Wine Miller 1997

Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing
Author(s): John T. Winemiller

Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 444-470
Published by: University of California Press
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Recontextualizing
Handel's Borrowing
JOHN T. WINEMILLER
This article concerns the intersection of Handel's
borrowing, eighteenth-century theories and practices of artistic imi-
tation, and the concepts of proprietary authorship and intellectual
property. The subject of borrowing, which for generations has pre-
occupied Handel studies, is at once intriguing and discomforting,
causing many to wonder why such a talented composer should have
needed or bothered to borrow so frequently from others, let alone
himself. Yet, one can detect in the tone of this common query the twin
beliefs that borrowing is a somewhat suspect activity, and that Handel

444
would not have borrowed in a perfect world. The investigation of
Handel's borrowing is, after all, shaped as much by ideology as it is by
curiosity.
Indeed, the history of the reception of Handel's borrowing re-
veals a remarkable catalog of assumed motivations. For example, writ-
ers from the early nineteenth century up to the present have sug-
gested that Handel borrowed because of illness or because he was
morally derelict; that he borrowed in order to salvage imperfect mu-
sical ideas, like an alchemist turning lead into gold, or because he was
perhaps more of a "great arranger" than a great composer; or, that
he borrowed for the sake of expediency, owing to insufficient com-
positional impetus (the failure of his "starter engine," in Winton
Dean's memorable formulation), or owing to a deeper poverty of
melodic invention. One early twentieth-century scholar, Percy Rob-
inson, even went so far as to deny Handel's borrowing altogether.
Handel's borrowing, it seems, needs to be justified, excused, or oth-
erwise explained-and sometimes explained away.
The persistence of the borrowing issue begs the question: Why
our fascination and preoccupation with Handel's borrowing? The
Volume XV * Number 4 * Fall 1997
The Journal of Musicology C 1997 by the Regents of the University of California
WINEMILLER
answer lies largely in the uncomfortable fact that Handel's composi-
tional practice of borrowing does not conform readily to the modern
Western model of proprietary authorship, and thus Handel does not
neatly fit the traditional image of the self-reliant composer. In fact,
although other composers of Handel's generation did borrow both
from themselves and others, none are as closely associated with the
practice as he is.
The proprietary author (to borrow the historian Mark Rose's
term) is the construction of an ideology that conceives of the author
as "the originator and therefore the owner of a special kind of com-
modity, the work.", This conception of authorship, gradually codified
into English, German, and French law beginning in the eighteenth
century, is grounded in the abstract Lockean concept of intellectual
property, which insists that ideas can be "owned" by individuals--that
property can be created out of mental (as opposed to manual) labor.
For Locke, the common stock may become a private possession
through an individual's appropriation and invention.
Following this reasoning, advocates of the ideology of possessive
individualism link the value of a cultural product to its individuality,
445
arguing that a work's individuality makes it property. The influential
English jurist William Blackstone explains this connection in the sec-
ond volume of his Commentaries (1765-69): "the identity of a literary
composition consists entirely in the sentiment and the language"-
characteristic elements, he notes, that are produced by an author's
invention and labor.2 Hence a cultural product constitutes property--
in particular, intellectual property.3 Edward Young expresses this
1 Mark Rose, Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright (Cambridge, MA,
1993), 1. Other probing treatments of this subject include Frangoise Meltzer, Hot Prop-
erty: The Stakes and Claims of Literary Property (Chicago, 1994); Roger Chartier, The Order
of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth
Centuries (Cambridge, 1992); Trevor Ross, "Copyright and the Invention of Tradition,"
Eighteenth-Century Studies XXVI (1992), 1-27; Rose, "The Author as Proprietor: Don-
aldson v. Becket and the Genealogy of Modern Authorship," Representations XXIII
(1988), 51-85; and, Martha Woodmansee, "The Genius and the Copyright: Economic
and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the 'Author'," Eighteenth-Century Studies
XVII (1984), 425-28.
9 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-1769, facsimile
ed., 4 vols. (Chicago, 1979), II, 405; cited in Rose, Authors, 89.
3 It comes as little surprise that chief lobbyists for such a legalistic definition of
authorship were booksellers and other parties who sought to commodify cultural pro-
duction in order to protect profits. In a series of legal decisions concerning the pub-
lishing industry, the courts in the eighteenth century began to establish the legal ideas
of copyright and intellectual property. The legal notion of copyright, simplistically
formulated, controlled who could reproduce "copy"-it protected authorized publish-
ers from the loss of profits at the hands of pirate publishers. The related abstract
concept of intellectual property further protected against profit loss from unauthorized
reproduction. Copyright law, of course, continues to be refined and expanded. In fact,
THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY
view in aesthetic terms (as opposed to Blackstone's legalistic terms) in
Conjectures on Original Composition (1759), arguing that a work is orig-
inal to the extent that it is individual.4 The liberal concepts of aesthetic
value and commodified value are predicated on concepts of original-
ity and individuality.
It is the mercantilistic logic of classic liberalism, therefore, that
makes Handel's borrowing and its reception such a compelling mu-
sical, creative, and cultural-historical topic: to borrow and reuse a
portion of another composer's music not only violates the intellectual
property rights of the "loaning" composer, but also sullies the hands
of the borrower, who fails to produce something wholly individual
or original, and thus valuable. A corollary to this is that works includ-
ing self-borrowings are also less creative-and thus potentially less
valuable-since they are "less" innovative. In this view, Handel's
works diminish in value in proportion to their inclusion of borrowed
material, as does Handel's status as a great (and moral) composer,
because borrowing signals an absence of complete or genuine origi-
nality and may even constitute plagiarism.
The disquiet over Handel's borrowing is thus symptomatic of a
446
more general discomfort with creative efforts that in any way incor-
porate existing ideas or material. Is the transformation of existing
material an original, creative act, or is it merely a substitution for
invention-that is, for "truly original" work? Since the eighteenth
century, the status of originary work-indeed, of all manners of
"firsts"-has continually been elevated and privileged, to the point
that, as Frangoise' Meltzer has recently written, we are "increasingly
haunted by an odd anxiety every time the idea of originality is at
issue."5 This anxiety stems largely from the prevailing modern belief
that borrowing necessarily signals unoriginality-if not outright
plagiarism--since it involves in some way the reuse of existing work.
Thus, the belief raises the possibility that Handel's "new" composi-
tions should be seen as unoriginal, or at least not wholly original, to
the extent that they incorporate existing material. Implicit in this logic
is the conclusion that the very fact of Handel's borrowing signals a
lack of sufficient creative labor-that is, a lack of originary work-on
the part of the composer.
concerns about copyright protections proved one of the thorniest issues in the recent
negotiations of the international trade treaties NAFTA and GATT.
4 Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition, (Dublin, 1759; reprint, New
York, 1970).
5 Meltzer, Hot Property, 5.
WINEMILLER
But this modern conception of creative labor was
simply not universally held in the first half of the eighteenth century.
In fact, an older conception of creativity that was widely advocated
and practiced at the time suggests just the opposite, that borrowing
was not only acceptable, but in fact was a preferred method of com-
position.6
The unnegotiable conflict between these views is laid out in par-
ticularly colorful fashion in Jonathan Swift's Battel of the Books (1704).
Here Swift caricatures the antithetical notions of creativity and au-
thorship which existed in Handel's lifetime through a debate between
a bee and a spider. The spider accuses the bee of indiscriminately
plundering nature to gather the nectar it needs for its livelihood. In
contrast, the spider declares its own self-reliant method of production
to be far superior. The bee asserts in response that its accumulation of
material enriches itself without causing harm to nature. Moreover,
says the bee, it is nobler to search carefully and gather good things in
order to produce honey and wax (that is, "sweetness and light"), than
it is to produce with "over-weening pride" mere "excrement and
venom" from one's innards.7
447
In adopting the image of the bee, Swift alludes to and imitates a
venerable line of writers extending back to Seneca, who in his Ad
Lucilium Epistulae Morales employs this image to examine the funda-
mental nature of rhetorical imitation. Seneca asks whether the bee
gathers honey, or makes it from the nectar it gathers.8 This is an im-
portant distinction, for the former is a redistributive process, involv-
ing the rearrangement of someone else's material, while the latter is a
transformative process, involving the use of preexistent material in
the production of something new. Seneca establishes that, in fact, the
bee's digestion of nectar is what makes the production of honey and
wax possible. Thus, the sort of imitation that involves transformation
6 George Buelow briefly considers this point with respect to Handel's borrowing,
but prematurely closes off investigation by suggesting that, "it is the fact that these
principles [of rhetorical imitation] no longer prevailed in Handel's lifetime that leads us
deep into the paradoxical problems faced by the world at large in judging Handel's
stature as a composer." In the context of a very complicated ideological and legal
seachange, however, this overstates matters. See his "Case for Handel's Borrowing:
The Judgment of Three Centuries," in Handel Tercentenary Collection, ed. Stanley Sadie
and Anthony Hicks (Ann Arbor, 1987), 68, as well as his "Originality, Genius, Plagia-
rism in English Criticism of the Eighteenth Century," in Florilegium Musicologicum:
Hellmut Federhof zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Christoph Hellmut Mahling (Tutzing, 1985),
57-66.
7 Jonathan Swift, The Battel of the Books, in The Writings ofJonathan Swift, ed. Robert
A. Greenberg and William B. Piper (New York, 1973), 382-83-
8 Seneca Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales (trans. Richard M. Gummere in the Loeb
Classical Library, in 4 vols. [Cambridge, MA, 1920], II, 276-82).
produces in Swift's words "sweetness and light." The lesson to be
learned from the example of the bee is that the laudable process of
imitation involves two steps: first, one must gather matter from wor-
thy sources; second, one must transform what is gathered into some-
thing new and admirable. The result of this two-step sequence is
invention by means of transformative imitation.9
The theory of transformative imitation found a particularly re-
ceptive audience in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
In France, the free imitations of Boileau and Rapin, based on older
models, were autonomous works, despite their use of borrowings
culled from multiple, uncited sources. In England, such influential
men of letters as Dryden, Swift, Addison, and Pope both practiced
and theorized about transformative imitation. Recognizing the value
of models to the process of invention, Pope, for instance, advocated
judicious borrowing, stating that "Writers in the case of borrowing
from others, are like Trees which of themselves wou'd produce only
one sort of Fruit, but by being grafted upon others, may yield vari-
ety." "A mutual commerce," he concludes, "makes Poetry flourish;
but then Poets like Merchants, shou'd repay with something of their
448
own what they take from others; not like Pyrates, make prize of all
they meet."'o Pope's private manifesto represents the common atti-
tude that the act of imitation must be carried out with integrity, that
it should be neither servile nor pedantic.
The theory of transformative imitation simultaneously thrived in
the visual arts, and was especially well represented in English treatises
on painting. Writing in 1719, Jonathan Richardson stressed the im-
portance of imitation to painters, stating that although a painting may
take its subject matter from another artwork, even one by another
artist, that painting is to be considered original so long as the artist has
applied his own invention to the new work, and has not strictly copied
the model. Likewise, Joshua Reynolds, Richardson's most famous dis-
ciple, wrote that, "It is vain for painters or poets to endeavor to invent
without materials on which the mind may work, and from which
invention must originate. Nothing can come of nothing."" For Rey-
9 Other ancient authors of treatises on language discussing transformative imita-
tion include Longinus, Quintilian, Cicero, and in particular Horace, who served as
the principal oracle and the most important classical source for seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century theories and practices of imitation. The term "transformative imi-
tation" is borrowed from G. W. Pigman III, "Versions of Imitation in the Renaissance,"
Renaissance Quarterly XXXIII (198o), passim.
10 Alexander Pope, Letter to William Walsh, 2 July 17o6, in The Correspondence of
Alexander Pope, ed. George Sherburn, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1956), I, 19-20.
1" Joshua Reynolds, "Discourse VI," in Discourses, ed. Pat Rogers (London, 1992),
158. The phrase "Nothing can come of nothing" is proverbial: ex nihilo nihil fit.
WINEMILLER
nolds and Richardson, the use of existing material provided the basis
for sound, original composition.
The third sister art, music, shared with poetry and painting the
theory and practice of transformative imitation in the eighteenth cen-
tury. Johann Mattheson, for example, specifically counsels the use of
borrowed material under certain conditions reminiscent of those stip-
ulated by classical and neoclassical literary critics and artists. Matthe-
son writes in a familiar passage from Der volkommene Capellmeister
(1739) that "Borrowing is permissible; but one must return the thing
borrowed with interest, i.e., one must so construct and develop imi-
tations that they are prettier and better than the pieces from which
they are derived."12 Mattheson's banking metaphor recalls Pope's
very similar words on the same subject. Clearly, for Mattheson, as for
many contemporary theorists of poetry and painting, transformative
imitation served as an important impetus for invention--though it is
also patently clear that Mattheson commodifies borrowed material in
a way that situates him somewhere between Swift and Young.
This brief sampling of the wide support for the theory of trans-
formative imitation is not meant to gloss over the opposition to imi-
449
tation and borrowing, such as that represented in Swift's spider. In-
deed, some of Handel's colleagues--Charles Jennens, for example-
strenuously objected to it, 13 and various German pedagogical manuals
of the early eighteenth century sternly warned pupils away from
the pitfalls of uncritical copying.'4 Still, it is important to debunk the
notion that the spider's view was the predominant one, let alone the
only one, for Handel composed in the ferment of a major shift in
the ideological and aesthetic understanding of cultural production-
during the emergence of the concept of intellectual property. The
war of words over the nature of creativity was spirited, but for much
of the eighteenth century, conflicting ideas uneasily coexisted. Only
gradually, and in large part through the agency of the courts, did the
spider and its sympathizers claim a legal victory.
In the world of Swift's bee, the fact that Handel
borrowed should hardly draw attention on its own. What is notewor-
thy, however, is that Handel's borrowing exemplifies the process of
12 Johann Mattheson, Der volkommene Capellmeister, trans. Ernest Harriss (Ann
Arbor, 1981), 298.
'3 For one reading of Jennens's reaction to Handel's borrowing, see John H.
Roberts, "Handel and Charles Jennens's Italian Opera Manuscripts," in Music and
Theatre: Essays in Honour of Winton Dean, ed. Nigel Fortune (Cambridge, 1987), 159-
202.
14 It is important to remember that German admonitions against borrowing fre-
quently were found in pedagogical manuals-not in treatises on aesthetics. The two
are, of course, very different in nature and purpose.
transformative imitation. This is demonstrated by the pervasiveness
and intricacy of Handel's use of borrowings: his usual practice was to
incorporate sections of preexistent material but then to rework that
material in a number of ways. Only rarely did he copy whole pieces or
lengthy passages without significant alteration-and even then, such
literal reuse can be distinguished from its source by its new context
and its new text. The dynamic of Handel's practice shows that bor-
rowed material (from whatever source) functioned not only as con-
venient subject matter, but more importantly as models for new com-
positions, as fuel for his invention. In short, the evidence of Handel's
borrowing demonstrates that transformative imitation played a fun-
damental role in his compositional process. At the same time, this
evidence confirms the neoclassical aesthetic belief that borrowing
which involved transformation was not a sterile or servile act, but in
fact a vibrant, creative one.
The kinship between musical borrowing and imitative practice in
the sister arts underlies the achievement of Handel's Acis and Galatea.
In both text and music, this masque demonstrates vividly and bril-
liantly how artists of the early eighteenth century transformed exist-
450
ing material into new works.
The libretto for Acis and Galatea, written in 1718 for the private
pleasure of the Duke of Chandos, brings together the creative efforts
of several important early eighteenth-century writers, including Al-
exander Pope, John Hughes, and principally John Gay. Although the
attribution to Gay is somewhat tentative, the important fact about
the libretto for the present purpose is that the literary texture of Acis
and Galatea reflects the practice of transformative imitation, and
the distinctive effects derived from it. On a larger scale, the plot of the
masque derives from, but transforms, the myth of the young lovers,
making it appropriate for dramatic presentation. On a smaller scale,
individual numbers of the libretto draw inspiration from a variety of
textual sources for images and expression crafted specifically for the
drama.
The essential plot of the masque comes from Ovid's Metamorpho-
ses, where in decidedly dark and violent terms Galatea tells how Poly-
phemus stalked her and killed her lover Acis, who is largely ancillary
to the action of the story. John Dryden's translation of Ovid, pub-
lished in London in 1717, provides the immediate literary source
for the libretto.'5 Yet the libretto is a new and substantially different
'5 John Dryden, "The Story of Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea, from the thir-
teenth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses," in Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated into English verse
under the direction of Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison,
William Congreve, and other eminent hands, ed. Samuel Garth (London, 1717; reprint,
New York, 1961), 444-53-
WINEMILLER
drama: not only is the plot transformed in general, but also many of
the individual components use various textual sources (including Dry-
den) as models for new verse. While the connection to Ovid and
Dryden is manifest, the independence of the libretto is firmly estab-
lished.
For example, the masque significantly alters the tone of Galatea's
narrative, rendering a much less horrific drama. The basic circum-
stances remain, but the emphasis shifts perceptibly away from Poly-
phemus and towards the lovers through the expansion of the role of
Acis and the curtailment of that of Polyphemus. Two additional char-
acters, Damon and Coridon, join the cast to serve as confidants, and
a chorus of nymphs and swains is added to offer narration and con-
solation. Galatea, however, remains the central figure of the story,
though she no longer acts as narrator.
In the individual numbers of the masque, Gay availed himself of
various literary sources to provide phrases and images found in cer-
tain recitatives, arias, and ensembles. (Table 1 draws together the
known textual borrowings in Acis.) Like Handel's treatment of exist-
ing musical material, Gay's treatment of borrowed texts varies, rang-
451
ing from quotation to transformation of phrases. One of the five
borrowings from Dryden, for example, involves an almost word-
for-word quotation. Two internal lines of Polyphemus's accompanied
recitative "I rage, I melt, I burn!" are close variants of lines 58-59
from Dryden's translation:
"The Story of Acis, Polyphemus, Acis and Galatea
and Galatea"
A hundred reeds of a prodigious Bring me a hundred reeds of decent
growth growth,
Scarce made a pipe, proportion'd To make a pipe for my capacious
to his mouth mouth
Despite the closeness of the borrowing, these lines are isolated from
their original context, and the lines surrounding them in each text
show no relation. The slight changes that were made effect a shift in
voice, from the passive third person to the authoritative first person.
Moreover, to accommodate the command "Bring me" in the five-beat
line, the word "prodigious" is replaced with "decent."
The other borrowings from Dryden involve more extensive in-
vention based on the source text. In Galatea's aria "Heart, the seat of
soft delight," for example, the image ofAcis's purple blood dissipating
in the water comes straight out of the parallel moment in Dryden's
translation (11. 216-17 and 222-23), as does the emergence of a foun-
tain from out of the rock that crushed Acis:
TABLE 1
Textual borrowings in Acis and Galatea (1718).
Text with borrowing Sources of borrowed material
5. Where shall I find Addison, Rosamond
6a. Lo! here my love! Pope, "On a Fan"
7. Love in her Eyes sits Cowley, "The Change"
playing Pope, "On a Fan"
9. Happy, happy, happy Hughes, "How happy are we," Apollo and Daphne
we
io. Wretched Lovers Pope, "The Iliad of Homer," 13:27-33
11. I rage, I melt Dryden, "The Story of Acis, Polyphemus, and
Galatea," 58-59
12a. Whither, Fairest Dryden, "Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea," 103-11
13. Cease to beauty Creech, "Translation of Theocritus," 41
Hughes, "Cease to Soothe," Apollo and Daphne
14. Would thou gain the Hughes, "Fair blooming Creature!" Apollo and
tender creature Daphne
17. The flocks shall leave Pope, "Autumn," 40-46.
the mountains Virgil Eclogues 5:45-7.
452
18. Help, Galatea Dryden, "Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea," 206-7
20. Must I my Acis still Dryden, "Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea," 212-15
bemoan
21. Heart, the Seat of Dryden, "Acis, Polyphemus, and Galatea," 216-17
soft Delight and 222-3
Note: The numbers in the left column correspond to the Hallische Hiindel-
Ausgabe edition.
Sources: Dramatic Works of John Gay, ed. John Fuller, 2 vols. (Oxford,
1983), I, 450-55, and Brian Trowell, "Acis, Galatea, and Polyphemus: a
'serenata a tre voci'?" in Music and Theatre: Essays in Honour of Winton Dean, ed.
Nigel Fortune (Cambridge, 1987), 31-93-
"The Story of Acis, Polyphemus, Acis and Galatea
and Galatea"
Heart, the seat of soft delight,
Be thou now a fountain bright!
Straight issu'd from the stone Purple be no more thy blood,
a stream of blood;
Which lost the purple, mingling Glide thou like a crystal flood.
with the flood, ...
The rock, from out of its hollow Rock, thy hollow womb disclose!
womb, disclos'd
A sound like water in its course The bubbling fountain, lo! it flows;
oppos'd ... Through the plains he joys to rove,
Murm'ring still his gentle love.
WINEMILLER
Dryden's descriptive images lie at the heart of this moment of cathar-
sis that the masque treats as a personal and highly effective soliloquy,
in which Acis's transfiguration is acted out, not recalled. Thus, an
empowered Galatea speaks directly to Acis's spirit, commanding him
to "be" a clear fountain and "glide" like a flood. Moreover, the aria is,
typically, in seven-syllable verse, requiring Galatea to be more concise
in her speech than she was in her narration. The result is a text with
an entirely different effect than that of Dryden's translation. Al-
though both describe the same event in similar terms, their means of
communication are distinct.
The masque also draws on textual sources unrelated to the myth
of Acis and Galatea. The process of incorporating existing ideas is the
same in these instances, though here borrowed images provide the
basis for new and different invention. Using such verse as "material
on which the mind may work," the librettist is able to create new texts
for scenes implied, but not actually depicted in the myth.
For example, the images conveyed by Acis and Galatea in the
"The Flocks shall leave the Mountains" derive from Pope's pastoral
"Autumn," which is a poetic dialogue between the shepherds Hylas
453
and AEgon:'6
"Autumn" Acis and Galatea
Go gentle Gales, and bear my The Flocks shall leave the Mountains,
Sighes along!
The Birds shall cease to tune their The Woods the Turtle-Dove,
Ev'ning Song,
The Winds to breathe, the saving The Nymphs forsake the Fountains,
Woods to move,
And Streams to murmur, e'er I Ere I forsake my Love.
cease to love.
Not bubbling Fountains to the Not Showers to Larks so pleasing,
thirsty Swain,
Not balmy Sleep to Lab'rers faint Nor Sunshine to the Bee,
with Pain,
Not Show'rs to Larks, or Sunshine Not Sleep to Toil so easing
to the Bee,
Are half so charming as thy Sight As these dear Smiles to me.
to me.
'6 Alexander Pope, "Autumn. The Third Pastoral, or Hylas and Egon," 39-46,
in The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt, Vol. i, Pastoral Poetry and an Essay on
Criticism, ed. E. Audra and Aubrey Williams (New Haven, 1961), 83. Pope's "Autumn"
itself borrows the proportional simile from Virgil Eclogue V: "Tale tuum carmen nobis,
divine poeta,/quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per aestum/dulcis aquae saliente sitim
restinguere rivo" (Your song, O divine poet, is to me such as sleep upon the grass is to
tired-ones, as to-slake-thirst from a leaping brook of sweet water is during the summer
heat.).
In adapting the verse borrowed from "Autumn," the librettist re-
sponds to the dramatic context of the masque. Each text opens with
the linkage of unthinkable ideas, but those used in "The Flocks shall
leave" are made particularly appropriate to an idealized pastoral.
Thus, the comparison of inconceivable situations set up in "Autumn"
-that it is as unlikely for Hylas to abandon his companion Thyris,
about whom he is speaking, as it is for diurnal activity to cease-is
mirrored in Acis and Galatea's duet, where the end of the lovers'
romance is as unthinkable as the departure of sheep, doves, and
nymphs from their habitual environs. Moreover, the formulaic pre-
sentation of the ideas is itself borrowed, with the sequence flocks/
woods/nymphs echoing the phrase repetitions of the source-birds/
winds/streams. The expression, however, is tightened: the formal
structure of "Autumn," with its five-beat, heroic couplets of rhyme
scheme aabb, is abandoned in favor of a more fluid, three-beat line
that alternates "masculine" and "feminine" rhymes7--subtly ap-
propriate for Acis and Galatea, though perhaps not for Hylas and
Thyris. 1
The libretto of Acis and Galatea is abundantly enriched with bor-
454
rowed material, some derived from Dryden's translation, and some
from other poems. This material is consistently integrated into new
contexts, and developed differently than its source. Lines of text from
the various sources are transformed either explicitly or by their new
context. The textual borrowing in Acis and Galatea thus illustrates the
dynamics of a common compositional strategy of the early eighteenth
century.
Handel's score, like the libretto, contains a signifi-
cant number of borrowings, which are identified in Table 2. Handel
treats these borrowings in diverse and innovative fashion. At one
end of the continuum of his borrowing methods stands the chorus
"Mourn all ye Muses," which is essentially an expansion of the "Trio
of Believers" ("O Donnerwort! O schrecklich Schreien") from Han-
del's own Brockes Passion (1716). At the other end of the borrowing
continuum is the ritornello of Polyphemus's aria "Cease to Beauty,"
which incorporates a short musical figure that Handel had previously
used several times.
Two particularly telling examples are Polyphemus's aria "O rud-
dier than the cherry" and Galatea's aria with choral accompaniment
17 Masculine and feminine rhymes, so-identified, were used in English poetry
since the early seventeenth century, lending credence to their symbolic usage here.
I8 Thyris's gender, occupation, and name metamorphosed into the nymph Delia
in the 1736 edition of Pope's poems.
WINEMILLER
TABLE 2
Musical borrowings in Acis and Galatea (1718).
Piece with borrowing Sources of borrowed material
2. Oh the pleasure of Handel, Amadigi, "Crudel, tu non farai"
the plains
4. Hush ye pretty Keiser, Octavia, "Wallet nicht zu laut"
warbling choir Handel, Corfedele, "Va' col canto"
Handel, Aci Galatea e Polifemo, "S'agita in mezzo"
8. As when the dove Handel, Corfedele, "Amo Tirsi ed a Fileno"
9. Happy we Handel, Suite in FO-minor, "Gigue"
10o. Wretched Lovers Keiser, Caro autor di mia doglia, "Da gl'amori
flagellata"*
12. O ruddier than Keiser, Janus, "Wann ich dich noch einst erblicke"
the cherry
13. Cease to beauty Handel, Almira, "Move i passi alle ruine"
Handel, Sarei troppo felice, "Giusto ciel se non ho
sorte"
Handel, Coelestis dum spirat aura, "Alleluja"
Handel, "Tanti strali al sen mi scocchi"
455
Handel, Agrippina, "lo di Roma"
17. The flocks shall Handel, Teseo, "M'adora l'idol mio"
leave the mountains
19. Mourn all ye Muses Handel, Brockes Passion, "O Donnerwort! O
schrecklich Schreien!"
20. Must I my Acis still Keiser, La forza della virtuh, "Mit einem sch6nen
bemoan Ende"
Handel, Teseo, "Quanto che a me sian care"
21. Heart, the seat of Keiser, Arsinoe, "Fonte, che stilli"
soft delight
22. Galatea, Dry your Handel, Agrippina, "Lieto il Tebro"
tears
Note: The numbers in the left column correspond to the Hallische Hdndel-
Ausgabe edition.
Sources: Winton Dean, Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (Oxford,
1959, 1988), 641; John H. Roberts, ed., Handel Sources: Material for the Study
of Handel's Borrowing (New York, 1986-88), I, xix and II, xv; Roberts, "Han-
del's Borrowings from Keiser," Gdttinger Hdndel-Beitrage II (1986), 51-76;
Trowell, "Acis, Galatea, and Polyphemus"; Roberts, "Handel and Keiser at
the Hamburg Opera," Handel Jahrbuch (1990), 63-87; and, Bernd Baselt,
Handel-Handbuch, 5 vols. (Kassel, 1978-1986), II, 77.
*The chamber duet "Caro autor," frequently attributed to Handel and
even printed in the Hdndel Gesellschaft, has been convincingly shown to be the
work of Keiser by Roberts ("Borrowings from Keiser," 56).
"Must I my Acis still bemoan." The aria "O ruddier than the cherry"
illustrates how Handel quotes a musical idea-in this case a bass
figure-but then develops it in a manner completely different from its
original context, using it instead as the basis for his melodic invention.
Thus reconceived, the borrowed idea is thoroughly assimilated into
the fabric of the new piece.
The source of this borrowing is the aria "Wann ich dich noch einst
erblicke" from Reinhard Keiser's Janus (Hamburg, 1698; libretto by
Christian Heinrich Postel). "Wann ich dich" appears in the opera at
the point when the heroine Agrippina has just been told by her cap-
tors that she may see her lover Tiberius one last time, but may not talk
to him. She has been told (falsely) that he has forsaken her, and plans
to marry another woman. Her text speaks of the heartache of impos-
sible love:
Wann ich dich noch einst erblicke When I set eyes on you once again
Sag ich tausend gute Nacht. I'll say a thousand good-nights.
Mtissen gleich die Lippen schweigen Although my lips must keep silent,
Sollen meine Seuffzer zeigen Lest my sighs show,
Die ich schicte I'll send those sighs
456
Was mein redend Herze macht. that my talking heart makes.
Wann ich dich &c. When I set eyes &c.
"Wann ich dich" is a sparse, pathos-filled continuo aria in conven-
tional da capo form. Undergirding the aria is a repeating, angular
bass figure that Keiser uses like an ostinato. Contrasting with the
constant pulsation of the bass is a long-breathed vocal line. Keiser's
conception of the aria is simple, yet effective. The juxtaposition of the
repetitious bass line and the lyrical vocal part mirrors the dramatic
tension of the scene. Measures 1-8 are transcribed in Example 1.19
Handel borrows the central musical idea from Keiser's aria, but
uses it for a very different musical and dramatic effect in "O ruddier
than the cherry."2o Although both arias are serenades of sorts, Poly-
phemus's sings a singularly inept and unwelcome paean to Galatea:
'9 Transcribed from the facsimile of Mus. ms. 11 481 in Musikabteilung, Staats-
bibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, reproduced in Roberts, Handel Sources, I,
278-79-
o20 Roberts, Handel Sources, I, xix, says that Handel also borrowed the bass figure
for use in the aria "Ve lo dissi," from the cantata "Occhi miei che faceste?" In this case,
however, the resemblance is largely one of effect. The characteristic jaggedness of the
Keiser figure is absent from "Ve lo dissi" until the cadential gesture, which in any event
has a noticeably different contour. The harmonic motion, though, is similar.
WINEMILLER
EXAMPLE 1. Keiser, Janus, "Wann ich dich noch einst erblicke, mm.
1-8.
3 Agrippina
Wann ich dich noch
457
einst er - bli - cke
Wann ich dich noch einst Er - bli - cke
verse 1 verse 2
O ruddier than the cherry, Ripe as the melting cluster,
O sweeter than the berry, No lily has such lustre;
O nymph more bright Yet hard to tame
Than moon shine night, As raging flame,
Like kidlings blithe and merry! And fierce as storms that bluster!
Instead of giving Polyphemus a melody more stereotypically appro-
priate for a proper suitor, Handel has him sing an instrumental line
that is based on Keiser's bass figure. Handel thus significantly alters
and expands the original musical function of the borrowed material.
He transposes it down a step and quotes it in both the continuo group
and Polyphemus's part. After the first two lines of text, he uses the
angular and repetitious character of Keiser's figure as a loose model
for the lower voices throughout the rest of the aria.
Handel's placement of the figure in musical space completely con-
trasts with Keiser's. Whereas Keiser uses it to underlie Agrippina's
gentle, poignant cantilena, Handel surrounds it with raucously dif-
ferent music. He adds a lively obbligato duet for the "flauto piccolo"
(i.e., sopranino recorder)?2 and first violin that speeds along above the
bass line, and he further fattens the texture by adding a second violin
part that sometimes doubles the voice and other times plays in coun-
terpoint to the upper instruments. The beginning of Handel's aria is
reproduced in Example 2.22
Handel's transformation of the borrowed material wittily sup-
ports the comic effect of Polyphemus's aria. The repetitious nature
458
of Polyphemus's vocal line, with its incessant leaps and runs, mimics
his conceited and rapacious swagger. In this regard, the instrumental
nature of the Keiser material works well to portray the ceaseless,
clumsy bluster of the giant, as does the simplistic syllabic setting of the
aria, which has only two melismas (on the words "merry" and "blus-
ter"). Likewise, the use of the smallest and highest-pitched wind in-
strument, immediately after Polyphemus calls for "a hundred reeds
of decent growth to make a pipe for my capacious mouth" in his
preceding recitative, is simply humorous. Equally absurd is the con-
trast between the "flauto piccolo" and Polyphemus's bass voice. The
cumulative effect of Handel's recontextualization of borrowed mate-
rial creates one of his most memorable characters, a parody of Ovid's
behemoth.
If the example of "O ruddier than the cherry" demonstrates
Handel's recontextualization of a musical quotation, then the example
of "Must I my Acis still bemoan" will illustrate his transformation of
distinct motives. This example actually involves three arias, one by
Keiser ("Mit einem schonen Ende") and two by Handel ("Quanto
21 In six copies deriving from the 1718 conducting score, either "Flauto octavo"
or "Flauto picc(i)olo octavo" is specified. For Handel this normally means the sopranino
recorder, but could also refer to a flageolet. See Dean, Oratorios, 77, and Trowell, "Acis,
Galatea, and Polyphemus," 36.
22 Reproduced from Wolfram Windszus's critical edition in the Hallische Heindel-
Ausgabe, i/9: 74-75-
WINEMILLER
EXAMPLE 2. Handel, Acis and Galatea, "O ruddier than the cherry,"
mm. 1-9.
Allegro ,-,
Flauto
Violino I
Oh, ro - sig wie die Pfirs'-che, oh, si -fierals die
Bassi
(Violoncello, -i
Contrabasso,
459
CembaloloIII
Bassi J In. ,J--J -
ber - ry, 0 rud-dier than the cher - ry, 0 sweet-er than the
Kir-sche, oh, ro - sig wie die Pfirs'-che, oh, sii -fier als die
EXAMPLE 2. (continued)
ber - ry, O nymph more bright than moon-shine night, like kid-lings blithe and
Kir-sche, o Nym - phe, klar wie Mond-schein-nacht,flink wie die schlan-ken
460
fp
fp
fP
merry,
Hir-sche, o
fp
WINEMILLER
ir e I
nymph more bright than moon - shine night, like
Nym - phe, klar wie Mond-schein - nacht, flink
461
che a me sian care" and "Must I my Acis"). Both of the Handel arias
borrow from the Keiser aria. In each case, the arias concern love,
undeserved suffering, undying virtue, and transfiguration. The sce-
narios are different, but the themes are similar.
The Keiser aria "Mit einem sch6nen Ende" from La forza della
virtui (Hamburg, 1700; libretto by Friedrich Christian, after Domenico
David), is sung by the character Clotilde, a falsely-imprisoned French
princess, who sings that her virtue will vindicate her in the end:
Mit einem sch6nen Ende With a beautiful conclusion
Sol sich mein Leben schlieBen. I ought to end my life.
In meinem Untergehen In my ruin
sol man die Tugend sehen one would have to see the virtue
Die mir durch Ungltick auch nicht which was not also taken away
wird entrissen. from me by misfortune.
(da capo) (da capo)
The first of the two Handel arias is "Quanto che nA me sian care,"
which is sung in Handel's Teseo (x1713) when the hero, Theseus, learns
that his beloved is unhappily the object of his king's desire:
Quanto che a me sian Care Let the god of love tell
Le Luci del mio bene, how dear to me are
Lo dica il Dio d'Amor; the eyes of my beloved;
In Lor lo sguardo amante Their loving glance
Di foco sol si pasce; feeds only on fire
E l'anima rinasce and the soul is reborn
Fenice a quell' Ardor. like a phoenix in that flame.
(da capo) (da capo)
The other Handel aria of concern here is "Must I my Acis," which is
sung by Galatea in her grief following Acis's death at the hands of
Polyphemus. A chorus accompanies her:
Galatea Chorus (continuing)
Must I my Acis still bemoan, Call forth thy pow'r, employ thy art.
Inglorious crush'd beneath that The goddess soon can heal thy smart.
stone? Galatea
Chorus Say, what comfort can you find?
Cease, Galatea, cease to grieve! For dark despair o'er clouds my mind.
Bewail not whom thou canst relieve. Chorus
Galatea To kindred gods the youth return,
Must the lovely charming youth Through verdant plains to roll his urn.
462
Die for his constancy and truth?
Chorus
Cease, Galatea, cease to grieve!
Bewail not whom thou canst relieve.
As the source of material used in the two Handel arias, Keiser's
short da capo aria "Mit einem sche6nen Ende" contains three musical
ideas, referred to here as a, b, and c, that are of interest. Motive a,
which is used at the opening of the aria, may be seen on the top system
of Example 3. Motive b, which accompanies the second line of text, is
given on the top system of Example 4. Musical idea c is simply a
prominent gesture--a quick succession of two temporary tonicizations
-that stands out in the second half of the aria's A section; it is shown
in the first system of Example 5.
Handel first worked with Keiser's material in the Teseo aria
"Quanto che 'a me sian care," where the outlines of Keiser's motives
a and b can be heard accompanying the first and third lines of the
opening tercet. Here, however, Handel does not directly quote from
his source. Rather, he recasts the borrowed material, conceiving it in
a completely different manner. He changes the meter from common
time duple to 12 compound duple, replacing Keiser's foursquare
rhythm with an iambic pattern.23 Despite its rhythmic modification,
23 This is typical of Handel's practice of metric reorganization. See C. Steven
LaRue, "Metric Reorganization as an Aspect of Handel's Compositional Process," Jour-
nal of Musicology VIII (1990), 477-90.
WINEMILLER
motive a retains its exact melodic contour. The character of the mo-
tive, however, is considerably altered when the first note is used as an
upbeat. [See the second system of Example 3-.]
Motive b undergoes more substantial change: Handel retains its
skeletal shape, but eliminates the long notes and the written-out or-
namentation of the original. Instead, he installs a refined sequence
that provides greater momentum for the modulation it effects.24 [See
the second system of Example 4.25]
While Handel imitated Keiser's motives in creating a simple aria
for Teseo, he transformed the same borrowed ideas to the opposite
effect in "Must I my Acis still bemoan," an aria which is much longer
and more fully textured. Again, Handel's invention involved trans-
formation, not servile copying. This may be seen by comparing "Must
I my Acis" with its two models. The basic melodic contour of both the
ritornello and the vocal line derives from Keiser's motives a, b, and c,
while the triple meter of the aria comes from "Quanto che "a me sian
care." But the new aria is rhythmically independent of either source:
it is neither foursquare nor hurried, but is instead more expansive
and relaxed. The first phrase of the ritornello, for example, has the
463
same shape as Keiser's motive a, but achieves greater breadth through
its variety of note lengths. [See the second system of Example 3.]
Motive a is further varied when Galatea sings her first line of text.
Since she has eight syllables to sing, whereas the motive in the ritor-
nello (as in the two models) has but seven notes, an extra note must be
squeezed in. This Handel does by adding a note on the penultimate
pitch. Then, in order to even out the spacing of the newly expanded
phrase, Handel changes its rhythm. Shortening the fourth note by a
beat, and shifting the fifth and sixth notes back by the same amount,
Handel gives the middle of the vocal phrase an iambic feel that the
ritornello phrase does not have. The alteration is simple, yet signifi-
cantly transforms the motive. [See the third system of Example 3.]
The second phrase of the ritornello imitates the modulatory func-
tion of Keiser's motive b, as it appears in the Teseo aria, but extends the
final cadence through an elegant series of escape notes that ornament
24 The modulation is from F major to C major. Moreover, by altering the essential
linear ascent-from C-D-G in "Mit einem schinen Ende" (cf. Example 4, system 1,
measures 6-8) to C-D-F in "Quanto che a me" (cf. Example 4, system 2, measures
5-6)-Handel underscores the modulation by landing prominently on the seventh
degree (F) of the dominant-seventh of the new key (C).
25 On a larger level, Handel transforms the phrase structure of his model by
interpolating a new phrase between motives a and b in "Quanto che a me." The new
phrase acts as a consequent to motive a, and provides a melody for the second line of
text.
EXAMPLE 3. Comparison of Motive a.
Keiser, "Mit einem schonen Ende"
Oboe a oV I
Clotilde
Mit ein-em Sch6n-en En - de
BC
Handel, "Quanto che a me sian care"
464
Handel, "Must I my Acis still bemoan"
Adagio
Ooet I my'A s t
Bassi
24
Oboe
Bassi
EXAMPLE 4. Comparison of Motive b.
Keiser, "Mit einem schonen Ende"
Oboe.,.
Clotilde
will ich mein Le ben schlie - Ben
1 -ON
ON
Handel, "Quanto che a me sian care"
Teseo O
lo di-ca'il Dio d'a - mor lo di - ca il dio d'a-mor
Bassi ,all1w
30
Oboe
Bassi .1"'
ON
EXAMPLE 5. Comparison of Motive c.
Keiser, "Mit einem sch6nen Ende"
11
Oboe
Clotilde -- ' '
Mit ei - nem sch6 - nen En - de
Bc .
V7/B B6 V7/C C
13
Oboe . . I
Bc olp
468
V7/g- g V7/F - F
the linear cadential descent from F to C [see Example 4, system 3,
measures 10-13]. 26
Finally, the temporary tonicizations of Keiser's gesture c provide
the essential idea for the third phrase of the aria's ritornello. Har-
monically, the two phrases are functionally similar, although in the
Handel aria the V7-I progressions tonicize first G minor then F ma-
jor. Melodically, Keiser highlights the progressions with a call and
response-a leap in the vocal part, followed by one in the oboe part.
Handel confines the melody to one line, but stretches it out, accentu-
ating each progression by elaborately resolving the seventh of each
dominant chord via an upward leap followed by a fall to the third
degree of the chord of resolution. Handel's treatment of the har-
monic gesture differs markedly from that of Keiser's model, reflect-
ing their very different conceptions of the musical space in which the
26 Galatea's version of motive b [see Example 4, system 4] differs slightly from that
of the ritornello in several respects. First, the third beat of measure 30 is altered, so that
the initial three measures of the phrase form a continuous downward line. Second, the
tied notes leading into the downward arpeggios [see for instance Example 4, system 3,
measures 5-6] are broken to allow for an extra syllable to be sung. Third, the orna-
mentation of the linear cadential descent is varied by one note at measure 36. Fourth,
the bass line is altered.
WINEMILLER
material is used. Where Keiser chose to be concise, Handel chooses to
stretch his melody out. [Compare the second system of Example 5 to
the first.]
The existence of both musical and textual borrow-
ings in Acis and Galatea is well known, and some authors have previ-
ously singled out various of these occurrences for discussion.27 But
the fundamental significance of this parallel practice, as a whole, has
been underestimated in the past. As my brief analysis shows, both the
mechanics and aesthetic impulse of Handel's practice closely relates to
that of the libretto, and by extension to contemporary literary practice
in general. In each case, existing ideas are integrated into the fabric of
a new composition in a process involving reconception, alteration, and
recontextualization. In Acis and Galatea, poet and composer can be
seen treating borrowings as raw material out of which new structure
and meaning could be crafted. Indeed, the evidence presented here
shows that in Acis and Galatea borrowed material is used as fuel for
invention, but not as a wholesale surrogate for it.
Today, when the ideas of the author and the work have been the
469
subject of much theoretical examination, we are intellectually well-
equipped to revisit Handel's status as a composer who regularly in-
corporated existing materials into his work. Building on the history of
dynamic change in conceptions of creativity, originality, and author-
ship, I would like to turn the "problem" of Handel's borrowing on its
head, considering instead how borrowing represents a classical and,
in particular, neoclassical compositional "solution." By relating Han-
del's practice to contemporary imitative procedures used widely in
music's sister arts, we can move the issue beyond our modern belief
that borrowing categorically represents trespass, back to a time when
the ideas of authorship and intellectual property were less clear and
less meaningful, and when the use of existing material was the clas-
sically sanctioned--indeed, mandated--avenue toward the creation
of the best works of art.
In the world inhabited not only by Swift's bee, but also by Handel,
Pope, Reynolds, and numerous other leading creative figures of
the eighteenth century, the limits of authorship were being tested, but
they had not yet been constricted by either the courts or public sen-
timent. Handel composed during the ferment of a major shift in the
ideological and aesthetic understanding of cultural production, out of
27 For example, Roberts briefly discusses the Polyphemus aria and its source in
"Handel's Borrowings from Keiser," 59-6o, and Dean notes various textual and mu-
sical borrowings throughout the chapter on the masque in his Oratorios, 153-90.
which emerged the concept of intellectual property. A recontextual-
ization of Handel's borrowing, therefore, will simultaneously enrich
our understanding of that practice and illuminate our intellectual and
ideological reactions to that practice. Moreover, it will challenge our
very ideas about the nature of originality, creativity, and musical au-
thorship in the eighteenth century.
Knoxville, TN
470

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Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing

Author(s): John T. Winemiller

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This article concerns the intersection of Handel's

borrowing, eighteenth-century theories and practices of artistic imi-

tation, and the concepts of proprietary authorship and intellectual

property. The subject of borrowing, which for generations has pre-

occupied Handel studies, is at once intriguing and discomforting,

causing many to wonder why such a talented composer should have

needed or bothered to borrow so frequently from others, let alone

beliefs that borrowing is a somewhat suspect activity, and that Handel

would not have borrowed in a perfect world. The investigation of

Handel's borrowing is, after all, shaped as much by ideology as it is by

Indeed, the history of the reception of Handel's borrowing re-

veals a remarkable catalog of assumed motivations. For example, writ-

gested that Handel borrowed because of illness or because he was

morally derelict; that he borrowed in order to salvage imperfect mu-

perhaps more of a "great arranger" than a great composer; or, that

he borrowed for the sake of expediency, owing to insufficient com-

positional impetus (the failure of his "starter engine," in Winton

Dean's memorable formulation), or owing to a deeper poverty of

melodic invention. One early twentieth-century scholar, Percy Rob-

inson, even went so far as to deny Handel's borrowing altogether.

Handel's borrowing, it seems, needs to be justified, excused, or oth-

erwise explained-and sometimes explained away.

The persistence of the borrowing issue begs the question: Why

our fascination and preoccupation with Handel's borrowing? The

Volume XV * Number 4 * Fall 1997

The Journal of Musicology C 1997 by the Regents of the University of California

answer lies largely in the uncomfortable fact that Handel's composi-

tional practice of borrowing does not conform readily to the modern

Western model of proprietary authorship, and thus Handel does not

neatly fit the traditional image of the self-reliant composer. In fact,

although other composers of Handel's generation did borrow both

The proprietary author (to borrow the historian Mark Rose's

term) is the construction of an ideology that conceives of the author

as "the originator and therefore the owner of a special kind of com-

modity, the work.", This conception of authorship, gradually codified

into English, German, and French law beginning in the eighteenth

century, is grounded in the abstract Lockean concept of intellectual

property, which insists that ideas can be "owned" by individuals--that

property can be created out of mental (as opposed to manual) labor.

For Locke, the common stock may become a private possession

through an individual's appropriation and invention.

Following this reasoning, advocates of the ideology of possessive

individualism link the value of a cultural product to its individuality,

English jurist William Blackstone explains this connection in the sec-

ond volume of his Commentaries (1765-69): "the identity of a literary

composition consists entirely in the sentiment and the language"-

characteristic elements, he notes, that are produced by an author's

invention and labor.2 Hence a cultural product constitutes property--

in particular, intellectual property.3 Edward Young expresses this

aldson v. Becket and the Genealogy of Modern Authorship," Representations XXIII

and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the 'Author'," Eighteenth-Century Studies

XVII (1984), 425-28.

9 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-1769, facsimile

of copyright and intellectual property. The legal notion of copyright, simplistically

formulated, controlled who could reproduce "copy"-it protected authorized publish-

reproduction. Copyright law, of course, continues to be refined and expanded. In fact,

view in aesthetic terms (as opposed to Blackstone's legalistic terms) in

Conjectures on Original Composition (1759), arguing that a work is orig-

inal to the extent that it is individual.4 The liberal concepts of aesthetic

value and commodified value are predicated on concepts of original-

ity and individuality.