226 BIRMINGHAM MUSICAL FESTIVAL. 



and where the high style, which it is your duty to bring before the 

 public, prevailed ; and having formed your conclusions fearlessly 

 carry them out into practice. 



The oratorio is the highest walk of the art. This epic branch 

 seems to have arrived at perfection about the end of the seventeenth 

 and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Previous to that 

 era it was not sufficiently dramatic, and subsequent to it became too 

 secular. In the masterpieces of that period we find the sublime, 

 the beautiful, and the ornamental styles, each in due proportion ; 

 the sublime taking the precedence of its humbler rivals. We have 

 here another proof that the feeling of the sublime is intrinsically 

 the same with that of devotion. Religion was still the main mov- 

 ing spring of the age : no longer, indeed, the religion of cowled 

 monks, chanting solemn requiems in the long-drawn aisle or lonely 

 convent ; no longer the religion of penitent hermits or pilgrims, 

 seeking heaven in a renunciation of the world ; no longer a religion 

 of feelings and impressions ; but one of thought, argument, and 

 conviction, present with the statesman in his cabinet, accompanying 

 the warrior into the battle-field, sending whole tribes into voluntary 

 exile for conscience sake, and hurling princes from their thrones. 

 Similar was the change which came over the spirit of music. The 

 unearthly and purely sublime sti-ains of Palestrina, Bird, Tye, and 

 Tallis, gave way to the " Te Deum" exulting over the fallen foe, 

 and to the oratorio embodying, in the form of a religious drama, the 

 stern martial and political temper of the age. 



In accordance with these views, we find that cotemporaneous 

 composers in Germany, Italy, and England, produced works which 

 bear the impress of colossal grandeur. Whatever might be the 

 stamp of their individual genius, the influence of the school in which 

 they studied, or the character of the people for whom they wrote, 

 they never descended from that commanding elevation which has 

 earned for them an enduring name. 



Among the writers of this period, then, must we seek for the 

 fittest offerings at the shrine of Veneration, Wonder, and Ideality. 

 And truly that we know but the names of some of the greatest, and 

 of those with whom we are more familiar, only such works as chance 

 has thrown in our way, heedless whether those we neglect be not 

 yet nobler, are facts which say but little for our love of art, of ide- 

 ality, of proportion. Of Bach, towering far above all rivals, we 

 have already spoken. But Handel, that name '"^familiar as a hous- 

 hold word," what apology shall be indited for his treatment by " the 

 general ?" Has he written only one great work ? " Where is 



