“However, I have wandered from the point without answering your question. _Our_ symphony has a programme. That is to say, it is possible to express its contents in words, and I will tell you--and you alone--the meaning of the entire work and of its separate movements. Naturally I can only do so as regards its general features. “The Introduction is the germ, the leading idea of the whole work. [Illustration: musical notation] “This is Fate, that inevitable force which checks our aspirations towards happiness ere they reach the goal, which watches jealously lest our peace and bliss should be complete and cloudless--a force which, like the sword of Damocles, hangs perpetually over our heads and is always embittering the soul. This force is inescapable and invincible. There is no other course but to submit and inwardly lament. [Illustration: musical notation] “The sense of hopeless despair grows stronger and more poignant. Is it not better to turn from reality and lose ourselves in dreams? [Illustration: musical notation] O joy! A sweet and tender dream enfolds me. A bright and serene presence leads me on. [Illustration: musical notation] How fair! How remotely now is heard the first theme of the Allegro! Deeper and deeper the soul is sunk in dreams. All that was dark and joyless is forgotten. “Here is happiness! “It is but a dream, Fate awakens us roughly. [Illustration: musical notation] So all life is but a continual alternation between grim truth and fleeting dreams of happiness. There is no haven. The waves drive us hither and thither, until the sea engulfs us. This is, approximately, the programme of the first movement. “The second movement expresses another phase of suffering. Now it is the melancholy which steals over us when at evening we sit indoors alone, weary of work, while the book we have picked up for relaxation slips unheeded from our fingers. A long procession of old memories goes by. How sad to think how much is already _past and gone_! And yet these recollections of youth are sweet. We regret the past, although we have neither courage nor desire to start a new life. We are rather weary of existence. We would fain rest awhile and look back, recalling many things. There were moments when young blood pulsed warm through our veins and life gave all we asked. There were also moments of sorrow, irreparable loss. All this has receded so far into the past. How sad, yet sweet to lose ourselves therein!