Zachow employed Handel to copy music
for him, and no doubt he copied a great deal for himself. Although the
opportunities for hearing music would not be very liberal in a town like
Halle, Handel, under Zachow, became a well-read musician as well as an
accomplished one.
During the seventeenth century the chief contribution of Germany to the
art of music was religious, just as the German hymns were her chief
contribution to poetry. In Italy, on the other hand, sacred music was of
minor importance as compared with the development of opera. But in all
music Italy led the way, and German sacred music was constantly influenced
by the Italians, with the result that Italian dramatic methods were often
used by German composers of sacred music, not with any loss of seriousness
and dignity to its character, but rather to the intenser expression of that
deep personal religious feeling which characterised both the poetry and the
music of the Protestant nations.
Zachow was well acquainted with the Italian masters, and his own Church
music shows a vivid dramatic sense; it is easy to see how much Handel
learned from him. But although Church cantatas and organ music may have
sufficed for the majority of the innumerable worthy German musicians of
those days, the form of music which excited the curiosity and interest of
the livelier spirits was certainly opera.
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