could not control his expression, which was deeply anxious. Bystanders
would have ascribed such a change in his usually placid features to
jealousy. The Duchess no doubt shared Emilio’s feelings; she looked
gloomy and was evidently depressed. The Duke, uncomfortable enough
between two sulky people, took advantage of the French doctor’s entrance
to slip away.
“Monsieur,” said Cataneo to his physician before dropping the curtain
over the entrance to the box, “you will hear to-night a grand musical
poem, not easy of comprehension at a first hearing. But in leaving you
with the Duchess I know that you can have no more competent interpreter,
for she is my pupil.”
The doctor, like the Duke, was struck by the expression stamped on the
faces of the lovers, a look of pining despair.
“Then does an Italian opera need a guide to it?” he asked Massimilla,
with a smile.
Recalled by this question to her duties as mistress of the box, the
Duchess tried to chase away the clouds that darkened her brow, and
replied, with eager haste, to open a conversation in which she might
vent her irritation:--
“This is not so much an opera, monsieur,” said she, “as an oratorio--a
work which is in fact not unlike a most magnificent edifice, and I shall
with pleasure be your guide. Believe me, it will not be too much to give
all your mind to our great Rossini, for you need to be at once a poet
and a musician to appreciate the whole bearing of such a work.
“You belong to a race whose language and genius are too practical for
it to enter into music without an effort; but France is too intellectual
not to learn to love it and cultivate it, and to succeed in that as in
everything else. Also, it must be acknowledged that music, as created
by Lulli, Rameau, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Cimarosa, Paisiello, and
Rossini, and as it will be carried on by the great geniuses of the
future, is a new art, unknown to former generations; they had indeed no
such variety of instruments on which the flowers of melody now blossom
as on some rich soil.
“So novel an art demands study in the public, study of a kind that
may develop the feelings to which music appeals. That sentiment hardly
exists as yet among you--a nation given up to philosophical theories, to
analysis and discussion, and always torn by civil disturbances.
Modern music demands perfect peace; it is the language of loving and
sentimental souls, inclined to lofty emotional aspiration.
“That language, a thousand times fuller than the language of words, is
to speech and ideas what the thought is to its utterance; it arouses
sensations and ideas in their primitive form, in that part of us where
sensations and ideas have their birth, but leaves them as they are in
each of us. That power over our inmost being is one of the grandest
facts in music. All other arts present to the mind a definite creation;
those of music are indefinite--infinite. We are compelled to accept the
ideas of the poet, the painter’s picture, the sculptor’s statue; but
music each one can interpret at the will of his sorrow or his gladness,
his hope or his despair. While other arts restrict our mind by fixing it
on a predestined object, music frees it to roam over all nature which
it alone has the power of expressing. You shall hear how I interpret
Rossini’s _Mose_.”
She leaned across to the Frenchman to speak to him, without being
overheard.
“Moses is the liberator of an enslaved race!” said she. “Remember that,
and you will see with what religious hope the whole house will listen
to the prayer of the rescued Hebrews, with what a thunder of applause it
will respond!”
As the leader raised his bow, Emilio flung himself into a back seat. The
Duchess pointed out the place he had left, for the physician to take
it. But the Frenchman was far more curious to know what had gone wrong
between the lovers than to enter the halls of music built up by the man
whom all Italy was applauding--for it was the day of Rossini’s triumph
in his own country. He was watching the Duchess, and she was talking
with a feverish excitement. She reminded him of the Niobe he had admired
at Florence: the same dignity in woe, the same physical control; and yet
her soul shone though, in the warm flush of her cheeks; and her eyes,
where anxiety was disguised under a flash of pride, seemed to scorch the
tears away by their fire. Her suppressed grief seemed calmer when she
looked at Emilio, who never took his eyes off her; it was easy to see
that she was trying to mollify some fierce despair. The state of her
feelings gave a certain loftiness to her mind.
Like most women when under the stress of some unusual agitation, she
overstepped her ordinary limitations and assumed something of the
Pythoness, though still remaining calm and beautiful; for it was the
form of her thoughts that was wrung with desperation, not the features
of her face. And perhaps she wanted to shine with all her wit to lend
some charm to life and detain her lover from death.
When the orchestra had given out the three chords in C major, placed
at the opening by the composer to announce that the overture will be
sung--for the real overture is the great movement beginning with this
stern attack, and ending only when light appears at the command of
Moses--the Duchess could not control a little spasmodic start, that
showed how entirely the music was in accordance with her concealed
distress.
“Those three chords freeze the blood,” said she. “They announce trouble.
Listen attentively to this introduction; the terrible lament of a nation
stricken by the hand of God. What wailing! The King, the Queen, their
first-born son, all the dignitaries of the kingdom are sighing; they are
wounded in their pride, in their conquests; checked in their avarice.
Dear Rossini! you have done well to throw this bone to gnaw to the
_Tedeschi_, who declared we had no harmony, no science!
“Now you will hear the ominous melody the maestro has engrafted on to
this profound harmonic composition, worthy to compare with the most
elaborate structures of the Germans, but never fatiguing or tiresome.
“You French, who carried through such a bloodthirsty revolution, who
crushed your aristocracy under the paw of the lion mob, on the day when
this oratorio is performed in your capital, you will understand this
glorious dirge of the victims on whom God is avenging his chosen people.
None but an Italian could have written this pregnant and inexhaustible
theme--truly Dantesque. Do you think that it is nothing to have such a
dream of vengeance, even for a moment? Handel, Sebastian Bach, all you
old German masters, nay, even you, great Beethoven, on your knees! Here
is the queen of arts, Italy triumphant!”
The Duchess had spoken while the curtain was being raised. And now the
physician heard the sublime symphony with which the composer introduces
the great Biblical drama. It is to express the sufferings of a whole
nation. Suffering is uniform in its expression, especially physical
suffering. Thus, having instinctively felt, like all men of genius, that
here there must be no variety of idea, the musician, having hit on his
leading phrase, has worked it out in various keys, grouping the masses
and the dramatis personae to take up the theme through modulations and
cadences of admirable structure. In such simplicity is power.
“The effect of this strain, depicting the sensations of night and cold
in a people accustomed to live in the bright rays of the sun, and sung
by the people and their princes, is most impressive. There is something
relentless in that slow phrase of music; it is cold and sinister, like
an iron bar wielded by some celestial executioner, and dropping in
regular rhythm on the limbs of all his victims. As we hear it passing
from C minor into G minor, returning to C and again to the dominant G,
starting afresh and _fortissimo_ on the tonic B flat, drifting into
F major and back to C minor, and in each key in turn more ominously
terrible, chill, and dark, we are compelled at last to enter into the
impression intended by the composer.”
The Frenchman was, in fact, deeply moved when all this united sorrow
exploded in the cry:
“O Nume d’Israel,
Se brami in liberta
Il popol tuo fedel,
Di lui di noi pieta!”
(O God of Israel, if thou wouldst see thy faithful people free, have
mercy on them, and on us.)
“Never was a grander synthesis composed of natural effects or a more
perfect idealization of nature. In a great national disaster, each one
for a long time bewails himself alone; then, from out of the mass,
rises up, here and there, a more emphatic and vehement cry of anguish;
finally, when the misery has fallen on all, it bursts forth like a
tempest.
“As soon as they all recognize a common grievance, the dull murmurs of
the people become cries of impatience. Rossini has proceeded on this
hypothesis. After the outcry in C major, Pharoah sings his grand
recitative: _Mano ultrice di un Dio_ (Avenging hand of God), after which
the original subject is repeated with more vehement expression. All
Egypt appeals to Moses for help.”
The Duchess had taken advantage of the pause for the entrance of Moses
and Aaron to give this interpretation of that fine introduction.
“Let them weep!” she added passionately. “They have done much ill.
Expiate your sins, Egyptians, expiate the crimes of your maddened Court!
With what amazing skill has this great painter made use of all the
gloomy tones of music, of all that is saddest on the musical palette!
What creepy darkness! what a mist! Is not your very spirit in mourning?
Are you not convinced of the reality of the blackness that lies over
the land? Do you not feel that Nature is wrapped in the deepest shades?
There are no palm-trees, no Egyptian palaces, no landscape. And what
a healing to your soul will the deeply religious strain be of the
heaven-sent Healer who will stay this cruel plague! How skilfully is
everything wrought up to end in that glorious invocation of Moses to
God.
“By a learned elaboration, which Capraja could explain to you, this
appeal to heaven is accompanied by brass instruments only; it is that
which gives it such a solemn, religious cast. And not merely is the
artifice fine in its place; note how fertile in resource is genius.
Rossini has derived fresh beauty from the difficulty he himself created.
He has the strings in reserve to express daylight when it succeeds
to the darkness, and thus produces one of the greatest effects ever
achieved in music.
“Till this inimitable genius showed the way never was such a result
obtained with mere _recitative_. We have not, so far, had an air or a
duet. The poet has relied on the strength of the idea, on the vividness
of his imagery, and the realism of the declamatory passages. This scene
of despair, this darkness that may be felt, these cries of anguish,--the
whole musical picture is as fine as your great Poussin’s _Deluge_.”
Moses waved his staff, and it was light.
“Here, monsieur, does not the music vie with the sun, whose splendor
it has borrowed, with nature, whose phenomena it expresses in every
detail?” the Duchess went on, in an undertone. “Art here reaches its
climax; no musician can get beyond this. Do not you hear Egypt waking up
after its long torpor? Joy comes in with the day. In what composition,
ancient or modern, will you find so grand a passage? The greatest
gladness in contrast to the deepest woe! What exclamations! What
gleeful notes! The oppressed spirit breathes again. What delirium in the
_tremolo_ of the orchestra! What a noble _tutti_! This is the rejoicing
of a delivered nation. Are you not thrilled with joy?”
The physician, startled by the contrast, was, in fact, clapping his
hands, carried away by admiration for one of the finest compositions of
modern music.
“_Brava la Doni!_” said Vendramin, who had heard the Duchess.
“Now the introduction is ended,” said she. “You have gone through a
great sensation,” she added, turning to the Frenchman. “Your heart is
beating; in the depths of your imagination you have a splendid sunrise,
flooding with light a whole country that before was cold and dark. Now,
would you know the means by which the musician has worked, so as to
admire him to-morrow for the secrets of his craft after enjoying
the results to-night? What do you suppose produces this effect of
daylight--so sudden, so complicated, and so complete? It consists of a
simple chord of C, constantly reiterated, varied only by the chord of
4-6. This reveals the magic of his touch. To show you the glory of light
he has worked by the same means that he used to represent darkness and
sorrow.
“This dawn in imagery is, in fact, absolutely the same as the natural
dawn; for light is one and the same thing everywhere, always alike in
itself, the effects varying only with the objects it falls on. Is it not
so? Well, the musician has taken for the fundamental basis of his music,
for its sole _motif_, a simple chord in C. The sun first sheds its light
on the mountain-tops and then in the valleys. In the same way the chord
is first heard on the treble string of the violins with boreal mildness;
it spreads through the orchestra, it awakes the instruments one by one,
and flows among them. Just as light glides from one thing to the next,
giving them color, the music moves on, calling out each rill of harmony
till all flow together in the _tutti_.
“The violins, silent until now, give the signal with their tender
_tremolo_, softly _agitato_ like the first rays of morning. That light,
cheerful movement, which caresses the soul, is cleverly supported by
chords in the bass, and by a vague _fanfare_ on the trumpets, restricted
to their lowest notes, so as to give a vivid idea of the last cool
shadows that linger in the valleys while the first warm rays touch the
heights. Then all the wind is gradually added to strengthen the general
harmony. The voices come in with sighs of delight and surprise. At
last the brass breaks out, the trumpets sound. Light, the source of all
harmony, inundates all nature; every musical resource is produced with
a turbulence, a splendor, to compare with that of the Eastern sun. Even
the triangle, with its reiterated C, reminds us by its shrill accent and
playful rhythm of the song of early birds.
“Thus the same key, freshly treated by the master’s hand, expresses the
joy of all nature, while it soothes the grief it uttered before.
“There is the hall-mark of the great genius: Unity. It is the same
but different. In one and the same phrase we find a thousand various
feelings of woe, the misery of a nation. In one and the same chord we
have all the various incidents of awakening nature, every expression of
the nation’s joy. These two tremendous passages are soldered into one by
the prayer to an ever-living God, author of all things, of that woe
and that gladness alike. Now is not that introduction by itself a grand
poem?”
“It is, indeed,” said the Frenchman.
“Next comes a quintette such as Rossini can give us. If he was ever
justified in giving vent to that flowery, voluptuous grace for which
Italian music is blamed, is it not in this charming movement in which
each person expresses joy? The enslaved people are delivered, and yet
a passion in peril is fain to moan. Pharaoh’s son loves a Hebrew woman,
and she must leave him. What gives its ravishing charm to this quintette
is the return to the homelier feelings of life after the grandiose
picture of two stupendous and national emotions:--general misery,
general joy, expressed with the magic force stamped on them by divine
vengeance and with the miraculous atmosphere of the Bible narrative.
Now, was not I right?” added Massimilla, as the noble _sretto_ came to a
close.
“Voci di giubilo,
D’ in’orno eccheggino,
Di pace l’ Iride
Per noi spunto.”
(Cries of joy sound about us. The rainbow of peace dawns upon us.)
“How ingeniously the composer has constructed this passage!” she went
on, after waiting for a reply. “He begins with a solo on the horn, of
divine sweetness, supported by _arpeggios_ on the harps; for the first
voices to be heard in this grand concerted piece are those of Moses and
Aaron returning thanks to the true God. Their strain, soft and
solemn, reverts to the sublime ideas of the invocation, and mingles,
nevertheless, with the joy of the heathen people. This transition
combines the heavenly and the earthly in a way which genius alone could
invent, giving the _andante_ of this quintette a glow of color that I
can only compare to the light thrown by Titian on his Divine Persons.
Did you observe the exquisite interweaving of the voices? the clever
entrances by which the composer has grouped them round the main idea
given out by the orchestra? the learned progressions that prepare us for
the festal _allegro_? Did you not get a glimpse, as it were, of dancing
groups, the dizzy round of a whole nation escaped from danger? And
when the clarionet gives the signal for the _stretto_,--‘_Voci di
giubilo_,’--so brilliant and gay, was not your soul filled with the
sacred pyrrhic joy of which David speaks in the Psalms, ascribing it to
the hills?”
“Yes, it would make a delightful dance tune,” said the doctor.
“French! French! always French!” exclaimed the Duchess, checked in her
exultant mood by this sharp thrust. “Yes; you would be capable of taking
that wonderful burst of noble and dainty rejoicing and turning it into
a rigadoon. Sublime poetry finds no mercy in your eyes. The highest
genius,--saints, kings, disasters,--all that is most sacred must pass
under the rods of caricature. And the vulgarizing of great music by
turning it into a dance tune is to caricature it. With you, wit kills
soul, as argument kills reason.”
They all sat in silence through the _recitative_ of Osiride and Membrea,
who plot to annul the order given by Pharaoh for the departure of the
Hebrews.
“Have I vexed you?” asked the physician to the Duchess. “I should be in
despair. Your words are like a magic wand. They unlock the pigeon-holes
of my brain, and let out new ideas, vivified by this sublime music.”
“No,” replied she, “you have praised our great composer after your own
fashion. Rossini will be a success with you, for the sake of his witty
and sensual gifts. Let us hope that he may find some noble souls,
in love with the ideal--which must exist in your fruitful land,--to
appreciate the sublimity, the loftiness, of such music. Ah, now we have
the famous duet, between Elcia and Osiride!” she exclaimed, and she went
on, taking advantage of the triple salvo of applause which hailed la
Tinti, as she made her first appearance on the stage.
“If la Tinti has fully understood the part of Elcia, you will hear
the frenzied song of a woman torn by her love for her people, and
her passion for one of their oppressors, while Osiride, full of mad
adoration for his beautiful vassal, tries to detain her. The opera is
built up as much on that grand idea as on that of Pharaoh’s resistance
to the power of God and of liberty; you must enter into it thoroughly or
you will not understand this stupendous work.
“Notwithstanding the disfavor you show to the dramas invented by our
_libretto_ writers, you must allow me to point out the skill with which
this one is constructed. The antithesis required in every fine work, and
eminently favorable to music, is well worked out. What can be finer than
a whole nation demanding liberty, held in bondage by bad faith, upheld
by God, and piling marvel on marvel to gain freedom? What more dramatic
than the Prince’s love for a Hebrew woman, almost justifying treason to
the oppressor’s power?
“And this is what is expressed in this bold and stupendous musical poem;
Rossini has stamped each nation with its fantastic individuality, for
we have attributed to them a certain historic grandeur to which every
imagination subscribes. The songs of the Hebrews, and their trust in
God, are perpetually contrasted with Pharaoh’s shrieks of rage and vain
efforts, represented with a strong hand.
“At this moment Osiride, thinking only of love, hopes to detain his
mistress by the memories of their joys as lovers; he wants to conquer
the attractions of her feeling for her people. Here, then, you will find
delicious languor, the glowing sweetness, the voluptuous suggestions
of Oriental love, in the air ‘_Ah! se puoi cosi lasciarmi_,’ sung by
Osiride, and in Elcia’s reply, ‘_Ma perche cosi straziarmi?_’ No; two
hearts in such melodious unison could never part,” she went on, looking
at the Prince.
“But the lovers are suddenly interrupted by the exultant voice of the
Hebrew people in the distance, which recalls Elcia. What a delightful
and inspiriting _allegro_ is the theme of this march, as the Israelites
set out for the desert! No one but Rossini can make wind instruments
and trumpets say so much. And is not the art which can express in two
phrases all that is meant by the ‘native land’ certainly nearer to
heaven than the others? This clarion-call always moves me so deeply that
I cannot find words to tell you how cruel it is to an enslaved people to
see those who are free march away!”
The Duchess’ eyes filled with tears as she listened to the grand
movement, which in fact crowns the opera.
“_Dov’ e mai quel core amante_,” she murmured in Italian, as la Tinti
began the delightful _aria_ of the _stretto_ in which she implores pity
for her grief. “But what is the matter? The pit are dissatisfied--”
“Genovese is braying like a stage,” replied the Prince.
In point of fact, this first duet with la Tinti was spoilt by Genovese’s
utter breakdown. His excellent method, recalling that of Crescentini
and Veluti, seemed to desert him completely. A _sostenuto_ in the wrong
place, an embellishment carried to excess, spoilt the effect; or again
a loud climax with no due _crescendo_, an outburst of sound like water
tumbling through a suddenly opened sluice, showed complete and wilful
neglect of the laws of good taste.
The pit was in the greatest excitement. The Venetian public believed
there was a deliberate plot between Genovese and his friends. La Tinti
was recalled and applauded with frenzy while Genovese had a hint or two
warning him of the hostile feeling of the audience. During this scene,
highly amusing to a Frenchman, while la Tinti was recalled eleven times
to receive alone the frantic acclamations of the house,--Genovese, who
was all but hissed, not daring to offer her his hand,--the doctor made a
remark to the Duchess as to the _stretto_ of the duet.
“In this place,” said he, “Rossini ought to have expressed the deepest
grief, and I find on the contrary an airy movement, a tone of ill-timed
cheerfulness.”
“You are right,” said she. “This mistake is the result of a tyrannous
custom which composers are expected to obey. He was thinking more of
his prima donna than of Elcia when he wrote that _stretto_. But this
evening, even if la Tinti had been more brilliant than ever, I could
throw myself so completely into the situation, that the passage, lively
as it is, is to me full of sadness.”
The physician looked attentively from the Prince to the Duchess, but
could not guess the reason that held them apart, and that made this duet
seem to them so heartrending.
“Now comes a magnificent thing, the scheming of Pharaoh against the
Hebrews. The great _aria ‘A rispettarmi apprenda’_ (Learn to respect me)
is a triumph for Carthagenova, who will express superbly the offended
pride and the duplicity of a sovereign. The Throne will speak. He will
withdraw the concessions that have been made, he arms himself in wrath.
Pharaoh rises to his feet to clutch the prey that is escaping.
“Rossini never wrote anything grander in style, or stamped with more
living and irresistible energy. It is a consummate work, supported by an
accompaniment of marvelous orchestration, as indeed is every portion of
this opera. The vigor of youth illumines the smallest details.”
The whole house applauded this noble movement, which was admirably
rendered by the singer, and thoroughly appreciated by the Venetians.
“In the _finale_,” said the Duchess, “you hear a repetition of the
march, expressive of the joy of deliverance and of faith in God, who
allows His people to rush off gleefully to wander in the Desert! What
lungs but would be refreshed by the aspirations of a whole nation freed
from slavery.