theatre and not in the church. There were not wanting churches any less than dissenting chapels in which he could give his works, and by not doing so he turned against him the opinion of religious people who considered it sacrilegious to carry pious subjects on to the stage,[1] but he continued to affirm that he did not write compositions for the church, but worked for the theatre—a free theatre.[2]
This briefly dramatic character of Handel's works has been well comprehended by the German historians who have studied him during recent times. Chrysander compares him to Shakespeare,[3] Kretzschmar calls him the reformer of musical drama, Volbach and A. Heuss see in him a dramatic musician, and claim for the performance of his oratorios dramatic singers. Richard Strauss, in his introduction to Berlioz's Treatise of Orchestration, opposes the great polyphonic and symphonic stream issuing from J. S. Bach with that homophonic and dramatic one which comes from Handel. We hope that the readers of this little book have found here in nearly all these pages a confirmation of these ideas.
| · | · | · | · | · |
- ↑ An anonymous letter published in the London Daily Post in April, 1739, dealing with Israel in Egypt, defends Handel against the opposition of the bigots, who were then very bitter. The writer protests "that the performance at which he was present was the noblest manner of honouring God . . . it is not the house which sanctifies the prayer, but the prayer which sanctifies the house."
- ↑ Is not even Joseph entitled "a sacred Drama," and Hercules "a musical Drama"?
- ↑ At the end of his second volume of the Life of Handel.
