This arrangement was ready; and Handel, frustrated by this publisher, resigned himself to publishing them later on, as an Appendix to the preceding work: _Six Fugues or Voluntaries for the Organ or Harpsichord, 1735, Opus 3._ These fugues date from the time when Handel was at Canons before 1720, the second in G Major was from the period of his first sojourn in England. They became celebrated at once, and were much circulated in manuscript even in Germany.[360] Handel had trained himself in fugue in the school of Kuhnau, and specially with Johann Krieger.[361] Like them he gave his Fugues an essentially melodic character. They are so suited for singing that two of them, as we have said, afterwards served for two choruses in the first part of _Israel_,[362] but Handel's compositions possess a far different vitality from that of his German forerunners. They have a charming intrepidity, a fury, a passion, a fire which belongs only to him. In other words they live. "All the notes talk," says Mattheson. These fugues have the character of happy improvisations, and in truth they were improvised. Handel calls them Voluntaries, that is fanciful and learned caprices. He made frequent use of double fugues with a masterly development. "Such an art rejoices the hearer and warms the heart towards the composer and towards the executant," says Mattheson again, who, after having heard J. S. Bach, found Handel the greater in the composition of the double fugue and in improvisation. This habit of Handel--one might say almost a craving--for improvising, was the origin of the grand Organ Concertos. After the fashion of his time, Handel conducted his operas and oratorios from the clavier. He accompanied the singers with a marvellous art, blending himself to their fancy, and when the singer had done, he delivered his version.[363] From the interludes on the clavier in his operas, he passed to the fantasies or caprices on the organ in the _entr'actes_ of his oratorios, and his success was so great that he never again abandoned this custom. One might say that the public were drawn to his oratorios more by his improvisations on the organ than by the oratorios themselves. Two volumes of the Organ Concertos were published during the lifetime of Handel, in 1738 and in 1740; the third a little after his death, in 1760.[364] To judge them properly it is necessary to bear in mind that they were destined for the theatre. It would be absurd to expect works in the strict, vigorous, and involved style of J. S. Bach. They were brilliant _divertissements_, of which the style, somewhat commonplace yet luminous and pompous, preserves the character of oratorio improvisations, finding their immediate effect on the great audience. "_When he gave a concerto_," says Hawkins, "_his method in general was to introduce it with a voluntary movement on the diapasons, which stole on the ear in a slow and solemn progression; the harmony close wrought, and as full as could