The emotion uppermost in the music of all these old people is the
specific emotion of the beautiful; the emotional possibilities, latent
in so many elements of the musical structure, never do more than
qualify the overwhelming impression due to that structure itself. The
music of Handel and Bach is beautiful, with a touch of awe; that of
Gluck, with a tinge of sadness; Mozart's and his contemporaries' is
beautiful, with a reminiscence of all tender and happy emotions; then
again, there are the great Italians of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, Carissimi, Scarlatti the elder, Marcello, whose musical
beauty is oddly emphasised with energy and sternness, due to their
powerful, simple rhythms and straightforward wide intervals. But
whatever the emotional qualification, the chief, the never varying,
all-important characteristic, is the beauty; the dominant emotion is
the serene happiness which beauty gives: happiness, strong and
delicate; increase of our vitality; evocation of all cognate beauty,
physical and moral, bringing back to our consciousness all that which
is at once wholesome and rare. For beauty such as this is both
desirable and, in a sense, far-fetched; it comes naturally to us, and
we meet it half-way; but it does not come often enough.
Hence it is that the music of these masters never admits us into the
presence of such feelings as either were better not felt, or at all
events, not idly witnessed. There is not ever anything in the joy or
grief suggested by this music, in the love of which it is an
expression, which should make us feel abashed in feeling or
witnessing. The whole world may watch _Orpheus_ or _Alcestis_, as the
whole world may stand (with Bach or Pergolese to make music) at the
foot of the Cross. But may the whole world sit idly watching the
raptures and death-throes of Tristram and Yseult?
Surely the world has grown strangely intrusive and unblushing.