favorite victims. He is, on the
whole, in favor with the people, though he played havoc with entire
villages. Once he was condemned to death by the Luebeck council. But
even here it was his enemies, whom he had defrauded, that sought
revenge. The others excused the tricks and applauded his escape. Even in
death the scandal and mischief do not cease.

The directions in Strauss' music are new in their kind and dignity. They
belong quite specially to this new vein of tonal painting. In a double
function, they not merely guide the player, but the listener as well.
The humor is of utmost essence; the humor is the thing, not the play,
nor the story of each of the pranks, in turn, of our jolly rogue. And
the humor lies much in these words of the composer, that give the lilt
of motion and betray a sense of the intended meaning.

[Music: _Gemaechlich_]

The tune, sung at the outset _gemaechlich_ (comfortably), is presumably
the rogue _motif_, first in pure innocence of mood. But quickly comes
another, quite opposed in rhythm, that soon hurries into highest speed.
These are not the "subjects" of old tradition.

[Music: (Horn)]

And first we are almost inclined to take the "Rondo form" as a new
roguish prank. But we may find a form where the subjects are independent
of the basic themes that weave in and out unfettered by rule--where the
subjects are rather new grouping of the fundamental symbols.[A]

[Footnote A: It is like the Finale of Brahms' Fourth Symphony, where an
older form (of _passacaglia_) is reared together with a later, one
within the other.]

After a pause in the furious course of the second theme, a quick piping
phrase sounds _lustig_ (merrily) in the clarinet, answered by a chord of
ominous

[Music: _Molto allegro_
(Clar.)
_lustig_]

token. But slowly do we trace the laughing phrase to the first theme.

And here is a new whim. Though still in full tilt, the touch of demon is
gone in a kind of ursine clog of the basses. Merely jaunty and clownish
it would be but for the mischievous scream (of high flute) at the end.
And now begins a rage of pranks, where the main phrase is the rogue's
laugh, rising in brilliant gamut of outer pitch and inner mood.

At times the humor is in the spirit of a Jean Paul, playing between
rough fun and sadness in a fine spectrum of moods. The lighter motive
dances harmlessly about the more serious, intimate second phrase. There
is almost the sense of lullaby before the sudd