"I feel as if I were celebrating the liberation of Italy," thought a Milanese.
"Such music lifts up bowed heads, and revives hope in the most torpid," said a man from the Romagna.
"In this scene," said Massimilla, whose emotion was evident, "science is set aside. Inspiration, alone, dictated this masterpiece; it rose from the composer's soul like a cry of love! As to the accompaniment, it consists of the harps; the orchestra appears only at the last repetition of that heavenly strain. Rossini can never rise higher than in this prayer; he will do as good work, no doubt, but never better: the sublime is always equal to itself; but this hymn is one of the things that will always be sublime. The only match for such a conception might be found in the psalms of the great Marcello, a noble Venetian, who was to music what Giotto was to painting. The majesty of the phrase, unfolding itself with episodes of inexhaustible melody, is comparable with the finest things ever invented by religious writers.
"How ****** is the structure! Moses opens the attack in G minor, ending in a cadenza in B flat which allows the chorus to come in, /pianissimo/ at first, in B flat, returning by modulations to G minor.
This splendid treatment of the voices, recurring three times, ends in the last strophe with a /stretto/ in G major of absolutely overpowering effect. We feel as though this hymn of a nation released from slavery, as it mounts to heaven, were met by kindred strains falling from the higher spheres. The stars respond with joy to the ecstasy of liberated mortals. The rounded fulness of the rhythm, the deliberate dignity of the graduations leading up to the outbursts of thanksgiving, and its slow return raise heavenly images in the soul.
Could you not fancy that you saw heaven open, angels holding sistrums of gold, prostrate seraphs swinging their fragrant censers, and the archangels leaning on the flaming swords with which they have vanquished the heathen?
"The secret of this music and its refreshing effect on the soul is, I believe, that of a very few works of human genius: it carries us for the moment into the infinite; we feel it within us; we see it, in those melodies as boundless as the hymns sung round the throne of God.
Rossini's genius carries us up to prodigious heights, whence we look down on a promised land, and our eyes, charmed by heavenly light, gaze into limitless space. Elcia's last strain, having almost recovered from her grief, brings a feeling of earth-born passions into this hymn of thanksgiving. This, again, is a touch of genius.
"Ay, sing!" exclaimed the Duchess, as she listened to the last stanza with the same gloomy enthusiasm as the singers threw into it. "Sing!
You are free!"
The words were spoken in a voice that startled the physician. To divert Massimilla from her bitter reflections, while the excitement of recalling la Tinti was at its height, he engaged her in one of the arguments in which the French excel.
"Madame," said he, "in explaining this grand work--which I shall come to hear again to-morrow with a fuller comprehension, thanks to you, of its structure and its effect--you have frequently spoken of the color of the music, and of the ideas it depicts; now I, as an analyst, a materialist, must confess that I have always rebelled against the affectation of certain enthusiasts, who try to make us believe that music paints with tones. Would it not be the same thing if Raphael's admirers spoke of his singing with colors?"
"In the language of musicians," replied the Duchess, "/painting/ is arousing certain associations in our souls, or certain images in our brain; and these memories and images have a color of their own; they are sad or cheerful. You are battling for a word, that is all.
According to Capraja, each instrument has its task, its mission, and appeals to certain feelings in our souls. Does a pattern in gold on a blue ground produce the same sensations in you as a red pattern on black or green? In these, as in music, there are no figures, no expression of feeling; they are purely artistic, and yet no one looks at them with indifference. Has not the oboe the peculiar tone that we associate with the open country, in common with most wind instruments?
The brass suggests martial ideas, and rouses us to vehement or even somewhat furious feelings. The strings, for which the material is derived from the organic world, seem to appeal to the subtlest fibres of our nature; they go to the very depths of the heart. When I spoke of the gloomy hue, and the coldness of the tones in the introduction to /Mose/, was I not fully as much justified as your critics are when they speak of the 'color' in a writer's language? Do you not acknowledge that there is a nervous style, a pallid style, a lively, and a highly-colored style? Art can paint with words, sounds, colors, lines, form; the means are many; the result is one.
"An Italian architect might give us the same sensation that is produced in us by the introduction to /Mose/, by constructing a walk through dark, damp avenues of tall, thick trees, and bringing us out suddenly in a valley full of streams, flowers, and mills, and basking in the sunshine. In their greatest moments the arts are but the expression of the grand scenes of nature.
"I am not learned enough to enlarge on the philosophy of music; go and talk to Capraja; you will be amazed at what he can tell you. He will say that every instrument that depends on the touch or breath of man for its expression and length of note, is superior as a vehicle of expression to color, which remains fixed, or speech, which has its limits. The language of music is infinite; it includes everything; it can express all things.