Even Mozart never quite attained that union of
miraculously balanced form, sweetness of melody, and depth of feeling
with a degree of sheer strength that keeps the expression of the main
thought lucid, and the surface of the music, so to speak, calm, when
obscurity might have been anticipated, and some roughness and storm
and stress excused. "Faith displays her rosy wing" is an absolutely
perfect instance of a Handel song. Were not the thing done, one might
believe it impossible to express with such simplicity--four sombre
minor chords and then the tremolo of the strings--the alternations of
trembling fear and fearful hope, the hope of the human soul in
extremist agony finding an exalted consolation in the thought that
this was the worst. As astounding as this is the quality of light and
freshness of atmosphere with which Handel imbues such songs as "Clouds
o'ertake the brightest day" and "Crystal streams in murmurs flowing";
and the tenderness of "Would custom bid," with the almost divine
refrain, "I then had called thee mine," might surprise us, coming as
it does from such a giant, did we not know that tenderness is always a
characteristic of the great men, of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner,
and that the pettiness, ill-conditionedness, and lack of generous
feeling observable in (say) our London composers to-day stamp them
more unmistakably than does their music as small composers.
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