Page:Romain Rolland Handel.djvu/16

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GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL

of both master and pupil; there is the same feeling of light and joy; there is nothing of the pious concentration and introspection of Bach, who goes down into the deeps of thought, and who loves to probe into all the innermost recesses of the heart, and—in silence and solitude—converse with his God. The music of Zachau is the music of great spaces, of dazzling frescoes, such as one sees on the domes of the Italian cathedrals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but Zachau's work contains more religion than these. His music pulses with action like the bounding and rebounding of great springs of steel. It has triumphant subjects with expositions of great solemnity. There are victorious marches, carrying everything before them, which go crashing on without stopping, ever spurring on the sparkling and joyous patterns. There are also pastoral themes, pure and voluptuous reveries,[1] dances, and songs accompanied by flutes, with a Grecian perfume,[2] and a smiling virtuosity, a joy intoxicated with itself, twisting lines, and vocal arabesques, vocalizations, trills for the voice which gambol light-heartedly with the little wavelike arpeggios of the violins.[3] Let us unite these two traits: the heroic and the pastoral, the warriors' marches and the jubilant dances. There you have

  1. Ruche, Friede p. 122.
  2. Ibid., pp. 113, 183.
  3. Ibid., pp. 110, 141, 254, 263.