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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: find here all the sinister spells of /Jerusalem Delivered/, just as we
find all chivalry in the chorus with the Spanish lilt, and in the
march tune. How original is the /alegro/ with the modulations of the
four cymbals (tuned to C, D, C, G)! How elegant is the call to the
lists! The whole movement of the heroic life of the period is there:
the mind enters into it; I read in it a romance, a poem of chivalry.
The /exposition/ is now finished; the resources of music would seem to
be exhausted; you have never heard anything like it before; and yet it
is homogeneous. You have had life set before you, and its one and only
/crux/: 'Shall I be happy or unhappy?' is the philosopher's query.
'Shall I be saved or damned?' asks the Christian."
Gambara |
