Handel. The treatment began to wear him down. For eager youth, giving all its energy to the task in hand, suffers hurt so soon. Mattheson, too, was drawing away from his friend. Friendship that had been so strong had snapped under the attacks of jealousy. Handel was left in his lonely furrow, and he pursued it in his own fashion. For a while he ceased to write for the theatre. Instead, he applied himself more closely to his teaching, and his compositions were confined to sonatas and miscellaneous pieces for the use of his pupils.1 That he had no lack of pupils at this period is borne out by the evidence of Mattheson, and the fee he received for his instruction was probably in the region of that of his friend, who drew the equivalent of eighteen shillings a month, or thereabouts, from every pupil. The blast of bitterness and intrigue which now descended upon Handel would have broken the spirit of many. Keiser had always borne the honours, and, being a popular man, who, in a magnetic career, had shown amazing ability, his position would have appeared difficult to assault had Handel been pledged to attack. But no such campaign was in Handel's mind. He had revelled in the success of both Keiser and Mattheson. He envied them in a big heart that knew only the excitement of life. That they should turn upon him now, because some of his first fledglings had not failed, hurt him, but did not spoil his courage. They had yet to learn that nothing ever would spoil his courage. The tactics of these people did, however, cause Handel to change his plans. The opera was sinking so rapidly under the Keiser régime that Handel saw himself being involved in the wreckage of disorder, and the antagonism towards himself brought decision. He had met in Hamburg during the winter of 1703-4 a wandering Italian princeling, Gaston de' Medici, who at the time was engaged in a hopeless squabble with his wife, Princess Anna Maria of Saxony-Luxemburg. No greater rascal strolled through Europe at that age than Gaston de' Medici, but, like many rogues, he had one redeeming quality, and that was his love of music. It was this redeeming feature which intrigued Handel when they met. The Prince 1 Burney states that he procured some of these at Hamburg in 1773. Gaston de' Medici had a sound knowledge of Italian music of the day. He had once played divinely upon the flute, and he had the true instinct of the Italian for good music. He singled out Handel at once as a youth who would go far, described to him the glories of Italian music at Florence and Rome, and convinced him that he was wasting his time in Hamburg. His rightful place was that Mecca of Genius-Florence. It was this rogue who ultimately proved to be responsible for one of the most decisive developments in Handel's life. Whatever Gaston's past may have been was of little count to Handel, in whose eyes he was redeemed by his musical knowledge. As a matter of fact, Prince Gaston was known throughout Europe by the blatancy and ostentation of his vice. He gambled heavily, he had mistresses in every city, and he wandered from one to the other in careless abandon. His wife alternately tried to reform him and then cast him out, only to take him back again. Not that Gaston ever stayed long. The call of the paths of unrighteousness was too strong. He disappeared with his mood in search of a pretty face here, or some gamester there, for whom he had no other respect than that he had money and could drink him under the table. And such champions with the cup were few and far between. for It is the common story that Gaston de' Medici offered to pay Handel's expenses to Italy. But, if he ever made such an offer, de' Medici could not have intended it seriously, for he never had money to give away. To him money was only the passport to a fresh haunt of vice, so he had little to spare the costly journey of a chance friend. Nor was he that peculiar vagabond who would spend on a friend money which he could dissipate in a fresh burst of vice. There is in existence a letter from the Prince to his sister, the wife of the Elector Palatine, which proved that he was in dire penury when he left Hamburg for Prague and Vienna in March 1705.2 But his words took root in Handel's mind. To the young musician, amidst all the riot and upheaval which had come to the opera house, Italy became a lure. He was saving money, stinting himself, his life had become a self-denial on the altar of 1 Streatfeild, "Handel," p. 24. Ademollo," G. F. Haendel in Italia." ambition. He no longer received remittances from his mother at Halle; on the contrary, he was now sending her small sums at Christmas and at other times. Keiser, hampered with debts, which had not been moderated by the absconding of his partner, Drüsicke, was broken on the wheel, and the theatre passed into the hands of a Jew, Johann Saurbrey, who made it his first business to approach Handel to write him an opera. Verily the compliment must have pleased the youth after the efforts that had been made to bear him down. He wanted money-money to take him to Italy. It was Saurbrey, a gentleman who, if he ever possessed an artistic soul, had long since pawned it to commerce, who started Handel composing again. For Saurbrey Handel wrote a long opera-so long that to perform it occupied two evenings. The enthusiasm which Keiser had striven to kill in him had broken out anew in such violent ecstasy that he could not curtail the length of his songs. He wrote on and on. It had only required the slightest encouragement to make his sensitive spirit rise like some bird afresh on the wings of the morning. Thus did Saurbrey become possessed of a work which must have frightened him not a little by its length. To produce it would require an all-night sitting of the audience, and even Hamburg, proud of its understanding of musical quality, was not prepared for that. There was only one thing for Handel to do-cut it in two: thus Florindo and Daphne come into being. Handel got his money down and, without a regret in his soul, left Hamburg. He did not even stay to bid farewell to Mattheson, whom he never saw again. Probably Mattheson's later lament of the fact was only simulated. The tide of jealousy had been too strong. Not until long after Handel had passed out of Hamburg as unostentatiously as he had entered it did his twin operas find production. He was then far beyond acclamation or criticism. In his absence these operas provided Hamburg's musical event of 1708. The city then had been denuded of all talent, and in the year following, Keiser, like some wandering ghost, turned up again. Hamburg did not know he had arrived till he had captured the opera house by a manœuvre. It was a great return. His sins were forgotten; his services to music Death of Keiser remembered. Where had he been? No one inquired; no one wanted to know. It was sufficient that he had returned. He rushed back to his old place. The haunts where he had ruled and patronised, found new life, the former bacchanalians crept from their secret haunts and gathered about him with their "Hail, master!" During the year of his return Keiser composed and produced eight operas, and in some of them was the tender spirit of his old fire. He made money again, and spent it as readily. He rushed into matrimony with the daughter of one of the principal patricians of the city. But his vices, the Hamburg that was his, wore him down. The flames that came from the stirred fire dropped away into embers, and Keiser passed out, leaving a Hamburg from which the glories of its art had departed. He drifted away. He died. A contemporary paragraph which appeared after his death best describes the wreckage : "Mad. Neuberinn (Neuber) will this summer, as it is thought, produce comedies again at the opera house. Stage, costumes, and scenery are quite used up. Monza was obliged to leave Hamburg utterly destitute and covered with debts. Mme Keiser, as well as Monza, have again tried to get the opera, but up till now without success. The former is quite unable to do so, partly because she has no money, partly also, because she has lost all her esteem. Moreover, she has no singers. Monza, however, is amply provided with those, and might sooner attain his object, but the old debts will not permit him to return. The theatre is ruined, there are no costumes, and the building itself is very dilapidated. Some old amateurs still allow the Kaiserinn' (Mme Keiser) to enjoy their former munificence, and these as well as something more (the daughters' savoir-faire) keep her." A trail of ruin; threadbare costumes and broken scenery and a widow trying to make a living. All that was left of what had once been Reinhold Keiser! What an artist he had been! How he had loved life! How he had worked. How he had played. He had stormed his way with the courage of a gladiator, and dropped out, a forgotten husk of a man. But the youth whom he had first known as ripieno violin had now passed along the solitary way that led to the more certain memories of the great. 1 "Matthesoniana Politica" (Hamburg State and University Library). CHAPTER IV THE ITALIAN JOURNEY HANDEL arrived in Italy as mysteriously as he had left Hamburg. By what route he travelled, or how long the journey occupied him, there is no knowing. He was doubtless alone, for there was not a single soul in Hamburg in whom he had sufficient interest to solicit his companionship for the exploit. It is more probable that he embarked on the journey with the same impulse he had shown when he left Halle for Hamburg. He had no engagement in view; no means of earning his living except by his talents, and, as this was not an age when musical talent always came by its own reward, the adventure was beset with some risks and considerable difficulty. Of material things it seemed to offer nothing. But it must be remembered that Handel was a dreamer; throughout his life he remained a dreamer who expected or hoped to meet the realisation of his dreams at the turn of the road. Handel's position when he reached Italy was little better than that of the strolling musician, so far as his prospects were concerned. Doubtless he had written to his erstwhile friend Prince Gaston de' Medici announcing his coming, for as soon as he reached Florence he went to the palace of Pratolino in the hills beyond the city, where Ferdinand, Prince of Tuscany, brother of Prince Gaston, kept a palace of extreme extravagance and indolence, but brightened by the most wonderful music in Italy. Doubtless, too, Handel acquainted his mother at Halle with his decision to seek fresh fortune in Italy, for he was in regular correspondence with her. One can imagine the consternation in the Schlamm house which such news would occasion. They must have known, Dorothea and the simpleminded Tante, that the boy had little money. Probably he |