Page:Romain Rolland Handel.djvu/112

104 unfortunates. From June 28 to July 31 he wrote a pure masterpiece, Theodora, his most intimate musical tragedy, his only Christian tragedy besides The Messiah. From the end of that same year dates also his music for a scene from Tobias Smollett's Alceste, which was never played, and from which Handel took the essential parts for his Choice of Hercules. A little time after he made his last voyage to Halle. He arrived on German soil at the moment when Bach died, July 28, 1750. Indeed he nearly ended his life there himself in the same week by a carriage accident.

He recovered quickly, and on January 21, 1751, when he commenced the score of Jephtha, he appeared to be in robust health, despite his sixty-six years. He wrote the first act at a stretch in thirteen days. In eleven days more he had arrived at the last scene but one of Act II. Here he had to break off. Already in the preceding pages he only progressed with difficulty; his writing, so clear and firm at the commencement, became sticky, confused, and trembling. He had started on the final chorus of Act II: "How dark, Lord, are Thy Ways." Hardly had he written the opening Largo than he had to stop working. He wrote: