musicians of old

Chapter 758 “Untitled” (Part )
"The struggle between light and darkness."

This untitled piece of music has undoubtedly taken the "philosophy of binary opposition" to its extreme!

The ultimate in both form and content!!
Many listeners hoped that this ray of "Hymn of Light" could continue, but it was ultimately short-lived, too short. After the band's disastrous performance, darkness once again enveloped the square.

The last minute or so of the film was completely "supported by a few fragmented pieces of material" to "crawl to the end."

From being weak to lifeless, the whole movement ends in dead silence.

The real turning point begins in the third movement.

“re/fa/la——xi/do/re/fa/xi——.”

The horn player played a lively, jumping up and down Scherzo theme in D major.

This is the "turning motivation".

Ahead of the tunnel of darkness and chaos, a hint of different color seemed to appear.

It can’t be called “light” yet, but at least this color is lively and warm, different from the darkness and chaos.

Turning point, Fanning regards it as hope!
The background of its birth stems from the "subsequent ideological influence" of the interview at that time.

It is connected by a 5-bar transition phrase, which turns into a salon-style waltz melody in B flat major. Then, the viola leads to an endless satirical passage, and strange sounds such as the glockenspiel soon join in.
“The musical ideas are thoroughly kneaded, and not a single note is left unmixed and transformed. Each note is full of vitality, and everything is involved in a whirlwind dance. There is not much discussion of romanticism or mysticism here, but only the transformation and evolution between power and power. This is the process of displaying the vitality of human beings who long for the glory of daylight.”

Fanning once interpreted it this way when directing musicians in rehearsal.

A surprising movement that takes up a quarter of the entire work's performance time.

This may be the largest and most complex scherzo movement in the history of symphony that citizens have ever heard!

Although the opening is filled with joy and vitality, forming a sharp contrast with the tragic first part, the audience, as the main appreciator, can still feel the rift between themselves and the world.

The most vivid manifestation of this tension is the strange mixture of multiple musical styles: the distorted "Leandro" dance meets the heterogeneous rest of the motives.

In the following expanded paragraph, there is the dynamic "dotted stay - descending three notes" motive and the lyrical monologue interpreted by the French horn in a melancholy tone.

They are always "disturbed" by various counterpoint voices, and even these messy trivialities completely overshadow the lyrical monologue.

But when the music seemed to be in chaos and out of control, the French horn returned with a full sound.

The audience must reposition themselves in a hybrid world, and in the end they find themselves having done just that.

Amid the chaos and playfulness of the music, I actually experienced a kind of spiritual satisfaction of standing firm.

Then, Fanning’s left hand drew ripples in the air, and the baton fell like a swan’s neck.

The fourth movement, "Andante".

The string group emerged from the lake in a pianissimo style, and the harp's arpeggios condensed into frost on the strings like moonlight.

The amplitude of the vibrato is precisely controlled, and the ominous motive is filtered out of all its sharpness.

The moving music flows slowly, simply, peacefully and intoxicatingly.

The narrative subject of the "struggle between light and darkness" in the symphony is isolated from the world in the Adagio, leaving only unreserved beauty, sprinkled into the sweet and sour ripples of the harp.

In the middle section, the air is filled with the bitter scent of myrrh, and the theme melody develops, constantly changing keys and falling into a sad minor key.

"here."

The audience in the square remembered something, and some people in the band also looked up.

A poignant musical figure, leaping up an octave and down a seventh, then climbing again affectionately.

Look up, look down.

"Tristan and Isolde? 'Gaze Motive'?"

"The first meeting in bars 45-48 of the prelude, and then the affectionate gaze between the hero and heroine."

Is the composer paying homage to his previous work?

What was he thinking when he wrote this part of the "Adagio"?

Using the sweetest melody to brew the most bitter poison?
Fanning's gaze lingered on the right for a moment, as if it had lingered there for a moment, but then moved back without a trace. Perhaps he had no intention of deliberately avoiding it, he just needed to indicate the beat of the percussion instrument in the next measure. The timpanist stroked the drumhead with his mallet, like the last heartbeat of a dying person.

A part of my memory was suddenly cut out, and there seemed to be a crisp sound of paper tearing in the void, and the icicle-like arpeggios of the harp pierced the tonic of F major.

With a sigh-like glissando, the theme reappears.

Looking back will eventually fade away.

At the beginning of the final movement, the narrative subject will inevitably fall back into the process of struggle.

"la——mi——la————"

The beginning of the song is three long notes introduced by the French horn, which are almost identical to the "breathing motive" in the "Giant" of the "First Symphony in D Major".

After Fanning introduced it with a steady hand gesture, he revealed an inexplicable expression of emotion and cut down with his left hand.

"Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da."

The clarinet plays a lively theme written in staccato.

There was a small group of audience members who somehow just laughed out loud.

Mr. Wax in the front row frowned and moved closer to the leader again to report something.

"what happened?"

"Is this a discovery?"

The others around the laugher gave him puzzled looks, and some even couldn't help but speak in low voices.

"Another one from The Boy's Magic Horn, 'Praise for Sublime Reason'."

Some of these masters, poets, professors, music critics or folklorists put their hands over their mouths and whispered a few words to explain.

"Praising noble reason? Such a profound and philosophical title. How can it be funny?"

"Oh, there is another translation, 'praise for people with high intelligence'."

"what?"

"It's a fairy tale about a forest. The nightingale and the cuckoo have a singing contest, and then a donkey is invited to be the judge."

The masters or scholars explained quickly and then signaled us to keep listening and stop talking.

Before, there was such a depressing atmosphere of death, such a serious struggle between light and darkness, and an unforgettable confession. Suddenly there came such a "quote". This master Fanning really knows how to play. The key is that in terms of musical characteristics, it is not frivolous, and it quickly expanded in a broad direction.

After the exposition turns to allegro, the French horn plays a four-note descending motive, and other instruments imitate and develop it.

The cello then plays the running theme of eighth notes and makes a fugue movement.

Fugue!

The main part of the final chapter is actually a fugue! !
This is the rebirth of the funeral march in the first movement - the wailing that was originally curled up in C sharp minor is now stretched into a brilliant fugue theme, raising its head in the golden sound waves of the brass group!

The other parts followed the cello in fugue response, but while most people focused on their "imitation beats", some people noticed that the original violin was now playing another new and clear counterpoint!

No, not brand new.

This is the "Hymn of Light" that had briefly appeared in the first and second movements before!
It’s just that now its form is a “tightened” or “gradual” version.

The overall speed is twice as fast, and the hymn-like connotation is not as strong. Instead, it is more like a lively tune of secularization and localization.

Various elements converge like hundreds of rivers, even the tender middle melody in the "Adagio" is joined in, transformed into a march-like steel pace, forming a new fugue passage!
The power is constantly gathering and there is no end.

It undergoes real variation and development, an exciting brew of energy, like a spring compressed to its full tact.

At a certain moment, Fanning's left hand suddenly grabbed at the void.

The brass instruments roared in response, the trumpets played the deformed theme motive, and the trombones followed closely behind with close response. The sound waves seemed to create a visible cyclone under the stage dome!
His polyphonic technique was like a miracle to the audience at this moment. The double and triple fugues collided loudly in the torrent, and the tearing sound of the strings created a strong counterpoint climax!
The struggle between light and dark?
It just confirms the old motto handed down from the era of the "Grand Court School": "As above, so below; as within, so without." The authenticity and original purpose of the whole piece suddenly awakens, and the fugue theme completes its ultimate transformation at the last moment!

The originally narrow second interval jumps to a ninth, and the brass of fff reproduces the complete form of "The Hymn of Light" in bar 712. This time, it continues to develop for a full 32 bars, spreading out into a radiant brilliance at the end of the long night! !