The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany

"The thing about Delany is that she lived pretty much the whole of the 18th century. She was born in 1700, and she died at a great age. She was also a voluminous letter writer, very well-educated, absolutely passionate about music, but also personally well connected. She was a neighbour of Handel’s. She knew him well and was a great supporter and friend. So was her brother, Bernard Granville. The two of them corresponded about Handel. She was married twice and her second husband was a man called Patrick Delany, the Chancellor of Christ Church Cathedral at the time of the first performance of Messiah. So her links with Handel were very close, and she’s a wonderful first-hand witness. She’s clearly very fond of him. This is what’s so nice about reading these letters, you’re getting a sort of real-time experience because she’s writing a letter. She also wrote several autobiographical fragments, which are more formal, but where she’s just writing to her brother or a friend, she’s not thinking that anybody else is ever going to read this, it’s just chit-chat. Let me see if I can find one. Here: I hope you find Mr Handel well. I bid compliments to him. He has no more real admirer of his great work than myself. His wonderful Messiah will never be out of my head. This is just two friends, writing about another friend. When Handel lost his sight towards the end of his life, Mrs Delany writes: Poor Handel. How feelingly must he recollect the ‘total eclipse’ This is a reference to the aria from the oratorio Samson, because Samson, of course, went blind, and there’s this beautiful aria reflecting on the loss of sight, which of course was a very personal thing to Handel. So it’s all there, he really comes across as a real person. And indeed so do many other friends. Here’s a bit from her autobiography: In the year 1710, I first saw Mr Handel. He was introduced to my uncle Stanley by Mr Heidegger, the famous manager of the opera, and the most ugly man that ever was formed. Then she plays the spinnet to Handel, a small domestic keyboard instrument, and her uncle asks if she thinks she will ever play as well as Mr Handel. ‘If I did not think I should,’ cried I, ‘I would burn my instrument!’ such was the innocent presumption of childish ignorance. She’s wonderful. This is the great thing about the 17th century. You get a lot of very colourful, feisty characters – men and women. There’s a vein of eccentricity and strong views. They’re great fun to spend time with. The onset of blindness was, I think, towards the end of the 1740s, and he lived to 1759. So certainly by the last five years of his life, he was totally blind. There are accounts of him going to dinners, and people talking to him when he’s completely lost his sight. He had to give up active participation in performances, although he did still play the organ. But he could no longer direct performances, and handed over those duties to his assistants. So it came on gradually, but over the last ten years of his life – and total loss of sight in the last five years or so. Absolutely. Yes. There was a public monument to him in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which is not there anymore, and the same sculptor, a Frenchman called Roubiliac, made the one that was put up in the nave at Westminster Abbey. This is a good indication of his standing and his status at the time of his death. I don’t want to duck the question, but one of the most remarkable things about Handel is the range of his achievement. No two pieces are alike, which means that there are so many pieces which have a wonderful appeal in their own right. Messiah is not like anything else. It has held its place at the absolute heart of… not just musical life, but of British culture since it was written. It has changed in that time, and the way we engage with it has changed, but the work itself has been able to encompass that. It’s one of the things that makes it so remarkable. At the same time, think of the coronation anthems, one of which has been sung at every coronation since 1727. I’m immensely fond of the dramatic oratorios; I think the final scenes of Saul and Samson and Esther are among the most wonderful dramatic music ever composed, and they stand alongside Mozart and Verdi and Wagner as theatre, as drama. No question about that. Then the church music as well contains great beauties. But I think Messiah has earned its place at the heart of British culture."