much of his music is sum, is
termination, that there are times when it seems nothing else. There are
times when his art appears entirely bowed over the past; the confluence
of a dozen different tendencies alive during the last century and a
half; the capping of the labor of a dozen great musicians; the
fulfilment of the system regnant in Europe since the introduction of the
principle of the equal temperament. For the last time, the old
conceptions of tonality obtain in his music dramas. One feels throughout
"Tristan und Isolde" the key of D-flat, throughout "Die Meistersinger"
the key of C-major, throughout "Parsifal" the key of A-flat and its
relative minor. Rhythms that had been used all through the classical
period are worked by him into new patterns, and do service a last time.
Motifs which had been utilized by others are taken by him and brought to
something like an ultimate conclusion. The ending, the conclusion, the
completion, are sensible throughout his art. Few musicians have had
their power and method placed more directly in their hands, and
benefited so hugely by the experiments of their immediate predecessors,
have fallen heir to such immense musical legacies. Indeed, Wagner was
never loath to acknowledge his indebtedness, and there are on record
several instances when he paraphrased Walther's song to his masters, and
signaled the composers who had aided him most in his development.
To-day, the debt is very plain. At every turn, one sees him benefiting,
and benefiting very beautifully, by the work of Beethoven. The structure
of his great and characteristic works is based on the symphonic form.
The development of the themes of "Tristan" and "Die Meistersinger" and
"Parsifal" out of single kernels; the fine logical sequence, the
expositions of the thematic material of "Parsifal" in the prelude and in
Gurnamanz's narrative, and its subsequent reappearance and adventures
and developments, are something like a summit of symphonic art as
Beethoven made it to be understood. And his orchestra is scarcely more
than the orchestra of Beethoven. He did not require the band of
independent instrumental families demanded by Berlioz and realized by
the modern men. He was content with the old, classical orchestra in
which certain groups are strengthened and to which the harp, the English
horn, the bass-tuba, the bass-clarinet have been added.

And his conception of an "unending melody," an unbroken flow of music
intended to