An almost imperceptible leitmotif is the single pitch B, symbolizing the murder. It is first heard at the very end of act 2, after Wozzeck's humiliation, after his words "" ("one after another"), and grows increasingly insistent during the murder scene, with Marie's last cry for help a two-octave jump from B5 to B3, until after the murder, when the whole orchestra explodes through a prolonged crescendo on this note, first in unison on B3, then spread across the whole range of the orchestra in octaves.