[Music:  Allegro con anima Solo clarinet (doubled below with solo bassoon.) (Strings)]

One expressive line plays against the wilder rhythm of the theme, with as full a song in its own mood as the other.  A new rhythmic motive, of great charm, un pocchetino piu animato, is answered by a bit of the theme.  Out of it all grows, in a clear

[Music:  Molto espr. (Strings)]

welded chain, another episode, where the old rhythm is a mere gentle spur to the new plaint,—­molto piu tranquillo, molto cantabile ed espressivo.

[Music:  Molto piu tranquillo Molto cantabile ed espr.]

To be sure, the climax has all of the old pace and life, and every voice of the chorus at the loudest.  In the answering and echoing of the various phrases, rhythmic and melodic, is the charm of the discussion that follows.  Later the three melodies come again in the former order, and the big climax of the plaintive episode precedes the end, where the main theme dies down to a whisper.

Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza. After preluding chords in lowest strings a solo horn begins a

[Music:  Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza (Horn) dolce con molto espr. (Strings)]

languishing song, dolce con molto espressione.  It is a wonderful elegy, a yearning without hope, a swan-song of desire, sadder almost than the frank despair of the Finale of the Pathetique symphony,—­pulsing with passion, gorgeous with a hectic glow of expressive beauty, moving too with a noble grace.  Though there is a foil of lighter humor, this is overwhelmed in the fateful gloom of the returning main motto.

The abounding beauty with all its allurement lacks the solace that the masters have led us to seek in the heart of a symphony.  The clarinet presently twines a phrase about the tune until a new answer sounds in the oboe, that now sings in answering and chasing duet with the horn.  The phrase of oboe proves to be the main song, in full extended periods, reaching a climax with all the voices.

[Music:  Con moto (Solo oboe) dolce espr.]

Well defined is the middle episode in minor reared on a new theme of the clarinet with an almost fugal polyphony that departs from the main lyric mood.

[Music:  Moderato con anima (Solo clar.) (Strings)]

At the height all the voices fall into a united chorus on the original motto of the symphony.  The first melodies of the Andante now return with big sweep and power, and quicker phrases from the episode.  The motto reappears in a final climax, in the trombones, before the hushed close.

We must not infer too readily a racial trait from the temper of the individual composer.  There is here an error that we fall into frequently in the music of such men as Grieg and Tschaikowsky.  The prevailing mood of the Pathetic Symphony is in large measure personal.  Some of the more recent Russian symphonies are charged with buoyant joyousness.  And, indeed, the burden of sadness clearly distinguishes the last symphony of Tschaikowsky from its two predecessors, the Fourth and the Fifth.