Page:The Dial (Volume 73).djvu/555

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PAUL ROSENFELD
469

positions of this composer into the life of his native city. And out of that feeling of a single individual for a work, a kunstkörper has grown. Support has been found in the pocket of a man who probably ignores nothing more than he does the spirit that expressed itself in a "Passion according to St Matthew." A medium has been created out of folk who in their pristine state probably most heartily preferred the tunes of Harry von Tilzer to the chorales of the Leipzic cantor. Among the tenors and bassos who sat high up in the tribune in the Memorial Church, there were doubtless some of the selfsame valiant steel-puddlers who, it used to be rumoured, hastily recruited, assured the strength of the Lehigh eleven in its yearly fray with the team of Lafayette. One had feared the dragon of conventionality how many times behind faces little different from those of the serried rows of girls in white. And yet, what sincerity and intelligence in the voices of the huskies to whom small solo parts had been assigned! What veritably ecstatic poses of the head, what ecstatic suffusion of the neck-chords, among the women as the performance progressed! One saw bodies that had summoned themselves complete and gave themselves complete in the spirit of Bach into the long outstretched persuasive hand of the conductor crouched luminous and self-forgetful in his chair.

There was the intermission of an hour between the performance of the Gloria and the Credo the second day of the festival; and during that time I climbed up the green campus of the university and stood on the ivy-randed terrace of one of the buildings. From that parapet one sees far away over Bethlehem to the north. On the horizon, the grey sky of coldish May was slashed with lights of white and whitey-blue. Below, in the belfry of the Memorial Church, the brass choir was intoning on solemn trombones and trumpets chorales of Bach. As I stood gazing out over the fuming town towards the cloud-confines, there was in me the exaltation that comes whenever something perfect has taken place for me in American land. The light sang over the harsh scene as then it always sings. A beauty somewhat like that in certain of Sandburg's rich pieces seemed to inform all the drab and humdrum objects spread over the landscape before me. An event of great importance was taking place in this city, I knew. It had begun when first Dr Wolle returned from Europe with the intent of performing the great Mass each year, and it was, surely, to remain for many years to come, in