The first movement is in the nature of an invocation to spring, in which the longing for May and its flowers is very tenderly expressed. The second movement depicts with great vigor the return of the wintry storms, the raging of the torrents, the gradual rolling away of the clouds, the approach of more genial breezes, and the rising of the star, typifying “the joy of a fair maiden’s love.” The closing movement is full of rejoicing that the spring has come. Voices and instruments share alike in the jubilation:—
“For the spring-time has come, the May is here,
On hill and in vale all is full of delight.
How sweet is the spring-time, how lovely and bright,—
Its kingdom is over us all.”
The Erl King’s Daughter.
“The Erl King’s Daughter” was written in 1852. Its story differs from that told in Goethe’s famous poem, and set to music equally famous by Schubert in his familiar song. In Goethe’s poem the father rides through the night clasping his boy and followed by the Erl King and his daughters, who entice the child unseen by the parent. In vain he assures him that the Erl King’s voice is but the “sad wind sighing through the withered leaves,” that his train is but the mist, and that his daughters are the aged gray willows deceiving his sight. The boy at first is charmed with the apparition, but cries in mortal terror as the Erl King seizes him, while the father gallops at last into the courtyard, only to find his child dead in his arms.
In the poem used by Gade it is the Erl King’s daughter who tempts a knight to his death. The prologue relates that Sir Oluf at eve stayed his steed and rested beneath the alders by the brook, where he was visited by two of the daughters, one of whom caressed him while the other invited him to join their revels. At sound of the cock-crow, however, they disappeared. It was the eve of Sir Oluf’s wedding day. He arrives home in a distraught condition, and in spite of his mother’s appeals decides to return to the alder grove in quest of the beauties who had bewitched him. He finds the alder-maids dancing in the moonlight, singing and beckoning him to join them. One of the fairest tempts him with a silken gown for the bride and silver armor for himself. When he refuses to dance with her, she seizes him by the arm and predicts his death on the morrow morning. “Ride home to your bride in robe of red,” she cries as he hastens away. In the morning the mother anxiously waits his coming, and at last beholds him riding desperately through “the waving corn.” He has lost his shield and helmet, and blood drips from his stirrups. As he draws rein at the door of the castle he drops dead from his saddle. A brief epilogue points the moral of the story in quaint fashion. It is to the effect that knights who will on horseback ride should not like Oluf stay in elfin groves with elfin maidens till morning. It is unnecessary to specify the numbers in detail; as with the exception of the melodramatic finale, where the music becomes quite vigorous, it is all of the same graceful, flowing, melodic character, and needs no key to explain it to the hearer.
The Crusaders.
“The Crusaders” is one of the most powerful as well as beautiful of modern cantatas. It was written for performance in Copenhagen in 1866, and ten years later was produced at the Birmingham Festival, under the composer’s direction. It is divided into three parts, and its story may be told in a word. Its theme is the same as that which Wagner has treated in “Lohengrin” and in “Tännhauser,”—the conflict of the human soul with the powers of darkness, sensual beauty and sorcery, and its final triumph. It is the story of the temptation of Rinaldo d’Este, the bravest of the Crusaders, by Armida and her sirens, who at last calls upon the Queen of Spirits to aid them in their hopeless task, the thwarting of the powers of evil, and the final triumph before Jerusalem.