SEBASTIAN BACH AND HIS WORKS. 17 



the whole of such an effeminate and whining production as Spohr's 

 Crucifixion, which has been so extravagantly bepraised by certain 

 critics, and which has not the merit of novelty to recommend it. 

 The double chorus in E minor, at the beginning of the Passionsmu- 

 sik, is, both in design and execution, the grandest, the most pro- 

 ductive of sublime and holy feeling of any we are acquainted with. 

 The choruses throughout the work are all equally fine in their seve- 

 ral styles : the ad lib. and accompanied recitatives are magnificent, 

 both in expression and modulation ; and the airs, possessing all the 

 beauties which we have above attempted to describe, are worthy of 

 equal praise. On the whole, admiring as we do Handel's great 

 work on the same subject, yet regarding it as a work of art, and not 

 as a mere candidate for the majority of suffrages, we should without 

 hesitation assign it a lower rank than the jMessiah of Bach. When 

 musical education shall be conducted on the plan and to the extent 

 which alone can make the individuals composing the public compe- 

 tent judges, we are confident that our verdict will be confirmed. 



The works of this composer for the catholic church which we 

 have seen, consist of three masses in G and A major and B minor, 

 the two former for ordinary occasions, the latter for high mass. All 

 three are very fine works, but the latter displays such consummate 

 learning, such complete mastery of the art, and in the employment 

 of these such inconceivable sublimity and such entire loveliness, 

 that it seems rather the work of a disembodied aiid exalted spirit, 

 than that of a mere mortal, occupied with the cares, the sorrows, 

 the trials of this transitory state, and subject to the same failings as 

 ourselves. As a work, as a masterpiece of art, it is worthy to stand 

 beside the Messiah of the same composer ; and any comparison 

 which may be instituted between this and the greatest works of 

 other composers, will only demonstrate the more clearly the im- 

 measurable, the impassable gulph which lies outstretched between 

 them. 



We have new finished our too brief examination of these mighty 

 achievements of human genius. It only remains for us to consider 

 what will be their reception at the hands of the present and of suc- 

 ceeding generations. In the present state of general education, a 

 knowledge of musical science is by no means accounted a universally 

 indispensable element. The capability of performing on some in- 

 strument, with some power of interpreting the conventional symbols 

 of musical combinations, is all that is required to complete the com- 

 mon idea of a musical education. Now, the one is a purely mecha- 

 nical accomplishment, the other intellectual in a very slight degree; 



VOL. VII., NO. XXI. c 



