Baroque Notes: Flowers and Duets

How good it would have been if I had known the news in advance!I will do my best to prevent this operation from happening!How could I forget that six years ago, in 6, my poor old friend Johann Sebastian Bach, duped by the barefoot doctor's rhetoric, underwent surgery with the hope of regaining his sight—but the surgery not only Complications from the operation did not improve Bach's eyesight, and his health deteriorated, and he died at his home in Leipzig a few months later.Now another poor old friend of mine, Handel, is also being fooled... On August 1750th, John Taylor reported that the operation on Handel was successful, but it was soon proved to be a hoax. "

"The irony is that this John Taylor 'doctor' spent his later years blind and died in poverty," comforted Vivaldi.

Telemann sighed for a moment, then continued, "But at least from the outside world, Handel's health has not been particularly affected by this. From 1751 to 1758, he has been actively seeking various ways to save his eyesight, but every time As expected, it ended in failure every time. Perhaps he already knew the arrangement of fate, but he was still stubborn and refused to give up. On April 1759, 4, he attended the last performance of Messiah's season; on April 6, the newspaper It is reported that he will go to Bath, England to recuperate as usual."

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However Handel was ultimately too weak to make the trip.A week later, on April 1759, 4, he died at his home in London.When he died, he had been unable to conduct on stage for 14 years, unable to create any new works for 6 years, and lived in complete darkness for 7 years.Accompanying him at the last moment was Mr. James Smyth, a perfumer who lived near Handel's home.During Handel's last years, Mr. Smyth's aromatherapy has been soothing the lonely man who lived abroad for more than fifty years, filling the room where the patient lies as pleasant as possible.

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"Friends around me died one by one, and I knew my time was numbered. Bach in 1750, Piesendel in 1755, Handel in 1759, Graupner in 1760," recalls Telemann, " After Handel died, I still cultivated my garden as usual. The plants he gave me were already lush and lush. Michael also grew up. He was 15 or 16 years old at the time, and it was I who met the one who gave me flowers. The age of a person. I looked at the young Michael, who was full of enthusiasm for music, so much like me back then. All this seems to be like reincarnation. The only difference is that the one who helped me back from the desperate road of self-destruction Man, no more. Sometimes I still meditate on the sixth psalm that we read together, that summer in Halley 60 years ago...'I am sleepy with my groans; and drenched the mattress. My eyes are dimmed with sorrow, and dimmed with all my enemies' .

"I have outlived any composer in the late Baroque. After Bach died, this era is over. After Handel died, although I was still breathing, I felt that everything about me no longer belonged to this The world. After 1740, I basically stopped composing music, but the connection with the younger generation made me sometimes feel that I was still connected with the world. In 1765, when I finished the "Aino" cantata, like Aino, I felt I also want to throw myself into the quiet embrace of the ocean. Carl Philipp Emanuel, the young Bach, often wrote to my family Michael, discussing the matter of succeeding me as the music director of Hamburg. I was born Nothing to love."

"In June, 1767, I had a severe pain in my chest. I laughed it off, because I knew what it meant. I thought of the flowers in the garden, whose last melody of their native masters often echoed in my head, It was the spring of 6, and Handel's oratorio "The Triumph of Time and Truth," in which Farewell to Beauty..."

Guardian Angel please protect me,

Guide me in the path of virtue,

When I bid farewell to earth and go to heaven.

The world can't lie to me anymore,

And gratuitous passion no longer mourns me,

It all comes down to faith, hope and love.

On the night of June 1767, 6, Telemann died at the age of 25 at his home in Hamburg.His godson Carl Philipp Immanuel Bach succeeded him in Hamburg.His grandson, Georg Michael, went to Latvia as conductor of the orchestra at Riga Cathedral, where Michael performed 86 of his grandfather's Passions and is considered the guardian of his grandfather's music.

"In my long life I have had many, if not many, friends. In the final analysis, however, I cherish my friendship with Handel most, even though we were separated by oceans for most of our lives, Messages can only be conveyed by letters and silent flowers." Telemann said with emotion, "The reason is hard to explain, but I think it has something to do with our meeting when we were young and ignorant. After I started my career, I also had Many people approached me and offered me favors, but my conservative and sensitive heart found it difficult to distinguish whether they were sincere or just out of work etiquette or other needs. However, Handel was different. In 1701, I am not the music director of the five churches in Hamburg, nor is he the queen composer of the Hannover dynasty... We are just two past 'music prodigy'--if our childhood is indeed a little achievement-- -I was entrusted by my family to honor my ancestors, and I was aggrieved but had no strength to resist on the road of life that was arranged. It was he who made the 20-year-old me, who was almost determined to give up music and forced me to study law, find my courage, and let the cowardly me Bravely drink the poison of music." Slightly remorseful, Telemann said, "In my life, I've been a nice guy if I'm praised; Resolute and persistent, tough, without his courage and anger... Without him, I am afraid that I will only be an unknown lawyer, and die in mediocrity in my hometown of Magdeburg..."

"It is true that during the golden age of our careers, our friendship is no longer as pure as it was when we were teenagers. Many times, I doubt whether he is still the same as he was, and whether I am still the same me under the various paperwork decorated with red tape. "Telemann said, "I know, the answer is no. The life of chasing fame and fortune and intrigue changed us forever. I just don't know if I can have a good friend, I can disregard status, disregard face , regardless of etiquette, confided my heart to him... the exchange of music allowed me to peep into his lonely and sensitive heart under his stern appearance, however, all of this is too far away from private communication. He is in London, living under the spotlight; I live in Hamburg, where there is little privacy, and family scandals spread far and wide..."

"If I ever had a long-cherished but unfulfilled wish, it was that when we both became adults, we could have a chance to get together secretly away from the public, even for a weekend, as we did in college, and have a few words face to face. So, even for a morning... But the English Channel made my hopes come to naught. In my later years, when I was devastated in gardening, when I found that he also picked up the same When we were hobbies, although we, as public figures, could no longer write private sentences in letters, but in the silent batches of plants and the manuscripts exchanged with them, I am sure that we can all feel the flowers. And the silent emotions contained in the music... The images of the two teenagers in Harley Town 60 years ago gradually blurred, and now the coldly printed portraits are slowly disappearing, and what is left are the infinite memories of those delicate flower branches. Confidentially: They are all exotic plants. They have lived in foreign countries for many years. Although they have suffered hardships and hardships, they have never spoken. They just bloom silently year after year, giving the world peace and joy that cannot be achieved by ordinary pleasures in the world...See things Seeing him, the plants he bestowed soothed my heart when he was still alive; after his death, they gradually became the continuation of his life, and every move of the blade of grass seemed to sob and sob, hitting me vividly. heart..."

"Before I passed away, I entrusted my friends to take care of our plants. They will continue to grow there, commemorating our friendship that sprouted in the early years but finally existed only in unreachable letters." My mutual friend Mattson also passed away five years after my death. My little Michael even went to Latvia and never returned... The witness of our friendship, those plants are like our lives, like The music we have cultivated, like the entire Baroque era, has disappeared in the dust of history."

Closing the book in his hand, Telemann tried to calm himself down.Vivaldi was also moved by this, "Philip, your friendship did not disappear with the withering of the plants. Your music will always witness your lifelong friendship. If anyone has not seen "Water"