It is a bold message from author and musicologist Ignace Bossuyt to warn his readers already in the first pages that this will not be easy reading. No, he says, because "even though this is still not a matter of course for many, it is not worthwhile to write about music without the use of technical terminology."
But no matter, we know that Ignace Bossuyt is a first-class pedagogue. That is why it remains pleasant to hear him explain the compositional principles, this time of Handel, young Handel. Moreover, an extensive list of explanations of that technical terminology has been included again. If necessary, you can consult his excellent "Van noten en tonen. Wegwijs in de muzikale begrippen".
But well, that young Handel then… We follow him from his birthplace Halle, his travels to Berlin and Hamburg and of course his Italian years until he leaves Hanover for London for good. As an introduction to all this, you first read an intelligent sketch of the many musical genres that circulated in Europe at the time of Handel and Bach (they were contemporaries).
In the contextualization of Handel's young years, Bossuyt encounters a couple of composers he described in his most recent work on German Baroque, including Scheidt, Krieger, Froberger, Kerll and Kuhnau. He tells of the first work of fourteen-year-old Handel. And it also deals with his acquaintance and friendship with Telemann, then still two boys of 14 and 18 years old, and Handel's stay in the trading city Hamburg. Together with Johann Mattheson, also only 18 at the time, he traveled to Lubeck to hear Buxtehude at work. He too was a youth friend, all three seeking a musical career and an appointment. Later, the Protestant Handel traveled to Catholic Italy, then a patchwork of separate states, and stayed in Rome, Florence, Naples, Venice. That lasted three years. And he was able to work there thanks to a couple of serious patrons, including the Roman Cardinal Pamphili, of the still magnificent Palazzo Doria Pamphili on the Via del Corso. That Italian period gave him two oratoria, cantatas and other liturgical works and two operas. He wrote his Agrippina in Venice. Bossuyt tells you in detail about the complications that all of this entailed, also about his return to Hanover. But London was already beckoning. He traveled there twice before staying there permanently. And that is where this erudite biographical sketch of Handel's young years ends.
And then an impressive analysis begins of everything Handel wrote in those first London years (until 1713), vocal and instrumental, 34 pieces of more than 100 compositions he wrote at that time. … And once again with suggestions to listen to them immediately by using the QR code that is printed along with texts (also translated each time) and score. It has become a standard method in books dealing with music. In the appendix also many listening examples on YouTube and Spotify
After all those extensive analyses and discussions of those first London compositions from Handel's young years, Bossuyt concludes how undervalued they are and certainly not known. By the way, not in Klara's Top 100 either: Handel lands halfway with 2 works, Bach scored 13 hits. Unnecessary to enumerate how thoroughly the author analyzes all those young works. Only this. It is with a very interesting discourse that Bossuyt concludes his latest book. About how Handel effortlessly assimilates all those different European musical styles into his own work and takes the German tradition, the Italian lyricism and the French galanterie to England. But especially also how Handel should not be seen as a lesser composer because of his many borrowings from his own work and that of contemporaries. And he quotes Goethe: "I have known artists who prided themselves on having followed no master whatsoever. They would on the contrary have ascribed everything solely to their own genius. What fools!" Bossuyt adds a statement by the great musicologist and composer Johann Mattheson: "…as long as the adoption takes on a better and more beautiful form than in the context from which it was taken." Now we wait for the second part in which Georg Friedrich Handel, that German early talent, plunges into the bustling English operatic life and celebrates triumphs there. But it is clear that even young Handel deserves reconsideration. Bossuyt convincingly proves that he is more than Ombra mai fu and Lascio ch'io pianga with which he lands at 43 and 45 on the latest Klara list.
- WHO: Ignace Bossuyt
- WHAT: Georg Friedrich Haendel. De jonge jaren (1685-1713)
- PUBLISHED BY: Davidfonds/Standaard uitgeverij, 2022, 301 pp.
- ORDER: Standaard Uitgeverij