and noble letter to Wagner about it, and a little later he
speaks of Hans von Buelow having been with him, when he could not
refrain from giving him "a sight of Walhalla." So he brought out the
score, and he said that Hans pounded at the piano, and he himself
hummed and howled as well as he could, and they had a great time over
it.

Wagner then set to work on the opera of "_Siegfried_," which
interested him very much indeed. This character also is a genuine
conception of Wagner's. The wild forest boy who knows no fear, who has
the most marvelous strength, is described in music as wild and
powerful as himself. When Sieglinde, Siegfried's mother, was married,
an old man appeared at the wedding with an ashen staff, his hat brim
drooping over one eye, and in the midst of the festivities he drew a
mighty sword and with a great blow thrust it into the stem of the ash
tree which grew in the center of the house, saying that it was the
sword of a hero, and that whoever was strong enough to draw it should
wield it in the service of gods. All the strong men tugged at this
weapon, but none were able to draw it. When Siegmund, Siegfried's
father, comes there, he draws the weapon amid a splendid burst of
music. This sword is broken on Wotan's spear, but the pieces are saved
for Siegfried, and one of the great scenes in the opera of
"_Siegfried_" is where he welds anew the broken sword, and at the end
cleaves the anvil with one mighty stroke. The opera of "_Siegfried_"
closes with the awakening of Brunhilde, and a splendid duet with
Siegfried.

The composition of this work was interrupted at the end of the second
act, and here we come to one of the most curious circumstances in
Wagner's career. He says that he felt it necessary to stop now and
write a practical opera for the stage as it then was, in order to
re-establish his connection with the German theater, for he did not
believe that these works would be performed in his own time.
Accordingly he wrote "_Die Meistersinger_," and the opera of "Tristan
and Isolde." They were finished in 1865, and Hans von Buelow, who was
then director of the opera at Munich, took them both for rehearsal;
they had there about 160 rehearsals of "Tristan and Isolde"--but gave
it up as impossible, the singers forgetting from one day to another
the music they had learned the previous day. The other work, "_Die
Meistersinger_," fared better. They had sixty-six rehearsals, and
finally brought it to a dr