A Second Book Of Operas

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A SECOND BOOK OF OPERAS

by Henry Edward Krehbiel

CONTENTS AND INDEX

CHAPTER I

BIBLICAL OPERAS

England and the Lord Chamberlain's censorship,
et Gounod's "Reine de Saba,"
The transmigrations of "Un Ballo in Maschera,"
How composers revamp their music,
et seq,--Handel and Keiser,
Mozart and Bertati,
Beethoven's readaptations of his own works,
Rossini and his "Barber of Seville,"
Verdi's "Nebuchadnezzar,"
Rossini's "Moses,"
"Samson et Dalila,"
Goldmark's "Konigin von Saba,"
The Biblical operas of Rubinstein,
Mehul's "Joseph,"
Mendelssohn's "Elijah" in dramatic form,
Oratorios and Lenten operas in Italy,
Carissimi and Peri,
Scarlatti's oratorios,
Scenery and costumes in oratorios,
The passage of the Red Sea and "Dal tuo stellato,"
Nerves wrecked by beautiful music,
"Peter the Hermit" and refractory mimic troops,
"Mi manca la voce" and operatic amenities,
Operatic prayers and ballets,
Goethe's criticism of Rossini's "Mose,"

CHAPTER, II

BIBLE STORIES IN OPERA AND ORATORIO

Dr. Chrysander's theory of the undramatic nature of the Hebrew, his
literature, and his life,
Hebrew history and Greek mythology,
Some parallels,
Old Testament subjects: Adam and Eve,
Cain and Abel,
The "Kain" of Bulthanpt and d' Albert,
"Tote Augen,"
Noah and the Deluge,
Abraham,
The Exodus,
Mehal's "Joseph,"
Potiphar's wife and Richard Strauss,
Raimondi's contrapuntal trilogy,
Nebuchadnezzar,
Judas Maccabseus,
Jephtha and his Daughter,
Judith,
Esther,
Athalia,

CHAPTER III

RUBINSTEIN AND HIS "GEISTLICHE OPER"

Anton Rubinstein and his ideals,
An ambition to emulate Wagner,
The Tower of Babel,"
The composer's theories and strivings,
et seq.--Dean Stanley,
"Die Makkabaer,"
Sulamith,"
Christus,"
"Das verlorene Paradies,"
"Moses,"
Action and stage directions,
New Testament stories in opera,
The Prodigal Son,
Legendary material and the story of the Nativity,
Christ dramas,
Hebbel and Wagner,
Parsifal,"

CHAPTER IV

"SAMSON ET DALILA"

The predecessors of M. Saint-Saens,
Voltaire and Rameau,
Duprez and Joachim Raff,
History of Saint-Saens's opera,
et seq.--Henri Regnault,
First performances,
As oratorio and opera in New York,
An inquiry into the story of Samson,
Samson and Herakles,
The Hebrew hero in legend,
A true type for tragedy,
Mythological interpretations,
Saint-Saens's opera described,
et seq.--A choral prologue,
Local color,
The character of Dalila,
et seq.--Milton on her wifehood and patriotism,
"Printemps qui commence,"
"Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix,"
Oriental ballet music,
The catastrophe,

CHAPTER V

"DIE KONIGIN VON SABA"

Meritoriousness of the book of Goldmark's opera,
Its slight connection with Biblical story,
Contents of the drama
et seq.--Parallelism with Wagner's "Tannhauser,"
First performance in New York,
Oriental luxury in scenic outfit,
Goldmark's music,

CHAPTER VI

"HERODIADE"

Modern opera and ancient courtesans,
Transformed morals in Massenet's opera,
A sea-change in England,
Who and what was Salome?
Plot of the opera,
Scenic and musical adornments,
Performances in New York,
(footnote).

CHAPTER VII

"LAKME"

Story of the opera,
et seq.--The "Bell Song,"
Some unnecessary English ladies,
First performance in New York,
American history of the opera,
Madame Patti,
Miss Van Zandt
Madame Sembrich
Madame Tetrazzini,
Criticism of the drama,
The music,

CHAPTER VIII

"PAGLIACCI"

The twin operas, "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Pagliacci,"
Widespread influence of Mascagiii's opera,
It inspires an ambition in Leoncavallo,
History of his opera,
A tragic ending taken from real life,
et seq.--Controversy between Leoncavallo and Catulle Mendes,
et seq.--"La Femme de Tabarin,"
"Tabarin" operas,
The "Drama Nuevo" of Estebanez and Mr. Howells's "Yorick's Love,"
What is a Pagliaccio?
First performances of the opera in Milan and New York,
The prologue,
et seq.--The opera described,
et seq.--Bagpipes and vesper bells,
Harlequin's serenade,
The Minuet,
The Gavotte,
Plaudite, amici, la commedia finita est!"
Philip Hale on who should speak the final words,

CHAPTER IX

"CAVALLERIA RUSTICASTA"

How Mascagni's opera impressed the author when it was new,
Attic tragedy and Attic decorum,
The loathsome operatic brood which it spawned,
Not matched by the composer or his imitators since,
Mascagni's account of how it came to be written,
et seq.--Verga's story,
et seq.--Story and libretto compared,
The Siciliano,
The Easter hymn,
Analysis of the opera,
et seq.--The prelude,
Lola's stornello,
The intermezzo,
"They have killed Neighbor Turiddu!"

CHAPTEE X

THE CAREER OF MASCAGNI

Influence of "Cavalleria Rusticana" on operatic composition,
"Santuzza," a German sequel,
Cilea's "Tilda,"
Giordano's "Mala Vita,"
Tasca's "A Santa Lucia,"
Mascagni's history,
et seq.--Composes Schiller's "Hymn to Joy,"
"Il Filanda,"
"Ratcliff,"
"L'Amico Fritz,"
"I Rantzau,"
"Silvano,"
"Zanetto,"
"Le Maschere,"
"Vistillia,"
"Arnica,"
Mascagni's American visit,

CHAPTEE XI

"IRIS"

The song of the sun,
Allegory and drama,
Story of the opera,
et seq.--The music,
et seq.--Turbid orchestration,
Local color,
Borrowings from Meyerbeer,

CHAPTER XII

"MADAMA BUTTERFLY"

The opera's ancestry,
Loti's "Madame Chrysantheme,"
John Luther Long's story,
David Belasco's play,
How the failure of "Naughty Anthony" suggested "Madame Butterfly,"
William Furst and his music,
Success of Mr. Belasco's play in New York,
The success repeated in London,
Brought to the attention of Signor Puccini,
Ricordi and Co. and their librettists,
"Madama Butterfly" fails in Milan,
The first casts in Milan, Brescia, and New York,
(footnote)
Incidents of the fiasco,
Rossini and Puccini,
The opera revised,
Interruption of the vigil, Story of the opera,
et seq.--The hiring of wives in Japan,
Experiences of Pierre Loti,
Geishas and mousmes,
A changed denouement,
Messager's opera, "Madame Chrysantheme,"
The end of Loti's romance,
Japanese melodies in the score,
Puccini's method and Wagner's,
"The Star-Spangled Banner,"
A tune from "The Mikado,"
Some of the themes of Puccini and William Furst,

CHAPTEE XIII

"DER ROSENKAVALIER"

The opera's predecessors, "Guntram," "Feuersnot," "Salome,"
Oscar Wilde makes a mistaken appeal to France,
His necrophilism welcomed by Richard Strauss and Berlin,
Conried's efforts to produce "Salome" at the Metropolitan Opera
Blouse suppressed,
Hammerstein produces the work,
"Elektra,"
Hugo von HofEmannsthal and Beaumarchais,
Strauss and Mozart,
Mozart's themes and Strauss's waltzes,
Dancing in Vienna at the time of Maria Theresa,
First performance of the opera at New York,
"Der Rosenkavalier" and "Le Nozze di Figaro,"
Criticism of the play and its music,
et seq.--Use of a melodic phrase from "Die Zauberflote,"
The language of the libretto,
The music,
Cast of the first American performance,
(footnote)

CHAPTER XIV

"KONIGSKINDER"

Story of the play,
et seq.--First production of Hummerdinck's opera and cast,
Earlier performance of the work as a melodrama,
Author and composer,
Opera and melodrama in Germany,
Wagnerian symbolism and music,
"Die Meistersinger" recalled,
Hero and Leander,
Humperdinck's music,

CHAPTER XV

"BORIS GODOUNOFF"

First performance of Moussorgsky's opera in New York,
Participation of the chorus in the tragedy,
Imported French enthusiasm,
Vocal melody, textual accents and rhythms,
Slavicism expressed in an Italian translation,
Moussorgsky and Debussy,
Political reasons for French enthusiasm,
Rimsky-Korsakoff's revision of the score,
Russian operas in America,
"Nero," "Pique Dame," "Eugene Onegin,"
Verstoffeky's "Askold's Tomb,"
The nationalism of "Boris Godounoff,"
The Kolydda song "Slava" and Beethoven,
Lack of the feminine element in the drama,
The opera's lack of coherency,
Cast of the first American performance,

CHAPTER XVI

"MADAME SANS-GENE" AND OTHER OPERAS BY GIORDANO

First performance of "Madame Sans-Gene,"
A singing Napoleon,
Royalties in opera,
Henry the Fowler, King Mark, Verdi's Pharaoh, Herod, Boris Godounoff, Macbeth,
Gustavus and some mythical kings and dukes,
et seq.--Mattheson's "Boris,"
Peter the Great,
Sardou's play and Giordano's opera,
Verdi on an operatic Bonaparte,
Sardou's characters,
"Andrea Chenier,"
French Rhythms,
"Fedora,"
"Siberia,"
The historic Chenier,
Russian local color,
"Schone Minka,"
"Slava,"
"Ay ouchnem,"
French revolutionary airs,
"La Marseillaise,"
"La Carmagnole,"
"Ca ira,"

CHAPTER XVII

TWO OPERAS BY WOLF-FERRARI

The composer's operas first sung in their original tongue in America,
First performances of "Le Donne Curiose," "Il Segreto di Susanna," "I
Giojelli della Madonna," "L'Amore Medico,"
Story and music of "Le Donne Curiose,"
Methods and apparatus of Mozart's day,
Wolf-Ferrari's Teutonism,
Goldoni paraphrased,
Nicolai and Verdi,
The German version of "Donne Curiose,"
Musical motivi in the opera,
Rameau's "La Poule,"
Cast of the first performance in New York,
(footnote)--Naples and opera,
"I Giojelli della Madonna,"
et seq.--Erlanger's "Aphrodite,"
Neapolitan folksongs,
Wolf-Ferrari's individuality,
His "Vita Nuova,"
First performance in America of I Giojelli,"

CHAPTER I

BIBLICAL OPERAS

Whether or not the English owe a grudge to their Lord Chamberlain
for depriving them of the pleasure of seeing operas based on
Biblical stories I do not know. If they do, the grudge cannot be a
deep one, for it is a long time since Biblical operas were in
vogue, and in the case of the very few survivals it has been easy
to solve the difficulty and salve the conscience of the public
censor by the simple device of changing the names of the characters
and the scene of action if the works are to be presented on the
stage, or omitting scenery, costumes and action and performing them
as oratorios. In either case, whenever this has been done, however,
it has been the habit of critics to make merry at the expense of my
Lord Chamberlain and the puritanicalness of the popular spirit of
which he is supposed to be the official embodiment, and to
discourse lugubriously and mayhap profoundly on the perversion of
composers' purposes and the loss of things essential to the lyric
drama.

It may be heretical to say so, but is it not possible that Lord
Chamberlain and Critic have both taken too serious a view of the
matter? There is a vast amount of admirable material in the Bible
(historical, legendary or mythical, as one happens to regard it),
which would not necessarily be degraded by dramatic treatment, and
which might be made entertaining as well as edifying, as it has
been made in the past, by stage representation. Reverence for this
material is neither inculcated nor preserved by shifting the scene
and throwing a veil over names too transparent to effect a
disguise. Moreover, when this is done, there is always danger that
the process may involve a sacrifice of the respect to which a work
of art is entitled on its merits as such. Gounod, in collaboration
with Barbier and Carre, wrote an opera entitled "La Reine de Saba."
The plot had nothing to do with the Bible beyond the name of
Sheba's Queen and King Solomon. Mr. Farnie, who used to make comic
operetta books in London, adapted the French libretto for
performance in English and called the opera "Irene." What a title
for a grand opera! Why not "Blanche" or "Arabella"? No doubt such a
thought flitted through many a careless mind unconscious that an
Irene was a Byzantine Empress of the eighth century, who, by her
devotion to its tenets, won beatification after death from the
Greek Church. The opera failed on the Continent as well as in
London, but if it had not been given a comic operetta flavor by its
title and association with the name of the excellent Mr. Farnie,
would the change in supposed time, place and people have harmed it?

A few years ago I read (with amusement, of course) of the
metamorphosis to which Massenet's "Herodiade" was subjected so that
it might masquerade for a brief space on the London stage; but when
I saw the opera in New York "in the original package" (to speak
commercially), I could well believe that the music sounded the same
in London, though John the Baptist sang under an alias and the
painted scenes were supposed to delineate Ethiopia instead of
Palestine.

There is a good deal of nonsensical affectation in the talk about
the intimate association in the minds of composers of music, text,
incident, and original purpose. "Un Ballo in Maschera," as we see
it most often nowadays, plays in Nomansland; but I fancy that its
music would sound pretty much the same if the theatre of action
were transplanted back to Sweden, whence it came originally, or
left in Naples, whither it emigrated, or in Boston, to which highly
inappropriate place it was banished to oblige the Neapolitan
censor. So long as composers have the habit of plucking feathers
out of their dead birds to make wings for their new, we are likely
to remain in happy and contented ignorance of mesalliances between
music and score, until they are pointed out by too curious critics
or confessed by the author. What is present habit was former custom
to which no kind or degree of stigma attached. Bach did it; Handel
did it; nor was either of these worthies always scrupulous in
distinguishing between meum and tuum when it came to appropriating
existing thematic material. In their day the merit of individuality
and the right of property lay more in the manner in which ideas
were presented than in the ideas themselves.

In 1886 I spent a delightful day with Dr. Chrysander at his home in
Bergedorf, near Hamburg, and he told me the story of how on one
occasion, when Keiser was incapacitated by the vice to which he was
habitually prone, Handel, who sat in his orchestra, was asked by
him to write the necessary opera. Handel complied, and his success
was too great to leave Keiser's mind in peace. So he reset the
book. Before Keiser's setting was ready for production Handel had
gone to Italy. Hearing of Keiser's act, he secured a copy of the
new setting from a member of the orchestra and sent back to Hamburg
a composition based on Keiser's melodies "to show how such themes
ought to be treated." Dr. Chrysander, also, when he gave me a copy
of Bertati's "Don Giovanni" libretto, for which Gazzaniga composed
the music, told me that Mozart had been only a little less free
than the poet in appropriating ideas from the older work.

One of the best pieces in the final scene of "Fidelio" was taken
from a cantata on the death of the emperor of Austria, composed by
Beethoven before he left Bonn. The melody originally conceived for
the last movement of the Symphony in D minor was developed into the
finale of one of the last string quartets. In fact the instances in
which composers have put their pieces to widely divergent purposes
are innumerable and sometimes amusing, in view of the fantastic
belief that they are guided by plenary inspiration. The overture
which Rossini wrote for his "Barber of Seville" was lost soon after
the first production of the opera. The composer did not take the
trouble to write another, but appropriated one which had served its
purpose in an earlier work. Persons ignorant of that fact, but with
lively imaginations, as I have said in one of my books, ["A Book of
Operas," p. 9] have rhapsodized on its appositeness, and professed
to hear in it the whispered plottings of the lovers and the merry
raillery of Rosina contrasted with the futile ragings of her grouty
guardian; but when Rossini composed this piece of music its mission
was to introduce an adventure of the Emperor Aurelianus in Palmyra
in the third century of the Christian era. Having served that
purpose it became the prelude to another opera which dealt with
Queen Elizabeth of England, a monarch who reigned some twelve
hundred years after Aurelianus. Again, before the melody now known
as that of Almaviva's cavatina had burst into the efflorescence
which now distinguishes it, it came as a chorus from the mouths of
Cyrus and his Persians in ancient Babylon.

When Mr. Lumley desired to produce Verdi's "Nabucodonosor" (called
"Nabucco" for short) in London in 1846 he deferred to English
tradition and brought out the opera as "Nino, Re d'Assyria." I
confess that I cannot conceive how changing a king of Babylon to a
king of Assyria could possibly have brought about a change one way
or the other in the effectiveness of Verdi's Italian music, but Mr.
Lumley professed to have found in the transformation reason for the
English failure. At any rate, he commented, in his "Reminiscences
of the Opera," "That the opera thus lost much of its original
character, especially in the scene where the captive Israelites
became very uninteresting Babylonians, and was thereby shorn of one
element of success present on the Continent, is undeniable."

There is another case even more to the purpose of this present
discussion. In 1818 Rossini produced his opera "Mose in Egitto" in
Naples. The strength of the work lay in its choruses; yet two of
them were borrowed from the composer's "Armida." In 1822 Bochsa
performed it as an oratorio at Covent Garden, but, says John Ebers
in his "Seven Years of the King's Theatre," published in 1828, "the
audience accustomed to the weighty metal and pearls of price of
Handel's compositions found the 'Moses' as dust in the balance in
comparison." "The oratorio having failed as completely as erst did
Pharaoh's host," Ebers continues, "the ashes of 'Mose in Egitto'
revived in the form of an opera entitled 'Pietro l'Eremita.' Moses
was transformed into Peter. In this form the opera was as
successful as it had been unfortunate as an oratorio.... 'Mose in
Egitto' was condemned as cold, dull, and heavy. 'Pietro l'Eremita,'
Lord Sefton, one of the most competent judges of the day,
pronounced to be the most effective opera produced within his
recollection; and the public confirmed the justice of the remark,
for no opera during my management had such unequivocal success."
[Footnote: "Seven Years of the King's Theatre," by John Ebers, pp.
157, 158.] This was not the end of the opera's vicissitudes, to
some of which I shall recur presently; let this suffice now:

Rossini rewrote it in 1827, adding some new music for the Academie
Royal in Paris, and called it "Moise"; when it was revived for the
Covent Garden oratorios, London, in 1833, it was not only performed
with scenery and dresses, but recruited with music from Handel's
oratorio and renamed "The Israelites in Egypt; or the Passage of
the Red Sea"; when the French "Moise" reached the Royal Italian
Opera, Covent Garden, in April, 1850, it had still another name,
"Zora," though Chorley does not mention the fact in his "Thirty
Years' Musical Recollections," probably because the failure of the
opera which he loved grieved him too deeply. For a long time
"Moses" occupied a prominent place among oratorios. The Handel and
Haydn Society of Boston adopted it in 1845, and between then and
1878 performed it forty-five times.

In all the years of my intimate association with the lyric drama
(considerably more than the number of which Mr. Chorley has left us
a record) I have seen but one opera in which the plot adheres to
the Biblical story indicated by its title. That opera is Saint-
Saens's "Samson et Dalila." I have seen others whose titles and
dramatis personae suggested narratives found in Holy Writ, but in
nearly all these cases it would be a profanation of the Book to
call them Biblical operas. Those which come to mind are Goldmark's
"Konigin von Saba," Massenet's "Herodiade" and Richard Strauss's
"Salome." I have heard, in whole or part, but not seen, three of
the works which Rubinstein would fain have us believe are operas,
but which are not--"Das verlorene Paradies," "Der Thurmbau zu
Babel" and "Moses"; and I have a study acquaintance with the books
and scores of his "Maccabaer," which is an opera; his "Sulamith,"
which tries to be one, and his "Christus," which marks the
culmination of the vainest effort that a contemporary composer made
to parallel Wagner's achievement on a different line. There are
other works which are sufficiently known to me through library
communion or concert-room contact to enable me to claim enough
acquaintanceship to justify converse about them and which must
perforce occupy attention in this study. Chiefest and noblest of
these are Rossini's "Moses" and Mehul's "Joseph." Finally, there
are a few with which I have only a passing or speaking
acquaintance; whose faces I can recognize, fragments of whose
speech I know, and whose repute is such that I can contrive to
guess at their hearts--such as Verdi's "Nabucodonosor" and Gounod's
"Reine de Saba."

Rossini's "Moses" was the last of the Italian operas (the last by a
significant composer, at least) which used to be composed to ease
the Lenten conscience in pleasure-loving Italy. Though written to
be played with the adjuncts of scenery and costumes, it has less of
action than might easily be infused into a performance of
Mendelssohn's "Elijah," and the epical element which finds its
exposition in the choruses is far greater than that in any opera of
its time with which I am acquainted. In both its aspects, as
oratorio and as opera, it harks back to a time when the two forms
were essentially the same save in respect of subject matter. It is
a convenient working hypothesis to take the classic tragedy of
Hellas as the progenitor of the opera. It can also be taken as the
prototype of the Festival of the Ass, which was celebrated as long
ago as the twelfth century in France; of the miracle plays which
were performed in England at the same time; the Commedia
spiritiuale of thirteenth-century Italy and the Geistliche
Schauspiele of fourteenth-century Germany. These mummeries with
their admixture of church song, pointed the way as media of
edification to the dramatic representations of Biblical scenes
which Saint Philip Neri used to attract audiences to hear his
sermons in the Church of St. Mary in Vallicella, in Rome, and the
sacred musical dramas came to be called oratorios. While the
camerata were seeking to revive the classic drama in Florence,
Carissimi was experimenting with sacred material in Rome, and his
epoch-making allegory, "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e del
Corpo," was brought out, almost simultaneously with Peri's
"Euridice," in 1600. Putting off the fetters of plainsong, music
became beautiful for its own sake, and as an agent of dramatic
expression. His excursions into Biblical story were followed for a
century or more by the authors of sacra azione, written to take the
place of secular operas in Lent. The stories of Jephtha and his
daughter, Hezekiah, Belshazzar, Abraham and Isaac, Jonah, Job, the
Judgment of Solomon, and the Last Judgment became the staple of
opera composers in Italy and Germany for more than a century.
Alessandro Scarlatti, whose name looms large in the history of
opera, also composed oratorios; and Mr. E. J. Dent, his biographer,
has pointed out that "except that the operas are in three acts and
the oratorios in two, the only difference is in the absence of
professedly comic characters and of the formal statement in which
the author protests that the words fata, dio, dieta, etc., are only
scherzi poetici and imply nothing contrary to the Catholic faith."
Zeno and Metastasio wrote texts for sacred operas as well as
profane, with Tobias, Absalom, Joseph, David, Daniel, and Sisera as
subjects.

Presently I shall attempt a discussion of the gigantic attempt made
by Rubinstein to enrich the stage with an art-form to which he gave
a distinctive name, but which was little else than, an inflated
type of the old sacra azione, employing the larger apparatus which
modern invention and enterprise have placed at the command of the
playwright, stage manager, and composer. I am compelled to see in
his project chiefly a jealous ambition to rival the great and
triumphant accomplishment of Richard Wagner, but it is possible
that he had a prescient eye on a coming time. The desire to combine
pictures with oratorio has survived the practice which prevailed
down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Handel used scenes
and costumes when he produced his "Esther," as well as his "Acis
and Galatea," in London. Dittersdorf has left for us a description
of the stage decorations prepared for his oratorios when they were
performed in the palace of the Bishop of Groswardein. Of late years
there have been a number of theatrical representations of
Mendelssohn's "Elijah." I have witnessed as well as heard a
performance of "Acis and Galatea" and been entertained with the
spectacle of Polyphemus crushing the head of presumptuous Acis with
a stave like another Fafner while singing "Fly, thou massy ruin,
fly" to the bludgeon which was playing understudy for the fatal
rock.

This diverting incident brings me to a consideration of one of the
difficulties which stand in the way of effective stage pictures
combined with action in the case of some of the most admired of the
subjects for oratorios or sacred opera. It was not the Lord
Chamberlain who stood in the way of Saint-Saens's "Samson et
Dalila" in the United States for many years, but the worldly wisdom
of opera managers who shrank from attempting to stage the spectacle
of the falling Temple of Dagon, and found in the work itself a
plentiful lack of that dramatic movement which is to-day considered
more essential to success than beautiful and inspiriting music.
"Samson et Dalila" was well known in its concert form when the
management of the Metropolitan Opera House first attempted to
introduce it as an opera. It had a single performance in the season
of 1894-1895 and then sought seclusion from the stage lamps for
twenty years. It was, perhaps, fortunate for the work that no
attempt was made to repeat it, for, though well sung and
satisfactorily acted, the toppling of the pillars of the temple,
discreetly supported by too visible wires, at the conclusion made a
stronger appeal to the popular sense of the ridiculous than even
Saint-Saens's music could withstand. It is easy to inveigh against
the notion frivolous fribbles and trumpery trappings receive more
attention than the fine music which ought to be recognized as the
soul of the work, the vital spark which irradiates an
inconsequential material body; but human nature has not yet freed
itself sufficiently from gross clogs to attain so ideal an
attitude.

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