"He is just like his father"
(_Ganz der Papa_), say the aunts. "He is the image of his mother" (_Ganz
die Mama_), say the uncles.
The second part of the symphony is a scherzo which represents the child
at play; there are terribly noisy games, games of Herculean gaiety, and
you can hear the parents talking all over the house. How far we seem
from Schumann's good little children and their simple-hearted families!
At last the child is put to bed; they rock him to sleep, and the clock
strikes seven. Night comes. There are dreams and some uneasy sleep. Then
a love scene.... The clock strikes seven in the morning. Everybody wakes
up, and there is a merry discussion. We hear a double fugue in which the
theme of the man and the theme of the woman contradict each other with
exasperating and ludicrous obstinacy; and the man has the last word.
Finally there is the apotheosis of the child and family life.
Such a programme serves rather to lead the listener astray than to guide
him. It spoils the idea of the work by emphasising its anecdotal and
rather comic side. For without doubt the comic side is there, and
Strauss has warned us in vain that he did not wish to make an amusing
picture of married life, but to praise the sacredness of marriage and
parenthood; but he possesses such a strong vein of humour that it cannot
help getting the better of him.
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