Views of Handel and his Borrowing

Julia Henry
Westminster Choir College of Rider University

The Article I choose to read and critic was Recontextualizing Handel's Borrowing,
written by John T. WineMiller. The purpose of this article is to look deeper into Handel's
borrowing of eighteenth-century theories and practices of artistic imitation and the concepts of
proprietary authorship and intellectual property.
When talking about Handel this is one of the subjects that is talked about a lot. It's very
interesting topic that has left us all wondering why someone just as intelligent as Handel would
need to borrow anothers work.
Today's idea of Borrowing: The construction of an idea makes the author, "the originator
an therefore the owner of a special kind of commodity, the work." Basically saying, ideas can be
owned, treated like a private possession. During Handels time the conception of artistic
ownership didnt exist, and borrowing was actually the preferred method over composition. In
actuality to borrow or reuse a portion of another composers music not only violates the
intellectual property of the composer but also tarnishes the the borrowers reputation, making
them less creative for not coming up with an original composer. In this sense Handels work
loses its value due to the borrowed material which diminishes his status of being a moral
composer. This all leads to plagiarism, modern belief that borrowing necessarily signals
unoriginally if not outright plagiarism since it involves in some way the reuse of existing
work.
One of the best examples used in the article is from Jonathan Swifts Battle of the Books
(1704). Swift explains the notion of creativity and authorship through a debate between a bee
and a spider. The Spider blames the bee for going out and taking nectar which he needs for his
livelihood. Where the spider deems his self-reliant method of life to be far more productive than

the bees. The bee in response says the material he collected enriches his life and does no harm to
earth. The bee then explains that its more noble to search carefully and gather goods to produce
honey and wax than it is to produce the over-weening pride. Comparing this to Handel, the
process involvement of rearranging someones else material is a transformative process and even
with the use of a preexisting material, the end product is in fact something new. The main
concept used in the bee and spice metaphor is transformative imitation. With this, you are
basically taking a theme and transforming it through two steps: 1) one must gather matter from
worthy sources; 2) one must transform what is gathered into something new and admirable.
In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England the Pope practice models
dealing with the process of invention. He advocated for the judicious borrowing, and was stated
saying, Writers in the case of borrowing one sort of Fruit, but by being grafted upon others, may
yield variety. He then comments saying when a mutual commerce has taken place, the
borrower should repay the poet with something of their own, so theres a system of integrity. To
me this seems similar to someone rearranging an already existing piece today and adding the
original composer, author of text, then adding their own name as the arranger. This system is
honest and fair. Simultaneously, the theory of transformative imitation thrived in the visual arts
especially in English treatises on paintings. Jonathan Richardson in 1719, was a prominent voice
for the importance of imitation to painters, expressing how a painting can take a subject matter
from another piece of artwork, or another piece of work by another artist as long as its made to
be their own version. In order for the world to improve, we must learn and help others around us
to form new ideas. Everything builds off of each other.

Handels known practice was to incorporate preexistent material that was reworked in
many different ways, rarely did he add long passages exactly without any altercations. Yes, you
can tell where Handel borrowed music from, by the context and text, but his patterns show that
he used them for convenient subject matter, and as models for new compositions also new
inventions. Handel shows evidence of transformative imitation being a fundamental role in his
compositional process. At the same time he showed that he didn't borrow in any efforts to please
anyone, but he borrowed because it was something he was talented and creative in this area.

Borrowing is permissible; but one must return the think borrowed

with interest, i.e., one must so construct and develop imitations that
the are prettier and better than the pieces from which they are derived.
(Mattheson. 449)

The example used in the article of Handels borrowing is Acis and Galatea, especially
with this opera, Handel showed how he best transformed material into new work. The libretto for
the opera was written in 1718 for the private pleasure of Duke of Chandos. With such a creative
task at hand, there was a collaboration of important early eighteenth century writers, including
Alexander Pope, John Hughes, and principally John Gay. One of the major reasonings for
discussing this opera is that it shows the transformative imitation of the text and the distinctive
effects derived from it. The plot of the opera recreates the myth of the young lovers which made
it a more appropriate for a dramatic performance. Throughout its entirety theres a variety of
individual numbers of the libretto that draw inspiration from different text sources of images and

expression. John Gay borrowed frequently, derived from Drydens translation and other poems.
This material was integrated into new contexts and formed into situations different from its
source. The textual borrowing in Acis and Galatea thus illustrates the dynamics of a common
compositions; strategy of the early eighteenth.
In conclusion, I thought the author did a fantastic job looking from all different the
different motivates of maybe why Handel used borrowing so much. There were many resources,
and researches that were included so we could honestly give a fair thorough review of what we
thought. Obviously with this article music was involved and the author a great example of
pointing out the borrowed sections with the opera Acis and Galatea. Personally the reason I
choose to review this article was because I didnt realize how big of a deal it was that Handel
used borrowing throughout his music and I was shocked and little disappointed. Then I started
reading and I saw that in the eighteenth century borrowing was something very common by
composers and wasnt looked as a this was mine first and you cant have it. Which I get I support
creative property, but I also loved the idea of kinda what was happening back then. I felt like
Handel was building off of people. He would find something he thought had potential that wasnt
going anywhere and improved and made it something great so the world could enjoy it. Yes I
hoped he gave credit where credit was due, but I really like that idea of collaborating artists
making something great for everyone to share and enjoy. With that in mind I would definitely be
interested in doing more research on Handel and get inside his head and understand what he was
thinking. I think this idea of borrowing is something that isnt wrong to pass along as long as
credit is recognized for the right people, because it would be truly amazing to see the success we
could create if we bonded together.


Winemiller, J. (1997). Recontextualizing Handels borrowing.Journal of
Musicology, 15 (4), 44470.