Handel as Apollo. The Composer’s Apotheoses in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Art

Peer-reviewed

Michał S. Sołtysik


University of Warsaw (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9268-3245

Abstract

Handel was one of the few Baroque composers to enjoy the status of a ‘deified’ artist already in his lifetime. One still unresearched Handel-related topic is the history of  the composer’s representations as the mythological Apollo, an ancient deity important in modern-age aesthetics and considered as particularly suitable for artist apotheoses. This article presents a survey and interpretation of examples from eighteenth-century literature and works of art in which Handel was directly compared to Apollo, or in which Apolline symbolism or the attributes of that god of music were employed to emphasise the composer’s status.

Supporting Agencies

The article was written as part of the research conducted as part of the "Integrated Action Programme for the Development of the University of Warsaw" financed by the European Social Fund (funding agreement no. POWR.03.05.00-00-Z305/17-00, financial no. 500-D909-06-0305549) and the "Excellence Initiative – Research University" Programme (contract no. DZP-362-106/2019, PSP no. 501-D131-20-0004410) financed by the Ministry of Education and Science.

Keywords:

Handel and Apollo, composer apotheosis, idolising an artist, artist as god, musicians’ apotheoses, deification in art

Aspden, Suzanne. „Fam’d Handel Breathing, tho’ Transformed to Stone: The Composer as Monument”. Journal of the American Musicological Society 55, nr 1 (2002): 39–90.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2002.55.1.39   Google Scholar

Aspden, Suzanne. The Rival Sirens. Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519663   Google Scholar

Beaussant, Philippe. „[Couperin is too easily…]”, przekł. Frank Dobbins, booklet do płyty CD François Couperin. Les Apothéoses / Hesperion XX, Radio France & Astrée-Auvidis (E 7709), 1986.
  Google Scholar

Bergquist, Stephen A. „Francesco Bartolozzi’s Musical Prints”. Music in Art 32, nr 1–2 (2007): 177–187.
  Google Scholar

Bindman, David, Malcolm Baker. Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-Century Monument. Sculpture as Theatre. London: New Haven, 1995.
  Google Scholar

Bridgwater, David. „Some Engravings of Apollo – Possible Inspirations for the Roubiliac Vauxhall Gardens Statue”, https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/07/some-engravings-of-apollo-possible.html, dostęp 12 VII 2024.
  Google Scholar

Burrows, Donald. Handel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
  Google Scholar

Busch, Werner. „The Visible Power of Music: Louis François Roubiliac’s Handel Statue for Vauxhall Gardens”. Göttinger Händel-Beiträge 15 (2014): 39–53.
  Google Scholar

Camiz, Franca Trinchieri. „The Castrato Singer: From Informal to Formal Portraiture”. Artibus et Historiae 9, nr 18 (1988): 171–186.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1483341   Google Scholar

Cheney, Liana De Girolami. „Fame”. W: Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography. Themes Depicted in Works of Art, red. Helene E. Roberts, 307–313. Chicago–London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998.
  Google Scholar

Chrissochoidis, Ilias. „A Handel Relative in Britain?”. The Musical Times 148, nr 1898 (2007): 49–58.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/25434441   Google Scholar

Chrissochoidis, Ilias. „Handel at a Crossroads: His 1737–1738 and 1738–1739 Seasons Re-Examined”. Music & Letters 90, nr 4 (2009): 599–635.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/gcp070   Google Scholar

Clay, Diskin. „Dante’s Parnassus: Raphael’s Parnaso”. A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 22, nr 2 (2014): 3–31.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/arion.22.2.0003   Google Scholar

Coke, David, Alan Borg. Vauxhall Gardens. A History. New Haven–London: Yale University Press, 2011.
  Google Scholar

Coke, David. „Roubiliac’s Handel for Vauxhall Gardens: A Sculpture in Context”. Sculpture Journal 16, nr 2 (2007): 5–22.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/sj.16.2.1   Google Scholar

Coke, Gerald. Tercentenary of the Birth of George Frideric Handel. The Gerald Coke Handel Collection. Exhibition: Jenkyn Place, Bentley, Hampshire. Hampshire: [Gerald Coke], 1985.
  Google Scholar

Coopersmith, J.M. „The First Gesamtausgabe: Dr. Arnold’s Edition of Handel’s Works”. Notes 4, nr 3 (1947): 438–449.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/889752   Google Scholar

Darr, Alan P. „Virtuoso Carving: Three Eighteenth-Century British Portrait Sculptures by Le Marchand, Roubiliac, and Chaffers”. Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 83, nr 1/4 (2009): 40–49.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/DIA23183272   Google Scholar

Drügh, Heinz J. „Marsyas”. W: The Reception of Myth and Mythology, red. Maria Moog-Grünewald, przekł. Duncan Smart, David van Eijndhoven, Christine Salazar, Francis G. Gentry, 379–383. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2010 (= Brill’s New Pauly. Supplements 4).
  Google Scholar

Dürr, Alfred. Kantaty Jana Sebastiana Bacha. Przekł. Andrzej A. Teske. Lublin: Polihymnia, 2004.
  Google Scholar

Esdaile, Katharine A. The Life and Works of Louis François Roubiliac. London: Oxford University Press, 1928.
  Google Scholar

Ford, Terence. „Andrea Sacchi’s Apollo Crowning the Singer Marc’Antonio Pasqualini”. Early Music 12, nr 1 (1984): 79–84.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/12.1.79   Google Scholar

Gardner, Matthew. „Seventeenth-Century Literary Classics as Eighteenth-Century Libretto Sources: Congreve, Dryden and Milton in the 1730s and 1740s”. W: Music in the London Theatre from Purcell to Handel, red. Colin Timms, Bruce Wood, 157–174. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316650813.012   Google Scholar

Geck, Martin. Die Bach-Söhne. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 2018.
  Google Scholar

George Frideric Handel. Collected Documents, 1609–1763. T. 1, 1609–1725, red. Donald Burrows, Helen Coffey, John Greenacombe, Anthony Hicks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  Google Scholar

George Frideric Handel. Collected Documents, 1609–1763. T. 2, 1725–1734, red. Donald Burrows, Helen Coffey, John Greenacombe, Anthony Hicks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  Google Scholar

George Frideric Handel. Collected Documents, 1609–1763. T. 3, 1734–1742, red. Donald Burrows, Helen Coffey, John Greenacombe, Anthony Hicks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
  Google Scholar

George Frideric Handel. Collected Documents, 1609–1763. T. 4, 1742–1750, red. Donald Burrows, Helen Coffey, John Greenacombe, Anthony Hicks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
  Google Scholar

Ghadessi, Touba. Portraits of Human Monsters in the Renaissance. Dwarves, Hirsutes, and Castrati as Idealized Anatomical Anomalies. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 2018.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvvncff   Google Scholar

Gilman, Todd. The Theatre Career of Thomas Arne. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2013.
  Google Scholar

Hall, James. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. New York–London: Routledge, 2018.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429493959   Google Scholar

Handel. A Celebration of his Life and Times, 1685–1759, red. Jacob Simon. London: National Portrait Gallery, 1985.
  Google Scholar

Händel-Bildnisse in den Sammlungen der Stiftung Händel-Haus, red. Edwin Werner. Halle: Freundes- und Fö rderkreis des Händel-Hauses zu Halle, 2013.
  Google Scholar

Händel-Handbuch. Band 4: Dokumente zu Leben und Schaffen, red. Otto Erich Deutsch. Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1985.
  Google Scholar

Hardie, Philip R. Rumour and Renown: Representations of Fama in Western Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  Google Scholar

Harris, Ellen T. George Frideric Handel. A Life with Friends. New York–London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.
  Google Scholar

Harris, Ellen T. Handel as Orpheus. Voice and Desire in the Chamber Cantatas. Cambridge, Mass.–London: Harvard University Press, 2001.
  Google Scholar

Harris, Ellen T. „Handel’s Ghost: The Composer’s Posthumous Reputation in the Eighteenth Century”. W: Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought. T. 1, red. John Paynter, Tim Howell, Richard Orton, Peter Seymour, 208–225. London–New York: Routledge, 1992.
  Google Scholar

Heller, Wendy. Music in the Baroque. New York–London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.
  Google Scholar

Hodgkinson, Terence. Handel at Vauxhall. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1969.
  Google Scholar

Hogwood, Christopher. Händel, przekł. Barbara Świderska. Kraków: Astraia, 2009.
  Google Scholar

Horacy. Dzieła wszystkie. Przekł. Andrzej Lam. Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza ASPRA-JR, 2019.
  Google Scholar

Hunter, David. „Handel’s Ill Health: Documents and Diagnoses”. Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 41 (2008): 69–92.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14723808.2008.10541021   Google Scholar

Hunter, David. Opera and Song Books Published in England, 1703–1726: A Descriptive Bibliography. London: Bibliographical Society, 1997.
  Google Scholar

Hunter, David. The Lives of George Frideric Handel. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2016.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781782046424   Google Scholar

Hunter, David. „Vauxhall Gardens”. W: The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia, red. Annette Landgraf, David Vickers, 654. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
  Google Scholar

Kassler, Michael. A.F.C. Kollmann’s „Quarterly Musical Register” (1812). An Annotated Edition with an Introduction to his Life and Works. Aldershot–Burlington: Ashgate, 2008.
  Google Scholar

Keates, Jonathan. Handel. The Man and his Music. London: Pimlico, 2009.
  Google Scholar

Kirkendale, Ursula. Georg Friedrich Händel, Francesco Maria Ruspoli e Roma. Przekł. Giorgio Monari. Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2017.
  Google Scholar

Kivy, Peter. The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of Musical Genius. New Haven–London: Yale University Press, 2001.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300087581.001.0001   Google Scholar

Kopaliński, Władysław. Słownik symboli. Warszawa: HPS, 2007.
  Google Scholar

Loyen, Ulrich van, Silke Walther. „Apollo”. W: The Reception of Myth and Mythology, red. Maria Moog-Grünewald, przekł. Duncan Smart, David van Eijndhoven, Christine Salazar, Francis G. Gentry, 105–121. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2010 (= Brill’s New Pauly. Supplements 4).
  Google Scholar

Marx, Hans Joachim. By Heaven Inspired. Die Bildnisse von Georg Friedrich Händel. Lilienthal: Laaber-Verlag, 2021.
  Google Scholar

McGeary, Thomas. „Farinelli and the English: One God or the Devil?”. Revue LISA 2, nr 3 (2004): 19–28.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/lisa.2956   Google Scholar

McGeary, Thomas. „Handel as Orpheus: the Vauxhall Statue Re-Examined”. Early Music 43, nr 2 (2015): 291–308.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cav003   Google Scholar

Merrett, Robert James. „England’s Orpheus: Praise of Handel in Eighteenth-Century Poetry”. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 20, nr 2 (1987): 97–110.
  Google Scholar

Meyer-Baer, Kathi. „Musical Iconography in Raphael’s Parnassus”. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 8, nr 2 (1949): 87–96.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1540_6245.jaac8.2.0087   Google Scholar

Moroney, Davitt, Julie Anne Sadie. „Apothéose”. Grove Music Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.01103, dostęp 12 VII 2024.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.01103   Google Scholar

Music and Theatre in Handel’s World. The Family Papers of James Harris, 1732–1780, red. Donald Burrows, Rosemary Dunhill. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
  Google Scholar

The New Bach Reader. A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, red. Hans David, Arthur Mendel, Christoph Wolff. New York–London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.
  Google Scholar

Olson, Todd P. „‘Long Live the Knife’: Andrea Sacchi’s Portrait of Marcantonio Pasqualini”. Art History 27, nr 5 (2004): 697–722.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0141-6790.2004.00445.x   Google Scholar

Paczkowski, Szymon. Styl polski w muzyce Johanna Sebastiana Bacha. Lublin: Polihymnia, 2011.
  Google Scholar

Papiro, Martina. „Vaghissimo componimento. Andrea Sacchis Inszenierung des Sängerkastraten Marc’Antonio Pasqualini”. Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 73, nr 2 (2010): 211–236.
  Google Scholar

Rice, Paul F. The Solo English Cantatas and Italian Odes of Thomas A. Arne. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
  Google Scholar

Ripa, Cesare. Ikonologia, przekł. Ireneusz Kania. Kraków: Universitas, 1998.
  Google Scholar

Schoelcher, Victor. The Life of Handel. London: Trübner and Co., 1857.
  Google Scholar

Simonis, Annette. „Aspasia”. W: Figures of Antiquity and Their Reception in Art, Literature and Music, red. Peter von Möllendorff, Annette Simonis, Linda Simonis, przekł. i red. Duncan Smart, Chad M. Schroeder, 52–54. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2016 (= Brill’s New Pauly. Supplements 7).
  Google Scholar

Słownik terminologiczny sztuk pięknych, red. Krystyna Kubalska-Sulkiewicz, Monika Bielska-Łach, Anna Manteuffel-Szarota. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2020.
  Google Scholar

Smith, Ruth. Handel’s Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511470240   Google Scholar

Tunley, David. François Couperin and ‘The Perfection of Music’. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
  Google Scholar

Unseld, Melanie. „Händel-Bilder – Oder: Wann ist ein Bild ein Künstlerporträt?”. Händel-Jahrbuch 67 (2021): 31–44.
  Google Scholar

Watson, Paul F. „On a Window in Parnassus”. Artibus et Historiae 8, nr 16 (1987): 127–148.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1483304   Google Scholar

Weber, William. The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England. A Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
  Google Scholar

Werner, Edwin. „Roubiliac, Louis François”. W: The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia, red. Annette Landgraf, David Vickers, 555–556. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
  Google Scholar

Wilson, David. „By Heaven Inspired: A Marble Bust of Handel by Roubiliac Rediscovered”. The British Art Journal 10, nr 1 (2009): 14–29.
  Google Scholar

Wolff, Christoph. Johann Sebastian Bach: muzyk i uczony. Przekł. Barbara Świderska. Warszawa: Lokomobila, 2011.
  Google Scholar


Published
2024-10-07

Cited by

Sołtysik, M. S. (2024). Handel as Apollo. The Composer’s Apotheoses in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Art. Muzyka, 69(3), 47–84. https://doi.org/10.36744/m.3419

Authors

Michał S. Sołtysik 

University of Warsaw Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9268-3245

Statistics

Abstract views: 146
PDF downloads: 94


License

Copyright (c) 2024 Michał Sołtysik

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free nonexclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Muzyka, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in "Muzyka" should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). By submitting an article the author agrees to make it available under CC BY 4.0 license.

Articles from 2018/1 to 2022/3 were published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. During this period the authors granted the publisher a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in "Muzyka", retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.