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222 ELLEN T. HARRIS [10 sonification, into a cantata, however, does not establish that its sole meaning, or even as one of its meanings 23 . As Robert Hume has written, «The inclination to construct elaborate parallels and personification readings should be resisted where there is no extrinsic evidence with which to validate them. However ingenious or textually plausible they may seem, they are not a sound form of historical scholarship» 24 . Because of its early date, Il delirio amoroso offers the best example of Handel’s musical style at the outset of his Roman sojourn. The overall movement plan is extensive, including four arias, an instrumental introduction and interior instrumental movements with the final aria a vocal minuet. Following the opening sonata, the vocal section of the cantata begins and ends in recitative, and the individual movements are generous in length and style. In contrast, Handel’s cantatas that can be dated to 1708 demonstrate a newfound restraint and formal regularity, typically falling into the pattern of two recitative-aria pairs with the arias consistently in da capo form. The very use of instrumental accompaniment for a solo cantata seems to be a trait associated primarily with early works. The instrumental cantatas of 1708 and later typically are constructed dramatically with two or more characters, not as solo scenas, and the individual arias are less impassioned than 23 I did not propose this interpretation in Handel as Orpheus, but it certainly exists within the circle of possible, multiple readings. 24 ROBERT D. HUME, The Politics of Opera in Late Seventeenth-Century London, in «Cambridge Opera Journal» 10 (1998), pp. 15-43 (42-43). KIRKENDALE, Handel with Ruspoli, attacks my association of homoeroticism with the cantatas without addressing either the classical models of pastoralism or the contemporary context, arguing that my general interpretations are «implausible» (p. 306 n34) while providing specific, personification readings that not only are unsupported by documentary evidence but are more redolent of homoeroticism than anything I suggest. I have responded to Kirkendale’s critique in Homosexual Context and Identity: Reflections on the Reception of «Handel as Orpheus», forthcoming in the proceedings of a conference in Queer Studies (Cambridge University, July, 2002).
11] «Cantate, que me veux-tu?», or: Do Handel’s cantatas matter? 223 those of the earlier solo cantatas. Among the earlier works, an unsettled mode of expression – using wide and dissonant intervals, chromatic harmonies, and explosions of fioratura in recitatives – is particularly true of solo cantatas, like Il delirio amoroso, that depict the voice of a woman 25 . By studying the style features of this and other dated cantatas, it is possible to suggest earlier or later dates for works without a fixed chronology. La Lucrezia, for example, is surely an early work, whether or not its composition predates Handel’s arrival in Rome, and the copying bill that appears in Ruspoli’s accounts on 31 August 1709, long after Handel had left Rome, clearly represents the creation of a later copy for archival or gift purposes 26 . The style features of Il delirio amoroso may also put Johann Mattheson’s criticism of Handel’s early style into perspective. He writes in 1740 that when Handel arrived in Hamburg in 1703, «he composed very long, long arias, and really interminable cantatas, which had neither the right kind of skill nor taste, though complete in harmony, but the lofty schooling of opera soon trimmed him into other fashions» 27 . Mattheson’s melodic ideal was for short, tuneful and natural melodies, in which «the French should be imitated more than the Italians» 28 . Not that Mattheson didn’t compose in the Italian, virtuosic style, but more typically, as in his opera Cleopatra (1704), his arias are strophic and syllabic with a folklike, somewhat galant, character. 25 For a more detailed discussion of these stylistic traits, see HARRIS, Handel as Orpheus, passim. 26 KIRKENDALE, Ruspoli Documents, pp. 268-269 (under title «O Numi eterni»). 27 Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte, p. 93. 28 GEORGE J. BUELOW, An evaluation of Johann Mattheson’s opera, Cleopatra (Hamburg 1704), in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Music: A Tribute to Karl Geiringer on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. H. C. Robbins Landon, New York, Oxford University Press, 1970, pp. 92-107 (95); see also JOHANN MATTHESON, Cleopatra, in Das Erbe Deutscher Musik 69, ed. George J. Buelow, Mainz, B. Schott’s, 1975.
Page 1 and 2: «HÄNDEL E LE CANTATE IN LINGUA IT
Page 3 and 4: 3] «Cantate, que me veux-tu?», or
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