Handel's borrowings and the disputed Gloria

Abstract

This article re-examines the case, first made by Hans Joachim Marx, for attributing the Gloria, HWV deest, to Handel by focusing on passages it shares with known works by the composer. In his rebuttal of Marx's case, Anthony Hicks concluded that such 'borrowings' proves only that Handel knew the Gloria, but this assumes that Handel's works were written after the Gloria, which was not the case. Beginning with a look at material shared by the Gloria and Handel's Laudate pueri, HWV236, I continue with an examination of this same material in two further works by Handel, his Laudate pueri, HWV237, and Zadok the Priest, HWV258. Based on the chronology of these works and on the material they share, it is likely that Handel did compose the Gloria. However, a larger question looms concerning passages that might be attributed to an individual composer as opposed to anyone working in the same time and place. This article therefore seeks to isolate the individual from the common-coin in late 17th- and early 18th-century Italian style as a means, not only of resolving the authorship of the Gloria, but also of substantiating our sense of what constitutes a musical borrowing.