MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM NOTES
Within the decade that followed Handel’s
composition of Messiah in 1741, nearly a dozen different casts and
configurations of vocal soloists were employed by the composer during
those first 10 years of what would become a never-ending history of
performances worldwide. In each case, and for the remaining years of
Handel’s life, he made revisions to his score that made the best
use of the particular talents of his solo singers.
While it is certainly true that Handel’s arrangements and
transcriptions of arias that were employed for the work’s
premiere in Dublin (1742) were due to the inadequacy of some of the
singers at his disposal there, all subsequent revisions sought to show
both the artists and the work in their best light. Customizing a
musical work for the sake of the performers was not uncommon. In fact,
it was not unheard of for an operatic vocalist (of necessarily
considerable reputation) to carry along his or her favorite arias from
city to city, insisting that they be incorporated into otherwise intact
and singularly composed musical works for the stage.
This indulgence was not as unreasonable as one might first assume.
The operatic style during Handel’s day has since become
known as opera seria, a term that literally means “serious”
opera and that was devised to mark the differences between those works
and opera buffa, comic operas that were the outgrowth of commedia
dell’arte. There were strict conventions within opera seria,
including the utilization of the da capo, or A-B-A, format for arias.
Secco recitatives, accompanied only by continuo (harpsichord and
violon-cello), were used to reveal plot details and to introduce the
arias (or, rarely, duets) that would illuminate the emotions of
whichever character would sing them. But there were also non-musical
conventions of equally practical importance. In most cases the singer
would exit at the end of an aria; hence the term “exit
aria.” Even Hanna-Barbera’s cartoon character Snagglepuss
often utilized this strategy: “Exit, stage left!” Of
course, the primary reason for this theatrical device was to solicit
applause from the audience for the singer (although some of the
approval might just as well have been intended for the composer). And
each principal singer would fully expect to sing a number of arias in a
variety of moods; lamentation, revenge, defiance, melancholy, anger, or
heroic virtue were common sentiments. The texts of the arias were
rarely longer than four or eight lines, and rather generic, so it was
more or less reasonable that a singer could substitute a favorite aria
from another work so long as the general emotion was appropriate.
Other traditions further supported this kind of expected artistic
license. In most cases, final arias within any opera of the period were
always awarded to the most important singer, not the most important
character. This sort of deference to the talent made a great deal of
sense as, during Handel’s day, the singers themselves were as
much of an attraction to the audience, if not more so, as might have
been the composers and their works. So, in Handel’s
implementations of various casts of Messiah soloists, he made
redistributions of the workload to be fair or, in some cases, to be
flattering to the members of any particular roster. When
surveying all of the versions of Messiah, it is very interesting to
look first at the assignment of the final aria, “If God be for
us.” Although originally composed for soprano, even for the
premiere he altered the key so that it could be sung by the contralto,
Susanna Cibber, a singing actress that Handel found to be tremendously
compelling.
Over the next few years he continued to assign that
“status” aria to her until 1749, the year before the first
performance of Messiah in London’s Foundling Hospital. In this
case it was awarded to a treble, or boy soprano, perhaps as a prescient
indication of discussions that were underway to bring the oratorio into
that venue. And the following year, in 1750, it was again transposed
down a few keys so that it could be sung by the most recently arrived
operatic star, the great Italian castrato Gaetano Guadagni (1728-1792).
Only for the last performance of Messiah conducted by Handel in 1754
was the final aria heard as it was first composed, for soprano.
London’s Foundling Hospital, a home “for the
maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young
children,” was established in 1739 in the Bloomsbury area. Its
founder, Thomas Coram (1668-1751), was a sea captain and had spent a
number of his early years in the American colonies. Following a career
as a successful London merchant, he turned his attention to
philanthropy and, in particular, rescuing homeless, abandoned children.
At that time, charity and philanthropy had become not only critically
essential to the survival of Londoners as a whole, but had also gained
an oddly self-serving functionality as part of the fantastic expansion
of London and the greater English empire.
The rate of growth of London during the 18th century was exponential.
About three-fourths of Londoners had been born elsewhere. Its culture
was as diverse as the most modern 21st-century city. London offered
opportunities and wealth to the industrious and ambitious, as well as a
thriving underworld, anonymity, and meager subsistence to criminals and
the unskilled. Its hierarchical systems of social status were
engrained, accepted, and treasured, despite the fact that the 18th
century offered all Londoners the chance to upgrade their places and
stations within that cosmopolis. Ironically, though, even those who
were able to buy into higher levels of society through their successes
as merchants were as eager as the blue-blooded aristocracy to maintain
whatever distinctions of social status could be maintained. The wealthy
typically lived in five-story townhouses while the lower classes (those
not housed as servants in the top floors of the elite’s homes)
lived in terribly unhealthy and cramped hovels. During most of the
1700s, Londoners were subjected to dreadful pollution, reprehensibly
unsanitary conditions, and mostly unbridled crime. Many of those
poor conditions were the result of the preponderance of manufacturing
industries within London’s commercial organism.
About a third of London’s population was employed by
manufacturing ventures, and the resulting pollution had turned the
Thames River into, literally, a sewer. Still, this flourishing business
culture helped increase overseas trade at least threefold during the
century, and the spoils were global political power and domestic
wealth. But the victims of all this were the children. Many lived
only a few short years, and still others were abandoned to live on
their own in the filth, smoke, and mire of London’s poor
quarters. In the face of such undeniable misery, the wealthy
could hardly turn a blind eye. During an era of destitution, depravity,
and victimization, the beliefs of the Latitudinarian branch of the
Church of England were timely assertions that benevolent and charitable
deeds, rather than (or at least in addition to) the formalities of
church worship, were essential to the quality of the moral state of the
individual. Only by engaging in acts of compassion and by the
establishment of a supporting relationship with the less fortunate
could their plights, their suffering, and the terrible waste of human
life be acceptably mitigated and tolerated.
Thus, charity became fashionable. Merchants supported charities that in
turn supported the working class. They needed healthy workers in great
numbers to keep their machines well-oiled and their industries
thriving. Consumers were needed on the other side of the coin, so the
maintenance of the lower classes was in the best interest of those
entrepreneurs. The kingdom itself needed to be defended at sea and
abroad, so healthy battalions had to be provided.
By supporting the less fortunate and encouraging their strength and
independence—to a degree—those who had newly acquired
wealth could gain prestige and propriety while nurturing their economic
self-interests. To have a “bleeding heart” was especially
in vogue among London’s upper-class women. Their ever-increasing
opportunities to fashion socially relevant activities led quite
naturally to their involvement in charities, which in turn substantiated
their refinement, respectability, and moral rank. William Hogarth
(1697-1764), the great English painter, satirist, and cartoonist,
called this transformative time “a golden age of English
philanthropy” and one of the greatest results of it was the
Foundling Hospital.
In 18th-century London, the term “hospital” was applied to
institutions for the physically ill as well as the mentally ill, and to
organizations that, through hospitality, supported particular factions
of London’s population including sailors, refugees, penitent
prostitutes, and destitute children. To a great degree, the efforts of
Coram, assisted by Hogarth and Handel, firmly established the Foundling
Hospital as one of England’s most long-lived and admirable
benevolent institutions. Even before the buildings were
completed—a process that took 10 years from 1742 to
1752—children were first admitted to temporary housing in 1741.
No questions were asked, but overcrowding quickly led to the
establishment of rules for acceptance. The requirement that children be
aged no more than two months was relaxed by the House of Commons in
1756 so that children up to 12 months would be accepted. During the
next few years, more than 15,000 infants were left at its doors.
Even within the Hospital, though, more than two-thirds of them would
not survive long enough to be apprenticed during their teenage years.
In the same year that the Foundling Hospital accepted its first
charges, Handel composed Messiah. Charles Jennens, the librettist for
Messiah, had probably made the suggestion to Handel that the premiere
of the work might take place in Dublin as a charity event. In
fact, on March 27, 1742, Faulkner’s Dublin Journal published an
announcement that:
“For Relief of the Prisoners in the several Gaols, and for the
Support of Mercer’s Hospital in Stephen’s Street, and of the
Charitable Infirmary on the Inns Quay, on Monday the 12th
of April, will be performed at the Musick Hall in Fishamble
Street, Mr. Handel’s new Grand Oratorio, call’d the Messiah…”
The previous decade or so had been quite
unpleasant for Handel. He had begun to suffer financial
difficulties, and by the early 1730s, his professional life was simply
unraveling. He was nearly bankrupt and had fallen very much out of the
critical favor of the aristocratic public for which he had composed his
Italian operas. They were expensive to produce and not accessible
enough for his audience. But, in fact, Handel himself was the object of
what must have felt like brutal betrayal by his patrons, his audience,
and even his musicians. For the first half of his life, Handel had led
a charmed existence. He seems to have waltzed into one happy situation
after another, in which he enjoyed the patronage of royalty, the
aristocracy, and the culture-seeking population at large.
He was unexaggeratedly a national hero, despite his non-domestic
origins. He had lived in extravagant estates, kept the most celebrated
artists, writers, and musicians in his closest circles, and
profited—although, not necessarily financially—from the
tremen- dous favor that was bestowed upon him by an entire empire. His
unprecedented success was so irreproachable that he was, without a
doubt, completely unprepared for what amounted to a staggering fall
from grace. But what emerged in 1741-42 was a work that would transcend
the boundaries of musical forms, subject matter, social and cultural
expectations, and, eventually, the bitterness of his rivals. And it
would restore “the great Mr. Handel” to the revered status
that he had enjoyed decades before.
The first performance of Messiah took place on April 13, 1742, in
Dublin’s new music hall on Fishamble Street, and was a tre-
mendous success. The review that appeared in Faulkner’s Dublin
Journal proclaimed: “Words are wanting to express the exquisite
Delight it afforded to the admiring crowded Audience. The Sublime, the
Grand, and the Tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestick and
moving Words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished Heart and
Ear.” Performances in subsequent years took place in
London, but those were met with less enthusiastic receptions. Messiah
had blurred the distinctions between opera, oratorio, passion, and
cantata, and
perhaps some Londoners found this to be a fundamental fault. So it is
fascinating to note that when the function of Messiah was returned to
that of a work presented for the benefit of charities, and when the
venue was restored to an ecclesiastical structure rather than a
theater, the oratorio took hold of its permanent place in the hearts of
audiences, then in London and now throughout the world.
For at least one year before the first Foundling Hospital performance
of Messiah in 1750, Handel was involved with the charity, probably
drawn to it through his associations with Hogarth and the music
publisher John Walsh (1709-1766), who had been elected a governor in
1748. On May 4, 1749, Handel had made an offer, which was gratefully
accepted, to present a benefit concert of vocal and instrumental music
to help in the completion of the hospital’s chapel. The hospital
reciprocated with an invitation to Handel, which he declined, to become
one of its governors. On May 27, Handel directed a performance (in the
unfinished chapel) of excerpts from his Fireworks Music, Solomon, and
the newly composed Foundling Hospital Anthem, “Blessed are they
that considereth the poor and needy” (Handel’s last work of
English church music). The “Hallelujah” chorus from Messiah
was the final work, a premonition of what was in store for the
following year. Royalty were in attendance.
Nearly one year later, on May 1, 1750, Handel performed Messiah in the
(still not quite finished) chapel. That day can be seen as the most
significant day in Handel’s career. The benefit concert’s
success was extraordinary. More than 1,000 people crowded into the
space, and more were turned away. Massive public attention to the
event, coupled with unequivocal approbation for the oratorio, served
Handel well and generated new commitment on the part of the London
audience to uphold Handel and his oratorios as the great beacons of
English music that they are. He became a governor of the hospital;
since more than £1,000 had been raised by his performances, the
fee required of governors was waived. In subsequent years, the
Foundling Hospital continued to rely upon annual performances of
Messiah for significant income.
The most significant musical aspect of the 1750 Foundling Hospital
version of Messiah is the reworking of the aria, “But who may
abide.” Gaetano Guadagni had arrived in London at the age of 20
in 1748, as part of an Italian opera company. The music historian
Charles Burney (1726-1814) wrote about Guadagni:
“His voice was then a full and well toned counter-tenor; but
he was a wild and careless singer. However, the excellence of
his voice attracted the notice of Handel, who assigned him the
parts in his oratorios of the Messiah and Samson, which had
been originally composed for Mrs. Cibber…”
Handel composed a new middle section of the
aria, taking advantage of Guadagni’s bravura vocal technique as
well as his apparently considerable low notes. Two other arias were
also reworked for Guadagni: “Thou art gone up on high” and
“How beautiful are the feet.” Recent evidence seems to
indicate that the alto arrangement of “How beautiful are the
feet” was only an afterthought.
For the May 1, 1750, performance, Handel had six soloists (female
soprano, boy treble, female contralto, male castrato counter-tenor,
tenor, and bass). But two weeks later, on May 15, when the work was
offered for a second time especially to those who were turned away a
fortnight before, the soprano must have fallen ill. Emergency
reassignments were put in place, and the alto arrangement of “How
beautiful are the feet” was one of them. In all fairness,
however, it might have been that Handel was so pleased with
Guadagni’s singing that he took that opportunity to give the
singer another one of the oratorio’s “gem” arias.
Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus: To Stand or Not To Stand…
Perhaps the best-known and widely accepted
concert “tradition” is standing for the Hallelujah chorus.
Legend has it that King George II leapt to his feet when he heard it
during one of the work’s first performances in London. Because no
person could remain seated while the King stood, the entire audience
rose with him. Some credit this anecdote as the origin of the
“standing ovation.” But a closer look at the facts
reveals that there is no evidence that the King ever attended such a
performance. The first written account of the story appeared in 1780,
more than 35 years after the cited performance, and it was written by
someone who admits to not having witnessed the King’s presence
himself. However, the King was known to attend such events incognito.
So he, in fact, at least might have been there.
If he was in attendance, there is much speculation as to why he stood
at all. Theories range from the reverent to the simply unflattering: he
might have been stretching his legs, relieving his gout, leaving for
the bathroom, or suddenly awakened by the chorus’ forte entrance.
But the general opinion is that his own sense of obeisance compelled
him to stand upon hearing the majestic and undeniably enthralling music
of the Hallelujah chorus.
The custom is common in English-speaking countries, but essentially
unknown in all others. Many have objected, in more contemporary eras,
to the distastefully imperialistic implications of following the
King’s lead in this manner. After all, the general audience only
stood because they had to do so. But others are quick and well justi-
fied to point out that Handel’s Messiah is certainly the most
well-known and universally enjoyed major work in the Baroque oratorio
genre—if not among all “classical” music
works—and that standing as a group, in the name of tradition,
unites the audience with the performers for a few minutes in a most
energizing way.
No matter how convincingly some can argue that this
“tradition” is rooted in untrustworthy hearsay, you have
only to look at the performers when you stand at that wondrous,
thrilling moment: you will see their smiles and their spirits lifted
even higher, knowing that millions upon millions of people have stood
at that very same moment in music, and in virtually every corner of the
world. Even Haydn stood with the crowd at a performance in Westminster
Abbey. It is said that he wept and proclaimed of George Frideric
Handel, “He is the master of us all.”
A Simple Primer on Early Instruments…
Several decades ago, a movement began in the
classical music industry to perform music on the instruments that were
used during the composer’s lifetime. Unquestionably advanced by
the advent of CD recordings in the early 1980s, this marriage of
scholarship and style became known as “historically informed
performance practice.” But it encompasses more than just the
proper choice of instruments for the performance of music from the
Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras. Fine points of expression,
articulation, and even the way instruments are tuned play a large role
in what you are hearing tonight.
Probably for most of us it is the use of these beautiful and, in most
cases, truly antique and priceless instruments that brings the most
unique quality to these performances. Rather than cataloguing all the
well-founded and essential reasons to use period instruments for this
music, it is even more compelling to consider why the use of modern
instruments would cheat us of the experience a composer like Handel
meant to give to us. Instruments have evolved and grown over the
centuries, mostly because composers would present new challenges to
instrumentalists, and therefore to those who built their instruments.
When a composer like Bach or Beethoven would write the most difficult
passages that would tax the limits of an instrument’s
responsiveness, within a decade or so instrument builders found a way
to accommodate the challenges. In the Baroque period, musical phrases
were made up of strong and weak notes, falling on strong and weak beats
within a bar. When a violinist would move the bow in a downward stroke
across a string, the sound was stronger than when the bow would be
moved in an upward direction. But eventually the lengths of musical
phrases grew, and more notes were meant to be played in a connected
way, leading much further down the line to a phrase’s focal
point. Accordingly, the bows for stringed instruments were then made to
create the same amount of sound whether the bow was moving up or down.
And of course concert halls grew in size, so instruments were made to
play louder. In the 20th century, some composers required sounds that
acoustic instruments simply could not produce; hence the genre of
electronic music.
One of the most exciting sounds we hear from these “early
instruments,” however, is the inherent tension during the most
climactic moments in a musical work. If you haven’t already done
so, find a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony played by an
orchestra of period instruments, and listen to the most dissonant or
loud moments. You’ll be glad to hear the instruments being pushed
to their limits, and you just might find the ease and aplomb with which
modern instruments and their players perform the same passages to be
lack-luster by comparison.
Finally, a short note about antiques and reproductions…while it
is not uncommon to find violins and ’cellos that are more than
300 years old being played in orchestras like ours, very few surviving
antique wind instruments are still playable. Consequently, period wind
instruments are almost always copies of originals.
CITATION
"Mondavi Center Program
Notes" Anonymous. 2008. Mondavi Center Program. 04 Dec. 2008.
<http://www.mondaviarts.org/events/supplemental/08-09/probio_2008_Messiah.pdf> |
