[288] These are not traits special to Handel alone. The double stream—encyclopædic and learned on the one hand, popular or pseudo-popular on the other—was found in an even greater degree in London amongst the musicians of Handel’s time. In the circle of the Academy of Antient Musick there was quite a mania of archaic eclectism. One of these members, the composer Roseingrave, even went to the length of having the walls of his rooms and all his furniture covered with bars of music, extracted from the works of Palestrina. At the same period there was felt all over Europe a reaction of popular taste against that of the savants. It was the day of the little lieder by Bononcini or by Keiser. Handel took sides with neither extravagances, but chose whatever was alive in both movements.
[289] Letter from Lady Luxborough to the poet Shenstone in 1748—quoted by Chrysander.
[290] His passion of collecting increased with age and fortune. A letter of 1750 reveals him buying some beautiful pictures, including a fine Rembrandt. It was the year before he was smitten with blindness.
[291] From the “Hauts tilleuls” of Almira up to the Night Chorus in Solomon.
[292] A study of the MS. of Jephtha (published in facsimile by Chrysander) affords an opportunity of noticing Handel’s speed of working at composition. On these very pages one reads various annotations in Handel’s own handwriting. At the end of the first act, for instance, he writes: “Geendiget (finished) 2 February.” Again, on the same page one reads: “Völlig (complete) 13th August, 1751.” There were then two different workings; one the work of invention, the other a work of completion. It is easy to distinguish them here on account of the illness which changed the handwriting of Handel after February 13, 1751. Thanks to this circumstance, one sees that with the Choruses he wrote the entire subjects in all the voices at the opening; then he let first one fall, then another, in proceeding; he finished hastily with a single voice filled in or even the bass only.
[293] It was so with the melody: Dolce amor che mi consola in Roderigo, which became the air: Ingannata una sol volta in Agrippina—and also with the air: L’alma mia from Agrippina, which was used again for the Resurrection, for Rinaldo and for Joshua.
[294] The Eastern Dance in Almira became the celebrated Lascia ch’io pianga in Rinaldo; and a joyful but ordinary melody from Pastor Fido was transformed to the touching phrase in the Funeral Ode: “Whose ear she heard.”
[295] One can examine here in detail the two very characteristic instrumental interludes from Stradella’s Serenata a 3 con stromenti which had the fortune of blossoming out into the formidable choruses of the Hailstones and the Plague of Flies in Israel. I have made a study of this in an article for the S.I.M. review (May and July, 1910), under the title of Les plagiats de Handel.
[296] There is reason to believe that he was not absolutely free in the matter. In 1732, when the Princess Anne wished to have Esther represented at the opera the Archbishop (Dr. Gibson) opposed it, and it was necessary to fall back to giving the work at a concert.
[297] An anonymous letter published in the London Daily Post in April, 1739, dealing with Israel in Egypt, defends Handel against the opposition of the bigots, who were then very bitter. The writer protests “that the performance at which he was present was the noblest manner of honouring God ... it is not the house which sanctifies the prayer, but the prayer which sanctifies the house.”