[Music:  (Clarinets, horns and bassoons) (Flutes and oboes) Allegro commodo]

hearty conclusion in the jovially garrulous fugue.

Here the counter-theme proves to be one of the initial tunes and takes a leading role until another charming strain appears on high,—­a pure nursery rhyme crowning the learned fugue.  Even this is a guise of one of the original motives in the mazing medley, where it seems we could trace the ancestry of each if we could linger and if it really mattered.  And yet there is a rare charm in these subtle turns; it is the secret relevance that counts the most.

The fugue reaches a sturdy height with one of the first themes in lusty horns, and suddenly falls into a pleasant jingle, prattling away in the train of important figures, the kind that is pertinent with no outer likeness.

[Music:  Grazioso (Strings, bassoons and horns)]

Everywhere, to be sure, the little rhythmic cadence appears; the whole sounds almost like the old children’s canon on “Three Blind Mice”; indeed the themal inversion is here the main tune.  Then in the bass the phrase sounds twice as slow as in the horns.  There are capers and horseplay; a sudden shift of tone; a false alarm of fugue; suddenly we are back in the first placid verse of the rhythmic motive.

Here is a new augmentation in resonant horns and middle strings, and the melodious extension.  A former motive that rings out in high reed, seems to have the function of concluding each episode.

A new stretch of fugue appears with new counter-theme, that begins in long-blown notes of horns.  It really is no longer a fugue; it has lapsed into mere smooth-rolling motion underneath a verse of primal tune.  And presently another variant of graceful episode brings a delicious lilt,—­tender, but expressive.

[Music:  Grazioso espressivo (Strings)]

With all the subtle design there is no sense of the lamp, in the gentle murmur of quicker figure or melodious flow of upper theme.  Moving is the lyric power and sweetness of this multiple song.  As to themal relation,—­one feels like regarding it all as inspired madrigal, where the maze and medley is the thing, where the tunes are not meant to be distinguished.  It becomes an abandoned orgy of clearest counterpoint.  Throughout is a blending of fugue and of children’s romp, anon with the tenderness of lullaby and even the glow of love-song.  A brief mystic verse, with slow descending strain in the high wood, preludes the returning gambol of running strings, where the maze of fugue or canon is in the higher flowing song, with opposite course of answering tune, and a height of jolly revel, where the bright trumpet pours out the usual concluding phrase.  The rhythmic episode, in whimsical change, here sings with surprise of lusty volume.  So the merry round goes on to a big resonant Amen of final acclaim, where the little phrase steals out as naturally as in the beginning.