[A] In the midst is the original
flickering figure. As the whole chorus is singing the tune at the
loudest, the brass breaks into another traditional air of the
Revolutionary Song of 1789.[B] While the trip is still ringing in the
strings, a lusty chorus breaks into the song[C] "La Carmagnole," against
a blast of the horns in a guise of the first motive.
[Footnote A: "A la villette," a popular song of the Boulevard. Mr.
Philip Hale, who may have been specially inspired, associates the song
with the word "crapule," "tough," as he connects the following
revolutionary songs, in contrapuntal use, with the word "magister,"
"teacher,"--the idea of the pedagogue in music. It may be less remote to
find in these popular airs merely symbols or graphic touches of the
swarming groups among which the Devil plies his trade.]
[Footnote B: The famous "Ca ira."]
[Footnote C: In the wealth of interesting detail furnished by Mr. Hale
is the following: "The Carmagnole was first danced in Paris about the
liberty-tree, and there was then no bloody suggestion.... The word
'_Carmagnole_' is found in English and Scottish literature as a nickname
for a soldier in the French Revolutionary army, and the term was applied
by Burns to the Devil as the author of ruin, 'that curst carmagnole,
auld Satan.'"]
Grim guises of the main figures (in inverted profile) are skulking about
to uncanny harmonies. A revel of new pranks dies down to chords of muted
horns, amid flashing runs of the harp, with a long roll of drums.
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