And first we are almost inclined to take the "Rondo form" as a new roguish prank. But we may find a form where the subjects are independent of the basic themes that weave in and out unfettered by rule—where the subjects are rather new grouping of the fundamental symbols.[71]
After a pause in the furious course of the second theme, a quick piping phrase sounds lustig (merrily) in the clarinet, answered by a chord of ominous
token. But slowly do we trace the laughing phrase to the first theme.
And here is a new whim. Though still in full tilt, the touch of demon is gone in a kind of ursine clog of the basses. Merely jaunty and clownish it would be but for the mischievous scream (of high flute) at the end. And now begins a rage of pranks, where the main phrase is the rogue's laugh, rising in brilliant gamut of outer pitch and inner mood.
At times the humor is in the spirit of a Jean Paul, playing between rough fun and sadness in a fine spectrum of moods. The lighter motive dances harmlessly about the more serious, intimate second phrase. There is almost the sense of lullaby before the sudden plunge to wildest chaos, the only portent being a constant trembling of low strings. All Bedlam is let loose, where the rogue's shriek is heard through a confused cackling and a medley of voices here and there on the running phrase (that ever ends the second theme). The sound of a big rattle is added to the scene,—where perhaps the whole village is in an uproar over some wholesale trick of the rogue.
And what are we to say to this simplest swing of folk-song that steals in naïvely to enchanting strum of rhythm. We may speculate about the Till as the
people saw him, while elsewhere we have the personal view. The folk-tunes may not have a special dramatic rôle. Out of the text of folk-song, to be sure, all the strains are woven. Here and there we have the collective voice. If we have watched keenly, we have heard how the tune, simply though it begins, has later all the line of Till's personal phrase. Even in the bass it is, too. Of the same fibre is this demon mockery and the thread of folk legend.