The public soon surfeited of this affair, and, indeed, of Italian opera altogether—the Academy became defunct in 1728. But Handel stubbornly held out. He formed a partnership with Heidegger, the manager of the Haymarket, risked his all, and with mad industry continued to supply an imaginary demand. Late in that year he hurried to Italy, stopping at Halle to visit his old mother, now stricken with blindness, on the way, and incidentally came to know the Neapolitan school of opera at its apogee under Scarlatti. He returned to London with a fresh personnel for the Academy, and during the following four seasons produced ‘Lotario’ (1729), ‘Partenope’ (1730), ‘Poro’ and ‘Ezio’ (1731), ‘Sosarme’ and ‘Orlando’ (1732). Here the venture lagged. Bononcini’s open rivalry in another theatre aggravated the situation, and various dissatisfactions, squabbles with singers, etc., which need not occupy us here, resulted in the dissolution of the partnership and the evacuation of the field in the enemy’s favor.[147] After a second trip to Italy another attempt was made by Handel alone, in a theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, and later in Covent Garden, where, besides a new version of ‘Il Pastor Fido,’ ‘Terpsichore’ and six more operas, he produced ‘Alexander’s Feast,’ composed to the words of Dryden’s ode. During 1735 and 1736 Handel was troubled with illness; the following year saw him bankrupt. Cuzzoni, and Faustina, the wife of Hasse, those rivals whom Handel had propitiated by diplomatically composing music for both in one opera that should show their several excellencies without outshining each other; Senesino, the spoiled child of the London public, by offending whom Handel had alienated his aristocratic friends; the wonderful Farinelli, and all the Italian crew left England in disgust. Handel himself, worn out by renewed efforts as composer and impresario, was forced to seek recuperation in Aix-la-Chapelle. After his return he made several more feeble essays at opera, of which ‘Imeneo’ (1740) and ‘Deidamia’ (1741) were the last. The failure of the last years was in a measure offset by the success of a benefit concert given in 1738 at the instance of loyal friends. Moreover, the fact that Handel’s statue was erected in Vauxhall Gardens at this time—an unprecedented honor for a living man—betokened the high popular regard for his genius.
IV
The glories of that genius were in fact yet to be unfolded in their fullness, and in a field hitherto barely touched. Thoroughly chastened by his late failures, Handel gradually reached the conclusion that ‘sacred music was best for a man in failing years.’ Chrysander describes how, toward the end of his operatic activity, he began to comprehend his true mission to be ‘the union of the entire musical art, secular and ecclesiastic, of the preceding centuries in the form newly created by him (the oratorio).’ Whether we are skeptical about the sincerity of Handel’s philosophy or not, he certainly had had ample opportunity to feel the public’s pulse. As early as 1732 Aaron Hill had written him urging that ‘the English language was soft enough for opera and that it was time the country were delivered from Italian bondage.’ That which now fastened Handel’s attention upon the oratorio was more than anything else the changing taste of the English public, which primarily meant nothing but a demand for opera in English—a reaction against the incomprehensible Italian warble, and the falseness, the dramatic absurdity of the prevalent school of opera.[148]
As we have already pointed out, the immediate source of the Handelian oratorio lay in the Italian opera. ‘Though externally the course of Handel’s career till 1740 was determined by the composition of opera,’ says Riemann,[149] ‘in retrospect it appears as a preparation for oratorio, and all his activities resolved themselves into that.’
His previous essays in Italian and in German oratorio (La resurrezione and the Brockes’ Passion) would seem to portend a fusion of the two forms. Another important ingredient, however, was the sacred music of Purcell, the imitation of which—in Queen Anne’s birthday ode, the Utrecht Te Deum, etc.—had led Handel to form a style of choral composition. For the outstanding difference, the distinguishing characteristic of Handel’s oratorio is the essential employment of the chorus, which rises to ever greater eminence till at last in the crowning works of the master, in the ‘Messiah’ and in ‘Samson,’ we see a grand choral drama interspersed with occasional solo passages. Handel had by that time conceived a choral fabric of such stupendous dimensions as would give the oratorio a place among the grandest art forms in existence.
Georg Frederick Handel.
After a painting by Thomas Hudson.
The Chandos Te Deums and anthems were the next step in that direction, and ‘Esther’ represents the foundation upon which the gigantic structure of the later works was raised. It was ‘Esther,’ indeed, which gave the direct impulse to the most momentous transition in Handel’s career. That oratorio, originally composed for the chapel of the duke of Chandos, was revived, with action, scenery, and costume by the children of the Chapel Royal in Westminster. It was twice repeated in a tavern in the Strand, and again performed without authority in April, 1732, ‘at the Great Room in Villar’s Street, York Buildings,’ at five shillings a head. Always alive to business advantages, Handel immediately announced a performance of it at his own opera house for the second of May, ‘by a great number of voices and instruments.’ The acting of sacred oratorio had been forbidden by the Bishop, hence the advertisement said that ‘there would be no Acting, but the House will be fitted up in a decent Manner for the audience.’ Handel had enlarged for this occasion the choruses and the orchestration, which now consisted of five violins, viola, 'cello, double bass, two oboes, two flutes, two bassoons, harp, theorbo, harpsichord, and organ—a combination which appears surprisingly modern in comparison with the freak proportions of some of the earlier operas.