form a complete and satisfying whole without any voice parts at all. The orchestra, of course, frequently executes the same melodies as the voices, but it treats them in an original manner, producing a constant flow of cross effects with the voices. Sometimes again it works out its own independent motifs, and adds shading and detail to the outlines furnished by the voices. It is not possible to over-estimate the share thus taken by the orchestra in maintaining the main conception of the situation, in increasing the dramatic reality and interest of the plot, and in strengthening the impression made upon the audience. The capabilities of instrumental music in this direction are most strikingly displayed in the overture, in composing which Mozart appears to have kept before him the second title of Beaumarchais' play, "La Folle Journée." He has made one very characteristic alteration in the course of the overture. At first the rapid impetuous presto was interrupted by a slower middle movement. In the original score the point where the return to the first subject is made (p. 13) is marked by a pause on the dominant-seventh, followed by an andante 6-8 in D minor of which, however, only one bar is preserved:--[See page image] {LE NOZZE DI FIGARO.} (114) The leaf on which its continuation and the return to the presto was sketched is torn out, and the portion between _vi_ and _de_ crossed through.[45] It is plain that Mozart altered his mind when he came to the instrumentation of the overture, which he had sketched in the usual way. Perhaps a middle movement beginning like a Siciliana did not please him; in any case, he thought it better not to disturb the cheerful expression of his opera by the introduction of any foreign element. And in very truth the merry, lively movement pursues its uninterrupted course from the first eager murmur of the violins to the final flourish of trumpets. One bright, cheerful melody succeeds another, running and dancing for very lightness of heart, like a clear mountain stream rippling over the pebbles in the sunshine. A sudden stroke here and there electrifies the motion; and once, when a gentle melancholy shines forth, the merriment is as it were transfigured into the intensest happiness and content. A piece of music can hardly be more lightly and loosely put together than this; there is an entire want of study or elaboration. Just as the impulses of a highly wrought poetic mood exist unobserved, and pass from one to the other, so here one motif grows out of the other, till the whole stands before us, we scarce know how. A not less important office is undertaken by the orchestra in assisting the psychological characterisation, not only by giving light and shade and colouring through changes of tone-colouring and similar devices unattainable by the voices, but by taking a positive part in the rendering of emotion.