Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/127

 half tones, shades, graduations and transitions of sentiment. And so we find he looks out for a libretto in which the dramatic elaboration is sketchy and more or less hastily thrown together. He is the man for strong situations; they call out of him the accents of a master. And what beguiles us and carries us off our feet, what has made, and continues to make the fascination of this sublime peasant-art is not—and this should be carefully noted—the charm and eloquence of the beautiful melody of the Italian type unfolded with prehensile and vigorous energy. True, that charm and eloquence of melodic line are possessed by Verdi. But Bellini and Donizetti possessed them too; and yet they, if they are not dead, are now only half alive, and it will always be a risky enterprise to try to present Norma, Lucie, or the Favourite in their entirety before the French public of these days, whereas Rigoletto and Traviata hold the stage with all their old power and fire. The reason is that Verdi's melody has, besides its purely musical charm, the most distinct, strong and original knack of hitting the dramatic truth. It is melodic, but it is also characteristic. It sings, but it also speaks and paints. One might even say that it sings merely as an embellishment. Verdi is more than anything else a musician-dramatist. I quite believe that it is in the course of fixing the outlines of some idea deeply imprinted on his mind (the idea of a passion or a character) that he discovers his happiest musical settings. They have a wonderful lilt; that is the divine privilege of Italy, that is what we admire in William Tell. Verdi, I would say again, being a musician of the theatre, has an eye above all to the action. He goes straight to the mark. But whereas it is not given to