“Is it to thy mind what the woman says, my son?”

“’Tis hard on me; I love my folk above all things, but a great longing seizes me for the maiden.”

“The waves of the ocean are not so strong as the waves of thy longing; come with me in my currah, the straight gliding, the crystal boat, and we shall soon reach the Plain of Pleasure, where Boadag is king.”

King Cond and all his court saw Connla spring into the boat, and he and the fairy maiden glided over the bright sea, towards the setting sun, away and away, and they were seen no more, nor did anyone know where they went to.

“My dear father, manuscript, and at sight, words and music!”

“Come—­begin.”

“Give me the chord.”

He looked at her in astonishment.

“Won’t you give me the keynote?”

“In the key of E flat,” he answered sternly.

She began.  “Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.  You see that you can still sing at sight.  I don’t suppose you find many prima donnas who can.”

With her arm on his shoulder they sat together, playing and singing the music with which Ulick had interpreted the tale of “Connla and the Fairy Maiden.”

“You see,” he said, “he has invented a new system of orchestration; as a matter of fact, we worked it out together, but that’s neither here nor there.  In some respects it is not unlike Wagner; the vocal music is mostly recitative, but now and then there is nearly an air, and yet it isn’t new, for it is how it would have been written about 1500.  You see,” he said, turning over the pages of the full score, “each character is allotted a different set of instruments as accompaniment; in this way you get astonishing colour contrasts.  For instance, the priest is accompanied by a chest of six viols; i.e., two trebles, two tenors, two basses.  King Cond is accompanied by a set of six cromornes, like the viols of various sizes.  The Fairy Maiden has a set of six flutes or recorders, the smallest of which is eight inches long, the biggest quite six feet.  Connla is accompanied by a group of oboes; and another character is allotted three lutes with an arch lute, another a pair of virginals, another a regal, another a set of six sackbuts and trumpets.  See how all the instruments are used in the overture and in the dances, of which there are plenty, Pavans, Galliards, Allemaines.  But look here, this is most important:  even in the instrumental pieces the instruments are not to be mixed, as in modern orchestra, but used in groups, always distinct, like patches of colour in impressionist pictures.”

“I like this,” and she hummed through the fairy’s luring of Connla to embark with her.  “But I could not give an opinion of the orchestration without hearing it, it is all so new.”

“We haven’t succeeded yet in getting together sufficient old instruments to provide an orchestra.”

“But, father, do you think such orchestration realisable in modern music?  I see very little Wagner in it; it is more like Caccini or Monteverde.  There can be very little real life in a parody.”