Venus appears, in the midst of a wild whirl of nymphs and sirens.  In vain Wolfram urges and appeals; Tannhaeuser will not yield his purpose.  He breaks from his friend, and is rushing to meet the extended arms of the goddess, when Wolfram adjures him once more by the sainted memory of Elisabeth.  At the sound of that sinless name Venus and her unhallowed crew sink with a wild shriek into the earth.  The morning breaks, and the solemn hymn of the procession bearing the corpse of Elisabeth sounds sweetly through the forest.  As the bier is carried forward Tannhaeuser sinks lifeless by the dead body of his departed saint, while a band of young pilgrims comes swiftly in, bearing the Pope’s staff, which has put forth leaves and blossomed—­the symbol of redemption and pardon for the repentant sinner.

It will generally be admitted that the story of ‘Tannhaeuser’ is better suited for dramatic purposes than that of ‘Der Fliegende Hollaender,’ apart from the lofty symbolism which gives it so deeply human an interest.  This would go far to account for the manifest superiority of the later work, but throughout the score it is easy to note the enhanced power and certainty of the composer in dealing even with the less interesting parts of the story.  Much of ‘Tannhaeuser’ 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.