too
quick). In spirit it is noble, forceful, yet tender and extremely
musical. The opening melody is itself made up thematically out of the
first little molecule of two tones, or out of the first four tones, if
you please. This is carried through sixteen measures in order to bring
it to completion; it is immediately resumed with an added element of
rhythmic motion and varieties of harmony, and carried through along to
the second idea.

The instruments concerned in the first enunciation of the theme are
mainly the strings, the horns having long holding tones, and the
wood-wind coming in with accompanying chords upon the off beat.
Presently a second or transitional theme enters, of a jolly free
character, which brings us almost immediately to a beautiful second
theme for the 'cellos, the sustained and song-like character of which
well contrasts with the broken character of the leading idea.

The elaboration now follows the jolly little counter-theme in
connection with the leading theme, and while the continued treatment of
the working out seems simple, it is in fact extremely rich, and well
managed for intensifying the elegiac character of the opening subject.
Abundance of melodic life meets us in every one of the orchestral
voices, and the richness of detail is like that of one of the old
cathedrals, where the mighty mass of the whole is no less significant
to the distant observer than the patient care with which all the
smaller spaces have been elaborated is grateful to the close student.
A curious circumstance of this movement is the apparent resumption of
the principal theme prematurely in its own key, the development
immediately taking a new turn, and when finally the principal theme
returns, it is at first in a foreign key, almost at once, however,
giving place to the original harmonies.

A movement of this character is not to be judged or studied from a
technical standpoint, but from that of enjoyable hearing. It is a
musical discourse, in which the first thing to feel is the very patent
fact that the author is trying to say something to us; and the second
to make out something of what this significance may mean in its general
and larger aspects; and, only later than this, what it is in its
details.

In two respects this work seems to the student different from the
symphonic work of Beethoven on the one hand, and from the earnest
orchestral work of later masters on the other. It is thoroughly modern
in