Page:Romain Rolland Handel.djvu/79

Rh This was the principal epoch of his life. Between 1717 and 1720, whilst he was in the service of the Duke of Chandos, he made a careful examination of his own personality, and created a new style in music, and for the theatre.

The Chandos Anthems or Psalms stand, in relationship to Handel's oratorios, in the same position as his Italian cantatas stand to his operas: they are splendid sketches of the more monumental works. In these religious cantatas, written for the Duke's chapel, Handel gives the first place to the choruses: it is the exact words of the Bible which they sing. Strong heroic words, freed from all the commentary and sentimental effusions with which German Pietism had loaded them. There is already in them the spirit and the style of Israel in Egypt, the great monumental lines, the popular feeling.

It was only a step from this to the colossal Biblical dramas. Handel took the step with Esther, which in its first form was entitled Haman and Mordecai, a masque.