_
[Footnote A: George W. Chadwick, American, born in 1854.]
With a rush of harp and higher strings the Suite begins on ardent wing
in exultant song of trumpets (with horns, bassoons and cellos) to quick
palpitating violins that in its higher flight is given over to upper
reeds and violas. It is answered by gracefully drooping melody of
strings and harps topped by the oboes, that lightly descends from the
heights with a cadence long delayed, like the circling flight of a great
bird before he alights. Straightway begins a more pensive turn of phrase
(of clarinet and lower strings) in distant tonal scene where now the
former (descending) answer sings timidly in alternating groups. The
pensive melody returns for a greater reach, blending with the original
theme (in all the basses) in a glowing duet of two moods as well as
melodies, rising to sudden brilliant height, pressing on to a full
return of the first exultant melody with long, lingering, circling
descent.
The listener on first hearing may be warned to have a sharp ear for all
kinds of disguises of the stirring theme and in a less degree, of the
second subject. What seems a new air in a tranquil spot, with strum of
harp,--and new it is as expression,--is our main melody in a kind of
inversion. And so a new tissue of song continues, all of the original
fibre, calming more and more from the first fierce glow. A tuneful
march-like strain now plays gently in the horns while the (inverted)
expressive air still sounds above.
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