Page:Romain Rolland Handel.djvu/153

Rh between him and them there was a whole world. Under the classic ideal with which he covered himself burned a romantic genius, precursor of the Sturm und Drang period; and sometimes this hidden demon broke out in brusque fits of passion—perhaps despite himself.

Handel's instrumental music deserves very close notice: for it is nearly always wrongly assessed by historians, and badly understood by artists, who treat it for the most part as a merely formal art.

Its chief characteristic is that of a perpetual improvisation. If it was published, it was more in spite of Handel than at his instigation. It was not made to be played and judged coldly, but to be produced at white heat to the public. They were free sketches, in which the form was never completely tightened up, but remained always moving