Face to Face with Handel

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 34, 1 March 1935, Page 8

Face to Face with Handel

A Tireless Battler for Music

(By

Bolton Woods.

MOST of us know that the father of Handel was sternly opposed to a musical life for his son, George Frederick, and it is easy to condemn him on this account. The old man roundly declared that music was "an elegant art and a fine amusement," yet, if considered as an occupation, it had little dignity as having for its subject nothing better than "mere pleasure and entertainment." World-wide celebrations have started, in anniversary of his birth 250 years ago.

In his life of. Handel, however, Abdy Williams points out that "no doubt old Handel was not far wrong in thus condemning music from the -point -of view of-a-man living in a small German town, and knowing nothing of the great side of the art.’ At that time, the town-musicians were often of a low class, who subsisted largely by "piping before the doors" of the inhabitants. Organists and cantorg: were, with few exceptions, poorly paid, and therefore thought little of, for the efforts of the Bach family to raise the position of their art would-scarcely have had effect.‘as yet in a-town so far from Thuringia as Halle. German opera was not yet invented, and in Italian opera one would see only the fashionable amiisements of. the wealthy, carried out by foreign hirelings. ‘The father, wishing to raise his son in the social scale, did all in his power to quench this terrible (musical) trait in his character. Handel, as a boy, was prevented from ‘going to any place where music was performed. All instruments were . banished from the house, and the boy was forbidden to touch. them or’ to enter any house where "such kind of furniture" wag in use. The-case appeared so desperate that someone suggested cutting off his fingers. . But... the boy was, at any rate, bound to hear music. .Chorales were playéd every evening on the tower of the Liebrauen Church; the chorale and cantata would be heard. by him when. attending divine worship; and the father could not stop the music, which at Halle was weekly performed on the streets by choirg and church musicians. "MOST SUPERB IN HISTORY" But music, like murder, will out; and all the barber-surgeons in Burope could no more prevent George Frederick Handel from becoming a musician than Canute could keep the waves back. Here was one’of iron courage and determination who triumphed over every obstacle. and became, in the words of John F. Runeeman, "by far the most superb personage one meets in the history of music." No description could be more apt than that. If,-as Cicero wrote, the countenance is the index of the mind, a study of Handel’s portraits would be of considerable assistance in making some estimate of hig character. It is remarkable, however, how great ig the variation in the master’s physiognomy, as it was painted by his contemporaries. Sir John Hawkins,, who knew

Handel, made mention of the fact that "few: pictures of him are to. any extent. tolerable likenesses." There are innumerable busts and portraits; but | many of them might.be-so far as theiy dissimilarity is. concerned-of entirely different people. Thomas. Hudson, who painted. Handel frequently, would. seem to'have been more — successful: than’ many of his — portrait-painting: colleagues, in putting on canvas some of the characteristics which we know the composer of "Messiah" possessed. One delineation in particulir-an engraving made from one of Hiudson’s portraits-seems to reflect the real Handel. It ig the picture showing the master seated, his figure very plump, the right arm posed in a rather aggyessive fashion on the thigh, the left hand holding a piece of music, and the ex-. pression. of countenance revealing that combination of dominance, cock-sure-ness, sly humour and irascibility which made Handel the man he was. To the outer eye, Handel’ wag no elegant spectacle, According to Charles ‘Burney, he was extremely fat and, having bowed legs, waddled ag he walked. Both his face and bis hands were heavy with fat; and, when he played the organ or the harpsichord, it was. difficult, Dr. Burney adds, to make out the fingers or to distinguish the movement of fhem PERSONAL PECULIARITIES It must have been an impressive, as asa diverting spectacle, when Handel walked down the street. His gait suggested the rolling of a vessel in a heavy sea; and as he walked he also talked. This habit of conversing with himself grew upon Handel with ddvancing years; and, as he used his voice with the energy with which he used every other faculty, lis cpinions of men and things were offered to the world with distinct, and rather embarrassing, freedom. Moreover, as Borowski reminds us, Handel’s conversation, either with himself or with his friends, wag strange and peculiar; for although he lived in England for sO many years, he wag never able to master the intricacies of its language. Flis speech, therefore, wag made up of very broken English mixed with frequent recourse to French, German and Italian. The age in which he lived also provided him with a copious supply of imprecations, Which ‘were current commonplaces of the speech of society. Handel was what most abnormally fat people are not-he was extraordinarily energetic. If he had

achieved nothing: else’ but’ to compose the mass of musié he ‘left us, he would have done as‘much: as two average composers. But: he managed opera houses and opera companies, travelling all over Burope-to, obtain artistry for them; and for years he fought innumerable enemies in the British aristoctacy, never admitting defeat, becoming bankrupt. twice, twice paying his debts in full, and leaving a fortune of £20,000 when he died. To achieve what he achieved meant unceasing toil; it meant the deprivation of exercise, diversion, even sleep. His notes were driven on to the pages of his score all day, late at highf, and often when the dawn ‘made the candle at Handel’s side look wan and pale. Nature may have taken her time in calling him to account for the infraction of her laws, but she made reprisals. Diagnosis, as a science, was in its swaddling clothes in. the 18th century, as the following incident shows. When, about 1735, Handel called in his doctor to explain various aches and pains that were tormenting him, the man of science, having drawn off some blood from the corpulent person of the composer, with the lancet which he kept in his pocket with his snuff and handkerchief, gravely pronounced the case to be rheumatism. It was an awkward time in which to be sick, for Handel had an opera bouse ou his hands, and a company in it for which he had to write operas, as well as to attend to its managing. Moreover, he had been putting up a terrific fight against his rivals, who wepgpoing their best to ruin him. DECLINING HEALTH Perhaps the composer knew better than his doctor, that what be needed most was rest. His right side was s0 racked with pain that to play on the organ or the harpsichord was agony for him. He wag beginning to suffer from lack of sleep and worry. It was high time to do something for the "rheumatism." and the composer Dbetook himself to one of the English watering places. A short period of rest and relaxation set up the great man, and he went back to London more filled than ever with the fever ang fury of fight. But soon nature beganpagain with her reminders that the wales of intemperance-the intemperanze of overwork and lack of sleép-were ‘about to fall due again. The pain came back, but paralysis came with it. .

There were disquieting mental symptoms, too. In 1737 Handel’s friends Were convinced that he had permanently .lost his reason. A visit to . Tunbridge Wells could scarcely be expected to accomplish much for such a desperafe case. The doctors advised Aix-la-Chapelle, and thither he went. Strange to relate, he came back cured. For a period all was well, but Handel still continued drawing drafts upon his constitution which eventually he would have to meet. Visits to Aix, and later to Cheltenham availed nothing. The worst calamity of all fell upon i m when he lost his sight-this blow 1 when he working on his oratorio, ‘ eptha," and on the actual. score he

noted the inexorable descent jnto the utter darkness which finally overwhelmed him. Within three years, early on Easter Saturday morning. April 14, at the age of 74; he died, after a week’s suffering. Hight days previously he had directed a performance of "Messiah" at Covent Garden. It was his final heroie effort. His prayer that he might die on Good Friday, was not answered, but before daylight on the following day, the great heart had ceased to beat. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where his monument now stands. No sketch of Handel’s. character would be complete without reference to the tenderness he bore his mother. "Only one woman ever influenced his

life," writes Newman Flower, "ever putting the meaning of womanhood into a soul that sang most sweetly of the feminine sex. Quaintly enough, his great understanding of his mother came, not from her presence, her ready influence, but from her distance. She always seemed to reach out to him and touch him, in Hamburg, in Italy. in Hanover, in London. . When he was soaring, or when in the grip of adversity, she was ever there.’ Handel had one other love. Thig was his beloved foundlings, whose hospital he so generously assisted through his life. By performances of his ‘"Messiah" alone, they were benefited to the tune of more than £7000. A heart full of tenderness lay beneath the "Great Bear’s" exterior.