In the third part, Harapha notifies Samson that he must appear at the feast of Dagon to exhibit his strength and, though he refuses at first, he finally yields because he believes it to be God’s will. Samson calls upon the Spirit which led him formerly and goes to the temple. He takes in each hand one of the pillars which support the roof and with a mighty effort pulls down the temple, crushing the Philistines and burying himself with them. A tender, expressive funeral march is played as Samson is borne away by his people. For this march Handel afterwards substituted the Dead March from ‘Saul’ and both marches now appear in the score. Manoah exhorts the people to lay aside their sorrow and praise God, and this brings the famous trumpet aria, ‘Let the bright Seraphim,’ which is so grateful for both voice and instrument. The brilliant chorus, ‘Let their celestial concerts,’ brings this imposing oratorio to a triumphant close. VIII Most of the great composers have frankly built on the achievements of their predecessors, carrying to completion or at least to higher stages of development the forms handed down to them, without much conscious influence from contemporary composers. Some, like Wagner and Schubert, have struck out new lines whose discovery and development cannot be explained wholly as resulting from the operation of preceding artistic forces and principles. Comparatively few of the really great composers have acknowledged their indebtedness to contemporary genius. Such a one, however, was ‘Papa’ Haydn. The youthful Mozart had opened up new visions in symphonic and orchestral music and compelled the veteran Haydn[79] to new effort. And when Haydn heard the ‘Messiah’ for the first time in Westminster Abbey during his first visit to England in 1791, he was so moved by the majesty of the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus that it inspired him to the composition of what is undoubtedly his greatest work, the ‘Creation.’ This work joins with its great artistic inspirer, Handel’s ‘Messiah,’ and with Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’ in forming a trio of the world’s most popular oratorios. Of his other two oratorios--the ‘Seasons’ and ‘The Return of Tobias’--only the former claims present-day performance and that far less frequently than its predecessor, the ‘Creation.’ One misses in Haydn’s choral works the massive grandeur of effect and complexity of structure of the Handel oratorios. Haydn was a deeply religious man, but it was not in accord with his happy, sunny, optimistic nature to sound the depths of human emotion. The great charm of the ‘Creation’ lies in the freshness, the artless simplicity, and the evident spontaneity of its melody, and the naturalness and direct expressive power of its choruses.