The Historical Context of Handel's Semele (1743) - John Andrews

386 Pages·2012·4.27 MB·English

The Historical Context of Handel's Semele

John K. Andrews
Queens’ College

This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
March, 2007

[Corrected version, October 2007]
Declarations and Statements:

This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the
outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the
text.

None of the material in this thesis has been submitted for any other qualification.

This thesis does not exceed the word limit of 80,000 words,
as stipulated by the Faculty of History.

A summary of the thesis is given on pages 4-5 of the introduction.
Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor, Tim Blanning, for all of
his guidance, advice, and support over the course of my research. I would also like to
thank Ruth Smith for her help in finalising the topic and for her support, both
emotional and practical, over the last four years. I have also received much advice
and support from colleagues working in closely related fields and in particular I
would like to thank Michael Burden, Andrew Thompson and Hannah Smith.

I would like to thank Sir Charles Mackerras for access to his collection of Handel
scores and his support early on in my research, Laurence Cummings and John La
Bouchardier for allowing me to observe rehearsals for the English National Opera
production of Semele in 2005, and the wonderful members of the Cannons Scholars
for allowing me to explore much of this music in performance.

I would also like to thank Colin Collinson, Nicholas Cranfield and Clare Arthurs for
their patient and thorough proofreading of the dissertation’s final drafts, the staff of
the British Library, the Cambridge University Library and the Staats-und
Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg for their efficient and expert assistance, my family
for their love, support and encouragement, and finally and most importantly I would
like to thank Susan for supporting me through the past four years in more ways than
are imaginable.

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Abbreviations

Congreve, CW: Congreve, W., The works of Mr. William Congreve; in three
volumes. Containing his plays and poems (London, 1710)

GHB: Göttinger Händel-Beiträge

EM: Early Music

HHB I: Baselt, B. (ed.), Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis:
Bühnenwerke (Händel-Handbuch, Band I, Leipzig, 1978)

HHB II: Baselt, B. (ed.), Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis:
Oratorische Werke, Vocale Kammermusik Kirchenmusik (Händel-
Handbuch, Band II, Leipzig, 1984)

HHB IV: Eisen, W. & Eisen, M. (eds), Dokumente zu Leben und Schaffen
(Händel Handbuch, Band IV, Leipzig, 1985)

HJB: Händel Jahrbuch

HWV: Verzeichnis der Werke Georg Friedrich Händel (as set out in HHB
I-III, ed. B. Baselt).

ML: Music and Letters

MQ: Musical Quarterly

MT: The Musical Times

New Grove Online: New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Online, ed. L. Macy
<http://www.grovemusic.com>

ODNB Online: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online, Oxford University
Press, 2004 <http://www.oxforddnb.com>

Every effort has been made to give quotations from Semele in full the first time they
are discussed. For subsequent citations of the same text, larger quotations are given
in the footnotes if essential, but otherwise the reference alone has been given. The
orthography of the sources has been retained without modernisation.
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The Plot of Semele

Dramatis Personae

Jupiter, king of the gods Juno, queen of the gods
Cadmus king of Thebes Iris, attendant on Juno
Athamas, a prince of Bœotia Semele, daughter to Cadmus
Somnus, god of sleep Ino, sister to Semele
Apollo

Chorus of priests and augurs
Chorus of loves and zephyrs
Chorus of nymphs and swains

Act One opens with the marriage of Semele to Athamas.1 Auspicious flames rising
from the altar indicate that Juno assents to the union. Semele, temporising, is urged
by Athamas and by her father, Cadmus, to go through with the ceremony. In an
aside, she reveals that she is in love with Jupiter and she prays to him either to rescue
her, or to reconcile her mind and heart to the marriage. Meanwhile, her sister Ino is
secretly in love with Athamas herself. As Cadmus, Athamas and Semele try to
persuade her to explain her unhappiness, the wedding is interrupted by Jupiter’s
thunder, lightning and rain. Juno rekindles the altar flame but Jupiter’s rain
extinguishes it. Another burst of thunder scatters the worshippers, leaving Ino and
Athamas. Athamas assumes that Ino’s tears are shed out of sympathy for him, which
prompts her to confess her love. Cadmus returns with the news that Semele has been

1 Congreve’s libretto was divided into three ‘Acts.’ Handel’s published word-book was divided into
three ‘Parts’ to reflect its oratorio style of performance. However, Handel called them ‘Acts’ in
his autograph and conducting score and no distinction has been made in the thesis between the
two terms when discussing Handel’s version.
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abducted by an eagle ‘of mighty size’. The priests congratulate Cadmus on becoming
son-in-law to the gods, and then celebrate the physical union of Semele and Jupiter
and their ‘Endless pleasure.’

Act Two opens where Ovid began his treatment of the Semele myth in the
Metamorphoses. Juno is doubly furious, having been thwarted over the wedding and
having discovered Jupiter’s affair with Semele. Iris reports that Semele is residing in
a newly-built palace guarded by dragons. Juno vows to visit Somnus, the god of
sleep, to get assistance with her revenge. Meanwhile Semele awakes, already
conscious of her mortal status while surrounded by ‘nymphs and graces’. Jupiter
perceives her desire to become immortal. Knowing that he could never grant this, he
brings Ino to the palace as company for Semele and then transforms the palace into
an Arcadian idyll where the two sisters can watch an entertainment of dancing.2

Act Three begins in the Cave of Sleep where Juno and Iris find Somnus. Juno
demands that he give her his magic rod whereby she will pacify the dragons guarding
Semele’s palace. She also instructs him to send Morpheus to give Jupiter an erotic
dream to make him susceptible to Semele’s demands when he awakes. Somnus is
persuaded by the promise of the nymph Pasithea. Having subdued the dragons, Juno
appears to Semele disguised as Ino. She pretends that Semele has taken on the
appearance of a goddess and gives her a mirror in which she sees herself deified.
Juno convinces her that the only way to become immortal is to persuade Jupiter to
make love to her in his divine, rather than human form. Juno also suggests (knowing
that Jupiter has been visited by Morpheus’ dream) that Semele should withhold sex
from him until he grants a ‘boon without a name’. Semele follows this advice to the
letter and Jupiter swears to grant her anything. Semele makes her demand and is
completely impervious to his attempts to dissuade her. Jupiter is distraught. Juno is
triumphant. Semele realises, too late, what she has demanded and is incinerated by

2 Handel extended Congreve’s pastoral idyll to give the two women a glimpse of the music of the
spheres, ending with an apotheosis of the power of music.
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Jupiter’s lightning bolts. Cadmus, Ino, and Athamas discover Semele’s destruction.
Ino announces that Jove has decreed that she and Athamas should marry. In a final
deus ex machina, Apollo descends and prophesies that Semele’s unborn son shall be
a god ‘more mighty than love’ – Bacchus, the god of wine and theatre. There follows
a final chorus in praise of the new-born god.
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Contents

Introduction........................................................................................................................1
The Sources............................................................................................................6
The Main Secondary works.................................................................................15
Chapter One: The Historical Context of Congreve and Eccles’ Semele..........................17
The Historical Context.........................................................................................19
The Sources for Congreve’s Libretto...................................................................38
Semele in the Context of English Political Theatre..............................................57
Congreve’s Semele Libretto.................................................................................89
Conclusions........................................................................................................110
Chapter Two: The Historical Context of Handel’s Semele............................................113
‘Sound and Sense,’ The Debate Continued........................................................116
The Political Context as reflected in the Georgian Theatres..............................124
The Politics of the Georgian Theatres................................................................151
The Moral Context.............................................................................................180
Conclusions........................................................................................................203
Chapter Three: Predecessors, Sources, and other inspiration for Handel’s Semele.......205
Previous Settings of Semele...............................................................................207
Borrowings.........................................................................................................232
Other Inspiration for Semele..............................................................................242
Conclusions........................................................................................................255
Chapter Four: The Development of Handel’s Libretto for Semele................................256
The Adaptation of Handel’s Libretto.................................................................258
The Impact of the Changes for Handel’s Semele...............................................272
Early performances of Semele............................................................................325
Conclusions........................................................................................................339
Conclusions....................................................................................................................341

Appendix One: Tabulation of sources for Handel’s Semele..........................................343
Appendix Two: Handel’s Original Tonal Structure for Semele.....................................344
Bibliography...................................................................................................................349

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The Historical Context of Handel's Semele
Introduction
Introduction

Handel wrote Semele in 1743 for inclusion in his 1744 season.1 It was based on a
libretto by William Congreve that was originally intended for a production at the
Queen’s Theatre, with music by John Eccles, at some point around 1705-6. This
production never happened, but the libretto was published in Congreve’s Complete
Works of 1710, and also in Dublin in 1736. It was adapted for Handel by an
unknown intermediary. Contemporary reports suggest that Semele was enjoyed by
Handel’s supporters but fell victim, at least in part, to a hostile campaign by a section
of the aristocracy. It was revived only once, that December, with several cuts and
five additions in Italian from Handel’s earlier operas. It was never again performed
during Handel’s lifetime. There was a heavily cut performance in 1762 by J.C.
Smith, but no more by Handel’s close circle.

‘A literary artist, like any other man, lives in a shared world.’2 How much more so
then was this true of a theatre composer in the early and middle eighteenth century
when ‘as at no other period before or since, politics pervaded literature and music
theatre, and…the nation was unusually politically aware and opinionated.’3 The
following thesis asks what we can learn about that world from a single piece of art,
and, conversely, what knowledge of that world tells us about the art. Adorno
described the sociology of music as ‘knowledge of the relationship between music
and the socially organised individuals who listen to it.’4 By studying the development

1 The 1744 ‘season’ was run on a subscription basis from 10 February to 21 March with twelve
performances. The new works were Semele and Joseph and his Brethren, together with repeat
performances of Samson and Saul planned if necessary.
2 H. Erskine-Hill, The Social Milieu of Alexander Pope (New Haven & London, 1975), p3
3 R. Smith, Handel’s Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge, 1995), p10
4 T. W. Adorno, Introduction to the Sociology of Music tr. E.B. Ashton (New York, 1976), p1. Adorno
pointed out that even in an ostensibly non-political art form, the work of art would be
substantially determined by the institutional and social structures of the society that it is part of.
ibid., p202
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The Historical Context of Handel's Semele
Introduction
of this work we can see how a work of art both reflects, and interacts with, the
society which produced it.

Robert Hume, outlining a methodology for reconstructing artistic contexts, noted that
scholarly advances in this field were likely to come from a broadening of focus
rather than the discovery of new facts. He suggested that any such study should cover
six questions: why the author wrote it; what audience the author addressed; what
were the interpretative implications of the work’s allusions; what reactions there
were to it; how it was understood by audiences; and what was illustrated by parallels
and differences between it and related works.5 More recently, Ruth Smith has
suggested that study of a Handelian oratorio should cover fifteen areas.6 The present
thesis takes up Smith and Hume’s approach, focusing on a single work of the theatre.

Analysing the sociological impact of music is inherently complicated because it must
at some level address fundamental questions of aesthetics, and consider how music
impacts on its audience. On the one hand, ‘at a certain point, the listener has the
experience of a first-person perspective on a life that is no one’s’,7 whilst on the
other, the composer has designed the sounds to be mentally ordered and emotionally
comprehended in a certain way8 and the librettist has almost certainly constructed the
text to reflect (albeit indirectly) on very real lives and experiences. All aesthetic
meaning is located in the experience of the work.9 This not only includes the music
and libretto, but also the titles, typeface and paper of the printed word-book which
many would have followed during performance.10 All of these provided listeners
with semiotic information which shaped their aesthetic experience. In addition, all
listeners bring their own experiences, understanding and preconceptions to bear on

5 R.D. Hume, Reconstructing Contexts, The Aims and Principles of Archaeo-Historicism (Oxford,
1999), pp31, 37
6 R. Smith, ‘Comprehending Theodora’, Eighteenth-Century Music I (2005), p83
7 R. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford, 1997), p364
8 ibid., p444
9 ibid., p227
10 Hume, Reconstructing Contexts, p79
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