Monday, December 20, 2010

Daily Dose

From The Letters of Edward Fitzgerald, Volume I: 1830 - 1850, edited by Alfred & Annabell Terhune

HANDEL

"I think Handel never gets out of his wig: that is, out of his age: his Hallelujah chorus is a chorus not of angels, but of well fed earthly choristers, ranged tier above tier in a Gothic cathedral, with princes for audience, and their military trumpets flourishing over the full volume of the organ. Handel's gods are like Homer's, and his sublime never reaches beyond the region of the clouds."

From a letter to Frederick Tennyson, dated London, February 6, 1842

No comments:

Post a Comment