, great eloquence, in this music.
It has sincerity, dignity, and reserve, yet it is both deeply
impassioned and enamoringly tender; and it is as absolutely personal, as
underived, as was _Tristan_ forty years ago.

THE THEMES AND THEIR TREATMENT

The score of _Pelleas et Melisande_ ill brooks the short and ruthless
method of the thematic annotator. As I have pointed out in the foregoing
pages, its themes are often so indeterminate, so shadowy and elusive, as
to rebuke the analyst who would disengage and expose them. Many of them
are simply harmonic hues and half-lights, melodic shreds and fragments,
whose substance is as impalpable as mist and whose outlines waver and
fade almost before they are perceived. Few of them are clearly and
definitely articulated; for the most part they are, as I have called
them, mere "sound-wraiths," intentionally suggestive rather than
definitive, evocative rather than descriptive. If one ventures to
exhibit and to name them, one does so rather for the purpose of drawing
attention to their beauty, their singularity, and their delicate
potency, than with any thought of imposing an arbitrary character upon
them or of insisting upon what seems to be their essential
meaning--which is often altogether too recondite for positive
identification. I shall not, therefore, attempt to dissect the music
measure by measure, but shall endeavor rather to survey it "in the
large," to offer simply a general indication of its more significant
features. Nor shall I offer any further justification or apology for
the titles which I have adopted for the various representative themes
than to say that they have seemed to me to be sufficiently supported by
their association with the moods and events of the drama. It is, of
course, entirely possible that apter designations might be found for
them; I offer those that I have chosen more as an invitation to the
sympathetic and the inquisitive than from any desire to impose my own
interpretation upon unwilling, dissenting, or indifferent minds.

ACT I

A brief orchestral prelude, less than twenty measures in length,
introduces the opening scene of the first act. Divided and muted
'cellos, double-basses, and bassoons intone, _pp_, a solemn and brooding
theme[6] designed to evoke the thought of the forest, which, sombre,
mysterious, and oppressive, forms the background against which the
events of the drama are projected (page 1, measure 1):[7]

[6] Its curious pr