[Music:  (Reeds and horns) (Strings with the quicker dance phrase of 2d movement)]

chant.  The gay figures flit timidly back,—­a struggle ’twixt pleasure and fate,—­but soon regain control.

If we cared to interpret, we might find in the Finale a realized aspiration.  The truth is the humors of the themal phrases, as of the movements, jar:  they are on varying planes.  The coarser vein of the last is no solace to the noble grief of the foregoing.

Again the change or series of moods is not clearly defined.  They seem a parade of visions.  The hymn may be viewed as a guise of the former chant of the Scherzo, with the dance-trip in lowest bass.

Straight from the rush and romp we plunge anew into a trance of sweet memories.  The lyric vein here binds together earlier strains, whose kinship had not appeared.  They seemed less significant, hidden as subsidiary ideas.  If we care to look back we find a germ of phrase in the first Prelude, and then the answer of the second (Allegro) theme of first movement.  There was, too, the sweep of dual melody following the rude dance of Scherzo.  Above all is here the essence and spirit of the central Adagio melody of the symphony.

The answering strain is of high beauty, with a melting sense of farewell.  From the sad ecstasy is a

[Music:  (Strings with higher and lower 8ve.) (Wood and horns in 8ves.) (Basses of strings and reeds)]

descent to mystic musing, where abound the symbols of rising and falling tones.  More and more moving is the climactic melody of regret with a blended song in large and little.  Most naturally it sinks into a full verse of the Adagio tune—­whence instantly is aroused a new battle of moods.

While the dance capers below, above is the sobbing phrase from the heart of the Adagio.  The trip falls into the pace of hymnal march.  The shadows of many figures return.  Here is the big descending scale in tragic minor from the first movement.  Large it looms, in bass and treble.  Answering it is a figure of sustained thirds that recalls the former second (Allegro) melody.  And still the trip of dance goes on.

Sharpest and strongest of all these memories is the big sigh of sombre harmonies from the first Largo prelude, answered by the original legend.  And the dance still goes tripping on and the tones rumble in descent.

The dance has vanished; no sound but the drone of dull, falling tones, that multiply like the spirits of the sorcerer apprentice, in large form and small, with the big rumbling in a quick patter as of scurrying mice.

Suddenly a new spirit enters with gathering volume and warmer harmony.  As out of a dream we gradually emerge, at the end with a shock of welcome to light and day, as we awake to the returning glad dance.  And here is a new entrancing counter-tune above that crowns the joy.

Once again the skip falls into the ominous descent with the phantom of Scherzo dance in basses.  Now returns the strange hymnal line of march and the other anxious hue.