Handel's Muse: Patterns of Creation in His Oratorios and Musical Dramas, 1743-1751 (review)

The aim of this book is to provide insight into Handel's compositional process. The method is a study of pre-performance revisions made by the composer during the course of composing six mature oratorios. Through detailed analyses of these revisions the author evaluates previous interpretations and formulates interesting new hypotheses concerning the patterns and interrelationships revealed in the composer's creative acts.

Hurley's book is a timely addition to the Handel literature. It complements similar studies of other composers, such as Robert Marshall's investigation into the creative process in Johann Sebastian Bach's cantatas, and also draws upon the work of other Handel scholars, such as Winton Dean on the oratorios, Donald Burrows and Martha Ronish on the autograph sources, and John Roberts on Handel's prodigious borrowings. Moving in new directions in Handel studies, the book joins other similar studies, in particular C. Steven Larue's Handel and His Singers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). Hurley explores some of the same kinds of issues examined there, but his work differs in its focus and scope. While limiting the range of works and chronology considered, Hurley expands the scope of exploration to include a wide range of possible elements which could have influenced Handel's selection and creation of material and his molding of that material into finished compositions.

The author chose the six particular oratorios for three main reasons: (1) they offer a wealth of compositional revisions in the autograph material associated with them; (2) they are products of Handel's compositional maturity; and (3) they include a wide range of forms and styles. Representing the major path Handel followed in the 1740s, namely secular musical drama and biblical oratorio, the works are Semele (1743), Hercules (1744), Belshazzar (1744), Solomon(1748),Susanna (1748),and Jephtha (1751). It is to be hoped that this book will stimulate similar research on Handel's earlier works.

The author's main source materials are the autograph composing scores in the British Library and the sketches and rejected drafts in the Fitzwilliam Museum. The Fitzwilliam Museum materials include relatively few examples, but they are extended ones and offer rich evidence. But it is the revisions in the composing scores from the British Library that provide the bulk of the material for the analyses. Revisions made after the first performance are not considered since these could have been dictated by practical considerations such as altered casts.

The first two chapters deal with introductory matters such as the layout of the autograph scores. In the remainder of the book Hurley discusses the types of revisions, proffering explanations of the revision process and hypotheses for the underlying causes of the revisions. Chapters 3 through 7 deal with purely musical aspects of the revisions, and the chapter titles reveal the main focus of each: "Forethought and Spontaneity," "The Quest for Melodic Diversity," "Changes in Tonal Structure," "Texture as Form," and "Closure and Continuity." In chapters 8 through 10 the author turns his attention to extramusical factors in the form of libretti, musical imagery, and the influence of specific singers.

Hurley considers many conventional opinions regarding Handel's compositional process too simple to account for the many interactive elements in the composer's style and the complexity of their interrelationships. Early in the book he challenges a compositional paradigm seemingly behind some observations put forth by Gerald Abraham in 1954 and accepted to some degree in subsequent literature. This is the idea that Handel worked in a linear fashion, that he started composing a piece at the beginning with some melodic ideas in mind and continued in an improvisatory manner to the end. Using sketches as his primary material, Hurley presents several clear instances in which Handel worked on the body of the piece in the...