Original subtitles

This night, this very night,

I was attending a performance of Messiah,

my Messiah, if I may call it so,

and I think I may,

given by the Amateur Music Club of Tunbridge Wells,

An occasion and gathering

of such cloud-thundering banality that,

well, I would have feigned oncoming death, had it not seemed so certain to be at hand,

that the deception would have been superfluous,

Mediocrity is a great comforter,

and why should I take it upon myself to deprive them of their luxury?

Nothing will disabuse them, or their kind,

of their silly negligence,

Rage! A word I have given back to the English to puzzle over,

May God rot Tunbridge Wells!

Its waters and its damn sawing fiddlers,

they've never done anything but ill for me.

It was always my policy,

even as a small boy at court in Weissenfels,

never to wilfully fart in front of ladies.

Now, I have only myself to affront.

I am, yes, I am taking to my bed,

my deserted and no doubt filthy,

yes, indeed it is, bed.

It was not my intention to do so, slouch off to it in such haste,

but events, and events in all such absurdity,

have wrecked my good humour,

which has, well, most will admit, endured for most of a lifetime.

The wig? Discarded.

It's long out of fashion, the old curly locks.

It's all perukes and pigtails for the young ones,

and I can't pretend to wearing them.

A rich hovel of a bed, and who else would now leap to clamber into it?

And they did. They did.

The first fruits of them. I remember, yes. Sleep.

To be in my own filthy bed.

No angels now, yet at my head... But so be it.

And a good thing.

I ask for no worse.

Oh, harmony. Heavenly, heavenly harmony.

"If God be for us, who can be against us?"

I do not think that I have been truly corruptible,

I may have been, yes, and I have been pagan in spirit,

But I have always known there is more sincerity in religion than in politics,

More truth also,

"He trusted in God that He would deliver him, "

Old Weissenfels,

The Duke, His Palace, His flunkeys,

His priests, My father, the court surgeon,

I have had good fortune and have made no secret of it,

Even my friends would say so,

and who could blame them for their kindly honesty?

The Buck, That is what they dubbed me, Even then, even then,

Charming Little Buck,

Little charm at this present, my kind friends,

wigless and eyeless,

And we shall be changed,

And we were changed, were we not?

The Duke, his handmaidens, they so loved the Little Buck,

that they saw to it... They saw to it that I should play upon the organ in Halle,

Halle! Now there was a place to remove myself from,

Not the noise, nor the priests, nor the Duke,

but where, on God's earth, was Halle?

That, my friends, was the problem,

Halle-by-the-sea? Bognor Halle?

Halle-under-Wychwood?

Born in Halle, 1685, February 23rd,

Died in Halle some few years later,

Rose to become a citizen prominent of Halle,

Wrote Trio Sonatas in Halle,

Travelled extensively, to Dresden, some 20 miles,

and travelled back to Halle,

The extraordinary thing was that my father was already in his 60s

when he begat me, thus proving that I was a bloody miracle from the start,

We have turned, every one, to his own way,

I never forgot Halle or Germany,

Englishness simply became me more,

It sat nicely upon me,

My clavichord still remains, I'm told, no doubt to be preserved in some museum,

Shall I too be embalmed?

It was always my policy,

even as a young man in Lübeck,

never to wilfully be taken advantage of by the young ladies,

A young man, making, as it were, his way,

In Hamburg, the opera, the Italian opera, snoring its way into our sensibilities,

But Lübeck was where I first tasted life,

"Make straight in the desert!" Struck down I was,

Bloodied in my youth, The Buck is bloodied!

The Buck is bloodied! The Buck! The Buck!

The Buck! The Buck!

I hear they call me now Old Buck.

"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way!"

Good enough, shaken with rack of gout,

a malady no man dare smirk upon.

Old Buck, ulcerated, fevered, paralysed twice,

if only in parts, blind these ten years,

that is, not seeing.

Though I doubt it, any of it, gains more attention than my portliness,

what they call me being large-made and awkward complexion.

Worms destroy this body.

Impetuous, rough, peremptory.

Have I been all that?

Yes, yes, even now.

Buxtehude it was in Lübeck, The organist,

Famous, large, and famous for being large,

Retirement, it has come to most, and Buxtehude wished to retire,

That scoundrel from Leipzig, Bach of the thousand preludes,

him and his 100 children, fiddling with his harmony

and never a thought for God's melodies,

I'd heard that Bach, JS, was to apply

to relieve the ageing Buxtehude of his need to praise God upon the organ

with the mechanical repetition of a damned merchant's clock,

So, with a friend, I stole upon the said Buxtehude,

offering my services, prostrating my talent,

laying down my self upon the floor,

"Quite so", said the great Buxtehude, larding it upon the choir stalls, "Quite so, "

And with the organ of many pipes goes another heavenly reward,

the organ, the barrel of the great Buxtehude's great daughter,

Have one, have the other!

With an almighty fart, or something of the sort,

I was about to blow myself into a strawberry hell of almighty commotion,

or something of the sort, but, at the end, I had not the inclination nor the energy,

and gracefully retired whence I had come,

Break my bonds asunder, Mr Buxtehude!

Lübeck. Germany.

And now? Sightless in Brook Street.

Not even Dr Sharp, great surgeon of Guy's and his hideous butchery,

can bring back sight.

And yet, the brightness is before me each hour,

even if it might light up nothing.

What things, such performances.

How dare they do it to me?

And then wheedle their way up to me for praise, of all things, praise.

And the praise of princes.

They should be damned for their presumptions and unloving piety.

Florence, Now there was corruption incarnate,

And Florence was light and gaiety and sun and light,

And my own theatre,

I have always felt the light, cannot they see it?

Even if I can no longer,

No, I exaggerate, The trumpet sounds wrongly this time,

Burney, good theatre friend, said a most sweet thing,

"When he did smile, " that is, Handel, myself,

"it was his sire, the sun, rising out of a black cloud, "

Most others saw only the black cloud, but Burney saw the sun,

"A sudden flash, which I hardly ever saw in any other, "

The Medicis, I'd met the Prince in Hamburg,

God rot Hamburg,

And Florence,

Why do I rage?

Fruitless enterprise,

Oh, heaven, I was made to be churlish, I had no wish to be,

So much trouble taken, in part to please me, and all wasted,

Despised and rejected,

They have called me gifted but crude,

That was it, gifted but crude!

But what I have left behind is polished,

polished and fully equipped,

"Arise, shine, for thy light has come, "

Ah, the solicitude of harmless complaint,

"God doth not mind either man's work or his own gift,

"who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, "

Cant! Being eyeless in the Pantiles is no mild yoke,

Not to me,

Nonetheless, I have always made myself a convivial companion,

especially when my empty pocket demanded it,

Messiah. God, what a mountainous mess they make of it,

"Surely, you care for your own music, Mr Handel, " they say to me,

as if it had not come out of my own bowels and tripes in the first place,

Their assumption might be overwhelming,

were it not so uncomprehending of all I had endeavoured.

The ignorance of scholars, or so it appears to me,

makes the whims of princes seem divine.

I can at least be grateful to them. Always have.

Have always needed to. God rot them.

Florence was not Rome, of course,

And Rome was rich and brim full of music,

Prince Ruspoli, it was, who invited me to take part

in a keyboard contest with Maestro Scarlatti,

There were ladies and courtiers,

and though I cannot seriously approve of such idle contests,

I won,

Or at least, I think I did,

I did, and the applause I received was well merited,

I have lived with my music as I have my friends, princes and all,

I have had to make accommodation, as we do, as we have always needed to do,

Princes and prelates, even when tolerable, must be resisted.

There are those who will not hear even the last sounding trumpet,

let alone this night.

Not even music can, or will, shift their intransigence,

even in the sight of God Himself.

All the passions of the heart can be possessed in simple harmony,

even without words.

Yes, its harmony, its unity, its order must prevail.

Even as I am sightless, I can see.

No priest or any other pestilence would make me believe otherwise.

But I cannot pretend I was unhappy

when Prince Ruspoli paid for my operas in Venice...

...nor going afterwards to hunt with hawk and horse at the Prince's invitation,

Sport, pursuit, it was all as in music, All a delight,

It would be a strange man who disclaimed his birthplace, Halle Wells,

But it was, without doubt, dull,

Then Berlin, Dull,

Hamburg, Italy, Rome,

Finally Düsseldorf as the Kapellmeister

to the grand Elector, George Frederick,

Named like myself, but it sits more easily on me,

But England, England, that was the draw,

The draw in trade, politics, and most of all, freedom,

You could sniff it on the air, and that's no false trumpet sound of memory,

but what I know,

Freedom was given up to me here, in this my own foreign...

My own land and sea,

"How dark, O Lord, are thy decrees

"All hid from mortal sight,

"All our joys to sorrow turning,

"All our trumpets into mourning,

"As the night succeeds the day.

"No certain bliss, no solid peace,

"We mortals know on earth below,

"Yet on this maxim will obey, 'Whatever is, is right."'

Ah, great was the company of preachers.

And London, St Paul's,

What an abundance, what a setting for the harmony of man it was,

The rough places plain, the crooked straight,

Raising us above stink, corruption,

humiliations, gout even,

Yes, the caprice of fashion, the blot of bankruptcy,

insolvency and ill-health, surgery without relief or much hope,

the whims of brokers and pit-goers, theatre managers,

and the despair of foundlings,

Vauxhall, Ranelagh, the Rotunda, the Chinese Gardens,

London,

It was the centre and target of everything,

It was and always is, until this day,

"But oh, what art can teach."

"Oh," indeed.

"What human voice can reach the sacred organ's praise?

"Notes inspiring holy love,

"Notes winging their heavenly ways to men,

"To mend the choirs above."

"What taketh away"...

"That taketh away the sins of the world."

And then the scribblers,

Addison of that damned sheet The Spectator,

and ignorant and full of envy,

His opera, Rosamunda, was it? A veritable disaster!

An example, An opinionated cleric critic

once approached me with such lordliness in Vauxhall,

"What wretched music they are playing, "

"You are right, sir, " I said,

"It is very poor stuff, I thought so myself when I wrote it, "

Critics are fleas, bred in the sewers, where they should always remain,

And do so, if their scribblings bear witness to their true lodging places,

I have been blessed by great magnanimity from others,

I would not deny it,

So I do not complain idly and will always admit my error,

when, but when, it was demonstrated to me,

I swear no child, and I have, I am certain, none of my own to fire my feeling,

no child, that is to say, was as ingrate as your critic,

so vain, so full of cupidity and gin, Cunning,

An example, The Spectator, March 6, 1711,

"Mr Handel's opera, Rinaldo,

"is filled with thunder and lightning,

"which the audience may look upon without catching cold,

"and indeed much danger of being burnt,

"for there are several engines filled with water

and ready to play at a minute's warning, "

And as for that audience, gentlemen of leisure and ill-courtesy,

I should say so,

accustomed to sitting upon the stage among the singers,

"Be gone, sirs!" I told the rascals,

They said I was imperious and quick to anger,

Well, so I was, especially in regard for my own worth,

I have always been cognizant of that

in the teeth of mercenaries and capers like MacSwiney,

manager or some such, of the Queen's Theatre

in Haymarket, or some such...

Damn your iambics! All of you!

I can tell a tale in four languages at once,

but it's a dubious occupation.

I can swear and eat and drink in them too,

which is not such a small thing.

In spite of all, I managed some 40 or so operas,

Most are now forgotten,

My favourite, Rinaldo, the first I wrote for London,

was popular at the time,

although castrati were not so much thought of by Englishmen,

At least they were a draw with the women,

I have loved England,

though not all my time was spent here, not here in this filthy bed,

I followed the coach routes and I saw... I saw them,

Morning sunshine in Epping Forest,

the garden of Kent,

the great openness of the Salisbury Plain,

The royal antiquities of Chester, York and Durham,

Hampshire, the home of angling,

It was manly, magnificent,

deeped in the contemplation of man,

I have been... Yes, I am a proud man,

but I have bowed down to poets, landscapes,

the life of the country and that of this town,

I still do,

There cannot be too much pride in that,

I have contemplated man and his gifts,

and I have been astounded and continue to be so,

England, my England.

"Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,

"and the ears of the deaf be unstopped."

It's true, I did not easily overcome its language

as I did its women,

but I have put my own weight into it.

Congreve,

Dryden,

Milton,

I served them all, all and more,

and most of all, the Bible.

Isaiah, Corinthians,

what gifts they all have been.

London was so tempting, oh, so tempting to a young man,

The young girls, little Mary Granville and their sweet children,

How could I return to dull Hanover?

I may have been endowed with a pagan heart,

imbibing inordinately, tickling the little girls and fondling overmuch,

but I have given myself to God at keyboard and organ

and other instruments more than most men, I tell you,

But I have little care for presumptuous prelates,

They sent me the words, mark,

for the Coronation Anthems for my royal paymasters,

Lackeys!

I said, "I'd forgotten more German than I'd learned English,

"and I could rely very well on my own Bible

"for the making of their anthems, "

And so I did,

For George II, later,

I recall we had 47 singers and 160 players,

The Archbishop of Canterbury observed

that it was an occasion of ceremonial rather than artistic splendour,

There's the brush,

The ceremony was in the splendour, and the art was in both,

and he could see neither,

It has long seemed to me

that clerics and academics hate all art,

life, literature and most surely music,

Once, I was in Oxford for a series of my own concerts,

which was not only enjoyable to those

who were honest or open to the gifts of this life,

as well as being most profitable for me.

And then what should happen,

but the famous master of some famous college denounced me

in all his classical ignorance, and my musicians,

as "Handel and his lousy crew,

"a great number of foreign fiddlers!"

I am a fiddler from Hanover myself,

so it was all in good nature, and not so much grandeur,

my so-called Water Music.

The death of the good queen had left me in somewhat of a pickle,

Having deserted my elector and employer, George Frederick of Hanover,

imagine my embarrassment when the same George Frederick

succeeds to the throne of England as good King George I,

Was I to be strung up by me toenails?

Was my defection punishable by death?

It was my old and trusted friend, Baron Kielmansegge,

the Elector's Master of the Horse, who suggested how I might abase myself

to restore my good name,

although I doubt if even he could have reckoned upon the outcome,

My music proved to be a great dampener,

We had 50 players,

and they sank most good humouredly,

The English!

I became, above all, it seemed, a Londoner,

the premier Londoner, you might say,

the laureate of this city in music, that is to say.

But I loved the English too.

Wherever I have taken from others,

I have always repaid with considerable interest.

The new queen, for instance,

gave me a much deserved pension of £600 per annum

in return for a little instruction for her daughters,

Their eldest, the Princess of Wales, she was always kind to me,

When the maids of honour chattered during my performances,

I not only swore at them,

but called out at them anything that might come to me,

And always the Princess would intervene,

"Hush", she'd say, "Hush, Handel's in a passion, "

Handel's in a passion,

As if it were ever, had ever, been out of me,

whether it were desolation or idle comicality,

I was lenient with the princesses

and they have smiled on me, as they should have done,

Chide yourself by all means, but not excessively so.

There's a way to go yet.

In my time,

when I first came upon these shores some 40 or 50 years gone,

the English were still learning to be English,

to see the world as theirs.

Marlborough, poets and tradesmen,

as well as militia, gardeners and builders of fine houses and town squares...

There was opportunity,

and now wealth, even if, like my great patron, Chandos,

it was got somewhat illegally,

The Duke's house and church and private theatre

gave me vigorous exercise,

It was as if no other world existed,

And if I was grateful, he was demanding,

Music and more music and no time, do you see?

So, if I borrowed from others... No, plundered,

it was because there was no time,

I work swiftly and have always,

My little opera, Acis and Galatea, written in two weeks,

Or at least, so I told the Duke,

Messiah, later, in 21 days,

There's no special merit in it, nor prevaricating either,

It is there and must be done,

Heaven cannot wait too long for any of us, and certainly not for me,

If the Duke demanded an organ piece every Sunday,

the Duke must have his organ piece,

But heaven could do nothing

when the managers of the theatres decamped with the profits I had made them,

or predict the Thames freezing over with the playhouses closed again,

the outbreak of war with Spain,

earthquakes, shocks, rumours,

"Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,

"Death is swallowed up in victory, " Messiah? Yes, it's the Messiah.

"O grave, where is thy victory?"

Faith, I have accepted faith gratefully

and denied myself certainty,

Faith has nothing in common with certainty,

something the opinionated bladders of the spas cannot fathom,

Nor could heaven protect me from the singers!

The worst must surely have been Cuzzoni,

that diminutive, ugly Venetian virago,

with such a regard for herself and so little for me,

Cuzzoni!

Who will pass on her name when I am dead?

And Faustina,

Faustina, her poxy adversary in Admeto, my success,

It was my mistake to write two parts of such equal prominence,

Profligacy bites the hand like the aggrieved borrower,

I introduced her to London, this Cuzzoni,

It was not necessary,

No one could flaunt herself with such brutal easefulness,

Singers!

Writing their parts has too often been like serving a puffed-up actor,

Bedding a plain woman out of kindliness rather than lust,

it only excites their fury and revenge,

Vile harridans!

My depressed state was at its worst,

They... None knew that she had refused to sing the first air in rehearsal,

At last I said,

"Madam, I know that you are a veritable and quarrelsome she-devil,

"but I, I am Beelzebub!"

I had no great animus toward her,

only that she was a grasping queen of such selfishness,

like most ladies,

As for Cuzzoni and Faustina,

the brawl and the faction in the Duke's little theatre,

the abuse, catcalling, like Whig against Tory,

the two warbling gorgons battering the other on the stage,

and in the presence of the Princess of Wales herself,

who will remember it?

It is diminished soon enough,

"As it was in the beginning,

"is now,

"and ever shall be,

"world without end."

Even in Tunbridge Wells.

The shame.

The shame of it,

to be taken up, as it were, into a court of law

to protect my work.

Poxy publishers, marauding pirates,

leaky laws of copyright, so-called, what chance had I?

But I tried,

I tried and succeeded here and there, now and then,

calling them things like "Favourite Songs",

publishing them in the Pocket Companion for Gentlemen and Ladies,

ladies and gentlemen not prepared to pay, that is,

or more ordinarily, simply performing without pay or permission,

Oh, well, God rot them!

It will do them no good, though it's done me some damage,

The rub and roughage

was that they said I had stolen the work of one Stradella, an obscure Italian,

I do recall having the merest passing acquaintance

with a Signor Stradella,

although whether he was the same Stradella...

In brief, I was accused of stealing from the said Stradella

music for my Israel in Egypt.

Now if I did steal, and I did with glory, it was from myself,

unlike the warblers and politicos and the rest,

Oh, why dissemble?

I used the same music again and again!

Dear Deborah. "Awake the ardour of thy breast", "Let envy not conceal her",

the allegro from my Concerto Grosso, No. 3.

I merely shifted the same tune back and forth,

like an actor's pizzle!

My music bears repeating, in the right frame,

Only dull readers of scores and scholars remember,

I told them,

What with the South Sea Bubble and my investment gone,

my first performance of my Deborah,

doubling the price of tickets in an attempt to save myself...

And could you believe it, Walpole brings in his tobacco tax,

which everyone abhors,

The result of which is that my poor Deborah is shunned by the public,

not because of me, but damn politicking!

The Prime Minister and everyone's pockets,

except my own,

Which monies being spent, wasted,

on that damned mausoleum for Italian opera,

The Royal Academy of Music!

I shall soon be dead and a name above a door.

There is little profit in the superfluity of excellence.

My sound is gone out into all lands.

And my words unto the ends of the world.

But they have thought more ill of me than Buononcini,

and praised him and Stradella!

Following my little excursion to the courts,

I won, by the way, and had my work protected,

I was seized with a deadly faintness,

I was told that a weaker body would hardly have borne

the violence of the medicines,

My right arm was now useless to me,

from the stroke of the palsy,

and, of course, the small matter of my duel at dawn when young,

I visited the vapour baths at Aix-La-Chapelle for six weeks,

I was couched, frequently,

but I refused to stay down,

and returned to London much recovered,

And it was in a watering house

that the light, that blessed light, finally dawned,

Opera being too expensive,

or at least there being no money in it, not in the Italian opera,

what with everyone insisting on everything being so damned English,

And I have been English too, in my way,

unlike the opera, which, to avoid those singers,

why not opera without the opera?

Oratorio and opera,

What an absurd war we made of it,

In Rome, I recall, the Pope had banned all opera,

In London, the opera crowd did not relish my oratorios,

It was Dublin that first recognised

my seasickness,

Dublin!

Alone, in 21 days,

Even an opera had taken three weeks,

But then the rest...

Ill, now, so ill,

But it was a triumph,

The beautiful women,

the Lord Lieutenant in tears at a special command

and, oh, so very private performance,

Very nice tune, I must say.

But London, what a comeback!

A bishop's special convocation to denounce me. God rot them!

I know that my redeemer will redeem me at the last.

Damned, damned, by bishops!

"Walked in darkness, the people"...

"The people who walked in darkness, "

"Behold, I show you a mystery,

"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

"in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump,

"for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, "

"Blasphemous", they said, "Blasphemous, "

Good God, that brings glad tidings,

An act of religion unsuited to the playhouse, if you please,

The best service I ever did to God was my work,

It was honestly executed,

And by faith,

I never stood nor waited, not even for princes,

And I see no reason to do so either for God,

Total eclipse!

No sun, no moon!

"All dark amid the blaze of noon."

My will... My will and final codicil,

to have the permission of the Dean and Chapter

to be buried not in St George's of Hanover Square,

odd coincidence of names, that,

but in Westminster Abbey in a private manner.

I wrote to them, asked them, begged them.

A pity their organ is such a curious instrument.

No matter.

Twenty thousand pounds,

most earned by oratorios in the last season.

My niece in Germany, £9,000.

To my servants, my cook Waltz,

and other friends and charities...

I give and bequeath to Mr John Smith my little house organ,

my musical books and £800.

To my servant Peter le Blond, my clothes and linen and £300.

To my other servants, a year's wages.

I've tried to be generous to the poor,

It will always be so, always,

As to my foundlings, I was a governor of their hospital, you know,

I hoped it might be some small remedy against gin,

which reduced women to depravity,

and their poor, condemned offspring...

Seven thousand pounds I did raise with Messiah.

But then... Then, they sued for exclusive...

...exclusive, mark you, rights in it,

I stopped them, but they shall have a copy of the score,

Alone,

but it only seems so,

Old friends, the Shaftesburys...

I went...

I went even to Bath,

The waters...

Too late,

Too late,

No time, you see,

The places...

What places,

I must try and be magnanimous to Tunbridge Wells,

God rot it,

and, blessedly, keep it,

I always contrived at being lively,

No, not contrived,

I was, I think most certainly, lively myself,

Just as I exercised my rage, the height of passion,

there was also the clamour of peace,

It will come,

I know of it,

Was it for this?

Was it for this?

I raised myself, raised myself,

and all in praise of that great Duke of Cumberland,

the Butcher Cumberland,

"But what the English like is something they can beat time to, " I said,

Like Judas Maccabaeus, which I didn't think much of,

The sons of Levi,

the sons of Walpole,

"They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, "

But from harmony,

in all this past disharmony,

tattered friendships.

A few, Smith...

But that will mend itself. I'll see to it.

Dissembling, brazen, cheating and treachery.

I have known friendship,

and even the gift of love at times.

Although, that great organist,

Master Buxtewhohide...

A most important opportunity for me as a young man.

I was forced to fly in the face of both friendship and admiration at the contract

which bound me to marrying his daughter.

Undertakings I could not entertain, even as a young buck.

At least my foundlings in their hospital

can have no grievance against me.

What have I done for the Georges of England!

For the royal fireworks in the Gardens of Vauxhall,

a crowd of 12,000 assembled,

The traffic was beyond belief,

We had our bank of 30 wind and 18 brass instruments,

three kettledrums, three side drums,

The fireworks themselves fizzled,

I cannot say I was amused,

But the music was good,

What effort!

My left eye almost gone,

"Mr Sharp", I told him,

"Sir, have you ever read the scriptures?

"Do you not remember,

"if the blind lead the blind, they will fall into a ditch?"

My 66th birthday, but I felt a little better,

The Old Buck is quite well,

My last oratorio, it turned out, Jephtha.

Once, I was so crowded,

and then there were the empty walls,

My friends were loyal,

"Never mind", I said, "The music will sound the better,

"And if you are along there next Friday night,

"I will play it to you myself, "

However, on my side, if it can be called so,

were the Evangelicals, the Methodists and all those

who truly and fundamentally hate pleasure,

What mercenaries!

My soul, my heart,

is so full of heaviness at this hour

before the dawn,

Neither found he any to comfort him,

Was it for this?

The light, the light...

Bald, blind and crippled already.

And that's a long time ago.

It seems so.

Already seems so.

Paralytic disorder in the head.

The kindly Lady Shaftesbury wrote to a friend,

and then told me,

"It was such a melancholy pleasure,

"as drew tears of sorrow

"as to see the great though unhappy Handel,

"dejected, wan and dark,

"sitting by, not playing on the harpsichord,

"and to think how his light had been spent

"by being over-plied in music's cause."

I always drifted towards theatricality,

but not at the expense of truth, No,

The critics!

And who shall remember them?

Buononcini, Galuppi, Lampugnan,

they were the masters, they said.

They were the prosperous on my side,

and the aristocrats on theirs.

No.

I'd sooner be wigless,

as they know me in Vauxhall and Ranelagh.

I'm repeating myself,

so do we all, musicians, like the very seasons.

Oh, scraps of memory,

scraps of memory...

I have a dry humour, they tell me,

meaning that it eludes them,

What places,

Halle, Now there was a place to remove myself from,

The continental courts, Berlin, Florence even.

Did I say? I did.

God rot Tunbridge Wells.

Messiah,

Dear God, the new, massive, modish scoring...

The people, Sir Willcocks and Master Sargent...

I did bring kings to their feet,

but their hirelings? The blind may open their eyes.

I have done my best and assisted, a little,

in giving to the Englishman his glorious, glorious, unquenchable religion.

There will be none like it.

It has always been my policy,

even as a...

Never to...

Never to...

Not in front of the ladies!

Not!

Can you not hear

that raging, thunderous sound,

beyond time,

beyond our time?

Forever!

I got to England, as I swore I would, on my own bottom,

But as for heaven,

the diapason closing in on man, the compass of notes it ran,

I know not, we know not,

but the trumpet must surely sound, It must,

It does,

I have heard, I have put it down myself on high,

"The trumpet shall... It shall be heard on high,

"The dead shall live, the living die,

"And music shall untune the sky, "