GeorgeHandel is one of the biggest names in the history of musical art. The great composer of the Enlightenment opened new perspectives in the development of the genre of opera and oratorio and anticipated the musical ideas of the next centuries: the operatic drama of Gluck, the civic pathos of Beethoven, the psychological depth of romanticism. He is a man of inner strength and conviction.Show spoke: “You can despise anyone and anything,but you are powerless to contradict Handel. " "... When his music sounds in the words 'seated on his eternal throne', the atheist is speechless."

Georg Friedrich Handel was born in Halle on 23 February 1685. He received his primary education in the so-called classical school. In addition to such a solid education, young Handel adopted some musical concepts from the mentor Pretorius, a music connoisseur and composer of several school operas. In addition to his schoolwork, he was also helped by David Poole, the court bandmaster who entered the house, and Christian Ritter, an organist who taught Georg Friedrich to play the clavichord, "to have a taste in music".

Parents paid little attention to their son's early manifested inclination to music, classifying it as child's play. Only thanks to a chance meeting of a young talent with a fan of musical art, Duke Johann Adolf, the boy's fate changed dramatically. The duke, hearing a wonderful improvisation played by a child, immediately convinced his father to give him a musical education. Georg became a student of the well-known organist and composer Friedrich Zachau in Halle. For three years he learned not only to compose, but also to play freely the violin, oboe, harpsichord.

His father died in February 1697. Fulfilling the wishes of the deceased, Georg graduated from high school and five years after the death of his father entered the law faculty of the University of Halle.

A month after entering the university, he signed a one-year contract, according to which "a student of Handel due to his art" was appointed organist in the city's Reformed Cathedral. He trained there for exactly a year, constantly "improving his agility in organ playing." In addition, he taught singing in the gymnasium, had private students, wrote motets, cantatas, chorales, psalms and organ music, updating the repertoire of the city churches every week. Handel later recalled: "At that time I wrote like the devil."

In May 1702, the War of the Spanish Succession began, which engulfed all of Europe. In the spring of 1703, after the expiration of the contract, Handel left Halle and went to Hamburg.The opera house was the center of the city's musical life. The opera was directed by composer, musician and vocalist Reinhard Keizer. Handelstudied the style of opera compositionsfamous Hamburgerand the art of running an orchestra.He got a job at the opera house as a second violinist (he soon became the first). From that moment on, Handel chose the field of a secular musician, and the opera, which brought him fame and suffering, became the basis of his work for many years.

The main event of Handel's life in Hamburg can be considered the first performance of his opera "Almira", January 8, 1705. OperaHandelplayed successfully about 20 times.In the same year, the second opera was staged - "Love acquired by blood and villainy, or Nero".

In Hamburg, Handel wrote his first oratorio work. These are the so-called "Passions" based on the text of the famous German poet Postel.Soon it became clear to Handel that he had grown up, and Hamburg became cramped for him. Having saved up money with lessons and writing, Handel left.Hamburg owes the birth of its style. The time of apprenticeship ended in him, hereHandeltried his hand at opera and oratorio - the leading genres of his mature work.

Handelwent to Italy. From late 1706 to April 1707, he lived in Florence and then in Rome. In the fall of 1708, Handel achieved his first public success as a composer. With the help of Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, he staged his first Italian opera, Rodrigo.He also competes in public with the best of the best in Rome, with Domenico Scarlatti recognizing his victory. His playing on the harpsichord is called devilish - a flattering epithet for Rome. He wrote two oratorios for Cardinal Ottoboni, performed at once.

After his success in Rome, Handel hurries south to sunny Naples. A constant rival of Venice in the arts, Naples possessed its own school and traditions. Handel stayed in Naples for about a year. During this time he wrote the charming serenade Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus.The main work of Handel in Naples was the opera Agrippina, written in 1709 and staged in the same year in Venice, where the composer returned again. At the premiere, the Italians, with their usual ardor and enthusiasm, paid tribute to Handel. " They were struck with thunder by the grandeur and grandeur of his style; they never knew before all the power of harmony", - wrote the one who was present at the premiere.

Italy gave Handel a warm welcome. However, the composer could hardly count on a strong position in the "Empire of Music". The Italians did not doubt Handel's talent. However, as later Mozart, Handel was for the Italians a heavyweight, too “German” from art. Handel left for Hanover and entered the service of the elector as a court bandmaster. However, he did not stay there for long. The rude morals of the small German court, the ridiculous vanity and imitation of large capitals aroused disgustHandel. By the end of 1710, having received leaveat the elector's, he went to London.

There, Handel immediately entered the theater world of the British capital, received an order from Aaron Hill, the tenant of the Tidemarket Theater, and soon wrote the opera Rinaldo.

On destiniesat Handelinfluenceddebut in the genre of ceremonial and solemn music popular for England. In January 1713, Handel wrote the monumental Te deum and Ode to the Queen's Birthday. Queen Anne was pleased with the musicOdesand personally signed the permission for the performance of "Te deum". On the occasion of the signing of the Utrecht Peace Treaty7 julyin the presence of the queen and parliamentunder the arches of St. Paul's Cathedral soundedsolemnly majestic sounds of Handel's "Te Deum".

Following the success of Te Deuma, the composer decided to pursue a career in England.Until 1720, Handel was in the service of the old Duke of Chandos, who was superintendent of the royal army under Anna. The Duke lived at Cannon Castle, near London, where he had an excellent chapel. Handel composed music for her.These years turned out to be very important - he mastered the English style. Handel painted anthemes and two masks - a modest amount with his fabulous productivity. But these things (along with Te Deum) turned out to be decisive.

The two antiquity masks were English in style. Handel later revised both works. One became an English opera (Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus), the other became the first English oratorio (Esther). Altema is a heroic epic, “Esther” is a heroic drama based on a biblical plot. In these works, Handel already fully masters both the language and the nature of the feelings expressed by the British in the art of sounds.

The influence of anthemes and the operatic style is clearly felt in Handel's first oratorios, Esther (1732), and in Debort and Atalia (1733), which were written afterwards. Nevertheless, opera remains the main genre of the 1720s and 1730s. She absorbs almost all the time, strength, health and condition of Handel.In 1720 a theatrical and commercial enterprise was opened in London, it was called the "Royal Academy of Music". Handel was instructed to dial best singers Europe, mainly Italian school... Handel became a free entrepreneur, a shareholder. For almost twenty years, starting in 1720, he composed and staged operas, recruited or disbanded a troupe, worked with singers, an orchestra, poets and impresario.

This is the history that has survived. At one of the rehearsals, the singer out of tune. Handel stopped the orchestra and reprimanded her. The singer continued to be out of tune. Handel began to get furious and made another remark, in much stronger terms. The falsity did not stop. Handel again stopped the orchestra and said: “ If you sing out of tune one more time, I'll throw you out the window". However, this threat did not help either. Then the huge Handel grabbed the little singer in an armful and dragged her to the window. Everyone froze. Handel put the singer on the windowsill ... and so that no one noticed it, he smiled at her and laughed, after which he took her off the window and carried her back. After that, the singer sang cleanly.

In 1723 Handel staged Otgon. He writes easily, melodically pleasantly, it was the most popular opera in England of those days. May 1723 - "Flavio", in 1724 — operas: "Julius Caesar" and "Tamerlane", in 1725 - "Rodelinda". It was a victory. The last triad of operas was a worthy crown to the winner. But tastes have changed.These were difficult times for Handel. The old elector, the only strong patron, George I, died. The young king, George II, Prince of Wales, hated Handel, his father's favorite. George II intrigued him, inviting new Italians, set enemies on him.

In 1734 - 35 French ballet was in vogue in London. Handel wrote operas-ballets in the French style: Terpsichore, Alcina, Ariodante and Orestes pasticho. But in 1736, due to the aggravated political situation, the French ballet was forced to leave London and Handel went bankrupt. He fell ill, he was paralyzed. The opera house was closed. Friends lent him some money and sent him to a resort in Aachen.The rest was as brief as a dream. He woke up, he was on his feet, his right hand moved. A miracle happened.

In Decembere 1737Handelcompletes Faramondo and takes on the opera Xerxes.At the beginning 1738 the audience willingly went to the Faramondo. In Februaryheput pasticho "ALessandro Severo ”, and in April -“ Xerxes ”. At this time, he wrote unusually well: his fantasy was extremely rich, the beautiful material obediently obeyed the will, the orchestra sounded expressive and picturesque, the forms were perfected.

Georg Friedrich Handel composes one of the best "philosophical" oratorios - "Cheerful, Pensive and Moderate" on Milton's wonderful youthful poems, somewhat earlier - "Ode to St. Cecilia ”to Dryden's text. The famous twelve concert grossies were written by him during these years. And it was at this time that Handel parted ways with the opera. In January 1741, the last one, Deidamia, was delivered.

Handelaftertwenty years of tenacityconvinced that the sublime genus of the opera-seria did not make sense in a country like England. In 1740, he ceased to contradict English taste - and the British recognized him as a genius -Handelbecame national composer England.If Handel wrote only operas, his name would still take an honorable place in art history. But he would never have become the Handel that we value him today.

Handelpolished his style in opera, improved the orchestra, aria, recitative, form, voice leading, in the opera he found the language of a dramatic artist. And yet, in the opera, he failed to express the main ideas. The highest meaning of his work was oratorios.

A new era began for Handel on August 22, 1741. On this memorable day, he began the oratorio "Messiah". Later, writers will award Handel with the exalted epithet - "the creator of the Messiah." For many generations, she will be synonymous with Handel. "Messiah" is a musical and philosophical poem about the life and death of a person, embodied in biblical images. However, the reading of Christian dogmas is not as traditional as it might seem.

Handelcompleted The Messiah on September 12th. The oratorio was already being rehearsed when Handel unexpectedly left London. He left for Dublin at the invitation of the Duke of Devonshire, viceroy of the English king in Ireland. There he gave concerts all season. On April 13, 1742, Handel staged The Messiah in Dublin. The oratorio was warmly welcomed.

On February 18, 1743, the first performance of Samson, a heroic oratorio on the text of Milton, took place.is one of the best European tragedies of the second half of the 17th century.Milton's Samson is a synthesis of the biblical plot and the genre of ancient Greek tragedy.

In 1743, Handel showed signs of a serious illness, but he recovered fairly quickly.February 10, 1744composerstaged "Semele", March 2 - "Joseph", in August he finishes "Hercules", in October - "Belshazzar". In the fall, he re-leases Covent Garden for the season. In the winter of 1745Handelputs on Belshazzar and Hercules. His rivals are doing their best to prevent the success of the concerts, they succeed... In March, Georg Handel fell ill, fell ill, but his spirit was not broken.

11 Augta 1746Handel finishes his oratorio Judas Maccabee, one of his best biblical theme... In all the heroic-biblical oratorios of Handel (and the composer has a number of them: "Saul", "Israel in Egypt", "Samson", "Joseph", "Belshazzar", "Judas Maccabee", "Joshua") in the center of attention - the historical fate of the people. Their core is struggle. The struggle of the people and their leaders against the invaders for independence, the struggle for power, the struggle against apostates in order to avoid decline. The people and their leaders are the main characters of the oratorio. People like actor in the form of a chorus - the property of Handel. Nowhere in music before him did the people perform in such guises.

In 1747, Handel once again rents Covent Garden. He gives a series of signature concerts. On April 1 he puts on "Judas Maccabee" - he is accompanied by success.In 1747 Handel wrote the oratorios Alexander Balus and Joshua. He puts on oratorios, writes Solomon and Susanna.

In 1751 the composer's health deteriorated. May 3, 1752 to himunsuccessfullyoperateeyes.In 1753, complete blindness sets in. Handel distracts himself with concerts, playing for memory or improvising. Occasionally writes music. On April 14, 1759, he was gone.

A friend and contemporary of Handel, writer and musicologist Charles Burney, wrote: “ Handel was a large, sturdy and hard-to-move person. His expression was usually sullen, but when he smiled, he looked like a sunbeam breaking through black clouds, and his whole appearance became full of joy, dignity and spiritual greatness.". - This ray illuminates and will always illuminate our lives.

OrchestroHandel's style (1685-1759) belongs to the same era in the development of orchestration as the style of Bach's peer. But it also has peculiar features. Orchestral texture of oratorios, koncerts for organ and orchestra and concHandel's erto grosso is close to the choral polyphonic texture. In operas, where the role of polyphony is much less, the composer is much more active in his search for new orchestral techniques. In particular, he finds flutes moretheir case (manyabove the oboes); having received freedom in the new register, they become more mobile and independent.

The grouping of instruments is of the greatest interest to Handel. Skillfully alternating groups, opposing strings to wood or brass with percussion, the composer achieves a variety of effects. Working in opera houses, Handel had much larger castings and greater opportunities than Bach. His orchestration style is more lush and decorative.

Born: February 23, 1685
Place of birth: Galle
Country: Germany
Died: April 14, 1759

Georg Friedrich Handel (German Georg Friedrich H? Ndel, English George Frideric Hande) is a brilliant composer of the Baroque era.

Handel was born on 23 February 1685 in the Saxon city of Halle. He received his primary education in a secondary, so-called classical school. In addition to his general education, young Handel adopted some musical concepts from the mentor Johannes Pretorius, a music connoisseur and composer of several school operas. He was also assisted in playing music by the court conductor David Poole, who came into the house, and the organist Christian Rietter, who taught Georg Friedrich to play the clavichord.

Parents paid little attention to their son's early manifested inclination to music, classifying it as child's play. Only thanks to a chance meeting with a fan of musical art, Duke Johann Adolf, the boy's fate changed dramatically. The Duke, hearing a wonderful improvisation played by a child, immediately convinces his father to give him a systematic musical education. Handel became a student of the well-known organist and composer Friedrich Zachau in Halle. Handel studied with Zachau for about three years. During this time, he learned not only to compose, but also to play freely the violin, oboe, harpsichord.

In February 1697, Handel's father died. Fulfilling the wishes of the deceased, Georg graduated from high school and five years after the death of his father entered the law faculty of the University of Halle. A month after entering the university, he signed a one-year contract, according to which he was appointed organist in the city's Reformed Cathedral. In addition, he taught singing in the gymnasium, had private students, wrote motets, cantatas, chorales, psalms and organ music, updating the repertoire of the city churches every week.

In the spring of the following year, after the expiration of the contract, Handel left Halle and went to Hamburg. The opera house was the center of the city's musical life. For Handel's arrival in Hamburg, the opera was headed by composer, musician and vocalist Reinhard Keizer. Handel carefully studied the style of the famous musician's opera compositions, his art of managing an orchestra. Handel got a job at the opera house as a second violinist (he soon became the first violinist). From that time on, the opera became the basis of his work for many years.

The main event of Handel's life in Hamburg can be considered the first performance of his opera "Almira" on January 8, 1705. On February 25, 1705, the second opera, "Love acquired by blood and villainy, or Nero" was staged. In Hamburg, Handel wrote his first oratorio work. This is the so-called "Passion" on the text of the famous German poet Postel.

The period of his apprenticeship ended in Hamburg, and here the young composer tried his hand at opera and oratorio, the leading genres of his mature work.

In 1706-1709 the composer traveled and studied in Italy, where he became famous as a master of Italian opera.

From the end of 1706 to April 1707, he lived in Florence, and then went to Rome. In the autumn of 1708, with the assistance of Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, Handel staged his first Italian opera, Rodrigo. He wrote two oratorios for Cardinal Ottoboni, performed at once.

After success in Rome, Handel travels to Naples, which possessed its own school and traditions in art. Handel stayed in Naples for about a year. During this time, he wrote a charming serenade "Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus", several more works in the same spirit, but smaller in size.

The main work of Handel in Naples was the opera Agrippina, written in the summer of 1709 and staged in Venice the same year.

Italy gave Handel a warm welcome. However, the composer could hardly count on a strong position in the "empire of Music", his style was too heavy for the Italians.

In 1710, he became Kapellmeister at the court of the Hanoverian Elector George I, who, according to the law of 1701, was to become King of Great Britain. In the same 1710 Handel went to London.

He immediately entered the theater world of the British capital, received an order from Aaron Hill, tenant of the Tidemarket Theater, and soon wrote the opera Rinaldo. In January 1713, Handel wrote the monumental Te deum and Ode to the Queen's Birthday. On July 7, on the occasion of the signing of the Utrecht Peace Treaty, in the presence of the Queen and Parliament, the solemn, majestic sounds of Handel's "Te Deum" announced the vaults of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Until 1720, Handel was in the service of the Duke of Chandos. The Duke lived at Cannon Castle, near London, where he had an excellent chapel. Handel composed music for her. These years turned out to be very important - he mastered the English style. Handel painted anthemes and two masks. Two masks, two performances in the spirit of antiquity were English in style. Handel later revised both works. One of them became an English opera (Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus), the other became the first English oratorio (Esther).

From 1720 to 1728 Handel served as director of the Royal Academy of Music. January 12, 1723 Handel staged the opera Otgon, he wrote easily, melodically pleasantly, it was the most popular opera in England of those days. In May 1723 - "Flavio", in 1724 - two operas - "Julius Caesar" and "Tamerlane", in 1725 - "Rodelinda".

In 1734 - 1735 French ballet was in vogue in London. Handel wrote operas-ballets in the French style: Terpsichore, Alcina, Ariodante and Orestes pasticho. But in 1736, due to the aggravated political situation, the French ballet was forced to leave London

In December 1737 he completed the opera "Faramondo" and took up new opera"Xerxes". In February 1738, Handel staged the "Alessandro Severo" pastiche. At this time he writes unusually well: beautiful material obediently obeys the will of the composer, the orchestra sounds expressive and picturesque, the forms are perfected.

Since the 1740s, oratorios have occupied the main place in his work. He composes one of his best "philosophical" oratorios - "Cheerful, pensive and temperate" on Milton's beautiful youthful poems, somewhat earlier - "Ode to St. Cecilia" on Dryden's text. The famous twelve concert grossies were written by him in those years. And it was at this time that Handel parted ways with the opera. In January 1741 the last one, "Deidamia", was delivered.

On August 22, 1741, the composer began to create the Messiah oratorio. For many generations, "Messiah" will be synonymous with Handel. "Messiah" is a musical and philosophical poem about human life and death, embodied in biblical images. Handel completed The Messiah on September 12th. And already on February 18, 1743, the first performance of "Samson" - a heroic oratorio based on Milton's text took place. Milton's Samson is a synthesis of the biblical plot and the genre of ancient Greek tragedy. Handel has a synthesis musical drama and the choral traditions of the oratorio.

On February 10, 1744, he staged the oratorio Semele, on March 2 - Joseph, in August he finished Hercules, in October - Belshazzar.

August 11, 1746 Handel finished his oratorio Judas Maccabee, one of his best oratorios on the biblical theme.

In 1747 Handel wrote the oratorios Alexander Balus and Joshua. In the spring of next year, he puts on new oratorios, and in the summer he writes two more - "Solomon" and "Susanna". He was 63 years old.

At the turn of the 1750s, the composer's eyesight deteriorated. On May 3, 1752, his eyes were operated on. Unsuccessfully. The disease is progressing.

In 1753, complete blindness sets in. Handel died on April 14, 1759 in London. Buried at Westminster Abbey.

Characteristics of Handel's creativity

Features of creativity

“Difficult times came for Handel - everything was against him ... George II intrigued him, inviting new Italians, set enemies on him. The audience did not go to Handel's operas. Every year he was defeated, every year he watched about the same picture: a silent, inattentive, empty hall ... In the end, Handel went bankrupt. some money and sent to a resort in Aachen. " (Samin, 1999, p. 58.)

"He worked on his works with exceptional speed. The opera" Rinaldo "was written by him in two weeks, one of his best works, the oratorio" Messiah, "- in 24 days." (Mirkin, 1969, p. 56.)

(1751) "... During the work on his last oratorio, Ievphi, Handel became blind, but still continued to participate in the performance of oratorios as an organist." (Ibid., P. 55.)

GEORG FRIEDRICH HENDEL (1685-1759)
Handel is among the outstanding German artists who embodied the idea of ​​the "Man".
Handel is a great humanist. His humanism was alien to the abstract philanthropy so widespread in Germany at that time, which remained only in ideal spheres, far from reality. His work was, on the contrary, as much as possible at that time, truthful, concrete and effective. He was not only a contemporary, but in many respects and a like-minded person of Lessing, who once said: "Man was created in order to act, and not to reason."

Like any great artist, Handel was multifaceted, his inquisitive interest was aroused by the great and the small, the heroic and the everyday, the ordinary, the everyday. "Messiah" - and "Music on the Water"; "Judas Maccabee" - and the harpsichord variations "Harmonic Blacksmith" - these are the poles of his work. But the core, the natural thematic center of all his music is the images of a people suffering, enslaved, but powerful, breaking the chains of slavery and striding irresistibly into the future - to light, peace and freedom:
Let the enmity between peoples end! May peace, freedom, and happiness of people From edge to edge reign, And wars and slavery will fall forever! (Belshazzar, Act II Final Chorus.)

Handel's people are inseparable from the artistic truth of his music. In the culminating period of his work, he focused on the monumental genre of oratorio not at all because he was pushed there by court intriguers such as the Duke of Marlborough or the patriotic scoffers from The Beggar's Opera. He finally found himself in the oratorio and developed in this genre to its full extent, because only spacious and stately forms, uninhibited from court-theatrical dependence, hovering over the "golden public" and its claqueters, could accommodate his titanic images of peoples - freedom fighters , against oppression and spiritual darkness.

But other, "peripheral" genres of his music, even opera, in spite of its conventions and luxurious baroque excesses, which she sinned, he repeatedly illuminated the light of great ideas that expressed the cherished aspirations of the masses. Here and there, they powerfully broke through the plot line mythological legends and court stage accessories. Handel is often strong in the individual characterization of the hero, and, moreover, not only in the operatic one. The vicious Belshazzar and the ascetic Samson, the insidious Delilah and the straightforward Nitokris, the unhurried and perceptive Solomon, the recklessly impetuous Sextus - all of them are depicted in Shakespeare's music in a multifaceted manner. But individual characteristic and the particular situation did not constitute itself strong side Handel's talent. Its main characters are the masses in their, so to speak, cumulative, summary movements, actions, feelings. Therefore, as has long been recognized by all, the most powerful and irresistible Handel in the oratorio choirs - the frescoes of his music. Here his Man is embodied in all greatness and beauty. What is Handel's means of this incarnation?
It is common knowledge that Handel's style is a heroic style. The situation is more complicated with the national nature of this style. The aspirations to define it as exclusively German, let alone purely English, are one-sided. Attempts to regard Handel as a kind of non-national "citizen of the world" (they took place not only in foreign, but also in our literature) are completely false and distort the real image of his music. Handel is the son of the German people, raised and brought up in German democratic culture. The intonations of the Protestant chant are often heard in his oratorios. As a polyphonist and organ virtuoso, he is the heir to the German masters 17th century... His organ concerts are very close to Bach, and some of the features foreshadow Beethoven. His clavier suites are written in the style of the South German school rather than the English virginalists. And after the transition to English citizenship in 1726, Handel continued to maintain successive ties with German music. Especially in oratorios on biblical subjects, he is directly close to Schütz, his recitatives and a cappella choirs. The German people rightfully consider him their national artist. But in order not to fall into schematism, we must bear in mind two circumstances.

First. Handel is the creator of art not only of German, but of world, universal significance. Because he inevitably became the heir not only of German, but of all Western European music, effectively and harmoniously mastering its treasures. He widely referred to Italian opera, concert, sonata as genres, but solved them in his original style. His connections were multinational, but he himself and his music did not become "non-national" from this.
Second. Historical fact that for the German composer Handel England was the second homeland and the British, like the Germans, consider it theirs. Indeed, it cannot be denied that his creative and performing activities, at least from the early 20s of the 18th century, became the center of all English musical life. In anthemas, partly organ concerts and oratorios, Handel is the only legitimate heir to Purcell, England's greatest composer. The oratorios "Messiah", "Judas Maccabee" and others were written primarily for the English people in connection with the events of their life and struggle. Some of Handel's arias became English folk songs. Handel retained his distinctive individual German style, which also synthesized the best features of English and Italian musical culture.

No one art style- individual in particular - does not appear immediately fully developed and mature and does not remain forever invariably equal to itself. One French biographer of Mozart (Emmanuel Buenzo) called him "a genius without incubation." But even with this unusually early formed musician, the operatic style fully matured only when he was twenty-five years old (Idomeneo, King of Crete, 1781). Beethoven's techniques typical of his mature style often break through in piano sonatas of the mid-90s, which were still far from creative maturity.

The composer's style inevitably goes through its own process of formation and development, and for everyone it proceeds in a peculiar way. At the same time, some are stylistically more even and constant; others, including outstanding artists, - the style, on the contrary, is more susceptible to changes and transitions to qualitatively new phases. For all the power of his artistic individuality and integrity of style, Handel belonged rather to the second category. This is evidenced by his life path, which contributed precisely to such a formation of his creative personality.

Halle
Childhood and adolescence in Halle (1685-1703) created for him a solid foundation that remained throughout his artistic life: democratic leaven (father - a barber, grandfather - a boiler-maker), hard work, practical common sense, self-esteem and will, tempered from youth in the fight against obstacles on the way to music, which his relatives did not appreciate and did not understand. It so happened that, unlike Bach, Haydn, Mozart, he found the discoverers and propagandists of his talent on the side, among the Saxon and Prussian aristocracy. But aspirations and goals were different. As she grew old, she played music in a childishly selfish way, and as a child he was seriously striving for art as his life's work. At the courts, a predominantly foreign repertoire was cultivated; Handel, under the guidance of his first and excellent teacher V. Tsakhov, was also widely involved in German music(G. Albert, J. Froberger, IK Kerl, I. Kuhnau and others), its folk origins. Moreover, it was under this influence that he took his first steps in the composer's field and developed as a choir director, virtuoso on the harpsichord, oboe, and especially as an organist. Finally, in Halle, he entered the university, founded there by the Prussian government only eight years earlier, in 1694, but had already managed to develop into a major center of scientific thought. During the 18th century, such figures of German culture as Chr. Tomasius, Chr. Wolf, Baumgarten, I. Winkelmann. In the early 700s, the theological faculty of the university (Handel studied law) was a stronghold of theological direction, which sought to revive the Lutheran doctrine of the 16th century within the framework of religious tolerance and in opposition to the ruling church.
The most prominent representative of this trend, which received the name of pietism, was Chr. Thomasius, whose democratic and educational aspirations were contradictory combined during this period with a deeply religious outlook and frank exaltation of the Prussian monarchy. But there was another, radical direction at the university, ideologically connected with the French and English education (Pierre Baile, Shaftesbury and others). In the struggle of trends, questions of art were also touched upon. We do not have materials that would allow us to directly judge the impact of this entire atmosphere on the views of Handel. In any case, it can be said with confidence that he did not become either a pietist, or a radical, or, even more so, an atheist, but his religiosity was more superficially traditional, perhaps even partly "applied" than a devout devout or
pedantically theological character.
However, if in the field of philosophy, ethics, law - Halle could give something, then his musical life was still provincial poor, and humility or the search for consolation in a moral feat was in no way peculiar to Handel's nature. Therefore, having got stronger, he easily broke out of this narrow circle and went to Hamburg. This happened in 1703.

Hamburg
The Hamburg period was very short, but it was very important for the further formation of the composer's artistic worldview and style. Handel first settled in a really big city, with a German-democratic way of life, traditions and a wide range of excellent professional musicians of the German school (I. Teile, I. Matteson, R. Kaiser). The impact of these new acquaintances was great. The connection with the melodic style of the Kaiser made itself felt up to the 50s. The aesthetics of Matteson and his associate G. Telemann was a whole revelation for Handel. The idea that the music of any country is an original art, that it should serve patriotic ideals and mentally instruct people, expressing their mental states, became one of the guiding ideas of his work. The creation of John Passion (1704) was also a tribute to a German tradition dating back to the 16th century. But the most important and new thing that Handel found in Hamburg is the opera house, in the life of which he first plunged. As already mentioned, the theater was artistically very uneven, eclectic, but undeniably bright. As far as it was already possible at that time, it possessed nationally German characteristics and was organized on a relatively democratic basis. Here for Handel that genre area was widely opened, which has since become decisive for him - the area dramatic music... In Hamburg, his first operas were written with a libretto in German. In the only one that has survived from those years "Almira" - he is already looking for his own operatic style, although he is still very far from the goal and is strongly influenced by the Kaiser. Nevertheless, after the cantatas and motets of the Halle period, participation in a common huge undertaking - the creation of a German opera in a national style and in the native language - was a fact of capital importance. In addition, in Hamburg, Handel the virtuoso first appeared in an audience much broader and more democratic than the one he met when giving concerts in Weissenfels or Berlin. Finally, Hamburg is the first serious school of acute artistic rivalry (Matteson, Kaiser), which since then accompanied him for forty years and became for him a kind of "form of existence."

Italy
The Italian period (1706-1710) is notable at all for what is often attributed to him - for the "Italianization" of Handel. The operas Agrippina and Rodrigo, like the Roman cantatas of 1708-1709, were indeed written in the Italian style, which he mastered to perfection. In addition, he became widely acquainted with Italian folklore, introduced its genres (especially the Sicilian) into his music and became close to many outstanding musicians who then united in Arcadia (Corelli, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti and others). But he also wrote songs in the French style at that time, and his cantata for vocal solo with guitar testifies to the interest in the Spanish style. The first edition of the oratorio "The Triumph of Time and Truth" and the serenade "Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus" (1708-1709) were not written in a purely Italian style: much comes from their own, individually characteristic writing techniques. Italy for Handel was his entry into the international or European arena and a much broader introduction to world art. The years of wandering became, at the same time, years of study, when the style took shape not so much as a counterbalance to all this wealth of musical and aesthetic values ​​and impressions, but through the unusually rapid development and very gradual subordination of them to their own artistic individuality.

Hanover-London
We tend to sometimes underestimate the Hanoverian period, or, as it is more accurately called, the Hanoverian-London period, between 1710 and 1716. This was a period of radical change in the composer's life, when he returned to his homeland and twice traveled to London (in 1710 and 1712), made a choice between Germany and England, before finally settling in the latter. It was Hanover, with its opera house and magnificent chapel, that became the cultural center where from now on, Handel's German connections... He came here from London; here were written German cantatas, Oboe Concertos, probably Flute Sonatas and, finally, in 1716-Passions on Broches's libretto - an uneven work, but in which there is already a lot of typical Handel. In the same period, Rinaldo and Theseus, almost completely original in style, were staged in London with a triumphant success.
Amadis of Gaul and the famous Water Music. This was the threshold of the artist's maturity, which came to him just at the moment when he finally established himself in England. This historical paradox more than once caused reproaches to the composer about his allegedly unpatriotic act in relation to his native country (KF Krizander and others). These reproaches are unfounded. One cannot agree with Romain Rolland's assertion that "Handel was completely devoid of German patriotism."

He left Germany and crossed the Strait of Dover not because he did not love his homeland, but because, with his artistic nature, genre interests and the then structure and level of German social and musical life, he had nowhere to turn around on the Saxon-Brandenburg land. He carefully preserved the German origins of his music and kept it up to the last opuses. This was achieved in a very peculiar synthesis with genre and intonation elements, which he learned in communication with Italian, English culture and quite organically reworked in his own style.

England
The years 1717-1720 passed under the sign of this revision, deep and comprehensive penetration into the creative spirit and various forms of existence of English art. It may seem strange that during this period the widely developed operatic line seemed to be cut short for a while, and the composer devoted himself mainly to cult genres: Antemas for the chapel of the Duke of Chandos and Esther, the first oratorio in the English manner on the Old Testament plot. In fact, it was not only a kind of school for mastering English music in its best epic-dramatic examples, but also instinctively, and perhaps prudently, a perfect breakthrough into the future - to the oratorical work of the 1930s and 1940s. Handel knew what and how to listen to in the English heritage and what to choose for himself as a starting point.

Royal Academy

When the mastery of the English tradition was largely complete, he returned to opera, took over the theater of the Royal Academy and from the early 1920s, thirty-five years old, entered an unusually productive climax as an opera composer. Its peaks are Radamisto (1720), Otto (1723), Julius Caesar (1724), Rodelinda (1725). At that time, English musical life and especially its opera house experienced a period of previously unprecedented decline. After the performance in 1704, Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas", the only brilliant creation of English opera, was consigned to oblivion for more than two hundred years. The semi-opera King Arthur comes from an inventive but arbitrary rework by the talented Thomas Arne (1710-1778). The Italian opera reigned on the big stage, which in the eyes of democratic circles became a kind of theatrical symbol of the antipatriotic aspirations of the royal court, the landed aristocracy and that part of the big bourgeoisie that was guided by the traditions and tastes of the “big world”. Hence - criticism and, moreover, a fierce campaign against Handel, open from the right, from those who saw in him not so much an "official royal composer" as a daring violator of the usual aesthetic and class-ethical canons and traditions. Hence - the intrigues of Burlington, Marlborough and other influential aristocrats, intrigues that incited antagonism, competition and sought to oppose Handel as a German master-innovator of "traditional" and harmless Italians - DB Bononcini, and later - Porpora and Gasse.

"The Beggar's Opera"
At the same time, a new phenomenon emerged on the English theater scene: the 18th century "ballad opera" was a completely national English genre. It was a democratic art designed for the general public, close to life. Being a factor of some progress for musical theater, it did not, however, become a new stage in composer's creativity: usually a ballad opera was nothing more than a comic performance with music from popular everyday songs adapted to new English texts. An early, and, moreover, satirical version of this genre was The beggar "s opera", staged in London in 1728 by the poet John Gay and composer John Christophe Pepush on the subject of J. Swift. Satire was directed against high-ranking circles led by the powerful Robert Walpole, against their morals and tastes, she did not escape the court opera, in particular Handel's “Rinaldo.” Plots, genres, style were ridiculed. the heroes were burglars and prison guards, the heroines were girls of easy virtue. Instead of da capo arias, folk songs were sung in the streets and squares - "wild, rude and often vulgar melodies", as their contemporary - the famous music historian Charles Burney. The libretto was written in a rich vernacular dialect, and it was not without reason that a certain lord advised Gay to translate from English into Italian so that the court audience could I could understand him! For example, the comic aria of jealousy with deliberately banal lyrics, sung by one of the girls, the daughter of the prison guard Lucy, was written to the attractive, fresh melody of the popular folk ballad South Sea Ballad.
It is noteworthy that among these everyday songs, introduced by Pepush and Gay in the "Beggar's Opera", there are three tunes composed by Purcell. As for Handel, his music (aria and march) appears there only in the form of a caustic parody of the Italian opera style. All this undertaking - daring and defiant - created a sensation, attracted the sympathy of the leading minds of Europe (for example, Jonathan Swift in England, Melchior Grimm in France), irritated the bureaucracy and angered the court. The king banned the Beggar's Opera, but it managed to endure many performances, gained pan-European fame and existed in the repertoire up to the 20th century inclusive. At that time, the enormous success of this operetta-pamphlet took on the character of a "national manifestation" (Romain Rolland). The Royal Academy was dealt a crushing blow, it was temporarily closed. Possessing
extremely active, strong-willed nature, Handel, in the midst of a sharp struggle, continued to work tirelessly to improve his brainchild and for a short time restored the collapsed enterprise.
After a secondary collapse in 1731, as a true strategist, he moved the battlefield and relocated to the more democratic ballet theater in Covent Garden. Wonderful opera-ballets were written for him: "Ariodant", "Alcina" (1735), "Atalanta" (1736). Then two new catastrophes broke out almost simultaneously: the composer was paralyzed, the theater went bankrupt, many friends left it. With his recovery, he resumed work on the opera, striving forward, pouring new, fresh juices into it. In the last opuses of the late 30s - early 40s, the rich song-everyday stream, the creatively mastered experience of the continental comic opera... As has been rightly noted in the literature, Atalanta (1736), Justin (1737), Xerxes (1738), Deidamia (1741) in the interpretation of the genre and operatic style (small arias of a song-everyday character) are already closer to Mozart than to the Italian masters of the 17th century.
This can also seem like a contradiction. The clearer and stronger Handel's style became, the more fully the quality of monumentality was embodied in it. Meanwhile, his opera of the 1930s evolved rather in the opposite direction. This is explained by the fact that the further development of an already mature style required new genre solutions, and a regrouping of genres did take place.

Oratorios of the 30-40s
The main line of Handel since the second half of the 30s was the oratorio: "The Feast of Alexander" (1736), "Saul", "Israel in Egypt" (1738-1739), "L" Allegro, il Pensieroso ed il Moderato "(1740) The oratorio pushed the opera into the background and, in the end, absorbed it completely. But the struggle continued, its front expanded. The clergy now joined the aristocracy, who had risen on their hind legs because of the allegedly blasphemous, but in fact, free-thinking treatment of the scriptures by the composer. In this struggle, the artist's will to victory became more and more adamant, and his creative potential was constantly growing.Then such masterpieces of monumental heroic style and lofty civic pathos were born, such as the “Messiah” (1742), which was enthusiastically accepted in Dublin (Ireland), as “Samson "(1743) and" Belshazzar "(1744). When a year later the Stuart rebellion shook England and
its progressive forces rallied to repel the enemy who was advancing from Scotland to the capital, the freedom-loving composer found himself at the very center of these forces. Inspirational anthem "Stand round, my brave boys" ("Stand around, brave guys!"), Patriotic oratorios "In case" and "Judas Maccabee" (1746) - for the first time after the opera premieres of 1711-1712 and concert performance triumphs conquered all circles of English society and won Handel truly national recognition. This was the general culmination of his career.

Last years
The next decade was marked by still beautiful and powerful works. Among them are the innovatively wise "Solomon", foreshadowing Gluck "Alcesta", the cheerful "Music of Fireworks", where bright images are recreated by other means, the Concerti grossi of 1739, and the last edition of the youthful oratorio "The Triumph of Time and Truth", miraculously performed already in the period blindness. To this must be added the almost never-ending concert performances on the organ, which continued to excite the audience with its grandeur, temperament, inexhaustible imagination of the improviser and perfect mastery of all the resources of the instrument. Handel died out at the seventy-fifth year of his life on April 14, 1759 and was buried in Westminster Abbey as the great national artist of England, whose citizenship he took back in 1726. But he did not break ties with his first homeland and visited it less than ten years before his death , in 1750. An analysis of his last works testifies that, like the legendary Antaeus, he felt the vital need to again and again fall to native land and drink from its sources. The German element remained the most important part of his style until the end of his days.

First of all, Handel is a genius melodist, and a melodist of a special kind. The style of his melody is fully consistent with the creative nature of the passionate and purposeful preacher - Protestant, whose inspired speeches are addressed to wide audiences.
His poetic creations - oratorios, operas - not only tell, but also prove - passionately, "clearly and distinctly." It is no accident that Handel himself once said: “I wanted to make my listeners better people” (“Ich wunschte sie besser zu machen”). In the language of musical images, he spoke with people, very many people. And the main "instrument of speech" for him was the melody.

Melos
Handel's melody, if we talk about its most general features, is energetic, stately, has a wide, sharp, clear pattern. She gravitates more towards simple, "aligned" rhythms and metrically balanced, closed constructions with relief drawn perfect cadances. An exception is, of course, the accompanied recitative. However, despite the complete organic nature of the style, this melody is distinguished by a very wide variety of intonation structure and pattern. We find in him both "straight lines" of a strict chord contour, characteristic of the "New German" song of that time, and luxurious figurative patterns of an operatic type; wide sound waves, sweeping ups, steep dips - and constrained movement in a narrow range; pure diatonic - and chromatic saturation; soft, melodiousness at consonant intervals - and sharply tense intonations - septims, tritones, concentrated in the culminating phases of the melodic movement. This diversity of melody not only speaks of the composer's ingenuity. It reveals one of the fundamental features of his style: concreteness, plastic visibility of the melodic image, his ability to reproduce in the movement of the melody the appearance of a person, his gestures, character; to recreate the situation on the stage, landscape details or even to embody the essence of a philosophical concept into a fictional image.
"The people wandering in the darkness": the intonationally tense melody of the "winding", zigzag type:
(G. F. Handel. Messiah. Aria No. 11)

"Enemy Defeated" - "Fanfare directed downward." The melody line plastically breaks down and falls into octaves, septims, fifths: (G. F. Handel. Judas Maccabee. Chorus No. 26)

Here is a melodic image of a completely different - sliding, floating movement:
Time is sleeping; people think so.
But look closely: is it true?
Imperceptibly, fleetingly
Time rushes, slipping away
(GF Handel. Triumph of Time and Truth. Aria F-dur Larghetto)

The garden is drowsy before dawn, flowers bending over the stream (Rodelinda); the melody drips sleepily on repetitions and babbles in dotted motifs:
(G. F. Handel. Rodelinda. Act III. Scene in the garden)

In all this melodic sound writing (sometimes sound symbolism) there is nothing far-fetched, coldly sophisticated or outwardly decorative, as was usually the case in the art of the Baroque. Handel's creative method combines the almost stage plasticity of the melodic image with the disclosure of the deep meaning of the phenomena. In this he is congenial to Monteverdi and Vivaldi. Nationality and fidelity to artistic truth protected him from being carried away by "decorum". The genre and intonation origins of its melody themselves are deeply popular. His minuets and Sicilians, sarabands and gigues go back to folklore - German, English, Italian songs. As you know, he turned to genuine folk melodies and intonations: street shouts, tunes, songs.
Almirena's aria-complaint from "Rinaldo" still remains one of the favorite folk songs of England, as, for example, in Austria, "Lipa" by Schubert. This is the highest glory and happiness for an artist.

But sociability in music is different from sociability. Sometimes Handel has melodies of an intimate and responsive nature, but they do not dominate in him. Its melody calls out more often than whispers; orders, than begs. Hence, there are two sides, or tendencies, of his method, synthesized together: one is the wide deployment of the melody with a big breath, the scope, scale of its contour; the other is a melody combination of short, energetically minted phrases, each of which is very weighty and sharply delineated. These sides grow together and interact: thanks to the common culmination that unites these phrases, the melody is both lengthy and discontinuous, and laconic and broad. It is characteristic that Russian classics - Glinka, Rachmaninov - especially appreciated Handel's melodies of this type:
GF Handel Samson's Aria "Darkness Around Me".

Both later in Beethoven and in Handel, an extremely active expressive and formative side of the melody is the metric "frame" of the construction, sharply outlined in the bass, and the ostinata rhythmic figure that restrains the flow of melodic movement. Most often danceable in its origins or motor-dynamic, this figure determines the genre appearance of the melody and contributes to the emergence of those associations that give the image visible features.

Harmony
Beethoven urged musicians: “Handel is the incomparable master of all masters. Go to him and learn to create great things by such simple means! " This, in particular, may be related to harmony, which completes the melodic image, reveals its modal structure, emotionally colors it. It is aesthetically logical that, while creating his musical epics, intended for very wide audiences and aimed at the highest moral and educational goals, Handel did not feel an attraction to sophisticated, deliberately pale or very subtly nuanced harmonies. Concentrated immersion in psychological depths was not his element. The work with a large stroke required different, lighter and clearer colors. In harmony, he relates to Bach approximately the same as Beethoven to Mozart. His harmonic sphere is much more diatonic than Bach's, it eschews, in the words of Laroche, "luxurious, fantastic chromatism", although Handel perfectly mastered it and applied it on special occasions - most often in sharply dramatic recitatives accompagnato and choirs, in particular, those where the creeping layers dim harmonies with enharmonic modulations painted images of darkness, nothingness, death. In this figurative and poetic context, Samson's recitative at the end of the first part of the oratorio is harmonized:
Leave me alone! Why drag out my eyelid? Double darkness will soon close your gaze. Life is dying out, hope flies away, and it seems as if nature itself is tired of itself in me ... This monologue (here Milton is close to Shakespeare) is a minute of human weakness in the hero - with short, abrupt phrases and a weary, tired intonation ( the melody "turns to stone" in long repetitive sounds) - deployed in the tonal plan D-fis-b-as-ge. These successions expressively harmonize with the melody and text.
The masterpiece of “fantastic chromatism” is the eighth chorus of “Israel in Egypt” (“Egyptian Darkness”), where the color is recreated partly by timbre, but mainly by harmonic means: C-f-Es-C-f-Es-es-b-C -da- HeE, with enharmonic modulations (deviations) through a diminished seventh chord.
However, we repeat, it is much more characteristic of Handel's style to have elementary “visible” diatonic harmonies in their main functions, however, superbly sharpened and colored by saturating the fabric with non-chord sounds. In the final scene of Rodelinda (Garden at Night), the moral enlightenment of the tyrant Grimwald is captured in the sad and naively meek Sicilian aria:
A shepherd boy, keeper of my pastures, Sleeps in the meadow carefree under a laurel. So why am I, the mighty ruler, I don’t know in the luxury of the royal peace?
Musically, this scene is one of Handel's truly Shakespearean creations. The image of Grimwald is close to Richard II. Sicilian's melody is marvelously good. In the image of a shepherd boy, an elegiac pastoral appears before the tyrant's gaze as a bright antithesis of a different, better life.

Remorse of conscience has long tormented him, and now the sublime and calmly calm beauty of nature suddenly entered his soul, purified and shook it. Music makes you believe it. Her singing is touchingly sincere, the rhythm quietly lulls (Grimwald is really dreaming at this moment). In the string quartet, which accompanies the singing voice, the movement of melodic lines forms a chain of sensitive restraints, giving the music an inexpressibly gentle melancholic nuance: GF Handel. Rodelinda. Scene of Grimwald in the garden.
Famous Handel presenters - integral component his cadances, which gives them that tinge of categoricalness, the proud dignity of intonation, by which one can almost infallibly identify the composer.

Texture. Handel's harmonization of melodies is also matched by the texture he developed, which is stingy, “economical” and at the same time revealing every intonation, rhythmic figure, and chord succession in the most bold relief. Two-part, unison, octave doubling in bass, harmonic four-part of the German-choral type prevail among his textured techniques. It is characteristic that even organ concerts, which would seem to be the most brilliant genre alongside, are distinguished by their modest texture - nothing superfluous. And in this sense, Handel is also far from the aesthetics of the baroque. He is much closer to the ideal of Michelangelo: “Throw the statue from the mountain. What breaks away is superfluous. " The exception is, however, some of his choirs. Here it is inexhaustiblely diverse in terms of the composition of the ensemble and the manner of presentation. Some of the choirs are heavy chord "masonry", others float in light, transparent layers, like ridges of sound clouds. Sometimes the choral texture gets a solution of a purely vertical plan (colonnade supporting the melody). Sometimes, a rich figurative pattern is generously spread throughout the entire sound space, and then deep harmonies float to the surface. There are choirs with a fabric woven from imitatingly echoing counterpoint lines - voices, there are also purely homophonic ones. Handel painted choirs in a graceful chamber plan, but he also loved luxurious, sparkling and "thundering" choirs, in the apt expression of NM Karamzin about the "Messiah".
In the choral style of Handel, the magnificent synthesis and balance to which he led, simultaneously with Bach, the homophony and polyphony of free writing, was especially widely and clearly embodied. However, his homophonic-harmonic principle manifests itself more effectively in thematicism and texture, and rather it is this principle that dominates in his music. This is quite natural for a composer who has formed on the opera, with a pronounced theatricality as the principle of creativity and imaginative structure. Handel the homophonist stands on the path leading from the Italian masters of the 17th - early 18th century to Viennese classics... V instrumental genres concert, overture, old sonata, in the interpretation of the two-part reprisal form, it is still very close to the previous German, Italian, French models (Corelli, Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti). But turn to oratorios, their choirs - and you will hear there homophonic-harmonic themes of a new type, with a new structure, expressiveness and inner contrasts: G. F. Handel. Israel in Egypt. Choir No. 12 Grave e staccato
This 8-bar construction represents an extremely dynamic modulating period (C-dur-g-moll) in the a-in-a1-b1 scheme, probably conceived in a poetic and expressive connection with the words of the text: And he ordered the deep sea, And at once dried up she. Each of the two 4-bar sentences is a symmetry of two equal-volume phrases. The first (eight-part chorus and tutti fortissimo orchestra) symbolize an active, imperative beginning. Powerful sonority, closed harmony (major), abrupt intonation ("sharp pause" after the first chord). In this context, even such an ordinary, imperfect cadence acquires a special expression (waiting for a response). Both response phrases are in sharp contrast to the preceding ones: they contain a sound symbol of the resigned element. Therefore, their entire intonation structure is passive, drowning, coming to naught: the chorus a cappella on the sonority of piano, a sharp narrowing of the range and intervals, in harmony there is a deviation into minor, and in the final phrase of the period - a complete perfect cadence in G minor. All together creates the effect of "evaporation", or coagulation, of the image. Thus, the theme-period contains a "double contrast" of active and passive principles. If we digress here from the verbal text, then the music is already close to Beethoven's style.
According to the principles of thematic development, Handel is the finalizer of the acquisitions of the 17th and early 18th centuries. But the theme itself, especially the heroic theme of the new homophonic-harmonic warehouse and figurative-contrasting content, is the fruit of the master's long-term searches, a great acquisition of his genius and the entire European musical culture of the beginning of modern times. She is looking towards the end of her age.

Polyphony. The polyphony of the 17th century for the first time widely violated the norms of a strict style, creating new themes, new principles of contrapuntal combination of voices, a new harmonic basis, form-building and captured all this newly found - in a fugue. However, the fugues of Frescobaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Corelli, Pachelbel were early daring experiments, innovative "breakthroughs" into the polyphony of tomorrow. Handel, together with Bach, brilliantly confirmed this tomorrow. What was a find, a discovery, and sometimes a search in their work, became the new norm of polyphonic writing.

In Handel's numerous fugues - instrumental and especially choral - the linear unfolding of melos, counterpoint and the realization of the harmonic laws of music merged into one. It was in this synthesis that further important step after Frescobaldi and Buchstehude. Handel, relying on the experience of German and Italian predecessors, first of all intonationally and structurally "armed" his theme for subsequent polyphonic development, enriched its harmonic possibilities and sharpened internal contrasts: intonations, directions of melodic movement, rhythmic figures. This led to an expressive and semantic concretization of the topic, and sometimes pursued a pictorial goal - to evoke visual-figurative associations. The fourth chorus of the oratorio "Israel" is a pictorial embodiment of one of the "Egyptian executions": the water turned into blood, people cannot drink it, they are exhausted from thirst. The whimsically broken, prickly theme of the fugue draws something terrible, unusual.
The soft and fluid counterpart figure momentarily removes this vision, then it reappears in tonal response through the rounded contour of the descending sequence. There is not only the contrast of the relief and the background of the picture or the skillful technique of rhythmic grouping. The composer achieves a psychological effect: you are trying to drive away the terrible, to get away from it - it follows you on your heels. Combined with text, this creates an almost theatrical effect.

Masters of the strict style only occasionally approached similar techniques (for example, Palestrina) and, of course, not in such a figurative and semantic context. The innovation of Handel the polyphonist lies not only in the thematicism of his numerous fugues, but also in a new type of polyphonic development. Using Buchstehude as an example, we would see how much the harmonic laws of this form have not yet been defended by him. Handel did not create the quarto-fifth principle as the harmonic fundamental principle of the fugue: the Venetians knew it. But it is Handel's merit that he consolidated this principle and gave it the significance of the universal. His expositions, deployed in terms of tonic-dominant opposition, radiate tremendous energy. They are full of life and movement. Parallel to Bach, he “rebuilt” the middle part of the fugue, its development and gave it harmoniously that mobile and “dispersed” plan, which constituted the artistic antithesis of the strictly constructive scheme of the exposition. True, here he did not achieve the Bach richness of motivational fragmentation, deviations into distant tonalities and ingenuity in the application of the techniques of a horizontally mobile and doubly mobile counterpoint (straight conduction).
In general, it should be noted that Bach's polyphony is more linear, its dynamic development is directed primarily along the horizontal movement of the sound stream of his voices. In Handel, with all the richness of the melody, the whole harmonic side of polyphony is expressed more actively than in Bach, his polyphonic constructions are based more broadly and more intensively on the chord vertical. All other things being equal, it is always more homophonic than Bach and in this sense is closer to the second half of the 18th and even to the 19th century. We add that, yielding to Bach in lyrical expression and deep concentration of images, he sometimes surpassed him in the magnificent picture quality of his polyphony, its sound power, richness of timbre combinations and contrasts (chorus, orchestra). These qualities are especially widely revealed in Handel's double (two-dark) fugue. There, his art of contrasting polyphony of theatrical-picture plan was unmatched.
It is hardly possible to deny that in the field of rhythmic figuration - its congestion and rarefaction, in rhythmic groupings and their combinations - Bach was richer, more inventive, we would say, more sophisticated than Handel, who preferred more catchy, unambiguous rhythmic formulas. On the other hand, Handel was more inclined to the free variation of thematic conductions, to thematic truncations and mixing of register layers of fabric in crossing voices. It is possible that this diversity less stimulated his activity in interludes: they are not as contrasting, multifaceted and rich as Bach's. Apparently, he did not need such types and qualities.

In a letter to one of his friends, MI Glinka wrote: "For concert (music): Handel, Handel and Handel." These words not only contain a high assessment, but also define one of the brightest qualities in the work of the great German composer. Handel's outstanding virtuoso performing talent, especially as a soloist on organ and harpsichord, was reflected here.

His style of harpsichord playing, apparently, was distinguished by strength, brilliance, pathos, density of sound, which were considered unattainable on this instrument before him. He avoided the dry harshness of the blow. The famous English musicologist Charles Burney, who heard Handel in concerts, says: "His fingers were so bent while playing and so little separated from each other that it was impossible to notice the movements of the hand and partly even of the fingers." This positioning of the hand is naturally associated with playing soft, even, probably, if possible, coherent. The style of organ playing was dominated by festive solemnity, fullness, contrasts of chiaroscuro, enormous temperament and improvised cadences, combined with incomparable intelligence and confidence, as another eyewitness says.
Affected here and the paramount importance, which in that era acquired concert, as a democratic principle of the art of festive, elegant, exciting, intended for very wide audiences. In Handel, concertism as a style trait demonstratively opposes the cutesy and fragile aristocracy, the stilted affectation of court art or the puritanical church-religious renunciation of the cheerfulness and decorative beauty of sound. It is no coincidence that among all the instrumental heritage of the master, it is the concerts - solo and Grossi, and orchestral concert suites of a festive and entertainment plan that have retained the widest and most lasting place.
In Handel's clavier work, polyphonic forms did not become the main genre line, like JS Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier". The central place here was occupied by his homophonic suite (English Lesson). Handel's suites for clavier were published in three collections that coincided with the heyday of his operatic creativity(20-30s). However, some of these 19 plays were probably written even earlier.
The first collection, published in 1720, is assessed with controversy. While studying these works, some musicologists (M. Seifert, O. Fleischer, K. Krysander and others) inappropriately focused on the search for foreign, in particular, Italian influences, which affected here. These little four-, five-, or six-part cycles of Handel are indeed built in part in an Italian fashion. Traditional allemandes, chimes, sarabands and gigues are replaced in the alternation of contrasting movements, sizes and rhythmic figures that plasticly set off or complement each other. Typical images, mainly of a poetic and everyday plan, are also captured here, and the melodious slow parts are compositionally located in the center of the cycle as its lyrical climax.

And yet, from the Italian clavier partita such as the famous "Frescobalda" or from the pieces for the solo Pasquini, Scarlatti - Handel's suites differ extremely in style. But with good reason they point to their successive connection with the style of the German masters of the 17th - early 18th centuries - Froberger, Kerl, Fischer, Krieger, Pachelbel, Muffat, Kuhnau.

At its core, Handel's Clavier Suite is a German suite. Its structure and composition are very individual: in addition to the usual dance pieces, it contains preludes, fugues, overtures, variations. In terms of thematism, they are very significant, and we find there pieces written not only with concert brilliance, on a large scale and in a dynamic plan (an aria with variations in the suite in E major), but also things of great expression and seriousness of design. Such is the Sarabande with variations in the suite in D minor and, in particular, the G minor Passacaglia - an image of high pathos, almost incompatible with the boundaries of the harpsichord sound, foreshadowing Beethoven in some features. But where Handel includes a fugue in the suite, it is she who becomes the leading play of the cycle, the most significant in figurative content, the most effective, impulsive in the development of thematic material. The texture of the suites is brilliant, varied, and
the massive chaconne in G major is justly considered a whole encyclopedia of clavier technique; it is directed towards the dynamically promising capabilities of the instrument.

Handel's works for chamber ensembles are divided into two large groups according to the time of creation and style. One is youthful compositions, where the composer's personality has not yet been determined; we will not list them here. Let us only note that since his adolescence, Handel showed interest in wind instruments. We already find here sonatas for two oboes and continuo, for flute and continuo. Another group consists of quite mature and masterful compositions written in London in the 30s and early 40s. This includes primarily 15 solo sonatas, op. 1 (mostly in the form of the old four-part cycle da chiesa 2) for violin or flute, or oboe - and basso continuo. About half of the works in this collection now constitute an integral part of the violin pedagogical repertoire. Written in a two-part warehouse, which Handel loved immensely, they underwent unjustified modernization in later editions.
One cannot but recognize in this first opus the strong influence of Corelli (solo sonatas, op. 5).
More organic for Handel's individual style are trio sonatas for two violins (or oboes, or flutes) and basso continuo, published in two collections: op. 2 (9 sonatas) and op. 5 (7 sonatas). The sonatas of the second opus are almost all written in a three-part warehouse and a four-part scheme da chiesa. In the fifth opus, dance-suite cycles predominate. Thematically, the trio sonatas are widely associated with the operas and oratorios of those years. Especially the second opus is rich in plastic-expressive melodious melodies: GF Handel. Trio Sonata No. 8, Larghetto.
For all its artistic merit, the sonata did not become for Handel, even in a purely instrumental field, the genre center that Corelli or Domenico Scarlatti had: the concert took the central place.

Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach were the greatest organists of their time. To what has been said about Handel's virtuoso performing style, it must be added that he usually played in the theater hall of Covent Garden, improvising during intermissions, between the performance of individual parts of his oratorios. These improvisations, brilliant, temperamental, intelligible, enjoyed great success with the general public. “When Handel started playing,” testifies Gaukins, “silence reigned, everyone sat with bated breath, and life itself seemed to freeze.” 4 (1738) and 7 (posthumously, in 1760), six concerts each.
Speaking about the festivity of this genre in Handel, we must protect ourselves from schematism: it would hardly be correct to define the style of organ concerts as monumental. More precisely, characterize it as energetic, lively, cheerful, with sharply outlined melodies, bright contrasts and an abundance of dance rhythms. In his comprehensive and valuable monograph "Georg Friedrich Handel", Walter Sigmund-Schulze reminds us that

Covent Garden had only a positive organ, which provided the performer with modest opportunities. On the other hand, it is natural to assume that, when staging a monumental oratorio, the intermissions were deliberately filled with music that is lighter, more fluid, divertissement, giving the listener some relaxation. It should also not be forgotten that Handel's concertos were written for organ with one manual (keyboard). As for the texture, we can only very tentatively judge it, since the solo part was improvised by the concertist, and the written out musical text of it often makes up rather only a diagram or outline for the musical fabric, as it should have sounded in the author's interpretation.

So, before us are not grandiose sculptural groups, but rather bright "musical panels" of the 18th century, pleasing the ear with their beauty and not requiring anything higher from the audience. Compositionally, the organ concert is a three or four-part cycle with close-up contrasts: I. Solemn Largo; II. Energetic Allegro; III. Lyric Andante; IV. Allegro-finale, genre-related more with everyday music, indirectly with dance. Another sequence: I. Energetic Allegro; II. Lyric Andante; III. Short Adagio type introduction; IV. The final Allegro of the solemn and hymn plan. Third Sequence: I. Solemn Largo (Larghetto); II. Energetic Allegro; III. Genre-lyric Andante with variations.
The first Largo is an impressive introduction to the cycle. The first Allegro - fugue or homophonic-figurative warehouse - contains an image that is most active in terms of thematic development. This is a kind of core of a large composition. Lyric Andante reveals the realm of subjective feelings and motives. The second Allegros (finals) are very different in their role in concert cycles: sometimes it is the final climax-apotheosis, sometimes it is a genre, sometimes it is a dance.

There are also other types of cyclical connections and relationships in the fourth opus.
Concerts op. 7 are more diverse in genre: here there appear the features of suite - passacaglia and burré in the First Concerto, the minuet in the Third, and in the Fifth - the chaconne, minuet and gavotte. Following the path of Frescobaldi, Handel went much further - he finally approved the organ as a completely secular instrument - in terms of forms of music-making, performing style, genres and figurative content of organ literature. This was a great conquest of democratic music.
The pinnacle of Handel's instrumental creativity is his Concerti grossi. Together with six Brandenburg concerts by J. S. Bach and countless creations by Vivaldi - “ Big concerts»Handel belong to the great treasures orchestral music XVIII century. They are enclosed in two opuses. Earlier - op. 3 (1734) - six so-called "Concertos for oboe". This name is extremely inaccurate: oboes (like flutes, bassoons) appear here as instruments that double the parts of the strings. In addition, oboe voices have been found for concerts of the sixth opus, which were previously considered purely strings in composition.

Op. 6 includes twelve Concerti grossi, published in 1739. In terms of the interpretation of the genre, Handel is here closest to Corelli. Compared to organ concerts, orchestral concerts are simpler, stricter in melody and texture, more laconic in composition. And here the “developmental” parts (or episodes) of Allegro are rich in motivational fragmentation and modulation work, paving the way for a classical sonata-symphony of the Mannheim or Viennese type.
In the contrasting alternations of concertino and tutti, layers of a homophonic and imitation-polyphonic warehouse, magnificent effects of light and shade, or a kind of rhythmic pulsation of the orchestral fabric, have been achieved. It should be borne in mind that Concerti grossi are still predominantly homophonic in terms of their music. The composition of the orchestra is also close to Corelli, although strengthened by ripieni 2 in grosso, by wind instruments - according to the German tradition - in concertino. The structure of Handel's concert cycle is varied. There are two-, three-, four-, five-, six-part concerts. Some (for example, op. 6 no. 7, B-major) have the features of an old cyclical sonata: others (for example, op. 6 no. 9 with a minuet and gigue) are closer to the suite. The parts of the cycle are in relief juxtaposed with each other or contrastingly oppose each other. Handel likes to layer a sonata or overture scheme with separate suite numbers - dance or song. Op. 6 No. 8, c minor, opens with allemand. In No. 6 g-moll - the pastoral interlude "Musette" is close to Angelus "and the Christmas concert of Corelli. The fifth D major" concert of the same opus pleases with an emphasized everyday, "pre-Haydn" minuet, as if humorously skipped through the "magnifying glass of time" ( Un poco larghetto). To the concert in e-moll, op. 6 No. 3, a brilliant polonaise was introduced according to the Saxon-Thuringian tradition. In d-moll, the tenth from the same opus, the French overture and aria emphasize the operatic connections of Concerti grossi, and they are wide: arious themes (in lyrical slow parts), overture themes (in the opening Grave, Largo) sound there at every step. Moreover, Handel directly introduced opera numbers into Concerti grossi (for example, the overture of Amadis of Gallic to the Fourth Oboe Concerto), and certain parts of the concertos into operas (for example, the score of Otto). He did this because the plastic theatricality of his thematism naturally disposed to these musical "transplants".

Each concert is characterized by special genre connections, a special figurative-poetic appearance and emotional tone of the statement.
The concert is based on F major, op. 6 № 2, - genre-rethought pastoral: GF Handel. Andante from Concerto grosso op.6 No. 2
It is hard not to hear the forerunner of Beethoven's "Pathetique Sonata" in the Largo of the heroic h-minor "concerto, op. 6 No. 12: GF Handel. Concerto grosso op. 6 No. 12
This dominant appearance, or the tone of the cycle, is usually shaded, sometimes dramatically deepened by the phenomenon of images of a contrasting plan. In the famous concert in g-minor, op. 6, after the melancholic Larghetto and the gloomy, “prickly” fugue, there is a sunny and tender pastoral, and in the midst of the solemnly gloomy images of the concert in c-minor (No. 8) - the finest in writing, Mozart's - lyric sicilian.
For all the classical severity and, as a rule, restraint of writing, Concerti grossi quickly gained immense popularity among the general public, especially in England and Germany. During Handel's lifetime, they were often played in London parks.

In no other area of ​​instrumental music was Handel so democratic and perspicacious as in the "plein air genres" he created. In them, he especially concentrated and sensitively generalized the genre features and intonations that existed in the everyday life of the people of his time. These works demonstrate that genre generosity and responsiveness even to the most unpretentious demands of wide circles of society, which has always been a characteristic feature of the great classics of musical art. This is light, entertaining music in the best sense the words. Naturally, the very way of musical life in England after the bourgeois revolution - a way of more democratic, open, sociable, - in turn, contributed to the emergence of these works.
Handel's plein air genres include his double concertos. One of them - in F major, composed in the 40s (more precisely, the time has not been established), is a nine-part suite with an imposing passacaglia in the middle of the entire composition. The concert is intended for a large orchestra consisting of a string ensemble and two brass groups. It is fun, welcoming and energetic public music. Another Double Concerto B-dur in seven movements, created by Handel around 1750, is interestingly conceived and masterfully executed. It is notable for its culmination - a new orchestral arrangement of the majestic first chorus of the oratorio "Messiah" - "For splendor will come true" (Derm die Herrlichkeit). Up to this day, "Water Music" is an unchanging success among the general public. composed by Handel, probably around 1715-1717 for the festive royal cortege on the Thames, but addressed with its images and musical speech not so much to the court as to the broad masses of the population. This is an orchestral serenade, or a divertissement suite for strings, wind instruments and harpsichord - from over twenty small pieces. Between them there are merry, gracefully finished dances - burrés, minuets, traditional English Hornpipe1; there are also sensitive song numbers of the folk style (Adagio). Everything is preceded by a solemn overture, and individual parts are framed with brilliant fanfare-rolls of trumpets and horns. The activity of the wind instruments is characteristic in "Music on the Water". Flute, piccolo flute, oboe, bassoon, French horn are soloing. Since 1740, "Water Music" has been widely included in the programs of garden and then academic concerts.
The suite Firework Music is even larger and more detailed, intended for a large celebration in Green Park on April 27, 1749, to mark the end of the War of Austrian Succession and the conclusion of peace in Aachen, Germany. On a large scale, it is more modest than "Music on the Water", designed specifically for long-lasting sound. There are six parts in Fireworks: Festive overture in marching rhythm, burra, program Largo alia siciliana (Peace), program Allegro (Joy) and two minuets. This piece on a contemporary political theme is perhaps the most decorative of Handel's instrumental opus; it is not for nothing that individual pieces were performed during various pyrotechnic numbers, and the music was accompanied by cannon shots. brass band consisting of 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, 9 horns, 9 trumpets (all divided by parts) and 3 timpani. Subsequently, Handel introduced a string group to the Fireworks Orchestra, and then the ensemble grew to almost a hundred instruments. It was something completely unprecedented and brought great fame to the composer, despite the fact that the celebration in Green Park was overshadowed by disaster and panic: an allegorical temple erected in the park collapsed, ignited by fireworks.

The four major works named here were not the only ones in this genre. Other smaller “symphony” overtures and dances could be named, such as the national “Hornpipe composed for the concert of Voxhall” and others.
Handel's instrumental creativity reflected his era, country, and contemporaries. For his powerful and democratic artistic nature, it was a true service to his art. But he created incomparably more in vocal and instrumental genres.

It is difficult to agree with Romain Rolland, who asserts that Handel, "no matter how far he went along all the paths of development of opera, he still did not open a new path." New paths were discovered by Handel, and along these paths they moved in different directions. Gluck only three years later, Mozart - twenty years after the death of the author of "Tamerlane" and "Deidamia". It is undeniable, however, that opera reform Handel was not brought to the end by him: in his prime, he switched to a different genre line, and most importantly, in the 30s the time for reform in full was not yet ripe.

Genres, plots.
Handel's operas are diverse in genre and thematic designs. He wrote historical operas (the best of them is Julius Caesar), fairy-tale operas (the best is Alcina), operas based on plots from ancient mythology (for example, Ariadne) or the medieval knightly epic (the magnificent Orlando). His operatic path was uneven - there were powerful and courageous ups on it, but sometimes more ordinary opuses of the leveled seria style were created. Handel's opera was further from life, more conditional than an oratorio or a concert. Court tastes, the splendor of the Baroque, the influence of routine, sometimes even loyal motives (for example, in "Richard I") affected her. Her characters are all the same monarchs, military leaders, conquerors, sorceresses, knights of the Middle Ages. The people, with rare exceptions (for example, in "Julia Caesar"), are not only silent, but also absent. Yet the main
an innovative tendency was defined with complete clarity.

Ideas. The composer clearly gravitated towards significant subjects and strong characters, the music illuminated them with the light of lofty ideas. In Admet, this is the idea of ​​heroic self-sacrifice, and in this sense he is the direct predecessor of Gluck's Alceste, written almost forty years later. Tamerlane and Rodelinda condemn tyranny unequivocally. In "Radamisto" the end of the tragedy is brought by an uprising that overthrows the Armenian king Tiridates. The hero of "Ariadne" Theseus acts as the liberator of the Athenian youths and girls enslaved by the Cretan king and destined for the prey of the bloodthirsty monster Minotaur. Not Handel, but the ancient Greeks created this myth, concealing a freedom-loving plan. But Handel and his librettist Francis Colman did not choose him by chance. "Ariadne" was written shortly before "Israel in Egypt", which had already directly and openly exposed slavery.

Conflict. These lofty ideas determined the conflicting tendencies and motives of Handel's opera. Almost everywhere on the stage there are opposing camps: Egyptians and Romans in (Caesar, Greeks and Indians in Por, Armenians and Thracians in Radamisto, the forces of good and evil in Alcina or Amadis of Gaul. But and in the spiritual world of the heroes violent conflicts are played out. In Cleopatra, this is the antagonism of the Queen of Egypt and the woman who fell in love with the arrogant Roman - the conqueror of her country. The Queen of the Longobards of Rodelinda has a conflict of maternal love and the duty of loyalty to her husband and fatherland (dishonorable marriage or the murder of her beloved son). the famous historical opera-legend "Por" (1731) on the libretto of Metastasio - Alexander the Great is presented as a hero who alternately turns into a stern conqueror, then a humane and enlightened husband of the state. "Nathan the Wise") and Mozart (Pasha in "Abduction from the Seraglio"). In Handel's "Armenian" opera "Radamisto", Tsarevich Tigran hesitates between cruel decrees my father-commander and ardent sympathy for the courage of the Thracian opponents.
One might argue that such conflicts in themselves are not so new in Handel; that they had met more than once in the Italian opera seria ("Mithridates Eupator" by Al. Scarlatti) or in the French lyric tragedy. This is indeed the case. But it was Handel who had conflicts and. contradictions of this kind for the first time found an unprecedentedly wide and strong musical embodiment.

On another occasion, it has already been said about the magnificent "Shakespearean" scene of the tyrant Grimwald in the third act of "Rodelinda". True, one cannot say that Handel avoided the operatic "mask" altogether; convention was characteristic of him too. But often the task of artistic embodiment, more subtle, differentiated, carried him away, and he achieved remarkable results on this path. According to the narrow concepts of that time, the artist's miscalculation could have sounded a wide, noble and heartfelt melody in Tamerlane's G minor love aria. However, it is more correct to assume the opposite: embodying the image of a hero, unbridled in his impulses, the composer did not want to deprive him of his humanity at all, and music at times warms his appearance, even more sharply shading despotism.

Vocal forms
The vocal line of Handel's opera is often, as in oratorios, a somewhat instrumental style - not only graceful, plastic-relief, brilliant in sounding, but emotionally natural: it reveals the image of the hero, his state of mind, and, moreover, in this stage position. In his best creations, Handel overcame the schematism that Italian opera arias of the seria type often sinned. He strove for the true embodiment of life, people, their passions and feelings in various combinations, dynamic plans, and often he succeeded splendidly. Adjacent arias of the same operatic scene usually contrast with each other; both Monteverdi and Alessandro Scarlatti did it. But Handel also brings a fresh and bright contrasting beginning to da capo's aria, which he still preferred to other operatic forms.

The operatic form, which he perfected and advanced far ahead, was also the recitative accompagnato. In the operas of the English period, the dramatic role and expressiveness of his recitatives can only be compared with those of Purcell's, and the Italian samples are left behind. Handel's recitative, flexible, intonationally filled, playing on the harmoniously rich, often pictorial and figurative accompaniment of the orchestra, ceases to be a narrative about events that cannot or are inconvenient to show on stage. On the contrary, recitatives play out the events, and, moreover, in the climax of the drama.

"Fusion" scenes
Striving to dramatize recitative, to artistic harmony of music and stage action, Handel in a number of cases comes to an innovative method, which was later inherited and developed by Gluck and Mozart in their reformist operas: to the compositional fusion of recitative and aria in one dramatic scene of continuous, continuous development. This is how Julius Caesar's scene by the sea was written. First, the orchestral introduction draws the image of rolling waves, then the hero's monologue opens with the recitative accompagnato. The recitative merges into the aria, accompanied by the music of waves in the orchestra, and in the middle of its three-part form (da capo) the recitative appears again. According to the principle of “end-to-end action on music”, a large, sharply dramatic scene of Bayazet’s death in “Tamerlane” has been resolved: the recitative secco goes into accompagnato, followed by the hero's arioso, after which another accompagnato ends with a lyrical climax - the farewell song of the dying man, and the stormy Presto heralds a turning point - the confusion of feelings and repentance of the formidable Tatar Khan. “Continuous”, or “through”, culminating scenes of high dramatic tone are also found in other Handel's operas - in Orlando (scene of madness), Ariadne (Theseus in the labyrinth, his single combat with the Minotaur), Rodelinda, Admete ”,“ Deidamia ”(fusion of arias and arioso with secco - recitative in the second picture of the opera).
It is a mistake to think that Handel did nothing but write "operas of situations" on the Italian model. Indeed, his operatic works of the Hamburg and Italian periods were written in this manner. In "Almira" (1705) there are about fifty arias, but they do not consistently reveal the characters of the heroes. Obviously, then the young composer did not set himself such an artistic task. However, it would be wrong to extend this assessment to all of our master's operatic work. In a number of his best operas of the 1920s and 1930s, Handel no longer only consciously aspired to this goal, but achieved it in a truly innovative way: the images of his heroes change, turning into new, previously unrevealed sides on large dynamic lines of through development that stretch sometimes through the whole opera.

Duets, ensembles.

Handel was less generous and inventive in duets and ensembles, although he had very remarkable achievements in these operatic forms. Good are his duets-conflicts, clashes of antagonists, where each game is drawn and sounds completely individual, "as opposed to". This is how the duets of Rinaldo and Armida, Amadis and Melissa, Ariadne and Theseus are written (he goes to battle with the Minotaur, she tries to hold him; he, confident in his abilities, sings a wide melody, she also objects to him with short, expressive remarks). But Handel is also magnificent in duets of consent, especially those that play the role of lyrical climaxes. For them, he created some of his most beautiful melodies (for example, the final duet of Rodelinda and Bertarich in the second act of the opera, and others).

Chorus.
Ensembles - tercets, quartets are less common; but even more rare are choirs. Especially in comparison with oratorios, the opera reveals here the limitations of its resources, forms, and of the concept itself: as a rule, there is no image of the people in it .. However, where Handel turned to the choir, he gave it a more active dramatic meaning than Lully or the masters of the Roman school. Thus, in Julia Caesar, the choir of the people, framing the opera, recreates the big picture historical events and, at the same time, directly participates in the action (the hero's triumph). The choirs of sailors in Justin and hunters in Deidamia are close to Purcell's drama. The famous final choir "Tamerlane" is a funeral song for the deceased Bayazet, but at the same time it is also a hymn of reconciliation, embodying a major resolution of the tragic conflict. The specific solutions of the choral "numbers" are varied, especially in the final scenes, where they are sometimes skillfully combined with solo parts, and sometimes with dance (for example, in the first and third acts of "Ariodanta" or in the finale of "Atalanta").

Opera Orchestra.
Handel's oler orchestra (flute, oboe, bassoons, French horns, trumpets, percussion, harps, bow group and harpsichord) is light and brilliant, colorful and dynamic. Rodrigo "," Theseus "," Atalanta "). Some are performed in a pictorial plan, in harmony with the plot of the opera (the sea in" Richard I. " , and in recitatives accompagnato- pictorial moments. Handel's orchestra is not only superbly organized rhythmically, but also much more cannabis than French in Lully's. Recall that, according to the tradition of the Italian seria, any aria is preceded by an introduction: the theme is first played by an orchestra (sometimes with a solo instrument), and only after him comes the singing voice. hunting, fantastic, landscape and others. Here Handel had remarkable finds, which were subsequently mastered by opera composers of later eras, in particular, Mozart in Don Juan. Thus, at the beginning of the second act of Caesar (a celebration in the royal palace), two orchestras are playing: a large one in front of the stage and a chamber one on the stage. This creates a uniquely vital theatrical effect. In the Julius Caesar's orchestra there are four French horns. Of the old instruments, Handel uses theorba and viola da gamba in a number of cases.

As for ballet music, here Handel rose above the decorative plans of French lyrical tragedy and English masks. His ballet is dramatically motivated and strictly sustained in the appropriate pattern and colors. Dances of spirits in "Admet" are the predecessors of the second act of Gluck's "Orpheus". Opera-ballets of the 30s: "Ario-dant", "Alcina" - still shine in the concert repertoire with choreographic music, full of grace, temperament, theatrical and plastic beauty.

Such were the searches and achievements of Handel in the field of operatic creativity. We repeat: he did not create here, like Gluck and Mozart, a single concept, all-embracing and harmonious. But his innovative daring, passionate striving for the musical theater of artistic truth, “ingenious calculation for the most dramatic strings of the human voice” (A. N. Serov) all bore fruit.

A truly great art always reflects the actual life of its time. From this life its content originates, and the artistic form is determined by the content. To embody big events, problems, ideas - the artists of the past, as now, most often turned to monumental genres, large-scale and large forms. In the music of the first half of the 18th century, this could not yet be a symphony - the aesthetic, musical and technological prerequisites for it were not ripe then. But it could no longer be opera, or mainly opera: the socio-historical conditions for this were left behind. The opera house was by that time too far from life, constrained by conventions and dependent on circles that hindered social and artistic progress. Then the oratorio moved to the forefront of great civil art, and Handel became its great reformer. Without tearing it away from the religious plot at all, he breathed into it a high patriotic and social pathos and equipped it with expressive means of such power that the beautiful, but too sweet-sounding creations of the famous Giacomo Carissimi - this Guido Reni of 17th century Italian music - faded before her.

The general ideological aspiration and style in each of Handel's oratorios find an original plot-thematic and genre solution. So, "Samson" or "Saul" are heroic dramas with very diverse arias, recitatives, ensembles of an almost operatic type. There is no scene in them, but there is action, and, moreover, active, almost visible, when, for example, in a violent g-moll "noisy symphony, the uninhibited giant Samson brings down the vaults of their temple on the enemies, or when the people solemnly and proudly buries his hero. Delilah's captivating phenomenon or the ominously bewitching one of the Endor sorceress in "Saule" are recreated with amazing plasticity. You see in the music the appearance of these characters, their gait, speech, facial expressions. The whole drama of these works is theatrical, it breathes with the pathos of the stage. In a completely different way - "Judas Maccabee" - a patriotic epic, fanned by the flames of battles and crowned with a triumph of victory, equal to which had not been created before Beethoven's Heroic Symphony. But there are no images with individually outlined features, and you will learn about events only from the mouths of messengers or from the lines of the chorus.

The oratorio "On a Chance", written in the critical days for England in 1746, is a kind of musical proclamation, appealing to the masses in an almost rally style, extremely generalized, purposeful, mobilizing, stern, even imperative in language.
The famous "Messiah" was created in the midst of a brutal collision of the composer with the London "top". Therefore, this work was first performed in Dublin (Ireland), which sheltered Handel, in 1742. "Messiah" could be called a huge heroic praise. This "Life of a Hero" of the 18th century is compositionally embodied in the form of a musical triptych, similar to those that were written on religious motives by the masters of the Renaissance: I. Birth, childhood (first 19 issues), II. Feat (23 numbers), III. Triumph (9 numbers).
The plot of The Messiah (libretto by Charles Jennens and Handel himself based on the biblical texts) is essentially the same as in The Passion of Christ (Passions), but its interpretation is not at all the same. And here the events are not shown and almost not told, and the images of the oratorio are in relation to them only on a certain tangent line: it is rather a cycle of lyric-epic hymn songs, born of the hero's feat, a reflection of the legend in the popular consciousness.
Handel's Messiah bears little resemblance to the humble and humble passion-bearer from the German Passions. On the contrary, this is a powerful, even warlike figure, rather reminiscent of the hyperbolic images of Rubens or Michelangelo. In addition, he is so merged with the masses of the people, dissolved in it, that in reality (that is, in music) it is no longer so much he as the people themselves become their own messiah. No wonder the solo part of Jesus is absent in the oratorio. Deeply folk choirs (21 out of 52 numbers of the howling composition) constitute its main musical content and, like a massive colonnade, support the huge building.
The "Messiah" orchestra does not differ in the timbre variety and play of colors that are characteristic of Handel's palette in purely instrumental and some synthetic genres ("Concerti grossi", "Julius Caesar", the oratorio "L" Allegro "and others). Messiah "is usually published and performed in Mozart's arrangement. It is highly artistic in itself, in some respects it deviates from the original. Mozart kept all the parts of the singing voices unchanged and string instruments, except for the additional violins and violas. As for the "obligate" wind instruments and the so-called accompanists (organ, clavier, lute, harp), here the changes and additions made by Mozart are great. In places, he developed the accompanying voices into obligate parts, and re-instrumented the obligate ones, introducing, for example, flutes and clarinets instead of oboes. In places, individual short melodic phrases are developed into extended constructions and delightful counterpoints of a purely Mozart style are added to them. Arrangements of Handel's oratorios: "Acis and Galatea", "Messiah", "The Feast of Alexander", "Odes of Cecilia" - were made by Mozart in 1788-1790.
The E minor overture to "Messiah" in the style of an operatic "symphony" of that time (massive Grave and fugue Allegro) is gloomy, but extremely energetic and conjures up the image of some stately dance rather than the threshold to religious contemplation of the "passion of the Lord. ". The first nine vocal numbers - three times alternating and thematically related accompanied recitatives, arias and choruses - are written as a kind of cyclical introduction to the narrative warehouse. The intonations here really are dominated by the epic and thoughtful, the rhythmic pattern is almost even and calm everywhere, the movement of the melody is most often unhurried, sedate. Only at times does this epic expanse explode with a storm of sounds foreshadowing a future tragedy. As if from time immemorial, archaic voices are heard - sayings about certain important events, and the first E major recitative (consolation to the “suffering and burdened”) of a completely pre-Betho-Viennese type - meaningfully prophesies the imminent end of the unrighteous power. Then, in the very middle of the movement, the clear major sphere is clouded over in B minor (recitative and aria nos. 10-11), and, like echoes of hoary antiquity, stately images emerge ancient legend: a people wandering in darkness sees a bright light ahead and the light gives rise to great hope in their souls.
The hero's “golden childhood” appears in the form of a whole pastoral cycle in the spirit of the ideals of the “Arcadian Academy”:
G. F. Handel. Messiah. Pastoral Symphony. Andante. Handel, while in Italy, participated in "Arcadia" along with Corelli, Marcello and Al. Scarlatti. The similarity of the given here " Pastoral symphony"From" Messiah "with the finale of Corelli's Christmas concert (Angelus) - and really striking.

Handel follows the naive-poetic tradition of the Renaissance: just like in Correggio's "Holy Night", heavenly angels flock to the manger and cover the peaceful shepherd's idyll with their wings:
Andante G.F. Handel. Messiah. Recitative No. 14. They sing the traditional Christmas "Gloria in excelsis" (Glory in the highest).

If this first part of the oratorio is still close to the plot of the biblical source, however, already rethought in terms of folk action, then in the second, the religious legend is gradually overshadowed by motives of a completely different, civil nature. Here lies the tragic core of the entire work and its dramatic culmination - torture, suffering and martyrdom of the hero. Musical images are immersed in a dark "Rembrandt" flavor (an array of minor choirs: g-moll, f-moll, f-moll and solo numbers: b-moll, c-moll, h-moll, e-moll, d-moll, g -moll, e-moll, a-moll). At times, their pathetic melody is shackled by pointed, rhythmic ostinatos. Before us there are figures of enemies - tyrants, unrighteous judges, executioners, detractors with ridicule and sophistry on their lips (I recall Titian's "Denarius of Caesar"), episodes of their intrigues, torture, wild rage. There can hardly be any doubt that Handel directed his " iron verse drenched in bitterness and anger. " But perhaps the most remarkable thing is that it is in this culminating phase of the tragedy that there is neither the traditional crucifixion, nor the funeral rite, nor the mother's weeping at the foot of the cross, nor "tears and sighs" in general. Only a small 15-bar arioso in e-moll "Look, look and tell me: who knew suffering worse?" - somewhat approaches the image of "Pieta" ("Compassion." artistic images removal from the cross.). However, this arioso is also highly characteristic of a noble measure of expression and restraint in intonation:
Larghetto. G.F. Handel. Messiah. Arioso number 28

It is characteristic that Goethe, who was a great admirer of the "Messiah", strongly condemned the excessive tenderness and sentimentality in the performance of this work. “Weakness is a characteristic feature of our century!” He lamented about this in Weimar in 1829. In addition, no matter how often archaic biblical texts would repeat the name of the Messiah, Handel's music, powerful and imperious, covers them with its emotionally truthful beauty. Huge folk choirs rise above the tragedy of the individual and film it in their wide and irresistibly aspiring movement. Even the most gloomy-mournful among them, such as the g-moll chorus of Prayer for the Chalice, breathe some inescapable fanatical power:
G. F. Handel. Messiah. Choir No. 20

The composition of "Messiah" is based on the alternation of contrasting images in close-up... In the midst of the thundering massifs of the choir, the Messenger of Peace appears to the people in the gentle G minor Sicilian. In such an environment, his pure, lyrically clarified image, close to "Orpheus" or "Alceste" by Gluck, is perceived as if he was walking along a path already paved by the masses. It is a symbol of peace, inspiring them to the last, decisive struggle.
The militant, figurative choir in C major is conceived from the libretto as a wild cry of the pagans rebelling against Christ:
Break the chains, break them, brothers!
The hour has struck long ago!
And throw far away
Slave yoke!
Further, it is said about how the celestial laughed at these "princes of the world" and "struck them and scattered them with his scepter." But these apocryphal broadcasts are drowned in mighty streams of music, literally seething with the pathos of angry protest. "Break the chains, break it, brothers!" - it sounds like an irresistible revolutionary appeal, a battle cry of the insurgent masses. And the fight is crowned with victory. The general culmination of the whole oratorio, which concludes the second part of "Messiah", is the grandiose song of glory "Hallelujah" (D-dur) - the direct predecessor of the D-dur "noro of the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It heralds the denouement of the tragedy and the triumph of the victorious people. and by the dazzling light of this music in her homeland, in England, to this day, audiences rise from their seats to listen to it standing - not only thousands of ordinary people, but also statesmen, church prelates, even monarchs. Handel organically merged traditions here and techniques coming from Purcell's "Anthems" and from German democratic songwriting on a revolutionary theme. In the powerful unison of "Hallelujah" there is an old tune of the Protestant folk chant: "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stim-me!" ("Wake up, the voice is calling us!").

Twenty years later, Gluck defined the task of music - to paint poetic images of a verbal text. For that time it was "the great word of a great artist."
The religious fragments that make up the libretto for the third part of The Messiah are pious praises to providence, thanksgiving to heaven. In Handel's interpretation, the finale of the oratorio is a people's holiday of freedom and victory over the enemy, "some colossal, boundless triumph of a whole people" (V.V. Stasov). Life-affirming hymns loudly challenge darkness, grief and death itself, and the famous E major aria Largetto - "I know my savior lives!" - not a prayer. There is too much oratorical pathos, intellectualism, and perhaps the austere beauty of Beethoven's minuets in it.

Oratorios-denunciations
Oratorios-invectives, oratorios-denunciations occupy a special place among Handel's monumental genres. They belong to the most powerful pages of his music. The famous "Israel in Egypt" as a genre is not only an epic, but also an oratorio-panorama, consisting of giant musical frescoes (sound writing), united by a narrative recitative. As a concept, an idea, "Israel" is something more than an epic of people's suffering or a colorful and decorative description of "Egyptian executions". This is the most unequivocal denunciation of slavery, passionate, scourging and sounded extremely significant to English society in the late 1830s. A little later, Handel brilliantly returned to this theme in Samson. But in an even broader, socially sharpened and dramatically it is embodied in the ingenious and truly daring "Belshazzar" (1744), which was not accidentally sounded at the Handel celebrations in 1959 in Halle with unexpected relevance and persuasive force for many.

Lyric oratorio
Handel's heroic oratorios are the most significant and monumental in their ideology, but they are far from the only ones. He also wrote pastoral oratorios (Acis and Galatea) and fairy-tale oratorios (Semele); oratorios-idylls ("Susanna") and oratorios-utopias ("Solomon" - The musical image of the kingdom-utopia is deployed in three planes, which correspond to three parts of the oratorio: 1. Marriage, family. 2. Justice. 3. Construction.), oratorios - love dramas ("Hercules"). Finally, along with all this, he also has an oratorio of a purely lyrical plan, created in 1740 on the text of Milton, - "L" Allegro, II Pensieroso ed il Moderato ", which can be translated approximately like this:" Impulse, dream and measure of feelings "(Literally: cheerful, brooding and moderate.).

This work - almost the only one in Handel in this genre - is completely alien to any religious motives. In terms of its concept, it is very close to the ideas of the then English, and German education and philosophical and ethical education. In Milton's didactic (moralizing) poems, Italian terms designate various human characters, moral states, or even the outlook of people. They express their feelings and moods, thoughts and ideals in various life situations and settings, against a picturesque background of changing pictures of rural nature and urban life. The views and criteria of Allegro and Pensieroso contradict each other in many ways. One is impetuous, changeable, frivolous and lives a full life only in human commotion, in "storms and whirlpools of external events. The other is an eternally pensive dreamer and melancholic; he shuns people and bright light, is in love with the moon and his own quiet dreams. Hence, completely different intonation spheres, genre connections and solutions for these images: Pensieroso is dominated by Lamen-ti, Sicilians, pastorals with light sound, sighs, sensitive arrests. Allegro prefers a march, a fast pace, a dotted rhythm, energetic and noisy figuration. And this is consonant with the poet's intention. ”But Handel's librettist Charles Jennens added to this antithesis a certain psychological and ethical synthesis, which Milton did not have:“ II Moderato ”combines the best features of both antagonists, rejects their extremes and asserts the primacy of reason over the changeable element of feelings and moods Thus, higher mental ideas arise from lower, but necessarily preceding sensory ideas. close to the views of a contemporary of Handel and Jennens - David Hartley
(1704-1757), one of the most advanced English thinkers of the 18th century.

Such was Handel. None of the great Western composers of the past, with the exception of Beethoven, caught the movements of huge masses with such a keen ear.

Life story
Georg Friedrich Handel was born in Halle on 23 February 1685. He received his primary education in a secondary, so-called classical school. In addition to such a solid education, young Handel adopted some musical concepts from the mentor Johannes Pretorius, a music connoisseur and composer of several school operas. In addition to his schoolwork, he was also helped by David Poole, the court bandmaster who entered the house, and Christian Ritter, an organist who taught Georg Friedrich to play the clavichord, "to have a taste in music". Parents paid little attention to their son's early manifested inclination to music, classifying it as child's play. In the Handels' house, there could be no talk of real music training. Only thanks to a chance meeting of a young talent with a fan of musical art, Duke Johann Adolf, the boy's fate changed dramatically. The Duke, hearing a wonderful improvisation played by a child, immediately convinces his father to give him a systematic musical education. Handel became a student of the well-known organist and composer Friedrich Zachau in Halle. Handel studied with Zachau for about three years. During this time, he learned not only to compose, but also to play freely the violin, oboe, harpsichord.
In February 1697, George's father died. Fulfilling the wishes of the deceased, Georg graduated from high school and five years after the death of his father entered the law faculty of the University of Halle. A month after entering the university, he signed a one-year contract, according to which "a student of Handel due to his art" was appointed organist in the city's Reformed Cathedral. He trained there for exactly a year, constantly "improving his agility in organ playing." In addition, he taught singing in the gymnasium, had private students, wrote motets, cantatas, chorales, psalms and organ music, updating the repertoire of the city churches every week. Handel later recalled: "At that time I wrote like the devil."
In May 1702, the War of the Spanish Succession began, which engulfed all of Europe. In the spring of the following year, after the expiration of the contract, Handel left Halle and went to Hamburg.
The opera house was the center of the city's musical life. For Handel's arrival in Hamburg, the opera was headed by composer, musician and vocalist Reinhard Keizer. Handel had a lot to learn from Keizer. He carefully studied the style of operatic compositions of the famous Hamburger, his art of running an orchestra.
Handel got a job at the opera house as a second violinist (he soon became the first violinist). This modest fact turned out to be decisive in the eventful life of the composer. From that moment, Handel chose the field of a secular musician, and the opera, which brought him fame and suffering, became the basis of his work for many years.
The main event of Handel's life in Hamburg can be considered the first performance of his opera Almira on January 8, 1705. It was an exam for Handel. The success of the opera was solid and has been played about twenty times.
On February 25 of the same year, the second opera was staged - "Love acquired by blood and villainy, or Nero". This opera has survived three performances.
In Hamburg, Handel wrote his first oratorio work. These are the so-called "Passions" based on the text of the famous German poet Postel.
Soon it became clear to Handel that he had nothing else to do in Hamburg. He grew up and Hamburg became cramped for him. Having saved up some money with lessons and writing, Handel unexpectedly left for everyone.
Handel owes the birth of his style to Hamburg. Here the period of apprenticeship ended, here the young composer tried his hand at opera and oratorio, the leading genres of his mature work.
Handel went to Italy. From late 1706 to April 1707, he lived in Florence, and then went to Rome. In the fall of 1708, Handel achieved his first public success as a composer. With the help of Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, he staged his first Italian opera, Rodrigo.
He also competes in public with the best of the best in Rome, with Domenico Scarlatti recognizing his victory. His playing on the harpsichord is called devilish - a very flattering epithet for Rome. He wrote two oratorios for Cardinal Ottoboni, performed at once.
After his success in Rome, Handel hurries south to sunny Naples. A constant rival of Venice in the arts, Naples possessed its own school and traditions. Handel stayed in Naples for about a year. During this time, he wrote a charming serenade "Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus", several more things in the same spirit, but smaller in size.
The main work of Handel in Naples was the opera Agrippina, written in the summer of 1709 and staged in the same year in Venice, where the composer returned again. The premiere took place on December 26. The Italians, with their usual ardor and enthusiasm, paid tribute to the young German composer. “They were thunderstruck by the grandeur and grandeur of his style; they had never known before that all the power of harmony, ”wrote one of those present at the premiere.
Italy gave Handel a warm welcome. However, the composer could hardly count on a strong position in the "Empire of Music". The Italians did not doubt Handel's talent. However, as later Mozart, Handel was for the Italians a heavyweight, too “German” from art.
Handel left for Hanover and entered the service of the Hanoverian elector as a court bandmaster. But even there he did not stay long. The rude morals of the small German court, its absurd vanity and submissive imitation of the big capitals after Italy could only arouse Handel's disgust.
By the end of 1710, having received an official leave from the Elector, Handel went to London.
He immediately entered the theater world of the British capital, received an order from Aaron Hill, the tenant of the Tidemarket Theater, and soon wrote the opera Rinaldo.
Debut in the genre of ceremonial and solemn music, which was very popular in England, decisively influenced the fate of Handel. In January 1713, Handel wrote the monumental Te deum and Ode to the Queen's Birthday. The ode was performed on 6 February. Queen Anne was pleased with the music and signed the permission to perform Te Deum with her own hand. On July 7, on the occasion of the signing of the Utrecht Peace Treaty, in the presence of the Queen and Parliament, the solemn, majestic sounds of Handel's "Te Deum" announced the vaults of St. Paul's Cathedral.
After the success of Te Deuma, the composer finally decided to pursue a career in England.
Until 1720, Handel was in the service of the old Duke of Chandos, who was under Anna the superintendent of the royal army. The Duke lived at Cannon Castle, near London, where he had an excellent chapel. Handel composed music for her.
These years turned out to be very important - he mastered the English style. Handel painted anthemes and two masks - a modest amount with his fabulous productivity. But these things (along with Te Deum) turned out to be decisive.
Two masks, two performances in the spirit of antiquity were English in style. Handel later revised both works. One of them became an English opera (Acis, Galatea and Polyphemus), the other became the first English oratorio (Esther). If the anthemes are a heroic epic, then "Esther" is a heroic drama based on a biblical plot. In these works, Handel already fully masters both the language and the nature of the feelings expressed by the British in the art of sounds.
The influence of anthemes and the operatic style is clearly felt in the first oratorios of Handel - "Esther" (1732), in the next written "Deborte", "Atalia" (composed in 1733). Nevertheless, opera remains the main genre of the 1720s - 1730s. She absorbs almost all the time, strength, health and condition of Handel.
In 1720 a theatrical commercial enterprise with a capital of 20,000 pounds sterling was opened in London. It was called the Royal Academy of Music. Handel was instructed to recruit the best singers in Europe, mainly of the Italian school, into the troupe of the academy.
Handel became a free entrepreneur, a shareholder. For almost twenty years, starting in 1720, he composed and staged operas, recruited or disbanded a troupe, worked with singers, an orchestra, poets and impresario.
The new fatherland did not spoil Handel with favor. For a long time, the general public did not recognize him at all. He was known to a limited circle. The British were more fond of Italian opera and its author, Signor Bononcini. "Easy and pleasant" - Bononcini's motto, the meaning of his life and art.
On January 12, 1723, Handel staged Otgon. This time he uses the techniques of his opponent, he writes easily, melodically pleasantly, it was the most popular opera in England of those days. After this witty counterattack, Handel went on the offensive. In May 1723 - "Flavio", in 1724 two operas - "Julius Caesar" and "Tamerlane". In 1725 - "Rodelinda". It was a victory. The last triad of operas was a worthy crown to the winner.
But fate was not fair. Tastes had changed, and now the British laughed at the Italian opera, at Handel, the writer of Italian operas, at Handel, who had defeated the Italians.
Difficult times came for Handel - everything was against him. The old elector, the only strong patron, George I, died. The young king, George II, Prince of Wales, hated Handel, his father's favorite. George II intrigued him, inviting new Italians, set enemies on him. The audience did not go to Handel's operas.
In such an environment, Handel did not stop writing and staging operas - his stubbornness resembled madness. Every year he was defeated, every year he saw approximately the same picture: a silent, inattentive, empty hall.
In 1734 and 1735 French ballet was in vogue in London. Handel wrote operas-ballets in the French style: Terpsichore, Alcina, Ariodante and Orestes pasticho. But in 1736, due to the aggravated political situation, the French ballet was forced to leave London.
In the end, Handel went broke. He fell ill, he was paralyzed. The opera house was closed. Friends lent him some money and sent him to a resort in Aachen.
The rest was as brief as a dream. He woke up, he was on his feet, his right hand moved. A miracle happened. Health returned to Handel.
In December 1737 he completed Faramondo and took on a new opera Xerxes. 1738 was a good year for Handel. The sun of success gave him warmth.
At the beginning of the year, the audience willingly went to the Faramondo. In February, Handel staged Alessandro Severe, and in April, Xerxes. In March, friends gave a concert in his honor. He improved his affairs, paid off the most urgent debts. The need receded.
The next year is disappointment again. Business is again neglected, the theater is empty, again neglect of its music.
And at this time he wrote unusually well: the fantasy was extremely rich, the beautiful material obediently obeyed the will, the orchestra sounded expressive and picturesque, the forms were perfected.
He composes one of his best "philosophical" oratorios - "Cheerful, pensive and temperate" on the wonderful youthful poems of Milton, a little earlier - "Ode to St. Cecilia ”to Dryden's text. The famous twelve concert grossies were written by him in those years.
And it was at this time that Handel parted ways with the opera. In January 1741, the last one, Deidamia, was delivered.
Handel's twenty-year struggle ended. He became convinced that the sublime line of the opera-seria did not make sense in a country like England. Handel persisted for twenty years. In 1740, he ceased to contradict English taste - and the British recognized him as a genius. Handel no longer opposed the expression of the spirit of the nation - he became the national composer of England.
If Handel wrote only operas, his name would still take an honorable place in art history. But he would never have become the Handel that we value him today.
Handel needed opera. She brought him up, defined the secular nature of his art. Handel polished his style in it, improved the orchestra, aria, recitative, form, voice leading. In opera, he found the language of a dramatic artist. And yet, in the opera, he failed to express his main ideas. The highest meaning, the highest expediency of his work were oratorios.
Many years spent in England helped Handel to rethink his time, epic, philosophical categories. Now he was worried about the history of the existence of an entire people. He imagined English modernity as a heroic state of the nation, an era of upsurge, the flowering of the best, perfect forces, intelligence and talent of the people.
Handel felt the need to express a new structure of thoughts and feelings. And he also turns to the Bible, the most popular book of the Puritan nation.
The composer succeeded in the grandiose biblical epics-oratorios to embody the optimism of the conquering people, the joyful feeling of freedom, the selflessness of the heroes.
The choice of such subjects, the choice of the oratorio style turned out to be significant in the life of Handel. The composer went to a new stage from the earliest period of his work.
A new era began for Handel on August 22, 1741. On this memorable day, he began the oratorio "Messiah". Later, writers will award Handel with the exalted epithet - "the creator of the Messiah." For many generations, "Messiah" will be synonymous with Handel.
"Messiah" is a musical and philosophical poem about the life and death of a person, embodied in biblical images. However, the reading of Christian dogmas is not as traditional as it might seem at first glance.
Handel completed The Messiah on September 12th. The oratorio was already being rehearsed when Handel unexpectedly left London. He left for Dublin at the invitation of the Duke of Devonshire, viceroy of the English king in Ireland. There he gave concerts all season. On April 13, 1742, Handel staged The Messiah in Dublin. The oratorio was warmly received, and he repeated it. In August, Handel returned to London. And on February 18, 1743, the first performance of "Samson" - a heroic oratorio based on Milton's text took place.
Milton's Samson is one of the best European tragedies of the second half of the 17th century. Handel's Samson is one of the best musical and dramatic works of the first half of the 18th century.
Milton's Samson is a synthesis of the biblical plot and the genre of ancient Greek tragedy. Handel has a synthesis of musical drama and oratorio choral traditions.
In 1743, Handel showed signs of a serious illness. True, he recovered pretty quickly.
Over the next two years, Handel's shares fell again. The war in Europe dragged on. The English people showed discontent, the "patriots" were indignant, battles were fought more than the military in parliament, finally, Prime Minister Carteret resigned, and in 1745 the "romantic" Prince Edward, the last of the Stuart family, landed in Scotland. London had no time for Handel.
And the composer wrote and wrote oratorios. On February 10, 1744, he staged "Semele", on March 2 - "Joseph", in August he finished "Hercules", in October - "Belshazzar". In the fall, he re-leases Covent Garden for the season. In the winter of 1745 he staged Belshazzar and Hercules. His rivals are making every effort to prevent the success of the concerts, they succeed - Handel is again on the verge of ruin. In March he fell ill, fell ill, but his spirit was not broken.
On August 11, 1746, Handel finished his oratorio Judas Maccabee, one of his best oratorios on the biblical theme. In all the heroic-biblical oratorios of Handel (and the composer has a number of them: "Saul", "Israel in Egypt", "Samson", "Joseph", "Belshazzar", "Judas Maccabees", "Joshua" and others) in the focus is on the historical fate of the people. Their core is struggle. The struggle of the people and their leaders against the invaders for independence, the struggle for power, the struggle against apostates in order to avoid decline. The people and their leaders are the main characters of the oratorio. The people as a character in the form of a chorus are the property of Handel. Nowhere in music before him did the people perform in such a guise.
In 1747, Handel once again rents Covent Garden. He gives a series of signature concerts. On April 1 he puts on "Judas Maccabee" - he is accompanied by success. The new oratorio is performed five more times. Handel triumphs again, he is again on top.
The end of the 1740s was successful for Handel. England appreciated his merits, paid tribute to him. In 1747, Handel wrote the oratorios Alexander Balus and Joshua. In the spring of next year, he puts on new oratorios, and in the summer he writes two more - "Solomon" and "Susanna". He was 63 years old.
In 1751, the composer's health deteriorated. On May 3, 1752, his eyes were operated on. Unsuccessfully. The disease is progressing.
In 1753, complete blindness sets in. Handel distracts himself with concerts, playing for memory or improvising. Occasionally writes music. On Saturday, April 14, 1759, he was gone.

Handel Georg Friedrich (1685 - 1759)

Handel was born in Halle (Germany). His father was a barber at the court. He dreamed of giving his son an education as a lawyer, but did not pay much attention to the boy's musical abilities. But Georg's talent was noticed by the Elector of Halle - Duke of Saxony and insisted that the father still give his son into the hands of the best musician of the city F. Tsakhov, who for several years instilled in Gandel a musical taste, introduced him to different musical styles, and practiced composing technique. He saw great potential in him. And the student did not disappoint him. At the age of eleven, he had already become known in the country as a musician and composer. But he still had to fulfill the will of his late father - to become a lawyer. The young man entered the University of Gaul (1702) and studied law. But at the same time he serves as an organist in the church, composes music, teaches singing. He is drawn to opera and travels to Hamburg, which has an opera house that rivals French and Italian theaters, enters the orchestra, where he plays several musical instruments. Here he is in his element. The theater director - R. Kaiser - an opera composer, I. Mattezon - a singer, composer and writer - notice the talented young man, cooperate with him, help and have a great influence on the formation of the future great composer. The first operas Almira and Nero were, of course, staged in Hamburg (1705).

Inspired by success, he travels to Italy (the Kaiser Theater was closed due to bankruptcy), where he visits the theaters of Florence, Naples, Venice, studies, absorbing the impressions of Italian operatic art. A few months later, he had already studied this new style for himself so much that he wrote the opera Rodrigo (1707) and staged it at the Florentine Theater. Two years later, his second Italian opera Agrippina was successfully launched in Venice. Discerning Italians enthusiastically accept the composer's operas. This is how he becomes famous. He is admitted to the Arcadian Academy, where he is on an equal footing with such luminaries as A. Corelli, B. Marcello, A. Scarlatti, Italian aristocrats vying with each other make orders to the musician for their home theaters. In 1710, the maestro was invited to England, where he received English citizenship and lived until the end of his days. Here begins the real flowering of his talent and fame. The work of the genius raises English music to an extraordinary world height.

In 1720, the German composer became the head of the Academy of Italian Opera and the London Opera House, where his new masterpieces in the Italian style are staged: Radamist (1720), Otto (1723), Julius Caesar (1724), Tamerlane (1724), Rodelina (1725), Admet (1726). The nobility of the images, the intense tragedy of climaxes, the psychologism of the characters - everything surpassed the hitherto known style of Italian opera.