in big tones of unison, wood and strings and trumpets, that is the real hymnal refrain of the movement. Between this note almost of exultation and all shades of pious dreaming the mood is constantly shifting.
Another phrase rises also to a triumphant height (the clear reverse of the former tuneful melody) that comes now like a big envoi of assuring message.
Though the whole movement is evenly balanced between Allegro and Penseroso (so far as pace is concerned), the mood of reflection really finds full vent; it has no reason for a further special expression.
Simple as the Allegretto appears in its suggestion of halting dance, the intent in the episodes is of the subtlest. The slow trip of strings and harp is soon given a new meaning with the melody of English horn. Throughout we are somehow divided between pure dance and a more thoughtful muse. In the first departure to an episode in major, seems to sing the essence of the former melody in gently murmuring strings, where later the whole chorus are drawn in. The song moves on clear thread and wing right out of the mood of the dance-tune; but the very charm lies in the mere outer change of guise. And so the second episode is still far from all likeness with the first dance beyond a least sense of the old trip that does appear here and there. It is all clearly a true scheme of variations, the main theme disguised beyond outer semblance, yet faithfully present throughout in the essential rhythm and harmony.
In the Finale, Allegro non troppo, we are really clear, at the outset, of the toils of musing melancholy.
After big bursts of chords, a tune rolls pleasantly along, dolce cantabile, in basses of wood and strings. Expressive after-phrases abound, all in the same jolly mood, until the whole band break boisterously on the simple song, with a new sonorous phrase of basses. Then, in sudden remove, sounds the purest bit of melody of all the symphony, in gentlest tones
