"
Leaving the fantasy, the voices sing in simple choral lines a hymnal
song in triumphal pace, with firm cadence and answer, ending at length
in the descending
[Music: _Allegro risoluto_
_deciso_
(Strings, with added wood and horns)]
phrase. The full song is repeated, from the entrance of the latter, as
though to stress the two main melodies. The marching chorus halts
briefly when the clarinet begins again a mystic verse on the strain of
the call, where the descending phrase is intermingled in the horns and
strings.
There is a new horizon here. We can no longer speak with
half-condescension of Italian simplicity, though another kind of primal
feeling is mingled in a breadth of symphonic vein. We feel that our
Italian poet has cast loose his leading strings and is revealing new
glimpses through the classic form.
Against a free course of quicker figures rises in the horns the simple
melodic call, with answer and counter-tunes in separate discussion. Here
comes storming in a strident line of the inverted melody in the bassoon,
quarrelling with the original motive in the clarinet. Then a group sing
the song in dancing trip, descending against the stern rising theme of
violas; or one choir follows on the heels of another. Now into the play
intrudes the second melody, likewise in serried chase of imitation.
The two themes seem to be battling for dominance, and the former wins,
shouting its primal tune in brass and wood, while the second sinks to a
rude clattering rhythm in the bass.
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