owes the Gewandhaus concerts an everlasting debt
of gratitude.

Richard, we know, had never heard of Beethoven, had never heard a bar
of his music. At the Gewandhaus the symphonies were regularly played,
and to one of the performances he went, contented, with his head full
of his play, not dreaming of what was to happen to him ere the morrow.
Here are his own words: "I only remember that one evening I heard a
symphony of Beethoven's, for the first time, that it set me in a
fever, and on my recovery I had become a musician." This is from one
of his stories, but it describes with sufficient closeness what
actually happened. We know that saturated solutions of some salts at a
touch solidify into a mass of crystals, and as far as intentions were
concerned this, figuratively, happened to Richard: his purpose was
instantly set--he would be a musician--nay, he felt he _was_ a
musician. As to his proceedings, however, a better simile would be
that of a liquid into which you drop a little of another liquid and
immediately a violent commotion with much heat is set up. Beethoven's
music touched his young being, and a fermentation began which drove
him forthwith to make himself a perfectly equipped technical musician.
Almost like Teufelsdroeckh and St. Paul, he was "converted" in the
twinkling of an eye.

The change was astounding; but Wagner was an astounding genius. The
bald fact is that he was musical as well as dramatic; hitherto the
dramatist in a favourable environment had grown and flourished while
the musician lay latent waiting his time; but the moment the spirit of
Beethoven spoke to his spirit the musician sprang up and responded.
Weber had been his musical god, but he was now set a little lower, and
Beethoven took his place. When he started to compose seriously it was
Weber and not Beethoven he copied, but that is easily explained:
Wagner, like Weber, wrote theatrical music for the theatre, whilst
Beethoven wrote only utterly untheatrical music for the theatre, and
it was from Weber and not Beethoven he had to learn his art of theatre
music. But it was from Beethoven and not from Weber that the impulse
to, compose came. He had heard, probably, all Weber's operas without
any desire to go and do likewise; but having heard Beethoven's
symphonies, and the incidental music to _Egmont_, he at once realized
that his tragedy would be incomplete without music, and he resolved to
write it. Carlyle, overlooking the trifling fact