Upon the second charge I have nothing to say; but surely the instance in the third movement of the Dettingen Te Deum is almost ludicrously gross.
The latter part of the third charge I admit, as exposing what I have always considered as the most glaring defect of Handel’s style. Almost every air has, first, its allotted number of bars in the major key, then its quantum in the minor, and then returns to the major with the most undeviating and uncompromising regularity. Take, for instance, the well-known song, ‘Let the bright Seraphim.’ Why should ‘the cherubic host’ be forced to ‘strike their immortal harps’ in the minor key, whilst their brethren, the seraphim, are allowed ‘to blow their trumpets’ in the major? Why should there be any minor at all, unless interwoven naturally in the principal movement of the song? Surely those who arrogate to Handel the praise of having deviated from the bad customs of his age, and formed a new style of his own, must allow, that in this most important particular he was as faulty as any of his predecessors. And this, I rejoice to see, your correspondent concedes without a word of defence. Let any unprejudiced person compare those songs where the minor movement and Da Capo are introduced, with those in which they are omitted, and he will at once perceive the superiority of the latter. But, ‘O, what art can teach,’ ‘Pious orgies,’ and ‘But thou didst not leave,’ in the Messiah, are as chaste and beautiful compositions as have ever existed; and it is upon such songs as these, and upon his magnificent chorusses that, in my opinion, the true glory of Handel rests.
There is also, I think, another general defect in Handel’s writings, not adverted to in your correspondent’s letter; which is, a constant sacrifice of harmony to melody. Allow him the praise of melody; but surely his harmony is deficient in richness, depth, and grandeur. Where do we find anything in Handel at all equal to ‘The Heavens are telling,’ in Haydn’s Creation? Examples might also be adduced from Handel, where the harmony and melody are almost equally neglected—as the duet, ‘Joys in gentle train;’ the air of which, if we can call it an air, is as tame and meagre as we can well conceive possible. With many apologies for this long letter, which you will oblige me by inserting in the Harmonicon,
I remain your obedient servant,
and constant reader,
W. H. P.
P.S. I hope to see this subject resumed, ere long, in your valuable pages.
GRESHAM PRIZE MEDAL FOR 1832.
THE gold medal, for the best original composition in sacred vocal music, has been adjudged to Mr. Kellow John Pye, of Exeter[14]. Dr. Crotch, Professor of Music in the University of Oxford, R. J. S. Stevens, Esq., Professor of Music in Gresham College, and L. Horsley, Esq., Mus. Bac., were the umpires by whom the prize was awarded.
Mr. Pye was a pupil in the Royal Academy of Music.
The composition, an anthem for five voices, in the true cathedral style, will be performed at the commemoration of Sir Thomas Gresham in the ensuing spring.