hilosophy
of his art, and some of his most remarkable critical writings were then
given to the world.

Political troubles obliged Wagner to spend seven years of exile in
Zurich; thence he went to London, where he remained till 1861 as
conductor of the London Philharmonic Society. In 1861 the exile
returned to his native country, and spent several years in Germany and
Russia--there having arisen quite a _furore_ for his music in the latter
country. The enthusiasm awakened in the breast of King Louis of Bavaria
by "Der fliegende Hollaender" resulted in a summons to Wagner to settle
at Munich, and with the glories of the Royal Opera-House in that
city his name has since been principally connected. The culminating
art-splendor of his life, however, was the production of his stupendous
tetralogy, the "Ring der Nibelungen," at the great opera-house at
Baireuth, in the summer of the year 1876.

IV.

The first element to be noted in Wagner's operatic forms is the
energetic protest against the artificial and conventional in music. The
utter want of dramatic symmetry and fitness in the operas we have been
accustomed to hear could only be overlooked by the force of habit, and
the tendency to submerge all else in the mere enjoyment of the music.
The utter variance of music and poetry was to Wagner the stumbling-block
which, first of all, must be removed. So he crushed at one stroke all
the hard, arid forms which existed in the lyrical drama as it had been
known. His opera, then, is no longer a congeries of separate musical
numbers, like duets, arias, chorals, and finales, set in a flimsy web
of formless recitative, without reference to dramatic economy. His great
purpose is lofty dramatic truth, and to this end he sacrifices the whole
framework of accepted musical forms, with the exception of the chorus,
and this he remodels. The musical energy is concentrated in the dialogue
as the main factor of the dramatic problem, and fashioned entirely
according to the requirements of the action. The continuous flow of
beautiful melody takes the place alike of the dry recitative and the set
musical forms which characterize the accepted school of opera. As
the dramatic _motif_ demands, this "continuous melody" rises into the
highest ecstasies of the lyrical fervor, or ebbs into a chant-like
swell of subdued feeling, like the ocean after the rush of the storm.
If Wagner has destroyed musical forms, he has also added a positive
element. In