assimilate themselves with the usages of Attic tragedy (which
might easily lead us into absurdity) but as we would now express
ourselves in speech and song.... With this I fully concurred; and Felix
set, so vigorously to work, that in a few weeks he played me sketches,
and by the end of September nearly the whole chain of choruses was
completed. Besides my delight at the beauty of these choruses, they
confirmed me in the certainty that Felix's genius was eminently
dramatic. They not only gave the key to every scene, the expression to
each separate verse, from the narrow complacency of the Theban citizens
to their heartful and exalted sympathy, but also a dramatic accent
soaring far beyond the words of the poet. I allude particularly to the
dithyrambus that occurs between Creon's attempt to rescue Antigone and
the relation of its terrible failure. This song of praise really
consists entirely of glorifying appeals to Bacchus, and its dramatic
application lies only in the verse:--

'She was its pride,
Who, clasping the Thunderer, died;
And now, seeking its lost repose,
We pray thee to come and heal its woes.
Oh, hither bend;
From thy Parnassian heights descend.'

"To raise this chorus to be the terrible turning-point of the action;
to bring here to its culmination the tension excited by the awful
impending doom; to give this continually gathering power to the
invocation, 'Hear us, Bacchus!' till it becomes a cry of agony; to give
this exhaustive musical expression to the situation, marks the composer
to have a specially dramatic gift. And this is betokened no less in the
melodramatic portions. The idea of adding rhythmical accompaniments to
spoken words may have been suggested by a few well-set passages in the
music to 'Faust' by Prince Radziwill. It is to be regretted that the
public is scarcely able to appreciate how exquisitely Mendelssohn has
done this, since the representatives of Antigone and of Creon are
seldom sufficiently musical to enter completely into the composer's
intention; besides that in two passages of the accompanied dialogue of
Antigone the words are not correctly set under the music."

Of the private performance before the King and Court, Oct. 28, 1841, the
same writer says:--

"We had two more rehearsals on the following day, the evening one in
the presence of the King, and the performance itself took place on the
28th, b