mphal march?
Thunder! hear those trumpet blasts! I can use that--I can use that!"
In the evening he wrote down what his imagination had heard, and it
subsequently became the great march in "Oberon."

Some psychological interest also attaches to the remark with which
Weber's son prefaces this story--namely that Weber was constantly
transmuting forms and colors into sounds; and that lines and forms
seemed to stimulate his melodic inventiveness pre-eminently, whereas
sounds affected his harmonic sense.

My subject is by no means exhausted, but for fear of fatiguing the
reader with an excess of details I will close with a few facts
regarding Richard Wagner's method of composing. I am indebted for
these facts to the kindness of Herr Seidl, of the Metropolitan Opera
House in New York, who was Wagner's secretary for several years, and
helped him prepare "Goetterdaemmerung" and "Parsifal" for the press.

Like his famous predecessors, Wagner always carried some sheets of
music paper in his pocket, on which he jotted down with a pencil such
ideas as came to him on solitary walks, or at other times. These he
gave to his wife, who inked them over and arranged them in piles. In
these sketches the vocal part was always written out in full, while
the orchestral part was roughly indicated in two or more additional
staves. Frau Cosima has preserved most of these sketches, and they
will doubtless some day be reproduced in fac-simile, like some of
Beethoven's.

Whenever Wagner was in the mood for composing he would say to Herr
Seidl, "Bring me my sketches." Then he would retire to his composing
room, to which no one was ever admitted, not even his wife and
children. At lunch-time, the servant would bring something to the
ante-room, without being allowed to see the master in his sanctum. How
Wagner conducted himself there is not known, except that strange vocal
sounds, and a few passionate chords on the piano would occasionally
reach the ears of neighbors. Wagner appears to have used his piano
just as Beethoven did his, even after he had become deaf:--as a sort
of lightning-rod for his fervent emotions.

Much nonsense has been written concerning the fact that Wagner used to
wear gaudy costumes of silk and satin while he was composing, and that
he had colored glass in his windows, which gave every object a
mysterious aspect. He was called an imitator of the eccentric King of
Bavaria, and some went so far as to declare him insane. But