CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



hear, and be afraid ; ' but ' He shall feed his flock,' 

 and ' He was despised,' appeal to feelings that lie 

 nearer the hearts of the hearers than ' Thou shalt 

 bring them in,' and ' The enemy said.' It cannot 

 be denied, however, that several times in the 

 Messiah, and frequently elsewhere, Handel's music 

 is the very reverse of suited to its words. It is 

 difficult to understand how the writer of ' He was 

 despised ' could also write ' All we like sheep ;' and 

 many of his oratorio solos are simply airs that 

 would have done equally well in his operas ; in 

 some cases, they actually have done duty in both. 

 Handel's oratorios are now always performed with 

 additional accompaniments, added by later com- 

 posers, to suit the increased capacities of the 

 modern orchestra ; of these, Mozart wrote a num- 

 ber, including those for the Messiah. Handel 

 used to accompany them on the organ himself, 

 but we are unfortunately imperfectly informed as 

 to what his accompaniments were. Handel died 

 on Good-Friday (April 14), 1759, and was buried 

 in Westminster Abbey. 



After Handel's death, a new era commences, 

 the era of what is now known as modern music. 

 Germany had by this time attained that supremacy 

 in things musical which it has since held, and 

 which does not seem likely to be wrested from it 

 for many years to come. We must not, however, 

 in recognising the greatness of the German com- 

 posers of the last and present centuries, and of 

 the service done by Germany to musical art, 

 forget how much we owe to Italy in building the 

 foundation on which German music rests. The 

 Italians had originated the oratorio and the 

 opera, the overture and the quartette in fact, 

 almost every known musical form ; and the 

 first composers of any separate instrumental 

 music, as has been seen, were Italians. They had 

 also invented a majority of the orchestral instru- 

 ments now in use, and perfected the methods of 

 playing on them, and, in addition, had taught 

 Europe how to sing. The sceptre had passed 

 from their hands, however, never more to return. 



THE GROWTH OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC- 

 HAYDN. 



The composers of whom we have now to 

 speak are the greatest whom the world has 

 seen ; but their works and peculiarities are so 

 much more generally known and understood than 

 those of the old masters, that we shall not have 

 to speak about them at such length as otherwise 

 their real importance would demand. Modern 

 music commences with Joseph Haydn ' Father 

 Haydn,' as he has been so often affectionately 

 called ' the veritable originator of German instru- 

 mental music.' We shall not make any catalogue 

 of Haydn's works, but simply note the points in 

 which music is most indebted to him. He was, in 

 the first place, the chief instrument in changing 

 the old contrapuntal style of composition into the 

 modern thematic style, in which a succession of 

 secondary subjects are derived or developed from, 

 or added to, a leading idea or theme, and fugal 

 imitation but sparingly used. He not only was 

 the first to employ this style freely, but he orig- 

 inated and constantly used the very form known 

 as the ' sonata form,' in which it has ever since 

 been employed. 



We have shewn how long it was before com- 



714 



posers had learned how even to make music 

 express words. This art had now been attained, 

 and Haydn went a step farther, and made it 

 express ideas. Instrumental music before his day 



had appealed solely to the ear or the intellect. 



He did for it what Palestrina had done for vocal 

 music, and shewed how it could be made to appeal 

 also to the emotions. The most important form 

 which orchestral music had taken before his clay 

 was the Suite, a series of dance tunes (Sarabande, 

 Gavotte, Bourrde, Gigue, and so on), sometimes 

 connected together, and sometimes merely follow- 

 ing one after the other. Of these suites, J. S. 

 Bach composed a great number, parts of which 

 are well known (in pianoforte arrangements) in 

 this country ; and his son, Carl Philip Emanuel 

 Bach, transformed the suite into something nearly 

 resembling the modern symphony.* It was re- 

 served for Haydn, however, actually to originate the 

 symphony in the form which Beethoven used, and 

 with which we are now familiar ; and it does not 

 seem as if music alone, unaccompanied by poetry 

 or action, could attain to any higher form. In the 

 hands of a master its capacity for expression is 

 absolutely unbounded. Haydn's symphonies, no 

 doubt, cannot be compared with Beethoven's, but 

 they are an immense advance in the direction 

 of emotional music upon anything that had pre- 

 ceded them. He wrote 118 altogether, of which 

 those most celebrated are the twelve written for 

 Salomon's concerts in London, when the com- 

 poser was nearly sixty years old, and after the 

 death of Mozart. It is worthy of mention also 

 that Haydn went one step farther than this. He 

 not only wrote music which appealed certainly, 

 though indefinitely, to the emotions, but he also 

 on many occasions gave such titles to his instru- 

 mental works as afforded a clue to the actual 

 ideas which they were intended to express,t and 

 brought them thus into the category of ' programme 

 music.' 



_ In this country, Haydn is indissolubly asso- 

 ciated with his oratorio of the Creation, which he 

 wrote after visiting London to conduct his sym- 

 phonies, and which was no doubt suggested by 

 hearing Handel's great works. It cannot be said 

 that the Creation in any way advanced the genus 

 oratorio. Its choruses are in no way equal in 

 dignity or grandeur to those of Handel or Bach, 

 and it holds its own in popular estimation mostly 

 by the beauty of its melodies. Without wishing 

 to say anything to detract from the merit of this 

 beautiful work, it must yet be admitted that it 

 did not do much to increase the debt which 

 musical art owed to its composer. 



Haydn's other vocal works we cannot here 

 mention ; but it would not be right to pass on 

 without any allusion to his eighty-three string 

 quartettes (for two violins, viola, and violoncello), 

 which even now remain the most delightful of 

 chamber-music, and do not call for any degree of 

 execution or ability unattainable by study to the 

 amateur. 



THE OPERA MOZART. 



Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born twentj 

 four years after Haydn, and died many ye 



* A symphony 5s a piece of music in several parts or ' move- 

 lents," written for a full orchestra. 



t For instance, Elena Greca ; II Solitarto ; Departure of a 

 Family for America, Grief of those left bekitid, tlie Voyage and 

 Return, &c. 



