A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, LITERATURE, NATURAL HISTORY, AND THE FINE ARTS. EDITED BY WILLIAM HOLL, Esq., F.G.S.; E. MAMMATT, Esq., F.S.A.; AND NEVILLE WOOD, Esq., BRITISH SONG BIRDS," "ORNITHOLOGIST'S TEXT BOOK," &c.) VOL. VII. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO. WHYTE & Co., EDINBURGH; BARLOW, BIRMINGHAM. 1837. भ DONATED BY THR MERCANTIES LIBRARY ASSOCIAT NEW YORK CITY THE ANALYST. TERCANTILE LIBRAR ASSOCIATIO NEW-YORS SEBASTIAN BACH AND HIS WORKS. To make the English public better acquainted than it at present is with the name of a great composer-to promote investigation, serious study, and frequent performance of his works, and thus to improve the taste of both the connoisseur and amateur—are the objects of the present article. That the name of Sebastian Bach is scarcely, or at least by far too little, known in England-that his works are never heard at the great festivals, and very seldom, if ever, at the public concerts-are lamentable facts, we confess, and facts which speak but ill for the state of musical cultivation in our country. But the causes which have been, and still are, active in producing such culpable indifference, are, we think, by no means difficult of discovery. In the first place, Bach was never in England. This alone, in the hitherto existing and present state of musical knowledge in this country, is sufficient to account for his works not having received a much larger portion of that attention and admiration which, if the truth were known, they merit, to the exclusion of almost all others. The reverence in which we English hold the works of Handel is well known. And why this? cause they surpass all others in grandeur, beauty, and ideality of conception, in finish and elaborateness of execution? Oh, no! But simply because he had the good fortune to spend a great part of his life in our favoured isle, and there to produce his great works. This, without periphrasis, is one great constituent in the excessive and often ridiculous veneration in which the name of Handel is Be held. He is our Handel, belonging, we fondly imagine, to none but ourselves; we alone can understand him. Foreigners must be content with their Leos, their Pergolesis, their Bachs, their Grauns, and a host of other composers, respectable, no doubt, but not to be named in the same breath with our idol, our own peculiar treasure, the "giant Handel." And this because, instead of in Germany, he lived and wrote in England ;t because he composed in a fog instead of under a blue sky; and because he gratified English self-love by setting his music to English words. All this, doubtless, is contemptible enough; but, contemptible as it is, such is the fact: we do but state it, in the hope that people, now knowing the seat of the disease, will set about removing it with all diligence. Another cause of the neglect we are complaining of lies deeper, but will be equally apparent when we have explained, further on, what are the characteristics of Bach's music. At present we will only state, and that without fear of contradiction, that it is his surpassing excellence, his entire freedom from the pedantic and conventional observances of inferior minds, his independent boldness of imagination, which dared and performed every thing worthy of being performed, and, above all, the elevated ideal which was continually present to his mind, which has hitherto opposed effectual barriers to his just appreciation and extended fame. Let not these barriers any longer prevail; let us break through the trammels in which ignorance, self-esteem, and prejudice, have hitherto confined us, and resolve to seek out, and when found to appreciate, whatever is noblest and most elevated in the art; not to remain satisfied with any degree of excellence as long as there exists one yet more excellent, nor to pride ourselves on a one-sided admiration of any composer, resulting more from ignorance of his rival's than from due estimation of his own merits. Another and the last cause which occurs to us is, the unreflecting readiness with which most men bow down before authority-in *We yield to none in a rational admiration of Handel; but what we mean to assert is, that his almost exclusive celebrity in this country is owing rather to adventitious and extrinsic circumstances than to admiration arising from a knowledge of the merits of other composers, and his superiority over them. Besides this, Handel was essentially a popular composer—that is, he adapted his undoubtedly great powers to the capacities of uncultivated tastes; and inasmuch as he has done so has he lowered his claims to rank as a great artist, in the highest acceptation of the term. + Handel composed the Messiah at Gopsall, the seat of Earl Howe, in Leicestershire. There is a good portrait of the "gigantic" melodist in the earl's collection at this family residence.-EDS. |