Just like we speak of multitasking in
work and life today, Handel’s music is typified by contrapuntal harmony. That jargon is from the word “counterpoint” which
refers to the use of more than one strands of independent, yet concordant, melody.
We hear a lot of that in Messiah.
But it was not only this German
composer’s music that was contrapuntal. His very life, between 1685 and 1759, was
a paradox of sorts, a couple of twists and turns: he went to law school but took
organ lessons; he wrote fascinating operas like Rinaldo depicting sensual love then composed dramatic oratorios like
Samson evoking ethereal devotion; he was
religious enough to serve as church musician yet secular enough to drink and squabble
a little too often; he was a commoner whose finances were debt-laden from declining
patronage, nevertheless a nobleman whose works thrived on royal commissions repeatedly.
The truth is: life is not a straight-line
graph. Sometimes you take a right turn but end up on the left wing. Do what
needs to be done therefore, choosing the best options under the circumstances. Somewhere
around that turn lies the Twist in the
Plot.
For Legends of the Score on G.F. Handel
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