Anecdotes of Great Musicians/Anecdote 166
166.—"VORTS" VS. MUSIC.
In this century it is considered necessary to have a congenial theme and inspiring words before a composer can do his best in giving the text a musical setting. But this was not the case in the first half of the last century. Counterpoint, i.e., musical mathematics, held the boards then. The words were secondary in the composer's eyes; and the main thing was whether the music was good as music, and not whether it illustrated the sentiment of the language.
Even the great Händel seemed at times to care little for the words set to his compositions. Perhaps there is a great deal to be said for this view of the matter, for who goes to hear an opera on account of its beautiful words? How many operas have been borne into public favor by the beauty of the music when the words were mere trash? Even in church music, in how many cases are the words understood by the congregation? If the singers don't give the people the opportunity to understand the words, why scan the composition of the poetry very critically?
With Handel it was natural that the music should hold first place in his affection. His ideas about the value of the poetry to which he set his music may be illustrated by the following incident:—
There was a certain Dr. Morrell who arranged many of Handel's librettos for him. This personage one day ventured to give Händel some advice as to what kind of music should be set to certain words. This at once aroused the choleric Händel.
"Vat," he exclaimed, "Vat! you deach me music? My music ish goot music. Damn your vorts! Here,"—sitting down to his instrument and playing through a melody,—"here are mine ideas; you go and make vorts to dem."
Yet in some of his greater compositions, his oratorios, Händel carefully chose his words from the Scriptures, and in many cases the musical settings are highly beautiful and in perfect accord with the sentiment of the Word.