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It was the same air that they were repeating, but the grace-notes were absent, and the four voices, in chord after chord, supplied their place by harmony.
The following day she heard the music again, faint and thin, wonderfully sweet and as wild as the song of a bird, but it was a melody which no bird would adhere to. A theme was repeated again and again. In the middle of trills, grace-notes, runs and catches it recurred with a strange, almost holy, solemnity, a hushing, slender melody full of austerity and aloofness.
Presently a woman's voice outdid the organ, a voice which made vivid the picture of the woman who owned it, and the ploughed forehead of her, above the nose-glasses, when the "grace-notes" were proudly given birth. "Rescue the Perishing" was the startlingly appropriate selection, rendered with inconceivable lingering upon each syllable: "Roos-cyoo the Poor-oosh-oong!"
As the hour of sunset approaches, the tree beetles and cicada join in their strident chorus, which tells of the dying day; the thrushes join in the song with rich trills and grace-notes; the jungle fowls crow to one another; the monkeys whoop and give tongue like a pack of foxhounds; the gaudy parrots scream and flash as they hunt for flies;
The word "Moderato" was written in by the Composer's direction, without any request from the editor. Later, the words "With feeling" and the mark of expression "pp," were obtained in the same way. Ties, grace-notes, and staccato-marks were insisted upon, here and there, with great vigor and earnestness. Two further examples of the Composer's independence will perhaps suffice.
And in a fir-tree not far off a nightingale was singing, now a string of pearls dropping bead by bead from his throat, now rich turns and grace-notes, and now again a reiterated metallic chink which melted into liquid fluting: Vogek im Tannenwald Pfeifet so hell: Pfeifet de Wald aus und ein, wo wird mein Schatze sein? Vogele im Tannenwald pfeifet so hell.
Through the ornate grating of their gallery the gaily-clad women looked down on the rocking figures, while the grace-notes of the cantor on his central daïs, and the harmoniously interjected 'poms' of his male ministrants flew up to their ears, as though they were indeed angels on high.
As for the grace-notes, they give to the ear a pleasure like that which Moorish architecture gives to the eye: the architects of the Alhambra painted on each of their bricks a graceful little poem; the gypsies adorn each note with melodious designs and luxuriant embroideries. Mystery of genius, which bears in itself its inexplicable power of emotion, and which science and taste in vain deny!
The score, as first revealed, consisted of open-headed notes with curved stems. They gave no indications of varying values; it was impossible to distinguish quarter-notes from eighth-notes, sixteenth-notes, or grace-notes; and no rests were set down. The notes were placed but approximately as regarded lines and spaces.
The overloading of the melody by an excessive use of trills and grace-notes by Persians, Arabians, and even Spaniards, in their popular music, indicates some common sentiment; and it is remarkable that the European Jews preserve this same Oriental ornamentation in the vocal performances of their synagogues. Numerous examples of Arabic music may be found in Lane's Modern Egypt.
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