This, the most musical and sensuously beautiful movement of the whole
suite, represents daybreak in Egypt, with the desert in the distance and
the great pyramids, with groups of acacias and palms in the foreground,
against a rosy eastern sky. Peer stands before the statue of Memnon in
the first hush of the dawn, and watches the rays of the rising sun
strike upon it, when, true to the ancient tradition, the statue sings.
Soft and mysterious strains of music, monotonous and prolonged, are
drawn by the sunbeams from the venerable stone.
The melody of this movement is of extreme simplicity and lyric beauty,
pure and fresh as the dawn. Its cadences swell in power and volume as
the sun rises higher; and the full flood of light is transmitted into a
full flood of song, as the statue thrills and vibrates with the first
kisses of the ardent Egyptian sun.
After the climax, which is full and joyous, but never passionate, the
music diminishes and dies away in broken snatches, as the statue, now
thoroughly impregnated with light and warmth, ceases to emit those
sounds with which it has been said to salute the daybreak for four
thousand years.