This finale sees the flowering of the motto theme which had preceded the first three movements, but had remained unharmonised. Here it precedes the movement played by a string quartet, and brings the symphony to a culmination. In the middle of composing this movement, my wife, after 41 years of marriage, died of Motor Neurone Disease. I have marked the place where she died with a little cross in the sore and have quoted at this point a couple of bars from my first Violin Sonata which I wrote for her in 1959 when we first started going out together. I hope I can be forgiven for the blatant quote from the Tristan Liebestod at the end of the symphony.