harmony
of which all we know is that it was extremely simple, and, according to
our ideas, meagre; but it was antique completely, in its being filled
with the fire of the tragedy and making its spirit intelligible to us
moderns, strengthening the meaning of the words, and giving a running
musical commentary on them.... With us at Leipsic, as indeed
everywhere, the Eros Chorus, with its solemn awe in the presence of the
divine omnipotence of love, and the Bacchus Chorus, which, swinging the
thyrsus, celebrates the praise of the Theban maiden's son in joyous
strains, as well as the melodramatic passages, where Antigone enters,
wailing, the chamber where her dead lover lay, and whither Creon has
borne in his son's corpse, had an imposing effect. The impression of
the whole piece, taken by itself, was very powerful. With amazement our
modern world realized the sublimity of the ancient tragic muse, and
recognized the 'great, gigantic fate which exalts man while grinding
him to powder.'"

Devrient, the director of the opera at Carlsruhe, in his "Recollections
of Mendelssohn," has left a delightful sketch of the composition of the
work. He says:--

"Felix did not enter upon his task without the fullest consideration.
The first suggestion was to set the chorus in unison throughout, and to
recitative interspersed with solos; and as nearly as possible to intone
or recite the words, with accompaniment of such instruments only as may
be supposed in character with the time of Sophocles,--flutes, tubas,
and harps, in the absence of lyres. I opposed to this plan that the
voice parts would be intolerably monotonous, without the compensatory
clearness of the text being attained....

"Nevertheless Felix made the attempt to carry out this view, but after
a few days he confessed to me that it was impracticable; that I was
right in maintaining the impossibility of making the words clear in
choral singing, except in a few places that are obviously suited for
recitative;[31] that the chanting of a chorus would be vexatiously
monotonous, tedious, and unmusical; and that accompaniments for so few
instruments would give so little scope for variety of expression that
it would make the whole appear as a mere puerile imitation of the
ancient music, about which, after all, we knew nothing. He concluded
therefore that the choruses must be sung, as the parts must be recited,
not to