The Meiningen orchestra is famous for its wind, and when, at the first concert, I heard Beethoven’s Rondino for wind instruments, it seemed to me that I was hearing brass for the first time as I had imagined brass ought to sound.  Here was, not so much a new thing which one had never thought possible, as that precise thing which one’s ears had expected, and waited for, and never heard.  One quite miraculous thing these wind players certainly did, in common, however, with the whole orchestra.  And that was to give an effect of distance, as if the sound came actually from beyond the walls.  I noticed it first in the overture to “Leonore,” the first piece which they played; an unparalleled effect and one of surprising beauty.

Another matter for which the Meiningen orchestra is famous is its interpretation of the works of Brahms.  At each concert some fine music of Brahms was given finely, but it was not until the fourth concert that I realised, on hearing the third Symphony, everything of which Brahms was capable.  It may be that a more profound acquaintance with his music would lead me to add other things to this thing as the finest music which he ever wrote; but the third Symphony certainly revealed to me, not altogether a new, but a complete Brahms.  It had all his intellect and something more; thought had taken fire, and become a kind of passion.

MOZART IN THE MIRABELL-GARTEN

They are giving a cycle of Mozart operas at Munich, at the Hof-Theater, to follow the Wagner operas at the Prinz-Regenten-Theatre; and I stayed, on my way to Salzburg, to hear “Die Zauberfloete.”  It was perfectly given, with a small, choice orchestra under Herr Zumpe, and with every part except the tenor’s admirably sung and acted.  Herr Julius Zarest, from Hanover, was particularly good as Papageno; the Eva of “Die Meistersinger” made an equally good Pamina.  And it was staged under Herr von Possart’s direction, as suitably and as successfully, in its different way, as the Wagner opera had been.  The sombre Egyptian scenes of this odd story, with its menagerie and its pantomime transformation, were turned into a thrilling spectacle, and by means of nothing but a little canvas and paint and limelight.  It could have cost very little, compared with an English Shakespeare revival, let us say; but how infinitely more spectacular, in the good sense, it was!  Every effect was significant, perfectly in its place, doing just what it had to do, and without thrusting itself forward for separate admiration.  German art of to-day is all decorative, and it is at its best when it is applied to the scenery of the stage.  Its fault, in serious painting, is that it is too theatrical, it is too anxious to be full of too many qualities besides the qualities of good painting.  It is too emphatic, it is meant for artificial light.  If Franz Stuck would paint for the stage, instead of using his vigorous brush to paint nature without distinction and nightmares without imagination on easel-canvases, he would do, perhaps rather better, just what these scene-painters do, with so much skill and taste.  They have the sense of effective decoration; and German art, at present, is almost wholly limited to that sense.