a double fugue, where it is not difficult to see in the first theme a fragment of the "baby" motive. The second is a remarkably assertive little phrase from the cadence of the second theme (quoted above). The son is clearly the hero, mainly in sportive humor, although he is not free from parental interference. The maze and rigor of the fugue do not prevent a frequent appearance of all the other themes, and even of the full melodies, of which the fugal motives are built. At the climax of the fugue, in the height of speed and noise, something very delightful is happening, some furious romp, perhaps, of father and son, the mother smiling on the game. At the close a new melody that we might trace, if we cared, in earlier origin, has a full verse "quietly and simply" (ruhig und einfach) in wood and horns, giving the crown
and seal to the whole. The rest is a final happy refrain of all the strains, where the husband's themes are clearly dominant.
CHAPTER XIX
ITALIAN SYMPHONIES
The present estate of music in Italy is an instance of the danger of prophecy in the broad realm of art. Wise words are daily heard on the rise and fall of a nation in art, or of a form like the symphony, as though a matter of certain fate, in strict analogy to the life of man.
Italy was so long regnant in music that she seems even yet its chosen land. We have quite forgotten how she herself learned at the feet of the masters from the distant North. For music is, after all, the art of the North; the solace for winter's desolation; an utterance of feeling without the model of a visible Nature.
And yet, with a prodigal stream of native melody and an ancient passion of religious rapture, Italy achieved masterpieces in the opposite fields of the Mass and of Opera. But for the more abstract plane of pure tonal forms it has somehow been supposed that she had neither a power nor a desire for expression. An Italian symphony seems almost an anomaly,—as strange a product as was once a German opera.
The blunt truth of actual events is that to-day a renascence has begun, not merely in melodic and dramatic lines; there is a new blending of the racial gift of song with a power of profound design.[74] Despite all historical philosophy, here is a new gushing forth from ancient fount, of which the world may rejoice and be refreshed.