hidden by its poignant
expressiveness. As I have said, it seems to enter the mind as emotion
rather than as music, so penetrating is it, so instantaneous in its
appeal. There never was music poured out at so white a white heat; it
is music written in the most modern, most pungent, and raciest
vernacular, with utter impatience of style, of writing merely in an
approved manner. It is beyond criticism. It is possible to love it as
I do; it is possible to hate it as Nietzsche did; but while this
century lasts, it will be impossible to appreciate it sufficiently to
wish to criticise it and yet preserve one's critical judgment with
steadiness enough to do it.

"SIEGFRIED"

In all Wagner's music-plays there is shown an astonishing
appreciation of the value and effect of scenery and of all the changes
of weather and of skies and waters, not only as a background to his
drama but as a means of making that drama clearer, of getting
completer and intenser expression of the emotions for which the
persons in the drama stand. The device is not so largely used in
"Tristan" as in the other music-plays, yet the drama is enormously
assisted by it. In the "Ring" it is used to such an extent that the
first thing that must strike everyone is the series of gorgeously
coloured pictures afforded by each of the four plays. For instance, no
one can ever forget the opening of "The Valkyrie"--the inside of
Hunding's house built round the tree, the half-dead fire flickering,
while we listen to the steady roar of the night wind as the tempest
rushes angrily through the forest--nor the scene that follows, when
through the open door we see all the splendours of the fresh spring
moonlight gleaming on the green leaves still dripping with cold
raindrops. The terror and excitement of the second act are vastly
increased by the storm of thunder and lightning that rages while
Siegmund and Hunding fight. A great part of the effect of the third
act is due to the storm that howls and shrieks at the beginning and
gradually subsides, giving way to the soft translucent twilight, that
in turn gives way to the clear spring night with the dark blue sky
through which the yellow flames presently shoot, cutting off
Bruennhilde from the busy world. The same pictorial device is used
throughout "Siegfried" with results just as magnificent in their way;
though the way is a very different one. The drama of "The Valkyrie" is
tragedy--chiefly Wotan's tragedy (the rel