George_Frideric_Handel_A_Music_Lover's

ARE YOU STIRRED
by the spiritual,
emotional
and
musical power
of
Handel’s Messiah?

Did you know that Handel wrote 17 other oratorios?
George Frideric Handel:
A Music Lover’s Guide
by Marian Van Til
is the story of the man who wrote that deeply moving music.

________________

A well-researched biography
of
George Frideric Handel
aimed at intelligent music lovers.

The book focuses on the composer's character, personality, faith and musical genius, and follows how, why, and when Messiah
and his numerous other
biblical oratorios developed.

We're introduced to Handel through his devout Lutheran parents in Germany. We see how his own Lutheranism meshed with Anglicanism after his move to London in his mid-20s to become a solid, life-long faith.

Handel is revealed as a man of wit, compassion, generosity and strong will, quick to anger but also quick to forgive.
We follow him through deaths in his family, attempts by social-musical enemies to destroy him, bouts of serious paralysis and mental disturbance, blindness, and through his last days.

_________________

About the Author

Marian Van Til holds an MA in music history
and an
MLS (Library Science)
from the
State University of New York
at Buffalo.
She is a freelance writer and editor, classical musician and church music director, and a former music teacher-lecturer and librarian.
Her two books are both showcased on, and available from, this website.

A native of the Chicago area,
Marian spent 16 years in Canada
editing and writing for a national religious weekly,then worked in Ontario another 10 years after moving back to the U.S.
She lives in western New York with her husband,
Ed Cassidy,
and their family of cats.

_________________

As from the pow'r of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the bless'd above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devoir,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And music shall untune the sky.

From Song for St. Cecilia's Day,
in honor of Cecilia,
patron saint of music.
John Dryden, 1687;
set by Handel,1739

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I rejoice very much at the defeat of Handel's opposers,
& should be heartily glad,
if he could get a large quantity
of money in the oratorio way,
but should be realy grieved if Italian operas again took place.
There seems to be a fair opportunity
at present, of throwing aside
all foreign nonsense,
& resolving, to seek our own good
from ourselves.

Mary Smith,
to her friend and Handel's, James Harris,
April 1744

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Our Friend Mr. Handell is very well, and Things have taken a quite different Turn here from what they did some Time past; for the Publick will be no longer imposed on by Italian Singers, and some wrong Headed Undertakers of bad Opera's, but find out Merit of Mr. Handell's Composition and English Performances: That Gentleman is more esteemed now than ever. The new Orartorio (called SAMSON) which he composed since he left Ireland [where he debuted Messiah], has been performed four Times to more crouded Audiences than ever were seen; more People being turned away for Want of Room each Night than hath been at the Italian Opera...."

Private letter, author unknown, London, March 8, 1743, to an addressee in Dublin.

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Handel's religious disposition was not a mere display, it was amply productive of religion's best fruit, charity; and this liberal sentiment not only influenced him in the day of prosperity, but even when standing on the very brink of ruin.

Handel's younger contemporary William
Cox, as told to him by his father-in-law, Handel's right-hand man and musical assistant J.C. Smith.

AHandel's religious disposition was not a mere display, it was amply productive of religion's best fruit, charity; and this liberal sentiment not only influenced him in the day of prosperity, but even when standing on the very brink of ruin.

Handel's younger contemporary William
Cox, as told to him by his father-in-law, Handel's right-hand man and musical assistant J.C. Smith.

                                                                 Excerpt from Chapter 16:
                                                          "Guns to Good Effect"

          DESPITE OPPOSITION to the peace treaty in some camps, the end of the war, at long last, naturally called for celebration. Who but Handel could provide suitably regal music? There would be grand outdoor festivities in Green Park and they would include fireworks. But like the preparations and negotiations for the treaty itself, preparing for the celebration was an ordeal: the pavilion conceived for the purpose was begun in November after the Peace was signed, but it was not completed until the following spring. On April 25, 1749, two days before the fireworks celebration, the official service of Thanksgiving took place at the Royal Chapel in St. James's Palace. Handel provided the lovely "peace anthem" How Beautiful Are the Feet [of them that preach the gospel of peace], part of which he adapted from his Messiah aria on that text.

          The Water Music, though written long before, had given Handel some experience with providing outdoor music. This time around, his no-holds-barred scheme for noble music to accompany the fireworks caused consternation among those at Court responsible for the event, and for George II himself, if the Duke of Montagu, Master General of the Ordnance, is to be believed. Handel, oboe lover since childhood, planned the Royal Fireworks Music for copious numbers of wind instruments (traditional military instruments), among them twenty-four oboes -- and nine trumpets, nine horns, twelve bassoons, a contrbassoon, a serpent (a now obsolete member of the Renaissance cornett family, then still common in military and church bands), and three sets of timpani (kettle drums).

          Somewhere along the line Handel decided that the effect would be more impressive if he added strings, having them double the wind parts (the violins and oboes play the same musical line, and cellos and bassoons share their line, creating the sonority of combined winds and strings). According to the Duke of Montagu, the King was not happy about this, as he felt the addition of "fidles" would make the music less martial. Nor was Montagu happy -- and by his word, nor, again, was George II -- about Handel's initial refusal to hold the rehearsal at Vauxhall Gardens. (Handel probably felt it necessary to rehearse in the same venue his players would perform in.) It's possible that the King didn't really care; he allowed Handel to have his way regarding the strings as part of the band, but Handel had to compromise on the issue of the rehearsal at Vauxhall Gardens. It may have been Handel's ability to sway the King that annoyed Montagu more than anything else. Montagu threatened to ask someone else to compose the music, telling Charles Frederick, the Comptroller of His Majesty's Fireworks:
                   If [Handel] continues to express his zeal for his Majesty's service by doing what is so contrary to
                   it, in not letting the rehersal be there, I shall intirely give over any further thoughts of his overture
                   and shall take care to have an other.
This cannot have been a real threat, especially at that late date; it is doubtful that Montagu had such authority. He wrote out of annoyance, and possibly to impress Charles Frederick.

          Exactly when Handel was asked to compose, or when he did compose, his Royal Fireworks Music is not known, but word of his intentions and other gossip about the event spread, especially among the upper classes. In a letter by a Hanover Square neighbor of Handel’s, Mrs. Susan Archer, to her friend Lydia Catherine, the Duke of Chandos’s wife, Mrs. Archer says she is anticipating hearing Handel’s music, but adds, “His Majesty I hear is excessively out of Humour about the Fire Works.... I believe a good many people will lose their hearing...; there will be 26 Cannons & 3 Barrils of Gunpowder go [off] at once & ... Handell proposes his Musick shall be heard at the same time.” Wisely, in the actual event, the music was heard before the fireworks went off.

          The rehearsal at Vauxhall Gardens (without fireworks) involving Handel’s “band” of one hundred performers was itself an auspicious event. Originally scheduled for April 17, the rehearsal was finally held at noon on April 21 so that the Duke of Cumberland could be there (the General Advertiser had been keeping the public informed of the shifting dates). Astonishingly, 12,000 people paid half a crown each to hear the music rehearsed and to get a feel for the spectacle. This snarled traffic on London Bridge for three hours, perhaps the first traffic jam in history. The next day, the General Advertiser remarked on “the brightest and most numerous Assembly ever known at the Spring Garden, Vauxhall.” The paper then tantalized its readers with this curious tidbit: “Several Footmen who attended their Masters, &c. Thither, behaved very saucily, and were justly corrected by the Gentlemen for their Insolence.”

          There were equally huge numbers of people at the April 27 celebration. For us modern people used to massive crowds, the words of a Mr. Byrom in a letter to his wife on fireworks night puts this in mid-eighteenth century perspective: “I have before my eyes such a concourse of people as to be sure I never have or shall see again....” The pavilion, envisioned and realized by a theater stage designer, had steps leading to “a grand Area before the Middle Arch,” the whole structure being “extremely neat and pretty and grand to look at.” Handel’s one-hundred players performed from the area in front of the middle arch. The more privileged onlookers sat on scaffolding in order to get a good view of the proceedings and the fireworks.

          Handel's music evidently went off without a hitch. However, the music having been played in the open air, the presence of the huge crowd and all the other goings-on allowed only those up close to hear it well, despite the hundred-member band. As part of a description of the King walking informally in the area, [Handel's friend] George Harris recorded in his diary: "...He walk'd up to the frame, & soon after[,] the music began playing from the centre, which was in a manner lost.---He heard some of it, & then walked back to the Library."

         If the audibility of the music was a problem, there were far more serious problems with the fireworks. "One or two" of the "rockets...took a wrong direction, & turned off horizontal & fell among the spectators & did some mischief," wrote Harris. Part of the great wooden structure caught fire, putting "all things into confusion." It took about an hour to extinguish the blaze -- "with the help of engines." Fortunately, no one died in the fire, but one woman in the Duke of Montagu's box was badly burned after her hat and clothes caught fire. However, at least two other people died in accidents at the event: one man drowned in a nearby pond; another missed his footing at the top of the fireworks "machine" and pitched to the ground. Unfortunately we have no record of Handel's own reaction to the event, including the unusual rehearsal. He did, however, find other occasions to use the Royal Fireworks Music . Along with the Water Music, it has survived to our day as his most popular orchestral music and is, appropriately enough, increasingly being used in connection with fireworks displays.
©Marian Van Til