Imps they are, these flitting figures, almost insects with a personality.  In pace there is a division, where the first dazzling speed is simply the fairy rhythm (halted anon by speaking pauses or silences), and the second, a kind of idyll or romance in miniature.  It is all a drama of fairy actors, in a dreamland of softest tone.  The main figure leads its troop on gossamer thread of varied journey.

[Music:  (Violins) Prestissimo]

Almost frightening in the quickest, pulsing motion is the sudden stillness, as the weird poising of trembling sprites.  Best of all is the resonant beauty of the second melody in enchanting surprise of tone.

[Music:  (Strings without basses)]

Anon, as in a varied dance, the skipping, mincing step is followed by a gentle swaying; or the figures all run together down the line to start the first dance again, or the divided groups have different motions, or one shouts a sudden answer to the other.

Much slower now is the main song (in flute and English horn) beneath an ariel harmony (of overtones), while a quicker trip begins below of the same figure.  And in the midst is a strange concert of low dancing strings with highest tones of harp,—­strange mating of flitting sprites.

We are suddenly back in the first, skipping dance, ever faster and brighter in dazzling group of lesser figures.  And here is the golden note of fairy-land,—­the horn in soft cheery hunter’s lay, answered by echoing voices.  For a moment the call is tipped with touch of sadness, then rings out brightly in a new quarter.  Beautiful it sings between the quick phrases, with a certain shock of change, and there is the terror of a sudden low rumbling and the thrill of new murmuring sounds with soft beat of drum that hails the gathering fairies.  There is a sudden clarion burst of the whole chorus, with clash of drum and clang of brass, and sudden pause, then faintest echoes of higher voices.

A new figure now dances a joyous measure to the tinkling of harp and the sparkling strokes of high

[Music:  (Harp in higher 8ve.) (Clarinet with chord of horns) (Violas)]

cymbals and long blown tone of horns.  The very essence it is of fairy life.  And so the joy is not unmixed with just a touch of awe.  Amidst the whole tintinnabulation is a soft resonant echo of horns below, like an image in a lake.  The air hangs heavy with dim romance until the sudden return to first fairy verse in sounds almost human.  Once more come the frightening pauses.

The end is in a great crash of sweet sound—­a glad awakening to day and to reality.

CHAPTER IV

A SYMPHONY TO DANTE’S “DIVINA COMMEDIA”

FOR ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS OF SOPRANOS AND ALTOS

The “Divina Commedia” may be said in a broad view to belong to the great design by which Christian teaching was brought into relation with earlier pagan lore.  The subject commands all the interest of the epics of Virgil and of Milton.  It must be called the greatest Christian poem of all times, and the breadth of its appeal and of its art specially attest the age in which it was written, when classic pagan poetry broke upon the world like a great treasure-trove.