Handel and the Aria

Extract

One of the aspects of Handel's many-sided genius to which particular tribute should be paid this bicentenary year is his extraordinary lyrical power. There can be few of those to whom serious music makes any appeal that do not know at least one aria by Handel, even if it be simply the noble Larghetto from Serse dressed up in one of a thousand guises. Yet this great composer, who wrote more arias in his operas alone than Schubert did songs of all types, is rarely thought of primarily as a melodist. But the splendid richness of his choral style, the brilliance of his purely orchestral works and the urbane virtuosity of his solo concertos should not distract one from the central source of his creative strength, a seemingly inexhaustible gift for melodic invention. Viewed from the musical background of today it may not always be easy to appreciate the nature of Handel's melodic writing; music has been mainly concerned during the last two centuries with different lines of development. Instead of Handel's long melodic line, constantly renewing and extending from resources within itself, composers have been increasingly interested in the organic growth of relatively short melodic themes, associated and integrated with harmonic, rhythmic and textural ideas. Musical thought has tended to move away from purity of line towards the co-ordination of varied elements on different planes into a significant pattern. Separated as we are from the eighteenth century aria by the achievement of the great symphonists and the steady drift towards declamation in the opera house, it requires a certain mental adjustment to be fully responsive to Handel's melodic process.