Valhalla
motive in the orchestra thrills one with its suggestiveness. One is
carried into the dimmest recess of a forest where man has never been,
far back in a period so old that it is ridiculous to call it ancient.
Throughout the music is in Wagner's grandest manner; the vocal writing
is perfect; and though there are plenty of theatrical strokes, they
are done in a nobler way than the mere opera way of _Tannhaeuser_ and
_Lohengrin_. In a word, the music is big: the breadth and sweep are
enormous: the greatest Wagner has arrived, the Wagner who has gone far
beyond the hesitations and littlenesses even of the _Rhinegold_.
Hunding is characterised more clearly and with more decisive strokes
than Hagen in the last opera of the _Ring_, partly because there is
more genuine inspiration in the _Valkyrie_, partly, perhaps, because
Hunding is a much simpler personage.

That strange scene where Siegmund lies on the hearth again, and,
realising his desperate situation, calls on his father the Volsung for
aid, is musically and dramatically splendid in its colour and force.
As he thinks of Sieglinda a feeling of spring again comes into the
music; thus is strengthened the beautiful music she is given; then
comes the avowal of love, and the flying open of the door. Outside,
the trees are seen in the moonlight, the dripping green leaves
glistening; and Siegmund sings a spring-song never to be beaten for
freshness (though, as I have pointed out, not equal in musical
significance to Walther's song in the _Mastersingers_); there comes
the magnificent scene of the plucking out of the Sword; the
recognition of the two as brother and sister; and the final
impassioned outburst which ends the scene as with a blaze of fire.

This Act will ever be accounted one of Wagner's most magnificent and
fully inspired. The superb vocal writing, the beauty and sheer
strength of the orchestral parts, the gorgeous colouring, and the
human passion blent with the sense of the green yet fiery spring, all
go to make up a thing unique in opera. A tide of life rushes through
it all; and the man's technical accomplishment was so fine and
complete that he found immediate incisive expression for every shade
of emotion, or complex blend of emotions, and every sensation. The
jealous, savage ferocity of Hunding is there; Siegmund's and
Sieglinda's despair, hope and final burst of ecstatic joy; and at the
same time we seem to smell the fresh, wet earth and leaves and