choruses, still he enlivened these solos by the flexibility and the variety of his instrumental accompaniments. Such of his most celebrated airs, as the Garden scene in Rinaldo, "Augelletti che cantate," are only in truth an orchestral tone picture. The voice mingles itself only as an instrument,[1] and with what art Handel always decides his melodies in disengaging the beautiful lines, drawing all the parts possible in pure tone colours from single instruments, and from the voice isolated,—then united,—and what of his silences!
The appeal of his melodies is much more varied than one usually believes. If the Da Capo form abounds in his works,[2] it is necessary to admit that it was practically the only one of that period. In Almira, Handel uses the form of a little strophic song, very happily. For this, Keiser supplied him with models, and he never renounces the use of these little melodies, so simple and touching, almost bare, which speak direct to the soul. He seems to return to them even with special predilection in his last operas, Atalanta, Giustina, Serse, Deidamia.[3] He gives also to Hasse and to Graun the model of his six cavatinas, airs in two parts,[4] which they later on brought into prominence. We find his
- ↑ See also Giulio Cesare, Atalanta, or Orlando.
- ↑ Especially in certain concert operas, such as Alcina (1735), and also in the last work of Handel, in which one feels his final torpor, The Triumph of Time.
- ↑ See those Oratorios in which he is not afraid, when necessary, of introducing little popular songs, as that of the little waiting-maid in Susanna (1749).
- ↑ See the air of Medea at the beginning of the second act of Teseo; Dolce riposo. See also Ariodante and Hercules.
