‘Comala,’ the earliest of Gade’s choral works, was first performed at Leipzig through Mendelssohn’s influence on March 3, 1843. The dramatic poem to which the music is written follows Ossian and relates the story of the Scottish princess Comala, daughter of Sarno, king of Innistore, whose ardent passion for Fingal, king of Morven, was as ardently returned. Disguised as a youth (in the manner of old Italian opera) she follows him on an expedition against Caracul, king of Lochlin. The royal lovers part before the battle, Fingal promising to return victorious in the evening. Filled with sad forebodings, the princess with her maidens awaits him on a height from which she can witness the battle. A furious storm arises and amid its roaring blasts the spirits of the warriors’ ancestors sweep by to guide home the souls of the slain. Comala imagines that the battle is lost and her lover killed. Overmastered by her grief, she dies, and Fingal, returning with his victorious warriors, hears from the weeping maidens the news of the tragedy. He sorrowfully calls upon the bards to sing her praises, and, with the maidens, they chant a farewell hymn to her as her departing soul is borne to the mansions of her fathers. Music and poetry alike are tinged with the darksome northern colors. The solo work is distributed among four personages--Comala (soprano), her two maidens Dersagrena and Malicoma (mezzo-sopranos), and Fingal (bass). The graceful and, in the main, obvious character of the music has made this cantata a great favorite for more than a half-century. Many characteristic touches of northern harmony and melody are brought to view, as in the orchestral introduction and in the songs of Comala and the ballads sung by her maids to cheer her (‘There, lonely, sits Comala’ and ‘One day there came from Lochlin’). The parting duet between Fingal and Comala is melodious and sincere; but the main charm of the work springs from the choruses, which are about equally divided between Fingal’s warriors and Comala’s maidens. Of the male choruses the one accompanying Fingal’s victorious return (‘Far fled is the foe’) is particularly stately and forceful. The female chorus is used with fine effect in the agitated scene of Comala’s fatal forebodings and subsequent death. The chorus of spirits (‘Our pathway is the storm’) is weird and sepulchral, but becomes dramatic as the frightened princess raises her voice in supplication to spare her lover. The cantata closes with a full chorus of bards and maidens (‘In the darkness of clouds’), who, in imposing and majestic unison strains, rich in the sombre hues of the northern splendor, commend the soul of ‘the sweet loving maiden’ to the spirits of the fathers.