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Handel in our Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Hans F. Redlich
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Extract

The date of the foundation of the first German Bach Society, 11 December, 1850, marks, by common consent, the birth of modern musical research. It preceded by less than a year the issue of the first volume of the first complete edition of Bach's works. This event had been foreshadowed by the editorial efforts of two generations of Bach scholars, and it had originated in England. It was there, not in Bach's native country, that A. F. C. Kollmann, K. F. Horn and Samuel Wesley planned and issued critical editions of certain keyboard works of Bach at the turn of the eighteenth century. Only thirty years later the Bach revival became an international cause with Felix Mendelssohn's memorable performance of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin on 11 March, 1829.

Type
Articles
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 80 , 1953 , pp. 87 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1944

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References

1 H. F. Redlich ‘The Bach-Revival in England’, Hinrichsen Year-Book VII, London, 1952; cf. also his articles in Kongressbericht Lūneburg, 1950, Cassel, 1952, and in Bachprobleme, Leipzig, 1950.Google Scholar

2 They indicate the beginning of Handelian mammoth-performances with 500-600 performers from which the present generation begins at last to recoil. Cf. C. Burney An Account of the musical performances in Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon, May 26, 27 and 29; and June 3 and 5, 1784, London, 1785.Google Scholar

3 Paul Hirsch, ‘Dr. Arnold's Edition’, Music Review, VIII/2.Google Scholar

J. A. Hiller ‘Nachricht von der Aufführung des Händel's chen Messias’, Berlin, 1786. Further bibliographical details see in H. Abert's Mozart,Google Scholar

4 Leipzig, 1924, Vol. II, p. 618. In Hiller's performances 300 executants were employed.Google Scholar

5 E. T. A. Hoffmann, ‘Ueber alte und neue Kirchenmusik’ (first published in A.M.Z. 1814). Compl. edn., ed. G. Ellinger, Leipzig, 1912, Musikalische Schriften, II., pp. 10, 49 et passim.Google Scholar

6 Of his edition Thomas Busby, Concert Room and Orchestral Anecdotes, London, 1825, Vol. III, p. 152, relates that ‘those Italian operas’ of the great composer least in public respect (and that is all but five) were actually missing’. Cf. also Paul Hirsch, Music Review, VIII/2, p. 109 ff.Google Scholar

7 Both were issued posthumously by Gervinus’ widow Viktoria in 1873 and 1877 and severely criticised by Julius Schaeffer in 1880. Cf. Julia Wirth-Stockhausen, ‘Friedrich Chrysanders Briefe an Julius Stockhausen’, Die Musikforschung, VII/2, 1954, pp. 176–199.Google Scholar

8 Chrysander's interesting letters on problems of performing practise in Messiah, addressed to Stockhausen on March 8 and 15, 1875. (Cf. note 7).Google Scholar

9 Only two operas of Handel had been revived before the start of the Gottingen movement, Almira (in an abridged version by J. N. Fuchs, Hamburg, 1878) and Admeto (ed. Dūtschke), published but not performed, in 1906. Dūtschke produced also in 1938 his edition of Poro. in Braunschweig.Google Scholar

10 Händel-Jahrbuch, 1938.Google Scholar

11 H. F. Redlich ‘Handel's Agrippina’, Music Review, XII/2, 1951.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Die Musikforschung, V, 1952, p. 290; VI, 1953, pp. 93, 413.Google Scholar

13 British Museum, R. M. 20. a. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 This note is missing, for unaccountable reasons, in some printed copies of Chrysander's H.G. Vol. 57 (according to information from Prof. Steglich, Erlangen).Google Scholar

15 Handel, A Symposium, ed. Gerald Abraham, London, 1954, p. 62 ff.: Professor Dent observes such discrepancies in the cases of Imeneo and Deidamia but omits the more flagrant case of Agrippina altogether.Google Scholar

16 Cf. H. Chr. Wolff Agrippina—eine italienische Jugendoper von G. F. Haendel. Einfuehrung. Wolfenbüttel, 1943, p. 16, footnotes 36 and 36a.Google Scholar

17 Being part of Schoelcher's collection of Handel MSS. which was acquired by Chrysander before 1885 and afterwards passed into the hands of the Hamburg University Library (Cf. William C. Smith ‘Catalogue of Works’, Handel, A Symposium, op. cit. p. 276).Google Scholar

18 Note 16, op. cit. p. 34, note 33.Google Scholar

19 W. Barclay Squire, The Catalogue of the King's Music Library, Part I, ‘The Handel Manuscripts’, London, 1927, p. x ff.Google Scholar

20 Handel—A Symposium, op. cit. p. 218 ff.Google Scholar

21 H. G., Vol. 47.Google Scholar

22 ‘Händels Instrumentalkompositionen für Orchester’, Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft, III.Google Scholar

23 The pocket score (Boosey & Hawkes, no. 254) contains the pieces in F major only.Google Scholar

24 This theory was first published by Professor Gerald Abraham in Monthly Musical Record, October, 1953. He enumerates 11 pieces for each set.Google Scholar

25 William C. Smith ‘More Handeliana’, Music & Letters, Jan., 1953, who, however, believes them to be incomplete. A thorough investigation undertaken by myself has shown that they are indeed faulty and contain numerous misprints, especially in the rest bars, but that no music is actually missing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 William C. Smith, op. cit., Music & Letters, Jan., 1953.Google Scholar

27 William C. Smith, Concerning Handel, London, 1948, and specially The Earliest Editions of the Water Music‘.Google Scholar