tacked effete or
worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of
Mecca (_stretto_ in C major). Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major,
common time). Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G
major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time). The mass of men
gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the
work he will achieve over a world (G major).

"He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because
he is inspired. The _crescendo_ begins (still in the dominant). Here
come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the
harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression
of the first triumphs. Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the
whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major). The
whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every
instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony.

"Suddenly the _tutti_ is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor
third). You hear the last strain of devoted love. The woman who had
upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of
triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content
with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the
greatness of the man who is killing her. What a blaze of love!

"Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major). The whole
strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous
quintet grounded on the fundamental bass--and he is dying! Mahomet is
world-weary; he has exhausted everything. Now he craves to die a god.
Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first
melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose.

"Now, do you not discern," said Gambara, ceasing to play, and turning to
the Count, "in this picturesque and vivid music--abrupt, grotesque, or
melancholy, but always grand--the complete expression of the life of
an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his
defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into
a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a
greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome of the
opera?"

At first calm and stern, the maestro's face, in which Andrea had been
trying to read the ideas he was uttering in inspired tones, though the
chaotic flood of notes afforded no clue