„Was er angriff, wurde sein eigen“ – Händels Exzerpierpraxis im Horizont der Genieästhetik

Abstract

AbstractSince Edward Young's Conjectures on Original Composition published in 1759 the concept of original genius has been at the centre of considerations concerning creative processes. And George Frideric Handel's compositions were regarded not only by his contemporaries, but also by subsequent generations as an epitome of the creative power of a sublime artistic personality individualized in every sense. This image of the composer as a musical hero faltered in the course of the 19th century when it became known to what large extent Handel had taken excerpts from other composers’ works and based his own compositions on these borrowings. The argumentative tension resulting from the confrontation between claim of originality and borrowing practice can by retraced in Handel's Wirkungsgeschichte better than in any other reception history of an 18th‐century artist. Moreover it can be shown that scholarly attempts to explain Handel's art of excerption have focused on the paradigm of the original genius until our days: aesthetic contemplation turns into history of humanities. Based on a selection of symptomatic documents the following article will exemplify and discuss these issues finally sketching some consequences for the analysis and interpretation of Handel's borrowing practice against the background of ars excerpendi.