Nouvellettes of the Musicians.HANDEL.
Nouvellettes of the Musicians.
In the parlor of the famous London tavern, “The Good Woman,” Fleet street, No. 77, sat Master John Farren, the host, in his arm-chair, his arms folded over his ample breast, ready to welcome his guests.
It was seven in the evening; the hour at which the members of the club were used to assemble, according to the good old custom in London, in 1741. Directly before John Farren, stood Mistress Bett, his wife, her withered arms akimbo, and an angry flush on her usually pale and sallow cheeks.
“Is it true, Master John,” she asked, in a shrill tone; “is it possible! do you really mean to throw our Ellen, our only child, into the arms of that vagabond German beggar?”
“Not exactly to throw her into his arms, Mistress Bett,” replied John, quietly; “but Ellen loves the lad, and he is a brave fellow—handsome, honest, gifted, industrious——”
“And poor as a church mouse!” interrupted Bett; “and nobody knows who or what he may be!”
“Yes! his countryman, Master Händel, says there is something great in him.”
“Pah! get away with your Master Händel! he is always your authority! What is he to us, now that it is all over with him inthe favor of His Majesty! While he could go in and out of Carlton House daily, I would have cared for his good word; but now that he is banished thence for his highflown insolent conduct, what is he, but an ordinary vagabond musician?”
“Hold your tongue!” cried John Farren, now really moved; “and hold Master Händel in honor! If he gives Joseph his good word, by my troth I have ground whereon I can build. Do you understand, Mistress Bett?”
The “good woman” seemed as though she would have replied at length; but before she could speak, the door opened, and two men of respectable appearance entered. Tom, the waiter, snatched up a porter-mug, filled and placed it on the round table in the middle of the room, and stood ready for further service; while Mistress Bett, flinging a scowl at both the visitors, silently left the apartment.
“Well,” cried the eldest of the two—a colossal figure, with a handsome and expressive countenance, and large flashing eyes—“well, Master John, how goes it?”
“So, so, Master Händel,” was the reply, “the better that you are just come in time to silence my good woman.”
Händel gave his hat and stick to the boy, and turned to his companion, a man about the middle height, simple and plain in his exterior; only in the corner of his laughing eye could the observer detect a world of shrewdness and waggery. His name was William Hogarth; and he was well esteemed as a portrait painter.
“You think, then,” asked Händel, keenly regarding his companion—“you think, then, Bedford would do something for my Messiah, if I got the right side of him?”
“You shall not trouble yourself to get the right side of him,” exclaimed Hogarth eagerly; “that I ask not of you; no honorable man would ask it. Speak to the point at once with him; and be sure, he will use all his influence to have your work suitably represented.”
“But is it not too bad,” cried Händel, “that I must flattersuch a shallow-pate as his Grace the Duke of Bedford, to get my best (Heaven knows, William, mybest) work brought before the public? If his Grace but comprehended a note of it! but he knows no more of music than that lout of a linen-weaver in Yorkshire, who spoiled my Saul in such a manner, that I corrected him with my fist.”
Hogarth replied with vivacity—“You have been eight-and-twenty years in England; have you not yet found out that the patronage of a stupid great man does noharmto a work of art? You know me, Händel; and know that I abhor nothing so much as servility, be it to whom it may. Yet, I assure you, should I deal only with those who understand my labors, and have no good word from others, I should be glad if I obtained employment enough to keep wife and child from starving. As to luxuries, and my punch clubs, that have pleased you so well, I could not even think of them. You know as well as I, that talent, a true taste for art, and wealth to support both, are seldom or never found together. Let us thank God, if the unendowed are good-natured enough not to grudge us our glorious inheritance, while they deny us not a portion of the crumbs from their luxurious tables.”
Händel was leaning with both arms on the table, his head buried in his hands. Without looking up or changing his position, he murmured, “Must it ever be so; must the time never come, when the artist may taste the pure joy he prepares through his works for others! Hogarth,” he continued, with sudden energy, while he withdrew his hands from his face, and looked earnestly at his friend, “Hogarth, would you consent to leave your country, and exercise your art in other lands?”
“What a question! Not for the world,” replied the painter.
“There it is!” cried Händel, hastily: “you have held out, and begin now to reap the reward of your constancy; but I left my dear fatherland, just as new life in art began to be stirring. Oh, how nobly, how magnificently, is it now developed there! What could I not have done with the gifts bestowed upon me?Have my countrymen achieved any thing great—they have done itwithout me, while I was here, tormenting myself in vain with your asses of singers and musicians, to drive a notion of what music is, into their heads. I have scarce yet numbered fifty years. I will return to my own country; better a cowherd there, than here again Director of the Haymarket Theatre, or Chapel-master to His Majesty, who, with all his court rabble, takes such delight in the sweet warblings of that Italian! Hogarth, you should paint the lambling, as the London women worship him as their idol, and bring him offerings?”
“I have already,” answered Hogarth, laughing; “but hush, our friends!”
Here the door opened, and there entered Master Tyers, then lessee of Vauxhall, the Abbe Dubos, and Doctor Benjamin Hualdy; they were followed by Joseph Wach, a young German, who had devoted himself to the study of music under Händel’s instruction, and Miss Ellen Farren, the young lady of the house. Master John arose; and Tom filled the empty porter mugs, and produced fresh ones.
Händel gave his pupil a friendly nod, and asked: “How come you on with your part? Can I hear you soon?”
“I am very industrious, Master Händel,” replied Joseph, “and will do my best, I assure you, to be perfect. You must only have a little patience with me.”
“Hem,” muttered Händel; “I have had it so long with the stupid asses in this country, it shall not so soon fail with you. Enough till to-morrow; to your prating with your little girl yonder.”
“Ah! Master Händel,” cried Ellen, pouting prettily, “you think, then, Joseph should only be my sweet-heart when he has nothing better to do?”
“That were, indeed, most prudent, little witch,” said Händel, laughing: “but ’tis ill preaching to lovers; that knows your father by experience, eh! old John?”
“Master Händel,” said the Abbe, taking the word, “do youknow I was not able to sleep last night, because your chorus—‘For the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,’—ran continually in my head, and sounded in my ears? I think, good Master Händel,yourglory shall be revealed through your Messiah, when you can once get it brought out suitably. But the Lord Archbishop, it seems, is against it.”
Händel reddened violently, as he always did when anger stirred him: “A just Christian is the Lord Archbishop! He asked me if he should compose me a text for the Messiah; and when I asked him quietly if he thought me a heathen who knew nothing of the Bible, or if he thought to make it better than it stood in the Holy Scriptures, he turned his back on me, and represented me to the court as a rude, thankless boor.”
“It is not good to eat cherries with the great,” observed wise John Farren.
“I thought,” muttered Händel, “this proverb was only current on the continent; but I see, alas! that it is equally applicable in the land of freedom!”
“Good and bad are mingled all over the earth,” said Benjamin Hualdy, smiling: “and their proportion is everywhere the same. We must take the world, dear Händel, as it is, if we would not renounce all pleasure. Confess then: never felt you more joy—never were you more conscious of your own merit—never thanked you God more devoutly for his gifts to you, than when at last, after long struggle with ignorance and intrigue, you produced a work before the world, that charmed even enmity and envy to admiration!”
“And what care I for the admiration of fools and knaves?” interrupted Händel. Benjamin continued, in a conciliating tone—“Friend, he whocanadmire the beautiful and the good, is not so wholly depraved, as oft appears. There lives a something in the breast of every man, which, so long as it is not quite crushed and extinguished, lets not the worst fall utterly. I cannot name, nor describe it; but art, and music before all arts, is the surest test whereby you may know if that something yet exists.”
“Most surely,” cried Master Tyers. “I myself love music from my heart, and think with your great countryman, Doctor Luther, ‘He must be a brute who feels not pleasure in so lovely and wondrous an art.’ But, Master Händel, judge not my dear countrymen too harshly, if they have not accomplished so much as yours in that glorious art. Gifts are diverse; we have many that you have not.”
“You have been long in England,” observed the Abbe, “and have experienced many vexations and difficulties, particularly among those necessary to you in the production of your works. But tell me, Master Händel, supposing it true, that the court and nobles often do you injustice; that our musicians and singers are inferior to those in your own country; that we cannot graspallthe high spirit that dwells in your works; are you not, nevertheless, the darling of the people of Britain? Lives not the name of Händel in the mouth of honest John Bull, honored as the names of his most renowned statesmen? Well, sir, ifthatis true, give honest John Bull (he means well and truly, at least) a little indulgence. Let us hear your Messiah soon; your honor suffers nought, and you remain, after all, the free German you were before.”
“Aye!” cried Hogarth, “that is just what I have told him.” “And I,”—“And I,” exclaimed Tyers and Hualdy; while John added, coaxingly, “Only think, Master Händel, how often I have to give up to my good wife, without detriment to my authority as master of the house.”
Händel sat a few moments in silence, looking gloomily from one to another, around the circle. Suddenly he burst into a loud laugh, and cried in cheerful tone—“By my halidome, old fellow, you are right. Give us your hand; to-morrow early I go to the Duke of Bedford; and youshallhear the Messiah, were all the rascals in the three kingdoms and the continent against it. Tom, another mug!”
Loud and long applause followed his words: John Farren essayed a leap in his joy, which, ’spite of his corpulence, succeededbeyond expectation, and moved the guests to renewed peals of laughter. Joseph whispered to the maiden at his side—“Oh, Ellen! if it prospers with him, our fortune is made; I have his word for it.”
The next morning Händel went, as he had promised his friends, to the Duke of Bedford. His Grace had given a grand breakfast, and half the court was assembled in his saloon. As soon as the servants saw Händel ascending the steps, they hastened to announce his arrival to their lord.
The Duke was not much of a connoisseur, but he loved the reputation of a patron of the arts, and took great pleasure in exhibiting himself in that light to the court and the king. It was his dearest wish to win the illustrious master to himself; particularly as he knew well that the absence of Händel from Carlton House was in no way owing to want of favor with the sovereign. The king, on the contrary, appreciated and highly valued his genius. But Händel’s energetic nature could not bend to the observance of the forms and ceremonies held indispensable, not only at Carlton House, but among all the London aristocracy; and it was natural that this peculiarity should gradually remove him from the circles of the nobility. His fame on this account, however, only rose the higher. His Oratorio of Saul, which the preceding year had been produced, first in London, then in the other large cities of England, had stamped him a composer whom none hitherto had surpassed. The king was delighted; the court and nobles professed, at least, to be no less so. Among the people, his name stood, as his friend had truly observed, with the proudest names of the age! When informed of his arrival, the Duke hastened out, shook the master cordially by the hand, and was about leading him, without ceremony, into the hall. But Händel, thanking him for the honor, informed him he was come to ask a favor of his Grace.
“Well, Master Händel,” said the Duke, smiling—“then come with me into my cabinet.” The master followed his noble host, and unfolded his petition in few words, to wit: that his Gracewould be pleased to set right the heads of the Lord Mayor and the Archbishop of London, so that they should cease laying hindrances in the way of the representation of his Messiah.
The Duke heard him out, and promised to use all his means and all his influence to prevent any further obstacle being interposed, and to remove those already in the way. Händel was pleased, more, perhaps, with the manner in which the polite but haughty Duke gave the promise, than with the promise itself.
“Now come in with me, Master Händel,” said the Duke; “you will see many faces that are not strangers to you; and moreover, a brave countryman of yours, whom I have taken into my service. His name is Kellermann, and he is an excellent flute player, as the connoisseurs say.”
“Alle tausend!” cried Händel, with joyful surprise; “is the brave fellow in London, and indeed in your Grace’s service? That is news indeed! I will go with you, were your hall filled besides with baboons.”
“Oh! no lack of them,” laughed the Duke, while he led his guest into the saloon; “and you will find a fat capon into the bargain.”
Great was the sensation among the assembled guests, when Bedford entered, introducing the celebrated composer. When he had presented Händel to the company, the Duke beckoned Kellermann to him; and Händel, without regarding the rest, greeted his old friend with all the warmth of his nature, and with childlike expressions of joy. Bedford seemed to enjoy his satisfaction, and let the two friends remain undisturbed; though the idol of the London world of fashion, Signor Farinelli, hemmed and cleared his throat many times over the piano, in token that he was about to sing, and wanted Kellermann to come back and accompany him. At length, Kellermann noticed his uneasiness; he pressed his friend’s hand with a smile, returned to his place, took up his flute, and Signor Farinelli, having once more cleared his throat, began a melting air with his sweet, clear voice.
Händel, a powerful man, austere in his life, vigorous in his works, abhorred nothing so much as the singing of these effeminatecreatures; and all the luxurious cultivation of Signor Farinelli seemed to him only a miserable mockery of nature, as of heaven-born art. But, however much displeased at the soft trilling of the Italian,—whom Kellermann dexterously accompanied and imitated on his flute,—he could not refrain from laughing inwardly at the effect produced on the whole company. The men rolled up their eyes, and sighed and moaned with delight; the ladies seemed to float in rapture, like Farinelli’s tones. “Sweet, sweet!” sighed one to another. “Yes, indeed!” lisped the fair in reply, drooping her eyelids, and inclining her head. Signor Farinelli ceased, and eager applause rewarded his exertions.
The Duke now introduced Händel to the Italian.
Farinelli, after some complimentary phrases, addressed the master in broken English.
“I have inteso,” he said, with a complacent smile, “that il Signor Aendel has composed una opera—il Messia. Is there in that opera a part to sing for il famous musico Farinelli—I mean, forme?”
Händel looked at the ornamented little figure from head to foot, and answered in his deepest bass tone, “No, Signora.”
The company burst out a laughing; the ladies covered their faces. Soon after, the German composer, with his friend Hogarth, took his leave. In the vestibule the artist showed Händel a sketch he had made of Farinelli singing, and his admirers lost in ecstasy. “By the Duke’s order,” whispered he.
“That isfalseof him!” exclaimed Händel, indignantly.
The satirical painter shrugged his shoulders.
Händel sat in his chamber, deep in composition. Once more he tried every note; now he would smile over a passage that pleased him; now pause earnestly upon something that did not satisfy him so well; pondering, striking out and altering to suit his judgment. At length his eyes rested on the last “Amen:” long—long—till a tear fell on the leaf.
“Thisnote,” said he, solemnly, and looking upwards—“thisnote is perhaps my best! Receive, Oh benevolent Father, my best thanks for this work! Thou, Lord! hast given it me; and what comes forth from Thee—thatendureth, though all things earthly perish:—Amen.”
He laid aside the notes, and walked a few times up and down the room. Then seating himself in his easy chair, and folding his arms, he indulged in happy dreams of his youth and his home. Thus he was found by Kellermann, who came at dusk to accompany him to the tavern. They discoursed long of their native land, of their art, and the excellent masters then living in Germany. At length they broke off from the theme, fearful of keeping their assembled friends waiting too long.
“Well, friend,” cried Hogarth gaily to the master as he entered; “was not my advice good? Has not Bedford helped you? and is your self-respect a whit injured?”
Händel nodded good-humoredly, and smiling, seated himself in his wonted place. “You remember, some time ago,” the painter continued, “when the Leda of the Italian painter Correggio was sold here at auction for ten thousand guineas, I said—‘If anybody will give me ten thousand guineas, I will paint something quite as good.’ Lord Grosvenor took me at my word; I went to work, and laid aside everything else. At last my picture is ready; I take it to his lordship; he calls his friends together, and, as I said, they all laugh at me; I have to take back my picture, and go home to quarrel with my wife!”
All laughed except Händel, who, after a few moments’ silence, said; “Hogarth, you are an honest fellow, but often wondrous dull! You cannot judge of the Italian painters. In the first place, their manner is entirely different from yours, and then you know nothing of their best works. Had you been, as I have, in Italy, and particularly in Rome, where live the glorious creations of Raphael and Michael Angelo, you would have respect for the old Italian painters; you would love and honor them, as I do the old Italian church composers. As to the modernpainters, they are like, more or less, in their way, to Signor Farinelli.”
“Well!” cried Hogarth; “we will not dispute thereupon. Tell us rather how you are pleased with your singers and performers, and if you think they will acquit themselves well to-morrow.”
“They cannot do very badly,” answered Händel; “I have drilled them diligently, and Joseph has helped me with assiduous study. Only the first soprano singer is dreadfully mediocre; I am sorry for it—for the sake of a few good notes—”
Here Joseph put his head in at the door, and said, “Master Händel, a word if you please.”
“Well, what do you want?” asked Händel: and rising, he came out of the room; his companions looked smiling at one another; and John Farren sent forth from his leathern chair a prolonged “ha! ha! ha!” Joseph took his master’s hand, and led him hastily across the passage and upstairs into his chamber, where Händel, to his no small astonishment, found the pretty Ellen.
“Ha! what may all this mean?” he asked, while his brow darkened; “what do you here, Miss Ellen, in the chamber of this young man—and so late too?”
“He may tell you that himself, Master Händel,” answered the damsel pettishly, and blushing while she turned away her face. But Joseph replied quickly and earnestly: “Think not ill of me and the good Ellen, my dear master; for what we do here, I am ready to answer before you.”
“Open your mouth, then, and speak,” said Händel.
Joseph went on: “For what I am, and what I can do, I thank you, my dear master. You befriended me when I came hither a stranger, without means of earning a support. To make me a good singer, you spent many an hour, in which you could have done something great.”
“Ho! ho! the fool!” cried Händel; “and do you think to make a good singer was not doing something great—eh?”
“You see, master, it has often grieved me to see you forced to vex yourself beyond reason with indifferent singers, because their education is far behind your works.”
“That is a pity, indeed,” sighed Händel.
“And I have tried,” continued Joseph, “to instruct a singer foryou: I think I have so far succeeded, that she may venture before you. There she is!” and he pointed to Ellen.
Händel opened his eyes wide, looked astonished on the damsel, and asked, incredulously, “Ellen! what, Ellen there?”
“Yes, I!” cried Ellen, coming to him, and looking innocently in his face with her clear hazel eyes. “I, myself,” she repeated, smiling; “and now you know, Master Händel, what Joseph and I were about together.”
“Shall she sing before you, Master Händel?” asked Joseph.
“I am curious to see how your teaching has succeeded,” said Händel, while he seated himself: “Come, then, let her sing.” Joseph sprang joyfully to the harpsichord; Ellen went and stood beside him, and began.
How it was with the composer,—how he listened, when he heard the most splendid part in his forthcoming Messiah—the noble air, “I know that my Redeemer liveth;”—and how Ellen sang it, the reader may conjecture, when, after she had ceased, Händel still sat motionless, a happy smile on his lips, his large flashing eyes full of the tears of deep religious emotion. At length he drew a deep breath, arose, kissed the forehead of the maiden, kissed her eyes—in which likewise pure drops were glancing,—and asked in his mildest tone: “Ellen, my good—good child, you will sing this part to-morrow, at the representation, will you not?”
“Master Händel—FatherHändel!” cried the maiden; and overcome with emotion, she threw herself sobbing on his neck. But Joseph sang—
“Erwach’—erwach’—zu Liedern der Wonne;Frohlocke!—frohlocke du!”
“Erwach’—erwach’—zu Liedern der Wonne;Frohlocke!—frohlocke du!”
“Erwach’—erwach’—zu Liedern der Wonne;Frohlocke!—frohlocke du!”
“Erwach’—erwach’—zu Liedern der Wonne;
Frohlocke!—frohlocke du!”
“Amen!” resounded through the vast arches of the church, and died away in whispered melody in its remotest aisles. “Amen!” responded Händel, while he let fall slowly the staff with which he kept time. Successful beyond expectation was the first performance of his immortal master-piece. Immense was the impression it produced, as well on the performers as upon the audience. The fame of Händel stood now immovable.
When the composer left the church, he found a royal equipage in waiting for him, which, by the King’s command, conveyed him to Carlton House.
George the Second, surrounded by his whole household and many nobles of the court, received the illustrious German. “Well, Master Händel,” he cried, after a gracious welcome, “it must be owned, you have made us a noble present in your Messiah; it is a brave piece of work.”
“Is it?” asked Händel, and looked the monarch in the face, well pleased.
“It is, indeed,” replied George. “And now tell me what I can do, to express my thanks to you for it?”
“If your Majesty,” answered Händel, “will give a place to the young man who sang the tenor solo part so well, I shall be ever grateful to your Majesty. He is my pupil, Joseph Wach, and he would fain marry his pupil, the fair Ellen, daughter to old John Farren; the old man gives consent, but his dame is opposed, because Joseph has no place as yet. And your Majesty knows full well, that it is hard to carry a cause against the women.”
“You are mistaken, Master Händel,” said the King, with a forced smile; “I know nothing to that effect; but Joseph has from this day a place in our chapel as first tenor.”
“Indeed!” cried Händel, rubbing his hands with joy, “I thank your Majesty from the bottom of my heart!”
George was silent a few moments, expecting the master to ask some other favor. “But, Master Händel,” he said at length, “have you nothing to ask for yourself? I would willingly showmy gratitude to you in your own person, for the fair entertainment you have provided us all in your Messiah.”
The flush of anger suddenly mantled on Händel’s cheek, and he answered, in a disappointed tone—“Sire, I have endeavored not toentertainyou—but to make youbetter.”
The whole court was astonished. King George stepped back a pace or two, and looked on the bold master with surprise. Then bursting into a hearty fit of laughter, and walking up to him—“Händel!” he cried—“you are, and will ever be, a rough old fellow, but”—and he slapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder—“a good fellow withal. Go—do what you will, we remain ever the best friends in the world.” He signed in token of dismission; Händel retired respectfully, and thanked Heaven as he turned his back on Carlton House, to hasten to his favorite haunt, the tavern.
We shall not attempt to describe the joy his news brought to the lovers, Joseph and Ellen, nor their unnumbered caresses and protestations of gratitude. John Farren took his good wife in his arms and hugged her, ’spite of her resistance and scolding, crying, “Nonsense, Bett! we must be friends to-day, though all the bells in old England ring a peal for it.”
For ten years more Händel travelled throughout England, and composed new and admirable works. When his sight failed him in the last years of his life, it was Ellen who nursed him as if she had been his child, while her husband Joseph wrote down his last compositions, as he dictated them.
Proud and magnificent is the marble monument erected in Westminster to the memory of Händel. Time may destroy it; but the monument he himself, in his high and holy inspiration, has left us—his Messiah—will last forever.