theatre.[1] For the rest, Mattheson was too good a musician to serve music in words. He sought to unite them by safeguarding the independence of both, but ended by giving the preference to the soul over the body, the melody over the words. The words he wrote are the body of the discourses; the thoughts are the soul; the melody is the sun shining on the soul, the marvellous atmosphere which envelops it all. We have said enough to give some idea of this great critic, intelligent and intrepid, who, with many faults, has yet many virtues. One will see how important it was to the young Handel to meet such a guide, even though they were both too original and too self-sufficient for the association to last long.
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Mattheson did Handel the honours of Hamburg. He introduced him at the Opera, and the concerts, and it was through him that Handel entered for the first time into negotiations with England, which was to become his second country.[2] They helped
- ↑ In theory rather than in practice: for his operas are mediocre. Besides, he soon lost his taste for the theatre, his religious scruples being too strong for him. He wished at first to purify the Opera, to make the theatre something serious and sacred, which should act on the masses in an instructive and elevating manner (Musikalischer Patriot, 1728). Then he saw that his conception of a moral and edifying opera had no chance of being realised. Finally he lost his interest, and even rejoiced in 1750 over the final ruin which overtook the Hamburg Opera.
- ↑ Mattheson, who spoke perfect English, and who became a little later the secretary to the English Legation, then resident in the interim, presented Handel to the English Ambassador, John Wich, who entrusted them both with the instruction of his son.
