this principle of tonality. Any musical person will
see that in recitative there is much less relation of harmony to the
tonic than in airs or in choruses; and Wagner's prolonged, almost
endless recitatives are wearisome partly from the very fact that we are
so long at sea drifting hither and thither without the rudder of
tonality. But what did this matter to the criticaster? He had heard the
word tonality, and it was a round, mouth-filling word, somewhat new
withal, and therefore good for use against an ignoramus. Perhaps he
thought it meant sonority or something of the kind; or he connected it
with that lovely phrase "tone-poem." Well, in any case, it has served
his purpose astonishingly.

[5] It is not necessary that I should give authority for this to
any competent person who is acquainted with the music of the
ancient composers; but whoever chooses to do so may find the
subject fully discussed in Helmholtz's great work, _passim_.

After the introduction of the principle of tonality music developed
with remarkable rapidity. In one hundred and fifty years it made more
progress toward an ideal beauty and as a means of emotional expression
than it had made in the thousands of years that had passed since the
first note was sung. For by this principle of tonality, melody and
harmony as we know them became possible. All that went before was
either the vague, formless, unsymmetrical production of popular mood
and fancy, or the dry formula-work of musical pedants. And yet within a
century we have such a result as Stradella's divine _Aria di chiesa Se
i miei sospiri_, which, whether for its melody, its harmony, or its
emotional expression, intense yet kept within the bounds of a lofty and
almost serene dignity, is unsurpassed by any vocal work which has been
since produced. It has been said by some that this air was not written
by Stradella. M. Fetis, however, does not doubt it; and the result of
the discussion is that it is assigned to the great Italian singer. The
story of his having saved his life by singing it--two assassins who
followed him into a cathedral to put him to death for having robbed a
nobleman of his beautiful mistress having been disarmed and sent off
repentant by the charm of his voice and of the music--is probably known
to many of my readers. Did any of them ever hear in a composition by
Wagner or Liszt, or any of that crew, a melody of which it could be
believed or for a moment s