A surprise of plot is before us.  In sudden recurrence of funeral march the hymnal song of the first movement is heard.  As suddenly, we are plunged into the first joyful scene of the symphony.  Here it is most striking how the call of lament has become triumphant, as it seems without a change of note.  And still more wonderful,—­the same melody that first uttered a storm of grief, then a gentle sadness, now has a firm exultant ring.  To be sure, it is all done with the magic trip of bass,—­as a hymn may be a perfect dance.

Before the close we hear the first fanfare of trumpet from the opening symphony, that has the ring of a motto of the whole.  At the very end is a transfigured entrance,—­very slowly and softly, to a celestial touch of harp, of the first descending figure of the movement.

II.—­3.  Scherzo. Jovial in high degree, the Scherzo begins with the thematic complexity of modern fashion.  In dance tune of three beats horns lead off with a jolly call; strings strike dancing chords; the lower wind play a rollicking answer, but together with the horns, both strains continuing in dancing duet.  Still the saucy call of horns seems the main text, though no single tune reigns alone.

[Music:  (Horns)
Scherzo.  With vigor, not too fast
(Strings and flutes)
(Strings)
(Clarinets and basses)]

The violins now play above the horns; then the cellos join and there is a three-part song of independent tunes, all in the dance.  So far in separate voices it is now taken up by full chorus, though still the basses sing one way, trebles another, and the middle horns a third.  And now the high trumpet strikes a phrase of its own.  But they are all in dancing swing, of the fibre of the first jolly motive.

A new episode is started by a quicker obligato of violins, in neighboring minor, that plays about a fugue of the woodwind on an incisive theme where the cadence has a strange taste of bitter sweet harmony in the modern Gallic manner.

[Music:  (Clarinets)
(Violas)
(Violins)
(Bass of brass and wood)]

Horns and violins now pursue their former duet, but in the changed hue of minor where the old concords are quaintly perverted.  But this is only to give a merrier ring to the bright madrigal that follows in sweetly clashing higher wood, with the trip still in the violins.  Thence the horns and violins break again into the duet in the original key.  Here the theme is wittily inverted in the bass, while other strings sing another version above.

So the jolly dance and the quaint fugue alternate; a recurring phrase is carried to a kind of dispute, with opposite directions above and below and much augmented motion in the strings.

In the dance so far, in “three time,” is ever the vigorous stamp on the third beat, typical of the German peasant “Laendler.”  Here of a sudden is a change as great as possible within the continuing dance of three steps.  “More tranquil” in pace, in soft strings, without a trace of the Laendler stamp, is a pure waltz in pretty imitation of tuneful theme.