with the shepherd is
practically the same. Some new matter is brought in, for dramatic
rather than sheer musical purposes, as Tristan awakens; but the next
subject that I need call attention to is the noble one which comes in
when Kurvenal assures him he is safe in his own castle (_o_). The
whole of Tristan's subsequent ravings are made up of reminiscences,
more or less distorted, of various passages out of the first and
second acts, as he goes over, as in a dream, his recent life--the
sight of Isolda, the scene on the ship and that in the garden. Another
new theme to be noted is blazed out by the orchestra when Kurvenal
tells him Isolda has been sent for. When he sinks back exhausted and
no ship is in sight the shepherd's pipe keeps wandering through his
brain with strange, weird, terrible effect, mixing with fragments of
other themes; he gathers strength, and his despair rises to frenzy as
he curses himself--"'Twas I by whom [the draught] was brewed"--to a
phrase overwhelming in its intensity of expression (_p_), and again
collapses.

Presently follow a few pages of perhaps the divinest music to be found
in Wagner's scores, Tristan's dream of Isolda crossing the summer sea.
To an evenly pulsing gentle accompaniment we hear first the second
part of a love-theme (_q_), then fragments of others, till the point
of supernal, Mozartean beauty is touched at "full of grace and loving
mildness." The pathos of it is almost intolerable: no one could stand
the strain another second, when after the cry, "Ah, Isolda, how fair
art thou," he rouses himself to anger because Kurvenal cannot see on
the rolling waters what he with his inner vision sees so bright and
clear. How any one could, even at a first hearing, fail to realize
that the composer of this sublime passage was by far, infinitely far,
the mightiest and tenderest composer of opera music who has
lived--this is a phenomenon that passes our comprehension nowadays.
The scene where the shepherd sounds his pipe to signal the coming of
the boat, and Tristan, his delight wrought up until it grows into
anguish, goes mad and tears off his bandages, baffles description. It
is made up of the love music of the first and second acts, the
melodies being metamorphosed in marvellous fashion. At the last he
sees Isolda throwing down the torch as she did in Act II, and as
darkness comes over his eyes we hear the same music combined with the
love-themes. There is only one thing of the kind