Location, Location, Location

Richard Bratby

From Italy, he travelled to London, and from 1712 until his death, he made England his home.

But Handel’s travels were far from over. He made return visits to Germany, premiered Messiah in Dublin and travelled to Italy to secure singers for the London stage – a journey that took at least two weeks in each direction. Meanwhile his inspiration travelled without limits. The 18th-century operatic imagination made the whole of European myth and antiquity its playground: the worlds of Ancient Greece and Rome, the Biblical Middle East, and the fantastic chivalric realms of the hugely popular Italian poet Ariosto. The sheer breadth of his vision is staggering, and today’s concert can offer only a whistle-stop tour of the world according to G.F. Handel.

On 14 January 1707 the diarist Francesco Valesio recorded the arrival in Rome of “a Saxon, a most excellent player on the harpsichord”. It was Handel: 22 years old and travelling to Italy to perfect his art. The music-loving Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni swiftly welcomed him to his weekly Wednesday concerts, where the best musicians and performers in Rome appeared, while the Cardinal’s servants circulated with “ices and other delicate liquors”. It was not the first stop on Handel’s travels. Born in Halle, he had learned his trade in the bustling port city of Hamburg – “rich only in ability and goodwill”, as one contemporary remarked.

At times that world extended even beyond Handel’s own knowledge. In September 1738 Handel took out an advert in the Daily Post denouncing a pirated edition of his Organ Concertos Op. 4:

Whereas there is a spurious and incorrect Edition of Six Concertos of Mr. Handel’s for the Harpsichord or Organ, published without the Knowledge or Consent of the Author, This is to give Notice, (That the Publick may not be imposed on with a mangled Edition) That there are now printing from Mr. Handel’s original Manuscript, and corrected by himself, the same Six Concertos...

If it sounds suspiciously like Handel had been stung before, it’s because that’s exactly what had happened with his Concerti Grossi Op. 3 – issued in 1734 by the publisher John Walsh without the composer’s approval or agreement. This was an era before copyright laws, and Walsh seems to have assembled Op. 3 from whatever Handel instrumental music he had to hand. There was a keen market in London for string concerti grossi in the manner of Corelli, and the fact that Handel uses an altogether more sumptuous ensemble (containing two oboes and a bassoon), does not seem to have bothered Walsh unduly. Op. 3 No. 2 recycles music from Handel’s German language BrockesPassion (1719). Reworked for London in the finest Italian fashion, it’s a glorious example of how musical ideas evolved as they travelled.

Alcina (1735) magics its audience to an enchanted isle (location unspecified, but definitely somewhere steamy) where the sorceress Alcina seduces the gallant Ruggiero from his knightly duty: the original Love Island, if you like. Her little sister Morgana isn’t backwards in coming forwards, either, and in ‘Un momento di contento’ we learn that her sweetheart Oronte is willing to forgive her almost anything. In Rodelinda (produced at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket in February 1725) we’re on the more solid ground of Lombardy in the age of chivalry, though the usurping king Grimoaldo is anything but chivalrous towards the virtuous Rodelinda. By Act Three, however, his conscience is catching up with him: ‘Pastorello d’un povero Armento’ finds a mighty tyrant envying a simple shepherd.

Handel wasn’t alone in having a cosmopolitan outlook. Georg Muffat (1653 – 1704) was born in the French Alps, studied music in Paris and worked in Vienna and Prague before entering the employment of the Archbishop of Salzburg. He worked alongside the master-violinist Heinrich Biber and was given leave, in 1681, to travel to Rome. There, Muffat met Arcangelo Corelli, and his response was immediate: five sonatas, incorporating all that he knew of French dance music, German learning and the new style (by turns brilliant and songful) that he had discovered in Italy.

When Muffat returned to Salzburg in 1682 they were printed as Armonico Tributo: his first published work. The fourth sonata – which we’ll hear later in the concertcombines flashing violin solos, expressive operatic melodies and spirited dance. The fifth sonata ends with a noble and expressive Passacaglia – 25 variations, simultaneously singing and dancing. It’s easy to understand why Handel (again, this was a time before copyright) repeatedly plagiarised Muffat’s music.

Sometimes, though, new worlds are as close as Edgware, Middlesex, where Canons Park still exists but Cannons House – the country seat of Handel’s patron the Earl of Chandos – has long since been demolished. Tradition maintains that Handel’s pastoral masque Acis and Galatea (Ovid’s tale of shepherd-meets-nymph, adapted into English by John Gay) was premiered on the terrace at Cannons in the summer of 1718. These two arias for the lovestruck hero Acis have the directness and simplicity that made Acis and Galatea one of Handel’s most enduring hits. Who knew that Arcadia can be reached by the Jubilee Line?

With Radamisto (1720), Giulio Cesare in Egitto and its immediate successor Tamerlano (both premiered in 1724) the scene shifts to the opulent world of classical antiquity and imperial power politics. The craze for Italian opera was at its height: Radamisto was set in ancient Armenia and when it opened on 27 April 1720 the theatre was so full that many ladies in the audience fainted. Part of the show’s appeal was its lavish dance sequences: including this Passacaglia from the end of Act Two – a stately and swaggering dance in triple time.

Giulio Cesare used lavish scenery to tell the story of Julius Caesar’s doomed affair with Cleopatra. The setting is Egypt, and passions are running high – ‘Scorta siate a passi miei’ was written by Handel for a 1725 revival to showcase the voice of Francesco Borosini: possibly the world’s first superstar Italian tenor, at a time when the real glamour and fame belonged to the castrati (who had, after all, paid a high price for glory). Borosini also created the role of Bajazet –the vanquished Ottoman emperor whose courage and defiance eventually melts the heart of his captor Tamerlano (better known today as Timur, or Tamburlaine). The setting this time is Turkey in the 14th Century – to 18th-century western audiences, a place of barbaric cruelty and splendour – and with Borosini singing, Bajazet became one of the first great tenor heroes in all opera.

A decade later on 8 January, 1735, Handel’s Ariodante opened at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden – his first opera at the future Royal Opera House, and his only opera set in the British Isles. In medieval Scotland, Prince Ariodante fears that his betrothed, Princess Ginevra, has been unfaithful, and as he pours out his sorrows, the ravishing music of ‘Scherza Infida’ unfurls at rapturous length. It wasn’t to all tastes. “Handel has not met with his usual approval” reported Queen Caroline to her daughter. “They say his opera is so pathetic and lugubrious that everyone who has returned from it has this opinion and has been saddened by it.” Today, singers and listeners alike are happy to follow Handel wherever he travels: and at the end of tonight’s odyssey, it’s only right that parting should bring such sweet sorrow…