Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/295

 and scenery unpaid for. To compensate Handel for his losses, the opera was performed on 15 May for his benefit, 'with an entertainment for the harpsichord.' On 6 Feb. in this year his ode on Queen Anne's birthday had been performed, probably in St. James's Palace, and on 7 July the work known as the ' Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate' was performed at St. Paul's, at the celebration of the peace of that year. A contemporary account states 'the Church-Musick was excellent in its Performance, as it was exquisite in its Composure' (Post-Boy, No. 2834). The queen was too ill to be present, but the music was subsequently performed in her private chapel, and she conferred upon the composer an annuity of 200l. For some months Handel was the guest of a Mr. Andrews, both in London and at his country house at Barn Elms, Surrey. For the remainder of this visit to England he stayed with the Earl of Burlington at his splendid house in Piccadilly. It is probable that the opera 'Silla' was written for some private performance at Burlington House (, i. 414-15). A large portion of this work appears again, with alterations, in 'Amadigi,' produced at the King's Theatre on Wednesday, 25 May 1715 (Daily Courant). Nicolini reappeared in this new opera, which was burlesqued at Drury Lane by Gay, and also at Lincoln's Inn Fields. From a passage in Gay's 'Trivia' (bk. ii. v. 493) it appears that the composer's name was still spelt Hendel, though he usually, but not invariably, adopted the form in which Englishmen know it as early as 1713.

After the death of Queen Anne in 1714 the accession of the Elector of Hanover to the throne of Great Britain placed Handel in an awkward predicament. He had fallen into bad favour at the Hanoverian court, probably owing to his having outstayed his leave of absence, and also to his having taken a prominent part in celebrating the peace of Utrecht, an event which was not looked upon with enthusiasm by the protestant courts of Germany. In the summer of 1715 his new patron, the Earl of Burlington, and his old friend, Baron Kielmannsegge, arranged a plan by which Handel was to be restored to court favour. On 22 Aug. the royal family went by water from Whitehall to Limehouse. For this occasion Handel wrote a series of instrumental movements, which were played in a barge immediately following the king's. The result was that George I, delighted with the music, was easilypersuaded by Kielmannsegge to receive Handel at court. Geminiani aided the innocent plot by saying that no one but Handel could play the harpsichord part of some new concertos which he was to perform at the palace. The king gave Handel a further pension of 200l. a year, and a like sum was allotted to him as payment for the musical instruction of the young daughters of the Princess of Wales ; thus 600l. per annum was secured to him for life (, p. 90). Chrysander (ii. 382) is inclined to think that his pension never exceeded 200l., as no evidence can be found of further payments.

A second performance of the water music took place at Chelsea on 17 July 1717. In July 1716 Handel accompanied the court to Hanover, and visited Halle and Anspach. When at Halle he found that the widow of his old teacher, Zachau, was in want, and at once contributed towards her support. At Anspach he renewed his acquaintance with Johann Christoph Schmidt, who afterwards came with him to England as his treasurer and business manager. A second German. Passion was composed on this visit, or immediately afterwards. It was set to a poem by Brockes, which was also the basis of three other compositions by Keiser, Telemann, and Mattheson respectively. The fact that the court returned to England in January 1717, and that 'Rinaldo' and 'Amadigi' were revived during the operatic season of that year, makes it highly probable that Handel's visit to Germany was only of a few months' duration (, i. 456). In 1718 he succeeded Pepusch as director of the music at Canons, the magnificent country house of the Duke of Chandos, where a series of twelve anthems on the grandest scale was composed for the duke's chapel, now the parish church of Whitchurch, near Edgware. According to a paragraph in the 'Weekly Journal' (3 Sept. 1720), the chapel was opened for divine service for the first time on 29 Aug. 1720. Besides the anthems, two Te Deums were written during the three years that heheld this appointment, and he now found opportunity for the composition of his first English oratorio, 'Esther,' performed, according to Clark (Reminiscences of Handel, p. 11), on 29 Aug. 1720, as well as of his immortal pastoral, 'Acis and Galatea,' 1720 or 1721.

In February 1719 Handel, in a letter written to Mattheson in French, asserts (in reply to Mattheson's inquiry on the subject) the superiority of the more modern and less dogmatic methods of teaching over the old method of solmisation, of which Pepusch was an ardent advocate. In the latter part of the letter he excuses himself from furnishing Mattheson with materials for a biographical notice in the new edition of the 'Ehrenpforte.' In another letter, written