"To raise this chorus to be the terrible turning-point of the action; to bring here to its culmination the tension excited by the awful impending doom; to give this continually gathering power to the invocation, 'Hear us, Bacchus!' till it becomes a cry of agony; to give this exhaustive musical expression to the situation, marks the composer to have a specially dramatic gift. And this is betokened no less in the melodramatic portions. The idea of adding rhythmical accompaniments to spoken words may have been suggested by a few well-set passages in the music to 'Faust' by Prince Radziwill. It is to be regretted that the public is scarcely able to appreciate how exquisitely Mendelssohn has done this, since the representatives of Antigone and of Creon are seldom sufficiently musical to enter completely into the composer's intention; besides that in two passages of the accompanied dialogue of Antigone the words are not correctly set under the music." Of the private performance before the King and Court, Oct. 28, 1841, the same writer says:-- "We had two more rehearsals on the following day, the evening one in the presence of the King, and the performance itself took place on the 28th, before the Court and all the invited celebrities of art and science. It produced a very great sensation. The deep impression that the revival of an ancient tragedy could produce in our theatrical life promised to become an influence; it has purified our musical atmosphere, and it is certain that to Mendelssohn must be ascribed great and important merit in the cause. "Although the learned, of whom each expected the ancient tragedy to be put upon the stage according to his peculiar conception of it (which would of course be totally different in every case) might find the music too modern, too operatic, in fact, not sufficiently philological, it is undeniable that Mendelssohn's music has made the tragedy of Sophocles accessible to the sympathies of the general public, without in any wise violating the spirit and aroma of the poem, but rather lending it new life and intelligibility." [31] The passages, "But see, the son of Menoetius comes," etc., and "See, Hæmon appears," etc., are examples. Oedipus at Colonos. The story of "Oedipus Tyrannus" is told in this work in connection with Professor Paine's composition. The "Oedipus at Colonos," to which Mendelssohn set music, is the continuation of Sophocles' tragedy, describing the banishment of the blind hero, the loving care of his daughters, his arrival at Attica, and his death in the gardens of the Eumenides at Colonos, absolved by the fate which had so cruelly pursued him.