Handel [Paperback]

Christopher Hogwood: Handel. Revised Edition. Chronological Table by Anthony Hicks. With 100 illustrations, 10 in color. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2007. (First published 1985). 324 pages.

I had read a couple of Handel biographies before obtaining Christopher Hogwood's book, but this is by far the best, both for detail and accuracy and for sheer readability. With the help of a good deal of 18th (and sometimes 19th) century literature which he quotes verbatim whenever it seems appropriate (but without overburdening his text with footnotes), Christopher Hogwood takes five long chapters to describe in great fulness the known facts - and some speculative ones - of the life of Handel from his birth through to his death in London in 1759. Hogwood limits himself to narrative and does not begin interpreting Handel's music, nor does he discuss in too much detail the ins and outs of when Handel changed this or that aria. This provides a very good overview of the events of Handel's life and of the people he was involved with. Handel's works are, of course, mentioned in the order they were composed, but Hogwood does not descend to giving summaries of opera plots; he is more interested in informing us how the individual operas and oratorios were received and to pass on any detail about the audience or about press reactions. There is quite a lot about the singers, too, although I never found this confusing.
In his sixth chapter, "Handel and Posterity", Hogwood takes a critical look at the developments in the reception of Handel's music. He shows how it came to pass that only a few of Handel's works were ever performed in the 19th century and why they were usually performed with forces that were much bigger than anything Handel himself ever envisaged. He traces the development through until the 1980's, when the book was originally published. What has gone on in the world of performance and recording since that time is neatly summarized in an additional chapter written for the revised edition, which also has a bibliographical supplement. The book has a comprehensive index, and is very well printed: I found only one spelling mistake in the whole book, and that in a German word ("Diens" instead of "Dienst").

This is excellent material, much easier to read and much more fascinating, in my opinion, than say, Christoph Wolff's biography of Johann Sebastian Bach (which I found such hard going that I put it aside after about 150 pages). If you want to be thoroughly informed about Handel's life and doings, then buy this book!

Christopher Hogwood's biography of Handel is a good starting place for readers who want to know the basics. The main events of Handel's life are set forth clearly and judiciously, as in the Grove Dictionary, and Hogwood makes sensible judgments about the music, something he is in an excellnt position to do. On the other hand, not much emerges about Handel the man and the milieu in which he lived and worked. Handel was a fascinating and complex character and the epoch in which he lived was in many ways the apex of a way of life that began to change radically not long after his demise. Some studies have appeared, but the synthesis is not there yet. Perhaps Hogwood should write another volume.

"Handel" is a carefully written, extensively footnoted biography by a fellow musician, who is considered a premier interpreter of this composer's works. It takes careful reading, but there are treasures within. One of my favorite anecdotes concerns Handel's wig:

"...Handel wore the Sir Godfrey Kneller wig: greatest of wigs: one of which some great General of the day used to take off his head after the fatigue of the battle, and hand over to his valet to have the bullets combed out of it. Such a wig was a fugue in itself." (Edward Fitzgerald, 1845)

Christopher Hogwood composed this biography from many original sources: letters; contemporaneous biographies; press clippings; court proceedings; paintings; and even a rather rude cartoon. He gently admonishes earlier Handel biographers for their errors, and presents both Handel, the genius, and Handel, the pig-headed Saxon bully, who once attempted to defenestrate a recalcitrant soprano.

It was quite enthralling to read about all of my favorite operas and oratorios, presented in loving detail, and scrupulously tracing all of Handel's `borrowings,' both from his earlier works, and from the compositions of others. Hogwood subscribes to Jonathan Richardson's defence of borrowings in the arts (1719):

"Nor need any Man be asham'd to be sometimes a Plagiary, `tis what the greatest Painters, and Poets have allowed themselves...indeed `tis hard that a Man having had a good Thought should have a Patent for it for Ever..."

Where Handel did borrow, he improved.

I highly recommend this biography to all lovers of the music of `Il Caro Sassone.'

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