Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/80

 of sentiment. Now, if it is naturally the part of melody to convey sentiment in its stages of simplicity, pronounced determination, or frank expression, yet the subtle use of all the resources of harmony is necessary to render the fine shades of sentiment, because it is in the nature of harmony to provide countless shades—at least if the composer has the ability to use it as some have done. I am not running to extremes; emphatically I do not say that the line of the melody, its divisions and the manner in which the words are spaced, are of minor importance; but the movements of thought can only be thrown into relief by favour of a harmony that models itself on them continually. By the way in which they satisfy the above conditions the majority of the recitatives in Castor are to be counted among the finest things in music: they contain no less music than the airs, but it is music of another nature.

I will take as example the passage introducing the famous air "Sad preparations" with which it is connected by a celebrated modulation, where Telaïre begs Phoebe to leave her alone with her tears before the funeral monument of Pollux; or again the mournful and proud replies of Pollux when his father reveals to him that to deliver Castor he must separate himself for ever from his loved one. Important considerations of propriety (the presence of a stranger, a woman, regard for the sovereignty and benignity of Jupiter) oblige the characters to give vent to their feelings only in a gentle and subdued fashion, though despair is in their hearts. Hence the necessity for Recitative. But mark how through the measured inflexions of the language the combinations and contrasts of an intense harmony modelled by a quivering hand are able to lay before us the most secret agitation of their hearts.