cases full of them. Mattheson doubts the truth of this statement, but the ignorance which he shows on this subject only goes to prove his growing estrangement from Handel, for we have since found both in his clavier book, etc. (Volume XLVIII of the complete works), and in the Sonatas (Volume XXVII) a number of compositions which certainly date from the Hamburg period 1705 or 1706.

[89] He was the last of the Medici. He came to the title in 1723, but after several years of brilliant rule he retired into solitude, sick in body and in spirit (see Reumont: Toscana, and Robiony: Gli Ultimi dei Medici).

[90] Later on Handel said after he had been to Italy that he never had imagined that Italian music, which appears so ordinary and empty on paper, could make such a good effect in the theatre itself.

[91] Mr. R. A. Streatfeild believes that he even stayed in Florence until October, 1706, for the Prince Gastone dei Medici, who ought to have presented him to the Grand Duke, left Florence in November, 1706. He also places in this first sojourn in Florence the production of Handel’s Roderigo, of which all precise records in the archives of the Medicis and the papers of the time are lost. I am more inclined to follow the traditional opinion that Roderigo dates from Handel’s second stay in Florence, when he commenced to work in the Italian language and style.

[92] Bartolommeo Christofori, inventor of the pianoforte, made several very interesting instruments for him.

[93] April 2, 1706.

[94] April 23, 1707. See Edward Dent: Alessandro Scarlatti.

[95] Volume LI of the Complete Works. It was pretended at the time that this Lucretia was written by one Lucretia, a singer at the court of Tuscany, who showed Handel for the first time the great beauty of the Italian song—and of the Italians.

[96] The whole of Europe in the commencement of the eighteenth century had passed through a vogue of Pietism. Historians have scarcely paid sufficient attention to local influences. It was thus that they attributed the reawakening of the religious spirit in France entirely to the influence of Louis XIV. Analogous phenomena were produced in Italy, in Germany, and in England, at the same time. There were great moral forces awakening, which, one cannot exactly say why, suddenly broke out over the whole of the civilized world like a stroke of fever.

[97] A Dixit Dominus is dated April 4, 1707; a Laudate Pueri, July 8, 1707.

[98] A letter from Annibale Merlini to Ferdinando dei Medici, recently published by Mr. Streatfeild, says that on September 24, 1707, the famous Saxon (Il Sassone famoso), as Handel was already called, was still enchanting hearers in the musical evenings at Rome.

[99] Both Mr. Ademollo, in an article in the Nuova Antologia, July 16, 1889, and Mr. Streatfeild, have established the true name of the chief singer in Roderigo. Thus the romantic story believed ever since Chrysander of Handel’s love for the famous Vittoria Tesi has been destroyed. She was only seven years old in 1707, and did not come out until 1716.

[100] Occasionally in St. Mark’s there were six orchestras, two large ones in the galleries with the two grand organs, four smaller ones distributed in pairs in the lower galleries, each with two small organs.