preparations for a pastoral, “Il Pastor Fido”, a work hastily thrown together and variously improved more than twenty years later. This time Handel did not repeat his “Rinaldo” sensation and the piece had only half a dozen hearings. To make matters worse, a certain MacSwiney, who succeeded Aaron Hill at the Queen’s Theatre, absconded, leaving nothing but unpaid bills and enraged singers. At this stage there enters the picture a Swiss adventurer, by name Heidegger, a man of unbelievable conceit and homeliness, who was, however, to play an important role in Handel’s future. To recoup the failure of “Il Pastor Fido” the composer turned out in less than three weeks a “tragic opera” in five acts, “Teseo”, with a libretto by Nicolo Francesco Haym, and dedicated tactfully to the Earl of Burlington. “Teseo” came near duplicating the fortunes of “Rinaldo”; and if, as Rolland says, it was “full of haste”, it was also “full of genius.” If anything could have intrenched the composer still more firmly in London it was this opera. He went for a while to live at Burlington House at the Duke’s invitation; met Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, struck up friendships with this and that musician at the Queen’s Arms Tavern in St. Paul’s Churchyard and was never so happy as when he sat with some musical crony, a mug of beer at hand and a harpsichord nearby. The first work he composed in the ideal peace of Burlington House was a Birthday Ode for Queen Anne, whom he had met on his first London visit. The Ode was produced at St. James’s on February 6, 1713, and was the first English he had set to music. All his life Handel’s English remained bad, sometimes even grotesque, and the incorrect accenting in his compositions repeatedly betray his deficiencies in our tongue. Of such faults the Birthday Ode has its full share, in spite of which the Queen was so delighted with the work that she settled on the composer an annual pension of 200 Pounds. He found it politic to write music for patriotic purposes, and instantly complied with the sovereign’s command to supply a “Te Deum” and a “Jubilate” to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht, both compositions given at a solemn service at St. Paul’s before the assembled Members of Parliament.

* * *

Queen Anne died on August 1, 1714, and for a time the skies over Handel threatened to cloud; for on the very day of her passing the Elector of Hanover was proclaimed by the Secret Council King of England. He arrived in London on September 20 and was crowned George I at Westminster a month later. Here was a pretty kettle of fish! His former master to whose service he had most certainly not returned “in a reasonable time” suddenly seated on the English throne—and not even a new “Te Deum” prepared against his coming to the land which Handel now regarded as home!

Handelian luck got him out of what might have been a serious predicament. He must have trusted to his destiny in the first place to help him out of an obviously awkward situation and, being tactful, he made no open move to aggravate it. George I was and remained intensely German, brought to England with him “a compact body of Germans”—chamberlains, secretaries, even his pair of elderly mistresses, the Baroness Kielmansegge and Madame Schulenburg; and all manner of comforts and consolations he could not find in his new island kingdom. He made no effort to shed his German love of music, wherefore as Rolland points out, “he could not punish Handel without punishing himself.” And after he heard Handel’s fascinating new opera, “Amadigi”, in May, 1715, he lost all idea (if, indeed, he ever harbored any) of disciplining his former servant. He appointed Handel music master to the little princesses and when, in 1716, the monarch had to go to Hanover the composer accompanied him on the trip, took occasion to study musical developments in Germany and even wrote a Passion on a text by Heinrich Brockes.

Here is the point to consider for a moment the tale of the “Water Music”, one of the most venerable Handelian anecdotes. The story runs somewhat as follows: Lord Burlington and Baron Kielmansegge, the Master of the King’s Horse, in order to reconcile sovereign and musician, in 1715 persuaded the latter to write a set of light pieces to be played on a boat close to the royal barge at a water party on the Thames. The King liked the music sufficiently to inquire who composed it and, being told, summoned Handel, promised to let bygones be bygones and received him back into favor. Unfortunately for romance, later documents have shown that the “Water Music” was not played till 1717 and then under wholly different conditions. But the legend has become so ingrained in British musical tradition that, as Newman Flower wrote, “it is precisely what ought to have happened.” At all events, the “Water Music” is an adorable suite, definitely English in character—like much else in Handel’s music—and to this day an ornament of concert programs in one or another arrangement.

King George, far from remembering past annoyances, saw to it that Handel’s yearly pension from Queen Anne should be increased to 600 Pounds, so that even without further earnings his financial state was tolerably secure. His good fortunes were enhanced by the musical enthusiasms of the King, who could not hear enough of “Rinaldo” and “Amadigi” (to the spectacular features of which live birds, which sometimes misbehaved, and a fountain of real water, heightened the attractions of sumptuous settings). He went to them, often incognito, several times a week sharing his private box with his bevy of lady friends, new and old; or he would vary his visits to the opera with attendance at plays or concerts, so that his chances to admire the works of Handel, in one form or another, were rarely lacking. Many found that the monarch’s habit of parading his amours before London audiences added to the piquancy of a Handelian score!

By the side of the famed artificial soprano, Nicolini, sang the brilliant Anastasia Robinson, who had been a soprano but whose voice, after a siege of illness, suddenly dropped to contralto. Mrs. Robinson was particularly noted for the fact that her morals were at all times spotless. Mrs. Delany was to describe her as “of middling stature, not handsome but of a pleasing modest countenance, with large blue eyes.... Her manner and address were very engaging, and her behavior on all occasions that of a gentlewoman.” When her husband, Lord Peterborough, died she burned the diaries he had kept, wherein he had noted his various infidelities and other secrets not meant for the scrutiny of his wife.

Handel’s star was steadily rising and his fame was not to be transcended till a number of years later and then only by virtue of his own genius and after many fluctuations of fortune. But when the King returned to London from his trip to Germany opera fell upon bad days. Musical and theatrical life flourished, indeed, yet suddenly farces and other diversions, imported from France, captured the mood of the town and delighted the monarch and his ladies. Now nobody felt like putting up money on opera, since inexpensive vulgarity was a safer bet. At just about this period Handel and James Brydges, Duke of Chandos, former Paymaster-General of the Army during the Marlborough wars, were brought into contact. The erstwhile Earl of Carnarvon had accumulated his wealth by heaven knows what sharp practices, and inherited an estate at Cannons, near Edgware, where he had erected a luxurious palace, including a chapel, a theatre, and other musical appurtenances inseparable from such an establishment. The Prince of Wales was a frequent visitor at Cannons, braving even the swarming footpads of Edgware Road. The Duke of Chandos seems