Symphonies and Their Meaning Part 16

abandon as of primitive dance. Strings stir the feet; the horns blow the first motive of the savage tune; the upper wood fall in with a das.h.i.+ng jingle,--like a stroke of cymbals across the hostile harmonies.

Whether a recurring idiom is merely personal or belongs to the special work is difficult to tell. In reality it matters little. Here the strange rising tone is the same as in the former (second) melody. In the rude vigor of harmonies the primitive idea is splendidly stressed.

Right in the answer is a guise of short, nervous phrase, that gets a new touch of bizarre by a leap of the seventh from below. In this figure that moves throughout the symphony we see an outward symbol of an inner connection.--Bells soon lend a festive ring to the main tune.

In quieter pace comes a tranquil song of lower voices with a companion melody above,--all in serene major. Though it grew naturally out of the rude

[Music: _Molto cantabile_]

dance, the tune has a contrasting charm of idyll and, too, harks back to the former lyric strains that followed the second melody. When the dance returns, there is instead of discussion a mere extension of main motive in full chorus.

But here in the midst the balance is more than restored. From the dance that ceases abruptly we go straight to school or rather cloister. On our recurring nervous phrase a fugue is rung with all pomp and ceremony (_meno mosso_); and of the dance there are mere faint echoing memories, when the

[Music: _Meno mosso_ (Oboe) _molto marcato_ (Violins) staccato]

fugal text seems for a moment to weave itself into the first tune.

Instead, comes into the midst of sermon a hymnal chant, blown gently by the bra.s.s, while other stray

[Music: _Leggiero_]

voices run lightly on the thread of fugue. There is, indeed, a playful suggestion of the dance somehow in the air. A final tempest of the fugue[A] brings us back to the full verse of dance and the following melodies. But before the end sounds a broad hymnal line in the bra.s.s with a dim thread of the fugue, and the figures steal away in solemn stillness.

[Footnote A: It is of the first two notes of the symphony that the fugal theme is made. For though it is longer in the strings, the brief motion is ever accented in the wood. Thus relentless is the themal coherence.

If we care to look closer we see how the (following) chant is a slower form of the fugal theme, while the ba.s.s is in the line of the dance-tune. In the chant in turn we cannot escape a reminder, if not a likeness, of the second theme of the first movement.]

_III._--The Adagio has one princ.i.p.al burden, first borne by violins,--that rises from the germ of earlier

[Music: _Adagio_ (Strings with added harmony in ba.s.soons and horns)]

lyric strains. Then the clarinet joins in a quiet madrigal of tender phrases. We are tempted to find here an influence from a western fas.h.i.+on, a taint of polythemal virtuosity, in this mystic maze of many strains harking from all corners of the work, without a gain over an earlier Russian simplicity. Even the Slavic symphony seems to have fallen into a state of artificial cunning, where all manners of greater

[Music: (Solo clarinet) _espress._ (Divided strings) _dolce_]

or lesser motives are packed close in a tangled ma.s.s.

It cannot be said that a true significance is achieved in proportion to the number of concerting themes. We might dilate on the sheer inability of the hearer to grasp a clear outline in such a multiple plot.

There is somehow a false kind of polyphony, a too great facility of spurious counterpoint, that differs subtly though sharply from the true art where the number entails no loss of individual quality; where the separate melodies move by a divine fitness that measures the perfect conception of the multiple idea; where there is no thought of a later padding to give a s.h.i.+mmer of profound art. It is here that the symphony is in danger from an exotic style that had its origin in German music-drama.

From this point the Rachmaninow symphony languishes in the fountain of its fresh inspiration, seems consciously constructed with calculating care.

There is, after all, no virtue in itself in mere themal interrelation,--in particular of lesser phrases. One cogent theme may well prevail as text of the whole. As the recurring motives are multiplied, they must lose individual moment. The listener's grasp becomes more difficult, until there is at best a mystic maze, a sweet chaos, without a clear melodic thought. It cannot be maintained that the perception of the modern audience has kept pace with the complexity of scores. Yet there is no gainsaying an alluring beauty of these waves of sound rising to fervent height in the main melody that is expressive of a modern wistfulness.

But at the close is a fierce outbreak of the first motto, with a defiance of regret, in faster, reckless pace, brief, but suddenly recurring. Exquisite is this

[Music: (Ob.) _cantabile_ (Strings, wood and horns)]

cooing of voices in mournful bits of the motto, with a timid upper phrase in the descending tone.

On we go in the piling of Ossa on Pelion, where the motto and even the Scherzo dance lend their text. Yet all is fraught with sentient beauty as, rising in t.i.tanic climb, it plunges into an overwhelming cry in the Adagio melody. Throughout, the ascending and descending tones, close interwoven, give a blended hue of arduous striving and regret.

After a pause follow a series of refrains of solo voices in the melody, with muted strings, with mingled strains of the motto. In the ba.s.s is an undulation that recalls the second theme of former movement. And the clarinet returns with its mystic madrigal of melody; now the Adagio theme enters and gives it point and meaning. In one more burst it sings in big and little in the same alluring harmony, whence it dies down to soothing close in brilliant gamut as of sinking sun.

_IV.--Allegro vivace._ Throwing aside the clinging

[Music: _Allegro vivace_ _Molto marcato_ (Strings, wood and horns with reinforced harmonies)]

fragments of fugue in the prelude we rush into a gaiety long sustained.

Almost strident is the ruthless merriment; we are inclined to fear that the literal coherence of theme is greater than the inner connection of mood. At last the romp hushes to a whisper of drum, with strange patter of former dance. And following and accompanying it is a new hymnal (or is it martial) line, as it were the reverse of the other

[Music: (Reeds and horns) (Strings with the quicker dance phrase of 2d movement)]

chant. The gay figures flit timidly back,--a struggle 'twixt pleasure and fate,--but soon regain control.

If we cared to interpret, we might find in the Finale a realized aspiration. The truth is the humors of the themal phrases, as of the movements, jar: they are on varying planes. The coa.r.s.er vein of the last is no solace to the n.o.ble grief of the foregoing.

Again the change or series of moods is not clearly defined. They seem a parade of visions. The hymn may be viewed as a guise of the former chant of the Scherzo, with the dance-trip in lowest ba.s.s.

Straight from the rush and romp we plunge anew into a trance of sweet memories. The lyric vein here binds together earlier strains, whose kins.h.i.+p had not appeared. They seemed less significant, hidden as subsidiary ideas. If we care to look back we find a germ of phrase in the first Prelude, and then the answer of the second (Allegro) theme of first movement. There was, too, the sweep of dual melody following the rude dance of Scherzo. Above all is here the essence and spirit of the central Adagio melody of the symphony.

The answering strain is of high beauty, with a melting sense of farewell. From the sad ecstasy is a

[Music: (Strings with higher and lower 8ve.) (Wood and horns in 8ves.) (Ba.s.ses of strings and reeds)]

descent to mystic musing, where abound the symbols of rising and falling tones. More and more moving is the climactic melody of regret with a blended song in large and little. Most naturally it sinks into a full verse of the Adagio tune--whence instantly is aroused a new battle of moods.

While the dance capers below, above is the sobbing phrase from the heart of the Adagio. The trip falls into the pace of hymnal march. The shadows of many figures return. Here is the big descending scale in tragic minor from the first movement. Large it looms, in ba.s.s and treble. Answering it is a figure of sustained thirds that recalls the former second (Allegro) melody. And still the trip of dance goes on.

Sharpest and strongest of all these memories is the big sigh of sombre harmonies from the first Largo prelude, answered by the original legend.

And the dance still goes tripping on and the tones rumble in descent.

The dance has vanished; no sound but the drone of dull, falling tones, that multiply like the spirits of the sorcerer apprentice, in large form and small, with the big rumbling in a quick patter as of scurrying mice.

Suddenly a new spirit enters with gathering volume and warmer harmony.

As out of a dream we gradually emerge, at the end with a shock of welcome to light and day, as we awake to the returning glad dance. And here is a new entrancing counter-tune above that crowns the joy.

Once again the skip falls into the ominous descent with the phantom of Scherzo dance in ba.s.ses. Now returns the strange hymnal line of march and the other anxious hue.

But quickly they are transformed into the tempest of gaiety in full parade. When a new burst is preparing, we see the sighing figure all changed to opposite mood. The grim tune of Scherzo dance enters mysteriously in big and little and slowly takes on a softened hue, losing the savage tinge.

After the returning dance, the farewell melody sings from full throat.

Before the ending revel we may feel a glorified guise of the sombre legend of the symphony.

CHAPTER XII