depicts him as a Berlioz or Wagner, raising storms by his orchestra and chorus.
"He cannot give people pleasure after the proper fashion," writes this anonymous author in his letter, "and his evil genius will not allow him to do this. He imagines a new grandioso kind of music, and in order to make more noise he has it executed by the greatest number of voices and instruments which one has ever heard before in a theatre. He thinks thus to rival not only the god of musicians, but even all the other gods, like Iöle, Neptune, and Jupiter: for either I expected that the house would be brought down by his tempest, or that the sea would engulf the whole. But more unbearable still was his thunder. Never have such terrible rumblings fallen on my head."[1]
Similarly Goethe, irritated and upset, said, after having heard the first movement of the Beethoven C Minor symphony, "It is meaningless. One expected the house to fall about one's ears."
It is not by chance that I couple the names of Handel and Beethoven. Handel is a kind of Beethoven in chains. He had the unapproachable manner like the great Italian artists who surrounded him: the Porporas, the Hasses, and
- ↑ Extract from a pamphlet published in London (1751) on The art of composing music in a completely new manner adapted even to the feeblest intellects.
Already Pope in 1742 compared Handel with Briareus.
- “Strong in new arms, lo! Giant Handel stands,
Like bold Briareus with his hundred hands.”
- “Strong in new arms, lo! Giant Handel stands,
