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mphal march? Thunder! hear those trumpet blasts! I can use that--I can use that!" In the evening he wrote down what his imagination had heard, and it subsequently became the great march in "Oberon." Some psychological interest also attaches to the remark with which Weber's son prefaces this story--namely that Weber was constantly transmuting forms and colors into sounds; and that lines and forms seemed to stimulate his melodic inventiveness pre-eminently, whereas sounds affected his harmonic sense. My subject is by no means exhausted, but for fear of fatiguing the reader with an excess of details I will close with a few facts regarding Richard Wagner's method of composing. I am indebted for these facts to the kindness of Herr Seidl, of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, who was Wagner's secretary for several years, and helped him prepare "Goetterdaemmerung" and "Parsifal" for the press. Like his famous predecessors, Wagner always carried some sheets of music paper in his pocket, on which he jotted down with a pencil such ideas as came to him on solitary walks, or at other times. These he gave to his wife, who inked them over and arranged them in piles. In these sketches the vocal part was always written out in full, while the orchestral part was roughly indicated in two or more additional staves. Frau Cosima has preserved most of these sketches, and they will doubtless some day be reproduced in fac-simile, like some of Beethoven's. Whenever Wagner was in the mood for composing he would say to Herr Seidl, "Bring me my sketches." Then he would retire to his composing room, to which no one was ever admitted, not even his wife and children. At lunch-time, the servant would bring something to the ante-room, without being allowed to see the master in his sanctum. How Wagner conducted himself there is not known, except that strange vocal sounds, and a few passionate chords on the piano would occasionally reach the ears of neighbors. Wagner appears to have used his piano just as Beethoven did his, even after he had become deaf:--as a sort of lightning-rod for his fervent emotions. Much nonsense has been written concerning the fact that Wagner used to wear gaudy costumes of silk and satin while he was composing, and that he had colored glass in his windows, which gave every object a mysterious aspect. He was called an imitator of the eccentric King of Bavaria, and some went so far as to declare him insane. But
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