his unheard-of intellectual power, and a mastery of technique equal or
nearly equal to Bach's, he was often tempted to write in his
uninspired moments, and so the chorus became with him more or less of
a formula; but we may also note that even when he was most mechanical
the mere furious speed at which he wrote seemed to excite and exalt
him, so that if he began with a commonplace "Let their celestial
concerts all unite," before the end he was pouring forth glorious and
living stuff like the last twenty-seven bars. So the pace at which he
had to write in the intervals of bullying or coaxing prima donnas or
still more petulant male sopranos was not wholly a misfortune; if it
sometimes compelled him to set down mere musical arithmetic, or
rubbish like "Honour and arms," and "Go, baffled coward," it sometimes
drew his grandest music out of him. The dramatic oratorio is a hybrid
form of art--one might almost say a bastard form; it had only about
thirty years of life; but in those thirty years Handel accomplished
wonderful things with it. And the wonder of them makes Handel appear
the more astonishing man; for, when all is said, the truth is that the
man was greater, infinitely greater, than his music.




HAYDN AND HIS "CREATION"


It is a fact never to be forgotten, in hearing good papa Haydn's
music, that he lived in the fine old world when stately men and women
went through life in the grand manner with a languid pulse, when the
earth and the days were alike empty, and hurry to get finished and
proceed to the next thing was almost unknown, and elbowing of rivals