Tag: Handel News 75 – May 2019

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Handel in Japan

Tadashi Mikajiri

While the links between Japan and European music go back to the Christian missionaries of the 16th century, the closing of the country for two centuries meant that there was a long gap until the late 19th century. By 1900, however, Western art and music were part of cultural life in the larger cities, and this grew after the Second World War, with music from the classical and romantic eras leading the way, later extended to include older and later genres.

The walls of elementary and middle schools’ music rooms in Japan nowadays usually contain portraits of great European composers. Handel is always included. A diligent music teacher will introduce pupils to a couple of works of each one. In the case of Handel, a guidebook for teachers includes such works as ‘Hallelujah’ from Messiah, the Water Music, the Harmonious Blacksmith, ‘See the conq’ring hero comes’ from Judas Maccabaeus, and ‘Ombra mai fu’ from Serse; only one or two of these will be selected to be heard in the classroom. In addition, Handel’s music is widely used at events and as background music for TV programmes and commercial advertisements. For example, ‘See the conq’ring hero comes’ is not infrequently played (though slowly) in ceremonies of sports events, including Sumo wrestling. Thus many people know the melodies of this and of ‘Hallelujah’, ‘Ombra mai fu’, ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’, and the Alla Hornpipe from the Water Music, even if most are not aware who composed them.

Piano lessons for young children are popular in Japan, and Bach’s keyboard works are in the regular curriculum together with pieces by Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin, for those who have gone through basic training. So most musicians, professional or amateur, have learned to appreciate baroque music through Bach. Handel is not as popular yet, except Messiah, which is performed well over 100 times every year across the country.

One of the early contributions to the study and introduction of Handel and his works was a biography (1966) written in Japanese by the late Keiichiro Watanabe (1932-2001), who is also known in the scholarly world through his philological studies. Christopher Hogwood’s biography of Handel was translated into Japanese in 1991 by Toshiki Misawa, who studied with Watanabe. In the memorial year of 2009, The Cambridge Companion to Handel, edited by Donald Burrows, was translated into Japanese by Koko Fujie, Hiroko Kobayashi and Tadashi Mikajiri, and won an award from The Music Pen Club Japan.

Almost all the scholars/researchers of Handel are in their 50s, 60s or older, and there are few younger people studying him. Papers related to Handel seldom appear in the journals of the Musicological Society of Japan or universities/colleges. We need more young people to enter this field.

Performances of Handel’s works, however, are in much better condition. The ‘period instruments’ movement came to Japan in 1970s and 1980s, and gradually led to more performances of Handel’s chamber works, together with those of Bach, Vivaldi and Telemann. For a while, performances of Handel’s larger-scale works were limited to Messiah and some rare exceptions up to the end of 1980s. The tide changed when Keiichiro Watanabe started collaborating with Telemann Institute Japan in Osaka to premiere a series of oratorios. Solomon (1995), Hercules (1996), L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato (1997), Deborah (1998), Athalia (1999), Susanna (2000) and Theodora (2001) saw national premieres during this period. Simon Standage was invited to lead the orchestra for some of these concerts.

Now there are two active groups specialising in Handel: the Handel Institute Japan, founded by Keiichiro Watanabe in 1998, focusing mainly on operas; and Handel Festival Japan, founded in 2002 by Toshiki Misawa, covering various genres, especially oratorios.

The Handel Institute Japan, formed to promote researches, performances and enjoyment of Handel’s music, consists of musicians, musicologists, researchers of related areas and listeners. It offers half a dozen lectures/meetings annually on the researchers’/listeners’ side, and studies stage practices of the period, especially baroque gesture, on the performance side. It staged Rinaldo in 2002* (asterisk indicates Japanese premiere) in memory of the late Keiichiro Watanabe, Serse (2003), La Resurrezione (2004), Agrippina (2005), Il Pastor Fido (2008), Ottone (2009) (with Laurence Cummings invited to direct), Alessandro (2010), Partenope (2012)*, Flavio (2015), Deidamia (2017) and Ariodante (2018).

Handel Festival Japan aims at performing both vocal and instrumental music, to expand Handel’s image beyond the traditional view as a composer of Messiah. It performed Acis and Galatea (2003* and 2011), La Resurrezione (2004), The Choice of Hercules* with Concerti Grossi Op.6 (2005), Hercules (2007), Water Music and Coronation Anthems (2007), Tamerlano (2008*, concert style), Messiah (2009), L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato with the Ode for St Cecilia’s Day (2010) (which the late Christopher Hogwood was invited to conduct), Samson (2012), Alcina (2013, concert style), Saul (2014), Alexander’s Feast (2015), Jephtha (2016), Belshazzar (2017), Theodora (2018) and Solomon (2019).

In addition to these two groups specialising in Handel, several others have started staging Handel’s operas. The Vivava Opera Company in Osaka/Kobe area, although they do not confine themselves to Handel, have staged a lot, including a number of Japanese premieres: Flavio (2004), Alcina (2005), Deidamia (2006), Imeneo (2007), Tolomeo (2008), Orlando (2009), Lotario (2010), Radamisto (2012)* and Rodelinda (2013)*. Nationally/internationally recognised opera/music companies are now including Handel’s operas and oratorios in their programmes: Nikikai, the largest opera company in Japan, has performed Giulio Cesare twice (2005, 2015) and Alcina once (2018). Alcina was also staged by the Tokyo Chamber Opera Theatre (2008). Bach Collegium Japan, which specialises mainly in Bach, performed Israel in Egypt (2007), Judas Maccabaeus (2008) and Rinaldo (2009, concert style). The New National Opera Theatre (Opera Palace), run by a governmental body, will include Giulio Cesare in its 2019/20 season. There are also more amateur chorus groups beginning to sing Israel in Egypt, Judas Maccabaeus, Dixit Dominus and the Chandos Anthems.

All of these performances were mainly played and sung by Japanese musicians. There were also occasions when western companies came to perform, including Giulio Cesare by Berlin Staatsoper (1980), Ottone by King’s Consort (1992) and Ariodante by Bayerische Staatsoper (2005).

In total, this is a good long list and shows considerable progress from the pre-1985 period. But only a few works are played each year; the venues are limited to Tokyo and Osaka/Kobe, the two biggest metropolises of the country; and most are single performances. Famous titles, like Giulio Cesare, Alcina, Ariodante, Serse and Rinaldo have been produced several times, and seem to have acquired repertoire status, but most others have been performed only once or twice. More than half of Handel’s operas/oratorios remain on the waiting list. It would be good to see more titles staged in Tokyo and Osaka/Kobe, and more performances in other cities in the country.

Later operas – by Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini – have already acquired solid popularity in Japan. Baroque operas, that were constructed in a different dramaturgy, a different social/political context and with different stage practices, could be misunderstood as boring unless their charms are clearly and vividly presented. While the technical ability of musicians – instrumentalists and singers alike – have improved considerably in the last 30 years, it is the duty of musicologists to place these great works in the proper light to be appreciated by modern audiences.

There are more than 40 music colleges/universities in the country, only four of which have undergraduate courses dedicated to period instruments and historically-conscious playing/singing. So, at bachelor level, baroque technique is still a minor part of the curriculum. Several schools, however, offer optional classes for those who are interested in historical performances. In addition, with the growing appreciation of period-style music in the country, more postgraduate musicians are seeking opportunities to study historical technique, and the number who have had such training in Europe is now well over a few hundred. Thus the resources for playing Handel’s works are increasing.

Looking back at my school days in the 70s and 80s, only a few discs were released each year, and it was quite possible to buy all the new LPs of Handel’s works. My record shop manager used to call me when a new title appeared, and I bought every one of them. New releases increased after CDs appeared, and it is now realistically impossible to buy all the Handel CDs and DVDs. It is dreamlike that we now can enjoy Handel’s music in such abundance. However, real enjoyment of Handel’s works, especially operas and oratorios, lies in opera houses and concert halls. We need to promote more live performances.

Fortuitously, the next Emperor, Naruhito, was born on 23 February, the same day as Handel. His succession is in May 2019, and his birthday will be a new national holiday. Since it coincides with Handel’s, this should provide good enhanced opportunities to play and enjoy Handel’s music in Japan.

Tadashi Mikajiri teaches at the Opera Studio of the New National Theatre, Tokyo, and at the graduate schools of Kunitachi College of Music and Kyoto City University of Arts.

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Handel and Crime Fiction: an Interview with Donna Leon

Tony Watts

Donna Leon is a very successful crime novelist. Her series of 27 crime novels are set in Venice, featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. They have been translated into 35 languages and also, in Germany, into a well-known television series. She has been named by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers. But Handel operas have also played an important part in her life.

She was born in Montclair, New Jersey, USA in 1942. She taught English literature in various countries, including China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Her PhD on Jane Austen (still her favourite novelist) was aborted when she had to leave Iran hurriedly in the revolution of 1978/79, losing all her papers. In retrospect she feels it was a merciful release: ‘I was free from Graduate School – praise the Lord!’

In 1968 she visited Italy for the first time, fell in love with the country, and decided to live in Venice. She started writing her crime novels there when she was 50, and fairly soon became sufficiently successful to give up her teaching. She now only teaches once a year, at a music festival at Ernen in Switzerland. She moved to Switzerland in 2015, with two residences, in Zurich and in the mountains, though she still returns to Venice for around a week per month. She claims that her fame is accidental: ‘I’m irresponsible: I’ve never had any ambition to be successful or well-known.’ Her writing started ‘as a joke – pure dumb luck!’ She has resisted her novels being translated into Italian, to avoid celebrity there.

Her transformative induction into Handel was a performance of Alcina at Carnegie Hall in New York in the 1970s: ‘it was different from any opera I had experienced in my life, and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the music’. Thereafter, she listened to lots of recordings of Handel operas, and went to performances when she could. Now, she experiences them almost exclusively in live rehearsals and performances. She particularly pursues Handel operas and recitals featuring her favourite singers, notably Anna Bonitatibus, Joyce DiDonato, Ann Hallenberg and Inga Kalna. Her favourite Handel works are Alcina and Giulio Cesare, with Il Trionfo, Semele and Rodelinda in contention.

For her, Handel is the pre-eminent composer. She likes other baroque composers, including Telemann, Vinci, Porpora, Cavalli and Purcell. Mozart and Bach are also ‘part of the pantheon’, and she goes to operas by Donizetti, Rossini with great delight. But for her, Handel is distinctive: ‘the plots are not important, but what matters is people’s feelings, how they express them in the arias, and how they learn. And how they forgive: I love him because he’s compassionate, and the music is compassionate.’ There are not many people in Handel operas who are wholly bad. The same is true in Donna Leon’s books: ‘I don’t think there are many people who are wholly bad. Usually they become heads of state’ (we agreed not to mention any names).

Also, Handel ‘understands the plight of women: women are toys to most operatic composers, but not to Handel: he takes them very seriously’. In this sense, ‘he’s Trollope and all the others are Dickens: Dickens will teach anyone how to write a novel, but he doesn’t know anything about women’.

A further transformational moment was a serendipitous meeting with Alan Curtis at a dinner party in Venice: ‘One of us said “Handel’s the greatest composer”, and the other said “By God he is!” And that was it: we married one another (figuratively) at that instant!’ A little later, Alan Curtis happened to be at dinner at her place when the phone rang. It was Dino Arici from the Solothurm Festival in Switzerland, wondering whether to include a baroque opera in his next festival and ‘whether there was a baroque opera that hasn’t been done much. So I asked Alan and he said “Arminio”. And I said “Alan can probably bring it”. So we took Arminio to Solothurm, and we had so much fun, that it took off.’

She supported Alan Curtis in sustaining Il Complesso Barocco, leading to its series of Handel CDs. The group ended with Alan Curtis’s death in 2015. But she continues to provide similar support to Il Pomo d’Oro, of which she is one of three founders. In addition to financial support, she likes to make suggestions, particularly on possible singers, though she leaves it to the musicians to make the decisions on such matters. ‘I’ve known some of the musicians for 20 years: they’re like my kids’. She is a doer, ‘but I avoid any responsibility about anything: I don’t like the idea that I might influence people’s lives in a bad way – that frightens me’. There are plans to record Agrippina, and she would also like to do Semele and Il Trionfo. Given the finances of the music world today, ‘to record an opera by Handel is an act of folly, but it is also an act of love – to the orchestra, to the singers, and to the people who like the music enough to try a new version; and I think it should be done’.

A major project with Alan Curtis was her book Handel’s Bestiary, published in 2010/11 in English, French, German and Spanish. He selected 12 simile arias from Handel’s operas that made reference to animals, and she wrote short essays about each of the animals, drawn from history and mythology. They were illustrated by Michael Sowa, with an accompanying CD of the arias performed by Il Complesso Barocco. She is currently doing a series of Bestiary concerts, with readings linked to the music.

Her novels include some operatic elements. Two are located at La Fenice in Venice: Death at La Fenice and Falling in Love. All include an inscription drawn from operas. The first 15 were from Mozart, because the Da Ponte librettos are ‘wonderful texts’. But the subsequent ones have all been from Handel. The latest novel also draws from a Handel text in its title: Unto Us a Son is Given.

Living so long in Italy, she has realised that ‘Italians and Handel don’t go together. They don’t like baroque music, and don’t play it much. The giant paradox is that many of the great baroque orchestras and conductors are Italian, but where do they work: in England, France and Germany. But if you live in a country that has given the world Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini, why would you go and listen to this German?’

She does not have strong views on staging: ‘I don’t care – it’s not important to me. I can always close my eyes, and listen to beautiful singing. I go to the opera to listen. I’m much more aural than visual. And visual judgement is far more subjective than aural judgement. We’re in 2019, so people have to take chances.’

Donna Leon loves Handel, but does she identify with Handel in some ways? After all, both are voluntary exiles. And both have lived their lives as single people, yet have such a deep understanding of family relationships: many of Handel’s most moving duets are filial (usually mother-son or father-daughter), and an important feature of the Brunetti books is his relationship with his wife and children. She rejects the suggestion: ‘He’s fat, I’m thin; he’s a boy, I’m a girl.’

Whereas nearly all Handel’s operas have a happy ending, this is not true of any of Donna Leon’s novels. ‘My vision of life is very bleak. I’m a very happy person, and my life in many ways couldn’t be improved. I can do what I want, and I have a lot of people who I love, and who love me. But I’m no fool: people can be very unpleasant and nasty. And they’re crime books, after all.’ Nonetheless, she does not reject Handel’s lieto fine: ‘that was the convention, and what’s good enough for Handel is good enough for me’.

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Book Review – Jane Glover: Handel in London: The Making of a Genius

London: Macmillan, 2018

Reviewed by David Vickers

In only the second biographical study of Handel’s life and works to have been written in English by a professional conductor, Jane Glover goes into deeper detail on some of the works than the cannier scholarly prose of Christopher Hogwood (whose credentials as a pioneering performer of Handel’s works were second to none). Glover’s conducting career has included half a dozen of the most famous Handel operas, plus productions of Acis and Galatea, L’Allegro, Theodora and Jephtha; there is also the small matter of over a hundred performances of Messiah, and doubtless she has acquired extensive experience of directing a smattering of other choral works and favourite lollipops. Moreover, her PhD dissertation (Oxford) and subsequent publications on the 17th-century opera composer Cavalli demonstrate that in principle she is no stranger to proper scholarship: the bibliography of Handel in London contains plenty of suitable research material – although, curiously, not any of the new CUP series of Handel’s collected documents, and she ignores the abundance of useful materials in academic journals and periodicals. Donald Burrows’s fastidious and impeccably balanced Master Musicians tome is unlikely to be challenged as my first port of call for referential Handel biography, whereas Glover has produced a cuddlier introduction for curious music-lovers who might never before have read anything on the composer’s life and works.

The author praises Jonathan Keates’s ‘magisterial’ biography as her touchstone, and perhaps the spirit and style of his writing is the closest counterpart in the Handelian literature to this new contribution. The prose tends to be friendly, effusive and endearing. Glover is an assured story-teller and often conjures an unabashedly sentimental tone when relating personal crisis points in Handel’s life. The descriptions of his sporadic illnesses are related with sensitivity, and the accounts of his eventual blindness and death are touchingly emotive. This biography does not aim to achieve a nuanced portrait of the composer’s flaws; he is affixed securely on a pedestal for the entire duration of a narrative that presents the artist as an irreproachable hero. Evidence of his temper, stubbornness, gluttony and bouts of laziness (as alluded to in several of Charles Jennens’s letters) are glossed over; there is no hint of why his erstwhile colleague Joseph Goupy created the vicious caricature ‘The Charming Brute’ (not an illustration reprinted here).

Explanations of complex historical events involving the last years of Queen Anne, the Hanoverian succession, the machinations of Walpole, the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745, various pan-European wars and the incessant squabbling of the royal family in London are dealt with engagingly if not impeccably. At its best, Handel in London is an entertaining albeit imperfect tale that is told with flair.
Glover’s passionate advocacy of certain works is highly welcome: it is good to read such enthusiastic overviews of Israel in Egypt, Judas Maccabaeus and Joshua – oratorios that have not always been admired fairly by musicologists and yet are popular with choral singers. Likewise, the author’s enthusiasm for Handel’s under-appreciated settings of Metastasio librettos in Poro and Ezio is well-placed. Nobody will be surprised that praise is lavished on Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano, Rodelinda, Orlando, Ariodante and Alcina (all of which Glover has conducted), and there are similar exaltations of Saul, Messiah, Samson, Semele, Hercules, Belshazzar, Solomon, Theodora and Jephtha. In other words, almost all works generally accepted as Handel’s greatest masterpieces are given their approximate due.

Nevertheless, the author commits sins of commission and omission. Glover’s perfunctory dispatching of Flavio, Admeto, Atalanta and even Serse (all excellent works) suggests an uneven grasp of Handel’s output. The section on Partenope is typical of errant judgments: Rosmira’s hunting aria ‘Io seguo sol fiero’ is described as ‘dramatically somewhat irrelevant’ (not true), and the author is misguided when she writes that the arias composed for Arsace are ‘unremarkable … The awful truth, which Handel understood all too well, was that [the castrato] Bernacchi was no good.’ Another misperception is that ‘Per le porte del tormento’ (Sosarme) is ‘one of Handel’s most exquisite duets of misfortune and longing’; in fact, it is an exquisite duet of blissful reunion and hope (something that the words and music convey clearly). There are too many flimsy assertions. The final two operas, Imeneo and Deidamia, are dismissed unfairly in short shrift; much more attention is accorded to the patchier Floridante and Siroe. Something closer to consistent equity in the treatment of all the operas was needed.

Lopsided imbalance also afflicts the appraisal of oratorios: Deborah and Joseph and his Brethren are condemned cursorily with barely any credible engagement (Glover seems content to recycle Winton Dean’s negative verdicts on both); there is barely any insight on Susanna. Whilst it is laudably brave to offer critical judgments, the author’s commentaries are reliant on name-checking a few famous arias along with generalisations about Handel’s genius for dramatic characterisation: she seldom says exactly how or why. There is, for example, little explanation of what makes Samson an unparalleled dramatic oratorio.
Secular English-language works receive deserved praise. Glover writes insightfully on Acis and Galatea, but brief summaries of a few nice airs and choruses in Alexander’s Feast and L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato are superficial, and lack any proper consideration of why Handel’s imaginative responses to the literary subtleties of Dryden and Milton are special (the author claims that ‘Handel had certainly dropped a level of creative energy’ in 1736, yet Alexander’s Feast and Atalanta both show the composer at the top of his game). The nature of the allegorical dispute and conciliation between quarrelling opponents in L’Allegro is neglected – curiously, the same crucial element was lamentably obfuscated in Mark Morris’s choreographed production that Glover has conducted frequently. The author states wrongly that L’Allegro was first performed in 1740 as a double-bill with Acis and Galatea; perhaps it has been confused with some contemporary performances of the Song for St Cecilia’s Day.
Unreliability and imbalance also extend to the treatment of Handel’s orchestral music: it is misguided to spend so many pages discussing the Music for the Royal Fireworks (hardly his most inventive and sophisticated orchestral work) and yet the miraculous Twelve Grand Concertos (Op. 6) are only referred to in passing. None of the organ concertos are singled out for assessment, and the Op. 3 concertos are never mentioned. If the reader wishes to learn what makes Handel’s chamber sonatas or keyboard music special, they will not find guidance here.

The focus of the book on Handel’s years in London apparently prohibits anything more than a perfunctory summary of his youthful grand tour around Italy, dispatched by the author in only two and a half pages that are packed with errors. It is stated wrongly that Handel’s first oratorio was La Resurrezione (it was Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno), and Glover asserts that whilst in Italy ‘Handel made contact with influential musicians, including … Stradella’ (who was stabbed to death on a Genoese street three years before Handel was born). Any consideration of ‘The Making of a Genius’ (the book’s subtitle) ought to give proper attention to how the composer’s abilities were forged in his manifold works for Rome, Florence, Naples and Venice (Agrippina merits as much attention as any of the most celebrated London masterpieces). Likewise, it is surprising that there is no mention anywhere in the book about Handel’s lifelong method of borrowing ideas from other composers, and no credible engagement with his compositional processes.

Handel in London is the fruition of a sincere love for the composer’s music and a close personal engagement with some of it. Its vexing deficiencies and unevenness are a pertinent reminder of the impossible task that any single author has in condensing such a vast, rich and fascinating subject into a single book that aims to be simultaneously entertaining, fluent, reliable, academically informed and accessible. In those terms, Glover comes almost as close as anyone else ever has.

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Royal Acrimony and the Water Music

Graham Cummings

It is likely that the three orchestral suites that comprise Handel’s Water Music (HWV 348-350) were less the products of royal patronage and more those of royal acrimony and competition.

The Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover became heir to the British throne in June 1714, on the death of his mother, the Dowager Electress Sophia, who was the grand-daughter of James I, and Queen-designate by an Act of Parliament. [1]

When the 54-year-old Elector landed at Greenwich on 18 September 1714, he was accompanied by his son and heir, Prince Georg August, whose relationship with his father had been a troubled and, at times, estranged one for many years. [2]

The new monarch, George I, was very much a ‘Soldier King’ who had served with distinction as a Field-Marshall under Marlborough. Politically, he was more interested in his state of Hanover and in the balance of power in Northern Europe, than in the machinations of the various Whig factions and the ousted Tories. He appears to have been a genuinely shy man who hated formal court gatherings, ceremony or splendid public occasions where he was the centre of attention. He liked to dine in private, and frequently to delegate the court ‘drawing rooms’ to his son and daughter-in- law, Prince George Augustus and Princess Caroline, the Prince and Princess of Wales. [3] Concerning the King’s principal interests, one of his Hanoverian ministers commented that there were two – horses and women! However, the King also inherited his parents’ enthusiasm for Italian opera.

His reserved manner and general gravity were observed, if not welcomed, by his English courtiers. That George I was loath to appear in public began to worry his advisers; his ministers urged the King to make himself more visible to his people. The King’s regular attendance at the Italian opera in the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket during the three opera seasons 1714-17, together with the royal water parties on the river Thames in the three summers of 1715-17, could be viewed as his response to this criticism.

Significantly, the difficult relationship between the King and son played a prominent part in the attempt to gain public approval for the new monarch. This relationship was at its best an uneasy one, and at its worst strongly acrimonious. It became highly competitive by the summer of 1715, with open conflict following by late 1717.4 Although George I did not care for royal or state ceremony, the same could not be said of his son, who appeared to revel in public occasions. [5]

This family competition could be observed in the attendance of the two royal figures at the King’s Theatre, where their patronage was important to the success of this expensive musical venture. The King normally attended at least half of the performances in each [of the three] London opera seasons 1714-17, and was particularly supportive of Handel’s operas. [6] Although the Prince endeavoured to match his father’s level of support in the 1714-15 season, in the remaining two he only appeared once per season. However, Prince George’s attempts to win public favour seem to have been more successful on the water than in the opera house, except on one famous occasion. [7]

Royal Water Parties

To most Londoners, that is, those outside court and government circles, George I and the Hanoverian royal family were distant, almost unknown quantities. Initially, there was little popular support for the German King. Therefore the six water parties during July and August 1715 could be viewed as propaganda exercises aimed at presenting the royal family as symbols of stability and prosperity that could be seen by many, however far this might have been from the truth. [8] Nevertheless, that the publicity for the family event on 13 August had a certain success can be gauged from the following report in the newspaper, The Flying Post or The Post Master, (13-16 August 1715):
On Saturday Evening [13 August], His Majesty, with their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess [of Wales], and several of the Nobility in their Barges, went from White-Hall as far as Limehouse, to take the Air. They were diverted with a Consort of Musick on board, which was excellently perform’d by the best Masters and Instruments. The River was crowded with Boats, and the Banks with Spectators, so that both from the River and the Shores, there were repeated HUZZAES, and loud Acclamations, Long live K. George, the Prince, the Princess, and all their Royal Issue, &c.
As they return’d, [an] abundance of Ships were illuminated with Lanthorns in their Rigging, and the Houses on both Sides of the River with Candles. The Musick continu’d playing, and Guns were fired from the Ships and Wharfs ‘till His Majesty landed. [9]

The number of excursions on the Thames taken by the King and his son during this period assumed a competitive element. Of the ten such water parties during the summers of 1715 and 1716, seven were undertaken by the Prince and Princess of Wales without the King, one by the King without his son and daughter-in-law, and only three that followed the intended purpose of presenting a united royal family. At three of them (14 July 1715; 13 August 1715; 6 June 1716) the performance of music was reported, but there are no details of the composer in the newspaper descriptions. If these competitive aquatic excursions were all about ‘public display’, then through them the Prince was making a more determined effort that the King to win public acceptance and approval.
After George I’s return to London in January 1717 from a six-month visit to Hanover, the relationship between father and son worsened. ‘The interference of the Prince of Wales in politics, independent of his father and in part in open opposition to him’ [had] further aggravated an already difficult situation. [10]

As the summer of 1717 approached, the King’s relations with his son rapidly deteriorated. ‘Rival public display [became] the order of the day, and this motive accounts for the extravagance of the water-party’ that the King took in July 1717. [11]

Even at this late stage, the Prince anticipated the King’s design by undertaking another water party himself on 19 June 1717 without his father, even though he must have been aware of the arrangements for the King’s party on 17 July. This last event was deliberately intended to surpass in magnificence and splendour any previous such royal excursions. Most significantly, the Prince and Princess of Wales were not invited. This was to be a festivity only for the King’s supporters, including his half-sister, Madame Sophia von Kielmansegge, and a coterie of court beauties.

The newspaper, The Daily Corant (19 July 1717), provided a clear description:
On Wednesday Evening [17 July] at about 8, the King took Water at Whitehall in an open Barge, wherein were also the Dutchess of Bolton, the Dutchess of Newcastle, the Countess of Godolphin, Madame Kilmanseck and the Earl of Orkney.

And went up the River towards Chelsea. Many other Barges with Persons of Quality attended, and so great a Number of Boats, that the whole River in a manner was cover’d; a City Company’s Barge was employ’d for the Musick, wherein were 50 Instruments of all sorts, who play’d all the Way from Lambeth (while the Barges drove with the Tide without rowing, as far as Chelsea) the finest Symphonies, compos’d express for this Occasion, by Mr. Hendel; which his Majesty liked so well, that he caus’d it to be plaid over three times in going and returning.

At Eleven [at night] his Majesty went a-shoar at Chelsea, where a Supper was prepar’d, and then there was another very fine Consort of Musick, which lasted till 2 [am]; after which, his Majesty came again into his Barge, and return’d the same Way, the Musick continuing to play till he landed. [12]

However, the King did not fund the cost of this extravagant party or commission the music. Both the payment for the orchestra (some £150) and its transport were provided as a compliment to the King by one of his Hanoverian ministers resident in London since 1714, Baron Johann Adolf Kielmansegg. The Baron was an amateur musician with a great interest in opera who had known Handel for more than seven years at the time of the commission of the Water Music, having first met the young composer in Venice in 1709-10. The Baron was close to the King since he was married to the King’s half-sister, and also occupied the important court post of ‘Master of the Horse to his Majesty’.

This famous event, which occasioned the first performances of Handel’s Water Music suites, should be viewed as the high point of a programme of social display during the summer of 1717. However, it was also nothing less than a propaganda exercise mounted by George I in competition with his son for public approbation. Rather than being symbols of the royal family’s unity, the water parties exposed the acrimonious divisions between the King and his son for all who could understand their significance.

Notes
[ 1] By the Act of Settlement (1701) the crown of Britain was settled on Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her descendants in the event of the death of Princess Anne and her descendants. This was promoted by King William III to ensure that Anne’s successor was a Protestant, and not her Catholic half-brother James Francis Edward Stuart, the ‘Old Pretender’.
[2] Smith, H. (2009). King George I. The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia (eds. A. Landgraf & D. Vickers), 254. Cambridge.
[3] Hatton, R. (1978). George I: Elector and King, 132-133. London.
[4] Ibid., 192-210.
[5] Smith, H. (2006). Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714-1760, 100. Cambridge.
[6] Burrows, D. (1994). Handel, 75. Oxford.
[7] Burrows, D. & Hume, R.D. (1991). George I, the Haymarket Opera Company and Handel’s Water Music. Early Music, XIX(3), August, 333-335.
[8] The dates and details of the royal water parties during the summers of 1715, 1716 and 1717 are taken from Burrows & Hume, op.cit., 341, table 2.
[9] Burrows, D., Coffey, H., Greenacombe, J. & Hicks, A. (eds.) (2013). George Frideric Handel: Collected Documents, Vol..1, 323. Cambridge.
[10] Hatton, op.cit., 197.
[11] Burrows, Handel, 78.
[12] Handel: Collected Documents, Vol.1, 379-380.

Graham Cummings is Visiting Professor in Historical Musicology at the University of Huddersfield.

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On Directing Handel’s Operas

James Conway

Over the last 27 years I have had the good fortune to programme and direct a dozen Handel operas, some of them several times; and because they have toured and been invited to festivals, I have been lucky enough to see them played before extremely diverse audiences. I recall the trepidation and delight I felt before the Irish premiere of Tamerlano in Tralee, County Kerry (anticipated by a scary reviewer in one of the august journals of the day in the words ‘the plain people of Ireland do not want da capo arias’), as clearly as the dismay I felt when asked to explain my production of Rodelinda to a small group of journalists (presumably to sweeten their reviews) and donors not before or after but at the interval of a performance in the most high-brow receiving house in the USA.

I take pleasure in the form – and play with form – of Handel’s operas. I esteem the characterisation, the profound understanding of all kinds of love, the story-telling (pretty remarkable in the face of the requirements of the celebrities with whom he worked), and the sheer mastery of vocal and instrumental writing within a beautifully confined palette. Some work better than others on stage, but none that I have studied needed rescuing – unless perhaps from an accretion of performance tradition, or of expectation and affectation on the part of some of those ready to buy tickets.

What Handel’s genius deserves is creative, thoughtful, open-hearted attention. Just as the best performers are those who are generous enough to bring themselves to the stage, and to meet their characters in rehearsal, so the most rewarded audience members are those who leave preconceptions and received opinion at the door, and bring their own feelings, thoughts, sharpened sensations and goodwill to their seats. One of the achievements of which I am most proud – not mine alone, of course – was the Handelfest English Touring Opera toured in 2006, with 5 different Handel operas performed on 5 successive nights in several regional cities, together with recitals and talks in the daytime. What I remember of that, now, are the excitement in the foyers, the comments on the streets in the day-time, the letters and emails in the years that followed. I remember the people telling me that Tolomeo had spoken to them of the loneliness and beauty of the homeless, that Teseo has surprised them with its sheer energy and brilliance, that Ariodante had pushed them to consider the limits of goodness, that Flavio had seemed like Romeo and Juliet with melody.

In those weeks after the London openings it seemed there were no gate-keepers, no acknowledged experts. There were many people who cared, and there were some right barneys at pre-performance talks. A few people did talk about vibrato as if they knew what it meant, but generally that sort of dullness found its way to the cellar, and quieter voices said how the work made them feel, describing what happened when they listened attentively to a siciliano, or even watched a sequence of gestures that deepened their appreciation of character and fate, just as music does.

Just as the best singer, player or audience member has to be generous enough to bring their own, particular, generous attention to a performance, so directors and conductors have to bring their particular, personal, generous attention to a production. Conductors are much in fashion as auteurs, though I dare say few in the audience know what the conductor actually does in the performance, unless they are observed feverishly playing the harpsichord. They do a lot, if they are good, and none of what they bring comes to them in nocturnal communion with the composer (though some have been turned into such celebrities that their heads may have been thus turned). It all comes from hard work and close attention.

Directors, on the other hand, are unfashionable: easy targets for snipers. To be any good they have to prepare for months or even years with close attention and humility; they have to cull more ideas than they develop, and to embed those that are developed so deeply in performance and design that they seem to be the ideas of the performers and the audience members. I guess there are some who are celebrities but not very good, just as there are celebrated-but-not-very-good academics, journalists, performers. But I don’t recognise the image of the bad child, rather like Ravel’s ‘L’Enfant’, which seems to be the regular target of metropolitan journalists and gate-keepers.

I don’t reckon that choosing a period in which to set a production is very interesting. Sometimes it is essential (in a political opera with an identified time lapse like Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, for example); sometimes it is helpful, if it helps to illuminate the meaning of a siege, say, or a religious conflict; and sometimes it offers clarity in terms of defining status, obligations, or even a way of moving on stage. But it is not the primary task of a director as I understand it. Maybe I am old-fashioned: I think directors create design with designers, interpret and clarify text and music, agree motivation, create movement with performers that sets out meaning in special relationships, use theatrical devices like lighting to heighten meaning, and try to guide the eyes of the audience in a way that matches or strategically (and temporarily) opposes the music and text.

Contrary to what people seem to think, each gesture of hand or arm or face, each position on stage is (or should be) scrutinised in rehearsal; it is likely that it is the result of layer on layer of practice. What appears simplest has probably had more distracting gesture excised than you can imagine. I recall some gestures in particular (it might not be a good sign that they stand out) that were so counter-intuitive they took what seemed ages to make – a slow fall, for example, the meeting of two wrists, a controlled gaze in dialogue; then, when they ‘worked’, it was a long labour to make sure they kept their proper duration in relation to the music, yet did not atrophy. I guess that is why most ‘semi-staged’ Handel opera performance is so repellent to me. It’s just lazy, and the results are generally silly, full of stock gesture and village-idiot facial expression, with the occasional hand-holding or kiss to seal the deal of banality the conductor has made with the audience. (In fairness, they are not 100 miles away from a good deal of jet-age celebrity performance on our finest stages). Naturally, ‘semi-staged’ performances are generally the best reviewed in today’s journals, in which directors are so loathed, but one hopes that will pass. Maybe then we can have excellent concert performances again, as well as well-staged ones.

Because I understand Handel’s operas as dramas of character refined by fate, and because the characters develop in distilled recitative and formal arias, I have always favoured stark, poetic settings and clear, extremely detailed gesture. I guess I should be happy if a favourable critique says that it is not ‘inappropriate’ – even though I don’t understand the use of ‘appropriateness’ in the consideration of art of any kind. It has become such a dull word: something for people who are looking to have their expectations met in artistic encounters. Surprise, delight, enrapture, scald, scour – these are the kinds of verbs I like to think of when I go to the theatre, and when I work on an opera production.

Forget reviews: why should you care? Forget authority: who has it, in this context? Nobody knows what an opera production is supposed to be like, and although there is a rickety industry built out of it, nobody knows what is ‘authentic’. If you give close attention, and if the director, conductor and performers have given close attention, something wonderful might happen. I’d say a fair bit of my emotional education, such as it is, has come from the practical study of Handel’s operas – as well as much wanton pleasure. I am doing my best to see that as many people as possible around the country have those chances!

James Conway is Artistic Director of English Touring Opera.

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A Handel Anecdote

Graham Pont

‘During the latter part of Handel’s life, when a boy, I used to perform on the German flute in London, at his oratorios. About the year 1753, in the Lent season, a minor canon, from the cathedral of Gloucester, offered his service to Mr Handel to sing. His offer was accepted, and he was employed in the choruses. Not satisfied with this department, he requested leave to sing a solo air, that his voice might appear to more advantage. This request was also granted; but he executed his solo so little to the satisfaction of the audience, that he was, to his great mortification. violently hissed. When the performance was over, by way of consolation, Handel made him the following speech: “I am sorry, very sorry for you indeed, my dear sir! but go you back to your church in de country! God will forgive you for your bad singing; dese wicked people in London dey will not forgive you.”’

This anecdote comes from The History and Antiquities of Doncaster and its Vicinity, with Anecdotes of Eminent Men (1) which was published by the author, Edward Miller, at Doncaster in 1804. Miller was overlooked by O.E. Deutsch in Handel: a Documentary Biography (London, 1955) but has an interesting biography in Wikipedia. Of working-class origins, he took up the study of music with Dr Charles Burney and became the organist of St George’s Minster in Doncaster, a post he held for fifty years. In 1771 he published The Institutes of Music, or Easy Instructions for the Harpsichord which Wikipedia claims went through sixteen editions (2). In 1786 he was awarded a Doctorate in Music by Cambridge University. In 1787 Miller published his Treatise of Thorough Bass and Composition and in 1801 The Psalms of Watts and Wesley. One of his pupils was the blind organist Frances Linley (c.1770-1800).

Notes
(1) I thank Dr Jennifer Nevile for supplying photocopies from The History and Antiquities of Doncaster and for drawing my attention to Miller’s recollections of the Staniforth brother and sister.
(2) The figure of sixteen editions is not confirmed by COPAC or WORLDCAT.