once the middle movement of the overture, but changed from the minor to the major key. This change, and the difference of shading between the arrangement for the voice and that for the orchestra, give to the charming little movement two distinct expressions, just as the same landscape has two different aspects seen at noon or in the moonlight. The overture renders us free to receive the effect of the work of art as such, prepared by what forms the starting-point of the work; and the first song sets the crown on the overture, while it transports us at once into the frame of mind which predominates throughout the opera. Still more important in its climax and composition is Belmont's second song (4). The situation is more definitely developed; Belmont knows now that Constanze is there, that he will soon see her, and this certainty condenses all the emotions roused by the memory of a sorrowful past, and the prospect of a perilous future, into the one feeling of their speedy reunion. Mozart was so taken with this song that he wrote it down as soon as he received the libretto. "This is the favourite song of all who have heard it--myself included," he wrote to his father (September 26, 1781), "and is exactly calculated for Adamberger's voice. 'Fo wie ängstlich, o wie feurigl' You can imagine how it is expressed, with the very beating of the heart--the violins in octaves. One can see the trembling, the hesitation, the very swelling of the breast is expressed by a crescendo, one can hear the sighs, the whispers, rendered by the violins muted, with one flute in unison." It would be doing Mozart an injustice to consider this sound-painting as his first object; it is in reality but a subordinate, although a very effective and useful element of the whole musical conception. Belmont's two other songs--one in the second act, before the meeting with Constanze (15),[49] and the other at the beginning of the third act, before the {CONSTANZE.} (235) abduction (17)[50]--are much quieter in tone, and are characterised by manly composure combined with warm sensibility. These qualities are visible also in the musical construction of the broad and expressive cantilene, which allows free scope for the display of a full tenor voice in its best position. The structure of the melodies diverges in a remarkable degree from that which predominates in Mozart's Italian operas, and approaches nearer to that employed in his instrumental music. And yet the national character of the melodies is not so pronounced in the "Entführung" as in the "Zauber-flöte," nor are the songs in their whole design so completely absolved from Italian forms.