Handel and Dr. Morell
After all, Dr. Morell suited Handel exactly well--far better than
Tennyson would have done. I don't believe even Handel could have set
Tennyson to music comfortably. What a mercy it is that he did not
live in Handel's time! Even though Handel had set him ever so well
he would have spoiled the music, and this Dr. Morell does not in the
least do.
Wordsworth
And I have been as far as Hull to see
What clothes he left or other property.
I am told that these lines occur in a poem by Wordsworth. (Think of
the expense!) How thankful we ought to be that Wordsworth was only a
poet and not a musician. Fancy a symphony by Wordsworth! Fancy
having to sit it out! And fancy what it would have been if he had
written fugues!
Sleeping Beauties
There are plenty of them. Take Handel; look at such an air as
"Loathsome urns, disclose your treasure" or "Come, O Time, and thy
broad wings displaying," both in The Triumph of Time and Truth, or at
"Convey me to some peaceful shore," in Alexander Balus, especially
when he comes to "Forgetting and forgot the will of fate." Who know
these? And yet, can human genius do more?
"And the Glory of the Lord"
It would be hard to find a more satisfactory chorus even in the
Messiah, but I do not think the music was originally intended for
these words:
[Music score which cannot be reproduced]
And the glo-ry, the glo-ry of the Lord.
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