This _Dirge_ is indisputably the cry of a great soul, and there
is little in music which expresses grief so effectively. The
sense it gives of loneliness and sombreness has never been quite
equalled by any other composer. The piece is not a funeral
oration weighed down with pomp, but the spontaneous grief of
elemental humanity. The scene is of a mother mourning for her
son; its significance is of a world sorrow. The music would
honour any composer, living or dead.

5. _Village Festival_ (_Swift and light_). This number is the
longest of the Suite. It opens with the tune of a squaws' dance
of the Iroquois Indians:--

[Music.]

This is soon followed by another of festivity:--

[Music.]

The music proceeds, rich in harmonic and instrumental colouring,
and vividly suggesting the wild orgies of the village festivities
of the Red Indians. The whole works up to frenzied power until
exhaustion comes and it dies down again. Indicated as _slightly
broader_, the opening tune is now heard softly over mysterious
tremolos. Particularly subdued is the wild and sombre after
thought:--

[Music.]

After a time, the striving figure first heard early in the first