ABSTRACT
The careers of Joseph Handel and Emanuel Bach, so nearly co-terminous as they were, tempt to comparison; but the temptation as a rule is resisted by biographers. It is curious to find that two men, born as it appears in strikingly similar surroundings, should differ so completely in every way. Both sprang from the Protestant middle class of northern Germany. Bach sprang from a long line of musicians, some of them distinguished as composers, others as performers. He was cradled in an atmosphere of music, and began to study the art almost as soon as he could speak. Handel, on the other hand, belonged to a family singularly lacking in musical taste. The lives of the two men could hardly have been more diametrically opposed, and their surroundings re-acted inevitably upon their music. It is vain to speculate how a changed environment might have affected either. To pass from Bach to Handel is like passing from a cathedral into the open air.
