Oftimes we think progress means betterment and this is undoubtedly true in many cases. In reality, ideas are born of inspiration and necessity, and reflect the needs of the moment at hand. Tomorrow holds new challenges and also sheds light on the shortcomings of yesterday’s ideas, inducing thus the mechanism of progress. The past becomes the object on which change must necessarily operate but in all unfairness we often accompany this process with a sense of superiority, that we, the possessors of the present, treat all that is past as defective and in need of an update.
In the late 1780s, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was commissioned to prepare four works by Georg Frideric Handel for performance according to contemporary taste. One of these works was Handel’s lyric masterpiece Acis and Galatea, composed seventy years prior. Mozart had completed Don Giovanni in 1787, and was to further composer the last three great operas, Così fan Tutte, La Clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte. His reputation as one of the great masters of the lyric theatre form was firmly established.
What exactly was meant by ‘according to contemporary taste’? and did Mozart’s revision of Handel’s Acis and Galatea necessarily bring about improvements simply because Mozart and his means belonged to a later period in time, with all the implications - valid or not - of progress and betterment? With an understanding of the conditions that led to the creation of Acis and Galatea (information to which Mozart most probably did not have access), it is possible to argue that some of Mozart’s modifications diminish the musical and theatrical effects intended by the original.
Clearly with the death of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750 and Handel’s demise in 1759, the era of the Baroque period in music had come to an end. The second half of the eighteenth century belonged to Josef Haydn and Mozart. New instruments were introduced into the orchestra, new musical forms were being experimented with, and opera, a legacy from the Baroque era, was itself adapting to the taste of the times in form and subject matter.
But let’s return to the year 1718 and make a visit to the household of James Brydges, the 2nd Duke of Chandos who was the master of one of the most magnificent estates of the day: Cannons in Little Stanmore, Middlesex. Daniel Defoe, in his travelogue of 1725 describes it so:
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Cannons Park, Middlesex (destroyed).
Engraving from Vitruvius Brittanicus, vol. 4,
by J. Badeslade & J. Rocque (London, 1739), plate 24. |
‘This palace is so beautiful in its situation, so lofty, so majestick the appearance of it, that a pen can but ill describe it... 'tis only fit to be talk'd of upon the very spot... The whole structure is built with such a Profusion of Expense and finished with such a Brightness of Fancy and Delicacy of Judgment.’
Chandos was a prodigious patron of the arts and maintained a musical establishment complete with musical director (the German composer Johann Christoph Pepusch) and a resident orchestra consisting of four violins, two violoncellists, one double bass and two oboists who also played the recorder.
Handel was a regular guest at the Chandos estate, just 17 kms northwest of central London, along with numerous artists and poets including Alexander Pope, John Arbuthnot and John Gay, the three librettists who contributed to the creation of Acis and Galatea. On 27 May 1718 Sir David Dalrymple writes in a letter that “there is a Little opera now a makeing ... the musick to be composed by Hendell.”
Handel was already familiar with Ovid’s story of Acis and Galatea from the Metamorphoses. He had composed a serenata in Italian in Naples in 1708. His literary colleagues at Cannons, led by Pope, were however engaged in a literary battle of reform in an attempt to revive the virtues of pastoral poetry as exemplified by Virgil and Theocritus.
In 1717, Pope wrote the essay «A Discourse on Pastoral Poetry» in which he describes the essential characteristics:
“A Pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd; the form of this imitation is dramatic, or narrative, or mixed of both; the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too rustic: The thoughts are plain, yet admit a little quickness and passion, but that short and flowing: The expression humble, yet as pure as the language will afford; neat, but not florid; easy, and yet lively. In short, the fable, manners, thoughts, and expressions are full of the greatest simplicity in nature.
The complete character of this poem consists in simplicity, brevity, and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue natural, and the last delightful.”
“Simplicity, brevity and delicacy’, three qualities which these poets aspired to in their work and one can imagine the influence they had on Handel himself as poets and musicians worked together. It is important to keep this in mind when we evaluate whether Handel’s scoring is deficient or not given the constraints of the small instrumental ensemble at his disposal, and whether Mozart, in his attempt to ‘modernize’ the score according to contemporary taste, was successful at the same time in conserving the simplicity and delicacy to which the Cannons artistic team aspired.
The first operation Mozart carried out was to introduce the complete palette of the classical symphonic orchestra which we find in the symphonies by Josef Haydn and Mozart himself: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B flat (an instrument unknown to Handel), 2 bassoons, 2 horns in B flat and a complete string section including violas which do not appear in Handel’s original ensemble. It is interesting to note that the origins of the classical symphonic orchestra can be traced back to the Italian operatic orchestra of the early 1700s. The performance of Mozart’s version, complete with the translation from English into German by his patron, Gottfried van Swieten, took place in November 1788 in Jahn’s Hall in Vienna, a concert hall that hosted the first public posthumous performance of Mozart’s Requiem. The audience, familiar with the sound world of the the classical symphony, would have nodded in approval at this restoration of an old master, modified by the great musical genius Mozart to suit the taste of the day.
Leaving aside a detailed assessment of the benefits and disadvantages of this operation, I have always been mystified by one particular detail of Mozart’s treatment. I say this with great caution, for who am I to question Mozart’s choices? But it is puzzling to see the absence of the flutes in all the tutti numbers, that is, the overture and the choruses (with the exception of the second section of the first chorus, 'All the pleasure of the plains' where the flute accompanies the solo voice). The ‘Jupiter’ Symphony for example, composed in Vienna around 1788-1791, employs a similar orchestra to Acis and Galatea and the flute is a consistently active part in the woodwind ensemble. Why then have the flutes been excluded from the analogous sections in his revision of Handel’s opera?
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The recorder family with the smallest member, the
sopranino on the far left compared in size to the
alto recorder. |
A clue to the mystery must surely be found in the fact that in Handel’s composition there are in fact no flutes. We do however find the indications for ‘flauto’, ‘flauto picciolo’, ‘flauto piccolo ottavo’ in three particular moments of the score: Galatea’s first aria ‘Hush, ye pretty warbling birds’, Polypheme’s first aria ‘O ruddier than the cherry’ and Galatea’s last aria ‘Heart, seat of soft delight’. As already mentioned, the Cannons’ orchestra did not include flutes, but it did have recorders that were played by the oboists. Indeed there is no point in the opera when the oboes and the recorders play together, indicating that the oboist laid his instruments aside and took up the recorder at the appropriate moment. The recorder belongs to the family of fipple flutes, a term that refers to the mouthpiece which is blown endwise, in which a thin channel cut through a block directs a stream of air against a sharp edge - an instrument quite different in sound production, form and technique than its distant relative the flute. It’s popularity belongs more to the Medieval and Renaissance periods and certainly by Mozart’s time it had become obsolete. It was however commonly used in Baroque opera, particularly in conjunction with moments that required a pastoral atmosphere. Handel chooses the recorder to evoke three specific dramatic moments which are intrinsically and inextricably related to sound quality and the form of the recorder. The first is the ‘flauto picciolo’ in Hush, ye pretty warbling birds’. ‘Picciolo’ refers to the size of the instrument - small - and consequently its pitch, an octave higher than written. This calls for the sopranino recorder whose high and delicate tones serve to represent the warbling of birds. Handel had already tried this formula in his first Italian opera written for the London stage, Rinaldo, in the aria ‘Augelletti che cantate’.
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Polyphemus innamorato
Annibale Carracci - 1597
Farnese Gallery, Rome |
The second appearance of the flauto is in the famous aria ‘O ruddier than the cherry’ sung by Polyphemus. In the preceding recitative, the giant hollers ‘Bring me a hundred reeds of decent growth to make a pipe for my capacious mouth’. In direct contrast to the massive pan flute we see in the iconography associated with Polyphemus, Handel calls again for the tiny sopranino recorder (flauto piccolo ottavo), but this time to mock the oafish attempts of the giant to woo Galatea. The perfect balance of the shrill comic squeaks from the recorder and the imagery associating the pan flute with the sopranino recorder is just one of the masterful strokes of theatrical insight that need to be understood and respected in order to realize their effect to the fullest.
The third appearance employs 2 flauti for the aria where Galatea transforms the dead Acis into a gently flowing river. The alto recorder is called for here where the soft woody tones of this instrument conjure the murmur and bubbling of the stream. In summary, Handel in the economy of the orchestral forces available to him, uses them to the maximum to create a perfect balance in simplicity, brevity and delicacy in the expression of particular dramatic moments.
How does Mozart manage these circumstances? The first question to ask is whether he was aware that ‘flauto’ in an early 17th century opera score referred not to the flute but to the recorder. Certainly, with the recorder having fallen into disuse, he would have had no qualms of simply substituting flutes for recorders and this indeed works acceptably in Galatea’s last aria with the two treble recorders. Problems however arise in the other two arias which call for an instrument that plays an octave higher than written, fulfilling a dramatic role as we have seen above. In Galatea and Polyphemus’ first arias, Mozart simply uses a flute at normal pitch and thus disrupting the evocative and playful use of the high octave instrument. Why did Mozart not introduce the piccolo or indeed the instrument called for in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, the flauto piccolo in sol - probably referring to the English flageolet? In any case, in these arias, one feels a loss and betrayal of Handel’s original intentions which so poignantly capture the dramatic moment.
As to the question of why Mozart did not use the two flutes in the large ensemble pieces, was he aware that something was amiss, that indeed flutes were not intended at all, therefore noticeably keeping them out of the main orchestra, and introducing them - in a rather unsatisfactory manner - simply to accord with those ‘flauto’ indications found in the Handel score?
Aaron Carpene
