With a descending fifth, a melancholic twelve-tone melody enters allegro moderato in the solo violin. Immediately, the flute and clarinet enter with a counter-theme. Following the violin theme, two phrases of this almost desolately beautiful melody can be discerned, which meditatively unfolds in the violin against all the dissonances of reality. The second phase of the violin melody repeats the melody an octave higher. Listening more closely to the flutes and clarinets, one notices triplets whose restlessness disturbs the contemplative calm of the violin melody. The basses accompany with rhythmically exciting pizzicati, mostly in a driving descending ninth figure. Then the cellos and bassoons take over the assertive opening theme with its descending fifth. A violent agitation from the solo violin and orchestra is brought to a resigned end by double stops on the violin. Thus, in this exposition, all the musical elements of this meditation on death and life are already present—albeit still hidden.

The secondary theme is introduced by the flute, followed—a fifth lower—by the clarinet. The secondary theme takes up the already introduced triplet motif and develops it lyrically. The strings preface this lyrical theme with a lively, lilting motif. The secondary theme is then taken up in a singing style by the solo violin, and later prominently by the solo horn. Descending pizzicatos are introduced. The lively, lilting motif asserts itself once more before the music fades in the solo violin and the development section begins.

Now the violas enter, contrasted by the cellos' counter-theme, with the inversion of the melancholic opening melody. Canonically and with a dense twelve-tone texture, the orchestral parts form the basis for the violin's subsequent free improvisation, whose theme originates from the counter-theme. The opening theme reappears in the first horn. At the end of the violin solo, the lilting, dance-like, life-affirming theme reappears, first introduced by the woodwinds, then by the strings and the entire orchestra, building to a climax where the triplet motif appears in the trumpet and upon the solo violin's re-entry.

Simultaneously with this new double-stop violin solo, the strings begin the reprise of the opening theme, which is immediately countered by the counter-theme in the winds. But the potential of the themes and their motifs is far from exhausted, and further intensifications of the music follow. Everything strives toward another climax, where the opening theme appears simultaneously in both its original form and its inversion.

The reprise of the secondary theme also begins again in the flute and is taken up by the horn. The lilting theme of renewed joie de vivre lightens the character of this mournful music somewhat, almost gracefully. Then descending bass pizzicato passages propel the music to renewed life. Almost like Bach, the more intensely (perhaps also the more often) one listens, the more details one hears in this contrapuntally astonishingly diverse music. In the concluding section, "Meno mosso," the bassoon and horn once again emphasize the melody with the opening fifth motif.