wood and brass here and there light up the phrases. Now the full bass of
horns and wood strikes the descending course of theme, while higher
strings and wood soar in rising stress of (sighing) grief.

[Music: (In double higher 8ves.)
_With lower 8ves._
(Strings, with enforcing and answering wind)]

A hymnal verse of the theme enters in the wood answered by impetuous
strings on a coursing phrase. The antiphonal song rises with eager
stress of themal attack. A quieter elegy leads to another burst, the
motive above, the insistent sigh below. The climax of fugue returns to
the heroic main plaint below, with sighing answers above, all the voices
of wood and brass enforcing the strings.

Then the fugue turns to a transfigured phase; the theme rings triumphant
retorts in golden horns and in a masterful unison of the wood; the wild
answer runs joyfully in lower strings, while the higher are strumming
like celestial harps. The whole is transformed to a big song of praise
ever in higher harmonies. The theme flows on in ever varying thread,
amidst the acclaiming tumult.

But the heavenly heights are not reached by a single leap. Once more we
sink to sombre depths not of the old rejection, but of a chastened,
wistful wonderment. The former plaintive chant returns, in slower,
contained pace, broken by phrases of mourning recitative, with the old
sigh. And a former brief strain of simple aspiration is supported by
angelic harps. In gentle ascent we are wafted to the acclaim of heavenly
(treble) voices in the _Magnificat_. A wonderful utterance, throughout
the scene of Purgatory, there is of a chastened, almost spiritual grief
for the sin that cannot be undone, though it is not past pardon.

The bold design of the final Praise of the Almighty was evidently
conceived in the main as a service. An actual depiction, or a direct
expression (such as is attempted in the prologue of Boito's Mefistofele)
was thereby avoided. The Holy of Holies is screened from view by a
priestly ceremony,--by the mask of conventional religion. Else we must
take the composer's personal conception of such a climax as that of an
orthodox Churchman. And then the whole work, with all its pathos and
humanity, falls to the level of liturgy.

The words of invisible angel-chorus are those of the blessed maid
trusting in God her savior, on a theme for which we are prepared by
preluding choirs of harps, wood and strings. It is sung on an ancient
Church tone that