38
On the repetition of this tune (on a pedal A, in the 'Cellos), the First Violin accompanies it with an independent melody of great charm (see (a) in quotation). The Andante is eighteen bars long, and it gives place at once to the Adagio, in its old key. The tune is now varied, after Beethoven's own noble, incomparable manner, by the First Violins, in semiquaver figures; and the treatment of the Wind and the other Strings in the first portion is entirely different from what it was before. After each section of the tune has been completed, the Clarinets and their companions echo the concluding notes as before, and with the same accompaniment.
This done, the Andante returns, but now in the key of G. The tune remains unaltered; but it is taken by the Flutes and reed instruments. On the repetition, the accompanying melody in the First Violins (a, No. 28) is strengthened and made more prominent.
We now return to the Adagio, and arrive at a most beautiful section of the movement. The melody (in E-flat) is given by the Clarinets and Bassoons, with a deep Horn as Bass, and occasional pizzicato notes distributed over the Strings. The effect of the opening is so strange and so beautiful that we give a skeleton of the first few bars. Note the G-flat (*) and the extraordinary effect produced by the distance between the melody and the bass:—
