has none of those strange relapses into conventionality which mar the
beauty of 'Tannhaeuser.' Musically 'Lohengrin' marks the culminating
point of Wagner's earlier manner. All the links with the Italian school
are broken save one, the concerted finale. Here alone he adheres to the
old tradition of cavatina and cabaletta--the slow movement followed by
the quick. The aria in set form has completely disappeared, while the
orchestra, though still often used merely as an accompaniment, is never
degraded, as occasionally happens in 'Tannhaeuser,' to the rank of a 'big
guitar.'

The opening notes of 'Lohengrin' indeed prove incontestably the
increased power and facility with which Wagner had learnt to wield his
orchestra since the days of 'Tannhaeuser.' The prelude to 'Lohengrin'--a
mighty web of sound woven of one single theme--is, besides being a
miracle of contrapuntal ingenuity, one of the most poetical of Wagner's
many exquisite conceptions. In it he depicts the bringing to earth by
the hands of angels of the Holy Grail, the vessel in which Joseph of
Arimathea caught the last drops of Christ's blood upon the cross. With
the opening chords we seem to see the clear blue expanse of heaven
spread before us in spotless radiance. As the Grail motive sounds for
the first time _pianissimo_ in the topmost register of the violins, a
tiny white cloud, scarcely perceptible at first, but increasing every
moment, forms in the zenith. Ever descending as the music gradually
increases in volume, the cloud resolves itself into a choir of angels
clad in white, the bearers of the sacred cup. Nearer and still nearer
they come, until, as the Grail motive reaches a passionate _fortissimo_,
they touch the earth, and deliver the Holy Grail to the band of faithful
men who are consecrated to be its earthly champions. Their mission
accomplished the angels swiftly return. As they soar up, the music
grows fainter. Soon they appear once more only as a snowy cloud on the
bosom of the blue. The Grail motive fades away into faint chords, and
the heaven is left once more in cloudless radiance.

A noticeable point in the score of 'Lohengrin' is the further
development of the beautiful idea which appears in 'Tannhaeuser,' of
associating a certain instrument or group of instruments with one
particular character. The idea itself, it may be noticed in passing,
dates from the time of Bach, who used the strings of the orchestra to
accompany the words of Christ