In the usual sense, there are no separate movements.  Though “Scherzo” is printed after the first appearance of the three main figures, and later “Adagio” and “Finale,” the interplay and recurrence of initial themes is too constant for the traditional division.  It is all a close-woven drama in one act, with rapidly changing scenes.  Really more important than the conventional Italian names are such headings as “Wiegenlied” (Cradle-song), and above all, the numerous directions.  Here is an almost conclusive proof of definite intent.  To be sure, even a figure on canvas is not the man himself.  Indeed, as music approaches graphic realism, it is strange how painting goes the other way.  Or rather, starting from opposite points, the two arts are nearing each other.  As modern painting tends to give the feeling of a subject, the subjective impression rather than the literal outline, we can conceive even in latest musical realism the “atmosphere” as the principal aim.  In other words, we may view Strauss as a sort of modern impressionist tone-painter, and so get the best view of his pictures.

Indeed, cacophony is alone a most suggestive subject.  In the first place the term is always relative, never absolute,—­relative in the historic period of the composition, or relative as to the purpose.  One can hardly say that any combination of notes is unusable.  Most striking it is how the same group of notes makes hideous waste in one case, and a true tonal logic in another.  Again, what was impossible in Mozart’s time, may be commonplace to-day.

You cannot stamp cacophony as a mere whim of modern decadence.  Beethoven made the noblest use of it and suffered misunderstanding.  Bach has it in his scores with profound effect.  And then the license of one age begets a greater in the next.  It is so in poetry, though in far less degree.  For, in music, the actual tones are the integral elements of the art.  They are the idea itself; in poetry the words merely suggest it.

A final element, independent of the notes themselves, is the official numbering of themes.  Strauss indicates a first, second and third theme, obviously of the symphony, not of a single movement.  The whole attitude of the composer, while it does not compel, must strongly suggest some sort of guess of intending meaning.[A]

[Footnote A:  At the first production, in New York, in obedience to the composer’s wish, no descriptive notes were printed.  When the symphony was played, likewise under the composer’s direction, in Berlin in December, 1904, a brief note in the program-book mentions the three groups of themes, the husband’s, the wife’s and the child’s, in the first movement.  The other movements are thus entitled: 

II.—­Scherzo. Parents’ happiness.  Childish play.  Cradle-song (the clock strikes seven in the evening).

III.—­Adagio. Creation and contemplation.  Love scene.  Dreams and cares (the clock strikes seven in the morning).