The Galaxy Playlist

February 28th, 2005

Feasting on Handel

I could say a lot about this great composer, but maybe I should let others say it for me: (quotations taken from gfhandel.org)

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727; physicist) is said to have remarked on Handel's keyboard ability, "I found...nothing worthy to remark but the elasticity of his fingers."

Dr. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735; mathematician & physician) is said to have remarked, "Conceive the highest you can of his abilities, and they are far beyond anything you can conceive."

Johann Sebastian Bach is attributed with the following remark: "[Handel] is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be, were I not Bach."

Upon hearing the above statement, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have exclaimed: "Truly, I would say the same myself if I were permitted to put in a word"

William Boyce (1711-1779; English composer) is believed to have said concerning Handel's numerous borrowings of others' music, "He takes other men's pebbles and polishes them into diamonds"

The composer Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787) is said to have remarked about Handel, "The inspired master of our art."

Jonathan Swift is said to have remarked (Dublin, 1742) while waiting for Handel to visit him, "O pray let me see a German genius before I die!"
NOTE: Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) - Irish-born English author of Guliver's Travels.

Upon hearing the 'Hallelujah Chorus' from Messiah, Joseph Haydn is said to have "wept like a child" and exclaimed: "He is the master of us all."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have remarked, "Handel understands effect better than any of us -- when he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt... though he often saunters, in the manner of his time, this is always something there."

Ludwig van Beethoven is said to have exclaimed, "Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived... I would uncover my head and kneel down on his tomb."
Source: Edward Schulz (English musician who visited Beethoven in 1816 and 1823), "A Day with Beethoven", The Harmonicum (1824)

Ludwig van Beethoven, when asked to name the greatest composer ever, he is said to have responded, "Handel, to him I bow the knee."

Ludwig van Beethoven, on his deathbed, in his referring to an edition of Handel's works, is reported to have said, "There is the truth."

In 1819, Beethoven told Archduke Rudolph: "not to forget Handel's works, as they always offer the best nourishment for your ripe musical mind, and will at the same time lead to admiration for this great man."

Alexander Pope wrote:

"Strong in new arms the giant Handel stands,
Like bold Briareus with a hundred hands."

Source: William Coxe, Anecdotes of G.F. Handel and J.C. Smith, p. 31 (1799)

I can't put it much better than that.