rns and bassoons)]

A melody in the minor plays first in a choir of horns and bassoons,
later in united strings, accompanied by soft rolls of drums and a touch
of the lowest brass. Harp and higher woodwind are added, but the volume
is never transcendent save in a single burst when it is quickly hushed
to the first ominous whisper. Out of this sombre song flows a romance of
tender sentiment, _tranquillo_ in strings, followed by the wood. The
crossing threads of expressive melody

[Music: _Tranquillo_
(Strings)
(In the midst enters a strain of solo horn)]

rise in instant renewal of stress and agitation. The joy of battle has
returned, but it seems that the passion of love burns in midst of the
glow of battle, each in its separate struggle, and both together in one
fatal strife. The sombre melody returns in full career, dying down to a
pause.[A]

[Footnote A: In a somewhat literal commentary attributed to Dr. Richard
Batka, the Amazons here, "having reached their destination, go into
night-encampment--as represented by the subdued roll of the
kettle-drums, with which the movement concludes."]

_Molto sostenuto_, in changed rhythm of three slow beats, comes
"Penthesilea's Dream of the Feast of Roses." Over a thick cluster of
harmonies in harp and strings the higher wood sing a new song in long
drawn lyric notes with ravishing turns of tonal color,--a

[Music: _Molto sostenuto_
(Flutes, oboes and clarinets)
(Rapid arpeggic figures of harps and muted strings)]

dual song and in many groups of two. The tranquil current of the dream
is gradually disturbed; the main burden is dimmed in hue and in mood.
Faster, more fitful is the flow of melody, with hostile intruding motive
below; it dashes at last into the tragic phase--Combats; Passions;
Madness; Destruction--in very rapid tempo of 2/2 rhythm.

In broad, masterful pace, big contrary figures sweep up and down,
cadencing in almost joyous chant, gliding, indeed, into a pure hymn, as
of triumph (that harks back to the chorussing song in the beginning).

Throughout the poem the musical symbols as well as the motives of
passion are closely intertwined. Thus the identity of the impetuous
phrase of the very beginning is clear with the blissful theme of the
Dream of the Feast of Roses. Here, at the end of the chorussing verse is
a play or a strife of phrases where we cannot escape a symbolic intent.
To _tremolo_ of violas the cellos hold a tenor of descending melody over