It has been objected that the leviathan is brought on in
sections. The truth, of course, is that the clumsy figure in the bass
is not meant to depict the leviathan himself, but his gambolings and
the gay flourishings of his tail. It is hard to sum up the "Creation,"
unless one is prepared to call it great and never go to hear it. It is
not a sublime oratorio, nor yet a frankly comic oratorio, nor entirely
a dull oratorio. After considering the songs, the recitatives, the
choruses, in detail, it really seems to contain very little. Perhaps
it may be described as a third-rate oratorio, whose interest is
largely historic and literary.
MOZART, HIS "DON GIOVANNI" AND THE REQUIEM
It may well be doubted whether Vienna thought even so much of
Capellmeister Mozart as Leipzig thought of Capellmeister Bach. Bach,
it is true, was merely Capellmeister; he hardly dared to claim social
equality with the citizens who tanned hides or slaughtered pigs; and
probably the high personages who trimmed the local Serene Highness's
toe-nails scarcely knew of his existence. Still, he was a burgher,
even as the killers of pigs and the tanners of hides; he was
thoroughly respectable, and probably paid his taxes as they came due;
if only by necessity of his office, he went to church with regularity;
and on the whole we may suppose that he got enough of respect to make
life tolerable.
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