which there seemed to be no compensation in this world.  And yet upon the Capitol the poet was clothed with a mantle of purer and more brilliant purple than that of Alphonse.”

With the help of the composer’s plot, the intent of the music becomes clear, to the dot almost of the note.  The whole poem is an exposition of the one sovereign melody, where we may feel a kindred trait of Hungarian song, above all in the cadences, that must have stirred Liszt’s patriot heart.  Nay,—­beginning as it does with melancholy stress of the phrase of cadence and the straying into full rhythmitic exultation, it seems (in strange guise) another

[Music:  Adagio mesto (With rhythmic harp and horns)]

of Liszt’s Hungarian rhapsodies,—­that were, perhaps, the greatest of all he achieved, where his unpremeditated frenzy revelled in purest folk-rhythm and tune.  The natural division of the Hungarian dance, with the sad Lassu and the glad Friss, is here clear in order and recurrence.  The Magyar seems to the manner born in both parts of the melody.[A]

[Footnote A:  A common Oriental element in Hungarian and Venetian music has been observed.  See Kretschmar’s note to Liszt’s “Tasso” (Breitkopf & Haertel).]

In the accents of the motive of cadence (Lento) we feel the secret grief of the hero, that turns Allegro strepitoso, in quicker pace to fierce revolt.

In full tragic majesty the noble theme enters, in panoply of woe.  In the further flow, as in the beginning, is a brief chromatic strain and a sigh of descending tone that do not lie in the obvious song, that are drawn by the subjective poet from the latent fibre.  Here is the modern Liszt, of rapture and anguish, in manner and in mood that proved so potent a model with a later generation.[A]

[Footnote A:  See note in the final chapter of Volume II.]

The verse ends in a prolonged threnody, then turns to a firm, serenely grave burst of the song in major, Meno Adagio, with just a hint of martial grandeur.  For once, or the nonce, we seem to see the hero-poet acclaimed.  In a middle episode the motive of the cadence sings expressively with delicate harmonies, rising to full-blown exaltation.  We may see here an actual brief celebration, such as Tasso did receive on entering Ferrara.

And here is a sudden fanciful turn.  A festive dance strikes a tuneful trip,—­a menuet it surely is, with all the ancient festal charm, vibrant with tune and spring, though still we do not escape the source of the first pervading theme.  Out of the midst of the dance sings slyly an enchanting phrase, much like a secret love-romance.  Now to the light continuing dance is joined a strange companion,—­the heroic melody in its earlier majestic pace.  Is it the poet in serious meditation at the feast apart from the joyous abandon, or do we see him laurel-crowned, a centre of the festival, while the gay dancers flit about him in homage?