broad swing a free
fantasy rises to a loud refrain (in the brass) of the first motive of
the symphony.

In slower pace and hush of sound sings a madrigal of tender phrases. A
pair of melodies recall like figures of the first Allegro. Indeed, a
chain of dulcet strains seems to rise from the past.

The fine themal relevance may be pursued in infinite degree, to no end
but sheer bewilderment. The truth is that a modern vanity for subtle
connection, a purest pedantry, is here evident, and has become a baneful
tradition in the modern symphony. It is an utter confusion of the letter
with the spirit. Once for all, a themal coherence of symphony must lie
in the main lines, not in a maze of unsignificant figures.

Marked is a sharp alternation of mood, tempestuous and tender, of
Florestan and Eusebius. The lyric phase yields to the former heroic
fantasy and then returns in soothing solace into a prevailing motive
that harks back to the second of the beginning movement. The fantasy,
vague of melody, comes

[Music: (Wood and horns)
(Strings)]

(in more than one sense) as relief from the small tracery. It is just to
remember a like oscillation in the first Allegro.

When the prologue recurs, the phrases are in ascent, instead of descent
of octaves. A climactic verse of the main dulcet melody breaks out in
resonant choir of brass and is followed by a soft rhapsody on the
several strains that hark back to the beginning. From the halting pace
the lyric episode rises in flight of continuous song to enchanting lilt.
Now in the big heroic fantasy sing the first slow phrases as to the
manner born and as naturally break into a paean of the full motive,
mingled with strains of the original legend of the symphony, that flows
on to broad hymnal cadence.

In mystic musing we reach a solemn stillness where the prologue phrase
is slowly drawn out into a profoundly moving hymn. Here we must feel is
Meister Bruckner's true poetic abode rather than in the passion and
ecstasy of romance into which he was vainly lured.[A]

[Footnote A: Bruckner's Fifth Symphony (in B flat) is a typical example
of closest correlation of themes that are devoid of intrinsic melody.

An introduction supplies in the bass of a hymnal line the main theme of
the Allegro by inversion as well as the germ of the first subject of the
Adagio. Throughout, as in the Romantic Symphony, the relation between
the first and the last movement is subtle. A closing, jagged phra