Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/73

 dramatic productions Castor is the one which presents as a whole most unity, sequence, balance and harmony and the liveliest and best connected movement. For this merit we must to a great extent pay honour to the poem which cleverly attaches the ballet and spectacular portions to the action. The author of this poem is P. J. Bernard. Voltaire admired his Castor, finding in it "many glittering diamonds."

Like all Rameau's overtures, that of Castor is in two parts, the second being in the form of a fugue. The first, whose style is grave and accent vigorous, is a resounding appeal to the soul's heroic ideas and proudest impulses; it forms the fitting prelude to a drama that glorifies the heroism of devotion and the sacrifice of passion in a higher cause. The fugue gives promise of the brilliant and gracious interludes which are to be introduced. It is a fugue in the French manner, wonderfully alive, without the slightest pedantic heaviness, swinging, rapid, sonorous, full of life and charged in every note with gaiety and vivacity.

The curtain rises on a mythological prologue, the nuptials of Venus and Mars, War yielding place to Pleasure. Rameau contrives to give a natural effect in scenes of this kind. In it the choreography and figuration are infused with dramatic animation; the gods, goddesses and heroes appear in it each in a definite and distinct character, into which they throw themselves with charming simplicity, and take an active part in the scene. This gives the composer the opportunity of tempering the magnificence of the general effect with a great variety of delicate shades—I would mention particularly here:

(1) The "symphony" in C major announcing the descent of Venus and Mars on earth, two groups of