s have had a chance to breed.
And this may please him best in the end.

We must always attend more to the mood than to themal detail as
everywhere in real music, after all. Moments of delight and triumph we
know there are in this work. But they are mere instants. For it is all
the feverish dream of death. There can be no earlier rest. Snatches they
are of fancy, of illusion, as, says the priest in Oedipus, is all of
life.

It may be worth while, too, to see how pairs of themes ever occur in
Strauss, the second in answer, almost in protest, to the first. (It is
not unlike the pleading in the Fifth Symphony of the second theme with
the sense of doom in the first.) So we seem to find a motive of fate,
and one of wondering, and striving; a theme of beauty and one of
passion,--if we cared to tread on such a dangerous, tempting ground.
Again, we may find whole groups of phrases expressive of one idea, as of
beauty, and another of anxious pursuit. Thus we escape too literal a
themal association.

Trying a glimpse from the score pure and simple, we find a poem,
opposite the first page, that is said to have been written after the
first production. So, reluctantly, we must wait for the mere
reinforcement of its evidence.

_Largo_, in uncertain key, begins the throb of irregular rhythm (in
strings) that Bach and Chopin and Wagner have taught us to associate
with suffering. The first figure is a gloomy descent of pairs of chords,
with a hopeless cry above (in the flutes). In the recurrence, the turn
of chord is at last upward. A warmer hue of waving sounds (of harps) is
poured about, and a gentle vision appears on high, shadowed quickly by
a theme of fearful wondering. The chords return as at first. A new
series of descending tones

[Music: (Flute an 8ve. higher) (Oboe)
_Largo_
_dolce_
(Harp with arpeggio groups of six to the quarter)]

intrude, with a sterner sense of omen, and yield to a full melodic
utterance of longing (again with the

[Music: (Solo violin muted)
(Horns)
(Harp with arpeggio groups of six to the quarter)]

soothing play of harp), and in the midst a fresh theme of wistful fear.
For a moment there is a brief glimpse of the former vision. Now the
song, less of longing than of pure bliss, sings free and clear its
descending lay in solo violin, though an answering phrase (in the horns)
of upward striving soon rises from below. The vision now appears again,
the wondering monitor close beside. The melanch