The gloomy dance dies away. Lento is a soft fugal chant on elemental theme; there is all the solemnity of cathedral service; after the low-chanted phrase follows a tremendous blare of the brass.  The repeated chant is followed by one of the earliest, characteristic themes of the first scene.  And so, if we care to follow the graphic touch, we may see here the intrusion of Manfred, at the most solemn moment of the fearful revel.

As Manfred, in Byron’s poem, enters undaunted, refusing to kneel, the first of the earlier phases rings out in fierce fortissimo.  A further conflict appears later, when the opening theme of the work sounds with interruptions of the first chant of the spirits.

A dulcet plaint follows, Adagio, in muted strings, answered by a note of horn and a chord of harp.

[Music:  Adagio (Muted strings answered by horn and harp)]

It all harks back to the gentler strains of the first movement.  In the ethereal glissando of harps we see the spirit of Astarte rise to give the fatal message.  The full pathos and passion of the lento episode of first scene is heard in brief, vivid touches, and is followed by the same ominous blast with ring of horn, as in the first picture.

A note of deliverance shines clear in the final phrase of joined orchestra and organ, clearer perhaps than in Manfred’s farewell line in the play:  “Old man! ’tis not so difficult to die.”  To be sure, Schumann spreads the same solace o’er the close of his setting, with the Requiem.  The sombre splendor of romance is throughout, with just a touch of turgid.  In the poignant ecstasy of grief we feel vividly the foreshadowing example of Liszt, in his “Dante” and “Faust” Symphonies.

FIFTH SYMPHONY (E MINOR)

With all the unfailing flow of lesser melodies where the charm is often greatest of all, and the main themes of each movement with a chain of derived phrases, one melody prevails and reappears throughout.  The fluency is more striking here than elsewhere in Tschaikowsky.  All the external sources,—­all the glory of material art seem at his command.  We are reminded of a certain great temptation to which all men are subject and some fall,—­however reluctantly.  Throughout there is a vein of daemonic.  The second (Allegro) melody grows to a high point of pathos,—­nay, anguish, followed later by buoyant, strepitant, dancing delight, with the melting answer, in the latest melody.  The daemon is half external fate—­in the Greek sense, half individual temper.  The end is almost sullen; but the charm is never failing; at the last is the ever springing rhythm.

[Music:  Andante pesante e tenuto sempre (Clarinet) (Low strings)]

The march rhythm of the opening Andante is carried suddenly into a quick trip, Allegro con anima (6/8), where the main theme of the first movement now begins, freely extended as in a full song of verses.  New accompanying figures are added, contrasting phrases or counter-melodies, to the theme.