answered with a brief phrase. On the descending motive the main melody is woven.
Tenderly they play together, the melody with the main burden, the lighter prelude phrase in graceful accompaniment. But now the latter sings in turn a serious verse, rises to a stormy height, the horns proclaiming the passionate plea amid a tumultuous accord of the other figures, and sinks in subdued temper. In a broader pace begins a new line, though on the thread of the descending motive, and with the entering phrase of the prelude winds to a climax of passion. The true episode, of refuge and solace from the stress of tempest, is in a song of the trumpet through a shimmering gauze of strings with glinting harp, to a soft murmuring in the reeds.
In a new shade of tone it is echoed by the horn, then in a fervent close it is blended with a guise of the prelude phrase, that now heralds the main melody, in a duet of clarinet and violins. At last in the home tone the horn sings amid the sweet tracery the parting verse, and all about sounds the trist symbol of the first (descending) motive.
III.—The Scherzo is in one view a mad revel of demon pranks in a new field of harmonies. Inconsequential though they may seem, there is a real coherence, and, too, a subtle connection with the whole design.
To be sure, with the vagueness of tune that belongs to a school of harmonic exploits a certain mutual relation of themes is a kind of incident. The less defined the phrases, the easier it is to make them similar.
Undoubted likeness there is between the main elfin figure and the first phrase of the symphony.
The triplet is itself a kind of password throughout. With this multiple similarity is a lack of the inner bond of outer contrast.
The mood of demon humor finds a native medium in the tricks of new Gallic harmony. Early in the prelude we hear the descending tone, a streak of sadness in the mirth. Answering the first burst is a strange stroke of humor in the horn, and as if in