NEW SOLIDARITY

October 19, 1979

Page 4

Handel's Flawed Achievement

by Robyn Press

Handel, the young composer

It has been announced that the Humanist Academy Chorus will undertake a performance of portions of Handel's Messiah during the coming Christmas season. In celebrating Christmas with Handel, we of the Academy pay tribute to the infinite potential of the human species. We rejoice in that human struggle to become more perfect souls which it is our special responsibility to actualize, and in that struggle, to assist the souls of others and improve the world in which we all live. Handel's Messiah is deservedly one of mankind's best-loved pieces of music because it speaks to millions about just such things.

Handel himself acknowledged the moral purpose behind his great music when he remarked, "I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wished to make them better.'' It was Handel's desire to put others in touch with the power of reasonreason as a directly experienced creative motion of the mind, reason as an emotional force, as he himself experienced it in creating the Messiah. When Handel was asked, after composing the Messiah in only twenty-four days, if he had been "inspired" when he wrote it, he replied, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God Himself." That is what he wished for othersin his best moments. It is just this power to evoke reason that has made the Messiah also one of the most hated musical compositions in historyhated by the English aristocracy which employed Handel for most of his musical life. The Messiah was written in 1741. In 1742, Irish humanist networks invited Handel to perform it in Dublin. There the aging composer was greeted with a degree of acclaim he had never before experienced in his long career. But while Dublin raved about the Messiah, Handel did not dare to present it in London after his return. The elites of Oxford and Cambridge Universities were so committed to blacklisting the oratorio that it was not until seven years later, 1749, that its performance was permitted in London. No score appeared in Handel's lifetime; one was not printed until 1763, four years after his death. There is evidence to suggest the aristocracy became so enraged with Handel they had him killed. It was with such gratitude that the English aristocrats thanked Handel for his 40-odd years of service. Why the British Hate the Messiah The British court's attitude toward music in the 17th and 18th centuries was identical in principle to that of today's oligarchs and their hired musician "intellectuals." The aristocratic world-view was and is: "Music has nothing to do with science; it is solely a question of feeling, a question of 'entertainment' of the nobility, 'we happy few.' " In musical terms, this British obsession evidenced itself in a pathological distaste for counterpoint, essential to rigorously ordered musical development; instead the emphasis was placed on "charming melodies."

John Hawkins and Charles Burney, 18th century British historians, make it perfectly clear in their writings that music ought to have nothing to do with moral purpose, nothing to do with the lawful development of the human mind, with the notion of human perfectibility emphasized in Plato, the New Testament, and the writings of the Islamic humanist Ibn Sina. Handel's Messiah expressed a Christian notion of the process of perfection. Unlike the typical court compositions glorifying the House of Hanover's King, the Messiah acclaimed only the "King of Kings," Christ. And for the first time in 200 years, God was praised in English. For the cult-loving British aristocracy, for whom the Old Testaments unmentionable Yahweh an immoral, irrational forcewas the only god worth worshiping, this was sacrilege. Not since the British humanist composer John Bull had been driven out of England and his manuscripts burned had such music been written there. In fact, the British Crown had recognized Handel as a "potential danger" to their political-ideological hegemony in Europe from his early career. They set themselves the task of "buying him off" and subverting his musical principles. The sad truth is that in large measure, the Messiah and Handel's other fine choral and keyboard works notwithstanding, they succeeded. Handel was not the composer he ought to have become. The truth is there were two Handels: the real Handel, the composer of the Messiah, acting in the glorious tradition of the North German contrapuntalists and the "British" Handel, who specialized in banal serenades, English court music, and Italian opera, while speculating on the London stock exchange. In the story of his career is a lesson for today's young musicians of talent, and all those who cling to the belief that "artistic genius" is unrelated to a moral commitment to human progress. Handel's Musical Training Handel was born in 1685 (the same year as J.S. Bach), in the town of Halle, then a center of humanist activity. The University of Halle, which Handel attended, was founded by the man who became King Frederick I of Prussia: he and his wife were both enthusiastic patrons of Leibniz. The university, with its powerful tradition of Leibnizian rationalism and Pietism, shaped the political and moral climate into which Handel was born. Handel's early musical training came out of this same humanist tradition.

Handel was steeped in the rich contrapuntal tradition of Sweelinck, Reinken, Pachelbel, and Buxtehude. His first and only teacher, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1662-1712), was himself a student of Johann Theile, who in turn had been Buxtehude's teacher. Zachow did much more than what most music students would presuppose a "teacher's" duties to be today. Far from being a mere "cantor," Zachow mastered every conceivable musical style and composed cantatas, imaginative choral pieces, and so forth. He taught the boy both composition and performance on such instruments as the harpsichord, organ, and oboe, such that Handel was able to substitute for Zachow on the organ at the age of 11. Handel's first compositions date from that same year. Not surprisingly, the boy received a solid grounding in harmony, counterpoint, choral writing, and orchestration. But Zachow's most important contribution was in his insistence that his young student adhere to the most rigorous discipline, from the standpoint of composition. Like Johann Sebastian Bach years later, Zachow insisted that all written composition be done by ear, away from the keyboard. As Handel was to confess years later from London, "I used to write like the devil in those days." At no point in his life subsequent to his tutelage by Zachow can this statement be said to characterize Handel's compositional activity; this rigorous method was increasingly to become a secondary consideration for him. Handel and Bach The central flaw in Handel's character is reflected in his own attitude toward teaching. In contrast to the great J.S. Bach, whose chief preoccupation was always how best to develop new pedagogical techniques to most efficiently transmit advanced conceptions to his pupils, Handel loathed teaching and, as a result, renounced his responsibility to replicate his own mind within the minds of others. His only students throughout his entire career were George I and George II's daughters. His most serious omission was his failure to teach counterpoint to others. Well-acquainted with traditional "North German" contrapuntal techniques, he nevertheless used them solely as examples in his didactic work, not (strictly) in his compositions. Visiting London in 1734, Jakob Wilhelm

Lustig, a Hamburg scholar, reported that Handel had said that since his early days in Hamburg, "no power on earth would move me to accept pupils." Only in a very few exercises was the "old German tradition" of Buxtehude, Pachelbel, and Sweelinck preserved as a living tradition by Handel. Bach, on the contrary, was so committed to ensuring the continuation of his method that he supplied models "for young people anxious to learn," such as various Bchlein and other collections. As one Handel biographer pointed out, this is "something that could never have entered Handel's mind: s he wanted a paying public of adults." This refusal to submit his own desires to natural law meant that Handel was unwillingand therefore unableto make the kind of giant contributions to musical science which were effected by J.S. Bach. Handel had internalized a Kantian notion of law (necessity). Music, on the other hand, represented freedom: a "freedom" which later expressed itself in Handel's capitulation to writing superficial dinner music ("galant music") for the British aristocracy. This entertainment music (e.g. the Water Music, the Fireworks Music)to be distinguished from his great religious works such as the Messiahis in no way governed by lawful development, although it does possess a certain "pleasant" quality. To Bach, natural law and music were not two distinct "Kantian categories.'' Rather, music (as exemplified by the well-tempered system) was the highest expression of ordered motion. Bach was a dedicated Leibnizian in his scientific worldview: Handel was not. That is why the training of future generations of musicians and composers mattered so little to Handel, whereas nothing was of more importance to Bach the educator. It is Handel's choral music, especially, which is renowned precisely because the audience's (and performers') souls are lifted to a more ennobled state. Through this process, the individual can feel him or herself to be part of a universal purpose. This is exactly the way in which J.S. Bach's music works, but far more consistently than Handel's. Bach, unlike Handel, saw his role as utilizing every single composition to inspire the individual with the desire to become "more like God." This quality is present not only in explicitly "religious" works like the St. Matthew's Passion, but also in his keyboard suites, fugues, and other instrumental works.

Bach is "the Creator." Employing music as his medium, he is the instrumentality of "God's will." Handelas we shall seeis not "the Creator," or, more appropriately, he is not "the Messiah." Handel knew this to be the case. This is why he could not bring himself to meet J.S. Bach even once, although he had many opportunities to do so. Specifically, on at least three occasions, Bach strenuously appealed to Handel to meet with him during Handel's frequent visits to Germany. Each time, Handel either refused outright, or fled Germany. The Operation Against Handel How did Handel, whose background and training was essentially comparable to that of Bach, become a captive composer of banal court music for the English aristocracy? The Genoese Black Nobility, the Jesuits, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and the British and Amsterdam nobilities sought to capture Handel's mind through "their" musicians and camp followers. This was effected first through their composer, Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), and later, through the British Ambassador to Hamburg, Sir John Wyche, and his protege, Johann Mattheson. Handel was induced by these Anglophile Hamburg networks to embark on a journey to Italy sometime in 1706. This trip appears to have been financed principally by networks at the court of Hanoveranti-Leibnizian circles centered around Prince Georg Ludwig, the malevolent future George I of Englandand the by-then degenerate de' Medici family, headed by Cosimo III. Handel was further seduced at a meeting in 1709 in Rome, organized by Charles Montagu, the English Ambassador to the Republic of Venice and 4th Earl (Duke) of Manchester. It was there decided exactly to what court Handel would travel, and for how long. Handel in effect agreed to spend his life a cultural sycophant of the British Crown. His soul was no longer his own. All of these individualsTelemann, Wyche, Mattheson, and Montagu could boast of top credentials in the service of the British Crown. Telemann, the well-known Italian opera composer, almost gave his true intentions away when he spoke of "nearly imbibing music poison from him (HandelRP)." One can only presume he meant Handel's counterpoint! As a result of Telemann's corrupting influence, Handel was induced to abruptly leave Halle in 1703 for Hamburg. What followed was a 50-year-long correspon-

dence with Telemann in which Handel subjugated his knowledge of counterpoint to continual discussions of "melody." As for Mattheson, this was the same individual who was later deployed by his masters from London to mercilessly "critique" the music of J.S. Bach along with other literary hatchetmen like Johann Scheibe. It was in Italy that Handel was to drop all previous objections to the "galant" style, become immersed in the "voice for voice's sake" bel canto school, and fully commit himself to becoming the principal "court composer" to the British throne. It was here that he met and befriended Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Corelli, and Pasquini; these were the heirs of Monteverdi, the ancestors of the assassins of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 83 years later: Salieri, Piccini, and Glck. It was with such degenerates and cultists as these persons, and Gian Gastone de' Medici, that Handel associated. The European monarchy and aristocracy's prime strategic objective in "buying Handel's soul" was to keep him isolated from J.S. Bachat all costs. It was to this end, above all, that Handel was rushed to London after only one year's service at the Hanoverian court. During his stay at the Burlington residence in 1712, Handel was initiated into the cultist, Free-masonic "literati" inner circles. This group included such "poets" as John Gay, the librettist of the Beggar's Opera, which celebrated the most vulgar "mob humor," and Alexander Pope. It is to Handel's credit, however, that he never joined the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry nor any other of the oligarchy's pagan cults; that is to say, he never became a true Anglican atheist. Handel was so well-liked by the monarchy that by 1713 he was already viewed as the "natural successor" to the pederast and virulent atheist, Henry Purcell. No longer was he merely another Italian opera composer; Handel now became the official "court composer." By 1714-15, Handel's collapse of morality is markedly evident to the informed observer: he was becoming a stock speculator. In 1719, following the long-awaited bursting of the City of London's "South Sea Bubble" (in which Handel had invested), the City of London bankers settled upon a new scheme, to be called the "Royal Academy of Music." As principal composer and recruiter of singers, Handel played an indispensable role in the new venture. The plan was to issue joint stock for 10,000 pounds, each

shareholder subscribing 200 pounds. Even King George I chipped in 1,000 pounds! Handel's "friends" and associates in this venture were people like the Duke of Chandos, the former paymaster-general who had made an immense fortune through embezzlement of the Treasury during the War of the Spanish Succession. Handel, aware of his creative powers, could not help but be tormented by such a "schizophrenic" existence. Knowing his own greatness, yet time and again forced to propitiate the imbecilic, brutish George I and George II, caused him incalculable suffering. This "soul turmoil" was greatly aggravated by the fact that Handeldue to his refusal to completely relinquish counterpointincurred the opposition of one or another clique of London aristocrats throughout his life. Those Amsterdam-connected power brokers who wished to assail the Hanoverian monarchyfor whatever reasonquickly learned that the most efficacious way of doing so was to ridicule Handel, since Handel had become a symbol of the Hanoverian monarchy. As a result, the composer's position in London society was often far from secure. Attacks on Handel peaked in the 1730s, particularly with the establishment of a rival opera company headed by Lord Middlesex entitled the Opera of the Nobility. This was meant to discredit both Handel and the monarchy in the eyes of the public. Suddenly, sharp attacks began to appear in the Spectator and other British papers: Handel's music is too "inaccessible"; the orchestra is too "sophisticated" and "refined"; the texture is "too polyphonic" for the idiots who comprised Handel's aristocratic audience! Complaints abounded concerning the "noise" the orchestra made, thereby "detracting from the singing." Rumors spread that Handel's uncompromising standards and imperious and gruff ("autocratic") conduct was "alienating" many of his best singers. By 1733, the aristocracy had no trouble in seducing his entire company to desert! Goupy, who had designed Handel's operatic sets for the Royal Academy, circulated scurrilous cartoons of Handel. But that was not the end of it. The "opposition" hired thugs who attacked, beat, and robbed people if they dared attend Handel's productions! Only when King George II attended did such mafioso tactics cease; then, known members of the "underworld" were arrested. But no sooner did the King leave, then the thuggery continued,

"The Charming Brute"a caricature of Handel done by Goupy, allied with

his enemies at court.

with renewed and intensified savagery. According to Charles Burney, "The war was not restricted to the low level of physical brawls; it was just as vigorously prosecuted in aristocratic salons." While both Bach and Handel were victims of attempts at character assassination which at times extended even to physical assaults. Bach was invulnerable to such defamation, whereas Handel was a victim. Although Bach suffered great hardship due to the shenanigans of scoundrels like Scheibe and Mattheson, particularly during his tenure in Leipzig, he was never defeated. He not only refused to allow such day-to-day setbacks to interfere with his higher purpose, but triumphed in writing his greatest works, despite the most formidable obstacles, including impoverishment.

If the same people were involved in the same conspiracy against both composers, then why is it that one succumbed while the other forcefully resisted? There is only one answer to this question. It is because Handel temporized on the moral question. It is because he surrounded himself with cultists, although he himself was most emphatically not one. Step-by-step, with each new compromise, he eliminated the basis of his ability to fight for his own survival. Handel was capable of reason, but he did not make reason the allruling principle of his life. By 1750, Handel was the undisputed master in England; as blindness descended upon him, English audiences thronged to see him play the organ. Although his health worsened, his popularity grew in the general population. It was perhaps not coincidental, therefore, that Handel's cataracts were "worsened" by "inept surgery," according to a Handel biographer. After all, he was treated by John Taylor, Sr. the same "ophthalmiater" who had in 1750 operated unsuccessfullyand according to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, with malevolent intenton the blind Johann Sebastian Bach. This "eye specialist," known as "the Chevalier," eventually boasted the title of court occulist to George III. We cannot rule out the distinct possibility of the murder of both Handel and J.S. Bach by those aristocratic circles of Europe who viewed Handel's enormous popularity and success as a visible, alarming threat. A mere eight days before his death in 1759, Handel attended a performance of the Messiah, at which Benjamin Franklin was present. Handel's Achievement Despite its successful operations, the British elite was unable to stamp out knowledge of Handel's formidable achievements. Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, as well as Brahms, all viewed Handel as the greatest master of choral music in the 18th century. All four of these composers were overwhelmed by "the master's" unparalleled usage of the chorus (i.e. the monumental, "massive," homophonic texture, alternating with highly complex, differentiated contrapuntal lines) in the Messiah. It was with reference to For unto us a Child is born, a chorus from the Messiah, that Beethoven marveled at Handel's abilities; in particular, the unison ejaculations of Wonderful, counselor! Mozart's famous remark, "When Handel chooses, he strikes like thunder" was made after hearing this chorus for the first time. Mozart was so taken by the fugue in the "old style." And with His stripesan ancient fugue theme that Handel had previously used in

one of his keyboard suitesthat he wrote the famous Kyrie eleison fugue in his Requiem on the same theme. Beethoven used the bass motif from And He shall reign forever and ever from the Hallelujah Chorus as his fugue theme for the Dona nobis pacem in the Missa Solemnis. When Joseph Haydn heard Handel's oratorio, Joshua, for the first time in London, he remarked: "I have long been acquainted with music but never knew half its power." The Messiah had a tremendous impact on the masters. There is a definite line of development which stretches from the Messiah to Mozart's Requiem to Haydn's The Creation to Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, to Brahms's A German Requiem. Upon receiving 40 volumes of Samuel Arnold's edition of Handel's works in December 1826, Beethovenwhile on his sickbedsaid: "I have long wanted them, for Handel is the greatest, the ablest composer that ever lived. I can still learn from him." Yet Handel died without ever having met Bach; without sharing musical conceptions and thrashing out musical differences with another great mind. This was no one's fault but his own, he who refused to even correspond with Bach. He left behind him not one student, not one direct musical heir to carry forward the contrapuntal tradition. And the musical compositions which would have made him the equal of Bach or Beethoven had he not dedicated himself to the English court remained unwritten.