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The finer poems, such as those of Zukowski and Pouchkin, seem to contain a melody already designated in the metre of the verses; for example, it would appear quite possible to detach an ARIOSO or a sweet CANTIABLE from some of the stanzas of LE CHALE NOIR, or the TALISMAN. The ancient Sclavonic, which is the language of the Eastern Church, possesses great majesty.
Then it degenerates somewhat into an arioso, almost Italian. The fourth chorus defends the oracles from Jocasta's incredulity. It is written almost in march measure, and is full of robor.
In the opening passages of mingled recitative and arioso, Peter is forewarned that he shall deny his Master, and his half-indignant remonstrance is sustained, with added emphasis, by the voices of the twelve disciples, pitched a fourth higher. Then Judas comes, with a great multitude, and Jesus is carried before the high-priest.
The Schoolmaster, with three young lads, was heard rehearsing from his own house an Arioso, with which, so soon as they were perfect, he purposed to surprise his clerical superior.
Though it grows out of the main theme, yet the change is clear in a return to the subject, now in true variation, where the saxophone has the longer notes and the clarinet and oboe sing in concert. There follows a pure interlude, vague in motive, full of dainty touches. The oboe has a kind of arioso phrase with trilling of flutes and clarinets, answered in trumpets and harp.
However much one may hesitate to subscribe to Debussy's generalities, the final justification for his procedure is in the fact that it is ideally suited to its especial purpose, the tonal utterance of Maeterlinck's rhymeless, metreless, and broken phrases. To have set them in the sustained arioso style of Tristan und Isolde would have been as impossible as it would have been inept.
Bach in the Chromatic Fantasia be not deceived by its classical contours, it is music hot from the soul Beethoven in the first movement of the C sharp minor Sonata, the arioso of the Sonata op. 110, and possibly Schumann in the opening of his C major Fantaisie, are as intimate, as personal as the F minor Ballade, which is as subtly distinctive as the hands and smile of Lisa Gioconda.
But on the other hand it is impossible to be blind to its relationship to the more metrical arioso of Monteverde's earlier work or perhaps to the canzone of Caccini's "Nuove Musiche." The line of development or progress is distinctly traceable.
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