The Frenchman was, in fact, deeply moved when all this united sorrow exploded in the cry: 

  “O Nume d’Israel,
  Se brami in liberta
  Il popol tuo fedel,
  Di lui di noi pieta!”

(O God of Israel, if thou wouldst see thy faithful people free, have mercy on them, and on us.)

“Never was a grander synthesis composed of natural effects or a more perfect idealization of nature.  In a great national disaster, each one for a long time bewails himself alone; then, from out of the mass, rises up, here and there, a more emphatic and vehement cry of anguish; finally, when the misery has fallen on all, it bursts forth like a tempest.

“As soon as they all recognize a common grievance, the dull murmurs of the people become cries of impatience.  Rossini has proceeded on this hypothesis.  After the outcry in C major, Pharoah sings his grand recitative:  Mano ultrice di un Dio (Avenging hand of God), after which the original subject is repeated with more vehement expression.  All Egypt appeals to Moses for help.”

The Duchess had taken advantage of the pause for the entrance of Moses and Aaron to give this interpretation of that fine introduction.

“Let them weep!” she added passionately.  “They have done much ill.  Expiate your sins, Egyptians, expiate the crimes of your maddened Court!  With what amazing skill has this great painter made use of all the gloomy tones of music, of all that is saddest on the musical palette!  What creepy darkness! what a mist!  Is not your very spirit in mourning?  Are you not convinced of the reality of the blackness that lies over the land?  Do you not feel that Nature is wrapped in the deepest shades?  There are no palm-trees, no Egyptian palaces, no landscape.  And what a healing to your soul will the deeply religious strain be of the heaven-sent Healer who will stay this cruel plague!  How skilfully is everything wrought up to end in that glorious invocation of Moses to God.

“By a learned elaboration, which Capraja could explain to you, this appeal to heaven is accompanied by brass instruments only; it is that which gives it such a solemn, religious cast.  And not merely is the artifice fine in its place; note how fertile in resource is genius.  Rossini has derived fresh beauty from the difficulty he himself created.  He has the strings in reserve to express daylight when it succeeds to the darkness, and thus produces one of the greatest effects ever achieved in music.

“Till this inimitable genius showed the way never was such a result obtained with mere recitative.  We have not, so far, had an air or a duet.  The poet has relied on the strength of the idea, on the vividness of his imagery, and the realism of the declamatory passages.  This scene of despair, this darkness that may be felt, these cries of anguish,—­the whole musical picture is as fine as your great Poussin’s Deluge.”

Moses waved his staff, and it was light.