A biography of Handel

Yesterday, it was the 326th anniversary of the birth of George Frideric Handel and today is the 300th anniversary of the first performance of Rinaldo, an opera he composed which also happened to be the first Italian opera written for the London stage. I think the universe is hinting to me that it is time I wrote about Handel (which, handily, is code for "I really like lists").

10 Facts About George Frederic Handel:

1) When he was born, Handel's father was already 63, and had high hopes for his son. He envisaged a career in law for the boy, but it soon became apparent that he had an enormous talent for music - and not only this, but he enjoyed spending hours playing instruments. Georg Handel Sr. was so alarmed by this development that he strictly forbade his son from going near any musical instrument, but Handel Jr. was having none of this. He somehow found a way to sneak a clavichord (a kind of early keyboard) into an attic room at the top of his house, and he would creep up there at night when everyone had gone to bed, to teach himself how to play.

2) During Handel's early teens, he took a trip with his father to go and visit his half-brother Carl, who at the time was a valet to Duke Johann Adolf I. Legend has it that whilst he was there, the Duke overheard him playing on the church organ, and was delighted by what he heard. This helped Handel to convince his father that he should be allowed lessons in composition and keyboard technique, and so he studied under Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. During this time, he played for Frederick I of Prussia, and met many contemporary composers, including Bononcini and Telemann.

3) In 1702, Handel went to the University of Halle to study Law as his father had wished, but did not enjoy it. After only a year, he dropped out and became instead a violinist at the Hamburg Opera House. Between 1705 and 1708, he wrote and possibly directed four operas which were performed there.

4) Handel met a member of the famous de' Medici family around 1706, and accepted their invitation to spend some time living in Rome with them. At the time, operatic music was banned by the Papal States, so instead he composed choral music for the church for performances in the city. He continued, however, to write operas which were performed elsewhere in Europe, including Agrippina, which had a then unprecedented run of 27 performances, and was the object of much critical acclaim. 

5) In 1710, Handel became Kapellmeister to the man who was soon to become King George I of England, and so moved to London when George did, in 1714. A Kapellmeister was a man who was in charge of music-making, and so Handel's role for the rest of his life was to compose as much music as possible, something he did to great aplomb.In July 1717, the Water Music was performed for the first time along the Thames, where it went down a storm. At around this point also, Handel decided that he was bored of composing operas, and ignored them entirely for about five years.

6) Fiscally, Handel was very lucky - he invested in the famous South Sea Company in 1716, but managed to sell his stocks in 1720, before the bubble burst, leaving him a very rich man. During his lifetime, he was heavily involved with charities, and gave much money to the Foundling Hospital in London, as well as to charities which helped impoverished musicians and their families.

7) His time in Britain can be split into three main periods. Between 1719 and 1734, he was employed by the Royal Academy of Music, during which time he continued to compose at an extremely fast rate. Some of his most famous works from this time include the operas Giulio Cesare and Rodelinda and Zadok the Priest, which he was commissioned to write for the coronation of George II, and has been been performed at every coronation ceremony since.

8) After his contract at the Royal Academy ended, it was expected by many people that Handel would retire; instead he chose to start a new company with his friend John Rich at Covent Garden Theatre. From 1734 until 1741, he composed whilst Rich directed, introducing many more theatrical elements to the performances for some of the first times. During this period, in the summer of 1737, Handel, aged 52, suffered a stroke. It was assumed he would never be able to perform, let alone compose, again, as the illness had seemed to affect his understanding, but he took himself off to a German spa town, where he would spend many hours a day in the hot baths. He was able to give impromptu piano recitals to the surprised costumers of the spa, and by the following year was well enough to return to composing in London.

9) His later life produced some of his most prolific works. On 13 April 1742, 26 men and five boys put on the first performance of the Messiah, a piece that remains as popular today as it was on first performance. A few years later, in 1749, he wrote the Music for the Royal Fireworks, and when it premiered, over 10,000 people attended. This was to be his last major composition - in August 1750 he suffered serious injury in a carriage accident and a couple of years later, he went blind. He survived until 1759, when he finally died on 14 April.

10) He was given a state funeral in Westminster Abbey, and over 3,000 mourners attended. His works had been incredibly popular, and though in the nineteenth century they were to fall out of favour, in more recent years he has regained his popularity. He never married, and in his will he left most of his possessions to his niece Johanna, though his art collection was auctioned posthumously. Often referred to as the "musician's musician", Handel was a favourite of Bach, who attempted to meet him on several occasions but was always unsuccessful, and later Mozart and Beethoven, who described him as, "he master of us all... the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel before his tomb".     

Happy Deathday Mr. Mozart!

In honour of today being 211 years since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died, here are 16 facts which you may or may not have known about him.

1) Although he was wildly famous from a very young age, Mozart was actually bankrupt when he died, and had to have a pauper's funeral. He was buried in an unmarked grave, the location of which remains a mystery. However, he has ended up with a rather snazzy statue in the Burrgarten in Vienna, so if you want to go and pay your respects, it's not wholly impossible to do so.

2) Mozart wrote his first minuet at the age of six, his first symphony at eight (No. 1 in E flat) and his first opera at 11. In contrast, by the age of 11, I had just about figured out which way round to hold my flute...

3) Legend has it, that at the age of 2, he identified a pig's squeal as being in the key of G sharp. As a historian, I normally have an intense disliking for legends, but that is such an adorable story that I couldn't resist. And by 'adorable' I mean 'insanely-jealous making' of course, because I'm pretty sure having perfect pitch is unnatural. Also, why on earth was he around a squealing pig anyway? Was mini-Mozart into animal abuse? Questions, questions...

4) Whilst on tour with his mother 1777, Mozart met and fell in love with Aloysia Weber. He composed music for her, but as he was still fairly poor at that time, he asked her to wait for him whilst he toured around France and became financially better off. When he returned a couple of years later, his one true love had married an actor, so Mozart wooed and married her sister, Constance, despite his father's disapproval. (Which I promise is not the EastEnders' Christmas plot...)

5) Originally, Mozart's older sister, Nannerl was seen as the more talented of the siblings, so Mozart's father took them both on a tour of Austria in 1762, when Mozart was a mere six years old. The two played and sang for aristocratic classes, including the Empress Maria Theresa, with whom Mozart shocked the court by climbing into her lap to give her a kiss, instead of bowing respectfully towards her. The Empress was merely amused by his childlish impulsiveness, and showered him with gifts after he had played for her.

6) In Munich in 1981, Mozart's Symphony in F was discovered amongst some private family papers. It is thought to be his third symphony, written when he was nine years old.

7) The film Amadeus, whilst making for entertaining viewing, is almost entirely fictionalized - well, the conflict between Mozart and Salieri is, at any rate. Though there may have been some rivalry between them, Mozart was not poisoned by his supposed enemy; he died of what is most likely to have been a kidney infection, aged 35. 

8) The famous composer Haydn once said to Mozart's father, "Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me." Mozart jr remained good friends with Haydn, and dedicated six of his quartets to him.

9) Mozart composed the opera Don Giovanni about a fictional womanizer named Don Juan, who gets his 'just desserts' in the end. He is not the only one who was inspired by the Spanish tale - in 1665, the playwright Moliere based one of his dramas on him; Lord Byron wrote an epic poem about his adventures in 1821 and he was also an inspiration in the twentieth century, for the author George Bernard Shaw.

10) In 1769, the Mozart family went on another tour, this time to Italy. There, the Pope bestowed upon him the title of 'The Golden Spur' for his services to music, which gave him the title of Cavalier. 

11) Mozart's first official job was as Concertmaster and Conductor of the Salzburg Chapel Orchestra. He quit after only a couple of years, however, saying that he didn't get on with the new Archbishop - though a more likely reason is that he knew he could make more money through touring.

12) Though everyone today knows him as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, only one official document from his lifetime survives which calls him by this name. He was in fact baptized as "Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart", which makes me want a Latin name. Except I'm a bit worried that 'Anna' might translate as 'Annus'...

13) The Marriage of Figaro, today one of his most famous operas, was initially not received very well at all by the crowds in Vienna. Undaunted by this, Mozart took it to Prague, where it performed much better and was the storming success it remains today. 

14) Mozart's life was blighted by tragedy. His mother died when on tour with him when he was a teenager, and only two of his six children survived infancy (though this was not uncommon at the time). He wrote his very famous ringtone Symphony in G Minor for his first daughter, who died in June 1788 six months after she was born.

15) After Mozart died, there were several attempts to catalog all the pieces he wrote. However, as their number exceeds 600, this was not an easy task. In 1862, Ludwig von Kochel finally succeeded in doing so, creating the Kochel catalog. This lists every piece of music he wrote in chronological order, with a 'K' in front - for example, his final piece, the Requiem in D Minor, is K. 626.  Between 1937 and 1964, this catalog was edited by Alfred Einstein, who's claim to fame is that he wasn't related to Albert Einstein. 

16) I am going to see my opera-loving friend Charlotte perform in her university's production of The Marriage of Figaro in January, and I will be sure to be more excited about this than the Viennese were.  

Anyone for a Sandwich?

Have you ever eaten a sandwich? You probably have. I'm a fan of sandwiches myself...though I can't help wondering - who on earth was it who decided that the best thing to accompany some meat would be a slice or two of bread? I guess it works though (as do fish, cheese, salad etc) so s/he was clearly onto a winner.

The discovery of the glory of the sandwich is attributed to (it may not surprise you to learn) the Earl of Sandwich (number four), John Montagu, who was born on this day in 1718. In honour of this, Americans have named today National Sandwich Day, which I initially thought was a great idea, but then I realized that most people eat sandwiches several times a week, if not every day and it would be much more exciting to have a National Ice Cream Day because seriously, if there's ever a food you need more of in your life, it's ice cream.

But back to Mr. Sandwich. He did not, sadly, invent the sandwich, but was often ordered a slice meat enclosed by bread to be brought to him when he was working, bringing it to the attention of others, who soon began to order "the same as Sandwich!" and so a new meal was born. 

The Earl is also the same person after whom Hawaii is named (Hawaii was originally called the Sandwich Islands, when they were discovered in 1778 by Captain Cook); the South Sandwich Islands which are a British territory off the South American coast and Montagu Island in Alaska. 


Now, you would imagine that, as he has so many famous places and foodstuffs named after him, John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich was a pretty impressive guy, and indeed, here is a picture showing him being very impressive and majestic and...things:

 

Anyway, despite that impressive and majestic overcoat and waistcoat combination he has going on, Mr. Montagu doesn't appear to have been very impressive at all. Well, he might have been. But he probably wasn't. But then again, he could have been. It's another of those occasions where no one really knows what's going on, because the sources we have aren't exactly reliable and unbiased and we therefore draw horribly invalid conclusions from them.

Basically, after attending Eton then one of the Cambridge Colleges, an educational background exactly the fricking same completely different from today's leaders of our country, Montagu was invited to join the government in several fairly high up positions. He did two terms as First Lord of the Admiralty (and as this was at around the same time that Britain's navy was at it's peak, this was a pretty important position), then was Northern Secretary, then went back and did a third spell as First Lord of the Admiralty. He also did, in between this, several very brief spells as Postmaster General and Secretary of State. 

If you look at most reports of his times in these various offices, though, you'll find that most historians have come to the conclusion that he was a bit incompetent and rubbish and generally not very good at his job. For example, his third spell in the Admiralty office was during the American War of Independence, and his generally faffing and incompetence when dealing with naval matters is generally said to have contributed greatly to the British losing that war.

Except (there's always an except...), most of the evidence for his rubbishness comes from...his main political enemies at the time. Who may just have had an agenda for painting him as a fool and kicking him out of office. Maybe. That's not do say he didn't do some foolish things, but really, basing all your evidence as to his personality on what people who didn't like him had to say? Yeah, probably not going to lead you to the most balanced conclusions.

In the interests of fairness, I should probably point out that I'm slightly biased in favour of the guy, because he was so into music - he often put on performances of 'Ancient Music' (by his definition, any music that was more than two decades old) and was a massive fan of Handel. His second wife was a famous opera singer at the time, and managed to squeeze out nine of his children before being stabbed to death by a jealous suitor in the foyer of the Royal Opera House. (This seems to happen a lot in opera - Carmen anyone? Maybe people were more passionate back then... I can't really imagine stabbing someone because I loved them, it'd likely be far too messy, more than anything.)

And yet, I can't really feel too sorry for him, because no one really knows him as 'the rubbish Lord of the Admiralty' they know him as 'the guy who invented sandwiches'. Even though, technically, he was neither. History's odd, sometimes...

A Night at the Opera

Nineteenth century America was the land of dreams, full of opportunity and hope. A poor European could go out there, with no money to his name other than that which he used to pay for his boat fare, land in New York after an arduous few weeks' traveling and within a generation or so, be a millionaire. He could have gone out to California, or the Black Hills during one of the gold rushes and struck lucky (very, very lucky - it was rare for anyone to make any money from gold panning, but those who did often became very, very rich), or gone out to the mid west and made a fortune farming, or inventing a new farming tool (and giving it a fabulous name - the sod-buster, anyone?!) that everyone needed, or maybe started a new business in one of the industrial east coast cities.

Sadly, most immigrants weren't this lucky. Most arrived poor and stayed poor, but there were just enough who did manage to turn themselves into millionaires that the dream was kept alive. Not everyone was happy about this, though. High society was full of snobs - the old New York families were appalled by the uncouth nouveau riche who had money, but none of the 'proper' airs and graces and took every opportunity they could to snub the upstarts. Of course, one had to be obvious about one's snubbing, if it was to have the desired effect. It was no use merely tittering about those new families, with diamonds on their fingers but dirt under their fingernails, amongst one's group of friends - one had to make a point.

An easy, but dreadfully cutting, way to do so would be to refuse the new families - the Vanderbilts, or the Goulds, for example - a box at the opera. This did more than deny them a chance to watch the latest performances of a Mozart or Verdi extravaganza. In certain circles during the late nineteenth century, the opera was the place to be of an evening. Where else but at the Academy of Music could formidable matriarchs find out the latest scandalous gossip; elderly gentlemen have a gentle snooze after one to many glasses of scotch in the interval or the new debutantes coyly flutter their lashes and drop their fans at the feet of the handsome young gentleman who had come over from Europe for the season?

By the early 1880s, the new families had had enough, and, led by Alva Vanderbilt, the millionaires of the city built themselves their own opera house, christening it the Metropolitan Opera House. It took nearly three years to build, but on the night of 22 October 1883, the first ever production - Gounod's Faust - was performed. 

 

The original MET, 1411 Broadway, New York City (pictured 1905)

The original company at the MET - the orchestra, chorus and principle singers - were all Italian and therefore decided to sing everything in their native language, even Faust (which had been written in French) and Carmen (where the lyrics were also in French). However, as most people were attending for the glitz and the glamour and the gossip, only a few opera fanatics were likely to be disappointed by this. The first season made a loss of over half a million dollars, but this was quickly turned around. By 1885 - after only three seasons - the Academy of Music had been eclipsed, and showed its last opera at the end of the '85 season. The MET was now the place to be. 

The outside of the original building was not particularly ornate, interesting or different from most other New York City buildings of the time, but the interior was another story all together. Decorated in red and gold, there were three tiers of 36 boxes (so many seats in fact, that after a year the top tier was removed because there was no use for it). The  bottom tier became known as the diamond horseshoe, and you could be sure that if your family had a box there, you had indeed made it. 

Despite all this grandness, at the heart of it all there was the music. For the 1884-5 season, the radical decision was made that, instead of Italian, all operas should be sung in German, regardless of their original language, mainly because of the large German population of the city  - from the richest to the poorest. Ticket prices were slashed to a mere $3 - though this fairness wasn't universal: 23 members of the men's chorus went on strike for more money, but were quickly dismissed. By the 1890s, the board of directors had tired of the German music and demanded that all operas be sung in the language they were written in. This lead to the 'war of the operas' as the people of German origin insisted that they all be sung in German.

 Cartoon from Puck Magazine, depicting the 'war of the operas' - 1891

The house was destroyed by fire early in 1892, and the year's season was canceled. Upon its reopening the following year, however, operas were performed there in their native language for the first time. This led to the MET premiering many famous operas - most notably, those by Wagner - for the first time on American soil. The halls themselves were truly magnificent, having excellent acoustics even when filled with 3,625 people sitting, and another 244 standing at the front, but even from the earliest days, the stage facilities were known to be sorely inadequate. It took nearly 80 years before something was done about this, though, but in 1966 it was. The MET company moved into a new premises at the Lincoln Center, which not only has excellent acoustics and plenty of room for opera goers but also excellent staging. 

Today, the MET welcomes more than 800,000 people each season, not to mention those who see productions through their HD broadcasts around the world, starring today's best singers, such as the sublime production of Bizet's Carmen which myself and my good friend Charlotte went to see at a cinema in England last year, starring the immensely gifted mezzo soprano Elina Garanca.

It makes me wonder what Alva Vanderbilt and the other 'new money' families would make of it all. No doubt they would be very proud of their legacy, as well they should be...