the first prelude, returned to its earlier mood.

[Music: _Andante assai_
(Violins) _cantabile ed espressivo_
(Horns)
(Clarinets)
(_Tremolo_ cellos, with lower C in basses)]

With baffling mystery anon come other appealing phrases from the
beginning, that show the whole to be the woof almost of a single figure,
or at least to lie within the poetic scope of the prologue. A fugal
revel of the comic phrase with the quick strum as counter-theme ends in
a new carnival,--here a dashing march, there a mad chase of strident
harmonies. Now sings the full romance and passion of the melody through
the whole gamut from pathos to rapture. It ends with poignant stress of
the essence of the song, with sheerest grating of straining harmonies.
In the midst, too, is again the mystic symbol from the heart of the
prelude. Then with a springing recoil comes a last jubilation, though
still in the prevailing minor, with a final coursing of the quick theme.

The whole is a broad alternation of moods, of wild abandon and of tender
feeling,--the natural dual quality of primal music. So, at least in the
Finale, this is a Finnish fantasy, on the very lines of other national
rhapsody.

CHAPTER XIII

BOHEMIAN SYMPHONIES

In the music of modern Bohemia is one of the most vital utterances of
the folk-spirit. The critic may not force a correspondence of politics
and art to support his theory. Yet a cause may here be found as in
Russia and Finland. (Poland and Hungary had their earlier song). There
is a sincerity, an unpremeditated quality in Bohemian music that is not
found among its western neighbors. The spirit is its own best proof,
without a conscious stress of a national note. Indeed, Bohemian music is
striking, not at all in a separate tonal character, like Hungarian, but
rather in a subtle emotional intensity, which again differs from the
wild abandon of the Magyars. An expression it must be of a national
feeling that has for ages been struggling against absorption. Since
ancient times Bohemia has been part of a Teutonic empire. The story of
its purely native kings is not much more than legendary. Nor has it
shared the harder fate of other small nations; for the Teuton rule at
least respected its separate unity.

But the long association with the German people has nearly worn away the
racial signs and hall-marks of its folk-song. A Bohemian tune thus has a
taste much like the native German. Yet a quality of its own lies in the