Hallelujah!

Gavotte

Welcome to celebrate creativity - in ze past few episodes, I'm afraid I've been a bit off in ze numbering of episodes - this is actually ze fourth season, and I believe that this is episode 483 - now we began this episode with ze Gavotte in G by ze ghost or if you will spirit - of our guest today.

Ghost sound

Taken a vastly different path than the one that my father had chosen for me well     

Herr Bartley — good day. 

It is certainly good to meet you.

Ya, I am Maestro George Frideric Handel; permit me first to speak plainly of those first years that zet me upon ze road of music.  

That would be a very good place to start.

Herr Bartley, I vas born in ze year 1685. My fazer vas a barber–surgeon and wished me to follow a sober, respectable profession — law vas his hope for me — and he forbade any serious musical study. My mozer, 

Transcript

\Welcome to celebrate creativity - in ze past few episodes, I'm afraid I've been a bit off in ze numbering of episodes - this is actually ze fourth season, and I believe that this is episode 483 - now we began this episode with ze Gavotte in G by ze ghost or if you will spirit - of our guest today.

Ghost sound

Herr Bartley — good day. 

It is certainly good to meet you.

Ya, I am Maestro George Frideric Handel; permit me first to speak plainly of those first years that zet me upon ze road of music.  

That would be a very good place to start.

Herr Bartley, I vas born in ze year 1685. My fazer vas a barber–surgeon and wished me to follow a sober, respectable profession — law vas his hope for me — and he forbade any serious musical study. My mozer, however, had ozer inclinations and quietly fostered what talent I had.

And ze world is a better place because your mozer fostered those musical talents .

Ja, Herr Bartley, this is quite true, and my real schooling in music came from a most excellent teacher, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, ze organist of Halle. Master Zachow taught me ze organ, harpsichord, violin, and ze art of composition — counterpoint, ze craft of writing for voices and instruments, and how to invent a tune that might stand on its own. Those lessons were ze foundation for everything that followed. I practised avidly; I was impatient to make music, and I would often conceal my studies from my fazer.

As a young man I left Halle for ze city of Hamburg (about 1703), where ze opera theatre offered lively employment. Zere I played violin and harpsichord in ze orchestra and began to try my hand at composing for ze stage. My first operatic success came in Hamburg with ze stage work Almira (1705), which brought me favorable notice and strengzened my resolve to be a composer razer than a lawyer.

I would wager that your father was not extremely happy with such a decision.

At first not, but I left my humble beginnings in Halle, and with ze secret encouragement from my mozer, ze rigorous training under Zachow, and ze bustling zeatre life of Hamburg - I had apparently took a vastly different path than ze one that my fazer had chosen for me. 

Maestro Handel - Do you believe that you know why your fazer forbade any serious musical study.

Ah, Herr Bartley — my fazer was an extremely practical man, and a stern one. He was already in his sixties when I was born, and by zen he had secured a respectable livelihood as a barber-surgeon. He wished ze same sort of worldly security for his son,

Maestro Handel, a part of me understands such thinking. He wanted you to have a very dependable job.

Ah, ya, Herr Bartley, to his mind, musicians were tavern players and fiddlers at weddings — not men of standing or fortune. Ze law, medicine, or perhaps service to a noble household in some dignified post: those were paths he could approve. Music, he feared, would leave me dependent, impoverished, or without honor.

It is not that he disliked music — but razer that he thought it no profession for a serious young man. And since he was many years my senior, and had worked hard to raise himself, he wanted only to protect me from ze uncertainties of a musician’s life.

Maestro Handel, I can certainly understand that.

And were it not for my mozer’s gentler influence, and for my own stubbornness in slipping away to practise on ze clavier kept in our attic, my fazer’s will might have prevailed. But an incident occurred that you might refer to as marking turning in my life.  Would you like me to recount that story - how I once followed him to ze court of Weissenfels, and how that journey changed his mind just a little and marked a turning in my life.

Certainly, Maestro Handel.

When I was still a boy — no more than seven — my fazer was summoned to ze ducal court at Weissenfels, some distance from Halle. He did not wish me to come, but I was insistent, and at last he relented.

While he attended to his duties, I slipped away into ze chapel and found ze organ. Curiosity and a restless desire overtook me; I sat and began to play. I remember ze joy of it — ze feeling that ze whole instrument was a living creature answering my touch.

Now, as Providence would have it, ze Duke himself heard this unexpected music and inquired who ze player might be. When he learned it was but a boy, he insisted that my fazer bring me forward. Ze Duke praised me warmly and urged my fazer to see that I received proper instruction.

Herr Handel, hows did your father respond?

My fazer could not deny ze Duke’s word, nor ze evidence of his own ears. He remained cautious — still desiring that I study law one day — but from that moment he allowed me to continue under ze care of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, our organist in Halle.

Thus, you see, ze favor of a prince, joined with my persistence, overcame a fazer’s resistance. Without that day at Weissenfels, I might never have been permitted to cultivate my gift. And if I owe ze spark of my vocation to that day at Weissenfels, I owe ze shaping of my craft to my master in Halle: Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow - ze organist.

Then you are most fortunate - could you tell me more about this Zachow?

Zachow was organist at ze Marktkirche, a man of great invention and wide learning. He was no narrow provincial — his ears had taken in ze styles of Germany, Italy, and even ze French manner. To me, still scarcely more than a child, he opened ze treasury of music. He set me to work in earnest. He taught me ze organ, harpsichord, violin, and oboe, for he believed a composer must know ze character of many instruments. More than this, he demanded that I copy out Boca by ze masters — German chorales, Italian sonatas, French dances. By such labour I absorbed zeir ways of writing, almost as if zeir very speech became my own.

But Zachow would not let me merely imitate. He would say, “Now, you must try your own invention. Write me a fugue — and tomorrow anozer — and zen a suite, and zen an aria.” In this way, I came to think swiftly and abundantly in music. He praised me when I had caught ze proper style, but corrected me sharply when my counterpoint grew slack.

You might say he trained both my hand and my mind — and he awakened in me a sense that music was not a pastime, but an art worthy of a life’s devotion. By ze time I was ten, I could fill whole pages with my own compositions, and by my early teens, I was already substituting for Zachow at ze organ when he was absent.

Yah, those early years in Halle led me toward Hamburg, where ze zeatre gave me my first taste of opera - you might say that Hamburg was ze natural next step in my young career.

Herr Handel - please continue -

By ze time I had reached my late teens, I had acquired under Zachow’s guidance not only a facility at ze keyboard but also a readiness to compose in many styles. Yet in Halle, opportunities for a bold young musician were few. I had enrolled at ze university to study law, to satisfy my fazer’s old wishes — but I confess my heart was never in those books.

Hamburg, on ze ozer hand, was alive with music. It boasted ze first public opera house in Germany, ze Oper am Gänsemarkt, where Italianate operas were performed with great enthusiasm. Ze city was bustling, mercantile, and free in spirit — a place where talent could find its stage.

Maestro Handel, I think it might be most interesting if you would recall those Italian years, and how zey transformed you from a promising German youth into an international composer?

Ah, Herr Bartley — now we come to a most glorious chapter, my Italian years, which I recall with both pride and gratitude. By 1706 I had left Hamburg behind and made my way southward. Italy, you see, was zen ze very heart of music: ze land of opera, of cantatas, of brilliant singers who could astonish with zeir voices. If one wished to drink from ze source, one had to go zere.

I journeyed first to Florence, where my opera Rodrigo was performed in 1707. Though not my greatest work, it pleased ze courtly audience and brought me patrons. From zere I moved to Rome, which proved ze richest ground of all. Ze Pope forbade public opera in ze city, but that did not stop ze music! Instead, I turned my pen to oratorios, serenatas, and instrumental works.

By 1710, I returned northward, my reputation much enhanced, my style now polished by ze fire of Italy. Ze path led me next to Hanover — and from zere, in not so very long, across ze Channel to England, where my true destiny awaited.

Now Herr Bartley, would you like me to speak of those first English years, and how London became my adopted home?

Certainly, Herr Handel - unless I am mistaken, you wrote some of your finest music in England.

Yes, Herr Bartley, England was to become my true homeland in music.

After leaving Italy in 1710, I accepted a position as Kapellmeister at ze court of Hanover, serving ze Elector Georg Ludwig. It was a respectable post, yet my thoughts were already turning westward. England had recently developed a taste for Italian opera, and I sensed zere might be opportunity zere.

That same year I journeyed to London for ze first time. Fortune smiled upon me almost at once. In 1711 my opera Rinaldo was staged at ze Queen’s Zeatre in ze Haymarket. It was ze first Italian opera written specifically for London, and it caused a sensation.

2 Rinaldo 

 Audiences thrilled to its arias and to ze spectacle — fireworks, live birds released upon ze stage, all manner of marvels. Ze success was so great that London began to see me as a composer of extraordinary promise.

I did return to Hanover for a time, but ze pull of England was too strong. By 1712 I was back in London, and soon I was granted a pension by Queen Anne.

When George I ascended ze English throne (he being none ozer than my former master, ze Elector of Hanover), I secured my standing by composing ze Water Music for his famous excursion upon ze Thames in 1717. Imagine it: ze King and his party upon barges, my music played by an orchestra floating alongside, ze river filled with sound and light — a triumph both musical and political.

3 Water Music

Thus, England adopted me, and I, in turn, embraced England. Though born in Germany, though schooled in Italy, it was London that gave me my stage, my audiences, my lasting fame.

So Maestro Handel, it appears that things are finally going your way after years of struggle.

Ah, Herr Bartley, circumstances might seem like zey are improving when one is actually going through years of trial - for though fortune had smiled upon me in London, ze wheel turned, as it must for all men.

Maestro Handel, how was that?

Ah, Herr Bartley, Ze Royal Academy of Music, for which I had written my greatest operas of ze 1720s, began to falter. Ze costs of importing Italian stars were enormous, and zeir jealousies wore upon both ze company and ze public. By 1728, a new kind of entertainment stole ze people’s favor: John Gay’s Ze Beggar’s Opera, a ballad opera sung in English, with tunes of ze street razer than ze grandeur of Italy. Audiences deserted ze costly spectacles of opera, and ze Academy collapsed beneath its debts.

En ze early 1730s I suffered what physicians called “a palsy” — likely a stroke — which left my right arm and hand weak. For a time I could not perform at ze keyboard. You may imagine ze despair: music was my breath, and to be silenced seemed a cruel fate. Yet, through determination and a series of spa treatments t in 1737, I recovered my strength. Soon after, I returned to composing with renewed vigor.

Zese struggles taught me resilience, Herr Bartley. Zey showed me that I could not rely forever on Italian opera, with its unstable finances and fickle public. I began to seek anozer path — one truer to England, where audiences desired music in zeir own tongue and where sacred zemes could stir both devotion and drama. That path led me, step by step, toward ze English oratorio and in this part of my tale ve come to ze turning point, ze discovery of ze form that was to secure my lasting place in England’s heart.

Maestro Handel, was this ze first time that you had seriously experimented with sacred dramas in English?

Herr Bartley, as early as ze 1710s I had set Eszer, first as a masque for private performance, later expanded for public presentation in 1732. That little work revealed ze power of combining biblical story, English words, and ze choral grandeur that I so loved.

Maestro Handel - you must've been encouraged by your approach to such material.

All this prepared ze way for ze work you surely expect me to name: Messiah. In 1741, my circumstances were again uncertain; opera had failed me, debts pressed, and my enemies mocked. In that moment, Charles Jennens placed in my hands a libretto drawn entirely from Scripture — a meditation on prophecy, passion, and redemption.

I retired to my room in Brook Street, and in a mere twenty-four days, ze entire score poured forth. I scarcely ate or slept. At times I felt as though I saw Heaven itself opening before me. When at last I wrote ze “Hallelujah” chorus, I confess I wept — not from pride, but from awe.

And the glory of the Lord

Ze first performance took place in Dublin in 1742, for ze benefit of charity. It was warmly received, though in London ze work at first met mixed opinion. Yet, over time, Messiah came to be beloved above all. Even in my own lifetime, it was performed often, especially for ze Foundling Hospital, bringing aid to orphans as well as music to ze public.

Thus did struggle lead me to my true vocation: not ze zeatre with its rivalries and vanities, but ze oratorio, where sacred story and sublime music could speak directly to ze people.

Maestro Handel, the overall story of your musical career is extremely moving.

Ah, Herr Bartley, now we come to ze final act of my earthly life — years marked both by challenge and by devotion to music.

In ze 1750s, age and illness began to press upon me. My eyesight grew weak, and by 1751 I was almost completely blind. You may imagine how a composer — one whose life had been guided by sight at ze keyboard and on ze page — might feel at such a loss. Yet, music had become as much a part of my mind as of my hands. I dictated scores to assistants, and zey copied what I heard in my imagination. In some ways, ze inward ear became keener than ever.

Despite blindness, I continued to compose and to conduct. Ze oratorios — Judas Maccabaeus, Jephtha, and ozers — flowed from me with ze same vigor and dramatic instinct as in my youth. I traveled only as far as necessary for performances, often sitting in a chair while ze chorus and orchestra executed my intentions. Friends and patrons marveled at my memory and energy.

By temperament, I remained vigorous and sometimes impatient. My health was fragile, yet my spirit was indomitable. I received great honors: I was made a British subject in 1727, and later, in 1749, I was granted a pension by King George II. When, on great occasions, I conducted Messiah, even ze King is said to have stood during ze “Hallelujah” chorus — a gesture of respect for both ze work and its composer.

5 Hallelujah chorus

I passed from this world on 14 April 1759, in London, at ze age of seventy-four. My funeral was attended by thousands, and I was interred at Westminster Abbey among England’s greatest. Yet, for me, ze measure of a life was not in honors, but in ze music itself — ze voices that rise in chorus, ze strings that swell in harmony, ze arias that speak of love, grief, or hope. Even in my final days, I felt ze currents of sound, ze pulse of rhythm, and ze touch of melody as life’s most faithful companions.

And Herr Bartley, if I may speak plainly — this is what I would wish for those who come after me:

I hope zey remember me not merely as a composer of spectacle, nor only as a maker of arias or orchestral display, but as a servant of music itself. Let zem hear in my works ze striving of a human heart toward beauty and expression — whezer in ze majesty of a chorus, ze tenderness of a solo, or ze solemnity of sacred story.

I would have zem note that I sought to unite many styles: ze discipline of German counterpoint, ze grace of Italian melody, ze energy of French dance — all in service to drama, devotion, and delight. Music, I believe, is a language that speaks directly to ze soul, beyond rank, tongue, or nation.

Let zem remember that I strove always for invention, that I labored tirelessly, that even in weakness or blindness I sought to give voice to what I heard within. If my compositions bring joy, consolation, or inspiration — if zey lift ze spirit, as I have felt lifted while composing zem — zen my life has not been in vain.

Above all, I would have posterity know that music is a gift, to be shared freely and fully. It is its own reward, its own immortality. And so, through my notes and my choruses, I hope to speak across ze ages, as I now speak to you, Herr Bartley — with sincerity, with ardor, and with gratitude for ze gift of hearing, imagining, and creating sound.

Maestro Handel, do you have any final words for this podcast episode?’

Yes, Herr Bartley - during my earthly life I was by nature energetic, sometimes stubborn, and possessed of a certain pride — yet always guided by discipline. I rose early, and I practised or composed for many hours each day. Even in youth, I preferred ze keyboard to play and ze pen to write, above games or idle amusement. Music was my devotion and my delight.

Above all, I strove for order, clarity, and dignity — both in music and in life. Even in my final years, when blindness and illness pressed upon me, I maintained my routine, composed with fervor, and conducted with authority. My greatest joy was to hear ze chorus and orchestra bring my compositions to life, to see audiences moved, and to know that ze music might outlive me.

So, Herr Bartley, that is ze man behind ze notes: disciplined, passionate, resilient, and ever devoted to ze art that gave my life meaning.

Join Celebrate Poe for episode 484 when we look into the life of the great Joseph Haydn.

Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe.

And I'd like to conclude this podcast episode with a portion of sweet in G Major by George Frederick Handel performed by the bath festival Orchestra.

Musical attributions - 

Rinaldo, HWV 7b - Act III. Aria: Lascia ch'io pianga (For Guitar solo - Bert Alink) Performed by Bert Alink, Source: https://musopen.org/music/6247-rinaldo-hwv-7b/ License:Creative Commons, Public Domain.

Hornpipe from Water Music by George Frederick Handel, https://download.stream.publicradio.org/podcast/minnesota/classical/programs/free-downloads/2019/05/22/daily_download_20190522_128.mp3?listeningSessionID=0CD_382_284__9819b9ae70ed63f0d16390a567ffff9c55f384b1 (2) License:Creative Commons, Public Domain.

And The Glory of the Lord from The Messiah by George Frederick Handel, https://ia800502.us.archive.org/0/items/lp_messiah_handel-jennifer-vyvyan-norma-procter-georg/disc1/01.03.%20No.%204%2C%20And%20The%20Glory%20Of%20The%20Lord%20%28Chorus%29.mp3 (2) License:Creative Commons, Public Domain.

Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah by George Frederick Handel, performed by Orchestra Gli Armonic, from https://musopen.org/music/5876-messiah-hwv-56/#recordings, License:Creative Commons, Public Domain.

Suite No.3 in G Major by George Frederick Handel, Performed by Bath Festival Orchestra, Source: https://musopen.org/music/6215-water-music-hwv-348-350/ License: Creative Commons, Public Domain