In 1749, Theodora was so very unfortunately abandoned, that he was glad if any professors, who did not perform, would accept of tickets or orders for admission. Two gentlemen of that description, now living, having applied to Handel, after the disgrace of Theodora, for an order to hear the Messiah, he cried out, “Oh, your sarvant! you are tamnaple tainty! you would not co to Theodora—there was room enough to tance dere when dat was perform.”
Sometimes, however, I have heard him as pleasantly, as philosophically, console his friends, when, previous to the curtain being drawn up, they have lamented that the house was so empty, by saying, “Nevre moind, de moosic vil sound de petter.”
MR. BROWN.
The late Mr. Brown, leader of his Majesty’s band, used to tell several stories of Handel’s love of good cheer, liquid and solid, as well as of his impatience: of the former he gave an instance, which was accidentally discovered, at his own house, in Brook Street, where Brown, in the Oratorio Season, among other principal performers, was at dinner. During the repast, Handel often cried out——“O, I have de taught, (thought),” when the company, unwilling that, out of civility to them, the public should be robbed of any thing so valuable as his musical ideas, begged he would retire and write them down; with which request, however, he so frequently complied, that, at last, one of the most suspicious had the ill-bred curiosity to peep through the key-hole, into the adjoining room, where he perceived that dese taughts were only bestowed on a fresh hamper of Burgundy, which, as was afterwards discovered, he had received in a present from his friend, the late Earl of Radnor, while his company was regaled with more generous and spirited port.
Burney’s Life of Handel.
LULLI.
This fortunate musician, the son of a peasant in the neighbourhood of Florence, was born in 1633. He had a few instructions in music from a cordelier. His first instrument was the guitar, to which he was always fond of singing. The Chevalier de Guise brought him into France, in 1646, as a present to his sister, Mademoiselle de Guise, who placed him among the assistants of her kitchen, where he was assigned the honourable office of sous marmiton[1].
[1] Under scullion.
In his leisure hours, being naturally fond of music, he used to be scraping on a miserable violin, to the great annoyance of his fellow-servants. However, his disposition for music being discovered, his patroness had him taught the violin by a regular master, under whom he made so rapid a progress, that he was admitted among the violins of the king’s band; where he distinguished himself so much, that he was employed to compose the music for the court ballads, in which Louis XIV., at this time very young, used to dance. But though Lulli approached the royal presence, early in life, it was by slow degrees, that he arrived at solid preferment. In 1652 he was appointed superintendent or master of the king’s new band of violins, which, if we may judge by the business assigned them afterwards, by Lulli in his operas, was composed of musicians not likely, by their abilities, to continue the miraculous powers ascribed to Orpheus and Amphion.
Lulli married the daughter of Lambert, the celebrated musician and singing master of his time, who lived till the year 1720. Having composed a Te Deum for the king’s recovery, after a dangerous illness, in 1687, during the performance, at the Church of the Feuillans, in the animation of beating time, and difficulty in keeping the band together, by striking his foot, instead of the floor, with his cane, he occasioned a contusion, that, from a bad habit of body, brought on a mortification, which was soon pronounced to be incurable. Every expedient that was tried, in order to stop the progress of the malady, being ineffectual, he was informed of his situation. His confessor refusing to give him absolution, unless he would burn the opera of Achilles and Polixene, which he was composing for the stage; he consented; and this new music was committed to the flames. A few days after, being a little better, one of the young princes of Vendome went to see him. “Why, Baptiste,” says he, “have you been such a fool as to burn your new opera, to humour a gloomy priest?” ‘Hush, hush!’ says Lulli, ‘I have another copy of it.’ However, a few days after, he was not only obliged to submit to the will of his confessor, but of Death himself, who terminated his existence, March the 22d, 1687, at fifty-four years of age.