[232] Alexander’s Feast (January, 1736), Atalanta (April), Wedding Anthem (April), Giustino (August), Arminio (September), Berenice (December).
[233] June 1, 1737. But on June 11 the rival opera also closed its doors, ruined. Handel, like Samson, dragged down in his own fall the enemy whom he wished to annihilate.
[234] On November 15, 1737, Handel commenced Faramondo; from December 7 to 17 he wrote the Funeral Anthem. On December 24 he finished Faramondo. On December 25 he commenced Serse.
[235] He said that these kinds of concerts were but a way of begging.
[236] Vauxhall was a beautiful garden on the Thames, the meeting place of London Society. Every evening except Sunday from the end of April to the beginning of August, vocal, orchestral, and organ concerts were given. The manager of these entertainments, Tyers, caused a white marble statue of Handel by the sculptor Roubiliac to be placed in a niche of a large grotto. The same sculptor later on executed Handel’s statue for his monument in Westminster Abbey.
[237] In the first part of Israel in Egypt there is not a single solo air to be found. In the whole work there are nineteen choruses against four solos and three duets. The poem of Saul which Chrysander at first attributed to Jennens appears to have been, as he discovered later on, the work of Newburgh Hamilton. For Israel, Handel entirely dispensed with a librettist, taking the pure Bible text.
[238] Written between September 29 and October 30, 1739. Handel further prepared in November, 1740, the Second Volume of Organ Concertos (six). The same month he opened his last season of opera, giving on November 22 Imeneo, which was only played twice, and on January 14, 1741, Deidamia, which was only given three times.
[239] Especially in the Allegro and in certain Concerti Grossi.
[240] An anonymous letter published in the London Daily Post of April 4, 1741, alludes to a single false step made without premeditation.
[241] In the midst of his misery he still thought of those more miserable than himself. In April, 1738, he founded with other well-known English musicians, Arne, Greene, Pepusch, Carey, etc., the Society of Musicians for the succour of aged and poor musicians. Tormented as he was himself, he was more generous than all the others. On March 20, 1739, he gave Alexander’s Feast with a new Organ Concerto for the benefit of the Society. On March 28, 1740, he conducted his Acis and Galatea and his little Ode on Cecilia’s day. On March 14, 1741, in his worst days he gave the Parnasso in festa, a gala spectacle very onerous for him with five Solo Concertos by the most celebrated instrumentalists. Later on he bequeathed £1000 to the Society.