Handel as a Student

Handel signed his name on the students' record it was under the direction of Prorector Buddeus.

Student life at Halle in 1702 was far removed from drudgery or abnormal toil. Roystering was frequent, duelling openly indulged in, and sport and the copious drinking of wine and beer part and parcel of the students' day and night. The University itself possessed a privilege for a wine and beer house, which it let yearly to a magistrate or a private individual, and so found a source of income to supplement its none too plentiful funds. It also ran a coffee shop. Duelling had assumed such aggravated proportion among the students here and elsewhere, that, six weeks after Handel joined the University, a royal decree was issued that it should be excluded from all royal Universities, but the high spirits of the students soon broke out in other directions. They made periodical attacks on the town hall and other public places, and, after ringing the "storm-bell," armed citizens had to come to the aid of the town guards to quell the disturbance.1

Not that Handel had much heart for these jousts, for the extraordinary energy which characterised his life began in these years. Barely a month after he had joined the University a scandal occurred at the Cathedral, or Dom-Kirche, attached to the Moritzburg, where one Leporin, a Leipzig musician, had presided at the organ for the past four years. Leporin was a dissolute character, but a master of the instrument. He drank, he roystered. Often when the congregation forgathered to worship, the organ was lacking a player, for Leporin was either in a drunken stupor or away on one of his regular carousals. Some of the earliest biographers of Handel threw much of the blame for Leporin's behaviour on Zachow of the Liebfrauenkirche, with no reason at all. A more flagrant injustice cannot be imagined. Zachow at all times had been of temperate, even puritanical habits, and often absurdly mean in the matter of luxury. The man was too keen on his work to be otherwise, and when he died in 1712 it was in peculiarly humble circumstances.

The Leporin scandal at the Dom outraged Halle. The Lutherans at the Liebfrauenkirche blamed the Calvinists, to 1 Dreyhaupt.

whom the Dom belonged, for permitting such impious behaviour to endure. In March 1702 the Calvinists took action. They threw out Leporin, and they put in the student Handel as a temporary measure, although a certain section of the Calvinists of the town took exception to the decision, because Handel was a Lutheran. The step had been under consideration for some time, for negotiations were in progress when he first joined the University, but his religion, his extreme youth, were points for doubt. Strictly speaking, he had no right at the Dom whatever, but as the appointment was for a year's probation at an annual salary of fifty thaler, the controversy quickly subsided, and the Calvinists continued their worship in peace. In addition, Handel was given lodging at the Moritzburg" below by the gate," but he failed to live there; instead, he let the apartment for sixteen thaler a year.1

For over a year he presided at the organ at the Dom. But all the while big resolves were forming in his mind. He had no desire to serve his life as an organist, much as he loved the instrument. And his ambition was goading him beyond the narrow confines of Halle, with its petty feuds and commercial smugness. Some searching instinct suggested to him that beyond the far horizon attainment might be found. He was intrigued by the stories of Italian music which had stormed Europe, of the melodious glories of Hamburg. A new school of music was seeking birth in the German city.

He was eighteen years of age-a year of decision, and against the desire for independence and travel, the home ties could offer but a poor defence.

In 1703 he resigned his post as organist at the Dom, and

1 Chrysander credits Handel with considerable activity in connection with the town music during his appointment at the Dom, but is sadly in error. He had read in Dreyhaupt (vol. i. p. 991) that the church music performances were divided among the various churches. But the Dom is not enumerated among these churches. As a matter of fact, the town choir was entrusted with these performances, and this choir belonged to the Gymnasium. Teachers of the Lutheran Gymnasium, were, according to the custom of the time, also Cantors of the town churches, and they employed their choir in the church music performances. The reformed organist could have no part in these; in consequence Handel's activity was restricted to the Dom church. Chrysander is therefore far from the mark when he says (p. 63): "In this manner it was an easy matter for Handel to possess himself of the entire musical government. Whatever he composed was performed without delay."

Handel sets out for Hamburg

was succeeded by Johann Kohlhart,1 oddly enough another Lutheran. Handel wasted little time. Leaving the University he packed up his few belongings at the Schlamm, bade farewell to his mother and sisters and Aunt Anna and set out in the early summer for Hamburg.

Happily for himself, the old barber-surgeon slept on in his grave, unknowing that all he had striven for had broken down. The son of his late years had failed him.

1 Johann Kohlhart was born at Wettin, 11th January 1661; was Cantor at Glauchau 1682, and Octavus at the Lutheran Gymnasium 1701. Besides his duties at the Dom church he had to take over the Cantorship of St Ulrich Church in 1712. He died 9th April 1732.-" Hallische Schul-Historica," iii. p. 12.

CHAPTER III

THE HAMBURG ADVENTURE

1703-1705

HAMBURG was the city of adventure. In 1703 it was an evil spot for a youth of eighteen without a friend, and certainly with very little money. Moreover, there was in prospect for Handel no definite means of earning his living. He had left Halle aimlessly to find fortune, and Hamburg was the beginning of the great search.

For thirty years, Italian music had swept in a tide across musical Germany. The theatres resounded to the singing of Italian words; Italian maestri found a welcome; too often to the detriment of more talented musicians of native birth. But in 1703 the musical glories of Berlin were fading, and Hamburg, a city free from any subjection of its arts to Electoral control, was the centre of new and uprising thought in music. Keiser, that strange figure who produced operas-some hundred and twenty in all-as easily as he could pour water from a bottle, was on the crest of the wave. He was a force in German music. In addition to his operatic achievements he was then running concerts, where the very best music was heard, and the best food and wines could be consumed. He was making money and spending money in sensuality, yet working like a Trojan. An idol of the people who, after forty years of adulation in Hamburg, was to disappear in the slough of vice that enthralled him. Musicians, artists, writers, mingled in a life of gaiety and poverty, with occasional affluences, which were dissipated in debauchery of every kind. Yet Hamburg was full of clever men at the period, débauchés, most of whom spent their money as they earned it, but clever for all that.

In 1690 Rathmann G. Schott had founded and owned the first opera house there, and four years later he let it to a Jew,