This month in history
where the much sought-a er post of organist at the Marienkirche had become available due to the imminent retirement of legendary composerorganist Dietrich Buxtehude. There was one snag however: as tradition demanded, whoever got the job would automatically win the hand in marriage of Buxtehude’s daughter Margreta. In the event, neither composer found the prospect particularly enticing.
Back in Hamburg, the two friends carried on as before, although an air of increased rivalry was noted by Mattheson when Sir John Wich, Hamburg’s Royal Ambassador of Great Britain, chose Mattheson above Handel to mentor his son, Cyril. The resulting simmering discontent on Handel’s part – fuelled, no doubt, by Mattheson’s growing sense of superiority – eventually spilled over at the Goose Market Opera on that fateful, and near fatal, December evening.
All seemed to be going well enough: Mattheson was not only Cleopatra’s composer, but sang the role of the fated Marc Antony too.
The plan was that following his death scene in Act III, Mattheson would then make his way to the harpsichord and direct the remainder of the opera from there. However, he hadn’t allowed for the fact that Handel had been asked to stand in for ailing resident music director Reinhard Keiser.
When the moment came for Mattheson to send Handel back to the second violins, the latter took umbrage and wouldn’t budge. Somehow, they muddled on and made it to the end of the opera, but by curtain-down their smouldering resentment had escalated into a full-scale row. They got as far as the stage door, a challenge was issued, and egged on by the jostling crowd of onlookers they made their way outside into the market square.
According to John Mainwaring, Handel’s first biographer, Mattheson lunged at Handel with his sword and would have inflicted a mortal injury had it not been for ‘the friendly score which Handel accidentally carried in his bosom; and through which to have forced it, would have demanded all the might of Ajax himself.’ However, it is Mattheson’s account that has proved the most enduring, in which he recalls that it could all have ended in tragedy ‘had God’s guidance not graciously ordained that my blade, thrusting against my opponent’s broad metal coat-button, should be shattered.’
A er that dramatic incident, one might have assumed there was no conceivable way back for the former friends. Yet it seems that within the month they were getting on famously again and, in celebration of the forthcoming premiere of Handel’s first opera Almira on 8 January 1705 (in which Mattheson starred as the orphan Fernando), went out for a slap-up meal. Sword fight?
What sword fight?
When the moment came for Handel to return to the violins, he wouldn’t budge