attention than the fine music which ought to be recognized as the
soul of the work, the vital spark which irradiates an
inconsequential material body; but human nature has not yet freed
itself sufficiently from gross clogs to attain so ideal an
attitude.

It is to a danger similar to that which threatened the original New
York "Samson" that the world owes the most popular melody in
Rossini's "Mose." The story is old and familiar to the students of
operatic history, but will bear retelling. The plague of darkness
opens the opera, the passage of the Red Sea concludes it. Rossini's
stage manager had no difficulty with the former, which demanded
nothing more than the lowering of the stage lights. But he could
evolve no device which could save the final miracle from laughter.
A hilarious ending to so solemn a work disturbed the management and
the librettist, Totola, who, just before a projected revival in
Naples, a year or two after the first production, came to the
composer with a project for saving the third act. Rossini was in
bed, as usual, and the poet showed him the text of the prayer, "Dal
tuo stellato," which he said he had written in an hour. "I will get
up and write the music," said Rossini; "you shall have it in a
quarter of an hour." And he kept his word, whether literally or not
in respect of time does not matter. When the opera was again
performed it contained the chorus with its melody which provided
Paganini with material for one of his sensational performances on
the G-string.

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

Carpani tells the story and describes the effect upon the audience