so to speak, artificially weird.  The scene between Siegfried and Bruennhilda is more inspired; and the journey to the Rhine is one of Wagner’s finest bits of picture-painting.  The change of feeling towards the end is superb:  a sense of foreboding and dread comes into the music and prepares us for the coming disaster.  But when the curtain rises on the hall of the Gibichungs we at once get more artificiality and theatricality.  In using the word theatrical I do not mean there is any return to, for instance, the Rienzi style:  the music is theatrical in Wagner’s own later way:  it seems to fit the situation, but the appearance is an appearance only:  the stuff is superficial:  the feeling of the moment is not expressed—­the music, in a word, is essentially the same as that of many inferior but clever opera composers, only, of course, the Wagner idiom is always there.  The Waltraute scene is fine, being largely made up of old material; but I cannot say much for the scene between Bruennhilda and Siegfried.  In this first act two important themes are introduced, the Tarnhelm theme and that of the draught of forgetfulness.  The first is of the theatrical type:  it is a leitmotiv of the same sort as Lohengrin’s warning to Elsa; the other is a miracle, one of the wonders of music.  It gives one in a brief phrase Siegfried’s dazed sense that something has gone from him, a strange sense of loss; and it has the pathos the moment demands.  As for the draught of forgetfulness itself, it cannot be explained as symbolical of anything; it must be accepted as we accept the Tarnhelm and the Rhinemaidens and black Alberich.

II

In the Second Act the scene is again the Gibichungs’ hall.  Siegfried and Guenther are away, and Hagen watches by night; his father, Alberich, crawls up from the river and counsels him as to how to get possession of the Ring; then he disappears as dawn begins to show.  The music is weird and sinister in Wagner’s finest manner.  Siegfried comes in and says Guenther and his bride will soon arrive, and goes off with Gutruna, happy as a child; in a magnificent piece of music, largely constructed of a harsh phrase associated with Hagen, he (Hagen) calls up the clansmen and women; a pompous bit of chorus greets Guenther and Bruennhilda, and then once more we are plunged into a sea of theatricality.  To her amazement, Bruennhilda finds Siegfried there with his new bride, unmindful of her.  In rage she denounces him and declares he has shared the joys of love with her; he denies it; but Guenther is shamed, and has no doubt that Siegfried has played him false.  Siegfried goes merrily off, and Guenther, Hagen and Bruennhilda swear that he must die.  In the music we get any amount of physical energy and dramatic emphasis; but we know this is no longer the Wagner of the Valkyrie.  I pass over the Act briefly now, because I can only repeat what I have said before.  Of course all the consummate skill of the master is there.