The first violin theme, which was represented by the inside of St. Florian's church as an inner or overlaid image in the last painting, now becomes the outer, background image, but continues with its St. Florian motive. This depiction of St. Florian being thrown off the bridge slowly increases its scale as the dynamic level progresses from pianissimo to fortissimo. In the 5th measure (No. 43) this painting of a painting fractures to the harp scales which move by fifths around the color-harmony wheel, slowly decreasing in size until once again reaching a pianissimo level.
The cellos and double-basses are represented by the now inner Alpine image and the changing values of the glazes. In order to make the increasing and decreasing dynamic levels very clear visually I painted the same peak at each different scale, as in the last Scherzo painting. All strips from the same dynamic level were painted together; when they are arranged into their original order the viewer's eye moves back and forth across the painting. The last measure is solely landscape fracturing to the little melodic bridge in the second horns connecting the first theme to the second theme.
The red line beginning in the 3rd measure (No. 42) of the painting starts in the trombone line and continues with the bassoons. It appears in the painting as an ornament floating in front of St. Florian's and the Alps.
The green-yellow glaze of Ab major continues from the last painting until the 2nd measure (No. 40), where this color is mixed with yellow because the Ab major is now a greyed-orange hue, representing a diminished-7th chord of Gb major. A much purer circle of fifths and the color wheel by fifth intervals. That means that the color change in a very smooth, orderly way, except for the C chord, which is C minor yellow instead of C-major blue. The painting ends on a G-major purple.
The first theme plays against faintly pulsing chords in the strings. The small articulations in these chords , which sound like breathing, are subtle and must be represented visually in an appropriate way. This treatment of articulation is very different from the articulations in the Scherzo where spaces were left between the strips while the architectural images were being painted, resulting in broken lines in the finished painting. Here I painted the same landscape twice, once in blue tonalities and once in greens. Whenever a "breath" appears in the background chords the image changes to the other landscape. The eye thus moves back and forth horizontally, albeit softly, due to the ambiguous nature of the lines and forms in landscape. The subtle change in color underlines these articulations. The last three measures are composed solely of the blue landscape as the chord pulsations have ended.
The theme (in the violins) appears as St. Florian's over the background landscape. This painting, like the other tow paintings in the Adagio, therefore takes the "image overlay" form, the height of the image module determined by dynamic changes. The image within the module fractures to the melody.
The pink line appearing in front of both St. Florian's and the Alps moves independently to the 3rd and 4th horns. Glaze values express the double-bass 8th-note accents during the first four measures. They then move to the second violins, which are echoed exactly by the flutes and the first violins (embodied in St. Florian's) through the remainder of the painting.
The first painting begins in Db major, or yellow, Followed by a series of German-sixth chords which also pass through Bb minor (orange), then up a half step to B major, remaining orange. In the 8th measure (No.36) of the painting the music enters Eb minor, and then goes to Ab major or green-yellow-- ending on a half-measure-rest harmonic glaze. After the beginning of the painting much of the glaze is very grey as much of the movement is very dissonant. The German-sixth chords alone carry a dissonant value of 5, which means 50% complementary col