There is, too, a quick rise and fall of mood, that is a
mark of the negro as well as of the Hungarian. By a sudden doubling, we
are in the midst of a true "hoe-down," in jolliest jingle, with that
naive iteration, true to life; it comes out clearest when the tune of
the bass (that sounds like a rapid "Three Blind Mice") is
[Music: (Strings, wood and brass)
(See page 205, line 9.)]
put in the treble. A pure idealized negro dance-frolic is here. It is
hard to follow all the pranks; lightly as the latest phrase descends in
extending melody, a rude blast of the march intrudes in discordant
humor. A new jingle of dance comes with a redoubled pace of bits of the
march. As this dies down to dimmest bass, the old song from the Largo
rings high in the wood. Strangest of all, in a fierce shout of the whole
chorus sounds twice this same pathetic strain. Later comes a redoubled
speed of the march in the woodwind, above a slower in low strings. Now
the original theme of all has a noisy say. Presently the sad second
melody has a full verse. Once more the Largo lullaby sings its strain
in the minor. In the close the original Allegro theme has a literal,
vigorous dispute with the march-phrase for the last word of all.
The work does less to exploit American music than to show a certain
community in all true folk-song. Nor is this to deny a strain peculiar
to the new world. It seems a poet of distant land at the same time and
in the same tones uttered his longing for his own country and expressed
the pathos and the romance of the new.
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