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George Frederic Handel
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Handel showed his
inclination for music at a very early age, with such insistence indeed
that his father forbade him to touch any musical instrument. There is a
well-known story of his contriving to smuggle a clavichord into a garret
without his father's knowledge in order to practise on it while the rest of
the family were asleep, but for this tale Mainwaring is our only authority.
It is very probable that old Handel was irritated by the sound of his son's
early efforts and regarded music as a waste of time; his wife may perhaps
have encouraged the child's obvious abilities, taking care that he made
music only in some part of the house where he would not disturb his father.
At the age of seven he was sent to the Lutheran Grammar School, and he may
very likely have had some instruction in singing while there. In any case
there can be no doubt that he was taught more than the mere rudiments of
music in childhood, however severe his father's opposition may have been.
He was between seven and nine when his father took him to Weissenfels,
where he was required to attend on the Duke. It is quite probable that the
child may have been taken there several times, especially as a relative
of his was in regular service in the Duke's establishment. One day he was
allowed to play on the organ in the palace chapel; the Duke happened to
hear him, made enquiries as to who the player was, and at once urged on the
father the duty of having him properly trained for a musical career.
Old Handel remained obstinate; he was determined that his son should have
a liberal education and become a lawyer. By his own efforts he had raised
himself to a position of some distinction and affluence; it was only
natural that he should wish his son to enter on life with better advantages
than he himself had enjoyed. He at any rate followed the advice of the Duke
so far as to place the boy under the musical tuition of Friedrich Zachow,
the organist of the Lutheran church at Halle.
Three days before his seventeenth birthday he matriculated as a law student
of the University of Halle, but music must have been the chief occupation
of his time. The composer Telemann, four years his senior, spoke of him
as being already a musician of importance at Halle when he first met him
there, probably in 1700. In March 1702 he was appointed organist at the
Cathedral, although he belonged to the Lutheran Church, whereas the
Cathedral was Calvinist; considerable scandal had been caused by the
intemperance of the Cathedral organist, one Leporin, who was finally
dismissed. That Handel should have been given the post at so early an age
points to his ability and trustworthiness of character; it also suggests
that efficient organists were rare among the Calvinist musicians.
Handel seems to have arrived in Hamburg in early summer of 1703, for we
first hear of him there on July 2, when he met Johann Mattheson in the
church of St. Mary Magdalen. It was no doubt through Mattheson that Handel, in the autumn, entered the
opera band as a humble second violinist. The date of Handel's departure from Hamburg is unknown, nor have we the slightest information as to his whereabouts until we hear of him at Rome in
January 1707.
Handel spent three years in Italy. The known facts about his life there are
singularly few, and his biographers have often had to draw copiously on
their imagination. They may perhaps be forgiven for doing so, since they
rightly sought to emphasise the fact that these three years were the most
formative period of Handel's personality as a composer. Handel came to
Italy as a German; he left Italy an Italian, as far as his music was
concerned, and, despite all other influences, Italian was the foundation of
his musical language until the end of his life.
Nothing is known of Handel's early days in London, but it may be safely
assumed that he was provided with letters of introduction to persons
of influence. We meet him first in the company of Heidegger, a Swiss
adventurer who achieved notoriety through his incredible ugliness, and from
1709 onwards was concerned in the management of the opera at the Queen's
Theatre in the Haymarket.
Handel left London for Germany. He did not go straight back to Hanover, but stayed at Düsseldorf. Handel appears to have remained at Hanover until the autumn of 1712, when
he obtained permission to go to London again "on condition that he engaged
to return within a reasonable time". What period was to be
considered reasonable we do not know. Handel had certainly been planning
this London visit for some time, as he was corresponding with friends in
England, and was also taking some trouble to improve his knowledge of the
English language. It is not surprising that he hankered after London, for
London offered him a society which bore more resemblance to the world which
he had known at Rome. The tradition of Italian culture had for generations
been more firmly implanted in England than anywhere in Germany, except
perhaps in Vienna, and, since those three years in Italy, Handel's musical
outlook had become completely Italian, as his music shows. The few attempts
which he made at German Church music present a curious contrast of style;
one could hardly believe them to be the work of that Handel whom we have
adopted as our own. German music at that date was provincial; Italian music
was the music of the great world, because it was the music of the theatre.
It was to the theatre that Handel looked forward, and London had what even
Rome had not--an opera, and an Italian opera. The success of Rinaldo
had shown him that London was the place where he might launch out into a
triumphal career as a composer for the stage.
Handel must have arrived in England at least as early as the beginning of
October 1712, for the manuscript of Il Pastor Fido, the first new opera
which he produced, is dated, at the end, "Londres, ce 24 Octobre."
One of Handel's favourite haunts in London was St. Paul's Cathedral, where
Brind the organist often persuaded him to play the organ after evening
service, to the great delight of the congregation. He appears to have
made Brind's acquaintance first through young Maurice Greene, then aged
seventeen, who had been a chorister of St. Paul's, and, after his voice
broke in 1710, was articled to Brind as a pupil. After service was over,
Handel, Greene, and some of the members of the choir would repair to
the Queen's Arms Tavern close by for an evening of music and musical
conversation.
On February 13, 1726, Handel was naturalised as an English subject. He had
every reason to regard England as the best place in which to live. He
enjoyed the protection of the German court; George II and Queen Caroline
gave him indeed a good deal more encouragement than George I. The
appointments of composer to the Chapel Royal and composer to the court were
purely honorary, but they strengthened his position. As to the opera-house,
he must by now have felt that he was its unquestioned autocrat, and he
could not help being aware that he was without a rival in Europe as far as
the stage was concerned. In July 1733, Handel was invited to Oxford for a series of performances
of his works, and it was proposed to confer on him the honorary degree of
Doctor of Music.
His last appearance in public was at the performance of Messiah on April 6,
1759, but at the end of it he was seized with a fainting attack, took to
his bed, and died during the night between the 13th and 14th of April. He
was buried in Westminster Abbey on the evening of the 10th; the choirs
of the Chapel Royal and St. Paul's joined the Abbey choir in singing the
burial music of Dr. Croft, and it is said that three thousand people were
present.
George Frideric Händel Facts and Information
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