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De Graf wore a silk dress on Sundays and held her chin a little higher than any other of the Cloverton ladies dared do. The Professor, no longer harrassed by debts, devoted less time to the drudgery of teaching and began the composition of an oratorio that he firmly believed would render his name famous.
It was given a second time in April, 1847, with his final refinements and revisions; and the event was regarded in England as one of the greatest since the days of Handel, to whom, as well as to Haydn and Beethoven, Mendelssohn showed himself a worthy rival in the field of oratorio composition.
We constantly speak of the "Messiah" as the most popular oratorio ever written; but even in the provinces only selections from it are sung, and in the metropolis the selections are cut very short indeed, frequently by the sapient device of taking out all the best numbers and leaving only those that appeal to the religious instincts of Clapham.
The reply would be that the growth of them is only evidence of what was potentially present from the first, that just as the beating of brass was no obstacle to the ultimate evolution of the opera or the oratorio, or the first vague feelings of wonderment with which primitive man surveyed himself and his surroundings to the creation of the world of science and philosophy, so the undoubted fact that man was unmoral at the start is no obstacle to the belief that the moral law was as existent then as now.
Seven Sonnets and A Psalm of Montreal printed for private circulation. Essays on Life, Art and Science, being reprints of his Universal Review articles, together with two lectures. Ulysses, an Oratorio: Words and music by Samuel Butler and Henry Festing Jones: MS. of the piano score in the British Museum, MS. of the orchestral score with H. F. Jones. Printed for private circulation. Nov. July 16.
While arrangements were being made for showing us these details regarding paper-making, we visited the village church, which was very mean and bare; we were disappointed to find nothing suspicious in the way of muñecos. It was suggested that we should visit the oratorio, where we found more. Here they held their costumbre in June, or thereabouts.
That the oratorio is unequal may be admitted, and it is decidedly heavy in places; moreover, it is too long. Still, looking at its merits as a whole, it deserved better fortune.
In this number of the magazine there is a letter extending to seven columns from James Boswell, Esq., on his return to London, after being 'much agitated' by 'this jubilee of genius. He describes it as 'truly an antique idea, a Grecian thought; the oratorio at the great Stratford church, with the music by Dr Arne, was, he admits, grand and admirable, but 'I could have wished that prayers had been read, and a short sermon preached. Then the performance of the dedication ode by Garrick is described as 'noble and affecting, like an exhibition in Athens or Rome. Lord Grosvenor, at the close, went up to Garrick, 'and told him that he had affected his whole frame, showing him his nerves and veins still quivering with agitation. The masquerade our traveller, as the 'travelled thane, affects to regard complacently as an 'entertainment not suited to the genius of the British nation, but to a warmer country, where the people have a great flow of spirits, and a readiness at repartee. Bozzy no doubt had seen the carnival abroad, and his memories of sunnier skies would not find congenial atmosphere in the unpropitious weather when the Avon rose with the floods of rain, the lower grounds were laid under water, and a guinea for a bed was regarded as an imposition, though 'no one, declares our hero, 'was understood to come there who had not plenty of money' their own or their father's, presumably.
It is hard to sum up the "Creation," unless one is prepared to call it great and never go to hear it. It is not a sublime oratorio, nor yet a frankly comic oratorio, nor entirely a dull oratorio. After considering the songs, the recitatives, the choruses, in detail, it really seems to contain very little.
When the lad's quest was repeated to the bishop by his housekeeper, he instructed her to send Bud up to the library, being kindly-disposed towards all boy-kind. While he was questioning his young visitor, the organ of Grace Church, which was next to the bishop's house, pealed forth, and a man's voice began to chant a selection from an oratorio Bud had learned at St. Mark's.
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