It is all in triumphant spirit. From the start the mood reigns, the art
for once is quite subordinate. Resonant and compelling is the motive of
horns and trumpets, new in temper, though harking back to the earlier
text, in its cogent ending. Splendid is
[Music: (Strings)
(Wood & strings doubled below)
(Horns and trumpets)]
the soaring flight through flashes of new chords. There is, we must
yield, something Promethean, of new and true beauty, in the bold path of
harmonies that the French are teaching us after a long age of slavish
rules.
The harking back is here better than in most modern symphonies with
their pedantic subtleties: in the resurgence of joyous mood, symbolized
by the inversion of phrase, as when the prankish elfin theme rises in
serious aspiration.
Out of these inspiriting reaches sings a new melody in canon of strings
(though it may relate to some shadowy memory), while in the bass rolls
the former ending phrase; then they romp in jovial turn of rhythm.
[Music: (Oboes, doubled below in bassoons) (Strings, doubled below)
(Horns) (_Pizz._ cello doubled below)]
A vague and insignificant similarity of themes is a fault of the work
and of the style, ever in high disdain of vernacular harmony, refreshing
to be sure, in its saucy audacity, and anon enchanting with a ring of
new, fiery chord. As the sonorous theme sings in muted brass, picking
strings mockingly play quicker fragments, infecting the rest with
frivolous retorts, and then a heart-felt song pours forth, where the
accompanying cries have softened their mirth.
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