Why did Handel Borrow?

Abstract

Of the many questions raised by Handel’s penchant for musical borrowing, one has perhaps exercised more minds than any other. In Winton Dean’s words, ‘Why did so fertile a composer need to borrow at all?’ 1 That Handel often used ideas more than once or transferred movements from one of his works to another is not in itself surprising; composers of all periods have practised similar economies, and never were such methods more prevalent than in the first half of the eighteenth century. But the spectacle of a great creative artist conducting regular raids on the stores of his predecessors and contemporaries seems to call for special explanation. Over the years most writers who have dealt with the borrowings have attempted, if only in passing, to dispose of this troublesome issue. An astonishing variety of hypotheses have been put forward, some more cogent than others. To date, however, no single theory has won broad enough acceptance to lay the matter to rest. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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