(To Freudenberg, in 1824.)
111. “Handel is the unattained master of all masters. Go and learn from him how to achieve vast effects with simple means.”
(Reported by Seyfried. On his death-bed, about the middle of February,
1827, he said to young Gerhard von Breuning, on receiving Handel’s
works: “Handel is the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him I
can still learn. Bring me the books!”)
112. “Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel on his grave.”
(Fall of 1823, to J. A. Stumpff, harp maker of London, who acted very
nobly toward Beethoven in his last days. It was he who rejoiced the
dying composer by sending him the forty volumes of Handel’s works (see
111).)
[“Cipriani Potter, to A. W. T., February 27, 1861. Beethoven used to walk across the fields to Vienna very often. B. would stop, look about and express his love for nature. One day Potter asked: ‘Who is the greatest living composer, yourself excepted?’ Beethoven seemed puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed: ‘Cherubini!’ Potter went on: ‘And of dead authors?’ B.—He had always considered Mozart as such, but since he had been made acquainted with Handel he put him at the head.” From A. W. Thayer’s notebook, reprinted in “Music and Manners in the Classical Period,” page 208. H.E.K.]
113. “Heaven forbid that I should take a journal in which sport is made of the manes of such a revered one.”
(Conversation-book of 1825, in reference to a criticism of Handel.)
114. “That you are going to publish Sebastian Bach’s works is something which does good to my heart, which beats in love of the great and lofty art of this ancestral father of harmony; I want to see them soon.”
(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)