BOOKS.
HANDEL.*
WERE it not for the incontrovertible testimony afforded by the great Festival which ended yesterday, one might almost be led to suppose that the popularity of Handel was slightly on the wane. Apart from the increased familiarity of the general public with the works of other composers, and the competition con- sequently exerted by Bach and Beethoven and Mendelssohn- apart, also, from the fact that the robust directness of Handel is hardly in keeping with a generation which appreciates the quality of subtle suggestiveness more than anything else— our native composers have, in their more recent essays, been obviously swayed by the influence of the modern French school; and between, say, La Vierge of Massenet, and any of Handel's. great oratorios, there is an unbridgeable chasm. It is hardly too much to say that no true Frenchman can appreciate Handel fully, so entirely does his music express a phase of feeling with which the typical Frenchman has no affinity Efforts. have been made to acclimatise Handel in Paris, but they have not achieved lasting success. When Lord Mount-Edgcumbe, the author of the well-known Musical Reminiscences, visited.
• (1.) The Works of Handel. Edinburgh Review, No. 337, January, 1887.--,- (2.1 George Frederick Sandal. By J. Cuthbert Hadden. London : W. H. Allen and Co. Paris in 1784, he heard the famous prima donna, Mara, sing at a concert spirituel in the old theatre of the Tuileries, "I know that my Redeemer liveth"—which, by-the-way, was announced in the bills as " Musique de Handel, paroles de Milton "—and he adds, briefly,—" The French had not the taste to like it." It is more or less the same with Shakespeare; and as for Bach, even so gifted and liberal-minded a musician as M. Saint-Saens pronounces that in his view the performance of his works is a chimera, and he imagines that it is only by virtue of their "inexhaustible patience" that English audiences are able to listen to "fugues and interminable airs" for five hours on end. Such concerts, he adds, would be lamentable failures in Paris ; but the English public "are -never bored,—or rather, accept boredom as a necessity." M. Saint-Saens' compassion is quite supererogatory. We are ready to admit that Bach's solos are occasionally a bit rococo, but his choruses, like those of Handel, set the deepest and noblest strings of the Saxon heart vibrating. Sacred music that shall adequately express the attitude of a race is seldom or never composed by one who does not belong to that race. If proof is needed of the disastrous effects of forcing one's genius into a groove for which it is not intended, we have not to look far afield. After writing a good many operas, one at least of which seems destined to achieve enduring popularity in spite of Wagner's savage disparagement, M. Gounod has latterly confined his energies exclusively to the composition of sacred works, recalling the similar case of Dore in another art. Two of these oratorios, works of imposing dimensions, have been produced at Birming- ham Festivals, and performed throughout the country by our choral societies. But when we make due allowance for the prestige of the composer, for the unequalled resources available for the execution of these works, and the impossibility of expecting an unbiassed opinion from the professional critics ; above all, when we deduct from The Redemption and _Mors et Vita all that Gounod has said himself to far greater purpose in his operas, how little remains that is not theatrical, tawdry, sensuous, or cacophonous ! For unmitigated ugliness, we know nothing comparable to the orchestral number entitled Tubes ad ultimum judicium, the hideous din of which goes far to pardon the profane jest of a well-known conductor, who remarked that if such music was played at the Resurrection, he would refuse to rise ! The fact remains, however, that for the time being the English public seem really to like this music. It is labelled oratorio, a safe way to their affections : the trumpets and harps and the grosse caisse—particularly the last-named instrument—are given plenty to do. Blatant sonority does duty for sublimity, and honeyed suavity for pathos. M. Gounod's example has proved contagious, and other writers have since far outstripped him in the freedom with which they have introduced the essentially operatic element into oratorio,—witness Mr. Cowen, who in his Ruth, performed for the first time in Worcester Cathedral, has given us a piece of ballet-music pure and simple. Viewing the matter from an msthetic and dramatic point of view, the introduction of a subsidiary episode of this nature is not to be condemned ; but, unluckily, Mr. Cowen's ballet was by far the best number in his oratorio. In this connection, the remarks of the Edinburgh Reviewer are worth quoting :—" Oratorio," he says, "alone gives the musician the utmost latitude in the choice of his subject and in the employment of his resources." True, but as he observes in another passage, "the vital charac- teristic of the perfected oratorio is that it is neither acted, nor is, indeed, in most cases by any possibility capable of being acted." The step between our modern unaoted dramatic oratorios and operas such as Mose in Egitto is imperceptible. We cannot help feeling that such merits as they possess would gain considerably if they were performed upon the stage,—in other words, that the devotional element which animates oratorios, properly so called, is non-existent in them. Logically considered, the present state of things points to a still farther advance in the emotionalising of sacred music. Ballet-music in Worcester Cathedral argues a want of lucidity somewhere. An organist in Italy or France will play waltz tunes—not melancholy English waltzes, but bright, capering times—between the verses of a hymn, and no one is any the wiser or the worse; but we are not likely ever to become so thoroughly Italianate or Gallicised. as to acquiesce in a practice so utterly alien to the spirit in which our church services are conducted. Either, then, our composers will take
the step alluded to above, or possibly, finding national senti- ment against them, will realise that they are on the wrong track. As a mere matter of personal opinion, we cannot help bitterly regretting the fact that for one person who has heard Brahma's Deutsches Requiem, at least twenty have heard Gounod's Redemption.
If, however, the admirers of Handel are disposed to appre- hend a serious decline in their hero's popularity, let them take consolation from the fact that in 1834, on the occasion of the Festival in Westminster Abbey, Lord Mount-Edgcumbe expressed his deliberate opinion that Handel had gone out of fashion, although he could not himself acquiesce in such a verdict. No one could say that at the present day, least of all during a week in which scores of thousands have been journeying to Sydenham to hear Handel's masterpieces per- formed on a scale and with a completeness unapproached in any other country. The utmost that could be urged is, as we pointed out at the outset, that English audiences, and, what is more significant, English provincial audiences, demand and appreciate works of a widely different character, whereas formerly they were content with the Handelian repertory alone.
Mr. Hadden's little book, the first of a series—not the first series of the sort—is prefaced by some remarks from the author of a quasi-apologetic nature. "The number of small books upon great subjects," he says, "has recently multiplied to an extraordinary extent, and there seems no reason why the lives of the leading tone-poets" [abominable word !] "should not form a section of the new departure." The above sentence is a fair specimen of Mr. Hadden's style, which is often bald and confused. He brings out, however, fairly enough some of the leading traits of Handel's character, notably his doggedness and independence, and that perpetuity of youth of which no amount of fatigue or disaster could rob him. Indeed, it has always struck us as a most astonishing thing that after the illness which prostrated him at the age of fifty-two, and which was undoubtedly of a paralytic nature, he should have produced his greatest masterpieces. We doubt if a parallel for this can be found in all the annals of litera- ture or art. A very satisfactory feature about Handel's career in England is the generous encouragement lent him by some of his aristocratic patrons, notably Lord Burlington and the Duke of Chandos, the latter of whom gave him for his Esther a sum which would be thought princely even in these days. Is there any member of the present English Peerage, we should like to know, who keeps a private orchestra? We know of a great ironmaster who does,—a sort of harmonious blacksmith on a higher level; but in the main, the calls of politics, business, and, above all, of society, leave our aristocracy and plutocracy no leisure to encourage art in this most valuable way.
Some of Mr. Hadden's statements require qualification. When he says that "Handel is still the greatest, as he is the favourite composer," he should have added, 'amongst the English,' who, as a whole, prefer oratorio to any other sort of music. And in declaring the hold that a composer has on the tastes and feelings of the great majority to be the test of his merits, he frames a canon that will exclude Beethoven from, and admit the composer of a successful music-hall song to, the ranks of meritorious writers. In conclusion, we could have wished that Mr. Hadden had expressed his indebtedness to certain authorities. There are several passages in which the coincidence of turns of expression and whole sentences with Dr. Parry (Studies of Great Composers) can hardly be ascribed. to mere chance.
The article on "The Works of Handel" which we have bracketed with Mr. Hadden's book, is of a very different character. Even where we differ from the views advanced, we cannot help admiring the vigour and ease with which they are expressed. Space will only admit of our dwelling on two or three points. Foremost among these is the charge of opportunism which the Edinburgh Reviewer brings against the great masters in art and literature. After declaring that the tyranny of circumstances compelled operatic composers of the first half of the eighteenth century to cast their thoughts in a shape which even a genius like Handel could not render immortal, he goes on :—" For this it would be unfair to blame the composer. The greatest works which the world has seen have not been dedicated to an unknown posterity, but have been produced to satisfy the daily needs of their age, and have, therefore, of necessity conformed to the tastes, and usually to the fashion and prejudices, of the period which gave them birth." This is
a large proposition, justification for which may be found in the other arts ; but it seems to us that it is just in the domain of music that the materials for its disproof are most abundantly to be met with.
The greatest masterpieces of Beethoven and Bach, the im- mortal Symphonies and the Mass in B minor, have achieved a reputation not only posthumous but progressive. Neither of these two great men can be said to come under the category of the majority of great creative geniuses as conceived by the Reviewer, "who were obliged to please their own age, and who might please posterity if they could." But the most notable exception of all to the Reviewer's rule is to be observed in the case of Schubert, who composed because he was impelled by the divine fire, without any prospect of hearing his works per- formed. His masterpiece, the great Symphony in C major, was never performed in his lifetime. Eleven years after his death, Mendelssohn produced it in 1839 at Leipzig. In 1844, Mendelssohn withdrew it from the programme of a Philhar- monic concert in London because of the utter inability of the band to comprehend it. It is now an annual event of the highest interest at the famous Crystal Palace Saturday concerts, where the audience find its length as " heavenly " as Schumann did in 1839, when he declared that all the instruments seemed to be possessed of human voices. Passing over the Reviewer's very spirited and successful vindication of Handel against the charge of plagiarism, we have, finally, to note the melancholy view that he takes of the transitoriness of works of genius :—" Literary immortality is an unsubstantial fiction devised by literary artists for their own especial consolation. It means, at the best, an existence prolonged through an infinitesimal fraction of that infinitesimal fraction of the world's history during which man has played his part upon it." At this rate, though it may be happier to achieve contemporary fame as did Handel, a posthu- mous reputation has its advantages. The later you begin to be appreciated, the later will be the decline of your popularity. "Let it be granted for the sake of argument, that Homer is gifted with eternal youth; but let none expect a like destiny for even the greatest amongst musicians. Physical decay slowly despoils us of the master- pieces of painting. Artistic evolution will even more surely despoil us of the masterpieces ofj music." This may be, but the word "Englishman" will cease to convey some of the most honourable and characteristic attributes with which it has been associated when Handel is ousted from the affections of our countrymen.
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