Bach lacked the impulse of the Italian to write tune for tune's sake. Striving as he did "for characteristic expression," it was impossible for him to reach a simple song-style in the solo parts of his Passion. His recitative is too intricate, too detailed, and too thoughtful to produce the broad declamatory effects of Handel's. The same assertion may be made as to his airs. Bach's music always has a reflective quality which robs it of the conventional dramatic appearance and stands as an obstacle in the way of its immediate appreciation by a miscellaneous and unprepared audience. There is nothing popular about Bach's music. He never comes down from his elevation to meet the crowd. If you wish to understand Bach you must climb up to his height, and that is never easy to do. Both the forms, that of Handel and that of Bach, have individuality and distinct limitations. Bach's style, capable as it is of intense feeling, is essentially intimate, personal, and undramatic. It is always the voice of Bach in direct address to you that you hear. Handel's method is productive of broad and imposing effects, and while it is frequently only theatrical, it is quite as often sincerely and convincingly dramatic. One of Handel's biographers says of his great choruses: "They are choral recitatives, uttered by the voice of a multitude instead of a man. And strangely enough, the path that led to this embodiment of the composer's aspirations was the dusty path of Italian opera, where great combinations were impossible, science all but wasted, and where a giant intellect found little to grasp." Yet it is precisely the development of Handel's oratorio style from his work as an Italian opera composer that establishes its direct connection with the progress of the original Italian school of oratorio founded in Rome. It was the outcome, the climax, and the end of this school. Bach's Passion oratorios were the product of a purely German and Protestant ancestry, and they, too, were the highest achievement of their school. The subsequent history of oratorio will show us how attempts were made to fuse the elements of the two schools. Chapter XVII Haydn and Mendelssohn Decadence of oratorio after Handel and Bach--Haydn and "The Creation"--Development of descriptive orchestration in oratorio--Haydn's oratorios descriptive and contemplative--Mendelssohn and the fusion of styles--His dramatic German Protestant oratorios--Mingling of elements from Handel and Bach.