But here lies its charm: Though the composer hews to a theoretical line, he does it freely, naturally, easily, and always with the principle of musical beauty as well as that of dramatic truthfulness and propriety in view.
His people's voices float on a symphonic stream, but the voices of the instruments, while they sing on in endless melody, use the idiom which nature gave them.

There is admirable characterization in the orchestral music, but it is music for all that; it never descends to mere noise, designed to keep up an irritation of the nerves..