and Mendelssohn, had given the world grand
scenic music; but where they left off Wagner began. Their picture is
an end in itself: Wagner's are settings for the dramatic action.

There are not many leitmotivs in _Tristan_, and they are used for
ideas and passions--never for personages. Tristan, Isolda, Mark,
Brangaena and Kurvenal have none of them a representative theme. Each
act has its own themes--a multitude of them--each carried through the
act in which it appears, and nowhere else employed; only (_a_) and
(_h_) appear throughout the opera. Some small use is made of (_c_),
but once the poisoning episode is done with the subject ceases to have
any significance. That marked (_h_) is of great importance. Its effect
is terrible when Isolda is enticing, or compelling, Tristan to drink
the cup. The sailors break in with their "Yo, heave ho!" and Tristan,
bewildered, asks, "Where are we?" Isolda, with sinister purpose,
replies, "Near to the end!" The intense originality, due to their
being closely allied to the dramatic meaning, of all the themes should
be noted: only one, the second part of the love-theme (_a_), suggests
any other music. It is reminiscent of the introduction of Beethoven's
Sonata "Pathetique," and, after all, the phrase was not new when
Beethoven employed it.

IV

We have seen in this first act, if not the birth of love, at any rate
the avowal. The scene is laid on the sea, fresh, breezy, salt,
bracing, suggestive of infinite energy and possibilities. We are now
to witness it in its ripeness: not by any means a healthy ripeness,
but ecstatic to the point of frenzy, burning to the point of madness,
tumultuous, unbridled passion and lust; and, as these violent delights
have violent ends, ending in tragedy. When the curtain rises the
picture is in exquisite contrast with that presented in the first act.
Well did Wagner know the value of the scenic environment; he always
got it just and true and, from the artistic point of view, in sympathy
with the prevailing emotion. The demands on the scene-painters and
stage-machinists are nothing in _Tristan_ compared with those made in
the _Ring_ and _Parsifal_; but when the directions are complied with,
as I understand they occasionally are (I have seen them carried out
once), nothing more gorgeously effective can be dreamed of. Instead of
the morning air of Act I we have a warm summer night in a luxuriant
garden; on the left is a castle with steps leading up t