Chorus: “He came down from Heaven.”
VII.
THE GREAT OBLATION.
“Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”
Chorus: “Into Thy hands, O Lord.”
Following immediately after the last number the whole spirit of the music changes with the chorus, “The Veil of the Temple was rent in twain,” a presto movement, sung fortissimo, describing the darkness, the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks, the opening of the graves, and the arising of the bodies of the saints who slept, with all that vividness in imitation and sublimity of effect which characterize so many of the composer’s passages in “The Creation” and “The Seasons.” Haydn was by nature a deeply religious man, and that he felt the inspiration of the solemn subject is shown by the manner in which he conceived it, and by the exalted devotion of the music which accompanies the last words of the Man of Sorrows. The lines which Bombet quotes from Dante in this connection are hardly exaggerated:—
“He with such piety his thought reveals,
And with such heavenly sweetness clothes each tone,
That hell itself the melting influence feels.”
Ariadne.
The cantata “Ariana a Naxos” was written in 1792, and is for a single voice with orchestra. As an illustration of the original cantata form, it is one of the most striking and perfect. Its story is an episode familiar in mythology. When Minos, King of Crete, had vanquished the Athenians, he imposed upon Ægeus, their king, the severe penalty that seven youths should be annually sent to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur. In the fourth year the king’s son, Theseus, was among the number. He was more fortunate than his predecessors, for he slew the Minotaur and was rescued from the labyrinth by following the thread of Ariadne, daughter of Minos, who had conceived a violent passion for the handsome warrior, conqueror of Centaurs and Amazons. Upon his return to Athens she accompanied him as far as the island Naxos, where the ungrateful wretch perfidiously left her. It is this scene of desertion which Haydn chose for his cantata.