Georg Friedrich Händel & Bach

Credibility

Anna Vriend (July 12, 2004):
On the site www.gfhandel.org, a site dedicated to Händel, I found the following, undocumented quote (under anecdotes):

Johann Sebastian Bach is attributed with the following remark:
"[Händel] is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be, were I not Bach."

Upon hearing the above statement, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have exclaimed:
"Truly, I would say the same myself if I were permitted to put in a word"

Does anyone know whether this could be traced back somewhere?
I'd be curious to know.

David Glenn Lebut Jr. (July 13, 2004):
[To Anna Vriend] I don't know of Mozart's comment, but as far as Bach's it is most certainly true. In fact, he made two efforts (the first whilst in Weimar or Köthen, the second through Wilhelm Friedemann in the 1730s [whilst Friedemann was employed in Halle]).

Bach vs. Händel

Doug Cowling wrote (December 11, 2004):
Eric Bergerud wrote:
< I'm with Christopher Hogwood on this one. He once said that there was no reason for every version of the Messiah to try to approximate Händel's, but he thought it was nice that at least one of them did and let consumers make their own judgement. Nobody has yet put OVPP and boys together yet that I know (although Parrott's own Mass in B (BWV 232) is obviously done with small forces and does have boys: I can't tell if it's OVPP). Someday maybe. >
The real problem is that Bach and Händel had completely different performing forces. Only in the Roman Vespers Psalms and Chandos Anthems did Händel expect OVPP. The oratorios were performed by choirs of up to 40 voices -- although I love the performances by The Sixteen. And interestingly, the soloists sang with the choir in the choruses so that the soprano line had the interesting blend of treble boys and opera diva! The tradition of large choruses for the oratorios began very early -- Händel admitted that he liked a big "bow-wow" chorus. By the 1785 centennial celebrations, there were already huge choirs. It was inevitable that when the Bach revival began that his music was seen through the prism of the Victorian choral society.

Peter Smaill wrote (December 11, 2004):
One point of contact in the musical language of Bach and Händel which intrigues, is the use of the same theme in the Chandos Anthem O praise the Lord with one consent and Bach's Prelude and Fugue in Eb major BWV 552., nicknamed the St Anne.

The obvious source is the hymn tune St Anne by Dr Croft (O God our Help in Ages past) but in the view of Malcolm Boyd there is nothing to suggest that Bach knew the hymn and there are other contemporary themes with a similar outline.Does anyone know of a musical visitor to Leipzig who could have been the go-between - or must we conclude with Boyd that it is just coincidence?

A possible indirect link is through John Wesley's chorale gathering activities but as far as I know no interlocutor has been identified.

Norman Carrell in 1967 identified a number of other possible links betwen Bach and Händel, suggesting that the soprano aria (5) in BWV 70 (Watchet, Betet) is from a bass aria in Almira; soprano aria (3) from BWV 105 (Herr,gehe nicht) derives from the Passion music by Händel copied out by Bach and Anna Magdalena.

If any recent scholarship can cast light on the transmission mechanism (or absence thereof)for music between London, Halle and Leipzig a reference or precis of the same would be gratefully received.

Doug Cowling wrote (December 11, 2004):
Peter Smaill wrote:
< One point of contact in the musical language of Bach and Händel which intrigues, is the use of the same theme in the Chandos Anthem O praise the Lord with one consent and Bach's Prelude and Fugue in Eb major BWV 552., nicknamed the St Anne. <
Another is the fugal subject which Händel used for "And With His Stripes" in "Messiah" and which Bach used for the A Minor Fugue in Book 2 (is this right?) of the Well-Tempered.

Thomas Braatz wrote (December 12, 2004):
Peter Smaill wrote:
>>Does anyone know of a musical visitor to Leipzig who could have been the go-between...?
If any recent scholarship can cast light on the transmission mechanism (or absence thereof)for music between London, Halle and Leipzig a reference or precis of the same would be gratefully received.<<
It might possibly help to consult Christoph Wolff's Bach biography: "Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician" [Norton, 2000]and look up all the references to Händel in the index. Of particularly interest might be 'Bach's failed visits to' see & hear Händel in Halle where Händel was visiting. In some instances, Bach, being unable to come (he really did want to meet with Händel!) sent his sons instead. Can you imagine that that there must have been some sort of correspondence between these two great masters and that either by mail or by personal visits from Bach's sons, Händel and Bach may have exhanged copies of music with each other?

Another angle is hinted at in the title for Bach's 'English Suites' regarding which Forkel stated that Bach had composed them for 'a distinguished Englishman.' The NBA KB V/7 pp. 86-87 did find some evidence to corroborate Forkel's observation, but no specific names are mentioned. From this it might appear that Bach had made the acquaintance of such an individual, who also may have presented Bach with some English music, while Bach, in return, was very careful to use the treble clef sign which had been in use in England since the time of Purcell (Bach normally used the 'discant' clef instead (as for instance for his 'French Suites.')

Eric Bergerud wrote (December 12, 2004):
[To Doug Cowling] Sorry. I don't think I made myself quite clear. I was not suggesting that Händel should be performed OVPP (whether any of his works should be done in this manner is a matter for far wiser heads). I used Hogwood's point because it puts clearly one good justification for attempting to perform a work as close as possible to that envisioned by the composer - some consumers might get fun, enjoyment or spiritual uplift (take your pick) from hearing the result. Relying on this observation I then suggested that at least yours truly would plunk down $18 to hear an OVPP performance of a Bach cantata highlighting boys simply because this MIGHT well be the way they were performed in the early 18^th Century. And it would not matter to me whether or not the music was as technically accomplished as that coming from Suzuki or Ton Koopman. I don't know whether consumers of music (which we are, let's face it) have any "rights" or not. But the leader of an ensemble might figure .... "I'm not sure my young gents can keep up with Ruth Holton and the Monteverdi Choir, but let's let them take a crack at it. Maybe someone out there would like to hear the result." Obviously this doesn't imply in the slightest any desire to see any "party line" develop on musical performance. If we can listen to "Sheep may safely graze" done in a duet by saxophone and accordion (that's a thought, isn't it?), I say let a hundred flowers bloom. I just hope that a few more boys choirs bloom along with them.

BTW: I do collect Messiahs. I don't think Händel was in Bach's league overall, but on a good day he was breathing the same air. And the Messiah was composed on a very good day. I love my old Beecham done with a choir of 12,000 or so, complete with bells, whistles, birdcalls and bells-a-ringing - or so it seems. Malcom Sargent's effort from the late 50's is another favorite. Suzuki's is a knockout. But my favorites are Cleobury/Goodman's recent DVD (yikes: those old trumpets are nearly the size of tu- must have been an instrument for the stout of bicep) and Hogwood's: both are HIP and both employ boys among their vocal forces.

Bradley Lehman wrote (December 12, 2004):
<< One point of contact in the musical language of Bach and Händel which intrigues, is the use of the same theme in the Chandos Anthem O praise the Lord with one consent and Bach's Prelude and Fugue in Eb major BWV 552., nicknamed the St Anne. >>
The "St Anne" nickname has nothing to do with Bach, but was slapped onto this piece later by English speakers. The "St Anne" hymn tune was published in English books in 1708 and 1720, but there's no evidence (known to me anyway) that Bach knew anything about it. The coincidence is only the first seven or eight notes anyway, not the whole tune. The "St Anne" music is by William Croft, and is called that because he was organist at St Anne's church, Soho, London. The tune was first associated with Psalm 42.

As for BWV 552 (from Clavierübung III, 1739) and a possible borrowing by Bach from somewhere, Peter Williams (2003 ed of The Organ Music of Bach) cites a D major fugue by Hurlebusch, in a volume that Bach himself was selling in Leipzig in 1735. "This work has been claimed to be so similar in subject and treatment to the first section of the Eb Fugue that one can speak of it as 'Bach's source' and a commonplace modulation in it as 'borrowed verbatim' by Bach. But Hurlebusch's three-voice working is thin, entirely conventional, and more like other fugues of the 1730s, seen at their best in Händel's Six Fugues, published in 1735. Resemblances may be natural when composers wrote fugues true to type. Yet there has to remain the possibility that Bach was responding to Hurlebusch and intending to blind players by science."

< Another is the fugal subject which Händel used for "And With His Stripes" in "Messiah" and which Bach used for the A Minor Fugue in Book 2 (is this right?) of the Well-Tempered. >
Yes: sometime between 1739 and 1742 for Bach, and in 1742 for Händel.

Doug Cowling wrote (December 12, 2004):
Eric Bergerud wrote:
< Relying on this observation I then suggested that at least yours truly would plunk down $18 to hear an OVPP performance of a Bach cantata highlighting boys simply because this MIGHT well be the way they were performed in the early 18^th Century. And it would not matter to me whether or not the music was as technically accomplished as that coming from Suzuki or Ton Koopman. >
I think we under-estimate the musical competence of boys who are studying in a residential cathedral or college choir school with daily services. They are capable of quite extraordinary professionalism. The English collegiate choir school is in fact the closest contemporary institution we have to St. Thomas Leipzig in its schedule and manner of instruction. And if we remember that boys' voices changed as late as 18 yrs, we can be assured that Bach had performers who had a full decade of singing and were more than capable of performing his music.

Now I don't want to start a discussion of the singing styles of contemporary Engish, German and Italian boys choirs ... But everyone should listen to both the upcoming BBC broadcast of the King's College Christmas Eve carol service and telecast of the Sistine Chapel's Midnight Mass from the Vatican.

Bradley Lehman wrote (December 12, 2004):
< Can you imagine that that there must have been some sort of correspondence between these two great masters and that either by mail or by personal visits from Bach's sons, Händel and Bach may have exhanged copies of music with each other?
Another angle is hinted at in the title for Bach's 'English Suites' regarding which Forkel stated that Bach had composed them for 'a distinguished Englishman.' The NBA KB V/7 pp. 86-87 did find some evidence to corroborate Forkel's observation, but no specific names are mentioned. From this it might appear that Bach had made the acquaintance of such an individual, who also may have presented Bach with some English music, while Bach, in return, was very careful to use the treble clef sign which had been in use in England since the time of Purcell (Bach normally used the 'discant' clef instead (as for instance for his 'French Suites.') >
Bach had written his so-called "English" suites (which are really French in style) by 1725 at the latest, according to Dürr, and the first one (BWV 806) considerably earlier than that. Most likely Köthen (ending 1723) or even Weimar (ending 1717) for most of that music.

Against that, Händel's first eight suites were published in England in 1720. There's nothing particularly English about them, either, but rather they're Germanic and Italianate in style.

Lots of things "can be imagined" and "hinted at". A bunch of loosely connected imaginative conjectures (along with this unknown "distinguished Englishman", a music fan who allegedly carried Händel scores around? according to what?) do not constitute proof, or even very good circumstantial evidence, that Händel and Bach had ever exchanged music before either of them wrote those particular sets of suites. It's just a bunch of tempting speculation, about their lives before the age of 40 or 35. Might make a fun screenplay, coming up with some shady character who serves as liaison, and developing a plot around him or her. Nicolas Cage would be about the right age to play either Händel or Bach, and maybe John Cusack the other one? They're both really good at conspiracy-type movies. Anthony Hopkins would be cool as the distinguished Englishman. Julia Roberts is about the right age to play Maria Barbara, in the parts before her 1720 demise. Kate Winslet as Anna Magdalena?

The clef thing is interesting, but again not proof or even circumstantial evidence that Händel had anything to do with it.

Personally, I believe it's more likely that Bach and Couperin did some exchanges of technical shop talk (in their letters that ended up as jam-pot lids), more than Bach and Händel doing so. But that's drifting off topic.

I second Peter Smaill's request, about Händel and Bach:

< If any recent scholarship can cast light on the transmission mechanism (or absence thereof) for music between London, Halle and Leipzig a reference or precis of the same would be gratefully received. >
I'd enjoy seeing some real evidence, not fantasy literature based on things we're asked to imagine, and which then suddenly become almost true in the next paragraph. Or, if there isn't evidence to be had, what about an exercise of some scholarly caution rather than the engagement in quick and untenable speculation?

Thomas Shepherd wrote (December 12, 2004):
Doug Cowling wrote:
< …… But everyone should listen to both the upcoming BBC broadcast of the King's College Christmas Eve carol service and telecast of the Sistine Chapel's Midnight Mass from the Vatican. >
And if you want a wider and equally representative cross section of live cathedral singing in the UK, why not tune to "Choral Evensong" Radio 3 BBC every Wednesday afternoon (4.00 p.m. GMT) and streamed live. The web address is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/choralevensong/pip/8qa4x/.

This week its at Truro Cathedral, but it is possible to listen to the archives as well. Incidentally Bach is regularly performed at these broadcasts.

Doug Cowling wrote (December 12, 2004):
Bradley Lehman wrote:
< Personally, I believe it's more likely that Bach and Couperin did some exchanges of technical shop talk (in their letters that ended up as jam-pot lids), more than Bach and Händel doing so. But that's drifting off topic. >
Händel traveled a good deal in Germany on audition tours. Has anyone done any work on the indirect connections in the two men's musical circles? Through this sons? Musicians in diplomatic circles?

Thomas Braatz wrote (December 12, 2004):
Bradley Lehman wrote:
< Lots of things "cabe imagined" and "hinted at". A bunch of loosely connected imaginative conjectures along with this unknown "distinguished Englishman", a music fan who allegedly carried Händel scores around? according to what?) do not constitute proof, or even very good circumstantial evidence, that Händel and Bach had ever exchanged music before either of them wrote those particular sets of suites.<<
This is a misreading and misinterpretation of my remarks. Nowhere did I contend a connection of any sort between Händel's suites and Bach's.

>>It's just a bunch of tempting speculation, about their lives before the age of 40 or 35. Might make a fun screenplay, coming up with some shady character who serves as liaison, and developing a plot around him or her. Nicolas Cage would be about the right age to play either Händel or Bach, and maybe John Cusack the other one? They're both really good at conspiracy-type movies. Anthony Hopkins would be cool as the distinguished Englishman. Julia Roberts is about the right age to play Maria Barbara, in the parts before her 1720 demise. Kate Winslet as Anna Magdalena?<<
Here we go again. Was there any good reason to launch into this type of facetiousness when the subject matter here is rather serious? This type of attitude should be set aside in discussing Bach and his music. This type of entertainment (indirectly trying to prove one's own superiority) at the expense of another list member should and must be curtailed!

>>The clef thing is interesting, but again not proof or even circumstantial evidence that Händel had anything to do with it.<<
This never had a "Händel" connection, but rather was offered to show any kind of musical connection between England and Leipzig at all.

>>Personally, I believe it's more likely that Bach and Couperin did some exchanges of technical shop talk (in their letters that ended up as jam-pot lids), more than Bach and Händel doing so. But that's drifting off topic.<<
It certainly is and it is also a wild speculation which you personally wish to hold onto.

>>I second Peter Smaill's request, about Händel and Bach:...I'd enjoy seeing some real evidence, not fantasy literature based on things we're asked to imagine, and which then suddenly become almost true in the next paragraph. Or, if there isn't evidence to be had, what about an exercise of some scholarly caution rather than the engagement in quick and untenable speculation?<<
The evidence about the change in clefs that Bach used for the English Suites comes from Peter Williams. The NBA KB used this information to come to the conclusion that this may be considered corroboration for Forkel's observation and could be used to explain Bach's title: English Suites which are not really in an English style of suite at all.

Bradley Lehman wrote (December 12, 2004):
<< Personally, I believe it's more likely that Bach and Couperin did some exchanges of technical shop talk (in their letters that ended up as jam-pot lids), more than Bach and Händel doing so. But that's drifting off topic. >>
< Händel traveled a good deal in Germany on audition tours. Has anyone done any work on the indirect connections in the two men's musical circles? Through this sons? Musicians in diplomatic circles? >
I don't know of any, offhand, but those would be good leads. Especially around Mattheson or others in Hamburg, perhaps.

Doug Cowling wrote (December 12, 2004):
[To Bradley Lehman] Hamburg would seem to be the place with the obvious connections. I wonder how freely manuscripts circulated. By the way, where did Van Sweiten get his copies of Bach that Mozart saw? He must have been a collector as a diplomat.

Thomas Braatz wrote (December 12, 2004):
Doug Cowling wrote:
>>By the way, where did Van Sweiten get his copies of Bach that Mozart saw? He must have been a collector as a diplomat.<<
Baron Gottfried van Swieten (1733-1803) obtained his copy of the English Suites (if we can at least stay on topic without wandering off too far) from the 'Forkel-Tradition' [technically called the Göttingen 1782 copy because this was the date that Count/later Prince Karl Alois Lichnowsky (1761-1814) acquired it while studying at the University of Göttingen. The NBA editors indicate that this copy had been most likely prepared shortly before this date upon Lichnowsky's demand. Later it came into the possession of van Swieten and was purchased at an auction in 1804 by Princess Josepha Sophia Liechtenstein (1776-1848) from which it went to Aloys Fuchs and then to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Vienna) where it is listed as VII 834.

Van Swieten also had 2 copies of BWV 526-530 arranged for 2 harpsichords made, one of these used the same copyist who also worked on Mozart's arrangement of the Messiah where this copyist is listed as Kp I.

Mozart, who made his own string trio arrangements of mvts. 2 and 3 of BWV 526 and mvt. 2 of BWV 527, comments in a letter dated April 10, 1782: "Every Sunday at noon I go to Baron van Swieten's house where nothing else but Händel and Bach are played. I am right now involved in making my own collection of Bach's fugues - those by Johann Sebastian as well as those by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach."

It is known that one of the earliest most reliable copies of these organ trios is in WF's own hand, but it is also surmised that he copied these from a copy very likely prepared by AMB (no longer extant.) Van Swieten's copyist appears to have been copying from WF's copy of these works.

Ludwig wrote (December 12, 2004):
[To Doug Cowling] Forgive me but Kings College Chorusters are very professional sounding indeed. In fact they are paid according to the Will of one of the Earlier Monarchs although the amount today is a pitance compared to the same value it had when the Monarch lived.

The Midnight Mass from St. Peters, for the past 50 years, is anything but professional sounding. The singers often can not keep together and are often out of tune with each other and the written music, not in time and often sound as if they just walk off the streets of Romem,never learned to read music, never even saw the music before they before they attempted to sing the Mass. It is some of the most horrible singing (if it can be called that) I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. Based on Historical Records; we know that Bach at least would not have tolerated this and probally not Händel either. Händel had some of the finest singers of the age singing for him including the legendary bel canto castrati: Farinelli whose formidable rare talents so impressed the people of his age that he is still remembered today when most of the people he sang with are forgotten. To be sure; Händel did have some amateur singers which records show that he got professional level performances out of them as in the World Premiere Performance in Dublin of The Messiah. Forgive the stereotype; but it is hard to find an Irishman or Welshman who does not have at least some musical and literary gifts and in most cases they have much more.

Dale Gedcke wrote (December 12, 2004):
[To Doug Cowling] RE: Eric's and Doug's appended e-mail on the transition to large choirs:

This past week, while traveling with my sales representative in Japan, I mentioned that I enjoyed the Messiah by Händel, and works by Bach. Upon hearing that comment he pulled out two CDs to listen to as we drove to the Narita Airport. One was St. Mathew's Passion (BWV 244). The only name I recognized on the jacket was Hauptmann. I only heard part of this one, because we listened to it after The Messiah.

The other CD was the choruses from Händel's The Messiah. I was amazed to find it was directed by McCreesh. According to my host, the performance used period instruments. I have listened to The Messiah a few thousand times, mostly performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. That production has a huge, full and powerful sound.

The McCreesh production, on the other handsounded like OVPP, or at most 2 voices per part. The sound was completely different. You could pick out the individual vocalists as well as the individual instruments. Instead of the blurred sound of a large choir and orchestra, there was a sense of extremely clear and distinct sounds that only small groups can produce. Still the sound was powerful and scintillating. The vocalists and instruments were very well balanced even with the extreme dynamics McCreesh elicited from his performers.

For anyone who has been indoctrinated by large choirs performing The Messiah, I highly recommend this CD for a refreshing and enjoyable difference!

Doug Cowling wrote (December 12, 2004):
Ludwig wrote:
< Forgive me but Kings College Chorusters are very professional sounding indeed. In fact they are paid according to the Will of one of the Earlier Monarchs although the amount today is a pitance compared to the same value it had when the Monarch lived >
Their high level of musicianship is what I was extolling. Today the choir of King's College Cambridge is a huge commerical operation with an annual operating budget of three million dollars. The income from recordings must be prodigous.

Gabriel Jackson wrote (December 13, 2004):
Doug Cowling wrote:
"Today the choir of King's College Cambridge is a huge commerical operation with an annual operating budget of three million dollars. The income from recordings must be prodigous."
Is that Canadian or American dollars? To be honest, I doubt if their income from recordings is that great - very few artists make any serious money from classical recordings.

Händel & Bach

Eric Bergerud wrote (April 23, 2005):
Luke Hubbard wrote:
< Frankly, I do not like Händel at all. Just as Gustav Leonhardt once said, "je deteste sa musique". I see it as shallow, frivolous, empty of substance and full of musical tricks to catch the audience. I is at least awkward to see how many people admire his operas. Of course, they are entitled to like everything they want. Some even go hand in hand liking baroque and 20th century output. >

"Do you mean that Wagner did not want to be public and wrote music for himself only?"
< Not at all. By "commercial" I understand music created solely for the reason to be sold (or lived by). Because of its inherent limitations, such music can almost never be thought provoking. Even Mozart, for example, composed a lot of trashy music to please the courtly audience. >

"Wagner wanted to sound serious, but can we take his subjects, characters and librettos seriously? He can also be boring allright."
< I don't like opera very much, so I wont take Wagner's side. The major difference between Wagner and other operatic composers is bound on different theories of music: for the former, it should be an intimate union between text and music, while for the latter, the texts are subordinate to music. >
I suppose it's okay to dismiss Händel. Ovid was once as popular as Homer in Europe, and is now rarely read. But I certainly don't. Not only do I like much of his choral music but I find much of instrumental production extremely rewarding. Indeed, I almost wonder whether Bach could have written better music to please a real live King (no slight to Saxony's august ruler, but he wasn't King of England) than Händel's Water or Fireworks music. (George I was always a fan - not that it necessarily did Händel any good.) For what it's worth Händel was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey - a rather more splendid send-off than Bach received. Indeed, Händel was one baroque musician that didn't need a revival. His fame was so great that when the Academy of Ancient Music was founded in the late 18th Century it was to rescue the works of composers that Purcell that had been so overshadowed by Händel. Mozart was likewise a fan. Haydn claimed to have been greatly inspired by exposure to Händel late in life, so much so that he composed two fine oratorios of his own. While all of this was going on, Bach's reputation, while high in some circles, was most limited. Vivaldi and others were almost forgotten.

I am certainly not arguing that Händel was Bach's equal, simply that he was a great composer. Although the question seems surrounded by more than a little fog, Wolff's account pictures Bach as being an admirer of Händel. Does anyone here know if Händel was well acquainted with any of Bach's music?

PS: Wagner, being as always short of funds, composed an almost funny-it's-so-bad overture on commission celebrating the USA's centenary in 1876. As I understand it, Wagner loved the "good life" and considered it his due. And I was aware of Wagner's great respect for Bach. I did note that Wagner was a splendid writer and a fine critic. He just wrote some famous operas that I no longer find tolerable based on an artistic concept of almost extraordinary arrogance.

Stephen Benson wrote (April 23, 2005):
Eric Bergerud wrote (with respect to Händel):
< Mozart was likewise a fan. >
As was Beethoven!

Doug Cowling wrote (April 23, 2005):
Eric Bergerud wrote:
< I am certainly not arguing that Händel was Bach's equal, simply that he was a great composer. Although the question seems surrounded by more than a little fog, Wolff's account pictures Bach as being an admirer of Händel. Does anyone here know if Händel was well acquainted with any of Bach's music? >
Of all the great paired composers -- Palestrina & Victoria, Mozart & Haydn, and Wagner and Verdi -- there are no others as unique and different from each other than Bach and Händel. It is always a pointless exercise to compare the "greatness" of composers. B & H created superb music in radically different ways. Don't ask me to choose between the Brandenburgs and the Concerti Grossi, or 'Zadok the Priest" and "Singet den Herrn", or "Messiah" and the "Christmas Oratorio". They are all masterpieces.

Eric Bergerud wrote (April 23, 2005):
[To Doug Cowling] In theory, of course, Doug is right. But frankly I don't see the transcendent genius in Händel that Bach showed on a regular basis in so many forms of music. Sure the Messiah is a masterpiece. Many other of Händel's works are in or near that category. I've said before on this list that on a good day Händel could rival Bach. However, a lot of Händel in my collection at least has little interest to me. What I find so amazing about Bach is that I really have a hard time thinking of a "dud." Even his lesser known cantatas certainly have their moments of great beauty. I can't imagine setting a goal to own every work composed by Händel. I think I already have done so with Bach's choral production and keep working on the instrumental end. So, sure, both men composed masterpieces. Bach just did it a lot more often. I'm no musical scholar so I don't have to be fair - Bach was the greater of the two, and by a good margin.

Neil Halliday wrote (April 23, 2005):
Eric Bergerud wrote:
< In theory, of course, Doug is right. But frankly I don't see the transcendent genius in Händel that Bach showed on a regular basis in so many forms of music. >
I was amazed to read recently that none of Händel's solo organ music has survived (if it ever existed). Then there's the WTC....

Henri Sanguinetti wrote (April 23, 2005):
Eric Bergerud wrote:
>>I'm no musical scholar so I don't have to be fair <<
I am even much more ignorant. And a Bach-addict: yes needing to listen to some Bach at least once every day to survive, and to read the list to help me to keep the fire going.

Comparisons are nevertheless difficult in the case of great composers and in particular when their "fields" have been different. Yes Bach composed many masterpieces, but never one opera!!!

When you are fond of opera, doing whatever you have to do with some arias and duos and ouvertures trotting in your head from time to time, having some fantastic scenes always alive in memory, you think differently. I have I confess been "setting a goal to own every [work] opera composed by Händel". More surprising even, all this helped me to get at a later stage within the cantatas universe, and to try to penetrate within SM&JP.

Changing subject: I always thought that Bach and Händel should have known very liteach other music, but never realised that they came close to meet together.

Tim Dooley (1990, Bach, Hamlyn), I quote, said this:"In 1719 Bach heard that Händel was visiting Halle while on a continental trip to find opera singers to perform in London; Leopold lendt Bach a horse, and he set out to meet the composer. Bur Händel had already left on his return journey to England".

Is this a true story?

Doug Cowling wrote (April 23, 2005):
Neil Halliday wrote:
< I was amazed to read recently that none of Händel's solo organ music has survived (if it ever existed). Then there's the WTC.... >
There are a number of pieces among the keyboard works - particularly the fugues -- which look very much like organ pieces. Händel, like Bach was a consummate improvisor, and probably thought, of his organ playing as occasional epehemera. There certainly wasn't much of a publishing market in England for organ music. Even in the comcertos, the organ part is only a sketch, clearly designed as an aide-de-memoire.

Bach's attitude to his organ pieces was much different. In the case of his chorale-based works, he seems to have wanted to write complete liturgical collections for the whole church year: the Orgelbuchlein has blank pages left for chorale-prelude which Bach didn't get around to composing. Whether the free works originated as improvisations is hard to know. All of his students must have wanted copies of the works which form the great corpus of his preludes and fugues.

Doug Cowling wrote (April 23, 2005):
Henri Sanguinetti wrote:
< Changing subject: I always thought that Bach and Händel should have known very little each other music, but never realised that they came close to meet together.
Tim Dooley (1990, Bach, Hamlyn), I quote, said this:"In 1719 Bach heard that Händel was visiting Halle while on a continental trip to find opera singers to perform in London; Leopold lendt Bach a horse, and he set out to meet the composer. Bur Händel had already left on his return journey to England".
Is this a true story? >
I once began a radio script which dramatized the meeting-that-never-was.Anyone know a producer who might be interested in the project?

David Hitchin wrote (April 23, 2005):
Doug Cowling wrote:
"I once began a radio script which dramatized the meeting-that-never-was. Anyone know a producer who might be interested in the project?"
Christopher Longuet-Higgins imagined a meeting between the two, and I have copied his story below. Bear in mind that they would have played perfect fifths and not in equal temperament!

David Hitchin

Once upon a time St. Cecilia was giving a music lesson to two young geniuses, called George Frederick and Johann Sebastian.

"Boys," she said, "I want you to take your violins and play this scale together in unison." And she put on the music stand a piece of manuscript paper on which was written the descending scale

D C# B A G F# E D C# B

The youngsters picked up their bows and St. Cecilia raised her baton. The first six notes were beautifully together, in tempo and in pitch; but at the seventh note (E) the two boys stopped and frowned at one another.

"You're sharp!" said one.

"No I'm not; you're flat" said the other.

"Now, now," said St. Cecilia, "there's no need to quarrel; you were both right." And she explained what had happened.

Which of the two young musicians had accused the other of playing sharp?

Saint Cecilia, a woman of perspicacity, had noticed that George Frederick was particularly fond of the key of D major. Johann Sebastian, on the other hand, had a special affection for B minor, and some of his finest later works were written in that key. So when St. Cecilia put the music on the stand, George Frederick naturally saw a scale of D major, and Johann Sebastian a scale of B minor. The two scales look identical on paper, but they are not quite the same.

The principal chords of D major are the major triads D-F#-A, A-C#-E, and G-B-D, while in B minor it is essential to tune correctly the three minor triads B-D-F#-, F#-A-C# and E-G-B. Now the outer notes of a major or minor triad are spaced by a perfect fifth, and the interval between the two lower notes of a major triad, or the two upper notes of a minor triad, is a major third.

Returning to our puzzle, we are now in a position to say which of the two pupils accused the other of playing sharp. To get from Johann Sebastian's E to George Frederick's one has to climb three perfect fifths, E-B-F#-C#-, fall two octaves and a major third, C#-A, and climb another perfect fifth. The last and first notes in this series have frequencies in the ratio 81 : 80, and it was therefore Johann Sebastian who accused George Frederick of playing sharp.

"So you see," said St. Cecilia, "you were both right all the time. That horrid noise was my fault; I didn't tell you whether to play in D major or B minor. If I had told you beforehand you would have played the same note.

But when you grow up, boys, you will find that composers sometimes forget, as I did, to give clear directions to their performers, and then it is their own fault if their music is played out of tune. Let this be a lesson to you both."

Doug Cowling wrote (April 23, 2005):
[To David Hitchin] A clever posting from the BachCantatas list.

Thomas Braatz wrote (April 23, 2005):
David Hitchin wrote:
>>Once upon a time St. Cecilia was giving a music lesson to two young geniuses, called George Frederick and Johann Sebastian.<<
Given this format we can imagine quite a few things, but if we are, for just a moment, to take seriously any portion of this story with its mathematical puzzle in more than just a very general way, then some real questions arise which are left unanswered (very likely the author of this story did not really intend this to be any more than a musical mental exercise to demonstrate the wide-ranging, unresolved problems of temperament that confronted both Bach and Händel during their lifetimes.)

1. Favorite keys
Did either composer show a strong favoritism or a predilection for one key (Bach = B minor; Händel = D major) over all others? Did anyone do a statistical study of this encompassing all the works by each composer, or at least all of those which include violins/strings?

What about Bach's numerous works for choir & orchestra that are in D major? And how about the D major mvts. within a work (BWV 232 - Mass in B minor)? Should they not be counted as well?

2. The tuning of violins
Somewhere in the descending scale given, the open strings of a violin would be played (or do we have to assume that the violinist would avoid all open strings to adjust those notes accordingly as well?) Would these 'open' strings, if used in playing, be tuned in perfect fifths (in this instance the A down to D as a perfect fifth) or otherwise? Do most violinists tend to follow equal temperament intonation or do they intentionally play very slightly sharp or flat certain notes according to some non-equal-temperament scheme which they might have in mind)? All the while are we assuming, according to the story, that Bach and Händel used absolutely no vibrato whatsoever while playing these notes so that a normal mortal ear could be able to distinguish the differences involved?

3. Unclear notation
"you will find that composers sometimes forget, as I did, to give clear directions to their performers"

It is truly amazing that Bach with his cantata-composing schedule in Leipzig in the mid to late 1720s, did notate, much to the dismay of some performers then and now, quite carefully what he wished his musicians to play. It appears that St. Cecilia, is projecting her own failing upon upon mere mortals who were trying to do their best under very difficult circumstances, but then Bach and Händel were only boys when this happened and perhaps they did learn, as they became older, not to follow the bad example set by St. Cecilia.

Bradley Lehman wrote (April 23, 2005):
< Christopher Longuet-Higgins imagined a meeting between the two, and I have copied his story below. Bear in that they would have played perfect fifths and not in equal temperament!
(...)
D C# B A G F# E D C# B
(...)
The youngsters picked up their bows and St. Cecilia raised her baton. The first six notes were beautifully together, in tempo and in pitch; but at the seventh note (E) the two boys stopped and frowned at one another. >
An enjoyable fiction! But why assume that either (or both) of them would have tuned their violin strings in perfect fifths, rather than the more common 1/6 comma tempered fifths?

We're doing the Vivaldi-Bach concerto for four harpsichords tomorrow, with all the string players tuning their open strings to regular 1/6 comma fifths, i.e. matching the harpsichords' placements of all those notes C, G, D, A, and E. It's worked out marvelously in the rehearsals. (With Bach's keyboard temperament: F-C-G-D-A-E as 1/6 fifths, E-B-F#-C# pure, C#-G#-D#-A# as 1/12 fifths.) The concertmaster and the viola da gamba player each take all their open strings from the hpsi, and then they give those pitches in turn to everybody else. The orchestra for tomorrow--good university students playing Baroque-setup instruments, two to a part--picked this up quickly in the first rehearsal, putting their sharps at the right places in the musical texture and using their open strings wherever available, playing in first position most of the time. So, why would this same practice be any problem for either Händel or Bach?

Quantz, "Of the duties that all accompanying instrumentalists in general must observe," paragraph 4: "To tune the violin quite accurately, I think you will not do badly to follow the rule that must be observed in tuning the keyboard, namely, that the fifths must be tuned a little on the flat side rather than quite truly or a little sharp, as is usually the case, so that the open strings will all agree with the keyboard. For if all the fifths are tuned sharp and truly, it naturally follows that only one of the four strings will be in tune with the keyboard. If the A is tuned truly with the keyboard, the E a little flat in relation to the A, the D a little sharp to the A, and the G likewise to the D, the two instruments will agree with each other. This suggestion is not presented as an absolute rule, however, but only as a matter for further reflection."

Thomas Braatz wrote (April 23, 2005):
Bradley Lehman wrote:
>>Quantz, "Of the duties that all accompanying instrumentalists in general must observe," paragraph 4:"To tune the violin quite accurately... If the A is tuned truly with the keyboard...the two instruments will agree with each other. This suggestion is not presented as an absolute rule, however, but only as a matter for further reflection."<<
Over 30 years earlier, Mattheson, "Von der Harmonie" paragraph 72, stated essentially the same idea that violins (not necessarily only as accompanying instruments) should tune narrow fifths, but not from a keyboard instrument, but rather using a pocket monochord in such a way that the fifths would have the proper narrow beating (not off by even a 'schisma'= 1/2 of a 'comma') that they should properly have. He even expressed a wish that it would be possible to do this with all the instruments in the orchestra so as to improve generally the sound of the entire orchestra.

I don't know what this 'pocket monochord' looked like or whether Mattheson had patented such gadget, but he certainly felt it would be far preferable to violinists carrying around snuff boxes or fancy watches to show off. Mattheson seems to imply that wooden pitchpipes were not at all reliable (the tuning fork had not yet appeared in Germany at that time) and that the pocket monochord could be 'set up' to provide 'the newest and best temperament'(the one with only slightly narrow fifths) for orchestral performances. This sounds like equal temperament that Mattheson refers to here. Let's see -- Bach in Hamburg (1720) Mattheson publishes the above (1721) and Bach completes Pt. 1 of the WTC(1722). An interesting sequence indeed!

Bradley Lehman wrote (April 24, 2005):
< This sounds like equal temperament that Mattheson refers to here. Let's see -- Bach in Hamburg (1720) Mattheson publishes the above (1721) and Bach completes Pt. 1 of the WTC (1722). An interesting sequence indeed! >
An "interesting" circumstantial presentation assembled to illustrate...what, exactly?

Charles Francis wrote (April 24, 2005):
Thomas Braatz wrote:
< I don't know what this 'pocket monochord' looked like or whether Mattheson had patented such gadget, but he certainly felt it would be far preferable to violinists carrying around snuff boxes or fancy watches to show off. >
Or perhaps the watches were used for beat counting to set the temperament?

Jason Marmaras wrote (April 24, 2005):
Händel and Bach - dramatizing the meeting-that-never-was

[To Doug Cowling] Of this matter I did last year hear of a theatrical play performed here in Greece, in a jesty mood (or at least exaggerated enough so as to be quite a
jest). Of what I heard, Händel was presented as the Noble City-man, where Bach was quite in the vulgar side - a crude-mannered peasant... O well...

Teddy Kaufman wrote (April 24, 2005):
Bach and Händel "The Charming Brute"

In addition to the most informative comments regarding Bach and Händel, there is another aspect, may be trivial, to be mentioned:

Bach conducted a relatively very modest life, almost "Spartan". On the contrary, Händel, being a very skillful businessman, enjoyed life, drinking, eating and smoking his pipe. Händel's reputed enjoyment of the fine things in life, gave rise to criticism, insults and mockery.

"...A drawing in the Fitzwilliam, attributed to the British artist Joseph Goupy *** and entitled The Charming Brute, savages the great composer. Händel is presented as an obese half-man half-hog, seated on a dripping beer barrel before an organ, his hands barely able to reach the keyboard over his vast belly. A dwarfish servant holds up a mirror in front of this monster. A joint of ham and a dead fowl hang from the side of his instrument. Behind him are scattered oyster shells, while before him are various musical instruments. A pig's head on the floor reinforces the insult."(Stories and Histories -web).

*** More information about this painter and Händel are available at:

Bernard J Shapero Rare Books-the rare & antiquarian bookshop.htm

Doug Cowling wrote (April 24, 2005):
Teddy Kaufman wrote:
< In addition to the most informative comments regarding Bach and Händel, there is another aspect, may be trivial, to be mentioned :
Bach conducted a relatively very modest life, almost "Spartan". On the contrary, Händel, being a very skillful businessman, enjoyed life, drinking, eating and smoking his pipe. Händel's reputed enjoyment of the fine things in life, gave rise to criticism, insults and mockery. >
Bach lived a simpler life because he had a large family and was not as wealthy as Händel. It certainly wasn't a quasi-monastic, spiritual decision. In fact, Wolff has a hilarious description of Bach running up huge room service bills when he was visiting other cities to advise on organs. The only artifact which survives from the Bach household is a very fancy beer glass.

Eric Bergerud wrote (April 25, 2005):
[To Teddy Kaufman] I read Hogwood's biography of Händel a year ago or so and the picture that appears isn't quite as Teddy relays. Händel did indeed rub shoulders with the "great" of Hanover and later England (thanks to the Hanoverian succession.) He was an impresario which was about the only way to make real money out of music. It was also very risky business and royal favor would not necessarily pay the bills for expensive Italian singers. In any case, Händel spent several yeanear bankruptcy. There was a time when his operas were out of fashion and Händel considered by many a "has been." This situation forced him to turn to oratorios. It proved a successful career move (to say the least) and by his death Händel was once again very well off and a member of high society. Hence his tomb in Westminster Abbey. (The Hogarth style picture described was, I betcha, done before the fickle English public anointed the Messiah as a masterpiece.)

It's true that Bach wasn't on speaking terms with the top gents of a European great power. That said, for his time, his life was a pretty good one. Having multitudes of children was perhaps an eccentric hobby, but Bach could afford it. His food, lodgings etc were perfectly civilized. Bach liked his beer and hung out with university faculty and students. He was acquainted with some of the Saxon ruling class. Above all he had a position of respect in a society where status played a role hard for us to imagine.
True, the good citizens of Leipzig never understood that they were graced with one of history's greatest artists. Maybe Bach himself didn't know that. But I should think Bach and those that knew him would have considered his life a success.

Bradley Lehman wrote (April 25, 2005):
< True, the good citizens of Leipzig never understood that they were graced with one of history's greatest artists. Maybe Bach himself didn't know that. >
Why would he, and they, not know that? To get that job at all Bach had to get through a field of very tough candidates amid some fiery bipartisan politics (read Ulrich Siegele...); and then he was there for almost 30 years.

Eric Bergerud wrote (April 26, 2005):
[To Bradley Lehman] Brad, I think we need a little larger perspective here. There is no reason to doubt that Bach had great pride in his accomplishments and no doubt considered himself a master of his craft. That's quite another thing than considering oneself the greatest composer up until his own time and the equal in his own field of Michelangelo, Dante, Shakespeare, Galileo, Newton or Palladio. This is indeed the position that we now give Bach. As for the people of Leipzig, I don't know that we have good evidence as to Bach's popularity or lack thereof. (We do have good evidence, as I understand it, that Bach was very popular among the musicians and music lovers of the University of Leipzig and was a fine teacher.) As far as his employers go, we have CPE Bach's testimony that they "could hardly wait for him to die" (or very similar words) before looking for a successor. By Bach's time great artists were becoming major public figures. Bach, luckily for us, had a reputation strong enough to have spread among keyboard and chamber music fans throughout Germany and others parts in Europe. But as I understand it, Händel, Telemann or Lully, in their day had "bigger names" than Bach. Michelangelo could and did duke it out with Popes. Newton, who joined Händel in Westminster, was considered something of a demi-god among fanciers of natural science. Bach was nowhere near this league in his own lifetime - if he had been, I doubt he would have toiled for the city fathers of Leipzig. No, we all owe much gratitude to the musicians and 19^th century German musical scholars that first kept Bach's music alive and then brought it to a prominence I doubt Bach would have dreamed of. And, from the looks of things, Bach's relative position in the musical pantheon has never been stronger than it is today.

Peter Smaill wrote (April 26, 2005):
Many of us will at school have been told that Bach's reputation died with him until Mendelssohn's revival of the SMP (BWV 244). However, that can never have been true in view of the interest taken by Mozart (heard a motet at Leipzig in 1789) and Beethoven, and due to the influence of Bach's sons.

On this theme, it now appears that even before the Wesley interest in Bach, London was beginning to hear JS Bach via the "48", quite probably only a few years after Bach's death. The evidence that even in these benighted lands that Bach almost immediately failed to achieve obscurity, as some romantics might wish, is set out in "The English Bach Awakening, 1750?-1850" (please note the questionmark, O flamethrowers !) ed. Michael Kassler, published 2004.

Apologies to those who have alread read it. A question remains ; at his death one of Bach's confessors, Christoph Wolle, Rector of St Thomas, was a linguist who could speak English. Do we know the names of any British visitors to Leipzig who would have gravitated towards such an eminent English speaker?

In particular, there is a personal interest in Patrick Home of Paxton, a Scotsman at Leipzig University in the 1740's whom Frederick the Great took a shine to, Home being accoutred as a joisting knight at the Carnival given by the King of Prussia in honour of his sisters at Berlin on 25 August 1750. He is a (remote) ancestor. Did he meet Wolle?

Uri Golomb wrote (April 26, 2005):
Peter Smaill wrote:
< Many of us will at school have been told that Bach's reputation died with him until Mendelssohn's revival of the SMP (BWV 244). However, that can never have been true in view of the interest taken by Mozart (heard a motet at Leipzig in 1789) and Beethoven, and due to the influence of Bach's sons. >
It would probably be more accurate to say that, before the SMP (BWV 244) revival, Bach was primarily a "musicians' composer" -- admired and loved by composers and other musicians, but relatively unknown to the wider public; and even his reputation among musicians was based primarily on his keyboard music, rather than the vocal music. (Though they were exceptions: Haydn, for example, owned a copy of the B minor Mass (BWV 232), and that work was advertised by the publisher Naegli as "the greatest musical work of art of all times and nations" in 1818, a few years before the SMP (BWV 244) revival).

Mendelssohn's composition teacher, Zelter, taught him a lot of Bach's music, but wasn't very keen on the idea of a public performance of the SMP (BWV 244); I don't recall the details right now, but, as far as I recall, he didn't believe the public will understand this music. Mendelssohn thought otherwise; and his performance of the SMP (BWV 244) was indeed a pivotal event in the history of Bach reception -- it did a lot to resurrect Bach's VOCAL music, and to introduce Bach to the concert-going public.

Adrian Horsewood wrote (April 26, 2005):
Bach's posthumous reputation

[To Uri Golomb] There's an interesting example of Bach admiration from before the general revival in 1829. In 1799 Frederick Kollmann (a performer and theorist) published a diagram of a 'sun' of composers, which had names of such composers as Gluck, Hasse, and Telemann in the rays of the sun, and the names of Händel, Haydn, and Carl Heinrich Graun on the three sides of a triangle at the centre of the diagram. But in the very middle, inside the triangle, is Bach's name.

I think Haydn also owned copies of the motets - a man of real taste...

Zelter did rehearse the SMP (BWV 244) and the B Minor Mass (BWV 232) with the Singakademie Choir in Berlin between 1811 and 1815, but, as Uri said, wasn't keen on public of the works! He was a fairly sober, rationalistic sort of person and wasn't very taken with the Lutheran chorale texts - he said:

'the biggest obstacle is the atrocious German chorale texts which are full of the polemical earnestness of the Reformation and try to disturb the mind of the non-believer by smoking him out with the dense fumes of belief, which is what no one really wants nowadays' (!)

Doug Cowling wrote (April 26, 2005):
Eric Bergerud wrote:
< By Bach's time great artists were becoming major public figures. Bach, luckily for us, had a reputation strong enough to have spread among keyboard and chamber music fans throughout Germany and others parts in Europe. But as I understand it, Händel, Telemann or Lully, in their day had "bigger names" than Bach. Michelangelo could and did duke it out with Popes. Newton, who joined Händel in Westminster, was considered something of a demi-god among fanciers of natural science. Bach was nowhere near this league in his own lifetime - if he had been, I doubt he would have toiled for the city fathers of Leipzig. >
"Popularity" and "greatness" are concepts which are difficult for those of us who who grew up in the self-generated cult of "unpopularity" in which 12-tone composers luxuriated. This of course was a reaction to the self-aggrandisement of the late Romantic composer-hero, but in my lifetime I have never known a living composer who has had both general popularity and critical greatness.

I remember going to a sold-out performance of the Philip Glass Ensemble a few years ago and being fascinated by the cross-over audience of classical, rock, jazz and New Age types of all generations -- so unlike the fields of grey in a usual classical concert! I speculated to my wife that this must have been what it was like in the 18^th and 19^th centuries to attend a concert of new music with a living composer who was both critically and popularly acclaimed.

We have to be very careful about "popularity" and "greatness" when we talk about the 18^th century. Telemann was both popular and great in his lifetime, perhaps THE composer in all of Europe. Yet today, although admired in an academic sense, he has no popularity whatsoever. I always say, whistle a tune by Telemann (don't bother to rush forward with examples -- no one is going to record a 'Greatest Hits of Telemann.')

In the 18^th century, social factors come into play. Bach was known primarily as an organ virtuoso in his lifetime but few of his works were published and thus he never achieved greatness or popularity. It wasn't that he was stuck in a provincial backwater filled with philistines: he just had a very small audience for his music.

Händel on the other hand was a relentless entrepreneur. When the new Händel House museum opened a few years ago, there were some sniffy comments that a gift shop had been included in the restoration. The curator pointed out that the shop was located in the room which Händel kept open to the public to sell his music! Händel uniquely achieved both a popularity and greatness which continued unbroken to this day. Only Palestrina before him can claim such a continuous publication and performance history.

Therefore, it is pointless to bemoan that Bach did not enjoy the greatness and popularity which is his due. Far more productive is what we do most of the time on this list: explore the social, liturgical, intellectual and musical matrix in which Bach worked.

It hardly needs to be said here that Bach is our favourite composer and that he is the greatest musician who ever lived.

Bradley Lehman wrote (April 26, 2005):
< I always say, whistle a tune by Telemann (don't bother to rush forward with examples -- no one is going to record a 'Greatest Hits of Telemann.') >
Well, the Telemann tune that Händel yanked from his "Tafelmusik" subscription and reused in a piece of his own is a pretty nice one.... <grin>

Eric Bergerud wrote (April 27, 2005):
[To Doug Cowling] I won't quibble with Doug concerning equating popularity with greatness. The two are, however, inevitably related because art reflects the culture of time. And the culture of the time will preserve, however precariously, some of it's historic memory its cultural past. Indeed the factor that characterizes the really "big guns" in the visual arts and literature is that once an individual is at or near the top it's rare to tumble to obscurity. Furthermore, most of our greatest artists were recognized as such in their own time. It's safe to say that Michelangelo was the most famous artist of his day. He may be the most famous of ours. Bach lay in a grey zone. He wasn't the most famous composer of his time but he was well known in professional circles but now occupies a position in the cultural stratosphere. (In literature a figure fitting something of the same description, although not to the same degree, is Jane Austen.)

Music for reasons that are not clear to me was the last of the great arts to create a pantheon. (Architecture is a little difficult because until the 19^th century great architects were often great artists in other fields.) And certainly tastes have changed. Cherubini or Salieri, while still recorded, once stood at or near the top of the heap among composers. But most of the others that till this day provide a goodly portion of the standard symphony program (Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Dvorak, Grieg, Sibelius, Stravinsky etc) were very famous men in their own lifetime. Since the death of Aaron Copland, I don't think there is a famous composer of serious music today at least in the US. I've been told that contemporary "classical" music has a hardy following in Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe and I hope its true. But for whatever reason the West does seem to exhaust its art forms more rapidly than other great cultures. Perhaps we've hit a kind of cultural brick wall. Below is an interesting piece from the SF Chronicle that addresses this:

Modernist music masters flail their batons at evil music critics - mailto:jkosman@sfchronicle.com
Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic Wednesday, March 30, 2005

It's a safe bet that Barry Bonds doesn't have any music by the arch-modernist composer Charles Wuorinen lurking on his iPod. But the two men can agree about one thing, at least: When the going gets rough, it's always a good idea to blame the media. Wuorinen and conductor James Levine -- who in spite of his smiley public demeanor seems to be equally embittered -- let loose with a bizarre joint display of pique in the pages of the New York Times on Sunday, as part of a round-table discussion on the subject of modern music and its discontents (composer John Harbison also took part, but largely declined to grouse). Apparently, these guys aren't getting the respect that is their due, nor is Arnold Schoenberg, who according to Levine was perhaps the most important composer of the 20^th century.

And whose fault is that? You guessed it: music critics.
"The problem with what happened after Schoenberg," Levine intoned, "was largely, or partly, coming from what turned out to be this desperate morass, futile attempt, to explain it."
Daniel J. Wakin, the Times' superb new classical music reporter, lost no time in picking up Levine's implication. "You seem to be laying all the blame on journalists, critics, writers on music," he said.
Darn right. "There was bad faith all around there for a while," said Levine, magnanimously spreading the responsibility around a little. "The problem is exacerbated by talk and print."
"A lot of writing about music involves copying what somebody already said," Wuorinen added.

In a way, it's easy to understand why Wuorinen, once the San Francisco Symphony's composer-inresidence, should be so disgruntled. He has spent his career working assiduously to create music that conforms to the modernist ideals of historical progress and technical innovation. Impeccably crafted and intricately structured, it pursues the organizational ideas established by Schoenberg with impressive zeal. Along the way, he has garnered what rewards the world of contemporary music has to offer, including a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant and a Pulitzer Prize. And Levine, who this year began as music director of the Boston Symphony with a veritable orgy of knotty modernist scores, is now a high-profile champion.

Audiences couldn't care less. Wuorinen's music and that of other similarly oriented composers has yet to make a dent in the culture at large, or in the consciousness of music lovers. Hence the bitterness, the self-pity, the snarling at the listeners for whose benefit all this scribbling is ostensibly being undertaken. (Elsewhere, Levine paints music as an arcane mystery whose secrets are available only through the efforts of a priestly caste of initiates, when he bewails the notion that "in music, everyone's entitled to an opinion.")

Not that public whining is exclusively a modernist pastime; Ned Rorem, as staunchly anti-modernist as they come, has made it a cottage industry. But it's especially poignant in their case, because things weren't supposed to play out this way.

The founding myth of modernism, dating back to the "Music of the Future" propounded by Liszt and his followers and later codified by Schoenberg, was that this was music too "advanced" for any but a handful of contemporary listeners. In later generations, though, all would become clear: The prophetic artist, scorned and misunderstood in his own day, would be hailed once his time had come.

It didn't work out that way -- or rather, it did for some, but not for everyone. Mahler's time came; so did Stravinsky's, Bartók's, Ives', even Berg's. Schoenberg and his acolytes are still waiting, and they're getting really testy.

Some folks, like the late English novelist Kingsley Amis, think they'll be waiting indefinitely. "Twentieth-century music is like pedophilia," Amis wrote. "No matter how persuasively and persistently its champions urge their cause, it will never be accepted by the public at large, who will continue to regard it with incomprehension, outrage and repugnance."Obviously, that statement is mostly a compound of curmudgeonly conservatism and plain old philistinism, leavened by a desire to shock. But any music lover has to concede that it contains a grain of truth as well, from a sociological if not an artistic point of view.

The musical modernism of Schoenberg and his followers has never been embraced, even by those who long ago accepted equally challenging strains in the other arts. And as long as we're being honest, we might as well admit that we don't know why.

It may have to do with inherent qualities in the way the brain processes auditory information. It may have to do with trends in music education. It may simply be a function of cyclical patterns of history. It may be because the music stinks.

It seems to me that it would be worth trying to solve this enigma, especially for those who love and devote themselves to this tradition. Sniping at the messenger is a tired and fruitless ploy.E-mail Joshua Kosman at: jkosman@sfchronicle.com

Mike Mannix wrote (May 1, 2005):
Samuel Sebastian Wesley must have been the first person outside the Bach family circle to be christened 'Sebastian' as a homage to the great man as early as 1810. Bach manuscripts were in circulation in England during JSB's lifetime.

Mendelssohn only performed SMP (BWV 244) twice and never touched SJP (BWV 245). The Bach revival would have taken place without Mendelssohn.

Works of G.F. Handel performed by J.S. Bach [Handel-L]

Aryeh Oron wrote (December 24, 2008):
My name is Aryeh Oron and I am somewhat alien to this group since I manage the Bach Cantatas Website and the Bach Mailing Lists.

Bach Cantatas Website: http://www.bach-cantatas.com
The Bach Cantatas Website (BCW) is a comprehensive site covering all aspects of J.S. Bach's cantatas and his other vocal works. The BCW contains discussions and detailed discographies of each cantata and other vocal works, performers and general topics. The BCW also contains texts and translations, scores, music examples, articles and interviews, and over 5,500 short biographies of performers of Bach's vocal works and players of his keyboard and lute works, as well as of poets & composers associated with Bach. There are also other relevant resources such as the Lutheran church year, database of chorale texts & melodies and their authors, detailed discographies of many Bach's instrumental works and piano transcriptions and their performers, reviews and discussions of Bach's instrumental works, books and movies on Bach, terms and abbreviations, schedule of concerts of Bach's vocal works, guide to Bach tour, Bach in arts & memorabilia, thousands of links to other relevant resources. The BCW is an international collective project, being compiled from various postings about the subject, most of which have been sent to the Bach Mailing Lists.

I have recently added a new section to the BCW, called "Bach & Other Composers":
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/index.htm

The aim of this section is to present all works of other composers associated with J.S. Bach. Among other things this section includes works of other composers performed by J.S. Bach. For each such work the section contains a comprehensive discography.

I have found that J.S. Bach performed at least three works of his great contemporary G.P. Handel:

Cantata Armida Abbandonata, HWV 105 (1707) - performed by J.S. Bach & Collegium Musicum in Leipzig c1731
Opera Alcina, HWV 34 (1735): arias: Mi lusinga il dolce affetto and Di, cor mio, quanto t'amai - performed by J.S. Bach & Collegium Musicum in Leipzig c1735
Brockes Passion, HWV 48 (Text: Barthold Heinrich Brockes), prepared for performance & performed by J.S. Bach in Leipzig:
- 1^st performance on Good Friday c1746-1747
- 2^nd performance on Good Friday August 1748 - October 1749
Pasticcio Passion, based on Markus-Passion by Friedrich Nicolaus Brauns [previously attributed to Reinhard Keiser] with insertion of 7 arias from Brockes Passion, HWV 48 by G.F. Händel - prepared for performance & performed by J.S. Bach at Thomaskirche in Leipzig on Good Friday April 31, 1747 or April 12, 1748

Discographies of these works can be found at:
Armida Abbandobnata: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Handel-Armida-Abbandonata.htm
Alcina: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Handel-Alcina.htm
Brockes Passion: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Handel-Brockes-Passion.htm

I have a few questions to the members of Handel-L:
a. Are these all the works of G.F. Handel performed by J.S. Bach?
b. Are there any works of J.S. Bach performed by G.F. Handel?
c. If you find any mistake/omission in the discography pages, please inform me.

David (December 26, 2008):
[To Aryeh Oron] I knew about the Armida abbandonata and Brockes Passion links with Bach, but have never before heard that he performed two arias from Alcina with the Leipzzig Collegium. Though it isn't impossible, it strikes me as being rather implausible - what's the evidence for this, please? I'm very curious to know if there is any substance to this idea. Is c.1735 really a plausible (approximate) date for these arias to have already reached Leipzig? I'd love to know exact chapter and verse on this, please.

There's no evidence that Handel ever played or studied J.S. Bach's music. He certainly knew and borrowed from their mutual friend Telemann, but I'd speculate that Handel's utter lack of musical borrowings from Bach suggest that Handel wasn't aware or interested much in the Leipzig Kantor's works. I'm tempted to imagine that whatever Handel knew of Bach was based on their earliest years, from before Handel went to Italy in 1706, and was probably confined to word of mouth regarding reputation and character rather than musical.

It would be lovely if somebody could uncover some more tangible evidence of a connection.

Aryeh Oron wrote (December 31, 2008):
David wrote:
"I knew about the Armida abbandonata and Brockes Passion links with Bach, but have never before heard that he performed two arias from Alcina with the Leipzzig Collegium. Though it isn't impossible, it strikes me as being rather implausible - what's the evidence for this, please? I'm very curious to know if there is any substance to this idea. Is c.1735 really a plausible (approximate) date for these arias to have already reached Leipzig? I'd love to know exact chapter and verse on this, please."
Thanks for your response.

The info was provided to me by Thomas Braatz and the source is an article by George Stauffer, "Music for Cavaliers et Dames": Bach and the repertory of his Collegium Musicum," in the new "About Bach," festschrift for Christoph Wolff; eds. Stauffer, Gregory Butler, and Mary Dalton (Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 2008; pp. 135-156). Essentially, he looks at the manuscripts found in the Breitkopf catalogue as part of the 1761 estate of Carl Gotthelf Gerlach, dating parts to the 1730s, including some in Bach's autograph. to the previous list of orchestral music and Italian soprano cantatas are added various instrumental works of Steffani, Benda, Locatelli, W.F.B., C.P.E.B., Heinichen, Telemann and J.G. Graun as well vocal works of Porpora (three more S. cantatas), A. Scarlatti, and Handel Cantata "Dica il faso" and three arias (two from "Alcina").

Steffen Voss wrote (January 18, 2009):
The two Alcina arias were known in Leipzig, as they where sold as manuscript copies at the music publisher Breitkopf. Much later, in 1765, exactly these two pieces are announced togehter with an aria from Agrippina (Col ardor del tuo bel core, HWV 6, Nr. 42) in the Breitkopf manuscript catalogue (where you can find also Armida abbandonata and some other arias and cantatas).

For a detailled list of Handel works known in Leipzig in the 18^th century look for the following article: Hans Joachim Marx / Steffen Voss, Die Händel zugeschriebenen Kompositionen in den thematischen Katalogen von Breitkopf, in: Göttinger Händel-Beiträge 9 (2002), p.149-160.

John Briggs wrote (January 18, 2009):
[To Steffen] I'm sorry, but now that we have the answer, could someone remind me what the question was?

David wrote (January 19, 2009):
[To Steffen Voss] Hi Steffen - nice to hear from you!

Thanks for this additional information; I've got all the GHB, so I'll have a look at this.

I don't suppose that the inclusion of this music in Breitkopf manuscripts guarantees that Bach performed them, or gives us a date about when, but it certainly raises some fascinating speculation!

Handel Cantatas

Meidad Zaharia wrote (January 4, 2009):
I have a question about Bach's contemporary geneius Handel.

There is a hugh list of Cantatas that Handel wrote but I never saw these on CD's, anyone have an idea why?
What these cantatas sounds like? Are they sang in English? German?

If they are availble can you please give me a ref. to a box set or something like that?

Thanks!

The cantatas list:

HWV / Title / Composed / Premiere / Notes / Text
77 Ah che pur troppo è vero Florence, ca. 1707
78 Ah! crudel, nel pianto mio Rome, August 1708 2 September, 1708, Palazzo Bonelli, Rome
79 Diana cacciatrice or Alla caccia Rome, May 1707 May-June 1707, Vignanello Copied for Ruspoli, 1707
80 Allor ch'io dissi: Addio Rome, 1707-9
81 Alpestre monte Florence, circa 1707
82 Amarilli vezzosa or Daliso ed Amarilli or Il duello amoroso Rome, August 1708 Probably October 28, 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708
83 Aminta e Fillide or Arresta il passo Early 1708 Rome, 14 July, 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708. The section, "Chi ben ama" printed separately in HG 52b
84 Aure soavi, e lieti Rome, May 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1708, 1709
85 Venus and Adonis or Behold where weeping Venus stands London, circa 1711 No autograph - authenticity uncertain
86 Bella ma ritrosetta London, circa 1717-18
87 Carco sempre di gloria London, 1737 16 March, 1737, between parts of "Alexander's Feast" (75), London Variant insertion in "Cecilia, volgi un sguardo" (89), for performances of "Alexander's Feast" (75), 1737, including music for the castrato Annibali
88 Care selve, aure grate Rome, 1707/8
89 Cecilia, volgi un sguardo London, January 1736 19 or 25 (?) February 1736, London, Covent Garden Theatre. Played between the two parts of Alexander's Feast (75).
90 Chi rapì la pace al core Florence, circa 1706–07 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709
91a Clori, degli occhi miei Florence, late 1707
91b Clori, degli occhi miei London, after 1710
92 Clori, mia bella Clori Rome, 1707–08
93 Clori, ove sei? Italy, 1707–08
94 Clori, si, ch'io t'adoro No autograph, earliest source circa 1738–40
95 Clori, vezzosa Clori Rome, July/August 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708
96 Clori, Tirsi e Fileno or Cor fedele in vano speri Rome, July/September 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 14 October 1707.
97 Crudel tiranno Amor London, June 1721 Probably performed 5 July 1721, London, King's Theatre, Haymarket. Performed at the benefit concert for Margherita Durastanti.
98 Cuopre tal volta il cielo Italy, 1708
99 Il delirio amoroso or Da quel giorno fatale Rome, on or before 14 January 1707. At Cardinal Pamphili's palato in May 1707.
100 Da sete ardente afflitto Italy, 1708–09 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709. (101a & 101b: Dal fatale momento. Spurious, by F. Mancini).
102a Dalla guerra amorosa Italy, 1708–09 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709
102b Dalla guerra amorosa Italy, 1708–09 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709
103 Deh! lasciate e vita e volo London, circa 1722–25 Libretto text by Paolo Antonio Rolli
104 Del bel idolo mio Rome, 1708–09 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709
105 Armida abbandonata or Dietro l'orme fuggaci Rome, June 1707 Possibly 26 June 1707, Palazzo Bonelli, Rome Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1709.
106 Dimmi, o mio cor Italy, 1707–09 See 132 note.
107 Ditemi, o piante Rome, July/August 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708
108 Dolce mio ben, s'io taccio No autograph. No source attributed to Handel.
109a Dolc' è pur d'amor l'affanno London, circa 1717–18 Libretto ?Text by Paolo Antonio Rolli
109b Dolc' è pur d'amor l'affanno London, ?after 1718 Libretto: ?Text by Paolo AntRolli
110 Agrippina condotta a morire or Dunque sarà pur vero Italy, 1707-8 Early in 1708 First performed by the castrato soprano, Pasqualino Tiepoli Libretto: Anonymous
111a E partirai, mia vita? Italy, 1707–09
111b E partirai, mia vita? London, circa 1725–28
112 Figli del mesto cor Probably Italy, 1707–09 No autograph or Italian-period copies
113 Figlio d'alte speranze Florence, 1706–07
114 Filli adorata e cara Rome, 1707–08 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709
115 Fra pensieri quel pensiero Italy, 1707–08
116 Fra tante pene Florence, 1706–07 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709
117 Hendel, non può mia musa July/August, 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708, 1709 Libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili
118 Ho fuggito Amore anch'io London, circa 1722–23 Printed without final aria in HG. Libretto by Paolo Antonio Rolli
119 Echeggiate, festeggiate, numi eterni or Io languisco fra le gioie London, circa 1710–12 Partly lost. Fragments printed in wrong order in HG.
120a Irene, idolo mio Italy, 1707–09 No autographs or Italian-period copies.
120b Irene, idolo mio England, after 1710 No autographs or Italian-period copies.
121a La Solitudine or L'aure grate, il fresco rio London, circa 1722–23 fragment
121b La Solitudine or L'aure grate, il fresco rio London, before 1718
122 Apollo e Dafne or La terra è liberata Probably begun Venice, 1709. Completed Hanover, 1710
123 Languia di bocca lusinghiera Possibly composed in Hanover, 1710 ?fragment
124 Look down, harmonious saint circa 1736 February 1736 London, Covent Garden Theatre Recitative and aria; probably a discarded fragment for "Alexander's Feast" (75), 1736. It appeared in the cantata HWV 89 Libretto by Newburgh Hamilton, from Cecilian Ode 1720.
125a Lungi da me, pensier tiranno Italy, 1707–09 No autographs or Italian-period copies. One version copied for Ruspoli, 1708.
125b Lungi da me, pensier tiranno London, after 1710 No autographs or Italian-period copies. One version copied for Ruspoli,1708.
126a Lungi da voi, che siete poli Rome, July/August 1708
126b Lungi da voi, che siete poli Rome, 1708
126c Lungi da voi, che siete poli Probably London, after 1710.
127a Lungi dal mio bel nume Completed score Rome, 3 March 1708
127b Lungi dal mio bel nume ?London, after 1710
127c Lungi dal mio bel nume London, circa 1725–28
128 Lungi n'andò Fileno Rome, August 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708
129 Manca pur quanto sai Rome, July/August 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708
130 Mentre il tutto è in furore Rome, August 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708
131 Menzognere speranze Rome, September 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707
132a Mi palpita il cor ?London, after 1710 Borrowings: Version of "Dimmi, o mio cor" (106) with new opening.
132b Mi palpita il cor ?London, after 1718
132c Mi palpita il cor ?London, after 1710
132d Mi palpita il cor ?London, circa 1711–12
133 Ne' tuoi lumi, o bella Clori Rome, September 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1709
134 Pensieri notturni di Filli or Nel dolce dell'oblio Rome, 1707–08. Completed score 1709
135a Nel dolce tempo Probably Naples, June/July 1708
135b Nel dolce tempo London, after 1710 No autographs, and no early Italian-period copies.
136a Nell' Africane selve Naples, June/July 1708
136b Nell' Africane selve London, after 1710
137 Nella stagion che di viole e rose Rome, April/May 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1709. Probably composed for the soprano, Margherita Durastanti.
138 Nice, che fa? che pensa? ?Hanover, 1710
139a Ninfe e pastori Rome, 1707–09 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709
139b Ninfe e pastori Probably London, after 1710
139c Ninfe e pastori London, circa 1725–28
140 Nò se emenderá jamás Rome, September 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707
141 Non sospirar, non piangere Florence, Fall 1707
142 Notte placida e cheta Rome, 1707–08 Libretto anonymous
143 Olinto pastore, Tebro fiume, Gloria or O come chiare e belle Rome, August/September 1708 9 September, 1708 at the Marquis Ruspoli's Palazzo Bonelli ?Copied for Ruspoli, 1708. First performed by the soprano Anna Marie di Piedz
144 O luceniti, o sereni occhi Rome, 1707–09
145 La Lucrezia or Oh numi eterni August, 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709. Probably composed for the soprano, Margherita Durastanti. Libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili
146 Occhi miei che faceste? Rome, 1707–08 Copied for Ruspoli, 1709
147 Partì, l'idolo mio London, after 1710 No autograph or eary Italian copies.
148 Poichè giuraro amore Rome, early 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1709
149 Qual sento io non conosciuto Only source circa 1738–40
150 Ero e Leandro or Qual ti riveggio, oh Dio Rome, 1707 Derived from the story of Hero and Leander Libretto ?Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni.
151 Qualor crudele, sì ma vaga Dori London, after 1710 No autograph or early Italian-period copies
152 Qualor l'egre pupille Rome, September 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707
153 Quando sperasti, o core Probably Naples, June/July 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708
154 Quel fior che all'alba ride London, circa 1738–40 Published in Handel (ed. Burrows), "Songs and Cantatas for Soprano."
155 Sans y penser Rome, September 1707 Composed in Italy. Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1709.
156 Sarai contenta un di Florence, 1706–07
157 Sarei troppo felice Rome, September 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1708 (incomplete) Libretto by B. Pamphili.
158a Se pari è la tua fè Rome, 1708 Copied for Ruspoli, 1708, 1709.
158b Se pari è la tua fè Probably London, after 1710
158c Se pari è la tua fè London, circa 1725–28
159 Se per fatal destino Rome, early 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1709
160a La bianca rosa or Sei pur bella, pur vezzosa Rome, early 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1709
160b La bianca rosa or Sei pur bella, pur vezzosa London, circa 1725–28
160c La bianca rosa or Sei pur bella, pur vezzosa London, circa 1738-41
161a Sento là che ristretto Rome, 1708–09
161b Sento là che ristretto
161c Sento là che ristretto London, circa 1725–28
162 Siete rose ruggiadose (with variant), London, circa 1711-12.
163 Solitudini care, amata libertà London, after 1710 No autographs or early Italian-period copies
164a Il Gelsomino or Son Gelsomino London, circa 1725–28
164b Il Gelsomino or Son Gelsomino London, circa 1717-18
165 Spande ancor a mio dispetto Italy, 1707–08
166 Splenda l'alba in oriente London, circa 1711-12 Survives only in fragmentary form.
167a Stanco di più soffrire Italy, 1707–08
167b Stanco di più soffrire Rome, July/August 1708
168 Partenza di G. B. or Stelle, perfide stelle Rome, 1707
169 Torna il core al suo diletto Probably Rome, 1707–08
170 Il consiglio or Tra le fiamme Rome, 1707–08 (possibly spring 1708 for the eminent German gambist Ernst Christian Hesse) Libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili
171 Tu fedel? Tu costante? Florence/Rome, 1706–07 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707, 1708
172 Udite il mio consiglio Florence, 1706-7 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707
173 Un' alma innamorata Rome, May 1707 Probably Vignanello, June 1707 Copied for Ruspoli, 1707
174 Un sospir a chi si muore Florence, Fall 1707
175 Vedendo Amor Rome, 1707–08
176 Amore uccellatore or Venne voglia ad Amore Rome, 1707–08
177 Zeffiretto, arresta il volo Italy, 1707–09 ?Copied for Ruspoli, 1709

Yoël L. Arbeitman wrote (January 5, 2009):
Meidad Zaharia wrote:
< I have a question about Bach's contemporary geneius Handel.
There is a hugh list of Cantatas that Handel wrote but I never saw these on CD's, anyone have an idea why? What these cantatas sounds like? Are they sang in English? German?
If they are availble can you please give me a ref. to a box set or something like that? >
You would do best by joining the Handel list: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/handel-l/

The huge list that you gave seem all to be in Italian. I am no Handel specialist but I very much doubt that many of these have ever been recorded; rather only a few.

James Atkins Pritchard wrote (January 5, 2009):
[To Meidad Zaharia] I too have at times wondered why so many of Handel's cantatas remain unrecorded. But some have been (and others are expected to be recorded soon):

http://tinyurl.com/8wn2uh
http://tinyurl.com/8xc8kw
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
http://tinyurl.com/8xftws
* http://tinyurl.com/8hv5sn
* http://tinyurl.com/9mdkjt
http://tinyurl.com/7ol4tr
http://tinyurl.com/8f2c74
http://tinyurl.com/9drvn9

These are a few places to start. You might also want to take a look at this book:
http://tinyurl.com/8jaq2f

I also concur with the suggestion that you think about joining the Handel list.

Meidad Zaharia wrote (January 5, 2009):
[To James Atkins Pritchard] Thank you very much guys!

It really helped me to have a picture about the recordings but the dought is still there, why weren't these recorded till now :-)

Many thanks!

Aryeh Oron wrote (January 5, 2009):
[To Meidad Zaharia] All the recordings of Handel's Italian Cantata Armida abbandonata (1707), which J.S. Bach performed with his Collegium Musicum in Leipzig c1730, are listed at: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Handel-Armida-Abbandonata.htm

If Bach performed more Handel cantatas, I would have prepared discographies of them as well (:-

BTW, this one is a charming beautiful work.

Choral forces in Handel

Douglas Cowling wrote (December 11, 2009):
Neil Halliday wrote:
Uri Golomb wrote:
< This interesting article about Telemann's practices has me wondering about Handel. What was the size of Handel's opera chorus, for instance. How many original parts survive for "Unto us a child is born"?
A 1754 'Messiah" records 6 trebles and 13 men (presumably 4 altos, 4 tenors and 5 basses) drawn from the Chapel Royal.

Cathedral and collegiate choirs always sang in double choir formation, so the "decani" and "cantoris" choirs were probably divided Choir 1: 3-2-2-3 and Choir 2: 3-2-2-3 (a bass must have been sick). Modern English cathedral choirs still maintain roughly that voice allocation although the number of boys has risen to 16 (8 in each choir), That reflects a 19^th century taste for a dominant soprano line.

In addition, Handel's soloists always sang with the choir.

Although there is no connection whatsover with Bach, this is the number and disposition of voices that I think would be ideal for his choral works.

Neil Halliday wrote (December 12, 2009):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
>A 1754 'Messiah" records 6 trebles and 13 men (presumably 4 altos, 4 tenors and 5 basses) drawn from the Chapel Royal.<
Now: that's a choir! Thanks for the details.

Ed Myskowski wrote (December 12, 2009):
Douglas Cowling wrote:
<< A 1754 'Messiah" records 6 trebles and 13 men (presumably 4 altos, 4 tenors and 5 basses) drawn from the Chapel Royal. >>
Neil Halliday wrote:
< Now: that's a choir! Thanks for the details. >
Thanks for the details, indeed. But if a choir of 20 (including the presumably ill bass) is superb, is not a choir of 200 ten times as good?

Been there, done that.

Neil Halliday wrote (December 12, 2009):
Ed Myskowski wrote:
>Been there, done that.<
True - we don't want to visit those monstrosities again, not in Bach at least.

[This escalation of the size of the choir in this discussion reminds me of the Crocodile Dundee joke: you may recall that, when he was confronted by a young thug with a knife in a New York street, Dundee brandished a knife the size of a sword, saying to his would be accoster -"you call that a knife?"].

Interesting that people were debating this (as related by Uri - even in Bach's day (but not in London?).

Brockes Passion - revised by Bach? [Handel-L]

Maurizio Frigeri wrote (January 20, 2010):
at Amazon.de this new recording: Amazon.de
is advertised as "Fassung von Johann Sebastian Bach", while the back cover reads "after the copy of J.S. Bach". Now I wonder to what extent this copy differs from Handel's autograph or other more usual sources. Any hints?

To Michael Marissen wrote (January 21, 2010):
[To Maurizio Frigeni] One would think Handel doesn't need the exaggerated "Version from J.S. Bach" (or, "Version by J. S. Bach") as a selling point.

Bach and a student of his wrote out a score of Handel's Brockes-Passion in the 1740s. What's different about this "Fassung" is its text at the opening chorus, which here reads:

"Kommet ihr verworfnen Sünder / Todeskinder / seht hier stirbt das Leben / euer Tod soll mit ihm sterben / sein Verderben / soll euch Rettung geben."

If Bach was the one who assigned the text to the opening chorus, this isn't clear from the appearance of his score.

Hope this helps.

David wrote (January 21, 2010):
[To Michael Marissen] Michael, as one would expect from a Bach scholar, is absolutely correct. I find the decision to record this version a bit odd, as there's never been a really adequate recording of the straightforward Handel version of the Brockes Passion (wouldn't it be wonderful if Jos van Veldhoven and the Netherlands Bach Society had a crack at it, perhaps with small vocal forces? That's on my hypothetical wish-list!).

But I suspect that Peter Neumann's decision to perform the version in Bach's ms copy had something to do with the concert taking place at a Bach festival, and no doubt this was a major influence on the booking being made, etc.

Aryeh Oron wrote (January 22, 2010):
J.S. Bach performed Handel's version of Brockes-Passion at lease twice (1746/1747 & 1749)
He also performed Pasticcio Passion, based on Markus-Passion by Friedrich Nicolaus Brauns [previously attributed to Reinhard Keiser] with insertion of 7 arias from by Handel's Brockes-Passion (1747 or 1748).

All the known recording of Handel's Brockes-Passion, including the new one, are presented at: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Handel-Brockes-Passion.htm

I am not yet familiar with Handel's Brockes-Passion. However the excellent version of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel was recently reviewed in the BCML.
See: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Stolzel-Gen1.htm

Neumann Brockes-Passion [HANDEL-L]

John Wall, New York [NewOlde.com] wrote (February 22, 2010):
Today I listened to the new recording of Handel's Brockes Passion by Peter Neumann et al. on Carus, immediately following the new Bach OVPP St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244) by S. Kuijken. After the Brockes Passion, I played the first disk of the Egarr/AAM recording of Handel's Opus 7 organ concertos. I can recommend all of these fine recordings, but while there are competitive, alternative versions of the Matthew Passion (BWV 244) and the organ concertos, there really isn't anything comparable to the new Brockes-Passion. 've had the McGegan recording since it first came out on LP, and although it certainly was acceptable for its time, the new recording features more consistently outstanding singing and playing, as well as excellent recorded sound.

The Brockes Passion is one of the few major Handel works for which I don't have a Kalmus or Gregg HG score, but I just went to the score website and downloaded a copy for reference the next time I listen to it. To download a HG score, click HERE:
http://mdz10.bib-bvb.de/%7Edb/ausgaben/uni_ausgabe.html?projekt=1193214\396&recherche=ja&ordnung=sig
Do a find for Brockes and click on the link.

Neumann followed J.S. Bach's copy of the Handel Brockes Passion, which had different text in the opening chorus, and perhaps in another aria where the text differs substantially from the text performed by McGegan. There apparently are no musical differences between Bach's copy and other surviving copies.

There really are no weaknesses in the cast, and the playing and choral singing are also excellent. Mary Utiger is the leader and the solo violinist in the aria with violin obligato, senza continuo. The major roles were cast as follows: Tochter Zion: Nele Gramß, soprano; Gläubige Seele: Johanna Winkel, soprano; Evangelist: Markus Brutscher, tenor; Petrus: James Oxley, tenor; Jesus: Markus Flaig, bass. After listening to Gerlinde Sämann in the Kuijken St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), Nele Gramß, and Johanna Winkel, the latter of whom I had not heard previously, my observation is that they sound different from each other, but I enjoy listening to all three. There clearly is no shortage of German sopranos with excellent early/baroque vocal technique. My only reservation is that organ continuo could have been used less often, although Neumann uses it much less frequently here than he did in Susanna. Also the chorus, while not enormous at 27, still sounds a bit heavy after listening to the OVPP Matthew Passion.

A 19th Century rhyming English version is included, presumably the translation in the HG score. It's more polished but less literal that the line-by-line translation in the Hungaroton Handel & Telemann Brockes Passions. A less awkward literal translation is included with the Stölzel Brockes Passion on cpo. While Hungaroton provided a French translation, Carus only includes German and English versions.

As for the various Brockes Passions, I still prefer Telemann's operatic version to Handel's, followed by the more lyrical Mattheson version and finally Stölzel's, which is quite worthwhile despite coming in 4^th in rarefied company. I haven't heard the Keiser version, which was released briefly by cpo but allowed to go out of print before I got around to ordering a copy. I see that someone is offering it for (gulp) 800 Euros on Amazon.fr.

Johan van Veen wrote (February 22, 2010):
John Wall wrote:
< Today I listened to the new recording of Handel's Brockes Passion by Peter Neumann et al. on Carus, immediately following the new Bach OVPP St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244) by S. Kuijken. >
Thank you for reporting about this recording. I am looking forward to listening to it.

< As for the various Brockes Passions, I still prefer Telemann's operatic version to Handel's, followed by the more lyrical Mattheson version and finally Stölzel's, which is quite worthwhile despite coming in 4^th in rarefied company. I haven't heard the Keiser version, which was released briefly by cpo but allowed to go out of print before I got around to ordering a copy. I see that someone is offering it for (gulp) 800 Euros on Amazon.fr. >
The Keiser has never been out of print. It was withdrawn from the market because of copyright issues, if I remember correctly. CPO has even reclaimed all copies from retail stores. So there must be very few copies around and that could well explain the price of 800 Euros. Someone is taking the opportunity to make some bucks as he knows it is unlikely this recording will ever be reissued. It is a kind of collector's item, I suppose.

David wrote (February 22, 2010):
[To Johan van Veen] I agree that Neumann's new Brockes Passion is something quite special. I would like to hear a performance by top-class soloists who can perform the music as concertists, like a Bach one-voice-per-part style of performance. But otherwise Neumann's performance is as good as it gets. It's been a long time to wait for a decent Handel Brockes Passion recording - it's only the third one to appear, and I prefer the old 1967 Wenzinger performance on DG to the 1985 McGegan one on Hungaraton.

I'm not so keen on Telemann's Brockes Passion, insofar as I can trust Rene Jacobs's performance of it to reflect the score. Yes, it seems to be powerfully dramatic, but I suspect that this impression often has more to do with Jacobs forcing the issue, whereas, to my ears, Handel's music is more able to sustain itself without artificial additives. Perhaps hearing a different performance of the Telemann setting would modify my perspective. There are certainly moments in Handel's setting that are remarkable: Peter's "Gift und glut", the duet "Soll mein kind" for Jesus and Mary at the crucifixion, etc.

At any rate, with Neumann's Brockes Passion and Petrou's Giulio Cesare, 2010 is off to a fine start. Let's hope it isn't all downhill from here :-)

Johan van Veen wrote (February 22, 2010):
David wrote:
< I'm not so keen on Telemann's Brockes Passion, insofar as I can trust Rene Jacobs's performance of it to reflect the score. Yes, it seems to be powerfully dramatic, but I suspect that this impression often has more to do with Jacobs forcing the issue, whereas, to my ears, Handel's music is more able to sustain itself without artificial additives. >
I understand your opinion about Jacobs' recording of Telemann's Brockes Passion. I think he underlines the dramatic character of the work, and that is revealing showing that there is more of the opera composer in Telemann than he is usually given credit for.

But Jacobs has made some cuts - for dramatic reasons, the booklet says. What is it, I wonder, that conductors think they know better than the composer?

I have compared Jacobs' version with McGegan's, and it is hardly surprising that the cuts are mostly the more reflective arias. As a result Jacobs' performance is too one-sided, emphasizing the dramatic aspects at the cost of the more reflective side.

I also think the interpretation is less than ideal, for instance in regard to the soloists he has selected. But that is another matter.

Maurizio Frigeni wrote (February 22, 2010):
Johan van Veen wrote:
< I listened to some quite-generous clips of the Petrou Giulio Cesare on amazon.de this morning, and one of the first things I noticed was again this seeming tendency to overdo the string playing. >
Petrou chose to perform with a small group of strings: just 8 violins, 3 viols, 2 cellos and 2 double basses, while we knothat Handel usually had about twice as many violins. I think this may lead violin players to be sometimes a little rougher than necessary. Minkowski's recording is probably more respectful of the original balance of instrumental forces, but overall I like Petrou's better.

I put online the Ouverture and a couple of arias in mp3 format, for those who want to get a better idea of this recording:
Ouverture: http://www.webalice.it/maurizio.frigeni/Ouverture.mp3

"Va tacito e nascosto" (Cesare): http://www.webalice.it/maurizio.frigeni/Va_tacito.mp3

"Se pietà di me non senti" (Cleopatra): http://www.webalice.it/maurizio.frigeni/Se_pieta.mp3

Johan van Veen wrote (February 22, 2010):
[To Maurizio Frigeni] Thank you VERY much for this! Yet did not Handel generally have a smaller string body for his operas than for the oratorios, the latter usually coming to around 12 violins? And was not Maestro Minkowski somewhat responsible for this digging-in we are here discussing, though I usually avoid him for his other revisionist tendencies? I have yet to listen to the selections you have kindly provided, but think I had best do so once finished with this writing!

John Wall wrote (February 22, 2010):
David wrote:
< I'm not so keen on Telemann's Brockes Passion, insofar as I can trust Rene Jacobs's performance of it to reflect the score. Yes, it seems to be powerfully dramatic, but I suspect that this impression often has more to do with Jacobs forcing the issue, whereas, to my ears, Handel's music is more able to sustain itself without artificial additives. Perhaps hearing a different performance of the Telemann setting would modify my perspective. There are certainly moments in Handel's setting that are remarkable: Peter's "Gift und glut", the duet "Soll mein kind" for Jesus and Mary at the crucifixion, etc. >
I passed on the heavily cut Jacobs recording of Telemann's Brockes Passion. McGegan's recording on Hungaroton is complete and competent, particularly in comparison with all the annoying HUP recordings of baroque opera and oratorio that have been released in the last few years. Jacobs's recent Haydn oratorio and Mozart opera recordings are superb, but he insists on reorchestrating and cutting baroque works like Handel's Rinaldo and Telemann's Brockes Passion.

John Wall wrote (February 22, 2010):
Johan van Veen wrote:
< The Keiser has never been out of print. It was withdrawn from the market because of copyright issues, if I remember correctly. CPO has even reclaimed all copies from retail stores. >
It's surprising that the matter couldn't be settled, in light of the limited revenue potential of a classical recording without any celebrity performers and the costs and nuisance of producing a recording and then having to recall it.

Does anyone know if another recording of the Keiser Brockes Passion is in the pipeline? Two new recordings of other Keiser sacred music either have been or are about to be released.

David wrote (February 22, 2010):
Hip-Hup music

John Wall wrote:
< I passed on the heavily cut Jacobs recording of Telemann's Brockes Passion. McGegan's recording on Hungaroton is complete and competent, particularly in comparison with all the annoying HUP recordings of baroque opera and oratorio that have been released in the last few years. Jacobs's recent Haydn oratorio and Mozart opera recordings are superb, but he insists on reorchestrating and cutting baroque works like Handel's Rinaldo and Telemann's Brockes Passion. >
This has got me thinking, and if the following is of no interest to listers, then feel free to ignore.

It's strange that we can be eager to condemn "HUP" practices, but some of us don't seem to object to what Jacobs does to Mozart. It is every bit as bad than his performance malpractice in Rinaldo. Take for example, the ludicrous piano solo that noodles away at the beginning of Act II of Jacobs's Idomeneo (justified by Jacobs with the ridiculous argument that Mozart was too good a concert pianist just to play continuo in an opera performance - hardly a sound theory!). Or the extreme tempo and dynamic changes in his Clemenza di Tito that fly against what Mozart actually wrote in his score. I haven't yet listened to Jacobs's The Creation, but I felt that his Seasons was good enough, quite punchy, but lacking in loveliness, and vastly over-rated.

But to me this isn't simply an issue of HIP or HUP (though I find the HUP label even more problemmatic than the HIP one), but also a question of good taste and sensitivity for the material. Regardless of the historical evidence contradicting plenty of what Jacobs does, I find some of his results tasteless. Any performance of Le nozze di Figaro that fails to be emotionally moving when the Count sings "Contessa perdono" hasn't got a lot going for it, in my personal view.

I'm sure that others here will feel differently, and I don't mean to offend anyone whose likes don't match my own. But, to me, Jacobs's Mozart is a long way off anything I'd call superb. And it certainly isn't HIP according to any sensible definition of the term.

Incidentally, I'm not entirely convinced that the label "HUP" really means anything precise, as the term "historically-informed performance" is itself a compromise down from the oft-bashed and discarded old term "authenticity". "HIP" isn't intended whatsoever to suggest complete and unswerving fidelity to reconstructing historical style, but a sort of indication of a general philosophy under which most performers have their own varying tastes and ideas (some of which are more intelligent and/or historically plausible than others). Even our favourite musicians - and I suspect we'd agree on plenty of those, judging from your occasional comments of praise at NewOlde.com - are guilty of being "HUP" from time to time. So is it an unforgivable sin to take artistic licence or ignore aspects of the music, or ok as long as it doesn't involve the quirks that we happen to dislike? Using guitar and harp continuo in Handel is historically indefensible in most cases, and I find its effect to be pretty stupid, but it isn't any more "HUP" than a performance of a da capo aria when you have only harpsichord continuo but no vocal ornamentation at all.

Whether or not I like more "HIP" or "HUP" styles of performance isn't really the point I'm making. In a very general sense, I'd call myself an early music purist. But what sort of a proportion of modern inventions and compromises must a performance using period instruments possess before we denounce it as "HUP"? Who is reliable enough to decide the matter in repertoire stretching across two centuries or more? And is correctness the only priority that artists should have? Some performances that we might think are utterly "HUP" might actually contain interesting "HIP" ideas that our preferred "HIP" artists ignore, dislike or fail to tackle. So which one is HIP or HUP?

I'm not trying to pass off any of these thoughts as dogmatic gospel. They're just thoughts.

I must look out for McGegan's Telemann Brockes Passion one of these days - thanks for reminding me of it.

David wrote (February 22, 2010):
< Yet did not Handel generally have a smaller string body for his operas than for the oratorios, the latter usually coming to around 12 violins? >
No, not at all. This is a popular myth, for which there is no evidence to support it, but plenty to contradict. The proposed orchestra for the Royal Academy of Music in 1720, the eyewitness Fougeroux's report of Handel's in 1728, Sir John Clerk's observations in his diary in 1733, and the payment books for the 1754 Foundling Hospital performance of Messiah all indicate that Handel's orchestra stayed remarkably consistent throughout his career, and that there was barely any difference between opera in earlier years and oratorio in later seasons. No doubt some small variation occured from season to season, but it is pretty clear that Handel's theatre orchestra was, generally speaking, a fair bit bigger, stronger and louder than most that we get on so-called "HIP" recordings of his operas.
;-)

To paraphrase Clerk's diary, he listed `above 24' violins (including a few violas, one imagines), four cellos, two basses, two oboes, four bassoons, two harpsichords and a theorbo. The prospective 1720 Royal Academy list is almost identical, but hoped to engage four oboes.

For chapter and verse, one needs to look in various places, but the best place to start is Mark W. Stahura's chapter "Handel and the Orchestra" in the Cambridge Companion to Handel, edited by Donald Burrows, published in 1997. See also the articles on "Instrumentation" and "Performance Practice" in the new Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia.

It is interesting to observe that the smaller baroque bands become on CD, the more exaggerated and forced their playing often becomes, and the faster tempi get, in order to compensate for the shortfall in sonority and texture. But I don't think this means for one minute that Handel's orchestra was lacking in muscle and vitality when he wanted it.

In my experience of checking the personnel that play on recordings of Handel's London operas, it is very rare that the orchestra approaches anything like what the composer would have expected.

Jeremy wrote (February 22, 2010):
Johan van Veen wrote:
< But Jacobs has made some cuts - for dramatic reasons, the booklet says. What is it, I wonder, that conductors think they know better than the composer? >
This seems to be the story of Jacobs' recording career. When he is so capable, I wish he could just bring himself to play a work as it's written.

Derek Spears wrote (February 22, 2010):
[To Jeremy] The discussion on the Telemann Brockes Passion has got me listening to it again on the car CD - suitable listening for Lent even if more appropriate for Passion tide. I am puzzled by Réné Jacobs' cuts; as far as I can see they are the following:

Peter's aria - Gift und gluth
Tochter Zion - Die Rosen krönen
Tochter Zion - Lass doch diese herbe

An aria which Handel may have set as recitative following the above aria
Recitative for Tochter Zion - Bestürzter Sünder (before the aria "Heil der Welt")
Recitative for Glaübige Seele - O Anblick ( before the chorale "O Menschenkind"
Glaübige Seele - Brich, brüllender Abgrund
Hauptmann (Centurion) - Wie kommt's, dass, da der Himmel

They are a comparison with the text of the Brockes Passion set by Handel

At first I thought that the cuts might have been occasioned by reasons of space but in fact there are twenty minutes available - the recording takes about 140 minutes. Some of the movements are reflective - others much more violent in language but there seems to be no common theme to the excisions. I am puzzled by Jacobs' decision to offer dramatic coherence as a reason; the Passion is not a "dramatic" work in that sense despite the London Handel Festival's decision to stage the Handel Brockes Passion - an honourable failure. Yes, Mattheson may have referred to the Passion Oratorio as a "sacred opera" but that may have been just as much to the musical style as anything else. The language of some the cut movements is in that perfervid style that many of us find very difficult to accept today - despite the booklet's attempt to justify it but there are other movements equally OTT that could have been cut on the same grounds. (In Bach's St. John Passion (BWV 245) it is the comparative sobriety and simplicity of the Biblical text that puts the texts of the arias into perspective - even those borrowed from the Brockes Passion). In the end I am almost forced to the conclusion that Jacobs' didn't like the movements concerned and so they went. Brockes would have seen his work primarily as a theological interpretation of the Passion story, rather than as a dramatic retelling à la Oberammergau, and if we are to make cuts then I think it must be on theological grounds rather than pseudo dramatic ones. Even if today we may dislike the language and theology of Brockes text, I think we must recognise that it was acceptable to contemporary Lutheran thought - (and that similar language in his Passions and cantatas inspired Bach to some of his greatest work) and pay Brockes the compliment of allowing his vision to be heard complete.

Johan van Veen wrote (February 23, 2010):
[To David] What a FASCINATING response, and I MEAN that!

I indeed have read that chapter in the Cambridge Companion, but only once, and the main thing, it might come as no surprise, which stuck with me was the author's assertion that, in oratorio when there were four or more soloists in one movement, the organ should play, though no chapter and verse was cited. I did not consider the possibility that faster tempi, about which some complain these days, could also result from smaller bands along with this string aggressiveness (it further sounds as if, in certain faster movements, the theorbo is being treated as a punching bag), but at least we now have some idea that Handel would have gotten a full-blooded sound where he wanted it!

Since writing earlier, I have listened to all three files from the Petrou Cesare which one of our colleagues kindly provided, and Cleopatra's final Act-II aria provided some of the most-exquisite singing I expect to hear in Handel, thus making me want this recording for that alone, though hopefully there are other delights to be had as well! I will now be interested to hear what this Cleopatra does with "Piangero."

Johan van Veen wrote (February 23, 2010):
[To Dacid, regarding Hip-Hup music] As some moderns would put it, you are certainly on a roll today, and a JOLLY-good one at that, even if some of us may disagree on a minor point or more!

Give me my Gardiner Haydn Seasons and, though the string vibrato is not historically accurate, Sir Charles Mackerras's Mozart operas, especially Figaro, Don Giovanni (particularly praised by the late Dr. Sadie) and Die Zauberflote, probably my favourite of the lot (the Telarc recording, not the later one for Chandos), and containing more dialogue than virtually all other recordings of that opera currently known to me! That is another of my quirky "button issues."

Foreign Akzents in Mr. Handel's Musick

Michael Cox wrote (November 20, 2010):
Foreign Akzents in Mr. Hendel's Musick

In the "olden days", long before the modern "authentic baroque" movement gained ground, English choirs sang Bach in English and German choirs sang Händel's music in German. And Swedish and Finnish choirs sang both Bach and Handel in their respective mother tongues.

It is well known from contemporary accounts that Handel never mastered English pronunciation but retained a strong German accent. It is, however, debatable whether he could actually hear the difference between various accents and so chose his soloists accordingly. For instance, he imported Italian singers for his Italian operas. I suppose that his English soloists pronounced Italian sufficiently well to satisfy Il caro Sassone.

In modern commercial recordings of Handel's English oratorios, it seems fashionable to use at least one soloist whose mother tongue is not English - be that soloist Swedish, German or French.

Anne Sofie von Otter, the famous Swedish mezzo-soprano, in Handel's Messiah (Augér, von Otter, Chance, Crook, Tomlinson, English Concert, Pinnock) demonstrates faultless English pronunciation. But when she speaks English rather than singing she has a very slight Swediaccent.
By contrast, in another recording a certain French soprano sings of "shepherds abeeding in the field". This is an example of not knowing how a word is to be pronounced rather than not being able to do so.
On the same recording an eminent German counter-tenor sings of the "Mun of sorrows".. who "gave his buck to the smiters". A singer from the north of England would in fact pronounce the words like this in speech, but would adopt southern English pronunciation when singing classical music. To an American it might sound like giving a bribe!
This unfortunate mispronunciation would seem to have arisen because in German the vowel "a" is pronounced differently from in English.
In (British) English speech, but not in French or German, unstressed vowels are shortened to "shwa" (a neutral middle vowel, as in the first and last syllables of "composer") or "i" (as in "dispised and rijected")
The vowel "e" might be pronounced as "i" even in stressed syllables, as in "Inglish".
When I was a choirboy in the 1960s we were taught that these shortened vowels should be "opened" when singing, especially in older music (e.g. Tudor, Elizabethan, Purcell and Handel anthems), paying greater attention to the spelling.

So, to take the example mentioned above, "dispised and rijected" should follow the spelling more closely: "des - pi - zed and ri/e - jec -ted".

However, I have never heard, either live or on recording, a foreign soloist observing this convention. Even native English-speakers do not always do so.

Another example is more commonly heard:

The word "nations" is to be sung as "nay - shons" not as "nay -shns".

If we want (do we?) something like an "authentic" pronunciation of Handelian English, we certainly don't need to adopt a German accent, but perhaps we should pay more attention to the spelling , especially of vowels.

I would assume that something similar applies to foreigners singing Bach in German. And that is why I prefer to hear, on recordings repeatedly listened to, a German-speaking choir rather than a French, English or Finnish one.

Finally, as we are approaching the Christmas season, and our choir is already practising Advent and Christmas music, an example of English pronunciation.

In the 1960s my church choir recorded an LP of Christmas music. In one of the carols one of the other choirboys sang the following line:

"There was mickle melody at that childès birth".

The way he sang it was:

""There was mickle melody at that child'(i)s bath".

I think that "childès" should have been pronounced like "chilled-ez". (Incidentally the word "children" is a double plural (child-childer-childeren).

I quote this not to make fun of the choirboy but to show that a recording can stick in one's mind for 50 years. So, if we are singers, especially of Bach and Handel, let us make every effort to "get it right" first time!

Ed Myskowski wrote (November 21, 2010):
Michael Cox wrote:
< On the same recording an eminent German counter-tenor sings of the "Mun of sorrows".. who "gave >his buck to the smiters". A singer from the north of England would in fact pronounce the words >like this in speech, but would adopt southern English pronunciation when singing classical >music. To an American it might sound like giving a bribe! >
I could be had.

MC:
< So, to take the example mentioned above, "dispised and rijected" should follow the spelling more closely: "des - pi - zed and ri/e - jec -ted". >
EM:
I will watch for this, some coming year when I next go out for another *live* Messiah. Everyone seems to get <acquainted with grief> spot on.

MC:
< I would assume that something similar applies to foreigners singing Bach in German. And that is why I prefer to hear, on recordings repeatedly listened to, a German-speaking choir rather than a French, English or Finnish one. >
EM:
I think I raised this point, as an aside, previously. Can you cite an example of a choir whose accent is so uniform, and wrong, that it is offensive? Is it not enough trouble just to get them to sing the same note?

MC:
< I think that "childès" should have been pronounced like "chilled-ez". (Incidentally the word "children" is a double plural (child-childer-childeren). >
EM:
No way to keep those childers from multiplying, no?

I happened to be listening to a CD of Max van Egmond singing Schubert and Schumann last evening. It was recorded just a couple years ago, toward the climax of a long and distinguished career. I believe he varies his German pronunciation slightly, from one point to another, to fit the music and the adjacent text. Or is that just a Dutch accent?

Michael Cox wrote (November 21, 2010):
[To Ed Myskowski] I'm sorry that I don't quite understand what you mean by "I could be had".

What I wrote was intentionally provocative. In Britain a "buck" is primarily a deer, rather than a dollar.

I have heard many "foreigners" singing Handel and Bach in 50 years of choir singing and regular concert attendance. One Irish tenor living in Finland actually deliberately put on an Irish accent in one scene in one of Handel's English oratorios (I forget which) for comic effect.

When I was a choirboy we choirboys deliberately mispronounced words for "fun" - "most highly flavoured lady" was one of the most common examples. The choirmaster was so accustomed to it that he let it pass, providing we didn't sing it like that in public!

I remember as a boy owning an Italian recording of excerpts from Messiah - 'Andel's 'Allelujah chorus was totally garbled. I couldn't listen to it.

Here's a French performance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fu8YIG8uyQ I can't hear any "aitches". The article "the" is indistinct and "King of Kings" sounds a little like "Keeng of Keengs". I find this French performance charming, but it's not how I would want my choir to pronounce the words.

Few of us have the luxury of a totally professional choir. In Finland there is only the National Opera Choir and the Finnish Radio Choir, although I think the latter has had to be partly amateurized for lack of funds.
The chamber choir in which I presently sing is an amateur one, but our soloists and orchestra are professionals. All are Finnish except for me and an Estonian lady. I find that I have to pay so much attention to pronouncing Finnish words correctly that I have little time to think what they mean.

If our premise is that liturgical and religious music is/was intended to enhance and illustrate the meaning of the words - "the Word" in the Lutheran sense - then it is vital that the words are pronounced distinctly. When we recorded an Estonian work we needed special linguistic coaching from an Estonian lady, but still you - I mean "one" - can hear that we're not an Estonian choir. And we have sung Bach in German in Germany together with a German choir. I don't remember that they criticised our German pronunciation, at least not openly, but in rehearsals I have tried to correct obvious mistakes. One lady commented about aspirated plosives "but it's so hard!"

You mention Max van Egmond and a Dutch accent. The first recording of the St. Matthew Passion that I ever owned was performed by a Dutch ensemble, so one could say that I learned Dutch pronunciation of German as normative from an early age (I still think that few if any evangelists have surpassed Willy van Hese)

J.S. Bach: Matthäus Passion
Matthäus-Passion BWV 244
Piet van Egmond
Amsterdam Oratorium Choir & Boys Choir of the Vredescholen / Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra
Soprano: Corry Bijster; Alto: Annie Delorie; Tenor: Willy van Hese; Bass: Carel Willink
MMS (Musical Masterpieces Society) / Concert Hall Society
1955
3-LP / TT: 191:56
Recorded at Oude kerk (Old Church), Amsterdam, Holland.
1^st recording of Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 by P.v. Egmond.
<>

Glen Armstrong wrote (November 21, 2010):
[To Michael Cox] As one of the most uninformed people who read this site, I can assure you that your intimate knowledge and way of conveyance are only enhanced by any non-standard spellings -- in fact, I regard them as an additional bonus. If you are off-topi, I do hope Aryeh sees your charm and experiences as reason enough to make exceptions. Your enthusiasm is a delight -- not to mention your intimate knowledge garnered over many years. I can hardly wait for Ed to express his pleasure in your posts. Many thanks for enriching me.

Ed Myskowski wrote (November 22, 2010):
Michael Cox wrote:
< I'm sorry that I don't quite understand what you mean by "I could be had". >
An American colloquial expression, meaning <I could be swayed by a bribe.> Just a humorous response to your mention of a bribe.

Michael Cox wrote (November 22, 2010):
[To Glen Armstrong] Thank you so much for your kind words.

Having had to retire from my profedssional work as a translator, my doctor recommended that I write about something that I'm interested in and fairly knowledgabale (sorry!) about as a form of therapy to help restore brain cells and fight depression - and music itself can also be ane effective form of therapy. I'm only glad that other people are interested, even if geographically separated.

Incidentally, it would be nice to have a little more info about who is writing, and from what persective.

I've sent something today about W. F. Bach, and I'm working on something about the B Minor Mass (BWV 232).

Ed Myskowski wrote (November 23, 2010):
Michael Cox wrote:
< Incidentally, it would be nice to have a little more info about who is writing, and from what persective. >
Although it takes a bit of digging, there is plenty of info in the BCW archives.

Doubling

Douglas Cowling wrote (December 20, 2010):
Peter Smaill wrote:
< The only parallel from Bach's world I can think of is his very late Passion-Pasticcio based on St Mark's Gospel. Here he places Handel's aria "Wisch ab der Traenen scharfe Lauge" ("wipe away the tears' bitter brine") at the vital penultimate position in the work and in this case Handel sets the soloist in unison with instruments. >
Handel occasionally used solo with instrumental doubling for rather bravura effects. There's the famous aria in "Alcina" in which has an extended da capo aria with only a single line sung by the soprano and doubled by the violins -- no bass or continuo until the coda. If I recall there's also a doubled aria in "La Resurresione."

[HANDEL-L] GFH, da capo

Les Robarts wrote (January 19, 2011):
Well, well. So GFH gets it in the neck for all those da capo arias.

I reached for the nearest JSB score on the shelf nearest my computer and grasped hold of Cantatas 140, 141, and 142. A pseudo-random sample, of course, but in these brief works we find one dal segno chorus (Wachet auf), four da capo arias, one dal segno aria and two dal segno duets, and a chorale which includes repeats. Through-composed numbers are very few. [Is there some aural echo of Mercurio's "Sol prova contenti" from Atalanta (composed 1721) and "Mein Freund ist mein", a dal segno duet from Cantata 140 (Wachet auf)? Dean tells us that the Handel motif derives from Telemann. Now, as GFH and Telemann when young sparred with each other, improvising and playing around with each other's ideas, who is to say that anything GFH seems to have 'borrowed' from Telemann originates with Telemann? In literature this sort of reminiscence can be classed as intertextual, whereas in musicology it's a 'borrowing'...]

Should this pattern of da capo arias and duets persist in the rest of JSB's vocal oeuvre, I maintain that JSB too should be hurled from the composers' Olympus. Unless, that is, there is one rule for GFH and another for the rest.

Thank you, David, for the advanced information about your forthcoming book. Looks to be full of good things. I'm already negotiating a loan...

Georg Frideric Handel: Short Biography | Opera Alcina, HWV 34 | Brockes Passion, HWV 48 | Cantata Armida Abbandonata, HWV 105 | Georg Friedrich Händel & Bach