A Memoir of Baron Bunsen Volume II

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

23-24

text excerpt

The letters of Bunsen have often borne testimony to the benefit and the relief he experienced from a work of the highest art, such as the successful performance of a piece of Shakespeare, in clearing the mind of care, and restoring elasticity to the overstrained powers ; and he often had opportunity, during the managership of Mr. Macready, of enjoying that recreation, and adding his meed of applause to the completeness of the entire arrangements, as well as the excellence of individual representation—for instance, in the case of Macready's Brutus (as in later years of Lear), in which he felt that the conceptions of Shakespeare were made more perceptible than the mere dead letter could render them. More than once did he enjoy Handel's ' Acis and Galatea,' then brought out in the full perfection of the combined fine arts, as each could be brought to bear on the performance—the bright and graceful, though frivolous poetry of Gay ; the depth and breadth and versatility of Handel's musical feeling, as he endeavoured to represent the tragedy first in preparation and then in solution ; the luxury of decoration achieving the effect and earning the praise of landscape-painting; the pastoral groups elevated by the just choice of drapery into a peasantry of ancient Greece ; and last not least effective, the voices and demeanour of the performers.

excerpt from 'A Memoir of Baron Bunsen Volume II' pp. 23-24 (227 words)

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1433948029619