Handel's Samson
he story of Samson is one of many great Old
Testament tales that has a dark resonance today in
the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy. Grief
mingles with perplexity and demands answers. Now,
more than in biblical times, turmoil in the Middle
East has wide repercussions as individuals and
nations and groups claim to pursue peace but, too
often, through unpeaceful means. As always, of
course, many innocents suffer. Similes abound. Like
mighty Samson, perhaps mighty nations need to be
brutally roused from complacency in order to
discover the inner nobility and strength of character
that they have long taken for granted and assumed
was apparent to all. In Samson, some saw reassuring
strength, others a bully. Where some saw a
conquering, although flawed, hero, others saw
braggadocio and degeneracy. Similes can be carried
only so far though. Samson faced the ultimate
degradation and was brought low indeed. With God's
help, he ultimately triumphed through the only
means that were available to him. One prays that
another way can be found today.
In 1741, two weeks after completing Messiah on September 14, and working with his accustomed white-hot intensity, Handel set about the difficult task of translating into music Milton's dark and dense meditation on the Samson legend. Handel's interest in this particular Bible story may have been aroused two years earlier when, at a privately organized reading of the poet's Samson Agonistes, he improvised extensive movements on the harpsichord during pauses in the reading. His "harmony," according to his host the Earl of Shaftesbury's account of the evening, was "perfectly adapted to the sublimity of the poem." Whether this provided Handel an impetus to consider the work for an oratorio setting and whether any musical elements of those improvisations were carried over into the oratorio, is not known.
Even though it was composed with Handel's customary alacrity (begun September 29, completed October 29), Samson had to wait until February 18, 1743, almost a year and a half later, to be brought to first performance. And by that time, when he knew better who his principal singers would be and had had time to reflect on the overall shape of the work, Handel felt the need to make substantial revisions, including some which capitalized on the strengths of his chosen singers. Some, one suspects, were made merely to shorten it. Although Handel constantly revised his works, not always to their musical or dramatic benefit, he usually required the experience of a performance or two before doing so.
Why the long gap between creation and realization? Dublin. Days after completing Samson, Handel set off on a journey that turned into one of the great public and artistic triumphs of his life. Messiah, of course, was high on the list of musical gifts Handel carried with him to Ireland, and it received its premiere there in April of 1742. But Saul, L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato, Esther, Alexander's Feast, and more also were taken along and each was received by the Dublin public with great enthusiasm.
Returning to London in late summer 1742, reaffirmed in his developing conviction that dramatic works for the concert hall offered challenges and satisfactions comparable in many ways to, and surpassing in some, those of the opera house, Handel once again turned his attention to Samson and the revisions mentioned above in preparation for its first performance in February 1743. The premiere was a great success, leading to a total of seven performances in its first season, the most in a single season of any of his oratorios. Exceptional among his works, Samson retained its popularity throughout Handel's lifetime and has never fallen entirely out of favor since. (Messiah, which received its first London performance a few weeks later, was initially the victim of an ecclesiastically stoked controversy and thus took a few years to establish its permanent preeminent position.)
Samson Agonistes is a work of Milton's late years based largely on the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Judges. Blind himself at this point and thus responsive to the tormented blindness of the biblical Samson (a point surely not lost on Handel, whose own sight was already beginning to fail), Milton created a work for the reader's eye and ear, as well, of course, as for his mind; for the "study," not the stage, says Winton Dean. It is a work "that burns with a high moral fervour reinforced by the mature potency of a great poet."
Unlike the other biblical oratorios, which were all either reworkings of existing Scripture-based plays or original creations by Handel's librettists, Samson stands alone. The librettist, Newburgh Hamilton, through skillful abridgements and juxtapositions of Milton's poem and the inclusion of excerpts from other Milton works, managed to maintain the integrity — the sobriety and penitential tone — of the original. In his parceling of arias in ways that enable the characters to develop through established eighteenth-century operatic means; in his giving voice through the chorus to the swaggering Philistines and the oppressed Israelites; and, finally, in his constructing recitatives where Milton's temperament and language come most forcefully alive, Hamilton achieved a remarkable balance. He honored well the substantive literary spirit of Milton while giving Handel the necessary musical/dramatic opportunities needed in order to translate the story to a vastly different medium.
The entire oratorio takes place in a square in Gaza. Before Act I begins, Samson has already been betrayed by his wife, Dalila, (her wifely status conferred by Milton, not the Bible), blinded, and incarcerated. Temporarily allowed out into the open air in chains, he becomes a humiliated bystander to the Philistine celebration of a feast dedicated to their god Dagon. Samson is visited by friends, including Micah, and laments his succumbing to Dalila's wiles and the paralyzing loss of strength and sight. Presently his father, Manoah, arrives to console him and speaks, among other things, of his negotiations for Samson's ransom. The Israelites pray for Samson's deliverance and for "triumph over Death, and Thee, O Time."
In Act II, Dalila makes her first appearance, in a searing scene of attempted re-seduction and mutual recrimination. In music by turns sublime and insinuating, she makes her case for reconciliation. The meeting concludes with a duet of mutual loathing ("Traitor to love! I'll sue no more"); the couple part once and for all. Shortly, Micah and the chorus give voice to the most misogynistic scene in all of Handel, a sharply articulated outburst in support of feminine subjugation: "To man God's universal law/Gave power to keep the wife in awe," sentiments that are, I suppose, better treated with bemused humor these days than anger. The Philistine giant Harapha now appears, goading and taunting. Samson accepts a challenge to combat, but Harapha disdains to fight a man both blind and a slave.
Act III begins with a slanging match between Philistines and Israelites. (On the authority of at least one of Handel's own performances, we have changed the position of this movement from its more customary place as the finale of Act II.) Harapha comes again to urge Samson to a demonstration of strength at another feast of Dagon. Samson's indignant refusal is followed by the Israelite chorus's plea to God to arise "with thunder arm'd." When Harapha returns, Samson has reconsidered his position and, urging his friends to remain behind, departs for the feast accompanied by Harapha. Distant revels announce the Philistine celebration. Suddenly, a terrible noise and confusion proclaim a tremendous calamity. A messenger arrives to tell of the destruction of the temple and all the people in it, including Samson himself. Samson's body is borne to the square to a Dead March. Manoah proclaims that Samson's great deed has brought redemption to God's people, and the oratorio ends with a great hymn of praise.
A word about some of Handel's oratorio performers. In moving away from his first love, opera, into the rich new musical opportunities he could foresee emerging in oratorio, Handel not only expanded the formal aspects of the medium. In these English language works, he decided to take advantage of the strengths of English-speaking singers where possible. And in the process he made some interesting choices. The role of Samson, the first great dramatic tenor role in the eighteenth century composed outside France (according to Dean), he gave to John Beard. This apparently very gifted singer had joined Handel's company in 1734 and had gradually been assigned ever more significant roles. It seems likely that Handel composed the role of Samson with him specifically in mind. Dalila was given to Mrs. Clive whose reputation was that of a comic actress and ballad opera singer. Dr. Burney spoke disparagingly of her singing, but it seems clear that what Handel was interested in was her acting ability. For Micah Handel chose another actress, Mrs. Cibber, sister of composer Thomas Arne. It's probably fairer to say she began her career as a singer and then gained success later in life as a tragedienne, especially noted for her performances in Shakespeare. There were eight soloists in the first performance, although Handel later normally performed the piece with five, as we do here.
On February 24, 1743, three days after the premiere of Samson, the politician Horace Walpole, a devotee of Italian opera and thus less than enthusiastic about Handel's new ventures in oratorio, wrote to Horace Mann, "Handel has set up an Oratorio against the Operas, and succeeds. He has hired all the goddesses from farces and singers of Roast Beef from between the acts at both theatres, with a man with one note in his voice, and a girl without even an one; and so they sing, and make brave hallelujahs; and the good company encore the recitative, if it happens to have any cadence like what they call a tune."
With his two incomparable masterpieces of 1741, Messiah and Samson, Handel established once for all his commitment to English dramatic oratorios, a form which he also virtually invented. I suppose if I could live one fantasy trip in my life, it would take me to London during the five weeks of Lent in 1745, during which season one could have heard Handel himself conducting complete performances of Hercules, Samson, Saul, Joseph and his Brethren, Belshazzar, and Messiah! Of course, one could have heard all of these works in performances by The Boston Cecilia spread over the past twenty years, too. Some have!
- Donald Teeters
The Boston Cecilia performed this program at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in Boston on October 14, 2001.
© 2004 Donald Teeters. All rights reserved.
Read more about Handel's Samson on other web sites:
Back to top
Back to main Program Notes page
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
Concerts • Cecilia Store • Program Notes • About Us • Contact Us • Member Page • Board • Site Map