fusion of vocal and
orchestral parts which we find in _Tristan_ and the _Mastersingers_.
To that perfection Wagner had not attained when he began the _Ring_;
and much of this first speech of Wotan consists of notes written
simply to fit in with the Valhalla theme. That theme shows traces of
its descent from the Alberich motive--the greed for power--in that it
does not bear real development, but only variation; it is, in fact,
not a musical subject in the sense in which, say, the _Tristan_
subjects are musical subjects, but is, properly speaking, a figure.
But shaped to a stately rhythm and richly harmonised, and moreover
gorgeously orchestrated, it glitters with sufficient magnificence.
Fricka's remonstrances are at first querulous, but with the passage
beginning "Um des Gatten Treue besorgt" we get one of Wagner's
matchless bits of lovely melody. The entry of Freia, flying from the
Giants, is theatrically effective, and here we find for the first time
the phrase, already alluded to in the chapter on _Tristan_, which
throughout the _Ring_ is made to serve so many purposes. In this scene
I still feel the halting between the _Lohengrin_ style and later, the
indecision--nay, the uncertainty--in the handling of the musical
material. There are no regular four-bar measures and full closes as in
the earlier work; but a great deal is nothing more than dry recitative
disguised. The first scene of the _Rhinegold_ is purely symphonic:
even if Alberich's spasmodic, jerky exclamations seem to be written in
to fit the nature of this being, his whole mode of speech--harsh,
unmusical--renders the fact less glaring; and the tide of music flows
steadily on, reaching climax upon climax, until the final crash when
he disappears with the gold. Wagner did not find it possible to get
this continuity when he came to set to music the arguments amongst
Wotan, Fricka and Freia: there are short cantilenas, but they are
constantly broken by recitative.

With the entry of the Giants the music makes, so to say, a fresh
start. The old themes are welded to or interwoven with new material,
and a perfect symphonic whole results, one that can be listened to
with delight without stage accessories. I do not mean that music
intended for the theatre should stand the test of playing away from
the theatre, but that here Wagner, while writing strictly and
immensely effective theatre music, has got such a grip of his art that
he can combine the two things, drama