Can such scenes be mimicked successfully enough to preserve a serious frame of mind in the observer?
Hardly.

Yet the music seems obviously to have been written in the expectation that sight shall aid hearing to quicken the fancy and emotion and excite the faculties to an appreciation of the work.
"The Tower of Babel" has been performed upon the stage; how I cannot even guess.

Knowing, probably, that the work would be given in concert form oftener than in dramatic, Rubinstein tries to stimulate the fancy of those who must be only listeners by profuse stage directions which are printed in the score as well as the book of words.

"Moses" is in the same case.

By the time that Rubinstein had completed it he evidently realized that its hybrid character as well as its stupendous scope would stand in the way of performances of any kind.