[203] The last representation at the Academy took place on June 1, 1728, with Almeto.
[204] Amongst others, the accompanied recitative, the air Da Capo, the opera duets, the farewell scenes, the great prison scenes, the inconsequent ballads. Pepusch even took an air of Handel and parodied it. In the second act a band of robbers came together in the tavern, and solemnly defiled before their chiefs to the sound of the March of the Crusaders’ Army in Rinaldo—The Beggar’s Opera, given for the first time on January 29, 1728, was played all over England, and aroused violent polemics. Swift became a passionate champion for it. After the success appeared in the following years a number of operas with songs—Georgy Kalmas has dedicated a very complete article to The Beggar’s Opera in his Sammelbände der I.M.G. (January to March, 1907).
[205] The first three books of the Dunciad of Pope appeared in 1728; The Voyages of Gulliver in 1726. Swift did not forget the musical folly in his satire on the kingdom of Lilliputia.
[206] The Coronation Anthems comprised four hymns, of which we do not know the exact order. Handel arranged for their presentation at Westminster by forty-seven singers, and a very considerable orchestra.
[207] Riccardo I, played in November of the same year (see p. 81), was also a national opera, dedicated to King George II, and celebrating, apropos of Richard Cœur de Lion, the annals of Old England.
[208] See page 48, note 4, the opinions held by Séré de Rieux.
[209] Séré de Rieux: les Dons les infants de Latone; la Musique et la Chasse du cerf, poems dedicated to the King, 1734, Paris, p. 102-3.
[210] During this voyage, where he sojourned a considerable time at Venice, he learned that his mother was stricken with paralysis. He hastened to Halle, so that he might see her again, but she could no longer see him. For several years she had been blind. She died the following year, December 27, 1730. Whilst Handel was at Halle watching over his mother, he received a visit from Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who came on behalf of his father, to invite him to come to Leipzig. One can well understand that Handel declined the invitation under his sad circumstances.
[211] Born in 1690 at Strongoli in Calabria, he died in 1730. He was the master of the Chapel Royal at Naples, where he preceded Pergolesi and Hasse. I have spoken of Vinci in another volume.
[212] Acis and Galatea was reproduced in 1731, then given again in 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, with the scenery and costumes, under the title of An English Pastoral Opera. The representation had taken place without the consent of Handel, who in response to the event, gave the work himself a little later. As for Esther, a member of the Academy of Ancient Music, Bernard Gates who had formerly sung in the piece at the Duke of Chandos’ and who possessed a copy of it, produced it at the Hostelry of the Crown and Anchor, on February 23, 1732. In his turn Handel directed the work on May 2, 1732, at the Haymarket Theatre, under the title of English Oratorio. These presentations did not appease the interest of the public.