heed for all but a certain vein of
exotic romanticism, long ago run to riotous seed, a blending of hedonism
and fatalism. No other poetic message gets a hearing and the former may
be rung in endless repetition and reminiscence, provided, to be sure, it
be framed with brilliant cunning of workmanship.

Here we feel driven defiantly to enounce the truth: that the highest
art, even in a narrow sense, comes only with a true poetic message. Of
this Bruckner is a proof; for, if any man by pure knowledge could make a
symphony, it was he. But, with almost superhuman skill, there is
something wanting in the inner connection, where the main ideas are
weak, forced or borrowed. It is only the true poetic rapture that
ensures the continuous absorption that drives in perfect sequence to
irresistible conclusion.

_SYMPHONY NO. 9_

_I.--Solenne._ Solemn mystery is the mood, amid trembling strings on
hollow unison, before the eight

[Music: _Misterioso_
(Eight horns with _tremolo_ strings on D in three octaves)]

horns strike a phrase in the minor chord that in higher echoes breaks
into a strange harmony and descends into a turn of melodic cadence. In
answer is another chain of brief phrases, each beginning

[Music: (1st violins)
(Lower reeds with strings _tremolo_ in all but basses)]

with a note above the chord (the common mark and manner of the later
school of harmonists[A]) and a new ascent on a literal ladder of
subtlest progress, while hollow intervals are intermingled in the pinch
of close harmonies. The bewildering maze here begins of multitudinous
design, enriched with modern devices.

[Footnote A: See Vol. II, note, page 104.]

A clash of all the instruments acclaims the climax before the unison
stroke of fullest chorus on the solemn note of the beginning. A favorite
device of Bruckner, a measured tread of _pizzicato_ strings with
interspersed themal motives, precedes the romantic episode. Throughout
the movement is this alternation of liturgic chorale with tender melody.

[Music: _Molto tranquillo_
(Strings) _espressivo_
(Oboes and horns)]

Bruckner's pristine polyphonic manner ever appears in the double strain
of melodies, where each complements, though not completes the other.
However multiple the plan, we cannot feel more than the quality of
_unusual_ in the motives themselves, of some interval of ascent or
descent. Yet as the melody grows to larger utterance, the fulness of
polyphonic art brings a beauty