f all
sounds is the answer in dulcet trumpet while, above, the first theme
intrudes softly.

The heart of the idyll comes in a song of the clarinet

[Music: (Cl. _espressivo_)
(_Pizz._ strings with higher 8ve. of upper voice)
(Wood and horn and strings) (Clar. and bassoons)]

against strange, murmuring strings, ever with a soft answer of the lower
reed.

New invading sprites do not hem the flight of the melody. But at the
height a redoubled pace turns the mood back to revelling mirth with
broken bits of the horn tune. Indeed the crisis comes with a new rage of
this symbol of mad abandon, in demonic strife with the fervent song that
finally prevails.

The first theme returns with a new companion in the highest wood. A
fresh strain of serious melody is now woven about the former dulcet
melody of trumpet in a stretch of delicate poesy, of mingled mirth and
tenderness.--The harmonies have something of the infinitesimal sounds
that only insects hear. With all virtuous recoil, here we must confess
is a masterpiece of cacophonic art, a new world of tones hitherto
unconceived, tinkling and murmuring with the eerie charm of the
forest.--In the return of the first prelude is a touch of the descending
tone. From the final revelling tempest comes a sudden awakening. In
strange moving harmony sings slowly the descending symbol, as if
confessing the unsuccessful flight from regret. Timidly the vanquished
sprites scurry away.

_IV._--The first notes of the Finale blend and bring back the main
motives. First is the descending tone, but firm and resolute, with the
following triplet in

[Music: _Allegro energico_ (Higher figure in strings & wood)
(Wood, horns and lower strings) (Strings and wood)]

inversion of the Scherzo theme.

It is all in triumphant spirit. From the start the mood reigns, the art
for once is quite subordinate. Resonant and compelling is the motive of
horns and trumpets, new in temper, though harking back to the earlier
text, in its cogent ending. Splendid is

[Music: (Strings)
(Wood & strings doubled below)
(Horns and trumpets)]

the soaring flight through flashes of new chords. There is, we must
yield, something Promethean, of new and true beauty, in the bold path of
harmonies that the French are teaching us after a long age of slavish
rules.

The harking back is here better than in most modern symphonies with
their pedantic subtleties: in the resurgence of joyous mood, symbolized
by the inversi