著者

高際 澄雄

出版者

宇都宮大学

雑誌

宇都宮大学国際学部研究論集 (ISSN:13420364)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.16, pp.105-123, 2003-10-01

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In the 1730's George Frideric Handel faced a great number of problems: the gradual loss of the popularity of his operas, the establishment of a rival opera company, the Opera of the Nobility, the change of opera theatres, and the final collapse of his opera company. In an effort to counteract these difficulties, he wrote various types of music: new operas, remakings of his old operas, pasticcios, odes, and a fairly new genre, oratorios. Because of the versatile attempts, it is rather difficult to grasp what was really happening in his music itself. This paper closely analyses the four oratorios composed in this period, Deborah, Athalia, Saul, and Israel in Egypt to claim that all of them are great achievements composed with different ideas, disclaiming the evaluation of Winton Dean, who asserted that only Athalia and Saul were masterpieces that could be compared with Greek tragedies, while he judged Deborah as a failure, neglecting the accomplishment of Israel in Egypt.