London,
July 28, 1735.
Sir,
I received your very agreeable letter with
the enclosed Oratorio. I am just going to Tunbridge;
yet what I could read of it in haste,
gave me a great deal of satisfaction. I shall
have more leisure time there to read it with all
the attention it deserves.
There is no certainty of any Scheme for
next Season, but it is probable that something
or other may be done, of which I shall take
the liberty to give you notice, being extremely
obliged to you for the generous concern you
show upon this account.
The Opera of Alcina is a writing out, and
shall be sent according to your direction. It is
always a great pleasure to me if I have an
opportunity to show the sincere respect with
which I have the honour to be,
Sir,
&c., &c.,
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL.
Jennens was a conspicuous figure in the London society of his day. At the time of this correspondence he was thirty-five, and unmarried; he had inherited vast wealth in his youth and spent it freely. He was ostentatious, even for an age when extravagance was fashionable; but although he was conceited and on occasions foolish, he was certainly possessed of considerable intellectual gifts, and the things which interested him most in life were literature, music, and the fine arts. The letter shows us that he must have admired Alcina sufficiently to ask the composer for a copy of the score. He also seized the opportunity of offering him a libretto for a new oratorio. He had a very good opinion of himself as a poet, and it is possible that he foresaw the importance of the new type of semi-dramatic entertainment which Handel was creating. There were plenty of Italian poetasters, even in London itself, who could put together a conventional opera-book, but English oratorio was still in the making, and it was not so easy to find a literary framework for it.
In any case, it was evident that Italian opera was a precarious enterprise. In October the papers again gave out that Handel was going to give oratorios and concerts at Covent Garden; no operas were announced, and for the time being Handel appeared to have abandoned opera altogether. He made no move until Lent 1736, and then brought out Alexander's Feast (February 19), which he had set to music in the previous two months. Those ever popular favourites Esther and Acis and Galatea followed it, and, as in the foregoing season, Handel played organ concertos between the acts of these works. It is evident that as Handel could not secure the great Italian singers for his oratorios he felt obliged to offer his public some other display of virtuosity, and his own performance on the organ seems to have been considered a very powerful attraction.
The marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (April 27, 1736) provided him with unexpected opportunities for coming before the public. It seems to have been at the desire of the Princess herself that he undertook a short Italian opera season of eight performances, which eventually was extended to ten. Atalanta, Handel's new opera for this season, in which the chief singer was Gizziello, then making his first appearance in England, was composed especially to celebrate the royal nuptials, and seems to have finally converted the Prince of Wales to the music of Handel. He now became a regular supporter of Handel's theatre, with the result that the King promptly withdrew his patronage, as he refused to be seen in the same house as the Prince. Encouraged by this sign of princely favour, Handel reopened Covent Garden in November with a revival of Alcina, followed by Atalanta. Three more new operas were ready, or nearly so; Handel seems to have prepared himself for the winter in better time than usual. But neither Arminio (January 12, 1737), nor Giustino (February 16), nor even Berenice, with its famous minuet (May 18), could save Handel from ruin. The rival opera-house was in no better case. Handel was obliged to close Covent Garden on June 1, and the Haymarket followed suit ten days later. Opera at both houses had been killed, mainly by the folly of party strife.
CHAPTER VI
Bankruptcy and paralysis—visit to Aix-la-Chapelle—the last operas—Vauxhall Gardens—Handel's "borrowings"—visit to Ireland—Messiah and other oratorios.
The collapse of the Opera left Handel not only bankrupt, but with seriously endangered health. In April 1737 it had been announced that he was "indisposed with the rheumatism," from which he made a slight temporary recovery; but before the season was over it became clear that he was suffering from paralysis. "His right arm was become useless to him," says Mainwaring, "and how greatly his senses were disordered at intervals, for a long time, appeared from an hundred instances, which are better forgotten than recorded." With some difficulty his medical advisers persuaded him to go to the sulphur bath of Aix-la-Chapelle, where, according to Mainwaring, he submitted to prolonged and drastic treatment. His cure was considered remarkably rapid, and the nuns (presumably nursing sisters) who heard him play the organ within a few hours of leaving his bath ascribed it to a miracle. "Such a conclusion," observes our clerical biographer, "in such persons was natural enough."
It has been asserted that during his stay at Aix, Handel composed a cantata for the five-hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Elbing, a town in East Prussia between Danzig and Königsberg. A German researcher about 1869 appears to have discovered documents at Elbing mentioning the cantata, with the name of the poet and that of a local singer, Jean du Grain, who composed the recitatives; Handel "of London" was said to have composed the choruses. No trace of the music has survived, and there seems to be no evidence whatever to connect this work with Handel's visit to Aix. Nor is it possible to suggest any reason why the authorities of this remote place should have applied to Handel for a composition.