The orchestral interludes are perhaps the most enduring part of the score today. They evoke the specific atmosphere of the Alps with a vividness that rivals Strauss’s Alpine Symphony (which would come a decade later). The music swells and recedes like the tides, mimicking the very water that gives the opera its metaphoric weight.
: Represents the soul that no longer acts by its own effort but is swept away by divine grace.
Where Wagner might be heavy and brass-laden, Rabaud is transparent, like watercolor. The score is filled with woodwind figures that ripple like the "torrent" of the landscape. The vocal lines are elegiac, prioritizing the inflection of the French language over sheer vocal acrobatics.