The The Handel House Museum Companion - A Review Page at the Teri Noel Towe Home Pages
Handel at 56, in 1741, the year in which he composed Messiah in the house on London's Lower Brook Street a portion of which now houses the Handel House Museum. This image is the frontispiece to the 1760 John Mainwaring biography.
The Handel House Museum Companion
A Review
Thanks to my thoughtful and generous friend, Mark Windisch, I am the happy and grateful owner of a first edition copy of the Handel House Museum Companion, the newly published official guidebook to the Handel House Museum. This elegantly designed and handsomely printed paperbound volume, in which production values of the highest standard are manifest throughout, features chapters by the eminent Handel scholars Donald Burrows and Anthony Hicks, and the present Director of the Handel House Museum, Jacqueline Riding. It opens with an exquisite, poignant introduction by Stanley Sadie, CBE, one of the world's pre-eminent musicologists, one of the world's most passionate Handelians, and the Editor of the first two editions of the New Grove Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians. It was Stanley who started the campaign to turn Handel's house into a museum, and, with the invaluable help of his talented wife Julie Anne, who was the first Director of the Handel House Museum, he worked tirelessly, devotedly, and ultimately successfully, to make the dream come true.
The Handel House Companion is more than just a guide book and a souvenir of the Handel House Museum. It is a captivating little volume, one that instantly has become an essential component of the library of all who revere Handel. It arrived in the office mail, which I pick up at the Lenox Hill Post Office each moring on my way to work at Ganz & Hollinger, P. C., the law firm at which I am "Of Counsel". I became so engrossed in reading The Handel House Companion on the bus from the Post Office to the office that particularl morning that I missed my stop. I missed my stop on the subway on my way downtown later in the day, for the same reason, and I came damn close to making it a "hat trick", as the ice hockey world would put it, on my way home to my apartment that same evening!
The Companion conjured up fond memories for me. I know the house better and longer than most, you see. When, as a child of 7 going on 8 (in 1955), I was taken to England by my parents for the first time, I insisted on being shown Handel's house. It took a friend of my father's, I remember well, a day and half to locate the house, and then we learned, to our astonishment, that it was a little more than a block from our hotel (Claridge's, when it really was Claridge's). I also well remember that the then tenants of the house refused to allow me in to see the inside. As you might imagine, I was very disappointed.
As a Princeton freshman a decade later, however, I finally managed to get inside. I vividly recall climbing the stairs, the same stairs that Handel had climbed. Even though it had been much altered over the course of two centuries, standing in the room in which Handel wrote Messiah and so many other glorious masterpieces was one of the most moving experiences of my life. It was all that I could do to keep from bursting into tears.
The body of the Handel House Museum Companion opens and concludes with the contributions of Prof. Burrows, who provides the reader with a succinct and compelling account of Handel's life, and Prof. Hicks, who with his customary perspicacity and scholarly integrity addresses the complicated nature of Handel's compositional methods in a way that will intimidate none of his readers. Jacqueline Riding's four chapters provide the meat to this magnificent sandwich.
Reading through "Handel's House", Ms. Riding's well researched account of the history of the building and the alterations that it suffered over the centuries, I realized just how little the interior of the house to which I made that pilgrimage in 1966 actually resembled the interior of the house that Handel called home for more than three decades. Ms. Riding sets forth the unfortunate decision taken in 1905 by an art dealer C. J. Charles, whose wanton desecration of the hallowed rooms that Handel had known lends new facets to the definition of the words "yahoo", "philistine", and "vandal", to gut the interior of the building and remove all of the interior partitions. (It must have been at this point that the "fine cast-lead cistern, on the front of which in bold relief [W. H. Cummings] read '1721. G. F. H.'" ended up in the London city dump. {Of course, there is one minor problem with the description of that cistern. It bore a date two years earlier than the year Handel moved into the house. Did Cummings misread the date? Did Handel bring it with him from a previous residence? Or was it someone's canny forgery?}) At least C. J. Charles did not remove the original staircase!
Ms. Riding, however, makes no reference to W. H. Cummings's account of his visit to Handel's House, from which I have just quoted, and it may well be that she was unaware of its existence, because it is, to the best of my knowledge, to be found only in the December 14, 1893, issue of The Musical Times. Cummings's account, for instance, appears to contradict Ms. Riding's representation that the house "remained relatively undisturbed" between 1830 and 1905, when Mr. Charles wrought his havoc on the place. Cummings specifically mentions that "the windows have all been replaced, and the dividing wall between the rooms on the first floor, now the drawing-room, has been removed."
To her chapter on the history of the house, Ms. Riding has added a number of fascinating illustrations, ranging from a photograph of the house as it looked in 1944, after C. J. Charles had altered the facade of the first two stories and supplied them with display windows to photographs of the "faux" panelling in the first floor (the second floor for Americans) rooms that I remember so vividly from my 1966 visit. (The rooms, however, were nowhere near so cluttered in 1966 as they are in those photos, which were taken in 1985.) Significantly, the Handel House Museum Companion contains no photograph of the front of the house as it looks today. This omission is most likely the direct result of the sad fact that, after the initial campaign to raise enough money to enable the Handel House Trust to buy the house was scuttled, the owners of the freehold would not give up the lucrative Brook Street store-front and the income that it produces. Let us hope that, as the years progress, the freehold can be acquired and the facade then returned completely to its mid 18th century appearance.
Ms. Riding has also included an impressive selection of "before and after" photographs, and photographs that disclose important facets of the restoration and reconstruction process. The care with which the replica of Handel's bed was designed and constructed and the precision with which the panelling was reproduced according to the surviving panelling in the adjacent houses, which were built by the same real estate speculator, are amply documented for the insatiably curious, like me. Ms. Riding also explains in detail how the daunting challenge of recreating the furnishing of the rooms in a way that Handel might recognize, because, with the possible exception of the wing chair in my collection that came with the verbal provenance that it has once belonged to Handel, not a single object that made up a part of the household furnishings of the house when Handel lived there is known to survive.
Ms. Riding's other chapters, "Handel's London", "Handel the Man", and "Rehearsal and Performance" are equally enthralling and and just as profusely illustrated. Ms. Riding has the courage not to side-step the still open question of Handel's sexual orientation, and her evocation of London in Handel's day is especially vivid. Her account of Handel's use of the spaces in the house, particularly her analysis of his practice of holding rehearsals there, is perceptive and vivid.
In addition to pertinent portraits, city views, maps, and photos and illustrations that provide support for the methiods used in replicating such things as the panelling and the bed hangins, the Handel House Museum Companion is profusely illustrated with photographs of the restored rooms and of the artwork and furnishings to be found in them. Among the most fascinating of these is the ca. 1744 portrait of Charles Jennens, a portrait by Thomas Hudson that was painted at about the time that Jennens was collaborating with Handel on the oratorio Belshazzar. This incisive depiction of the super-rich eccentric who provided Handel with the librettos for Saul, L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato, and Messiah, in addition to Belshazzar, makes it a lot easier to understand why Jennens had the reputation for the egocentricity, flamboyance, and ostentation that won him the sarcastically bestowed moniker "Suleiman the Magnificent". It is quite a different Jennens from the elderly fuddy-duddy who peers warily out of the familiar portrait that is now a part of the Gerald Coke Collection, if my recollection is correct. It also is exhilarating to confront the Soldi portrait in oils of Willem De Fesch, a depiction that is much more satisfying and compelling than the portrait print one usually sees. Significantly, both of these portraits are a part of the Handel House Museum's own collections. The Jennens portrait was purchased at auction by the Trust, and the De Fesch portrait is a part of the fabulous Byrne Collection of Handeliana, the addition of which to the Handel House Museum collections truly put it on the map from the scholarship perspective. And, speaking of Jennens and the Byrne Collection, the Companion contains photographs of two pages from Jennens's annotated copy of the Mainwaring biography of Handel. I do not know on how many pages Jennens made marginalia, but I surely hope that, perhaps as a benefit fund raising item, the Handel House Museum will publish a facsimile edition of this remarkable bit of Handeliana. I know that I would be at the front of the line to acquire one.
There is relatively little about which to cavil, but there are some mistakes and errors in judgement that I am sure will be corrected in later printings. For one thing, Faustina Bordoni Hasse was a mezzo-soprano, not a soprano, and I find the date, ca. 1734, that is assigned to the Nazari portrait of the singer very difficult to accept. This portrait depicts a woman significantly older than the mid to late 30s range that the suggested date implies. (Depending on the source, Faustina was born sometime between 1693 and 1700/01.) I certainly would like to know more about the provenance of this painting and the reasons for its being described as a portrait of Faustina. I absolutely flinched at the sight of the ubiquitous and unflattering caricature of Thomas Augustine Arne, drawn posthumously by Bartolozzi, that has been selected for inclusion in the chapter, "Handel's London". I know that Dr. Arne was, more often than not, less than enthusiastic about Handel's commanding presence in London's musical life, but surely a copy of the admittedly extremely rare portrait print of Arne, a print that shows him at his best, could have been found to be photographed or scanned for the Handel House Museum Companion. (If the Handel House Museum cannot find an exemplar elsewhere, I shall be delighted to provide them with a high resolution scan of the exemplar of the print in my collection!)
I do, however, take strong exception to Ms. Riding's allegation that Chevalier Dr. John Taylor, the oculist who operated on both Bach and Handel to remove the cataracts that clouded their vision, was a "quack". He was anything but. John Taylor was one of the founders of modern opthalmalogical surgery, and the techniques that we might consider "barbaric" were innovative and thoughtfully conceived at the time. As I point out in my discussion of the so-called Volbach Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, the controversial image that depicts Bach in the last weeks of his life, Dr. Taylor's account of the operation and its failure provides confirmation, and solid confirmation, of other evidence that Bach had suffered at least one, if not two, strokes by the time of the operation. I might also add that W. H. Cummings, in his analysis of the signatures on the various codicils to Handel's will, observes that the strengthening of the signature on the second codicil, signed after the surgery when compared with the signature on the first and the subsequent weakening of the signature on the third suggest that Dr. Taylor's operation on Handel's eyes provided at least some initial benefit. Finally, I have to say that it is Dr. Taylor's great misfortune that his two famous "failures" forever will diminish his posthumous reputation and minimize the value and importance of the many successes that he achieved in helping the many patients whose renown in our day is little or nil.
And, finally, there is issue of the identification of one of the portraits of Handel that are included in the Handel House Museum Companion. On page 51 of the Handel House Museum Companion there is a photograph of a portrait that is described as "A Musician, believed to be Handel, oil on copper, 1713". Only those whose glasses are truly rose-tinted could believe that the musician depicted in this painting is George Frideric Handel. As some readers may be aware, I make a quiet specialty and avocation of forensic portrait iconographical analysis and am currently involved in a thorough examination of the portraits of Johann Sebastian Bach, real and unreal. There is a significantly larger body of authentic portraits of Handel that are universally accepted as undoubtedly accurate depictions of his facial features than there are of Bach, and, when the face of this 1713 portrait is compared to any of these, whether the wonderful Mercier portrait that has been loaned to the Handel House Museum by the descendants of Handel's friend Thomas Harris or any of the familiar Thomas Hudson portraits, it is immediately apparent that it is not an accurate depiction of the face of George Frideric Handel. The musician in this portrait no more looks like Handel than the subject of the portrait that is ascribed to Godfrey Kneller looks like Handel. This assessment of the Handel House Museum Companion obviously is not the appropriate venue for a detailed discussion of the issue, but neither the shape of the nose nor the configuration of the jaw conforms to the shape of nose or the configuration of the jaw in any of the genuine images. (The intriguing aspect of this lovely little portrait, however, is that it immediately struck me that it might possibly be a previously unknown portrait of Henry Purcell's younger brother, Daniel, towards the end of his life, but I shall have to make a much more careful comparison of this painting with the known, authentic depiction of Daniel Purcell before I commit myself!)
But, in offering these criticisms, I run the risk of diminishing the magnitude and the value of this wonderful and extraordinary book, and that is the furthest thing from my intentions. To paraphrase, if I may, the lyrics of Sir W. S. Gilbert, "Handelians all, wherever you may be, when you read this book, you'll dance with glee!"
To the best of my knowledge, the Handel House Museum Companion is currently available only from the gift shoppe at the Handel House Museum, but I recommend that you visit the Handel House Museum website and then send an e-mail to mail@handelhouse.org that makes clear your desire to acquire a copy of the Handel House Museum Companion by mail as soon as possible.
My hearty congratulations and my sincere thanks to all who have been involved in making this fabulous little book a reality.
Teri Noel Towe
December 1, 2001
This black and white photogravure, from an 1893 issue of The Musical Times, reproduces an early photograph -- perhaps the first to be taken of the painting, as a matter of fact -- of one of the earliest authentic portraits from life of George Frideric Handel (or Georg Friedrich Händel, as his name still legally was at the time that he sat for it). Painted about 1720 by Thornhill, this portrait depicts the approximately 35 year old composer-virtuoso, casually but elegantly attired, at the console of the organ that was then in the chapel at Cannons, the Duke of Chandos's palatial country residence. This instrument, or, more accurately, however much now remains of it after nearly three centuries of "rebuilds" and "restorations", is now in the Church of Holy Trinity, Gosport, England, to the best of my knowledge.
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The Roubilliac Statue of Handel that was commissioned from Roubilliac by the promoters who owned the notorious Vauxhall
Gardens, a libertine pleasure garden that was the "Heaven" or "Studio 54" of its day.
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