subtle
melodic touches and dramatic surprises of chord and color. The whole
seems a reflection of Romeo's humor, the personal (_Allegro_) theme
being the symbol as it roams throughout the various phases,--the sadness
of solitude, the feverish thrill of the ball. Into the first phrase of
straying violins wanders the personal motive, sadly meditative.

[Music: _Allegro._
(Choir of wood, with sustained chords of strings)]

Sweeter dreams now woo the muser, warming into passion, pulsing with a
more eager throb of desire, in changed tone and pace. Suddenly in a new
quarter amid a quick strum of dance the main motive hurries along. The
gay sounds vanish, ominous almost in the distance. The sadness of the
lover now sings unrestrained in expressive melody (of oboe), in long
swinging pace, while far away rumbles the beat of festive drum.

The song rises in surging curves, but dies away among the quick festal
sounds, where the personal motive is still supreme, chasing its own
ardent antics, and plunges headlong into the swirl of dance.

II Penseroso (in his personal role) has glided into a buoyant,
rollicking Allegro with joyous answer. Anon the outer revel breaks in
with shock almost of terror. And now in climax of joy, through the
festal strum across the never-ceasing thread of transformed meditation
resound in slowest, broadest swing the

[Music: _Larghetto espressivo_
(Ob. with fl. and cl. and arpeggic cellos)]

warm tones of the love-song in triumph of bliss.[A] As the song dies
away, the festal sounds fade. Grim meditation returns in double
figure,--the slower, heavier pace below. Its shadows are all about as in
a fugue of fears, flitting still to the tune of the dance and anon
yielding before the gaiety. But through the returning festal ring the
fateful motive is still straying in the bass. In the concluding revel
the hue of meditation is not entirely banned.

[Footnote A: In unison of the wind. Berlioz has here noted in the score
"_Reunion des deux Themes, du Larghetto et de L'Allegro_," the second
and first of our cited phrases.]

The Shakespearian love-drama thus far seems to be celebrated in the
manner of a French romance. After all, the treatment remains scenic in
the main; the feeling is diluted, as it were, not intensified by the
music.

The stillness of night and the shimmering moonlight are in the delicate
harmonies of (_Allegretto_) strings. A lusty song of departing revellers
breaks upon the scene.