The overture to “Die Zauberflote,” because of its firm establishment in our concert-rooms, is more widely known than the opera.  Two of its salient features have also made it the subject of large discussion among musical analysts; namely, the reiterated chords, three times three, which introduce the second part of the overture. {1}

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and the fugued allegro, constructed with a skill that will never cease to be a wonder to the knowing, built up on the following subject:—­

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In the chords (which are heard again in the temple scene, at which the hero is admitted as a novice and permitted to begin his probation), the analysts who seek to find as much symbolism as possible in the opera, see an allusion to the signals given by knocking at the door of the lodge-room.  Some such purpose may been have in the mind of Mozart when he chose the device, but it was not unique when he applied it.  I have found it used in an almost identical manner in the overture to “Gunther von Schwarzburg,” by Ignaz Holzbauer, a German opera produced in Mannheim fifteen years before “Die Zauberflote” saw the light of the stage lamps.  Mozart knew Holzbauer, who was a really great musician, and admired his music.  Connected with the fugue theme there is a more familiar story.  In 1781 Clementi, the great pianist and composer, visited Vienna.  He made the acquaintance of Haydn, was introduced at court, and Emperor Joseph II brought him and Mozart together in a trial of skill at playing and improvising.  Among other things Clementi played his own sonata in B-flat, the first movement of which begins thus:—­

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The resemblance between this theme and Mozart’s fugal subject is too plain to need pointing out.  Such likenesses were more common in Mozart’s day than they were a century ago; they were more common in Handel’s day than in Mozart’s; they are almost as common in our day as they were in Handel’s, but now we explain them as being the products of “unconscious cerebration,” whereas in the eighteenth century they were frank borrowings in which there was no moral obliquity; for originality then lay as much in treatment as in thematic invention, if not more.

Come we now to a description of the action of the opera.  Tamino,—­ strange to say, a “Japanese” prince,—­hunting far, very far, from home, is pursued, after his last arrow has been sped, by a great serpent.  He flees, cries for help, and seeing himself already in the clutch of death, falls in a swoon.  At the moment of his greatest danger three veiled ladies appear on the scene and melodiously and harmoniously unite in slaying the monster.  They are smitten, in unison, with the beauty of the unconscious youth whom they have saved, and quarrel prettily among themselves for the privilege of remaining beside him while information of the incident is bearing to the Queen of Night, who lives hard by in a castle.  No two being willing