i
If you tie Handel’s hands by debarring him from the rendering of human
emotion, and if you set Bach’s free by giving him no human emotion to
render—if, in fact, you rob Handel of his opportunities and Bach of his
difficulties—the two men can fight after a fashion, but Handel will even
so come off victorious. Otherwise it is absurd to let Bach compete at
all. Nevertheless the cultured vulgar have at all times preferred
gymnastics and display to reticence and the healthy, graceful, normal
movements of a man of birth and education, and Bach is esteemed a more
profound musician than Handel in virtue of his frequent and more involved
complexity of construction. In reality Handel was profound enough to
eschew such wildernesses of counterpoint as Bach instinctively resorted
to, but he knew also that public opinion would be sure to place Bach on a
level with himself, if not above him, and this probably made him look
askance at Bach. At any rate he twice went to Germany without being at
any pains to meet him, and once, if not twice, refused Bach’s invitation.
ii
Rockstro says that Handel keeps much more closely to the old Palestrina
rules of counterpoint than Bach does, and that when Handel takes a
licence it is a good bold one taken rarely, whereas Bach is niggling away
with small licences from first to last.