Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/78

66 God's thunderous command breaks through the mournful slumber of death:

Or again, in the Funeral Anthem, the intoxicated cry, almost painful in its joy, of the immortal soul that puts off the husk of the body and holds out its arms to its God.

But nothing approaches in moral grandeur the chorus that closes the second act of Jephthah. Nothing enables us better than the story of this composition to gain an insight into Händel's heroic faith.

When he began to write it, on the 21st January, 1751, he was in perfect health, despite his sixty-six years. He composed the first act in twelve days, working without intermission. There is no trace of care to be found in it. Never had his mind been freer; it was almost indifferent as to the subject under treatment. In the course of the second act his sight became suddenly clouded. The writing, so clear at the beginning, is now confused and tremulous. The music too assumes a mournful