hey have written a music-drama; the music-drama was his form, the
symphony theirs.

In the next scene we have music of a different sort. A shepherd-boy
pipes and sings one of those songs which, for freshness and purity,
seem unapproachable--the watchman's song in the first act of the
_Dutchman_ is another example. The piping goes on while the elder
pilgrims chant a sort of marching tune as they pass--part of it is the
second section of the great hymn already described--the boy shouts
"Good luck!" after them, and Tannhaeuser, in an ecstasy of relief and
restfulness after the unceasing whirl of lust and fleshly delights
from which he has found deliverance, pours forth his soul in a
wonderful phrase. It is repeated afterwards when Tannhaeuser very
guardedly tells Elisabeth of the wonder of his deliverance; and indeed
it is expressive of a mood that became more and more characteristic of
Wagner as he grew older, as though he got momentary glimpses of some
blessed isle of rest where peace and relief from all earthly troubles
could be found. A few years later we find him writing to Liszt of his
longing for death as an escape; and though his appetite remained good,
and he seemed bent on having the best of everything on his table, we
can well believe that, overstrung by nature, in constant poor health,
and making stupendous demands on his nervous energy (like his own
Tannhaeuser), doing everything too much, he had moments--nay, days--of
reaction and feelings which he expressed quite sincerely in his
letters. This brief passage touches the sublime. The hunters enter,
and from the moment Wolfram begins his really beautiful song about
Elisabeth, it remains on Wagner's highest level. The finale is a set
piece, of course, and is in free and joyous contrast to the lurid heat
and sensual abandonment of the first scene. While the trees wave in
the wind and the sun shines, the men shout merrily, and the huntsmen
blow away at their horns--and Tannhaeuser has returned to his former
healthy life.

In the second act we have Elisabeth's greeting to the hall of song,
very charming; a duet with Tannhaeuser, very fine in parts, but not a
true love-duet; the popular march; and then the tournament. Now,
Wolfram's bid for favour seems to me both too literal and too long. He
does what undoubtedly the minstrels of old did--freely declaims his
verses, occasionally twanging his harp. He grows indeed almost fervent
in his praise of the quiet life, of