Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/74

 contrasted melodic fragments, the one suitably rendered by the sweet sound of flutes, the other coloured with the brightness of trumpets, but offering in their opposition (and here we have the touch of a great master) the unity and continuity of a single melody.

(2) The "rondeau gavotte" in A major, first played by the orchestra, then taken up by the voice to the words "Brighter return, O charming Peace." An admirable theme at once sinuous and simple in form; a dance theme, but also like all Rameau's dance themes, a theme of sentiment, as it were the light step of a young woman who comes forward observing in her movements the purest cadence, and smiling with an enigmatically tender expression. She does not advance all at once. After each step she hesitates, stops just long enough to resume with yet more grace her movement as of one treading on air. Six times she thus suspends our enchantment the better to renew it, until at last she gives the finishing touch by completing with a wonderfully measured ease both her waving movement and the expression of her smile.

(3) The Minuet sung by Love, "Spring to life ye gifts of Flora", one of the most divinely calm melodic tunes, one of the most serene expressions of pleasure, ever imagined by Rameau.

I would set beside this prologue the interlude in the third act, which has a similar inspiration. Jupiter, to dissuade Pollux from his purpose of offering himself to Pluto in the place of his brother Castor makes Earthly Pleasures appear before him. From among the posy of inspirations which once more the musician has here collected, we cannot but pick out that superb flower, the air for Hebe and her followers, in E major "Let our sports crown your prayers." It is a long melody, and