We must always attend more to the mood than to themal detail as everywhere in real music, after all.  Moments of delight and triumph we know there are in this work.  But they are mere instants.  For it is all the feverish dream of death.  There can be no earlier rest.  Snatches they are of fancy, of illusion, as, says the priest in Oedipus, is all of life.

It may be worth while, too, to see how pairs of themes ever occur in Strauss, the second in answer, almost in protest, to the first. (It is not unlike the pleading in the Fifth Symphony of the second theme with the sense of doom in the first.) So we seem to find a motive of fate, and one of wondering, and striving; a theme of beauty and one of passion,—­if we cared to tread on such a dangerous, tempting ground.  Again, we may find whole groups of phrases expressive of one idea, as of beauty, and another of anxious pursuit.  Thus we escape too literal a themal association.

Trying a glimpse from the score pure and simple, we find a poem, opposite the first page, that is said to have been written after the first production.  So, reluctantly, we must wait for the mere reinforcement of its evidence.

Largo, in uncertain key, begins the throb of irregular rhythm (in strings) that Bach and Chopin and Wagner have taught us to associate with suffering.  The first figure is a gloomy descent of pairs of chords, with a hopeless cry above (in the flutes).  In the recurrence, the turn of chord is at last upward.  A warmer hue of waving sounds (of harps) is poured about, and a gentle vision appears on high, shadowed quickly by a theme of fearful wondering.  The chords return as at first.  A new series of descending tones

[Music:  (Flute an 8ve. higher) (Oboe) Largo dolce (Harp with arpeggio groups of six to the quarter)]

intrude, with a sterner sense of omen, and yield to a full melodic utterance of longing (again with the

[Music:  (Solo violin muted) (Horns) (Harp with arpeggio groups of six to the quarter)]

soothing play of harp), and in the midst a fresh theme of wistful fear.  For a moment there is a brief glimpse of the former vision.  Now the song, less of longing than of pure bliss, sings free and clear its descending lay in solo violin, though an answering phrase (in the horns) of upward striving soon rises from below.  The vision now appears again, the wondering monitor close beside.  The melancholy chords return to dim the beauty.  As the descending theme recedes, the rising motive sings a fuller course on high with a new note of eager, anxious fear.

All these themes are of utmost pertinence in this evident prologue of the story.  Or at least the germs of all the leading melodies are here.

In sudden turn of mood to high agitation, a stress of wild desire rings out above in pairs of sharp ascending chords, while below the wondering theme rises in growing tumult.  A whirling storm of the two phrases ends in united burst like hymn of battle, on the line of the wondering theme, but infused with