The solo cello returns for a further song in duet
with the violins, where the violas, too, entwine their melody, or the
cello is joined by the violins.
Now the chief melody returns for a richer and varied setting with horns
and woodwind. At last the first violins, paired in octave with the
cello, sing the full melody in a madrigal of lesser strains.
An epilogue answers the prologue of the beginning.
Equally brief is the true Scherzo, though merely entitled Allegretto,--a
dainty frolic without the heavy brass, an indefinable conceit of airy
fantasy, with here and there a line of sober melody peeping between the
mischievous pranks. There is no contrasting Trio in the middle; but just
before the end comes a quiet pace as of mock-gravity, before a final
scamper.
A preluding fantasy begins in the mood of the early Allegro; a wistful
melody of the clarinet plays more slowly between cryptic reminders of
the first theme of the symphony. In sudden _Allegro risoluto_ over
rumbling bass of strings, a mystic call of horns, harking far back,
spreads its echoing ripples all about till it rises in united tones,
with a clear, descending answer, much like the original first motive.
The latter now continues in the bass in large and smaller pace beneath a
new tuneful treble of violins, while the call still roams a free course
in the wind. Oft repeated is this resonation in paired harmonies, the
lower phrase like an "obstinate bass.
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