Note 256 — HIS LIFE (continued 2)

It was not one of Handel’s oratorios, of which the style was in the popular vein, and where one finds further grand ensembles and solos closely connected with the Chorus.

Gluck journeyed to London at the end of 1745. He was then thirty-one years old. He gave two operas in London, La Caduta de’Giganti and Artamene. (Certain solos from them are to be found in the very rare collection of Delizie dell’opere, Vol. II, London, Walsh, possessed by the library of the Paris Conservatoire.) This journey of Gluck in England has no importance in the story of Handel, who showed himself somewhat scornful in his regard for Gluck’s music. But it was not so for Gluck, who all his life professed the most profound respect for Handel. He regarded him as his master; he even imagined that he imitated him (see Michael Kelly: Reminiscences, I, 255), and certainly one is struck by the analogies between certain pages in Handel’s oratorios written from 1744 to 1746 (notably Hercules and Judas Maccabæus) and the grand operas of Gluck. We find in the two funeral scenes from the first and second acts of Judas Maccabæus the pathetic accents and harmonies of Gluck’s Orpheus.