本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛The final movement is the great Passacaglia, cap-stone to the whole edifice. Some may find in it the same esthetic significance as in the finale of Beethoven's "Eroica." On a theme eight measures long are built masterly variations and a coda. The pervading motive is always present, in one or another form, and with different orchestrations. It is variously altered and disguised, but if examined shows how closely Brahms is sticking to his text. After each one of the variants it would be fair, to applaud, save that some of them go too deep for applause and can only be rendered silent homage. One of these is the twelfth variation for the solo flute, over soft chords of horns and violins; others are the fourteenth, with its chorale for the trombones; the passionate seventeenth and eighteenth; the song of the wind instruments in variation 28. But it is inadvisable and superfluous to con-fuse the listener by reference to details in this movement. Indeed, nothing is more striking than the manner in which the variations are put together. 'Thus the movement is not a series of episodes, but rather of linked evolutions of a single thought, with a final great sweep from the sixteenth variation, when the theme is uttered with such magnificent energy by the brass choir, to the end. It could be said that Brahms had been unconsciously preparing himself for the composition of this Passacaglia through many years of gradually acquired mastery of the variation form. The movement is his last symphonic will and testament. Some consider that the Fourth Symphony represents the end of a long musical epoch, and they explain its pervading spirit as the farewell of a master whose thoughts turned away from the present and back to the faith of his great forbears--Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Schubert. But this noble and reflective work appears more secure, and more rather than less in touch with living musical thought as the years pass. If this be resignation it is the resignation of strength, faith, awareness of the indestructibility of thought and beauty.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net