"I. SERENADE
"It is nearly midnight. Coming out from the osterie, the young fellows of the neighborhood sing long, burning songs, at times sad, often with a savage accent, under their betrotheds' windows. These lovesick phrases are answered by mandolins and guitars. Then the song of the young men sounds again, and dies away, little by little.
"II. AT THE FOUNTAIN
"Towards the ravines, where the water-falls spread out, march the girls, barearmed, barelegged, with their white chemisettes wide open over their shoulders and tanned busts. Serious, peaceful, without voice and without a thought, they walk on, to a calm rhythm that is almost religious, carrying bronze jugs on their heads, with a slight swaying of the hips beneath the rigidity of their heads and shoulders. And it is like a procession of priestesses, proud and passive, marching their silent march through the burning brightness of the sunlight, while at times the gay refrain of the shepherds sounds down from the mountain.
"III. ON MULEBACK
"Towards evening, along the road that winds through the Sabine Mountains, the mules trot at an even gait, to the bright rhythm of their bells. That melody of the violoncello is the canzone, sung with full voice by the mulattiere; and those sweet thirds of the flutes that follow are the loving song, murmured by the fair girls with deep eyes, seated, or rather kneeling, in the big carts that go up towards the village.
"IV. ON THE SUMMITS
"It is noon in the lofty solitudes, in this Desert of Sorrento which overlooks the town, from whence the eye embraces the islands and the sea. The strings, with their long-sustained notes, paint, as it were, the background of the picture, that extent of sea and country burned by the sun, that glowing atmosphere; a horn suggests the far-off bell of a monastery. The flutes, clarinets, harps, tell of the twittering of birds, vociferously trilling, as if drunk with warmth and light. Those violas and 'celli that sing, that gradually swell their tones, are the soul, the enthusiasm of the poet, the voice that rises up in the solitude, while the church-bells grow louder, and the chimes from Sorrento, from Massa, even from Malfi, awaken those from the hills, interlace their sounds over a compass of several octaves, pass over the desert of summits, and are lost far off over the blue sea. All is peace; some sounds of bells are still heard, feeble and sweet, in the distant immensity.
"V. NAPLES.
"In this last part of his 'Impressions' the composer has attempted to paint a musical picture of Naples, its population, its wholly out-door life, its joyfulness.... At first we hear scattered vibrations: heat, light, the swarming crowd. It seems as if songs came from every street, dance rhythms, the amorous languor of violins, the amusing plunking of guitars. Calls answer to calls, military bands play proudly their brazen symphony; dancers strike the ground with their feet, carry the rocking rhythm of tarantellas from group to group. 'Tis like the great song of a people, the hymn of Naples on the shore of its azure bay, with the intermittent rumbling of Vesuvius overcrowding the sentimental songs the singers sing on the quays in their nasal voice.... And evening falls, while fireworks burst forth in gerbes of light, in bouquets of stars, which soar and go out over the boundless mirror of the waves."[30]
