More high than the sheer dawn’s gate,
More deep than the wide sea’s womb,
Fate.”
The first subject of the allegro movement is anything but pathetic. It is full of fire, energy, and restless striving; of fierce conflict and desperate endeavor; of the defiant pride of genius exulting in the unequal combat with the world’s stony indifference, and the inimical conditions of life.
The second theme is warmer and more nearly approaches the lyric vein. It is half pleading, half argumentative in tone, strikingly suggestive of the mood so common to young but gifted souls, in the bitterness of their first pained surprise at the cruel contrast between the ideal and the actual in life. It seems to strive to reason with unreasoning and unreasonable facts, and to touch the heart of a heartless fate with its tender pleading. The continually reiterated embellishments upon the melody notes here should be given distinctly as a mordente, with marked accent on the last of the three tones in every case, not played as a triplet with accent on the first, as is so often done, and even so indicated in many standard editions, thus materially weakening the effect of the passage, rendering it trivial and characterless as well as out of keeping with the general mood. This is what Kullak used to call “the lazy way” of playing it. The striking contrast between the first and second subjects should be maintained throughout, with greatest possible distinctness, and the closing chords must be given boldly, defiantly, like a challenge proudly flung to all the powers of darkness, to fate, no matter how adverse.
With the second movement comes a radical change of mood. The first impetuous vigor has been expended in the struggle; the first joy of combat and self-reliant consciousness of strength have ebbed away like a receding tide, leaving the soul exhausted, discouraged, but not despairing. There is a moment of truce in life’s battle, a moment of calm, though sad reflection; a moment in which to contemplate the impassable gulf between the heaven-piercing heights of ambition and the petty levels of possible human achievement, in which to dream, not of victory and happiness,—those are among the unattainable ideals,—but of rest and sweet forgetfulness, and to say with Tennyson—
“What profit do we have to war with evil?
Let us alone.”
There is an occasional hint of the volcanic fires of passion, slumbering beneath this surface calm of a spirit sent to earth, but not broken, gathering its forces for a fresh uprising. But as a whole it is tranquilly thoughtful, gravely introspective, and should be rendered with great deliberation and profound earnestness.
The last movement is hardly up to the standard of the other two, either musically or emotionally. Still it is interesting, symmetrically made, and not devoid of depth and intensity. It is perhaps a logical conclusion to the work, if we regard the whole as a sort of tone-poem on life. With most of us in youth, our boundless courage and aspiration lead us to dare all things and believe in the possibility of all things; to hurl ourselves into the fight with destiny, with the limitless presumption of untried powers and unwarrantable hopes. Later comes a period of depression and discouragement, in which nothing seems worth effort, so far do realities fall below our expectations. Then, if we are reasonable, we learn, at last, to adapt ourselves in a measure to things as they are, to content ourselves in some wise with the flowers, since the stars are out of reach, and to measure achievement relatively, not by the standard of our first glorious, ever-to-be-regretted ambitions, but of the possible, the partial and imperfect, under the limitations of inflexible earthly conditions; and we quench our soul’s thirst as best we may with the meager, mingled draught of bitter-sweet that life offers.