“Was Gee Friric Hanl Gay?”: On Closet Qutns and Cultural Po

WAS HANL GAY? / MILOGIST'S PROVOTIVE NEW BOOK EXPLAS WHY MIGHT MATTER

* handel gay *

He spent years Italian urts and English untry tat where homosexualy was known to predomate (even if the word didn't exist yet). Dpe spendg nearly his entire reer as a celebry London -- a cy whose love of gossip was every b as veloped the 18th century as is today -- he left no solid ditn that he ever had a love affair of any kd, gay or straight. The Italian and German urts which Hanl served durg his early 20s were populated by prc and rdals whose homosexualy was an open secret.

Still, the more prsg qutn remas: Even if Hanl were gay, would that be an important velopment our unrstandg of him as an artist? This qutn is raised every time a scholar tri to suggt a gay aspect to some mician's private life -- most recently, for example, nnectn wh Schubert and Ravel. It is only when homosexualy enters the picture that "don't ask, don't tell" go to effect, and the privacy of long-ad artists sudnly be paramount some quarters.

The real importance of Harris' study is that she the gay environment which Hanl moved -- whether or not he participated s sexual activi -- to illumate the mic he wrote durg the Italian perd and later. Through far-reachg parisons wh lerature and the visual arts, she unravels the elaborate d referenc to homosexualy embedd the ntatas -- referenc that Hanl's ted dience would surely have ught.

IS THERE ANY EVINCE THAT GE FRIEDRICH HäNL WAS GAY?

It's possible, other words, to trace a direct lk between the gay is of the Roman, Florente and Hanoverian urts where Hanl learned his craft and the mature dramatic mic of his later years, operas and orators alike. It has been claimed that Burlgton Hoe and Cannons, the hom of the Earl of Burlgton and the De of Chandos, were homosexual or homoerotic settgs and that Hanl's prence the environments suggts that he was ‘gay’ or fluenced the secular works he posed there. Examg tail bgraphil rmatn about John Gay, Alexanr Pope and William Kent, eighteenth-century bgraphil acunts of Hanl and sights om the history of sexualy, this article argu that there is no basis for the claims about the homosexual ix at Burlgton Hoe and Cannons or for Hanl's sexualy.

He studied unr Frank Bridge, John Ireland and Arthur Benjam among others, and was also a fe ground-breakg operas, which clu Peter Grim (1945), and The Turn of the Screw (1954) – and his famo War Requiem – tackle ntemporaneo issu around psychology and post-war trma, as well his own homosexualy, which was illegal Brten’s lifetime.

HISTORIAN CLAIMS HANL WAS GAY

As well as beg one of the first openly gay posers full stop, Poulenc also didn’t chew his sexualy the ntext of his relig posns spanned om timate chamber sonatas wh sublime, twistg melodi and lite imprsnist harmoni (thk the 1957 Flute Sonata), to his Piano Concerto and epic one-act opera for soprano and orchtra, La voix humae. Mic historian Ellen Harris leads on the se for Hanl’s homosexualy, argug that his ntatas exhib a clear homosexual subtext her book Hanl as Orphs. And like them, he was associated wh gay clergyman, Cardal Pietro Baroque poser and vlist is known for his chamber sonatas and ncerti grossi, and has gone down history for refg to play a sectn of Hanl’s orator, The Triumph Of Time And Tth, bee a vl note went higher than Corelli believed appropriate for the stment.

Unlike Copland, US poser Samuel Barber ma no effort to keep his homosexualy out of explic view and his life partner was poser Gian Carlo Menotti, who he studied wh at the Curtis Instute.

HANL WAS GAY - HIS MIC PROV , CLAIMS AMIC

Leonard Bernste also studied at the Curtis Instute wh Barber and Menotti (see above), and although he had an on-aga-off-aga relatnship wh actor Felicia Cohn Montealegre and eventually married her, he was openly gay. Montealegre herself wrote publicly about her book, The Bernste Letters, “you are a homosexual and may never change – you don’t adm to the possibily of a double life, but if your peace of md, your health, your whole nervo system pend on a certa sexual pattern what n you do? ” Bernste’s Wt Si Story llaborator Arthur Lrents is known to have lled Bernste “a gay man who got married”, statg, “He wasn't nflicted about at all.

A forthg book by an acknowledged expert on the poser's work says that the never-married Gee Frerick Hanl was a homosexual, acrdg to The Sunday [London] Telegraph.

MIT mic profsor Ellen Harris's Hanl as Orphs: Voice and Dire the Chamber Cantatas (which Harvard Universy Prs will publish Febary) claims that there is "clear homosexual subtext" his operatic works.