Now the full bass of
horns and wood strikes the descending course of theme, while higher
strings and wood soar in rising stress of (sighing) grief.
[Music: (In double higher 8ves.)
_With lower 8ves._
(Strings, with enforcing and answering wind)]
A hymnal verse of the theme enters in the wood answered by impetuous
strings on a coursing phrase. The antiphonal song rises with eager
stress of themal attack. A quieter elegy leads to another burst, the
motive above, the insistent sigh below. The climax of fugue returns to
the heroic main plaint below, with sighing answers above, all the voices
of wood and brass enforcing the strings.
Then the fugue turns to a transfigured phase; the theme rings triumphant
retorts in golden horns and in a masterful unison of the wood; the wild
answer runs joyfully in lower strings, while the higher are strumming
like celestial harps. The whole is transformed to a big song of praise
ever in higher harmonies. The theme flows on in ever varying thread,
amidst the acclaiming tumult.
But the heavenly heights are not reached by a single leap. Once more we
sink to sombre depths not of the old rejection, but of a chastened,
wistful wonderment. The former plaintive chant returns, in slower,
contained pace, broken by phrases of mourning recitative, with the old
sigh. And a former brief strain of simple aspiration is supported by
angelic harps. In gentle ascent we are wafted to the acclaim of heavenly
(treble) voices in the _Magnificat_.
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