as in Schubert's great songs, the "Junge Nonne," or " Doppelgänger," or the "Erl König"; only the scale is larger and the style different. Wagner wrote his own dramas, always with a clear feeling of what was fit to be expressed musically; and as he grew more experienced, he was able to hold all the forces he had to use for dramatic ends more surely in hand, and to control their relations to one another with more certainty. While writing the poems he probably had a general feeling of what the actual music was going to be, just as a dramatist keeps in his mind a fairly clear idea of the scene and the action of the play he is writing; and as certain general principles of design are quite indispensable in musical works of this kind, he evidently controlled the development of his stories so as to admit of due spreading of groundwork and of variety of mood; and devised situations that admitted of plain and more or less diatonic treatment, and crises which would demand the use of energetic modulation, and so forth. But in reality this requires less restriction than might be imagined; for the working and changing of moods in a good poem is almost identical with the working and developing and changing of moods adapted for good music. They both spring from the same emotional source, only they are different ways of expressing the ideas. As poetry and music approach nearer to one another, it be comes more apparent that the sequence of moods which makes a good design in poetry will also make a good design in music.

One thing which strikes the attention at once from the very commencement of "The Ring" is the difference in the treatment of the musical material from the earlier works. As has been pointed out before, there is a constant tendency in music to make the details more distinct and definite. The instinctive aim of the most highly gifted composers is to arrive at that articulation of minutia which makes every part of the organism alive. The type of vague meandering melodies which formed the arias of Hasse and Porpora became far more definite in organisation in Mozart's hands; the contrast is even greater between their treatment of orchestral material

and Mozart's.

The very look of the score of Idomeneo is busier than any earlier score; and moreover, Mozart made his own details more finished and more definite as his view of instrumental music matured. In the next generation the process of defining details progressed very fast in Beethoven's hands. Even in his first sonata the tendency to concentrate his thoughts into concise and emphatic figures is noticeable, and the habit grew more decisive with him as his mastery of his resources improved. The same tendency is shown in almost every department of art. Schubert's accompaniments to songs are often made up of little nuclei which express in the closest terms the spirit of the situation, and the way in which he knits them together is a perfect counterpart, in little, of Wagner's ultimate method. The advantages of the plan are obvious. It not only lays hold of the mind more decisively, but it enables the musical movement to be knit into closer unity by the reiteration of the figures. Wagner, in his earlier works, appears to have realised the advantage of condensing the thought into an emphatic figure, as every one knows who has heard the overture to the "Fliegende Holländer," though he did not make much use of such figures in the actual texture of the earlier music. But from the beginning of the Rheingold he seems to have clearly made up his mind not only to condense his representative musical ideas into the forms which serve to fix them in the mind, but to weave them throughout into the texture of the music itself, to dispense with the old formulas of accompaniment, and to use next to nothing except what was consistent and definite. The result is that in the main the texture of the music is something of the same nature as a fugue of Bach. Wagner often uses harmony as a special means of effect, but in a great measure the harmony is the result of polyphony, often of several distinct subjects going on at once, as they used to do in the ancient fugues. This immensely enlarges the range of direct expression, as it is possible by making such familiar devices as accented passing notes and grace notes occur simultaneously in different parts, to produce transient artificial chords of the most extraordinary description; such as are

heard in the following passage from the first act of Parsifal:

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Wagner notoriously rejected the conventional rules of the theorists about resolving chords and keeping strictly within the lines of keys, and many other familiar phases of orthodox doctrine. He tried to get to the root of things, instead of abiding by the rules that are given to help people to spell and to frame sentences intelligibly. But he by no means adopts purely licentious methods in treatment of chords, nor does he forego the use of tonality-the sense of key which is the basis of modern music- -as a source of effect. He did not attempt to define his design by the means required in sonatas and symphonies, because the situation did not warrant it; neither would he submit to the conventions which forbade his using certain progressions which he thought the situation required because they happen to mix up tonalities. Many of the progressions which Beethoven used outraged the tender feelings of theorists of his day who did not understand them, and thought he was violating the orthodox principles of tonality. Yet Beethoven's whole system was founded on his very acute feeling for it He expanded the range of the key as much as he could and Wagner went further in the same direction. But he is so far from abandoning tonality as an element of design and effect, that he uses it with quite remarkable skill and perception of its functions. When he wants to give the sense of solid foundation to a scene, he often keeps to the same key, even to the same harmony, for a very long time.

The introductions to Rheingold and Siegfried are parallels in this respect, the first almost all on one chord, the second almost all in one key; and the principle of design is the same in both cases; consisting in laying a solid foundation to the whole work by rising from the lowest pitch, and gradually bringing the full range of sounds into operation. In the accompaniment of the ordinary dialogue he is often very obscure in tonality, just as J. S. Bach is in recitative; some instinct prompting them both to avoid the conditions which make the music that approaches nearest to ordinary speech seem too definite in regular design. When he wants to express something very straightforward and direct, like the character of Siegfried, he uses the most simple diatonic figures; but when he wants to express something specially mysterious, he literally takes advantage of the fact that human creatures understand modern music through their feeling for tonality, to obtain a weird and supernatural effect by making it almost unrecognisable. For in that case he almost invariably makes his musical idea combine chords which belong to two or more unassimilable tonalities, on purpose to create the sense of bewilderment, and a kind of dizziness and helplessness, which exactly meets the requirements of the case. If people's sense of tonality were not by this time so highly developed, such passages would be merely hideous gibberish; and they often seem so at first. It is just on a parallel with language. A man may often say a thing that is most copiously true which his audience does not see at once, and everybody has experienced the puzzled, displeased look that the audience. gives-till, as the meaning dawns upon them, a cloud seems to pass away, and the look of pleasure is all the brighter for the transition from bewilderment to understanding. Wagner's device stands in the same relation to the musical organisation of the present day as Beethoven's employment of enharmonic transition did to that of his time. Men judge such things instinctively in relation to the context. The transition from the first key to the second in Beethoven's great Leonora Overture produces the same sort of feeling of momentary dizziness, in relation to the simpler diatonic style

of the rest of the music, that Wagner's subtle obscurities do in relation to his far more chromatic and highly-coloured style. It need not be supposed that he deliberately adopted such a device. True composers very rarely work up to a theory consciously, in the act of production; but they may afterwards try to justify anything very much out of the common on some broad principles in which they believe. It is much more likely to have been the impulse of highly developed instinct that caused Wagner to adopt the same procedure so invariably. A familiar example is the musical expression of that really marvellous poetic conception, the magic kiss of the god which expels the godhead from the Valkyrie and makes her mortal.

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Even more conspicuous is the figure associated with the "Tarnhelm," the helm of invisibility.

But in that case the effect often depends a good deal upon the way in which the figure is taken in relation to a context in an obscurely related key. The motive of the magic ring is condensed very closely, and is much to the point.