antiquity. It could not have been written before the second
half of the nineteenth century, because it deals with events which were
only then consummating themselves. Unless the spectator recognizes in
it an image of the life he is himself fighting his way through, it must
needs appear to him a monstrous development of the Christmas pantomimes,
spun out here and there into intolerable lengths of dull conversation by
the principal baritone. Fortunately, even from this point of view, The
Ring is full of extraordinarily attractive episodes, both orchestral and
dramatic. The nature music alone--music of river and rainbow, fire and
forest--is enough to bribe people with any love of the country in them
to endure the passages of political philosophy in the sure hope of a
prettier page to come. Everybody, too, can enjoy the love music, the
hammer and anvil music, the clumping of the giants, the tune of the
young woodsman's horn, the trilling of the bird, the dragon music and
nightmare music and thunder and lightning music, the profusion of simple
melody, the sensuous charm of the orchestration: in short, the vast
extent of common ground between The Ring and the ordinary music we use
for play and pleasure. Hence it is that the four separate music-plays
of which it is built have become popular throughout Europe as operas. We
shall presently see that one of them, Night Falls On The Gods, actually
is an opera.

It is generally understood, however, that there is an inner ring of
superior persons to whom the whole work has a most urgent and searching
philosophic and social significance. I profess to be such a superior
person; and I write this pamphlet for the assistance of those who wish
to be introduced to the work on equal terms with that inner circle of
adepts.

My second encouragement is addressed to modest citizens who may suppose
themselves to be disqualified from enjoying The Ring by their technical
ignorance of music. They may dismiss all such misgivings speedily and
confidently. If the sound of music has any power to move them, they will
find that Wagner exacts nothing further. There is not a single bar of
"classical music" in The Ring--not a note in it that has any other point
than the single direct point of giving musical expression to the drama.
In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first
subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and
codas; there are fugues, with counter-s