inversion of the Scherzo theme.
It is all in triumphant spirit. From the start the mood reigns, the art for once is quite subordinate. Resonant and compelling is the motive of horns and trumpets, new in temper, though harking back to the earlier text, in its cogent ending. Splendid is
the soaring flight through flashes of new chords. There is, we must yield, something Promethean, of new and true beauty, in the bold path of harmonies that the French are teaching us after a long age of slavish rules.
The harking back is here better than in most modern symphonies with their pedantic subtleties: in the resurgence of joyous mood, symbolized by the inversion of phrase, as when the prankish elfin theme rises in serious aspiration.
Out of these inspiriting reaches sings a new melody in canon of strings (though it may relate to some shadowy memory), while in the bass rolls the former ending phrase; then they romp in jovial turn of rhythm.
A vague and insignificant similarity of themes is a fault of the work and of the style, ever in high disdain of vernacular harmony, refreshing to be sure, in its saucy audacity, and anon enchanting with a ring of new, fiery chord. As the sonorous theme sings in muted brass, picking strings mockingly play quicker fragments, infecting the rest with frivolous retorts, and then a heart-felt song pours forth, where the accompanying cries have softened their mirth. Back they skip to a joyous trip with at last pure ringing harmonies.
At the fervent pitch a blast of trumpets rises in challenging phrase, in incisive clash of chord, with the early sense of Parnassian ascent. At the end of this brave fanfare we hear a soft plea of the descending tone that prompts a song of true lyric melody, with the continuing gentlest touch of regret, all to a sweetly bewildering turn of pace. So tense