220 BIRMINGHAM MUSICAL, FESTIVAL. 



great homogeneous whole, he takes the hearer, as it were, by storm. 

 His pre-eminence consists rather in his entire and instantaneous 

 command over the feelings and emotions, than in the power of 

 keeping them enchained at will during any considerable period. 

 In his choruses he seldom adheres long to any particular idea, but 

 makes each derive a great part of its effect from contrast with the 

 preceding. In this contrast — in this intuitive knowledge of what 

 and where to contrast — lies one principal cause of the immense hold 

 which these compositions have maintained, and ever will maintain, 

 on the public mind. It is disagreeable to the greater part of man- 

 kind long to follow out one idea, and to develope all its capabilities; 

 any new idea, therefore, which prevents the necessity of doing this, 

 is hailed with gi-eater delight than if presented simply on its own 

 intrinsic merits. And, undoubtedly, the composition where each 

 idea is good in itself — where each is so placed as to stand in striking 

 contrast with, and to afford agreeable relief to, the succeeding — and 

 where their combination fulfils our conceptions of musical symmetry, 

 is a high achievement of art. But it is to the master-works of Se- 

 bastian Bach that we must turn, would we contemplate excellence 

 far surpassinff this both in kind and degree. Bach is, perhaps, the 

 only composer who has never submitted to the smallest compromise 

 with the public taste — to the slightest modification of his own ex- 

 alted ideas to suit the fancy of the impatient and uninstructed mul- 

 titude. To him, therefore, are we indebted for the only true fore- 

 taste of what art is destined to produce when its capacities and 

 ends are better understood than, at the present day, they unfortu- 

 nately are. For an account of some of his works and an analysis of 

 his style, we may refer the reader to the last number of The Analyst, 

 If the estimate there formed be just, and if Handel be the 

 " giant" the world imagines him, then have the critics of Mendels- 

 sohn awarded him higher praise than they perhaps intended, in 

 pronouncing him " imbued with the spirit of Sebastian Bach," and 

 in declaring that he is " often Handel himself." No assertions can 

 be more contrary to truth. 



On the other hand, it would be extremely unfair to make a com- 

 poser's first great work the test of his abilities, or of the excellence 

 to which, by study and experience, he maj' hereafter attain. We 

 know not which is the more injurious to the interests of art — to 

 expect a young composer at once to reject all previous models, and 

 burst forth to the world with innate originality, or to place his 

 first necessarily imperfect efforts on a level with works which have 

 passed triumphantly through the ordeal of time. Take three of 



