The revolutionary song quotations in the work itself can support many interpretations: in the first movement, the song "Slushay!" ("Listen!") contains the text "The autumn night is ... black as the tyrant's conscience," while the final movement refers to a piece including the words "shame on you tyrants", mixing with it motifs borrowed, with ironic or possibly bitter intent, from Richard Wagner’s "Die Walküre" overture, during which Siegmund (later murdered) flees from his enemies through a forest. Volkov compares this movement's juxtaposition of revolutionary songs (notably the Varshavianska song) to a cinematic montage, while quoting Anna Akhmatova's description of it as "white birds against a black sky".