Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/120

 reserving itself and waiting in secret for its hour to strike.

Everyone remembers that extraordinary little musical epopee of "Calumny," traced from the moment of its imperceptible birth, when it is still only "a breath, a nothing," up to the moment when, having by its slow operation imprisoned its victim in an invisible circle from which there is no escape, it rears its head and in a voice of thunder, and strengthened by popular assent, consigns the unhappy man to infamy and the gibbet. It is a magnificent thing, and if your memory does not represent it to you as such, it will be because you have heard it spoilt by that accursed theatrical purring which often transforms into a vulgar bravura air a musical poem rich in fine shades, the execution of which requires not merely a fine singer, but a very good actor.

I go back to the early days of Italian opera, and find in the Crowning of Poppaea, by Monteverde, a scene well fitted to illustrate this gift of expression. It is the scene in which Seneca the philosopher being ordered by Nero to disappear from the world, invites his disciples to follow him, in accordance with the Stoic philosophy which teaches that death is a matter of indifference. But the disciples, to talk like one of our troopers, are not having any. And they proclaim the fact with an admirable frankness and freedom of accent. They do not repudiate the Stoic philosophy, but they are not at all desirous of repudiating life, which is also a thing of value. A French poet would never be able to avoid giving these characters a certain consciousness of the somewhat debasing comic quality of their moral attitude; but the sentiment would incidentally have the effect of freezing the music on