Handel wrote specially for Senesino. His name and that of Montagnana, and the Signore Strada, Negri, and Bertolli, may still be found written in pencil, by Handel himself, in the copy of Deborah, which forms part of the collection of volumes which he used for conducting. The season of 1733 terminated on the 9th of June. It had been very much agitated by these dissensions, of which Paolo Rolli's letter and Goupy's caricature are the echoes. Handel was of a very passionate disposition. Proud and imperious as he was, he valued himself far beyond those who interpreted him, and he seems to have considered them too much in the light of mere instruments. Senesino, who was also conscious of his own merit, and who was naturally proud of the applause of the public, sometimes put himself in opposition to the will of the passionate composer-manager. This made the latter only the more absolute, and in the end their engagement was broken off. Haughty as he was, and in spite of all that has been said on this matter, I do not believe that Handel was wholly to blame in this business. A tyrant is nothing but a slave turned inside out, and he had too little of the vile nature of a slave ever to be a tyrant. Beard, Lowe, Reinhold, Signora Frazi, Signora Galli, and Mrs. Cibber, all the artists permanently resident in England whom he employed, remained with him from the moment at which they made their appearance in his works down. to the end of his life; which is a very good proof that commerce with him was not always intolerable. Senesino, on the other hand, was not a model for sweetness of temper. Quantz relates, in his Memoirs, that Senesino had quarrels with the chapelmaster Heinechen, which brought about the dissolution of the Dresden company in 1719. Once, at a rehearsal in London, he offended Mrs. Anastasia Robinson (afterwards Lady Peterborough) so grievously, "that Lord Peterborough publicly and violently caned him behind the scenes." The time is past, and we should be glad of it, when singers allowed themselves to be caned by lords. 1 Burney, page [*22] of the Account of the Commemoration. THE NOBLES AGAINST HANDEL. 145 Many members of the nobility remained faithful to the cause of Bononcini, who was patronized by the celebrated Duke of Marlborough. The Duke's daughter, Lady Godolphin, who obtained after his death the title of Duchess of Marlborough, was the soul of this league. She took the favourite to reside in her house, where she for a long time gave two concerts every week, consisting entirely of his music. She allowed him besides a pension of £500, which was worth at least as much as £800 in the present day. This fact is attested by Mainwaring, Hawkins, and Burney. With certain exceptions, the English aristocracy had, from the beginning, no great inclination for Handel. Accustomed to be flattered by artists, they were shocked at that dignity which he preserved towards everybody. Burney remarks, with his habitual exactness, in speaking of the subscribers to the opera of Alessandro (1726):-"It is remarkable that among the subscribers, not above two or three of the directors of the Royal Academy, or hardly any other great personages, appear on the list, though the publication preceded the quarrel with the nobility a considerable time." On the other hand, there are none but dukes, marquises, earls, and right honourables in the subscription list for the two volumes of Cantate e Duetti, published by Bononcini in 1722, at the price of two guineas per copy, although the volume had not more than ninety-nine pages. It brought him in, it is said, £1000. Some of his admirers subscribed for two and even five copies; the Right Hon. Mr. Pulteney, ten; the Duke of Queensbury, twenty-five; his wife, the Duchess of Queensbury, twenty-five; Lord Carleton, thirty; the Countess of Sunderland, fifty-five; &c. All these wealthy adversaries of Handel naturally espoused the cause of Senesino at the outset of the quarrel, and, as is always the case, the more they meddled the more they managed to embitter it. When the majority of the nobles who patronized the King's Theatre saw an artist of great talent banished from the stage, they expressed their regrets somewhat sharply, and ended by demanding that Senesino should be retained. Handel was one of those few men who defend their honour to the death. He did not know what it was to retreat, and he L would have sacrificed everything rather than submit to a humiliation. Like Cassius, he said:-- "I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself." He could not tolerate that a man of whom he had to complain should be forced upon him, and he replied that Senesino should never reappear in his theatre. His former patrons themselves grew indignant at such resistance, became excited against this arrogant man, and, resolving to go no more to the Haymarket, they gave up the boxes which they had hired there, and joined the Bononcini faction, in order that they might have elsewhere an Italian opera with the favourite singer. All this was decided even before the close of the season on the 9th of June, 1733; for, on the 13th, the following advertisement appeared in the Daily Post:-"The subscribers to the opera in which Signor Senesino and Signora Cuzzoni are to perform, are desired to meet at Mr. Hickford's great room, in Panton Street, on Friday next, at eleven o'clock, in order to settle proper methods for carrying on the subscription. Such persons who cannot be present are desired to send their proxies." Signora Cuzzoni did not return to London before 1734; but her engagement had doubtless been concluded by correspondence. The theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields was hired, and they sent abroad for a company. Perhaps it was not entirely party-spirit which led the nobility, upon whom opera principally depends, to follow this spoilt child Senesino. Apart from his great talent, he was an evirato, or male soprano, and he had that clear, silvery, effeminate, and excessively high voice which is peculiar to that class of singers,' which was then in very high favour. In the eighteenth 1 By a phenomenon of which physiological science has offered no explanation, the effect of eunuchism is to fix the voice at the state in which it is at the time when the execrable operation is performed. This is why these singers have children's voices. Thanks to the progress of humanity, there are no longer any evirati. The last were Crescentini and Veluti, of whom amateurs of sixty years' experience still recount wonders. FONDNESS FOR HIGH VOICES. 147 century, an alto (counter-tenor), however high he could sing, never could obtain the success of the Nicolinis, the Senesinos, the Farinellis, and the Caffarellis. Colman, in all the period of time which his little MS. embraces (that is to say, between 1712 and 1734), whilst he records the names of the songstresses, the evirati, and the counter-tenors, as they appeared upon the English stage, does not take the trouble of mentioning a single tenor or a single basso. Handel shared the mania of his century during the earlier period of his life. The four parts of Trionfo del Tempo are for two sopranos and two alti. Out of the seven personages in Sylla, there are three sopranos (Metella, Flavia, and Celia), an evirato (Lepido), and two counter-tenors (Sylla and Claudio). The bassos were considered in the light of a disagreeable necessity, and at least a fourth of the early operas of Handel have seldom more than one bass air. He even despised for a long time the tenors, of whom not one is to be found in Amadigi, Admeto, Ricardo, Ottone, Siroe, Tolomeo, Orlando, and Giulio Cesare. He became very much modified on this point about the middle of his career, and he gave admirable bass airs to Boschi, Montagnana, Waltz, and Reimschneider. The principal personages in his oratorios are tenors; but the counter-tenors and the high sopranos never lost their hold upon his affections. There is a certain singer described as "the boy" among the voices in the English Acis of 1732, Athalia of 1733, Israel of 1738, Sosarme of 1749, and Jephtha of 1751. One might almost suppose that it was the everlasting boy mentioned in the chorus of Semele, "Now Love, that everlasting boy!" The persistence in "the boy" proves that Handel always preserved something of his ancient predilections, only he applied them better. The scraphic charm of the clear and limpid voices of children touched him. That strong and austere man loved grace as the rude Benvenuto Cellini did, who could never resist the sweet "fluting" of his young and melancholy pupil Ascanio. What has just been observed will serve to explain more completely the favour which Senesino enjoyed, and which he "The boy" of 1732 was called Goodwill; that of 1738, Robinson; and that of 1749, Savage. preserved to the end. In the Musical Entertainer, by Bickham (1737), there is "The Ladies Lamentation for the Loss of Senesino." The engraving which adorns this complaint represents him as a giant clothed like a Roman emperor, with women kissing the hem of his coat of mail, and some weeping. On the other side are heaps of bags of gold, being carried by porters towards the frigate in which he is about to embark. This man soon became the rallying point for all the malcontents. Bononcini had quitted Great Britain, after a discussion of which the details are sufficiently curious to excite interest even now. In addition to which some useful notes may be given with reference to the cultivation of music in this country. The documents connected with the business were published in a pamphlet (now exceedingly rare) which appeared in 1732.1 "To SIGNOR ANTONIO LOTTI, AT VENICE. "London, February 9, 1731. (O. S.) "SIR,-Several of the most eminent professors of music in this city have, some years since, established a Musical Academy, not for the management of theatrical affairs, but the improvement of the science, by searching after, examining, and hearing performed, the works of the masters who flourished before or about the age of Palestrina; however, not entirely neglecting those of distinguished rank, lovers of music, and skillful in the performance, have desired to be admitted into this society; among whom we shall always with pleasure remember Abbot Stefani, Bishop of Spiga, who, desiring to have his name entered among us, was unanimously chosen our president. It is by order of this Academy, Sir, I write to you at present. The occasion I shall explain to you in as short a manner as I am able: One of our members having received from Venice a book entitled, Duetti, Terzetti e Madrigali, and having looked it over, pitched upon the XVIII Madrigal, the only one for five voices, inscribed La Vita Caduca, beginning "In una siepe ombrosa," to be performed in the Academy. Signor Bononcini, who is also one of our mem1 Letters from the Academy of Ancient Music, &c. |