I.—Solenne. Solemn mystery is the mood, amid trembling strings on hollow unison, before the eight
horns strike a phrase in the minor chord that in higher echoes breaks into a strange harmony and descends into a turn of melodic cadence. In answer is another chain of brief phrases, each beginning
with a note above the chord (the common mark and manner of the later school of harmonists[52]) and a new ascent on a literal ladder of subtlest progress, while hollow intervals are intermingled in the pinch of close harmonies. The bewildering maze here begins of multitudinous design, enriched with modern devices.
A clash of all the instruments acclaims the climax before the unison stroke of fullest chorus on the solemn note of the beginning. A favorite device of Bruckner, a measured tread of pizzicato strings with interspersed themal motives, precedes the romantic episode. Throughout the movement is this alternation of liturgic chorale with tender melody.
Bruckner's pristine polyphonic manner ever appears in the double strain of melodies, where each complements, though not completes the other. However multiple the plan, we cannot feel more than the quality of unusual in the motives themselves, of some interval of ascent or descent. Yet as the melody grows to larger utterance, the fulness of polyphonic art brings a beauty of tender sentiment, rising to a moving climax, where the horns lead the song in the heart of the madrigal chorus, and the strings alone sing the expressive answer.
A third phrase now appears, where lies the main poetry of the movement. Gentle swaying calls of