A foolishly ironical piece initially conceived as the scherzo of a symphony. Built in classical A-B-A form, it presents a high level of contrapuntal complexity. Duration ca. 6'

A Scherzo (allegro)

4 themes:

1) A short and speedy descending chromatic figure used here firstly as an introduction.

2) First fugue: strings/pizz., bars 2 - 17

- Letter A, bar 18, transition (chromatic descending figure) in canon (2 voices).

3) Second fugue: woodwinds, bars 21 - 33

- Letter B, bar 34, transition in canon (2 voices, chromatic descending figure).

4) Third fugue: brasses, bars 36 - 52

- Letter C, bar 53, transition in stretto (4 entries, chromatic descending figure).

5) Bars 56 - 74: superposition of the three fugal themes.

B Trio (tempo di valse)

The 'Trio' is burlesque. At letter D, it opens on C major arpeggio evoking the main theme of Joseph Haydn's 97th symphony, first movement "vivace".

At bars 77 - 84, strings play a comical and dancing theme (tempo di valse).

At bar 85, a variant of Haydn's theme becoming... the first movement of Bruckner's fourth symphony!

A' Scherzo

Letter F, bar 148: the scherzo suddenly returns and the chromatic descending motive with two repeated noted added on its head is transformed into a fourth and longer fugue for strings (arco). The culmination of this fugue, stretto at bar 183, leads to a rhetorical point of no return (bar 186) where everything irreversibly rushes towards the close in a hysterical combination of the four main themes.

The end of Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" here comes to mind...

Bars 198 - 201: superposition of the stretto of theme (2) (pizzicato fugue) and (3) (woodwind fugue)

Bars 204 - 208: stretto of theme (4) (brass fugue)

Bars 218 - 224: saturation, recapitulation of all fugal themes each time interrupted by sharp, massive and dissonant "tutti" chords!

Letter J, bar 225: a phantomatic remembering of the fourth fugue, and bars 228 - 231, of the chromatic descending figure.

Bar 232: "Pied de nez", 'Tempo di valse', very short, ironical and abbrupt conclusion on C major arpeggio (Haydn theme).