Meaning and Expression. This music, some of the most striking and beautiful ever written by Stravinsky, conveys a sense of rapturous, timeless transcendence that is very difficult to convey in words. Its effect derives in part from the motivic, harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic forces we have discussed—a shift from neighbor notes to passing notes, from minor to major, and from harmonic questing to arrival. It derives also from the reference this melody makes to three earlier moments in the opera. The first comes at the end of the Auction Scene (Act III, Scene 1). Tom has been ruined morally and financially, but in a moment of light-hearted detachment from worldly cares, he and the malevolent Nick Shadow sing a nonsense ballad together, one whose folk-like tune is a regular, sing-song version of “Rejoice, beloved”: “If boys had wings and girls had sings And gold fell from the sky, If new-laid eggs wore wooden legs I should not laugh or cry.” The second comes during the Graveyard Scene (Act III, Scene 2) where Shadow uses the same tune to claim Tom’s soul. Finally, at the end of the same scene, when Tom has been struck mad, he sings the same tune in a childlike voice, and the accompaniment, itself a version of the tune, approximates the rapturous conclusion of “In a foolish dream.” In this way, this music takes on the resonance of a transcendent vision of love beyond the cares of daily life and, in a sense, beyond death also.