Anthony Hopkins is to play composer George Frideric Handel in “The King of Covent Garden.” Allegedly, the film will be set in 1741, when Handel was at work on “Messiah.” The composer completed his most famous oratorio in just 24 days. He was 56 years old. Hopkins is now 86. Mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins is also attached to the project.
Tag: Messiah
-
Handel: The Great Bear of Music
With enormous appetites to rival his formidable musicianship, a larger-than-life reputation, and an eccentric, much remarked-upon manner of walking, George Frideric Handel was affectionately nicknamed “The Great Bear.”
Handel is fondly remembered for his “Water Music” and “Music for the Royal Fireworks,” his epic oratorios, his florid operas, and his copious concertos and chamber music.
Though by many accounts a kind-hearted man with a good sense of humor, he was also prone to an explosive, bear-like temper. I imagine this would have gone unnoted during the several years he spent in Italy, but in England people tended to take heed.
Music historian Charles Burney recalled Handel berating a chorister during rehearsals for “Messiah.” “… Handel let loose his great bear upon him; and after swearing in four or five languages, cried out in broken English….”
During rehearsals for the opera “Ottone,” he once grabbed the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni and threatened to toss her out a window. Cuzzoni, looking to make the best impression with her London debut, had roused “the Bear” by pressing him for a replacement aria, the better to showcase her unique talents.
But Cuzzoni could give as good as she got. During a Handel production of Giovanni Bononcini’s opera “Astianatte,” she and her costar, Faustina Bordoni, flew at one another in a fury and began tearing at their costumes. They had to be dragged off stage.
Some years earlier, as a young man of 19, Handel was filling in as conductor at the premiere of Johann Mattheson’s opera “Cleopatra.” Mattheson also sang the tenor role of Antony, so while he was on stage, Handel was to sit at the harpsichord and keep order among the musicians.
Trouble arose when Mattheson returned to the orchestra and Handel refused to cede his place. A power struggle ensued, as Mattheson sought to regain control, but Handel insisted on continuing to conduct. The performance was interrupted when Mattheson suggested the two take the quarrel outside. Swords were drawn, and one of Mattheson’s thrusts glanced off a button near Handel’s heart. This had the effect of dousing the combatants with cold water, and the two reconciled to become lifelong friends.
It wasn’t all claws and teeth, to be sure. Ursine Handel could also be a bit of a teddy bear, and a generous one. One of his more enduring works, “Messiah” – penned in a mere 24 days – was given its first performance in Dublin, on April 13, 1742, as a charitable event. It benefited two hospitals and liberated 142 men from debtor’s prison.
Eight years later, Handel revived the work at London’s Foundling Hospital, a recently-instituted home for abandoned infants and children. He had already donated an organ to the hospital’s chapel, and the year before, recycled the “Hallelujah Chorus” as part of his “Foundling Hospital Anthem.” Again, Handel’s oratorio raised a ton of money. The charitable presentation became an annual event, with the composer returning every year for the rest of his life. Handel’s relationship to the institution was cemented with an honorary title. After his death, he left the rights to the oratorio to the hospital.
When Handel finally did die, blind but rich, in 1759, at the age of 74, his funeral was attended by 3,000 people. He never married, but filled his hours with composing – leaving 30 oratorios and 50 operas – and of course living the good life, with plenty of beer and food. He was interred at Westminster Abbey, a very great honor indeed.
Above his grave, there is a monument, a sculpture of Handel in the act of composing his cash cow, the oratorio “Messiah.” The bear may now be in hibernation, but every Christmas – and sometimes Lent – his music lives on.
Happy birthday, Handel!
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Handel memorial at Westminster Abbey; unkind caricature of the composer as a fat boar (Joseph Goupy, “The Charming Brute,” 1743); Handel threatens to throw Francesca Cuzzoni out a window (Peter Jackson, “When They Were Young: Handel the Musician,” 1966); Handel crosses swords with Johann Mathesson (Andrew Howat, “Strange Tales,” 1977)
-
Handel: The Great Bear of Music and Temper
With enormous appetites to rival his formidable musicianship, a larger-than-life reputation, and an eccentric, much remarked-upon manner of walking, George Frideric Handel was affectionately nicknamed “The Great Bear.”
Handel is fondly remembered for his “Water Music” and “Music for the Royal Fireworks,” his epic oratorios, his florid operas, and his copious concertos and chamber music.
Though by many accounts a kind-hearted man with a good sense of humor, he was also prone to an explosive, bear-like temper. I imagine this would have gone unnoted during the several years he spent in Italy, but in England people tended to take heed.
Music historian Charles Burney recalled Handel berating a chorister during rehearsals for “Messiah.” “… Handel let loose his great bear upon him; and after swearing in four or five languages, cried out in broken English….”
During rehearsals for the opera “Ottone,” he once grabbed the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni and threatened to toss her out a window. Cuzzoni, looking to make the best impression with her London debut, had roused “the Bear” by pressing him for a replacement aria, the better to showcase her unique talents.
But Cuzzoni could give as good as she got. During a Handel production of Giovanni Bononcini’s opera “Astianatte,” she and her costar, Faustina Bordoni, flew at one another in a fury and began tearing at their costumes. They had to be dragged off stage.
Some years earlier, as a young man of 19, Handel was filling in as conductor at the premiere of Johann Mattheson’s opera “Cleopatra.” Mattheson also sang the tenor role of Antony, so while he was on stage, Handel was to sit at the harpsichord and keep order among the musicians.
Trouble arose when Mattheson returned to the orchestra and Handel refused to cede his place. A power struggle ensued, as Mattheson sought to regain control, but Handel insisted on continuing to conduct. The performance was interrupted when Mattheson suggested the two take the quarrel outside. Swords were drawn, and one of Mattheson’s thrusts glanced off a button near Handel’s heart. This had the effect of dousing the combatants with cold water, and the two reconciled to become lifelong friends.
It wasn’t all claws and teeth, to be sure. Ursine Handel could also be a bit of a teddy bear, and a generous one. One of his more enduring works, “Messiah” – penned in a mere 24 days – was given its first performance in Dublin, on April 13, 1742, as a charitable event. It benefited two hospitals and liberated 142 men from debtor’s prison.
Eight years later, Handel revived the work at London’s Foundling Hospital, a recently-instituted home for abandoned infants and children. He had already donated an organ to the hospital’s chapel, and the year before, recycled the “Hallelujah Chorus” as part of his “Foundling Hospital Anthem.” Again, Handel’s oratorio raised a ton of money. The charitable presentation became an annual event, with the composer returning every year for the rest of his life. Handel’s relationship to the institution was cemented with an honorary title. After his death, he left the rights to the oratorio to the hospital.
When Handel finally did die, blind but rich, in 1759, at the age of 74, his funeral was attended by 3,000 people. He never married, but filled his hours with composing – leaving 30 oratorios and 50 operas – and of course living the good life, with plenty of beer and food. He was interred at Westminster Abbey, a very great honor indeed.
Above his grave, there is a monument, a sculpture of Handel in the act of composing his cash cow, the oratorio “Messiah.” The bear may now be in hibernation, but every Christmas – and sometimes Lent – his music lives on.
Happy birthday, Handel!
IMAGE: “When They Were Young: Handel the Musician. Handel threatens to throw the temperamental Italian opera singer out of his window.” (Peter Jackson, 1966)
-
Handel’s Solomon St Patrick’s Day Surprise
On this date in 1749, one of George Frideric Handel’s most popular oratorios, “Solomon,” was first performed, at London’s Covent Garden Theater. Little did he dream that, 234 years later, the Irish folk band De Dannan would take his showstopping Act III sinfonia and give it a distinctly Irish twist, as “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (In Galway Bay).” I venture to guess even De Dannan didn’t realize “Solomon” received its debut on St. Patrick’s Day!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB8NhXtgG_A
No doubt Handel would have approved. He spent nine months in Ireland in 1742 to raise money for charity. The most performed oratorio in the history of the world, “Messiah,” was introduced in Dublin, at the Great Musick Hall, on Fishamble Street, on April 13, 1742.
-
Beecham’s Handel A Delightful Eccentricity
Sir Thomas Beecham developed an early love for Handel, at a time when very few of his contemporaries knew more than a handful of the composer’s works. Certainly the operas and oratorios – with the exception of “Messiah,” which had grown more and more bloated through years of Victorian adoration – were exceedingly scarce. Beecham despaired of this, since there was so much brilliant music, he knew, embedded within these sleeping giants.
He responded by not only reviving a number of the oratorios, in heavily reworked, though for the most part musically sensitive editions, he also arranged choice Handelian morsels into original ballet and concert suites. In doing so, he introduced audiences to much worthy music, which had previously been known only to scholars and specialists.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll listen to Beecham’s at times eccentric, though generally delightful recordings. Alongside the trademark charm of the conductor’s approach comes a thrilling virtuosity in some of the faster music, nowhere better demonstrated than in a 1932 recording of something Beecham called “The Origin of Design,” a suite de ballet distilled from the operas “Ariodante” “Terpsichore,” “Il pastor fido,” “Giulio Cesare,” and “Rinaldo.”
In approaching those oratorios he ventured to present whole (or something like it), Beecham was not only NOT above tinkering with the orchestration, he would toss out entire sections and rearrange mercilessly, all with the aim of cooking up a digestible evening of music which the general public might otherwise just as happily left in the freezer. At its most gauche, Beecham’s method could result in something like his last recording of Handel’s “Messiah,” which he set down in 1959. The re-orchestration was commissioned from Sir Eugene Goossens and features ample cymbal crashes and other eccentricities, which seem somehow to actual sap some of the excitement out of the original music.
Beecham defended his padded “Messiah,” not only pointing to the composer’s documented delight in great demonstrations of sound, but also stating his fear that without some effort along the lines he’d undertaken, the greater portion of Handel’s output would remain unplayed – in his words, “possibly to the satisfaction of armchair purists, but hardly to the advantage of the keenly alive and enquiring concertgoer.”
Despite taking great liberties, Beecham’s recording of Handel’s “Solomon,” set down in 1955-1956, is, in a word, gorgeous. It’s nowhere near what Handel conceived – there’s a huge chunk taken out of the middle, with some of the displaced numbers given refuge in wholly unrelated parts of the oratorio; Solomon, a role generally undertaken these days by a countertenor is assigned to a baritone; the cymbal crashes that disfigure Beecham’s “Messiah” turn up here, as well, but somehow, if one allows oneself to succumb to the Beecham magic, none of it is truly bothersome. In fact, the recording could be deemed an unalloyed delight. It’s not something you’d want as your only “Solomon,” yet it could be the recording of the work you return to the most.
I hope you’ll join me for “Handeling Beecham” – Sir Thomas Beecham conducts Handel – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Tag Cloud
Aaron Copland (92) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (123) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (187) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (101) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (138) Opera (202) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (106) Radio (87) Ralph Vaughan Williams (85) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)