"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.