We now turn from the man to his music. In his daily life with the world
we get a spectacle of a quick, passionate temper, incased in a
great burly frame, and raging into whirlwinds of excitement at small
provocation; a gourmand devoted to the pleasure of the table, sometimes
indeed gratifying his appetite in no seemly fashion, resembling his
friend Dr. Samuel Johnson in many notable ways. Handel as a man was
of the earth, earthy, in the extreme, and marked by many whimsical and
disagreeable faults. But in his art we recognize a genius so colossal,
massive, and self-poised as to raise admiration to its superlative of
awe. When Handel had disencumbered himself of tradition, convention,
the trappings of time and circumstance, he attained a place in musical
creation, solitary and unique. His genius found expression in forms
large and austere, disdaining the luxuriant and trivial. He embodied
the spirit of Protestantism in music; and a recognition of this fact
is probably the key of the admiration felt for him by the Anglo-Saxon
races.
Handel possessed an inexhaustible fund of melody of the noblest order;
an almost unequaled command of musical expression; perfect power over
all the resources of his science; the faculty of wielding huge masses
of tone with perfect ease and felicity; and he was without rival in the
sublimity of ideas. The problem which he so successfully solved in the
oratorio was that of giving such dramatic force to the music, in which
he clothed the sacred texts, as to be able to dispense with all scenic
and stage effects. One of the finest operatic composers of the time,
the rival of Bach as an instrumental composer, and performer on the
harpsichord or organ, the unanimous verdict of the musical world is that
no one has ever equaled him in completeness, range of effect, elevation
and variety of conception, and sublimity in the treatment of sacred
music. We can readily appreciate Handel's own words when describing
his own sensations in writing the "Messiah:" "I did think I did see all
heaven before me, and the great God himself."
The great man died on Good Friday night, 1759, aged seventy-five years.
He had often wished "he might breathe his last on Good Friday, in
hope," he said, "of meeting his good God, his sweet Lord and Saviour, on
the day of his resurrection." The old blind musician had his wish.