Handel owed much to
Purcell, and not least was the massive, direct way of dealing with the
chorus, the very characteristic which has kept his oratorios so popular
here and so unpopular abroad. Handel's mighty choral effects are
English: he learnt from Purcell how to make them. It is true enough that
Purcell learnt something from Carissimi; but Carissimi's effects are
very often of that kind that look better on paper than they sound in
performance. The variations over ground-basses are marvellously
ingenious, but more marvellous than the ingenuity are the charming
delicacy and expressiveness of the melodies woven in the upper parts.
They are music which appeals direct to listeners who care nothing for
technical problems. Some of the discords may sound a little odd to those
who have been trained to regard the harmonic usages of the Viennese
school as the standard of perfection. Dr. Burney thought them blunders
resulting from an imperfect technique. Later a few words must be said on
the subject, but let me for the present point out that Purcell was a
master of the theory as well as of the practice of composition. He loved
these discords, and deliberately wrote them; he could have justified
them, and there is hardly one that we cannot justify.
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