I found Delemann in his own place presently,—a round box, like a diminutive observatory, at the very top of the building, and communicating only with similar boxes occupied by the brass in general. I let myself in, for it would have been absurd to knock amidst the demonstrations of the alto trombone. He was so ardent over that metallic wonder of his that I had to pluck his sleeve. Even then he would not leave off, at the risk of splitting that short upper lip of his by his involuntary smile, until he had finished what lay before him. It was one great sheet, and I espied at the top the words: "Mer de Glace,—Ouverture; Seraphael." Madder than ever for a conclusion, I stopped my ears till he laid down that shining monster and took occasion to say, "That is what we are to have to-night."
"I know. But how abominable is Anastase not to let me have my part to practise!"
"Very likely it is not ready. The brass came this morning, and the strings were to follow. Mine was quite damp when I had it."
We went into rehearsal together, Franz and I. What a different rehearsal from my first in England! Here we were all instruments. Franz was obliged to leave me on entering, and soon I beheld him afar off, at the top of the wooden platform, on whose raised steps we stood, taking his place by the tenor trombone,—a gentleman of adult appearance who had a large mouth. I have my own doubts, private and peculiar, about the superior utility of large mouths, because Franz, of the two, played best; but that is no matter here.
Our saal was a simple room enough, guiltless of ornament; our orchestra deal, clear of paint or varnish; our desks the same, but light as ladies' hand-screens,—this was well, as Anastase, who was not without his crochet, made us continually change places with each other, and we had to carry them about. There were wooden benches all down the saal, but nobody sat in them; there was not the glimmer of a countenance, nor the shine of two eyes. The door-bolts were drawn inside; there was a great and prevalent awe. The lamps hung over us, but not lighted; the sun was a long way from bed yet, and so were we. Anastase kept us at "L'Amour Fugitif" and "Euryanthe,"—I mean, their respective overtures,—a good while, and was very quiet all the time, until our emancipation in the "Mer de Glace." His face did not change even then; but there was a fixity and straightening of the arm, as if an iron nerve had passed down it suddenly, and he mustered us still more closely to him and to each other. My stand was next his own; and, looking here and there, I perceived Iskar among the second violins, and was stirred up,—for I had not met with him except at table since I came there.
It is not in my power to describe my own sensations on my first introduction to Seraphael's orchestral definite creation. Enough to say that I felt all music besides, albeit precious, albeit inestimable, to have been but affecting the best and highest portion of myself, but as exciting to loftier aspirations my constant soul; but that his creation did indeed not only first affect me beyond all analysis of feeling, but cause upon me, and through me, a change to pass,—did first recreate, expurge of all earthly; and then inspire, surcharged with heavenly hope and holiest ecstasy. That qualitative heavenly, and this superlative holiest, are alone those which disabuse of the dread to call what we love best and worship truest by name. No other words are expressive of that music which alone realizes the desire of faith,—faith supernal alike with the universal faith of love.
As first awoke the strange, smooth wind-notes of the opening adagio, the fetterless chains of ice seemed to close around my heart. The movement had no blandness in its solemnity, and so still and shiftless was the grouping of the harmonies that a frigidity actual, as well as ideal, passed over my pores and hushed my pulses. After a hundred such tense, yet clinging chords, the sustaining calm was illustrated, not broken, by a serpentine phrase of one lone oboe, pianissimo over the piano surface, which it crisped not, but on and above which it breathed like the track of a sunbeam aslant from a parted cloud. The slightest possible retardation at its close brought us to the refrain of the simple adagio, interrupted again by a rush of violoncello notes, rapid and low, like some sudden under-current striving to burst through the frozen sweetness. Then spread wide the subject as plains upon plains of water-land, though the time was gradually increased. Amplifications of the same harmonies introduced a fresh accession of violoncelli, and oboi contrasted artfully in syncopation, till at length the strides of the accelerando gave a glittering precipitation to the entrance of the second and longest movement.
Then Anastase turned upon me, and with the first bar we fell into a tumultuous presto. Far beyond all power to analyze as it was just then, the complete idea embraced me as instantaneously as had the picturesque chilliness of the first. I have called it tumultuous, but merely in respect of rhythm; the harmonies were as clear and evolved as the modulation itself was sharp, keen, unanticipated, unapproachable. Through every bar reigned that vividly enunciated ideal, whose expression pertains to the one will alone in any age,—the ideal that, binding together in suggestive imagery every form of beauty, symbolizes and represents something beyond them all.
Here over the surge-like, but fast-bound motivo—only like those tossed ice-waves, dead still in their heaped-up crests—were certain swelling crescendos of a second subject, so unutterably, if vaguely, sweet that the souls of all deep blue Alp-flowers, the clarity of all high blue skies, had surely passed into them, and was passing from them again.
Scarcely is it legitimate to describe what so speaks for itself as music; yet there are assuredly effects produced by music which may be treated of to the satisfaction of the initiated.