trust to native expression of the mood into which the book had wrought him.  The limitation of local color in his music is not mentioned as a defect in the opera, for it is replaced at the supreme moments, especially that at the opening of the third act, with qualities far more entrancing than were likely to have come from the use of popular idioms.  Yet, the two Oriental melodies having been mentioned, it is well to look at their structure to discover the source of their singular charm.  There is no mystery as to the cause in the minds of students of folk-song.  The tunes are evolved from a scale so prevalent among peoples of Eastern origin that it has come to be called the Oriental scale.  Its distinguishing characteristic is an interval, which contains three semitones:—­

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The interval occurring twice in this scale is enclosed in brackets.  Its characteristic effect is most obvious when the scale is played downward.  A beautiful instance of its artistic use is in Rubinstein’s song “Der Asra.”  The ancient synagogal songs of the Jews are full of it, and it is one of the distinguishing marks of the folk-songs of Hungary (the other being rhythmical), as witness the “Rakoczy March.”  In some of the Eastern songs it occurs once, in some twice (as in the case of the melodies printed above), and there are instances of a triple use in the folk-songs of the modern Greeks.

Act II.  News of the success of the Egyptian expedition against the Ethiopians has reached Amneris, whose slaves attire her for the scene of Radames’s triumph.  The slaves sing of Egypt’s victory and of love, the princess of her longing, and Moorish slaves dance before her to dispel her melancholy.  Aida comes, weighed down by grief.  Amneris lavishes words of sympathy upon her, and succeeds in making her betray her love for Radames by saying that he had been killed in battle.  Then she confesses the falsehood and proclaims her own passion and purpose to crush her rival, who shall appear at the triumph of Radames as her slave.  Aida’s pride rebels for the moment, and she almost betrays her own exalted station as the daughter of a king.  As a slave she accompanies the princess to the entrance gate of Thebes, where the King, the priests, and a vast concourse of people are to welcome Radames and witness his triumphal entry.  Radames, with his troops and a horde of Ethiopian prisoners, comes into the city in a gorgeous pageant.  The procession is headed by two groups of trumpeters, who play a march melody, the stirring effect of which is greatly enhanced by the characteristic tone quality of the long, straight instruments which they use:—­

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A word about these trumpets.  In shape, they recall antique instruments, and the brilliancy of their tone is due partly to the calibre of their straight tubes and partly to the fact that nearly all the tones used are open—­that is, natural harmonics of the fundamental tones of the tubes.  There is an anachronism in the circumstance that they are provided with valves (which were not invented until some thousands of years after the period of the drama), but only one of the valves is used.  The first trumpets are in the key of A-flat and the second B-natural, a peculiarly stirring effect being produced by the sudden shifting of the key of the march when the second group of trumpeters enters on the scene.