MEDITATING WITH HANDEL IN THE STUDIO
— ASSAGGIO 1.0
A. INTRODUCTION
This exposition relates to pages 57 to 63 of my 50%
seminar text, the whole of which will be available here:
The exposition is designed as a complement to the
text, disclosing the materials used in the Assaggio
both visually and audibly, and as a documentation
of the experimental process. It is directed more
towards artistic results than academic formulations.
Aims
Assaggio 1.0 aims to "pay attention" to what Handel
himself might have been paying attention to when
he wrote his cantata HWV 77. In "Relearning the Art
of Paying Attention: A Conversation" Isabelle
Stengers (2018:136) says:
Paying attention means slowing down and accepting that
intrusive interstices open up even in the midst of an
urgency. [...] life itself lurks in the interstices of our
reasons. [...] it is wondering that maybe something
has been muted, that we need a suspension to entain
the possibility to throw the dice again. I call it an art
because it needs a ritual in order to foster this possibility.
These "intrusive interstices" are yet another way of
referring to the chinks, cracks and crevices, gaps
and shifts, which are discussed on pp. 44-46 of
the main text. "Paying attention" is closely related
to the notion of meditating: hence the title of the
Assaggio, and of this exposition.
In the studio, I meditate on what Handel may have meditated on, itself based upon what the anonymous storyteller of the cantata seems to have meditated
upon... Meditating with Handel in the Studio is
therefore a way of thinking myself into Handel's
framework, excising from it his cantata, and finding
a framework into which the cantata might fit today.
Results
The Assaggio will lead to a series of short films.
The first, a COVID-19 solo film, featuring just
one of the six movements of the cantata, will
be presented at my 25% seminar. Future films,
which will involve collaborators and co-authors,
eventually comprising the whole cantata, will
follow as and when circumstances permit.
Each film is a re-framing of material that
has been disclosed and documented in this
exposition. Each film is also an invitation to
the reader/viewer to enter into the meditative
processes of the Assaggio studio.
The word
meditate is rich
in etymological
associations.
Its root is
the Old English
word mete,
which,
on the one hand,
encapsulates
the ideas of
aiming
and measuring,
going and caring
for, traversing
and apportioning;
and,
on the other,
observing intently,
pondering,
planning
by resolving
in the mind,
and designing
mentally.
Bethinking,
"paying attention
to what may
lurk."
(Stengers loc.cit.)
"[Handel] was, for the
rest of his career, to
take incidents from
the past and so shape
their telling that
audiences should
percieve an
emotional pattern
in the action which
touched their own lives."
Swanston (1990:10)
MEDITATING WITH HANDEL IN THE STUDIO
— ASSAGGIO 1.0
B. HANDEL and what he paid attention to
We do not know what Handel paid attention to, but
we do know that he did not compose in a vacuum.
In the Assaggio studio I considered the story behind
the anonymous libretto he set, the Accademia degli
Arcadi he visited, and the year 1709, when he may
have composed the cantata.
"Stewarding the materials" (Spatz 2020:1, 46, 47)
The story and its resonances
As I state on p. 52 of the main text, the story is simple, and—to us—perhaps generic. But, as Hamish Swanston puts it, Handel learnt during his time in Italy to shape the telling of stories so as to touch an audience. I wanted to find out more about his shaping tools.
Historical or mythical texts often provide a rich context for extra-musical association, but occasional texts, such as HWV 77 have to grow such a context from the inside. I needed to find some clues in the words...
... unless, that is, the story is to be seen as a
gloss on Ovid's tale of Pyramus and Thisbe from the
Metamorphoses, which has been retold countless
times, including by the Mechanicals in Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream, and is the origin of the
tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and therefore of
Westside Story. In this case the librettist, and
Handel himself, would have had some of these
resonances in their minds. The chief difference
is that the cantata text has an open, rather than
a tragic end. (The full Italian text of the cantata,
together with an English translation can be found
on pp. 50-51 of the main text.)
The text and its walls
A lament for lost love, sung to unresponsive walls...
Care mura! in voi d'intorno
Già ch'invan raggiro il piede,
Se accoglieste Clori un giorno,
accogliete or la mia fede.
Dear walls! Since around you / Now I wander in vain, /
If once you received Chloris, / Receive now my faith.
Translation from Harris (2014: 298-99)
The recording presents and discusses the text.
The Arcadians: their dreams and aspirations
That HWV 77 was ever performed at the Accademia
degli Arcadi is unlikely. But the Arcadian spirit most
definitely imbues the text, and the young Handel is
known to have taken part in the activities of the
Academy during his stay in Rome. There he met
Alessandro Scarlatti, who wrote acantata on the
same text. (I hope that the Scarlatti version will
also find its way into the Assaggio studio).
In 1786 Goethe became a member of the Academy,
and in his Italian Journey he provides a summary
of its aims and objects.(Goethe 1982 [1962]: 441-45]
1709 and the European climate
"L'anno terribile" 1709, the year of the great frost and of the Battle of Poltava, was the coldest year of the last 500. In France alone, 600,000 people died. In Germany there were the so-called Poor Palatines, of whom 13,000 emigrated as refugees to England between May and November. The ensuing political debate was highly charged, with some, such as Daniel Defoe, supporting immigration, and others strongly against it. Defoe's experience of the "Great Storm" of 1703 had resulted in his ground-breaking work of scientific journalism The Storm.
1709 keywords: climate, famine, war, refugees
MEDITATING WITH HANDEL IN THE STUDIO
— ASSAGGIO 1.0
C. The RESEARCHER and his three personae
As introduced in my earlier exposition "trialling
the trialling: a doc|con" (not yet uploaded to
the RC), I have found it useful to think of myself
as having different roles in the research process.
The doc|con is a documentary concept developed
for Assaggio, and the present exposition is an attempt
to try out (trial) some of the approaches it outlines.
The three [dramatis] personae are:
— MT (Mark Tatlow): naive, believing, visionary
— TF (Theatrefox): sceptical, controlling, realistic
— WW (Wolverhampton Wanderer): meditating,
wandering, present
MT has all the initial ideas, and believes in them. His
thinking is ambitious, wide-ranging, and visionary, in
that it sees what might be possible, and longs to
achieve it.
TF, on the other hand, has experienced MT for many
years. TF is a realist, and knows that not all MT's
ideas are realisable. In the end, through the
application of a powerful sceptical antidote, TF wins.
MT and TF are each limited in their perspectives. As
Iain McGilchrist explains in his book "The Master and
his Emissary," MT is "right brain," and TF "left."
WW on the other hand avoids this dualism,
integrating the insights of both. WW is the wandering,
meditating, historically present researcher, who is
aware that he is personally entangled with his
research.
The musical material: scores, sketches and
recordings
To the right is my annotated photocopy of a
nineteenth-century edition of the cantata
movement, superimposed by images of the
studio. This corresponds to "Illustration: Score
extract (see RC)" on p. 61 of the main text.
Underneath and to the side there are a number
of close-ups of Handel's autograph manuscript,
which illustrate what I write on the same page:
Handel's manuscript is "very much work in
progress." These correspond to "Illustration: The
facsimile (see RC) on p. 61.
The underneath close-up shows the very beginning
of the movement and Handel's clear choice of
instrument "cembalo," i.e. harpsichord.
Here is "Recording A (listen on RC)" on p. 61.
And here are three different versions of the
opening section, "Recordings B...(listen on RC)"
mentioned on p. 62.
In addition to the scores and recordings, the studio
environment invites me to work analytically with the
music: that aspect—sketching—is not shown in this exposition.
MEDITATING WITH HANDEL IN THE STUDIO
— ASSAGGIO 1.0
D. The STUDIO: its activities and affordances
The studio overlooks a garden. It is very much an
inside, but there is a porousness about it. As if to
emphasise this, it has several plants, as well as a
desk and chair, a variety of keyboard instruments,
a book-case, computer and recording equipment.
Off it there is a smaller room with mirrors
overlooking an apple tree. The floor-space is for
embodied research, the mirrors are complemented
by pinboards for freeing the mind of its habitual
attachments. Both rooms can be surprising...
The studio thus affords a range of activities, from
the meditative to the performative, for all three
[dramatis] personae.
Postscript
Several important elements of Assaggio do not
figure in this exposition:
1. The use of a "performance" program. The film
that I will show at my 25% seminar will perhaps
go a little way to remedy this omission.
2. The playful and free-improvisational aspect of
collaborative improvisation.
Below left is a pdf file of an on-going "performance"
project. The text is in two parts: the first is a
preliminary exploration of the problem of putting
one's fingers on a keyboard. The second, shorter,
part is a "performance" text, which either spirals
inwards or outwards.
Below right is a short video "...whether..."
made at a recent Performance Documentation
course in Gothenburg, and inspired by the
following traditional rhyme:
"Whether the weather is cold,
or whether the weather is hot,
we must weather the weather,
(whatever the weather),
whether we like it or not."
In the end it relates, obliquely, to both
the climate and approaching the keyboard.
The "debris and phenomena" of today
Robert Macfarlane, whom I quote on p. 24 of the
main text insists on the importance of taking
account of the debris and phenomena of today,
i.e. now, in the present moment.
This Assaggio has opened up not just Handel's
cantata, but its temporal relationship to some
of the debris and phenomena of 1709. I identified
four of these: climate, famine, war, refugees.
The equivalent for 2020 might include these same
four, but add plague (COVID-19), and the BLM
movement, to name but two. The colonialism
of 1709, seen from today's perspective, must
also enter the picture.
We are inextricably linked with our past. I am
linked with mine. As WW I am painfully aware
of my own background, and as a human being
and artistic researcher I cannot escape it.
But what concerns me even more is the future,
and how an experimental method such as
Assaggio can influence it.
This will become all the clearer once I can
work with my co-authors.
Books and articles in the studio include, apart from dictionaries and other works of general reference:
* Dear, Michael. 2013. Why Walls Won't Work:
Repairing the US-Mexico divide. Oxford, New York:
Oxford University Press.New York,
Dixon, Susan M. 2006. Between the Real and the
Ideal: The Accademia degli Arcadi and Its Garden
in Eighteenth-Century Rome. Newark: University of
Delaware Press.
Forment, Bruno. 2008. “Moonlight on Endymion: In
Search of “Arcadian Opera,” 1688–1721.” Journal of
Seventeenth Century Music, 14 no.1.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. 1982 [1962]. Italian
Journey. Translated by W.H. Auden and Elizabeth
Mayer. San Francisco: Northpoint Press. Original
published 1786-88 as Italienische Reise.
Harris, Ellen T. 2004. Handel as Orpheus: Voice and
Desire in the Chamber Cantatas. Cambridge and
London: Harvard University Press.
Hirsch, Shirin. 2018. In the Shadow of Enoch Powell:
Race, Locality and Resistance. Manchester,
Manchester University Press.
Macfarlane, Robert. 2012. The old ways. London:
Penguin.
McGilchrist, Iain. 2009. The Master and his Emissary:
The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western
World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Spatz, Ben. 2020:1. Making a Laboratory: Dynamic
Configurations with Transversal Video. Punctum
Books: Brooklyn, New York.
https://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0295.1.00
* Stengers, Isabelle and Martin Savransky (2018).
"Relearning the Art of Paying Attention:
A Conversation." SubStance #145, 47 no.1, 130-145
Swanston, Hamish. 1990. Handel. London: Geoffrey
Chapman.
* material that has not as yet found its way into the
bibliography on pp. 72-78 of the main text