AS a boy, from 12 years old or so, I always worshipped Handel. Beethoven
was a _terra incognita_ to me till I went up to Cambridge; I knew and
liked a few of his waltzes but did not so much as know that he had
written any sonatas or symphonies. At Cambridge Sykes tried to teach me
Beethoven but I disliked his music and would go away as soon as Sykes
began with any of his sonatas. After a long while I began to like some
of the slow movements and then some entire sonatas, several of which I
could play once fairly well without notes. I used also to play Bach and
Mendelssohn’s _Songs without Words_ and thought them lovely, but I always
liked Handel best. Little by little, however, I was talked over into
placing Bach and Beethoven on a par as the greatest and I said I did not
know which was the best man. I cannot tell now whether I really liked
Beethoven or found myself carried away by the strength of the Beethoven
current which surrounded me; at any rate I spent a great deal of time on
him, for some ten or a dozen years.
One night, when I was about 30, I was at an evening party at Mrs.
Longden’s and met an old West End clergyman of the name of Smalley
(Rector, I think, of Bayswater). I said I did not know which was
greatest Handel, Bach or Beethoven.
He said: “I am surprised at that; I should have thought you would have
known.”
“Which,” said I, “is the greatest?”
“Handel.”
I knew he was right and have never wavered since. I suppose I was really
of this opinion already, but it was not till I got a little touch from
outside that I knew it. From that moment Beethoven began to go back, and
now I feel towards him much as I did when I first heard his work, except,
of course, that I see a gnosis in him of which as a young man I knew
nothing. But I do not greatly care about gnosis, I want agape; and
Beethoven’s agape is not the healthy robust tenderness of Handel, it is a
sickly maudlin thing in comparison. Anyhow I do not like him. I like
Mozart and Haydn better, but not so much better as I should like to like
them.