An epic it is, at the least, of
ancient flavor, and the sweeter romance here rises to a tempest more
overpowering than martial tumult.
It is in the harking back to primal lore that we seem to feel true
passion at its best and purest, as somehow all truth of legend, proverb
and fable has come from those misty ages of the earth. The drooping
harmonies merge in the returning swing of the first solemn hymn,--a mere
line that is broken by a new tender appeal, that, rising to a moving
height,
[Music: (Strings)
_teneramente_]
yields to the former plaint (of throbbing thirds).
A longer elegy sings, with a fine poignancy, bold and new in the very
delicacy of texture, in the sharp impinging of these gentlest sounds. In
the depths of the dirge suddenly, though quietly, sounds the herald
melody high in the wood, with ever firmer cheer, soon in golden horns,
at last in impassioned strings, followed by the wistful motive.
A phase here begins as of dull foreboding, with a new figure stalking in
the depths and, above, a brief sigh in the wind. In the growing stress
these figures sing from opposite quarters, the sobbing phrase below,
when suddenly the queenly melody stills the tumult. It is answered by a
dim, slow line of the ominous motive. Quicker echoes of the earlier
despond still flit here and there, with gleams of joyous light. The
plaintive (dual) song returns and too the tender appeal, which with its
sweetness at last wakens the buoyant spirit of the virile theme.
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