[3] Geminiani used to relate that Franceschelli, a celebrated performer on the violoncello at the beginning of this century, accompanied one of these cantatas at Rome so admirably, while Scarlatti was at the harpsichord, that the company, being good Catholics, and living in a country where miraculous powers have not yet ceased, were firmly persuaded it was not Franceschelli who had played the violoncello, but an angel that had descended and assumed his shape.--_Burney's History_, vol. iv. p. 169 (1789). [4] Doctor Arbuthnot, in a humorous pamphlet called out by the operatic war, entitled "Harmony in an Uproar," calls Handel the Nightingale, and Porpora the Cuckoo. [5] It is curious to remember that the sacred cantatas were not composed for universal fame or for a musical public, but for the use of congregations who probably looked on them as a necessary part of the service, and thought little about the merits of their composition. In those days art-criticism was in its infancy, and they were scarcely noticed beyond the walls of Leipsic till after the composer's death.--_Bitter's Life of Bach_. [6] Handel's Second German Passion, as it is now generally called, differs entirely from the earlier Passion according to St. John, and bears no analogy at all to the Passion Music of Sebastian Bach. The choruses are expressive or vigorous in accordance with the nature of the words; but none exhibit any very striking form of contrapuntal development; nor do they ever rise to the grandeur of the Utrecht Te Deum or Jubilate.--_Rockstro's Life of Handel_.