. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Freed from material cares, which had embittered his life,[257] Handel took up the work of his composition again, with more tranquillity, and in the following years came many of his happiest works. Alexander Balus (June 1 to July 4, 1747)[258] is, like Semele, a concert opera, well developed; the orchestration being exceptionally rich and subtle. Joshua (July 30 to August 18, 1747)[259] is a somewhat pale replica of Judas Maccabæus. A gentle love idyll blossoms amidst the pompous choruses. Solomon (June, 1748)[260] is a musical festival, radiating poetry and gladness. Susanna (July 11, 1724, to August, 1748), grave and gay by turns, realistic yet lyric, is a hybrid kind of work, but very original.
Finally, in the spring of 1749, which marks, so it seems, the end of Handel’s good fortune, he wrote his brilliant Firework Music—a model for popular open-air fêtes—produced on April 27, 1749, by a monster orchestra of trumpets, horns, oboes, and bassoons, without stringed instruments, on the occasion of the Firework display given in Green Park to celebrate the Peace of Aix la Chapelle.[261]
More solemn works followed these gay pieces. At this moment of his life the spirit of melancholy raised its grey head before the robust old man, who seemed to be obsessed by the presentiment of some coming ill fortune.
On May 27, 1749, he conducted at the Foundling Hospital[262] for the benefit of waifs and strays, his beautiful Anthem for the Foundling Hospital,[263] which was inspired by his great pity for these little unfortunates. From June 28 to July 31 he wrote a pure masterpiece, Theodora, his most intimate musical tragedy, his only Christian tragedy besides The Messiah[264]. From the end of that same year dates also his music for a scene from Tobias Smollett’s Alceste, which was never played, and from which Handel took the essential parts for his Choice of Hercules.[265] A little time after he made his last voyage to Halle. He arrived on German soil at the moment when Bach died, July 28, 1750. Indeed he nearly ended his life there himself in the same week by a carriage accident.[266]
He recovered quickly, and on January 21, 1751, when he commenced the score of Jephtha, he appeared to be in robust health, despite his sixty-six years. He wrote the first act at a stretch in thirteen days. In eleven days more he had arrived at the last scene but one of Act II. Here he had to break off. Already in the preceding pages he only progressed with difficulty; his writing, so clear and firm at the commencement, became sticky, confused, and trembling.[267] He had started on the final chorus of Act II: “How dark, O Lord, are Thy Ways.” Hardly had he written the opening Largo than he had to stop working. He wrote:
“I reached here on Wednesday, February 13, had to discontinue on account of the sight of my left eye.”[268]
The work was broken off for ten days. On February 23 (which was his birthday) he wrote in:
“Feel a little better. Resumed work”;
and he wrote the music to those foreboding words: