290 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°<» S. VII. ApRii- 9. '59. 



Messiah Overture without the usual Air, Minuet, 

 or Gavot. It matters not ; for Handel had raised 

 i:o feeling antagonistic thereto, and the very re- 

 mark shows that the overture had done nothing. 

 Add tlie Dead March in Saul, if you will: still 

 there is no high feeling ; for all interest in that 

 movement is dependent on the drums ; and much 

 as Lord Bkougiiam may like it, it is simply a 

 grave subject without being a solemn one. The 

 Oratorio of the Messiah would be greatly im- 

 proved by cutting out the overture, and beginning 

 with the rec\tiit\\ti,^' Comfort ye, mi/ people," for the 

 overture is a false thing, and the recitative a reality. 

 We listen to it as a ceremony, and inquire at its 

 conclusion — "Overture, what do you say ? what 

 do you want? " H. J. Gauntlett. 



r.S. In reply to W. H. (2"'» S. vii. 240,), he 

 must recollect, strange as it may seem. Dr. Pepusch 

 and Dr. Greene gave Handel no credit for com- 

 mand of counterpoint. He will find I shall put 

 him in some resjiects as the greatest of all counter- 

 point writers, but not so as an alia Cappella 

 writer. W. H, would not seek an oculist to take 

 off iiis leg, or a yjhysician great iirhysteria to cure 

 his gout. If Handel had been Jacob Handel, 

 the great alia Cappella writer, he never would 

 have written " The people shall hear,'' or any of 

 the great iuveidions which were his mission, and 

 legacies unto the end of all time. 



NOTES ON HANDEL. 



The following copy of an announcement which 

 appeared in the columns of The Public Adver- 

 tiser of Friday, April 6th, 1759, and has never 

 yet, I believe, been accurately reproduced, will 

 no doubt be read at the present time with more 

 than usual interest : — 



"At the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden This day 

 will be presented a Sacred Oratorio, call'd The MESSIAH. 

 Being the last time of performing IT this Season. Pit 

 and Boxes to be laid together, and no person to be ad- 

 mitted without Tickets, which will be delivered this Day 

 at tl'.e Otiice in the Theatre at Half a Guinea each. First 

 Gallery, 5s. Upper Gallery, 3s. &d. Galleries to be open'd 

 at Half an Hour after Four o'clock. Pit and Boxes at 

 Five. To begin at Half an Hour after Six." 



This occasion proved something more than the 

 last performance of the Messiah " this season." 

 It was the last time the great composer was per- 

 mitted to appear before that public whom he had 

 so often 



«... mov'd with concord of sweet sounds," — 



with those strains which are still, at the distance 

 of more than a century after their composition, 

 listened to with unabated — it may, perhajis, even 

 be said with increased — admiration and delight. 

 On the Friday following (being Good Friday) 

 Handel resigned his spirit, "in hopes," he said, 

 " of meeting his good God, his sweet Lord and 



Saviour, on the day of His resurrection." It was 

 a remarkable coincidence that the day of his de- 

 cease was the anniversary of that on which the 

 Messiah had been first performed in Dublin, 

 seventeen years before. 



[I may here take occasion to notice, in refer- 

 ence to my Query (2°'' S. vii. 172) as to the 

 assistance said to have been rendered to Jennens 

 in the compilation of the texts of Messiah, that I 

 have ascertained from a friend, whose information 

 is derived from unquestionable authority, that 

 there is no foundation for the statement made by 

 Hone. Jennens had a house called Pooley Hall, 

 but no individual named Pooley was ever known 

 to have been connected with him (his chaplain 

 bore another name), and there seems to exist, 

 (apart from the absence of any evidence in support 

 of the claim of the supposed Mr. Pooley,) evidence 

 sufficient to show that Jennens' attainments were 

 such as to have enabled him to make such a selec- 

 tion without assistance.] 



In the present day, when the dimensions of 

 orchestras have expanded to an extent of which 

 our forefatliers never dreamed, much curiosity 

 has been manifested, to know the extent of the 

 orchestra employed by Handel in the perforujanco 

 of his oratorios. Unfortunately no certain infor- 

 mation on this subject seems likely to be obtained. 

 Dr. Burncy merely says that Hiuidel " always 

 employed a very numerous band;" and, again, that 

 he " was always aspiring at ymmhers In his scores 

 and in his orchestra ; " adding his own opinion, 

 that " nothing can express his grand conceptions 

 but an omnipotent band : the generality of his 

 productions in the hands of a few performers, is 

 like the club of Alcides, or the bow of Ulysses in 

 the hands of a dwarf." In default of direct in- 

 formation, we may accept a statement in Mait- 

 land's Histoi'y of London, 1739, as shedding some 

 light on this subject. The band employed at 

 the banquet at Guildhall on Lord Mayor's day, 

 1727, at which George II. (who succeeded to the 

 throne in that year) was present, is thus de- 

 scribed : — 



" The Consort of Musick at this sumptuous Banquet 

 consisted of Two Trumpets, One Kettle Drum, Four 

 French Horns, Eighteen Violins, Two Violinchelioes, 

 Two Double Basses, Five Tenors, Seven Bassoons, and 

 Six Hautboys : togetber Forty-seven." 



This " Consort of Musick " received lOOZ. for 

 their services on the occasion. 



I have shov/n elsewhere that, nearly thirty years 

 afterwards an orchestra of between forty and fifty 

 performers sufficed for the then requirements of 

 a musical festival; and we may perhaps, therefore, 

 assume, without much fear of error, that such a 

 band as Maitland describes, united with a propor- 

 tionate number of vocalists, was the greatest force 

 by which Handel's works were executed under his 

 own direction. W. H. Husk. 



