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 titia' for 1727 (A General List of Offices, &c., p. 59), to the effect that he was then composer to the Chapel Royal, is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the office was then held (op. cit. p. 194) by Dr. Croft and John Weldon. The title may have been given to Handel in respect of his Coronation anthems, a series of four works, or one composition in four divisions, performed at the coronation of George II, on 11 Oct. 1727. A set of minuets played at a court ball dates from the same year.

In the latter part of 1728 Handel went to Italy with Steffani in order to engage a company of singers to start a new operatic venture with Heidegger, proprietor of the King's Theatre. He visited Rome and Milan, and was at Venice on 11 March 1729. In Italy he procured less illustrious singers than those who had formerly sung for him, but in one of them, Signora Strada,he found a staunch and much needed friend. In June 1729 Handel went to his native town of Halle to see his mother, who had been seriously ill (she died 27 Dec. 1730). An attempt made by Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann to bring Handel and Bach, who was at Leipzig, together at Halle failed owing to Bach's ill-health and Handel's business engagements. On leaving Halle Handel went to Hamburg and Hanover ; at the former town he engaged the renowned bass singer Riemschneider (London Gazette, 21-4 June, 1729;, Neue Mitteilunyen, &c., xvii. 356).

The first season of the new undertaking at the King's Theatre lasted from 2 Dec. 1729 to 13 June 1730. On the first night Handel's 'Lotario' was performed, and his i Partenope' was produced on 24 Feb. For the next season Senesino was engaged at a fee of 1,400 guineas, many of Handel's most popular operas were revived, and a new one, 'Poro,' produced on 2 Feb. 1730-1. The hornpipe 'Son confusa pastorella' from this opera was given at a benefit of Rochetti the singer at Lincoln's Inn Fields on 26 March, when 'Acis and Galatea' was sung, probably with Handel's consent. The third season of the opera brought to a hearing two new operas, 'Ezio' (15 Jan. 1731-2) and 'Sosarme' (19 Feb.) Four days after the second production, on the composer's forty-seventh birthday, his 'Esther' was performed by the children of the Chapel Royal at the house of their master, Bernard Gates, in James Street, Westminster (cf., ii. 270). The part of 'Esther' was sung by John Randall, afterwards professor of music at Cambridge. In March 1732 a revival of Ben Jonson's 'Alchymist' took place at Drury Lane, for which Handel rearranged the 'overture to 'Roderigo' and other compositions of his own (Daily Post, 7 March 1732). An apparently unauthorised performance of 'Esther' took place, or at least was announced to take place (Daily Journal, 17, 19, and 20 April), on 20 April 1732, and this moved Handel to arrange a performance of the work at the King's Theatre, which was ' fitted up in a decent manner 'for the occasion. Several new numbers were added to the score in order to make it more attractive ; the result was brilliantly successful, and six repetitions were given. In the same year another act of piracy was committed by Arne, the lessee of the 'little theatre in the Hay market,' father of Dr. Arne, who on 17 May gave a performance of 'Acis and Galatea' the score of which had been published in a complete form two years before thereby forcing Handel to produce the work, again with additions, at his own theatre. The additions were taken from the Italian serenata of the year 1708, and were not even translated into English. In this performance, which took place on 10 June, the parts of Acis and Galatea were taken by Senesino and Signora Strada, and that of Polyphemus by Montagnana. Exactly a fortnight later a serenata by Buononcini was given at Handel's own theatre, in such obvious rivalry to his work that Strada refused to sing in it, and the long feud between the composers now reached its culminating point in the establishment by Buononcini and his friends of a rival opera at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, which Senesino was induced to join. The 'Opera of the Nobility,' as the rival institution was called, did not open its doors until December 1733. Before that date Senesino sang in Handel's 'Orlando' (produced 27 Jan. 1733), and Buononcini left the country owing to the discovery of the truth concerning the madrigal by Lotti, which he had attempted to pass off upon the Academy of Ancient Music as his own.

During Lent 1733, on 17 March, Handel's new oratorio, 'Deborah,' was given at the King's Theatre, for which the prices were raised. This called forth a number of attacks, including a scurrilous lampoon, which appeared in 'The Craftsman,' signed ' P[aol]o R[oll]i.' Chrysander has ingeniously endeavoured to show that this refers not to Handel, but to Walpole's excise bill, and that the musical names and incidents are to be understood as having a political meaning. Rolli, however, was one of the most prominent members of the rival company, and wrote most of their librettos, so that it is at least probable that the apparent object of the attack is the true one (cf., ii.