The Scherzo is a kind of hunting-piece, full of the sparkle, the color and romance of bugles and horns,—­a spirited fanfare broken by hushed phrases of strings or wood, or an elf-like mystic dance on the softened call of trumpets.  The Trio sings apart, between the gay revels, in soft voices and slower pace, like a simple ballad.

The Finale is conceived in mystical retrospect, beginning in vein of prologue:  over mysterious murmuring strings, long sustained notes of the reed and horn in octave descent are mingled with a soft carillon of horns and trumpets in the call of the Scherzo.  In broad swing a free fantasy rises to a loud refrain (in the brass) of the first motive of the symphony.

In slower pace and hush of sound sings a madrigal of tender phrases.  A pair of melodies recall like figures of the first Allegro.  Indeed, a chain of dulcet strains seems to rise from the past.

The fine themal relevance may be pursued in infinite degree, to no end but sheer bewilderment.  The truth is that a modern vanity for subtle connection, a purest pedantry, is here evident, and has become a baneful tradition in the modern symphony.  It is an utter confusion of the letter with the spirit.  Once for all, a themal coherence of symphony must lie in the main lines, not in a maze of unsignificant figures.

Marked is a sharp alternation of mood, tempestuous and tender, of Florestan and Eusebius.  The lyric phase yields to the former heroic fantasy and then returns in soothing solace into a prevailing motive that harks back to the second of the beginning movement.  The fantasy, vague of melody, comes

[Music:  (Wood and horns) (Strings)]

(in more than one sense) as relief from the small tracery.  It is just to remember a like oscillation in the first Allegro.

When the prologue recurs, the phrases are in ascent, instead of descent of octaves.  A climactic verse of the main dulcet melody breaks out in resonant choir of brass and is followed by a soft rhapsody on the several strains that hark back to the beginning.  From the halting pace the lyric episode rises in flight of continuous song to enchanting lilt.  Now in the big heroic fantasy sing the first slow phrases as to the manner born and as naturally break into a paean of the full motive, mingled with strains of the original legend of the symphony, that flows on to broad hymnal cadence.

In mystic musing we reach a solemn stillness where the prologue phrase is slowly drawn out into a profoundly moving hymn.  Here we must feel is Meister Bruckner’s true poetic abode rather than in the passion and ecstasy of romance into which he was vainly lured.[A]

[Footnote A:  Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony (in B flat) is a typical example of closest correlation of themes that are devoid of intrinsic melody.

An introduction supplies in the bass of a hymnal line the main theme of the Allegro by inversion as well as the germ of the first subject of the Adagio.  Throughout, as in the Romantic Symphony, the relation between the first and the last movement is subtle.  A closing, jagged phrase reappears as the first theme of the Finale.