The Adagio and Scherzo are built upon the same figure of bass.  The theme of the Trio is acclaimed by a German annotator as the reverse of the first motive of the symphony.

In the prelude of the Finale, much as in the Ninth of Beethoven, are passed in review the main themes of the earlier movements.  Each one is answered by an eccentric phrase that had its origin in the first movement and is now extended to a fugal theme.

The climactic figure is a new hymnal line that moves as central theme of an imposing double fugue.]

CHAPTER XV

THE LATER BRUCKNER

In Bruckner’s later works appears the unique instance of a discipline grounded in the best traditions, united to a deft use of ephemeral devices.  The basic cause of modern mannerism, mainly in harmonic effects, lies in a want of formal mastery; an impatience of thorough technic; a craving for quick sensation.  With Bruckner it was the opposite weakness of original ideas, an organic lack of poetic individuality.  It is this the one charge that cannot be brought home to the earlier German group of reaction against the classic idea.

There is melody, almost abundant, in Wagner and Liszt and their German contemporaries.  Indeed it was an age of lyricists.  The fault was that they failed to recognize their lyric limitation, lengthening and padding their motives abnormally to fit a form that was too large.  Hence the symphony of Liszt, with barren stretches, and the impossible plan of the later music-drama.  The truest form of such a period was the song, as it blossomed in the works of a Franz.

Nor has this grandiose tendency even yet spent its course.  A saving element was the fashioning of a new form, by Liszt himself,—­the Symphonic Poem,—­far inferior to the symphony, but more adequate to the special poetic intent.

Whatever be the truth of personal gossip, there is no doubt that Bruckner lent himself and his art to a championing of the reactionary cause in the form that was intrinsically at odds with its spirit.  Hence in later works of Bruckner these strange episodes of borrowed romance, abruptly stopped by a firm counterpoint of excellent quality,—­indeed far the best of his writing.  For, if a man have little ideas, at least his good workmanship will count for something.

In truth, one of the strangest types is presented in Bruckner,—­a pedant who by persistent ingenuity simulates a master-work almost to perfection.  By so much as genius is not an infinite capacity for pains, by so much is Bruckner’s Ninth not a true symphony.  Sometimes, under the glamor of his art, we are half persuaded that mere persistence may transmute pedantry into poetry.

It seems almost as if the Wagnerians chose their champion in the symphony with a kind of suppressed contempt for learning, associating mere intellectuality with true mastery, pointing to an example of greatest skill and least inspiration as if to say:  “Here is your symphonist if you must have one.”  And it is difficult to avoid a suspicion that his very partisans were laughing up their sleeve at their adopted champion.