If the
poor fellows knew what they were about, they would at least conceal
the littlenesses that show they are destined never to do work of the
first order. The composer of the "Rex tremendae" (in the Requiem) wrote
"Dove sono," Beethoven wrote both the finale of the Fifth symphony and
the slow movement of the Ninth, Wagner both the Valkyries' Ride and
the motherhood theme in "Siegfried," Handel "Worthy is the Lamb" and
"Waft her, angels"; while your little malicious musical Mimes are
absorbed in self-pity, and can no more write a melody that
irresistibly touches you than they can build a great and impressive
structure. And if Mozart is tenderest of all the musicians, Handel
comes very close to him. The world may, though not probably, tire of
all but his grandest choruses, while his songs will always be sung as
lovely expressions of the finest human feeling.
"Samson" is not his finest oratorio, though it may be his longest. It
contains no "Unto us a Child is born" nor a "Worthy is the Lamb," nor
a "Now love, that everlasting boy"; but in several places the sublime
is reached--in "Then round about the starry throne," the last page of
which is worth all the oratorios written since Handel's time save
Beethoven's "Mount of Olives"; in "Fixed is His everlasting seat,"
with that enormous opening phrase, irresistible in its strength and
energy as Handel himself; and in the first section of "O first created
beam.
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