Passing by the dramatic episodes that are strung on the thread of the story, we dwell, according to our wont, on the stretches where a pure musical utterance rises to a lofty height of pathos or of rarest fantasy.

In the first scene of the Second Part is the clear intent of a direct tonal expression, and there is a sustained thread of sincere sentiment.  The passion of Romeo shines in the purity rather than in the intensity of feeling.  The scene has a delicate series of moods, with subtle melodic touches and dramatic surprises of chord and color.  The whole seems a reflection of Romeo’s humor, the personal (Allegro) theme being the symbol as it roams throughout the various phases,—­the sadness of solitude, the feverish thrill of the ball.  Into the first phrase of straying violins wanders the personal motive, sadly meditative.

[Music:  Allegro. (Choir of wood, with sustained chords of strings)]

Sweeter dreams now woo the muser, warming into passion, pulsing with a more eager throb of desire, in changed tone and pace.  Suddenly in a new quarter amid a quick strum of dance the main motive hurries along.  The gay sounds vanish, ominous almost in the distance.  The sadness of the lover now sings unrestrained in expressive melody (of oboe), in long swinging pace, while far away rumbles the beat of festive drum.

The song rises in surging curves, but dies away among the quick festal sounds, where the personal motive is still supreme, chasing its own ardent antics, and plunges headlong into the swirl of dance.

II Penseroso (in his personal role) has glided into a buoyant, rollicking Allegro with joyous answer.  Anon the outer revel breaks in with shock almost of terror.  And now in climax of joy, through the festal strum across the never-ceasing thread of transformed meditation resound in slowest, broadest swing the

[Music:  Larghetto espressivo (Ob. with fl. and cl. and arpeggic cellos)]

warm tones of the love-song in triumph of bliss.[A] As the song dies away, the festal sounds fade.  Grim meditation returns in double figure,—­the slower, heavier pace below.  Its shadows are all about as in a fugue of fears, flitting still to the tune of the dance and anon yielding before the gaiety.  But through the returning festal ring the fateful motive is still straying in the bass.  In the concluding revel the hue of meditation is not entirely banned.

[Footnote A:  In unison of the wind.  Berlioz has here noted in the score “Reunion des deux Themes, du Larghetto et de L’Allegro,” the second and first of our cited phrases.]

The Shakespearian love-drama thus far seems to be celebrated in the manner of a French romance.  After all, the treatment remains scenic in the main; the feeling is diluted, as it were, not intensified by the music.

The stillness of night and the shimmering moonlight are in the delicate harmonies of (Allegretto) strings.  A lusty song of departing revellers breaks upon the scene.  The former distant sounds of feast are now near and clear in actual words.