However multiple the plan, we cannot feel more than the quality of
_unusual_ in the motives themselves, of some interval of ascent or
descent. Yet as the melody grows to larger utterance, the fulness of
polyphonic art brings a beauty of tender sentiment, rising to a moving
climax, where the horns lead the song in the heart of the madrigal
chorus, and the strings alone sing the expressive answer.
[Music: (Violins doubled in 8ve.)
(Strings, woods and horns)]
A third phrase now appears, where lies the main poetry of the movement.
Gentle swaying calls of
[Music: _Tranquillo_ (Wood and violins)
(4 horns in 8ve.)
(Horns)
(Strings with bassoons)]
soft horns and wood, echoed and answered in close pursuit, lead to a
mood of placid, elemental rhythm, with something of "Rheingold," of
"Ossian" ballad, of the lapping waves of Cherubini's "Anacreon." In the
midst the horns blow a line of sonorous melody, where the cadence has a
breath of primal legend. On the song runs, ever mid the elemental
motion, to a resonant height and dies away as before. The intimate,
romantic melody now returns, but it is rocked on the continuing pelagic
pulse; indeed, we hear anon a faint phrase of the legend, in distant
trumpet, till we reach a joint rhapsody of both moods; and in the never
resting motion, mid vanishing echoes, we dream of some romance of the
sea.
Against descending harmonies return the hollow, sombre phrases of the
beginning, with the full cadence of chorale in the brass; and beyond,
the whole prelude has a full, extended verse.
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