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At each performance, the principal event, was, not the Seventh Symphony, but rather the Battle-piece, which, performed by full orchestra for the first time, won loud and frequent applause.
How he struggled with the difficulties of this vitally important subject may be seen in the large battle-piece at the National Gallery, and however crude and absurd this fine composition may seem at first sight to those who are only accustomed to looking at modern pictures, it must be remembered that Uccello is here struggling, as it were, with a savage monster which to succeeding painters has, through his efforts, been a submissive slave.
By decomposing groups of figures you compose groups of movement. Nothing but a cinema can represent objects as intact and as at the same time moving; and even the cinema only does this by a series of decompositions so minute as to escape the eye. "You want to draw a battle-piece or the traffic at Hyde Park Corner. It can't be done unless you break up your objects as Mitchell breaks them up.
Much more aggravating proof was poor Weber destined to have of the famous tenor's love of mere popularity in his art, and strange enough, no doubt, to the great German composer was the thirst for ignorant applause which induced Braham to reject the beautiful, tender, and majestic opening air Weber had written for him in the character of Huon, and insist upon the writing of a battle-piece which might split the ears of the groundlings and the gods, and furnish him an opportunity for making some of the startling effects of lyrical declamation which never failed to carry his audience by storm.
The walls, of shining wainscot, were thickly covered, chiefly with family pictures; though now and then some Dutch fair or battle-piece showed that a former proprietor had been less exclusive in his taste for the arts. The pianoforte stood open near the fireplace; a long dwarf bookcase at the far end added its sober smile to the room.
'The women are driven back by the Greeks over the river Thermodon; two horses are in savage combat on the bridge; one Amazon is torn from her horse; a second is dragged along by a sable steed, and falling headlong into the river, where others are swimming and struggling. No other battle-piece, save that of the Amazons, can compare with Raphael's "Battle of Constantine."
MRS. DALE. "She is very amiable, Jemima, is she not?" RICCABOCCA. "Exceedingly so. Very fine battle-piece!" MRS. DALE. "So kind-hearted." RICCABOCCA. "All ladies are. How naturally that warrior makes his desperate cut at the runaway!" MRS. DALE. "She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has something very winning." "So winning, that it is strange she is not won.
And altogether, as far as the ears are concerned, we had a very rousing battle-piece performed for our amusement. At last the guns and the thunder dropped off; the sun shone on the wet meadows; the air was scented with the breath of rejoicing trees and grass; and the river kept unweariedly carrying us on at its best pace.
No doubt the weight of the blade, increased by the heavy deep ridge running almost from point to hilt, made it very serviceable for cutting, but it seems more than probable that the point was also used, and that the idea of the edge was handed down to us because the ancient sculptor or delineator, in his battle-piece representations, placed the swordsman in the most spirited positions he could think of.
To us who know the vast battle-piece only in the feeble echo of the print and the picture just now mentioned, it is a little difficult to account for the enthusiasm that it excited, and the prominent place accorded to it among the most famous of the Cadorine's works.
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