Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing. Joslyn Thomas. Fall Music Historiography 1. Westminster Choir College

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1 Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing Thomas!1 Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing Joslyn Thomas Fall 2015 Music Historiography 1 Westminster Choir College

2 Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing Thomas!2 Summary of Article Recontextualizing Handel s Borrowing is an article written by John T. Winemiller. The article discusses Handel s music and if he stole the intellectual property of other composers and lyricists. People wonder why such a famous composer like Handel would steal from other composers. Winemiller s main thesis in his article is the concept of Handel s borrowing in the composition of his music. Handel isn t the typical self-reliant composer. He used special techniques with the musical themes he took and made the music he wrote into even more famous works than the pieces he borrowed from. Some even considered him the great arranger because he had taken so many musical ideas from other composers. He even took themes from pieces and used it in others. Handel is one of the biggest names in baroque music. After reading the article, it s interesting to see that Handel s borrowing of music is what made him famous. The people he stole lyrics and music from did not become as famous as he did. The method in which he transformed music was what made his music good. Whatever music Handel stole from Reinhard Keiser was only an inspiration. The way Winemiller organized his article was by introducing the meaning of terms like ownership and what is considered intellectual property. He describes specific terms that will be used in the article so when he discusses the analysis of Handel s music, there is no need for description. He uses an examples with even a different form of art, paintings. He then goes into detail about Handel s borrowing, discussing who inspired him. He then discusses Acis and Galatea. Winemiller gives very little of his own opinion in this article. He mainly goes straight off of the music. There isn t much of an opinion required for a topic like this.

3 Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing Thomas!3 The redistributive process is the rearrangement of another artists material. The transformative process is the use of existing material to make something new. Handel is considered to have used transformative imitation, gathering information from a sources and then transforming it into something creative. Many people evaluate the value of a piece of music by it s individuality. The identity of the music of a certain composer is based off of their characteristic and artistic elements. It is ironic that self-borrowings are less creative and less innovative because Handel is one of the most popular composers out there. The author asks two significant questions in this article. The first is Why are we so fascinated and preoccupied with Handel s borrowing? The answer of this goes back to the popularity of Handel. When people think of baroque music, Handel s name automatically goes to mind. Even for people who aren t musically educated, they know of his most popular work, Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah. The educated musician would know that Handel has so many different pieces, and it makes sense that he recycled some themes from his pieces because when you listen to a piece by him even without knowing, one could know it s by Handel by specific themes and characteristics. The second significant question asked in this article is Is the transformation of existing material an original, creative act, or is it nearly of substitution for invention- that is for truly original work? This answer can vary from person to person and their opinion. In Handel s case, transforming helped spark his creativity and helped him write better music. The author relies on the music itself for evidence. He is able to see how Handel borrowed and in what way just by looking at the music. Another thing that he also relied on was the translation of lyrics. From his analysis, he was able to see that Handel did in fact borrow music

4 Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing Thomas!4 from other composers. For example, Winemiller compares O Ruddier than the Cherry by Handel and Wann ich dich noch einst erblicke by Reinhard Keiser. After looking at the music itself, we see that the bass part from Wann ich dich.. is transformed into the melody of O Ruddier than the Cherry. I enjoyed the way the author tied in a caricature from Jonathan Swift s Battel of the Books. The caricature was of a debate going on between a bee and a spider. A spider accuses a bee of taking what it needs from nature in order to live. The spider says that it can support itself without having to rely on someone else, the bee then says that it doesn t cause harm to nature. Handel doesn t cause any harm to others by borrowing, he only creates better music from it. Evaluation of the Article I m throughly convinced by the author s argument. He evaluates the essay in a way that is critical, even to a composer like Handel. Any researcher can give an argument and make it completely lose its value by saying that the argument doesn t matter because it s Handel and he composed some of the greatest music from the baroque period. A strength in this article is that Winemiller discusses his analysis in such detail. It was rather confusing with how the article was organized with his analysis. He kept hopping from piece to piece with no final conclusion on the pieces he was comparing. I also believe that if he had gone specifically into only one example of Handel s borrowing, it would be less confusing. This article is significant in the field of baroque music. Handel is known to be one of the best composers during this time period and to learn that not everything he s written was

5 Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing Thomas!5 specifically his own is odd. Many musicologists wonder if Handel s borrowing is valid and just. I believe it is just because the music he composed is more well known than the composers he stole it from. Going back to the caricature of the bee and spider, the bee s pollination does not hurt anyone, it makes the earth better- just like the borrowing by Handel. Even in the 1400 s, emulation was a normal thing to do, the Caput Masses and L Homme Arme paid homage to Dunstaple. Handel was not the first person to one up another composer. Despite anyone s opinions, Handel changed operas forever.

6 Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing Thomas!6 Works Cited Winemiller, J. (n.d.). Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing. Journal of Musicology, Hicks, A. (n.d.). Handel, George Frideric. Grove Music Online. Retrieved October 16, 2015, from Oxford Music Online