Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/83

Rh and "his melodious sons," it finds nothing to glorify in them but their skill as performers, as kings of the organ and the clavier. This judgment is also that of the historian Burney (1772). And assuredly it is calculated to surprise us. But we must be on our guard against facile indignation. There is little merit in outpouring, from the height of the two centuries which divide us from them, a crushing disdain upon the contemporaries of Bach and Händel who judged them so incorrectly. It is more instructive to seek to understand them.

And in the first place let us note the attitude of Bach and Händel in respect of their age. Neither one nor the other affects the fatal pose of the misunderstood genius, as so many of our great or little great men of to-day have done. They did not wax indignant; they were even on excellent terms with their luckier rivals. Bach and Hasse were very good friends, full of mutual esteem. Telemann, in his childhood, had formed a warm friendship with Händel; he was also on the best of terms with Bach, who chose him as god-father to his son, Philipp Emanuel. Bach entrusted the musical training of another of his sons, his favourite, Wilhelm Friedemann, to J. Gottlieb Graun. Here was no trace of party spirit. On either side there were gifted men who esteemed and liked one another.

Let us try to bring to our consideration of them the same generous spirit of equity and sympathy. J. S. Bach and Händel will lose nothing of their colossal stature thereby. But we may well be surprised to find them surrounded by an abundance of fine works, and of artists full of intelligence and genius; and it should not be impossible to