Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/152

140 my mind, nothing in the whole of Telemann's work excels the scene of Ino's despair when she believes that she has lost her son. These pages are worthy of Beethoven, while in the orchestral accompaniment there are some touches that remind one of Berlioz. The intensity and freedom of the emotional passages are unique. The man capable of writing such pages was a great musician and deserving of fame rather than the oblivion into which he has fallen to-day.

The rest of the composition contains nothing that rises to these heights, although it is by no means lacking in beauty. As in The Day of Judgment, the beautiful passages mutually enhance one another, either by concatenation or by contrast, The passionate lamentations of Ino are followed by an air in 9/8 time, which describes the dance of the Nereids round the child. Then follows the voyage across the waters, the buoyant waves that bear up "the divine travellers," and some little dancers in "a pleasing style" introduce a brief period of repose in the midst of the song Meint ihr mich— a delightful aria with two flutes and muted violins, rather in the vocal and instrumental style of Hasse. A powerful instrumental recitative evokes the appearance of Neptune. Finally the composition ends with an aria in bravura, which anticipates the Germanised style of Rossini as we find it, during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century, in Weber, and even, to some extent, in Beethoven.—During the entire course of this work there is not a single interruption of the music, not a single