Then the piano sings a Caruso-like serenade and plucked strings pulse like a big guitar. Memory is distilled, time is momentarily arrested and the solo continues alone in a somnambulent cadenza. The orchestra enters with a grisly memory of the diabolic dance and draws the solo along with it, until the piano assumes veritably orchestral sonority. A sudden diminuendo, and a low tremolo on the piano rumbles like distant thunder. Above this, the solo makes valedictory reference to the Neapolitan song in sombre low octaves, answered by opaque woodwind echoes.
Gloom submerges everything in the diabolic darkness of the dance of death.
Oriental scales on the piano vanish like vapour. A sad defeated fanfare on a ruined glory of D major, and a string chord hangs like a breath on the air. This master-building in music contains an introduction and three parts conceived on the grandest scale and executed in the grandest manner. The lower strings initiate a baroque bass in D flat, and clarinet, bassoon and viola intone a stark recitative. A full close leads to agitated woodwind tremolandos under the dramatic dirge of unison oboe and cor anglais.