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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
9
Comparatively Few of the Compositions of Handel Are at Present Available
in the Form of Music Rolls, but the Undying Popularity of the Works of This
Composer Should Create a Wide Market for Additional Cuttings of His Music
The person who has never paid any systematic
attention to the matter may wonder why it is
that musicians and those who are known as
music-lovers should always be "raving" over
this, that or the other composer of music. It
may be that the tastes of modern America are
not as refined as we would desire when the fine
arts are in question, and one may even doubt
whether the present generation is ever going to
be much better than it appears to be now, in
this respect. But it is too easy to judge super-
ficially of such matters. Away from the noise
and hurly-burly of the great cities, the plant
of musical culture is slowly but surely coming
to full bloom. All over the land, in little towns
of which the self-satisfied New Yorker or Chi-
cagoan has never heard, there are springing up
societies for choral singing and for orchestral
playing, for the promotion of concerts at which
great musicians shall appear and for the cultiva-
tion of community music. How many readers
of these words have heard of Lindsborg, Kan-
sas?
Lindsborg
Lindsborg is a town of about 2,000 inhabitants.
It is the home of Bethany College, a Swedish
denominational institution, which boasts an ac-
tivity in music simply extraordinary.
Each
year is given a colossal performance of Han-
del's "Messiah," with eminent soloists and a
chorus, native to the town, of six hundred voices,
organized by the Bethany Oratorio Society.
In addition, a band, a symphony orchestra of
sixty, a male chorus and a children's chorus are
maintained; and each year a week's festival of
music is given, to which come music lovers from
all over the Middle West. At the festival of
the present year, no less than sixteen separate
programs were given during the week, includ-
ing the performances of the "Messiah"; and
Ysaye, the violinist, appeared, with Galli-Curci
among the other soloists! That is going some!
Similar activities are going on in other places.
Remember the Bach Festival at Bethlehem, Pa.!
Oratorios
Now it is a remarkable fact that the kind of
music which most easily and splendidly at-
tracts the attention, the love and the work of
these wonderful native organizations is Ora-
torio. The study and performance of Bach's
Matthew Passion or of Handel's "Messiah" in-
volve preparation and rehearsal to a degree
which the uninitiated cannot conceive. The
amount of self-sacrifice required on the part of
those who take voluntarily without pay the
choral work in these performances can hardly
be realized by one who has not been through
the experience.
Yet Oratorio continues to
flourish, and Handel's "Messiah" to be the king
of all Oratorios.
One can hardly be blamed for concluding that
the spell of Oratorio is in great part due to the
extraordinary genius of him who mastered and
perfected that wonderful form and made it his
own. The idea of a grand musical work af-
fording full scope to the human voice in massed
chorus and in solo, to the organ, and to the
orchestra, treating a sacred theme, and using
words drawn from the Scriptures, is an idea
that, somehow or other, has taken deepest root
in English-speaking lands. Of all sacred Ora-
torios, Handel's "Messiah" is assuredly the
greatest; and Handel himself the representative
musician of Anglo-Saxondom.
Handel
Of course, it is the fashion to sneer at Han-
del these days; but those who have come to
scoff themselves remain to pray, when they
hear the thrilling measures of the Hallelujah
Chorus or the seven-fold Amen ringing through
the spaces from the mouths of half a thousand
singers.
It is a curious fact that, in spite of
almost complete neglect outside of his Oratorio
music, Handel continues to influence all music
most deeply and significantly. Why should we
think of him only as the writer of Oratorio?
For, after all, there is, even now, no composer
whose name is better known to the world at
large; while there is positively none whose man-
ner and matter alike appeal so aptly to the pe-
culiar genius of the Anglo-Saxon race. And
one may say that this includes Americans, for in
this day the once popular sneer of the wits is
shown up in all its foolishness, and we find
that the country whose tongue, whose laws,
whose government, whose political traditions are
all Anglo-Saxon may, in this solemn hour of
her history, indeed find it no disgrace to ac-
knowledge the source of her greatness.
A Contemporary
"It may sound like an anachronism," says
Haweis, in his famous essay on "Music and
Morals," "to call Handel a contemporary, and
yet he seems so constantly present with us that
at times we can hardly believe that he has passed
away. We are surrounded by his effigies, no
living face is more familiar—no modern min-
strel more beloved than he who has now quietly
lain in the great Abbey for some hundred and
ten years." Those years have lengthened to
one hundred and fifty-eight since the words were
written, but they are just as true now as they
were then. Modern fashions may come and go,
but the "Hallelujah Chorus," "Honor and
Arms," "Angels Ever Bright and Fair," "I Know
That My Redeemer Liveth," and other glorious
inspirations will be living and loved when the
names of all the neo-futuristic maniacs are
totally forgotten.
One may be accused of undue enthusiasm,
but perhaps the reader will excuse such a dis-
play in one who, though by mere coincidence,
can say that his family's home for many years
was the identical house in Brook street, London,
where the great master lived during the last
twenty years of his life and where in 1759 he
died, old and blind, but honored by the world
and most deeply loved by the English, amongst
whom he passed his best and most fruitful years.
The Adventurer
George Frederic Handel was a Saxon by birth,
having been born in the town of Halle in Feb-
ruary, 1685. His father was a physician in
moderate circumstances, who at first opposed
his son's choice of music as a profession and
was as much astonished as grieved at the evi-
dences of his talent. His career was among the
most adventurous and wholly erratic that the
world of music—itself erratic enough—has ever
known. Italy, Germany, England, in turn fur-
nished him a home. Beginning with the com-
position of Italian operas, or operas in the
dreadfully artificial style to which Italian mu-
sical art had sunk, he went through an amazing
series of adventures which culminated in his
famous Italian opera seasons in London. These,
for all their artistic success and for all the
immense amount of labor he expended on them,
being composer, sometimes librettist, manager,
treasurer and orchestra conductor all in one—
netted him nothing but bankruptcy; and it was
in the reaction from the latest of these finan-
cial depressions, during the year 1741, that the
idea of composing an Oratorio on the central
mystery of the Christian faith first came to him.
He had already made experiments, such as Saul
and Israel in Egypt; but he had not yet found
his true theme. This was to come.
The Dublin Visit
The Duke of Devonshire of that day had been
appointed Viceroy in Ireland and had invited
Handel over to Dublin to pay him a visit. A
society of musical amateurs in Dublin asked
him to compose for them some music to be
performed at a festival which was to be given
for the relief of "poor and distressed prisoners
for debt" who were confined in the city's
Marshalsea. Handel consented, and no less
than twelve performances of his various works
were given at short intervals, amidst scenes of
extraordinary enthusiasm. Yet all of these
were to pale before the blinding glory of the
climacteric "Messiah."
On April 13, 1742, at noon, the New Music
Hall, Fishamble street, was crowded to suffoca-
tion with an audience which represented all the
wealth, the beauty, and the musical culture of
the Irish capital. Mr. Handel's new Oratorio,
so ran the notices, composed in England spe-
cially for performance in Dublin, was to be
given its first performance. Public expectation
was at its height. The ladies had, in deference
to generally expressed wishes, actually left at
home their hooped petticoats and appeared in
skirts of normal width, dead against the fashion,
(Continued on page 10)
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