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sonata formula. After an introduction typifying the opening of the
temple gates (a gong giving the music further locale), the first theme
is announced by harp and mandolin. It is an ancient Chinese air for
the yong-kim (a dulcimer-like instrument). The second subject is
adapted from the serenade theme. With these two smuggled themes
everything contrapuntal (a fugue included) and instrumental is done
that technical bravado could suggest or true art license. The result
is a carnival of technic that compels the layman to wonder and the
scholar to homage.
A transcription for a piano duet has been made of this last movement.
In Chinese-tone also is Kelley's most popular song, "The Lady Picking
Mulberries," which brought him not only the enthusiasm of Americans
but the high commendation of the Chinese themselves. It is written in
the limited Chinese scale, with harmonies of our school; and is a
humoresque of such catchiness that it has pervaded even London and
Paris.
This song is one of a series of six lyrics called "The Phases of
Love," with this motive from the "Anatomy of Melancholy": "I am
resolved, therefore, in this tragi-comedy of love, to act several
parts, some satirically, some comically, some in a mixed tone." The
poems are all by American poets, and the group, opus 6, is an
invaluable addition to our musical literature. The first of the
series, "My Silent Song," is a radiantly beautiful work, with a
wondrous tender air to a rapturous accompaniment. The second is a
setting of Edward Rowland Sill's perfect little poem, "Love's Fillet."
The song is as full of art as it is of feeling and influence. "What
the Man in the Moon Saw" is an engaging satire, "Love and Sleep" is
sombre, and "In a Garden" is pathetic.
Besides two small sketches, a waltz and a gavotte, and his own
arrangements, for two and for four hands, of the Gaelic March in
"Macbeth," Kelley has published only three piano pieces: opus 2, "The
Flower Seekers," superb with grace, warm harmony, and May ecstasies;
"Confluentia," whose threads of liquidity are eruditely, yet
romantically, intertangled to represent the confluence of the Rhine
and the Moselle; and "The Headless Horseman," a masterpiece of
burlesque weirdness, representing the wild pursuit of Ichabod Crane
and the final hurling of the awful head,--a pumpkin, some say. It is
relieved by Ichabod's tender reminiscences of Katrina Van Tassel at
the spinning-wheel, and is dedicated to Josef
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