Page:Red (1925).pdf/166

 of the happy spirits in F major, "which," Vernon Lee assures us in one of the most mood-compelling of her essays, "seems, in its even flow, to carry the soul, upon some reedy, willowy stream, into the heart of the land of the happy dead," is immediately pursued by an exquisite flute melody to which, if we are not disturbed by the action on the stage (and it is often well to cover one's eyes) we may fancy the filmiest of sylphs floating lazily through the ether. The song of the Happy Shade enhances this mood of enchantment and even the entrance of Orpheus does not break the spell, which continues to hold us in its power until the descending curtain shuts from our ears the divine chorus which closes the scene. The singing of Christian angels can never rival that of this marvellous pagan choir. The preceding scene of Furies exhibits Gluck's talent for demoniacism. How persistently they scamper and riot! How tremendous is their marmorean and terrible No! This naïve, but substantial, tonal tapestry suggests Orcagna's fresco, The Triumph of Death, in the Campo Santo at Pisa much more definitely than Liszt's Todtentanz, which is intended as a musical transmutation of the painting.

In the music of Gluck we are assuredly near the heart of true beauty which, after all, may be