ent bugle calls and trumpet calls; and anyone who can
do this can learn and distinguish between the representative themes or
"leading motives" (Leitmotifs) of The Ring. They are the easier to learn
because they are repeated again and again; and the main ones are so
emphatically impressed on the ear whilst the spectator is looking for
the first time at the objects, or witnessing the first strong dramatic
expression of the ideas they denote, that the requisite association is
formed unconsciously. The themes are neither long, nor complicated, nor
difficult. Whoever can pick up the flourish of a coach-horn, the note of
a bird, the rhythm of the postman's knock or of a horse's gallop, will
be at no loss in picking up the themes of The Ring. No doubt, when it
comes to forming the necessary mental association with the theme, it
may happen that the spectator may find his ear conquering the tune more
easily than his mind conquers the thought. But for the most part the
themes do not denote thoughts at all, but either emotions of a quite
simple universal kind, or the sights, sounds and fancies common enough
to be familiar to children. Indeed some of them are as frankly childish
as any of the funny little orchestral interludes which, in Haydn's
Creation, introduce the horse, the deer, or the worm. We have both the
horse and the worm in The Ring, treated exactly in Haydn's manner, and
with an effect not a whit less ridiculous to superior people who decline
to take it good-humoredly. Even the complaisance of good Wagnerites
is occasionally rather overstrained by the way in which Brynhild's
allusions to her charger Grani elicit from the band a little rum-ti-tum
triplet which by itself is in no way suggestive of a horse, although a
continuous rush of such triplets makes a very exciting musical gallop.

Other themes denote objects which cannot be imitatively suggested by
music: for instance, music cannot suggest a ring, and cannot suggest
gold; yet each of these has a representative theme which pervades the
score in all directions. In the case of the gold the association is
established by the very salient way in which the orchestra breaks into
the pretty theme in the first act of The Rhine Gold at the moment when
the sunrays strike down through the water and light up the glittering
treasure, hitherto invisible. The reference of the strange little
theme of the wishing cap is equally manifest from the first, since the
spectator's attention