Xiao Weng Talks About Joy (Selected Music Essays and Critiques by Xiao Bosna)

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Features: Handel has his own charm. Once his music places God in the eternal position, atheists will be speechless; even if you despise such superstition, God is still there, and through Handel's hands, He becomes eternal. When he tells the story of the Israelites escaping from Egypt, "the whole nation is full of vigor, not a single person falls"; if you want to say that there must be someone with a cold, it's all in vain, Handel absolutely does not allow such doubts. The simple and urgent chord accompaniment of the orchestra makes you speechless and compelled to submit. This is why every British person now believes that Handel holds a high position in heaven. In the realm of music involving extreme elements like heroism, passion, and violence, all other music is so agitated and intense, except for Mozart who shows complete composure and calm. While other composers grab the railing with an iron grip and strike them with the heavy blows of a one-eyed giant, Mozart always treats them with the gentle taps of a soft rain. Under similar inspirational pressure, other composers would make the Titans go crazy, but Mozart can consider everything, handle the heavy with ease, and write the gigantic in a refreshing and concise manner. If music is just a glorious dream to you, a strange language that transcends all poetry, an angelic hymn, or a storm of thunderous harmonies shooting heaven's lightning into the depths of your soul, then especially for you, Liszt, whatever he plays—whether it's improvising variations on popular songs or faithfully recreating Bach's half-tone fugue—will make you feel that there is a voice of the sacred will of the human heart speaking within. —George Bernard Shaw