[Music: 1st theme]
[Music: 2d theme]
The work opens with a series of restless dotted notes for the
stringsff which diminish and retard to an entrance of the first
theme, più lento, for the pianoforte; the two phrases of which
are interrupted by a passage, somewhat modified, from the in-
troduction. Some preludial measures, expanding the material
presented, bring us at B[283] to a premonitory statement of the
second themepp(in wood-wind and pizzicato strings) over a
muffled roll of the kettle-drums on C-sharp,e.g.
[Music]
[Footnote 283: The indication by letters is the same in the full
score as in the version for two pianofortes.]
Then follows a long rhapsodic presentation of the first theme
for pianoforte solo—the melody in octaves and the accompani-
ment in the widest arpeggios possible. This passage is one of
great sonority and reveals clearly the influence of the organ upon
Franck’s style. Some further measures of general development,
containing at E a reminiscence of the first theme, bring us (after
an elaborate half-cadence on the dominant of F-sharp minor) to
the entrance of the second theme. Now that all the melodic
material has been presented, Franck allows it to grow and blos-
som. In the first variation at F we have phrases of the second
theme broken up into a dialogue between strings, wood-wind
and pianoforte; and in the second at G the violas and ’cellos
sing the whole second theme accompanied by some ingenious
figuration on the pianoforte. This is followed at H by a brilliant
amplification for the solo instrument, lightly accompanied on
the orchestra, of phrases already heard and leads at I to a for-
tissimo orchestral tutti in D major—the next variation—which
proclaims a portion of the second theme. This is developed
with great power on both instruments and is combined, nine
measures after J, with a variant of the first theme. At K there
is a bold treatment of the second theme (sostenuto) for oboes
and clarinets against rushing octaves on the pianoforte.
At L we have some further development of the second theme,
the melody being in the strings with a background of broken
triplet chords on the pianoforte. We now reach at M—molto
più lento—the most poetic variation of the work. All the ’cel-