Great German Composers | Page 9

and
Cuzzoni two thousand, for the season. Toward the end of what may be
called the Handel season nearly all the singers and nobles forsook him,
and supported Farinelli, the greatest singer living, at the rival house in
Lincoln's Inn Fields.
IV.
From the year 1729 the career of Handel was to be a protracted battle,
in which he was sometimes victorious, sometimes defeated, but always

undaunted and animated with a lofty sense of his own superior power.
Let us take a view of some of the rival musicians with whom he came
in contact. Of all these Bononcini was the most formidable. He came to
England in 1720 with Ariosti, also a meritorious composer. Factions
soon began to form themselves around Handel and Bononcini, and a
bitter struggle ensued between these old foes. The same drama repeated
itself, with new actors, about thirty years afterward, in Paris. Gluck was
then the German hero, supported by Marie Antoinette, and Piccini
fought for the Italian opera under the colors of the king's mistress Du
Barry, while all the litterateurs and nobles ranged themselves on either
side in bitter contest. The battle between Handel and Bononcini, as the
exponents of German and Italian music, was also repeated in
after-years between Mozart and Salieri, Weber and Rossini, and to-day
is seen in the acrimonious disputes going on between Wagner and the
Italian school. Bononcini's career in England came to an end very
suddenly. It was discovered that a madrigal brought out by him was
pirated from another Italian composer; whereupon Bononcini left
England, humiliated to the dust, and finally died obscure and alone, the
victim of a charlatan alchemist, who succeeded in obtaining all his
savings.
Another powerful rival of Handel was Porpora, or, as Handel used to
call him, "old Borbora." Without Bononcini's fire or Handel's daring
originality, he represented the dry contrapuntal school of Italian music.
He was also a great singing-master, famous throughout Europe, and
upon this his reputation had hitherto principally rested. He came to
London in 1733, under the patronage of the Italian faction, especially to
serve as a thorn in the side of Handel. His first opera, "Ariadne," was a
great success; but when he had the audacity to challenge the great
German in the field of oratorio, his defeat was so overwhelming that he
candidly admitted his rival's superiority. But he believed that no operas
in the world were equal to his own, and he composed fifty of them
during his life, extending to the days of Haydn, whom he had the honor
of teaching, while the father of the symphony, on the other hand,
cleaned Por-pora's boots and powdered his wig for him.
Another Italian opponent was Hasse, a man of true genius, who in his

old age instructed some of the most splendid singers in the history of
the lyric stage. He also married one of the most gifted and most
beautiful divas of Europe, Faustina Bordoni. The following anecdote
does equal credit to Hasse's heart and penetration: In after-years, when
he had left England, he was again sent for to take Handel's place as
conductor of opera and oratorio. Hasse inquired, "What! is Handel
dead?" On being told no, he indignantly refused, saying he was not
worthy to tie Handel's shoe-latchets.
There are also Dr. Pepusch, the Anglicized Prussian, and Dr. Greene,
both names well known in English music. Pepusch had had the leading
place, before Handel's arrival, as organist and conductor, and made a
distinct place for himself even after the sun of Handel had obscured all
of his contemporaries. He wrote the music of the "Beggar's Opera,"
which was the great sensation of the times, and which still keeps
possession of the stage. Pepusch was chiefly notable for his skill in
arranging the popular songs of the day, and probably did more than any
other composer to give the English ballad its artistic form.
The name of Dr. Greene is best known in connection with choral
compositions. His relations with Handel and Bononcini are hardly
creditable to him. He seems to have flattered each in turn. He upheld
Bononcini in the great madrigal controversy, and appears to have
wearied Handel by his repeated visits. The great Saxon easily saw
through the flatteries of a man who was in reality an ambitious rival,
and joked about him, not always in the best taste. When he was told
that Greene was giving concerts at the "Devil Tavern," near Temple
Bar, "Ah!" he exclaimed, "mein poor friend Toctor Greene--so he is
gone to de Tevil!"
From 1732 to 1740 Handel's life presents the suggestive and
often-repeated experience in the lives of men of genius--a soul with a
great creative mission, of which it is half unconscious, partly yielding
to and partly struggling against the tendencies of