Ex. 14-1: Aria: Farewell, ye limpid springs

From Handel's oratorio Jephtha (HWV 70, 1751), his last oratorio. While composing this work, Handel was going blind. In the autograph score, at the end of the chorus "How dark, O Lord, are Thy decrees," he wrote: "Reached here on 13 February 1751, unable to go on owing to weakening of the sight of my left eye."

The aria "Farewell, ye limpid springs and floods" is sung by Iphis, Jephtha's daughter, as she accepts her fate to be sacrificed. In the first part she says farewell to nature and the world, "where reign short hours of joy and years of pain." In the middle part she turns to heaven: "Brighter scenes I seek above, in the realms of peace and love." In the Bible (Judges), the daughter is killed. Handel's librettist, Thomas Morell, changed the ending: an angel appears, says God does not want a human sacrifice, and Iphis is spared but must live dedicated to God as a virgin.

The premiere took place at Covent Garden on 26 February 1752, with Handel himself conducting despite his failing eyesight.

Handel later became completely blind. In 1758 he was treated by John Taylor, a traveling eye surgeon, but the operation did not help. Taylor had also operated on Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750, shortly before Bach died. Bach and Handel were both born in 1685 and never met.

Handel had written about blindness before. His oratorio Samson (1743) has the aria "Total eclipse," sung by the blinded Samson. The music historian Charles Burney wrote that at a later performance, with the blind Handel sitting by the organ, this aria moved many in the audience to tears.

From the album Bach, Mozart, Wolf & Debussy: Songs and Arias by Christiane Oelze, Marcus Creed and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (2009)
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