But presently the _Allegro_ came to an end, and with the pause there
came that brief stir in the orchestra, that momentary relaxation of
nerves and muscles, that moving and turning of many heads in different
directions, that swift interchange of looks and smiles and whispered
words between the players, which seemed like the temporary dissolving
of the spell that made them one. And with this general but separated
and uncertain movement a vague thought, an unformulated question,
passed into the mind of the Music-Lover.
How would the leader reassemble the parts of his instrument in a few
seconds, and make them one again, and resume his control over it? How
would he make the pipes and strings and tubes and drums answer to his
touch, though he laid no hand upon them? There must be some strange,
invisible key-board, some secret system of communication between him
and those various contrivances of wood and wire and sheep-skin and
horse-hair and metal (so curiously and grotesquely fashioned, when one
came to consider them) out of which he was to bring melody and
harmony. How should one conceive of this mysterious key-board and its
hidden connections?
How should one comprehend and imagine it? Was it not, after all, the
most wonderful thing about the great instrument on which the symphony
was played?
While the Music-Lover, leaning back in his seat, was idly turning over
this thought, the _Andante_ began, and all definite questioning and
reasoning were absorbed in the calm, satisfying melody which flowed
from the violas and 'cellos.
But now a singular change came over the half-conscious impression
which his eyes received as they rested on the orchestra. It was no
longer a huge and strangely fashioned instrument, intricate in
construction, perfect in adjustment, that he was watching.
It was a company of human beings, trained and disciplined to common
action, understanding one another through the sharing of a certain
technical knowledge, and bound together by a unity of will which was
expressed in their central obedience to the leader. The arms, the
hands, the lips of these hundred persons were weaving together the
many-coloured garment of music, because their minds knew the pattern,
and their wills worked together in the design.
Here was the wonderful hidden system of communication, more magical
than any mechanism, just because it was less perfect, just because it
left room, along each separate channel, for the coming in of those
slight, incalculable elements of personal emotion which lend the touch
of life to rhythm and tone.
The instruments were but the tools. The composer was the
master-designer. The leader and his orchestra were the weavers of the
rich robe of sound, in which alone the hidden spirit of Music,
daughter of Psyche and Amor, becomes perceptible to mortal sense.
The smooth and harmonious action of the players seemed to lend a new
charm, delicate and indefinable, to the development of the clear and
heart-strengthening theme with its subtle variations and its powerful,
emphatic close, like the fullness of meaning in the last line of a
noble sonnet.