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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: the bass viols in the rear, the restless, wind-tossed forest of
fiddle necks and bows-I recalled how, in the first orchestra I
had ever heard, those long bow strokes seemed to draw the heart
out of me, as a conjurer's stick reels out yards of paper ribbon
from a hat.
The first number was the Tannhauser overture. When the
horns drew out the first strain of the Pilgrim's chorus my Aunt
Georgiana clutched my coat sleeve. Then it was I first realized
that for her this broke a silence of thirty years; the
inconceivable silence of the plains. With the battle between the
two motives, with the frenzy of the Venusberg theme and its
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
