Article:
George Frideric Handel, a
German composer but with success of his career in England, undoubtedly, was a
towering figure of the later baroque period. If Madame de Stael very
perceptively remarked that Michelangelo was the “Bible’s painter”, Handel must
then be called its composer. The number of his oratorios based on Biblical
subjects runs to over thirty, for example, Messiah and Judas
Macchabaeus. Their continual performance by people of every kind from the
date of their composition to present proves their accessibility[1]. The success of Handel’s
oratorios is not only its accessible music, but also the contribution of its
librettos. Similar to Mozart accompanied with Ponte, Handel also had a lot of
silent supporters, the librettists, such as Charles Jennens, James Miller and
Thomas Morell. Although Handel did not write any of the librettos, he involved
in editing the librettist’s texts, or principally cutting them. He absolutely
recognized the importance of the librettos. The printed libretto-the
wordbook-was an indispensable part of attendance at the oratorio. English
audience customarily bought copies of the text in the theatre in order to read
the words during the performance[2]. Therefore, it is no doubt
that the success of the oratorios is largely the contribution of Handel.
However, different views of Handel’s success of oratorio is not hard to be
found in the major modern study of Handel’s English theatre works. For example,
Winton Dean asserts that “in the modern opinion an almost complete failure
largely because of its dreadful libretto, was popular in his own day.” He
continues, ‘Samson suffers from an excess of diversionary airs…..’ and he
states that at least eight of these are better omitted in the modern
performance[3].
In order to understand what captured the interest of the original English audience,
it is worth to explore how the meanings were conveyed from the librettos of
Handel’s oratorio, and especially to recognize the impact on them of the
thought of their time and to appreciate the artistic and moral criteria that
influence their authors. The religious discourse, the moral teaching and the
political ideology provide the entry point.
It is almost impossible to
understand the artworks, including the music, completely in 18th
century without knowing the thoughts and ideas of the English of the same
period. The dominant influences on mid-eighteenth-century English thought were
religion and politics. They permeated life and art. The pulpit was the major
public–address system. Sermons addressed and influenced every aspect of private
and public life, of course, including art. Religious discussion, debates and
even critics, were the major element of intellectual life. Religious
publications dominated book production, and people believed that God supervised
lives and could and would intervene with punishment on a personal or national
scale if provoked by wrongdoing[4]. Such 18th
Century religious atmosphere nourished many of the Handel’s oratorio librettos.
The 18th Century
Anglican teaching stressed good works more than faith. Ethical social
benevolence is the road to salvation. It was a time that concept of original
sin was neglected, doctrine of redemption by grace was relaxed and humanity’s
potential to fulfill the requirements of divine precepts in life was
emphasized. Some versions of religion even secularized ethics to the extent of
suggesting that men and women did not need God to teach them perfection[5]. At the same time, the
English translation of Richard Simon’s Critical History of the Old Testament
dramatically undermined English Protestant faith in the integrity, inspiration
and authority of Scripture. These scholarly criticisms of the text of Bible
laid down the seedbeds of the freethinking deist movement in England[6]. Therefore, the years of
the performances of Handel’s oratorios, 1732-1752, were the years of Biblical
criticism and religious debate, even the years of the major Anglican rebuttals
of deism. Under such chaotic background, the bases of Christianity were
threatened. Did the concept of divine revelation was still important? Mercy,
miracles and fulfillment of biblical prophecies were the main elements of truth
and salvation? It is this extraordinary religious, as well as socio-cultural
background that brings us to the understanding of how the circumstance
influenced the librettos of the meaning conveyed in Handel’s oratorio.
To be continued.......
David Leung (theorydavid)
2012-12-28 published
[2] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, pp5-6, p23
[4] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, pp.8-9
[6] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, pp141-142.
