Handel's (bad) language?
Post categories: Suzanne Aspden
| 09:59 UK time, Monday, 19 January 2009
Did Handel love the English language, or did he have real trouble with it? Many of our juicy Handel anecdotes transcribe Handel's spoken English with a German accent worthy an episode of '. But Handel was evidently an excellent linguist (as so many composers had to be in those days): he fit into Italian society remarkably quickly when there, and likewise in England, ingratiating himself with court.
He must have developed more than a conversational ('where is the nearest restaurant?') skill in English pretty rapidly, too. He reputedly bridled when the texts for coronation anthems (1727) were given to him: 'I have read my Bible very well and shall choose for myself' (though of course he would already have known the Bible in German!). One of those texts was , which we heard last Monday, at the start of Handel's 'Composer of the Week' stint, so we know Handel could indeed choose for himself 'very well'! And there's a lovely story of a social gathering in a friend's home, when he extemporised at the harpsichord in response to a reading of 's Samson Agonistes (of course, this led to his oratorio, ). We'll get a further chance to judge Handel's setting of English later this week, with the broadcast of the St Cecilia's Day concert from the Barbican Centre (7pm, 21 January). Handel's Ode for St Cecilia's Day will be performed alongside Purcell's (there was a great tradition of writing these in London), and Haydn's St Cecilia Mass. It will be interesting to hear how Handel's and Purcell's English - and their compositional strategies - compare.
Comments