music in the first act loses its significance; the duet of Elisabeth and Tannhaeuser in the second act loses its pathos, and the huge finale is meaningless, even as music; and the greater portion of the third act is simply bewildering.  When we know what is being sung or done, the music is as clear as the day.  Wagner knew this better than anyone, and, as I pointed out in commenting on the Dutchman, he brought his whole theatrical experience and training to help him to make the drama as simple and comprehensible as possible.  When the Wagner battle was raging in the seventies and eighties, the sages pointed to the necessity of understanding the drama for the purpose of understanding the music as a defect of the Wagner music-drama, and a proof of Wagner’s inferiority as a composer.  But one would like to ask the sages how many songs are there which do not afford a finer artistic enjoyment when the words are understood?

A second reason for thoroughly knowing the drama of the later Wagner operas is that without that knowledge the leit-motif, which now becomes a formidable element, is likely to be wholly misunderstood and its artistic value missed.  Nine-tenths of the absurdities written and talked about the leit-motif are due to ignorance of the nature of the dramatic situations in which it is used, and in consequence the purposes for which it is used.  The leit-motif (leading theme) had very humble beginnings.  Who was the first to employ it I really don’t know.  It was simply a theme which made its first appearance with one of the personages of the opera, and afterwards was used whenever that personage came on again or was referred to.  Or it was connected with some thought, someone’s destiny, someone’s plans, and either because it expressed truly the right emotion, or because it acted by association of ideas, whenever it sounded from the orchestra the thing desired was recalled to one’s mind.  So used it was a useful father than a highly artistic device.  Wagner constantly used it so for matters which did not demand lengthy treatment, such as Lohengrin’s warning to Elsa or the curse on the gold in the Ring.  But while continuing to make this elementary application of it, rather for dramatic than for musical purposes, he at the same time developed it until it ceased to be merely a leading motive, but became the very stuff of the music itself.  Much of the music of the later operas is spun out of what appear at first nothing more than the old leading motives.  The process by which this is done will be discussed later; for the present let us see how far Wagner goes with it in Tannhaeuser.

In the Dutchman there are two principal themes, the first—­

[Illustration:  Some bars of music]

standing for Vanderdecken, the curse laid on him, and the whole idea of the phantom ship; the second—­

[Illustration:  Some bars of music]