ser' is conventional,
but it nevertheless shows a great advance on 'Der Fliegende Hollaender,'
in the disposal of the scenes as much as in the mere treatment of the
voices. But in the orchestra the advance is even more manifest. The
guiding theme, which in 'Der Fliegende Hollaender' only makes fitful and
timid appearances, is used with greater boldness, and with increased
knowledge of its effect. Wagner had as yet, it is true, but little
conception of the importance which this flexible instrument would assume
in his later works; but such passages as the orchestral introduction to
the third act, and Tannhaeuser's narration, give a foretaste of what the
composer was afterwards to achieve by this means. So far as orchestral
colour is concerned, too, the score of Tannhaeuser is deeply interesting
to the student of Wagner's development. Here we find Wagner for the
first time consistently associating a certain instrument or group of
instruments with one of the characters, as, for instance, the trombones
with the pilgrims, and the wood-wind with Elisabeth. This plan--which is
in a certain sense the outcome of the guiding theme system--he was
afterwards to develop elaborately. It had of course been employed
before, notably by Gluck, but Wagner with characteristic boldness
carried it at once to a point of which his predecessor can scarcely have
dreamed. As an illustration, the opening of the third act may be quoted,
in which Elisabeth is represented by the wood-wind--by the clarinets and
bassoons in the hour of her deep affliction and abasement, and by the
flutes and hautboys when her soul has finally cast off all the trammels
of earth--and Wolfram by the violoncello. The feelings of the two are so
exquisitely portrayed by the orchestra, that the scene would be easily
comprehensible if it were carried on--as indeed much of it is--without
any words at all.

'Lohengrin' (1850) was the first of Wagner's operas which won general
acceptance, and still remains the most popular. The story lacks the deep
human interest of 'Tannhaeuser,' but it has both power and
picturesqueness, while the prominence of the love-interest, which in the
earlier work is thrust into the background, is sufficient to explain the
preference given to it. Elsa of Brabant is charged by Frederick of
Telramund, at the instigation of his wife Ortrud, with the murder of her
brother Godfrey, who has disappeared. King Henry the Fowler, who is
judging the case, allows El