Out of the Twilight
GOODMAN, JOHN F.
Out of the Twilight GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL By Paul Henry Lang Norton. 731 pp. $12.00. Reviewed by JOHN F. GOODMAN Department of English, New York University May God bless the good and true...
...Again, to show the importance of transposing castrato parts to fit present-day male voices, Lang wisely appeals to our sense of dramatic necessity: "The makeshift subterfuge of giving the castrato part to a female soprano only aggravates a bad situation...
...As Gerald Abraham has pointed out, while Lang has not discovered any new facts, he has performed something of a feat of inductive reconstruction...
...Until he reaches "the oratorio way" Handel struggles to achieve characterization, usually at the expense of dramatic action, sometimes at the expense of the libretto itself: The linguistic meaning of the libretto may even disappear under the power of the music...
...We may know that Messiah has been corrupted for nearly 200 years, but we may not be aware that it is wholly an exception in the corpus of Handel's work...
...it is cultural history, even geist-hislory...
...For the moment he still lives on 'in the serene twilight of doubtful immortality,' and in that deceitful medium he looms vaguely as a sort of fabulous high priest of biblical religiosity...
...There is also too much cultural stereotyping in the early chapters, too much of an assertive tone in many of the esthetic judgments, as in the treatment of Handel's "nature pictures...
...Four chapters near the book's end deal with the musical style in clear, detailed summary, including illustrations from the scores, and a final chapter treats Handelian biography and criticism...
...This is, of course, more than musicology...
...Though he has an acknowledged debt to Otto Erich Deutsch (Handel, A Documentary Biography), it is largely through the works themselves that Lang finds the real Handel, a man of "unconquerable optimism...
...Perhaps the dead shall be raised incorruptible...
...He gives us a reasonable, balanced, lucid picture of Handel as he lived, and describes the music in relation to Handel's time and ours...
...But Paul Henry Lang clearly warns that the trumpet shall sound, and his book does a great deal to dispel the twilight which has deceived all of us about Handel...
...that Lang sometimes presses his generalizations too far is a minor, if annoying, objection...
...The method is generally to fill in Handel's biography chronologically, with numerous excursions to comment on the music and the cultural-esthetic milieu...
...Reviewed by JOHN F. GOODMAN Department of English, New York University May God bless the good and true memory of Mr...
...For instance, in discussing the predominance of stylization in Baroque opera, he traces the tradition from Scarlatti to Handel...
...In discussing the literary-philosophical-religious background of the oratorio Samson, Lang offers this synoptic gem: "If Homer and Virgil represent the greatness of the pagan world, Dante and Milton must be assigned their position in the Christian...
...New York audiences were treated to this kind of "antiquarianism overwhelming life" as recently as last November in Handel's opera, Serse (Xerxes), with Maureen Forrester singing the title role...
...Messiah has been particularly abused owing to its unique subject and treatment and to the Hallelujah thunder of its choruses...
...Last season saw the performance of two neglected operas, Serse and Rodelinda, two important recordings of Messiah, and the staging of various oratorios??most of these efforts being characterized by a new awareness of Baroque style and contemporary esthetics...
...To be understood, the oratorios must be viewed in the light of Handel's lifelong concern with opera and the theater, a concern which Lang develops at length into a fascinating complex of business deals, literary and courtly personalities, musical influences (German, Italian, French, and English), and esthetics...
...That we can find him at all is cause to rejoice greatly...
...Handel...
...Lang's book shows us that musicology cannot be divorced from related historical disciplines or from esthetics...
...Lang's biographical synthesis penetrates beneath Handel's personal reserve and the considerable lack of reliable material about him...
...A woman wearing the armor or toga of a man appears ridiculous to us...
...Lang is best in his stylistic analyses, in his treatment of forms and judgment of musical conventions...
...it became a symbol rather than a characterization...
...Using the Old Testament and Greek drama as mere literary or historical source, these works are, Lang thinks, the summit of Handel's achievement...
...Then, in summary: "The composers of the old opera seria tended to neglect the dramatic-human element??they could not do otherwise??because in this period every musical act that did not seek the purely aural-esthetic, the sensuous sound value, was bound to turn into allegory...
...Such analogies to painting and literature are necessary in music criticism, yet their aptness often depends on the degree of their emphasis and extension...
...One stands for Catholicism with Aristotelian forms, the other for Protestantism with Platonic theories...
...Sacred only in subject matter, the non-dramatic, nominally Christian Messiah expresses little of that worldly and very English Deism of the other oratorios...
...They are dramatic, human, often sensuous pieces, not to be performed as pseudo-religious anthems...
...Still, there is every indication that this book will, and should, play a leading role in the tremendous revival of interest in Handel...
...The author is very clear about this: Handel's "musical thought is the very core of his life story...
Vol. 50 • February 1967 • No. 5
