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Goepp, Philip H., 1864-1936

"Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies"

Though it grew naturally out of the
rude
[Music: _Molto cantabile_]
dance, the tune has a contrasting charm of idyll and, too, harks back to
the former lyric strains that followed the second melody. When the dance
returns, there is instead of discussion a mere extension of main motive
in full chorus.
But here in the midst the balance is more than restored. From the dance
that ceases abruptly we go straight to school or rather cloister. On our
recurring nervous phrase a fugue is rung with all pomp and ceremony
(_meno mosso_); and of the dance there are mere faint echoing memories,
when the
[Music: _Meno mosso_
(Oboe) _molto marcato_
(Violins) staccato]
fugal text seems for a moment to weave itself into the first tune.
Instead, comes into the midst of sermon a hymnal chant, blown gently by
the brass, while other stray
[Music: _Leggiero_]
voices run lightly on the thread of fugue. There is, indeed, a playful
suggestion of the dance somehow in the air. A final tempest of the
fugue[A] brings us back to the full verse of dance and the following
melodies. But before the end sounds a broad hymnal line in the brass
with a dim thread of the fugue, and the figures steal away in solemn
stillness.
[Footnote A: It is of the first two notes of the symphony that the fugal
theme is made. For though it is longer in the strings, the brief motion
is ever accented in the wood. Thus relentless is the themal coherence.


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