Of a sudden, after a lull, falls again the tinkle of sacred chimes, with a verse each of the two main melodies.

The Scherzo begins with a Saltarello humor, as of airy faun, with a skipping theme ever accompanied by a lower running phrase and a prancing trip of

[Music:  Allegro con leggerezza, ben sostenuto (Cl.) (Pizz. strings) (Bassoon)]

strings, with a refrain, too, of chirruping woodwind.  Later the skipping phrase gains a melodic cadence.  But the main mood is a revel of gambols and pranks of rhythm and harmony on the first phase.

In the middle is a sudden shift of major tone and intimate humor, to a slower pace.  With still a semblance of dance, a pensive melody sings in the cellos; the graceful cadence is rehearsed in a choir

[Music:  Poco meno mosso (Strings) (Cello)]

of woodwind, and the song is taken up by the whole chorus.  As a pretty counter-tune grows above, the melody sings below, with a blending of lyric feeling and the charm of dance.  At a climactic height the horns, with clumsy grace, blare forth the main lilting phrase.

The song now wings along with quicker tripping counter-tunes that slowly lure the first skipping tune back into the play after a prelude of high festivity.  New pranks appear,—­as of dancing strings against a stride of loud, muted horns.  Then the second (pensive) melody returns, now above the running counter-tune.  At last, in faster gait, to the coursing of quicker figures, the (second) melody rings out in choir of brass in twice slower, stately pace.  But the accompanying bustle is merely heightened until all four horns are striking together the lyric song.  At the end is a final revel of the first dancing tune.

The Finale, which bears the unusual mark Allegro con giubilio, begins with a big festive march that may seem to have an added flavor of old English merrymaking.  But as in the other cantos of the poem there

[Music:  Allegro con giubilio Tutti (Basses in 8ve.)]

is here, too, an opposite figure and feeling.  And the more joyous the gaiety, the more sweetly wistful is the recoil.  Nay there is in this very expressive strain, beautifully woven in strings, harp, woodwind and horns, a vein of regret that grows rather than lessens, whenever the melody appears alone.  It is like the memory, in the midst of festival, of some blissful moment lost forever.

Indeed, the next phase seems very like a disordered chase of stray memories; for here a line of martial air is displaced by a pensive strain which in

[Music:  (Cello and harp with harmony of wood, horns and strings) Piu tranquillo Molto espress.]

turn yields to the quick, active tune that leads to a height of celebration.

But here is a bewildering figure on the scene:  Lustily the four horns (helped by the strings) blow in slow notes against the continuing motive an expressive melody.  Slowly it breaks upon our ears as the wistful air that followed the chimes of Sunday bells.  It has a stern, almost sombre guise, until it suddenly glows in transfigured light, as of a choir of celestial brass.