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Updated: June 16, 2025
There were also many illustrations of another kind extracts from Handel's music, each chosen because Butler thought it suitable to the spirit of the scene he wished to bring before the reader. The introduction concludes with these words: "I have chosen Italy as my second country, and would dedicate this book to her as a thank-offering for the happiness she has afforded me."
Scarlatti was another of Handel's ardent admirers, following him all over Italy; afterwards, when speaking of the great master, he would cross himself in token of admiration. True artists never fail generously to recognise each other's greatness. Thus Beethoven's admiration for Cherubini was regal: and he ardently hailed the genius of Schubert: "Truly," said he, "in Schubert dwells a divine fire."
At the actual performance the fireworks were a disastrous failure, owing to various accidents, but Handel's music, accompanied by the firing of ordnance, was the real event of the evening. A month later Handel repeated the music at the Foundling Hospital, along with selections from Solomon, and a new work, composed for the occasion, known as the Foundling Anthem.
Nevertheless, Scarlatti's efforts were almost exclusively addressed to the development of the musical rather than the dramatic side of opera, and he is largely responsible for the strait-jacket of convention in which opera was confined during the greater part of the eighteenth century, in fact until it was released by the genius of Gluck. Handel's conquest of Italy was speedy and decisive.
The music was adapted from Athaliah, which, so far, had only been heard at Oxford. Oratorio was also attempted by Handel's rival; Mrs. Pendarves heard a work of his at Lincoln's Inn Fields in March. "It is a fine solemn piece of music," she wrote, "but I confess I think the subject too solemn for a theatre.
Theodora was always Handel's favourite among his oratorios, and he considered the chorus, "He saw the Lovely Youth," to be far beyond anything in Messiah. None the less, the theatre was half empty when Theodora was given. "Never mind," said Handel, with grim humour, "the music will sound all the better."
True Polly captivated her hearers with her sweet natural delivery of "Can love be controlled by advice?" and afterwards with the tender pathos of "Oh ponder well," and there were roars of laughter and half suppressed chuckles from the men and titters from the women at the witty talk and the cynical hits at love and matrimonial felicity, but it was not until Spiller led the rousing choruses, "Fill every glass," and "Let us take the road," the latter adapted to the march from Handel's opera of "Rinaldo," then all the rage, that they were won over.
But it rounds off the day, poetically enough, with music, so that when I sought to hear the latest news, I was treated to Handel's "Hallelujah." How much more soothing than our own "extra special," with its final crop of horrors! Music, indeed, is ever resounding: the gipsy bands are everywhere playing Hungarian, not gipsy music, as Liszt imagined, for they never play to "the white men."
In Handel's operas the phrases were repeated so many times that the singer was excused if he proclaimed the meaning of the line once. After that he could alter the vowels and consonants to suit his vocal convenience. Monna Vanna and Tristan und Isolde exact of their interpreters acting of the highest poetic and imaginative scope....
He was highly pleased with her voice, but he was afraid her songs would not be to the fancy of his fashionable patrons. "One half are mad to have nothing but Mr. Handel's music and t'other half cry out for Signor Buononcini's. Your songs are like neither. There's no taste for English ballads. They're out of fashion. Scales, ornaments, shakes and flourishes are now the mode.
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