Chapter 3 - Musicians and other Occupational Hazards

Summary

HAVING spent two chapters in the company of the audience, we now turn our attention to the second significant external element of Handel's biography: musicians and other occupational hazards such as publishers and students. Naturally enough, biographers introduce the major and minor characters from this diverse crowd when their appearance is deemed most relevant, returning to them only if necessary, making it hard for readers to discern the push and pull of long-term relationships or the full import of an immediate event. In addition to the problem of narrative structure, biographers are limited by the lack of evidence for the attitudes and actions of the individuals with whom Handel interacted. With several hundred relevant persons, the kind of painstaking archival research that has been undertaken on Handel cannot readily be replicated on a broad scale, but with judicious focus new data can be found that provides significant alteration to established views.

An assessment that evidential bias had caused biographers to mistake the motives, actions, and attitudes of Handel's compeers led me to investigate four groups – musicians in Dublin, publishers, publication subscribers, and students – the results of which have been published as journal articles that I have adapted for inclusion here. To these I have added briefer consideration of other groups. The treatment may seem unequal to those (such as musicologists) who have a different perception of the relative importance of the groups, or to others expecting a comprehensive analysis of each group. The exigencies of research findings and time allow only what might be considered a case study approach. Of course, London's musicians spent far longer with Handel (forty-five or more seasons) than those in Dublin (only one season), but the Dubliners laboured out of sight of Handel scholarship until I started looking for them in 1998 and eventually pulled together disparate pieces of information from thirteen archives in three countries that I hope will dispel the errors promulgated to date.

Audience concerns are present both because musicians and other professionals are the initial collaborators in the realization of the work that is inevitably shaped by their opinions and interpretation (whether as singers, players, or publishers), and because the music-buying audience (whether of printed or manuscript copies, or of an education) makes its desires known economically and aspirationally.