Page:Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (Grove).djvu/32

28 —put second. It is in the same key with the Allegro and, like all Beethoven's other orchestral Scherzos, in triple time. It has been called "a miracle of repetition without monotony"; and truly it is so; for it is not only founded upon, it may almost be said to consist of one single phrase of three notes, which is said to have come suddenly into Beethoven's mind as he stepped out of his house into the night brilliant with stars.

That there may be no mistake as to his intention, he opens this—at once the longest and greatest of his Scherzos—with a prelude of twelve bars, in which the phrase in question is given four times successively in the four intervals of the chord of D minor:—

No. 18.

The movement then starts pianissimo (and, observe, almost wholly in consecutive notes) in the Second Violin, the Oboe accenting the first note of each bar. After four bars, the Viola answers "in the fourth below "in strict imitation, accompanied by the Clarinet. Then, at intervals of four bars, the 'Cello, First