It cannot be said that a true significance is achieved in proportion to the number of concerting themes.  We might dilate on the sheer inability of the hearer to grasp a clear outline in such a multiple plot.

There is somehow a false kind of polyphony, a too great facility of spurious counterpoint, that differs subtly though sharply from the true art where the number entails no loss of individual quality; where the separate melodies move by a divine fitness that measures the perfect conception of the multiple idea; where there is no thought of a later padding to give a shimmer of profound art.  It is here that the symphony is in danger from an exotic style that had its origin in German music-drama.

From this point the Rachmaninow symphony languishes in the fountain of its fresh inspiration, seems consciously constructed with calculating care.

There is, after all, no virtue in itself in mere themal interrelation,—­in particular of lesser phrases.  One cogent theme may well prevail as text of the whole.  As the recurring motives are multiplied, they must lose individual moment.  The listener’s grasp becomes more difficult, until there is at best a mystic maze, a sweet chaos, without a clear melodic thought.  It cannot be maintained that the perception of the modern audience has kept pace with the complexity of scores.  Yet there is no gainsaying an alluring beauty of these waves of sound rising to fervent height in the main melody that is expressive of a modern wistfulness.

But at the close is a fierce outbreak of the first motto, with a defiance of regret, in faster, reckless pace, brief, but suddenly recurring.  Exquisite is this

[Music:  (Ob.) cantabile (Strings, wood and horns)]

cooing of voices in mournful bits of the motto, with a timid upper phrase in the descending tone.

On we go in the piling of Ossa on Pelion, where the motto and even the Scherzo dance lend their text.  Yet all is fraught with sentient beauty as, rising in Titanic climb, it plunges into an overwhelming cry in the Adagio melody.  Throughout, the ascending and descending tones, close interwoven, give a blended hue of arduous striving and regret.

After a pause follow a series of refrains of solo voices in the melody, with muted strings, with mingled strains of the motto.  In the bass is an undulation that recalls the second theme of former movement.  And the clarinet returns with its mystic madrigal of melody; now the Adagio theme enters and gives it point and meaning.  In one more burst it sings in big and little in the same alluring harmony, whence it dies down to soothing close in brilliant gamut as of sinking sun.

IV.—­Allegro vivace. Throwing aside the clinging

[Music:  Allegro vivace Molto marcato (Strings, wood and horns with reinforced harmonies)]

fragments of fugue in the prelude we rush into a gaiety long sustained.  Almost strident is the ruthless merriment; we are inclined to fear that the literal coherence of theme is greater than the inner connection of mood.  At last the romp hushes to a whisper of drum, with strange patter of former dance.  And following and accompanying it is a new hymnal (or is it martial) line, as it were the reverse of the other