onies for these texts. Experience shows conclusively that the most
powerful stimulant of the composer's brain is _the possession of a
really poetic and dramatic text_. To take only one instance--it surely
cannot be a mere coincidence that the best works of four great
composers--Spohr, Berlioz, Gounod, and Schumann, are based on the
story of "Faust." And Schumann, in one of his private letters,
indicates very clearly why his "Faust" is such an inspired
composition. Speaking of a performance of this work he says: "It
appeared to make a good impression--better than my 'Paradise and
Peri'--no doubt in consequence of the superior grandeur of the poem
which aroused _my_ powers also to a greater effort."

More significant still are the words which Weber wrote to Fran von
Chezy when she was writing the libretto for "Euryanthe;" which he
intended to make better than all his previous works. "When you begin
to elaborate the text," he wrote; "I entreat you by all that is sacred
to task me with the most difficult kinds of metre, unexpected rhythms,
etc., which will force my thoughts into new paths and draw them out of
their hiding-places."

In one of his theoretical essays, Wagner emphasizes the value of a
good poem in kindling the spark of inspiration in a composer's mind by
exclaiming: "Oh, how I adore and honor Mozart because he found it
impossible to compose for his 'Titus' as good music as for his 'Don
Juan,' or for his 'Cosi fan Tutte' as good music as for 'Figaro.'"
Mozart, he adds, always wrote music, but _good_ music he could only
write when he was inspired, and when this inspiration was supplied by
a subject worthy of being wedded to his muse.

No doubt Wagner was right in maintaining that Mozart's operas contain
his best music. Where among all his purely instrumental works is
anything to be found as inspired as the music in the scenes where the
ghostly statue nods at _Don Juan_, and subsequently where it enters
his room and clutches his hand in its marble grasp? I venture to add
that even Beethoven, although he is not generally regarded as an
operatic composer _par excellence_, and although his fame chiefly
rests on his symphonies and other instrumental works, nevertheless
composed his most inspired music in connection with his one opera
"Fidelio." I refer to the third "Leonora" overture, and to the music
in the prison scene, where the digging of the grave is depicted in the
orchestra with a realism worthy of Wagner, a