Kayla McLaughlin Music Historiography I November 30, 2013 Precs

Recontextualizing Handels Borrowing John T. Winemiller

In John T. Winemillers article, Recontextualizing Handels Borrowing, he discusses the practices of composition in the eighteenth century and focused more specifically on the use of imitation in music. Handel was known for using this practice most frequently. Many historians of the 20th century have speculated about why he felt he needed to borrow works from his previous works or the works of others. Some suggest that he was ill or that he borrowed in order to salvage imperfect musical ideas because he was a better arranger than composer. When we borrow someone elses ideas today, we are punished for calling someone elses thoughts our own. However, in the 18th century, it was a more common practice, so therein lies a bit of controversy when discussing this issue. Historian Mark Rose used the term proprietary author to show that the author of a work is the originator and therefore the owner of a special kind of commodity, the work. The concept of a persons capability to own an idea came from John Lockes theory of intellectual property. This is the belief that people can own ideas and therefore makes an individuals original thought that persons property. William Blackstone agreed saying that a work is identified by characteristic elements that could only be produced by one individual. On the contrary, Edward Young believed that a work is original to the extent that it is individual. Young would say that most of Handels work is not valuable because they are considered less creative than other works of the time. Music becomes

popular because of its originality; an audience wants to be impressed by something that they havent heard before. Today we call a person who borrows from someone else a plagiarist with unoriginal ideas. When we look at Handels work we feel that he had a lack of individuality in his compositions, although during the 18th century, that would not have been the case. Jonathon Swift created an allegory for this controversial idea of borrowing when he wrote the Battle of the Books about a spider and a bee. In this work, he creates juxtaposition between the bee and spider. The spider says that it is independent because it takes resources from nature by trapping them in its web, while the bee indiscriminately gathers the nectar it needs to survive. The bee on the other hand says that it is better to accumulate material that enriches oneself without causing a disruption in nature. This symbolism leads to the development of the idea of transformative imitation. In this concept, one must gather material from reliable sources and then transform what was gathered into something that is new and more impressive. Transformative imitation was used frequently in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Handel utilized the process of transformative imitation in many facets of his work. He would very rarely take long excerpts from pieces, instead he took sections of preexisting material and altered it in numerous ways. He looked at old material as models for new compositions, rather than extraneous music to call his own. Handels Acis and Galatea made use of transformative imitation not only in the music but also in the libretto. The libretto was conceived from the creative works of several different 18th century writers, such as Alexander Pope, John Hughes and

mostly John Gay. Additionally, the plot of this tale is derived from the myths about young lovers, but is set to be more dramatically appropriate for an audience. It is because of transformative imitation that the librettist is allowed to create a new storyline that may not have been depicted in the original myth. Handel changes various rhythmic aspects of the song depending on which character is singing at the time. He borrows from his previous work Brockes Passion, and incorporates a short musical phrase that he had already used a few times previously. There are numerous other examples throughout Acis and Galatea in which both Handel and the librettist used transformative imitation to create a newer and better work. Although today we are often times punished when we take ideas from others, whether we embellish on them or not- in the eighteenth century it was not that way. Despite the numerous different opinions on this matter, if you took a small section of a piece and then embellished upon it to create something innovative and fresh, there was nothing wrong with that. In order to understand why Handel and other great 18th century composers used transformative imitation we must educate ourselves on the common practices of the time period and realize that this was accepted in cultural society.