An epilogue answers the prologue of the beginning.
Equally brief is the true Scherzo, though merely entitled Allegretto,—a dainty frolic without the heavy brass, an indefinable conceit of airy fantasy, with here and there a line of sober melody peeping between the mischievous pranks. There is no contrasting Trio in the middle; but just before the end comes a quiet pace as of mock-gravity, before a final scamper.
A preluding fantasy begins in the mood of the early Allegro; a wistful melody of the clarinet plays more slowly between cryptic reminders of the first theme of the symphony. In sudden Allegro risoluto over rumbling bass of strings, a mystic call of horns, harking far back, spreads its echoing ripples all about till it rises in united tones, with a clear, descending answer, much like the original first motive. The latter now continues in the bass in large and smaller pace beneath a new tuneful treble of violins, while the call still roams a free course in the wind. Oft repeated is this resonation in paired harmonies, the lower phrase like an "obstinate bass."
Leaving the fantasy, the voices sing in simple choral lines a hymnal song in triumphal pace, with firm cadence and answer, ending at length in the descending
phrase. The full song is repeated, from the entrance of the latter, as though to stress the two main melodies. The marching chorus halts briefly when the clarinet begins again a mystic verse on the strain of the call, where the descending phrase is intermingled in the horns and strings.
There is a new horizon here. We can no longer speak with half-condescension of Italian simplicity, though another kind of primal feeling is mingled in a breadth of symphonic vein. We feel that our Italian poet has cast loose his leading strings and is revealing new glimpses through the classic form.
Against a free course of quicker figures rises in the horns the simple melodic call, with answer and counter-tunes in separate discussion. Here comes storming in a strident line of the inverted melody in the bassoon, quarrelling with the original motive in the clarinet. Then a group sing the song in dancing trip, descending against the stern rising theme of violas; or one choir follows on the heels of another. Now into the play intrudes the second melody, likewise in serried chase of imitation.
The two themes seem to be battling for dominance, and the former wins, shouting its primal tune in brass and wood, while the second sinks to a rude clattering rhythm in the bass. But out of the clash, where the descending phrase recurs in the basses, the second melody emerges in full sonorous song. Suddenly at the top of the verse rings out in stentorian brass the first theme of all the symphony to the opening chord of the Finale, just as it rang at the climax in the beginning.
A gentle duet of violins and clarinet seems to bring back the second melody of the first movement, and somehow, in the softer mood, shows a likeness with the second of the Finale. For a last surprise, the former idyll (of the first Allegro) returns and clearly proves the original guise of our latest main melody. As though to assure its own identity as prevailing motto, it has a special celebration in the final joyous revel.