A note of deliverance shines clear in the final phrase of joined orchestra and organ, clearer perhaps than in Manfred's farewell line in the play: "Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die." To be sure, Schumann spreads the same solace o'er the close of his setting, with the Requiem. The sombre splendor of romance is throughout, with just a touch of turgid. In the poignant ecstasy of grief we feel vividly the foreshadowing example of Liszt, in his "Dante" and "Faust" Symphonies.
With all the unfailing flow of lesser melodies where the charm is often greatest of all, and the main themes of each movement with a chain of derived phrases, one melody prevails and reappears throughout. The fluency is more striking here than elsewhere in Tschaikowsky. All the external sources,—all the glory of material art seem at his command. We are reminded of a certain great temptation to which all men are subject and some fall,—however reluctantly. Throughout there is a vein of daemonic. The second (Allegro) melody grows to a high point of pathos,—nay, anguish, followed later by buoyant, strepitant, dancing delight, with the melting answer, in the latest melody. The daemon is half external fate—in the Greek sense, half individual temper. The end is almost sullen; but the charm is never failing; at the last is the ever springing rhythm.
The march rhythm of the opening Andante is carried suddenly into a quick trip, Allegro con anima (6/8), where the main theme of the first movement now begins, freely extended as in a full song of verses. New accompanying figures are added, contrasting phrases or counter-melodies, to the theme.
One expressive line plays against the wilder rhythm of the theme, with as full a song in its own mood as the other. A new rhythmic motive, of great charm, un pocchetino piu animato, is answered by a bit of the theme. Out of it all grows, in a clear
welded chain, another episode, where the old rhythm is a mere gentle spur to the new plaint,—molto piu tranquillo, molto cantabile ed espressivo.
