Moving is the
lyric power and sweetness of this multiple song. As to themal
relation,--one feels like regarding it all as inspired madrigal, where
the maze and medley is the thing, where the tunes are not meant to be
distinguished. It becomes an abandoned orgy of clearest counterpoint.
Throughout is a blending of fugue and of children's romp, anon with the
tenderness of lullaby and even the glow of love-song. A brief mystic
verse, with slow descending strain in the high wood, preludes the
returning gambol of running strings, where the maze of fugue or canon
is in the higher flowing song, with opposite course of answering tune,
and a height of jolly revel, where the bright trumpet pours out the
usual concluding phrase. The rhythmic episode, in whimsical change, here
sings with surprise of lusty volume. So the merry round goes on to a big
resonant _Amen_ of final acclaim, where the little phrase steals out as
naturally as in the beginning.
Then in quicker pace it sounds again all about, big and little, and
ends, after a touch of modern Gallic scale, in opposing runs, with a
last light, saucy fling.
Mahler, we feel again, realizes all the craving that Bruckner breeds for
a kernel of feeling in the shell of counterpoint. Though we cannot deny
a rude breach of ancient rule and mode, there is in Mahler a genuine,
original, individual quality of polyphonic art that marks a new stage
since the first in Bach and a second in Beethoven.
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