‘Ancient Music’, Nationalism and Handel’s English Works, 1710-1745

The early meaning of the term ‘ancient music’, associated with the birth of The Academy of Ancient Music in 1731 in London, is only vaguely appreciated by modern musicologists, who understand it broadly as early or old music thriving on the appearance of musical ‘classics’, hence accounting for the phenomenal success of Handel's music in English concert life after his death. However, when Handel’s works were regarded as modern music in their own time, they had already acquired an important position in Johann Christoph Pepusch’s Academy, alongside Elizabethan music. Scholars’ inattention to this situation has not only obscured the nationalistic strength of Handel’s English works, but has also given rise to terminological misconceptions that restrict our understandings of ‘ancient music’.
This thesis focuses on the nationalistic subtext of the term ‘ancient music’ in early eighteenth-century England. It is based on a detailed study of three stages of development in Handel’s English music. The first is represented by his English anthem style conveying an Elizabethan harmonic heritage through two representative works: As pants the Hart (HWV 251a, 1712) and Utrecht Te Deum (HWV 278, 1713). The second stage is a transitional one where Handel integrated sacred choral settings into a traditional cantata structure in order to create drama with an English identity, and is explored in detail through his first English dramatic work Acis and Galatea (1718). The third stage, represented by Handel’s English oratorios from Esther (1732) to Semele (1744), captures fully-fledged ‘ancient music’ where operatic works are localised in England through sacred themes and harmonies. The selected works demonstrate the process through which Handel created English opera, and how he balanced aesthetic values associated with operatic tradition and English culture.