The Work of the Bee

Musical Borrowings & Trinitarian Echoes
by Christopher Hoyt

George Frideric Handel stands out even among his contemporaries as a composer who borrowed musical ideas with exceptional frequency. Though the composer Johann Mattheson mentioned Handel’s borrowing habit as early as 1722, research and thought devoted to the subject has significantly blossomed only over the last three decades, with scholars such as George Buelow and John Roberts spearheading the effort to catalogue and evaluate an ever-lengthening list of borrowings.

Messiah, Handel’s best-known musical work, has not escaped this scrutiny. Music scholar Wendy Lai has argued that there are as many as eleven different instances of borrowing spread across ten of Messiah’s movements. Some of these are self-borrowings: Handel reworked materials from a set of his own Italian duets (most of which he had written in 1741, the same year as Messiah) and from his own opera Riccardo Primo (1727). But he also appropriated bits from two of Reinhard Keiser’s operas, Claudius (1703) and La forza della virtù (1700), as well as from Giovanni Porta’s opera Numitore (1720).

THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:

Christopher Hoyt is the author of Under Authority: Practicing Submission in a Rebellious Society (Anglican Liturgy Press, forthcoming). He teaches the humanities at Good Shepherd School (Reformed Episcopal) in Tyler, Texas. He is the general editor of the hymnal The Book of Common Praise/Magnify the Lord, an Adjunct Professor of Sacred Music at Cranmer Theological House (Reformed Episcopal), and the organist/choirmaster at Good Shepherd Church in Tyler.

more on music from the online archives

33.3—May/June 2020

Consolation in Death

Bach's Cantata BWV 106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbesteZeit (God's time is the very best time) by Ken Myers

calling all readers

Please Donate

"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand

"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor

Support Touchstone

• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!

personal subscriptions

Purchase Print &
Online Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

RENEW your print/online
subscription

Purchase
Online Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

RENEW your online subscription

gift subscriptions

GIVE Print &
Online Subscription

Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!

RENEW your gift subscription

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

kindle subscription

OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)

Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.