ar rhythmic
sense of the ride. We think of other instances like Schubert's
"Erl-King" or the ghostly ride in Raff's "Lenore" Symphony.

The degree of vivid description must vary, not only with the composer,
but with the hearer. The greatest masters have yielded to the variety of
the actual graphic touch. And, too, there are always interpreters who
find it, even if it was never intended. Thus it is common to hear at the
very beginning of the "Mazeppa" music the cry that goes up as starts the
flight.

We are of course entitled, if we prefer, to feel the poetry rather than
the picture. Finally it is probably true that such a poetic design is
not marred merely because there is here or there a trick of
onomatopoeia; if it is permitted in poetry, why not in music? It may be
no more than a spur to the fancy, a quick conjuring of the association.

_HUNNENSCHLACHT--"THE BATTLE OF THE HUNS"_

Liszt's symphonic poem, "Hunnenschlacht," one of the last of his works
in this form, completed in 1857, was directly inspired by the picture of
the German painter, Wilhelm Kaulbach, which represents the legend of the
aerial battle between the spirits of the Romans and Huns who had fallen
outside of the walls of Rome.[A]

[Footnote A: A description of the picture is cited by Lawrence Gilman in
his book, "Stories of Symphonic Music," as follows:

"According to a legend, the combatants were so exasperated that the
slain rose during the night and fought in the air. Rome, which is seen
in the background, is said to have been the scene of this event. Above,
borne on a shield, is Attila, with a scourge in his hand; opposite him
Theodoric, King of the Visigoths. The foreground is a battle-field,
strewn with corpses, which are seen to be gradually reviving, rising up
and rallying, while among them wander wailing and lamenting women."]

The evidence of the composer's intent is embodied in a letter written in
1857 to the wife of the painter, which accompanied the manuscript of an
arrangement of the music for two pianos. In the letter Liszt speaks of
"the meteoric and solar light which I have borrowed from the painting,
and which at the Finale I have formed into one whole by the gradual
working up of the Catholic _choral_ 'Crux fidelis,' and the meteoric
sparks blended therewith." He continues: "As I have already intimated to
Kaulbach, in Munich, I was led by the musical demands of the material to
give proportionately more place to the solar li