I have already alluded to the old-world atmosphere got at once by the horn calls and the lovely passage in which Isolda sings of the brook “laughing on” in the still night; but in this first scene, which is by comparison a mere introduction to the duet, we find a thousand beautiful things.  At this period of his life Wagner was by no means so economical as he afterwards became; he squandered his pearls with prodigal hands.  In a few pages are enough melodies and themes to set up a Puccini—­or for that matter a Strauss or an Elgar—­for life.  The blending of the death-theme with one of the love-themes, when Isolda speaks of love’s goddess, “the queen who grants unquailing hearts ... life and death she holds in her hands,” is one of the miracles of music—­stern beauty made up of defiance of fate and careless voluptuousness.  In the very next melody to make its appearance, the second bar after the change to the key of A, we may note what I think is the first sign of one of the many mannerisms of Wagner’s “third period,” as we call it—­the period extending from Tristan to the finishing of the Ring (Parsifal being as the tail to the dog, or perhaps the tin-kettle tied to the tail).  It is the phrase quoted (l).  Those five notes of the second bar were to be made to serve many purposes hereafter; and the Wagnerites will insist that this was done for a high artistic reason.  Perhaps it was; but to me it seems that it is found so frequently sometimes because Wagner wanted to utter precisely the same emotion as he had employed it for earlier, and sometimes because, like all other composers, at times he found his invention flagging.  In the second scene of this act of Tristan it plays a conspicuous part, and is indeed one of the most pregnant love motives of the drama—­perhaps the most prolific of subsidiary themes and passages.

The big duet beats description, and its structure must only be discussed briefly.  A figure which forms part of the music played while Isolda impatiently awaits Tristan is turned into the whirling accompaniment to impassioned and incoherent exclamations as they first embrace; then to the seething mass of tone is added (l), and gradually out of chaos and confusion emerges one clean-cut melody after another.  The daylight-theme which begins the introduction is Protean in the shapes it assumes, and the emotions, now hot passion, now the gentlest tenderness, it is made to express.  The ferment settles down, and we get the hymn to night and a series of melodies which are love’s own voice speaking.  The dreamy voluptuousness that pervades these duets comes from songs written by Wagner as studies.  They were not over highly esteemed by his friends, but he had his revenge.  This night in the garden—­with the black night above and the black trees around, the flowers, the musical brooklet, and the voice of the caller heard at times from the roof—­is the greatest thing of the kind in all music:  in all the arts,