“The whole opera,” said he, “is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil.  Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto.  Kadijah was quite old—­twenty!  Attention!  This is the overture.  It begins with an andante in C major, triple time.  Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love?  Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, allegro, common time, we hear the cries of the epileptic lover, his fury and certain warlike phrases, for the mighty charms of the one and only woman give him the impulse to multiplied loves which strikes us in Don Giovanni.  Now, as you hear these themes, do you not catch a glimpse of Mahomet’s Paradise?

“And next we have a cantabile (A flat major, six-eight time), that might expand the soul that is least susceptible to music.  Kadijah has understood Mahomet!  Then Kadijah announces to the populace the Prophet’s interviews with the Angel Gabriel (maestoso sostenuto in F Major).  The magistrates and priests, power and religion, feeling themselves attacked by the innovator, as Christ and Socrates also attacked effete or worn-out powers and religions, persecute Mahomet and drive him out of Mecca (stretto in C major).  Then comes my beautiful dominant (G major, common time).  Arabia now harkens to the Prophet; horsemen arrive (G major, E flat, B flat, G minor, and still common time).  The mass of men gathers like an avalanche; the false Prophet has begun on a tribe the work he will achieve over a world (G major).

“He promises the Arabs universal dominion, and they believe him because he is inspired.  The crescendo begins (still in the dominant).  Here come some flourishes (in C major) from the brass, founded on the harmony, but strongly marked, and asserting themselves as an expression of the first triumphs.  Medina has gone over to the Prophet, and the whole army marches on Mecca (an explosion of sound in C major).  The whole power of the orchestra is worked up like a conflagration; every instrument is employed; it is a torrent of harmony.

“Suddenly the tutti is interrupted by a flowing air (on the minor third).  You hear the last strain of devoted love.  The woman who had upheld the great man dies concealing her despair, dies at the moment of triumph for him in whom love has become too overbearing to be content with one woman; and she worships him enough to sacrifice herself to the greatness of the man who is killing her.  What a blaze of love!

“Then the Desert rises to overrun the world (back to C major).  The whole strength of the orchestra comes in again, collected in a tremendous quintet grounded on the fundamental bass—­and he is dying!  Mahomet is world-weary; he has exhausted everything.  Now he craves to die a god.  Arabia, in fact, worships and prays to him, and we return to the first melancholy strain (C minor) to which the curtain rose.