had no conception of his powers. So greatly was he struck with his peculiar way of playing, that he followed him all over Italy, and was never so happy as when he was with him. And ever afterwards, Scarlatti, as often as he was admired for his own great execution, would mention Handel, and cross himself in token of veneration.”—Life of Handel.
These noble rivalries, this tender enthusiastic conviction of the superiority of another, this religious
—“joy to feel
A foeman worthy of our steel,”
one instance of which delights us more than all the lonely achievements of intellect, as showing the twofold aspect of the soul, and linking every nature, generous enough for sympathy, in the golden chain, which upholds the earth and the heavens, are found everywhere in the history of high genius. Only the little men of mere talent deserve a place at Le Sage’s supper of the authors. Genius cannot be forever on the wing; it craves a home, a holy land; it carries reliquaries in the bosom; it craves cordial draughts from the goblets of other pilgrims. It is always pious, always chivalric; the artist, like the Preux, throws down his shield to embrace the antagonist, who has been able to pierce it; and the greater the genius, the more do we glow with delight at his power of feeling,—need of feeling reverence not only for the creative soul, but for its manifestation through fellow men. What melody of Beethoven’s is more melodious, than his letter of regal devotion to Cherubini, or the transports with which he calls out on first hearing the compositions of Schubert; “Wahrlich in dem Schubert wohnt ein göttlicher Funke.” Truly in Schubert dwells a divine fire.[1]
But to return to Handel. The only biography of him I have
- ↑ As Schubert’s music begins to be known among ourselves, it may be interesting to record the names of those songs, which so affected Beethoven. They are Ossian’s Gesange, Die Burgschaft, Die junge Nonne, and Die Grenze der Menschheit.
