eed, but Wagner could have done or would have
thought of attempting such a scene. He has shown us the masters of
Nuremberg in conclave, the apprentices romping and joking, the crowd
in the street losing its head; and how he gives us a picture of the
town on a fete-day, with the trade-guilds marching to the
singing-contest. The tailors, the shoemakers, the bakers and the
butchers all file past, chanting the merits of their various callings,
finally gathering on the meadow outside the town to await the arrival
of the chief burghers. It is a picture, not a dramatic scene, and to
judge only from the text might suggest the _Rienzi_ way of planning
things. It is not, however, a spectacle in the sense in which we apply
that word to some of the _Rienzi_ scenes; there is nothing pompous
about it, no recourse is made to gorgeous costumes. The artisans march
past in their holiday clothes, each guild bearing its banner; the
banners wave in the bright sunlight, and there is plenty of colour as
well as of bustle and gaiety; but all is homely in style--there is not
a noble person in the crowd--and the thing is carried through by the
vividly imagined music, the energy and sparkle of it, the positive
splendour of the orchestration. The various guild-choruses are full of
humour, the many ridiculous things being saved from lapsing into mere
horseplay and nonsense by the endless series of beautiful tunes. This
part of the business ends with a waltz which shows that Wagner might,
had he chosen, have been the finest writer of dance-music in Europe,
and driven the Strausses and the rest from the field.

The signal is given of the masters' approach, and as Sachs comes on
the whole crowd presses to greet him with a setting of his own song to
Martin Luther. The transition from the jollity of the dancing to the
solemnity, nay, sublimity, of this chorus is managed with perfect
deftness: there is no incongruity. It is this song that passed through
Sachs' brain when we found him absorbed in meditation at the beginning
of the act. The poem--written by the historical Sachs--is itself
beautiful, and Wagner has made it immortal; only he at his ripest and
best could combine in an opera-chorus such strength with such
sweetness, combine the directness of a part-song with the free play of
parts, with never a touch of formalism. It must be held to be one of
the most superb things in an opera which is as nearly perfect as ever
opera is likely to be.

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