specialty and devote himself
particularly to the orchestra.

In this domain he was destined to achieve reforms similar to those of
Wagner in the opera. The "classical" symphony, like the old-fashioned
opera, consists of detached numbers, or movements, that have no organic
connection with one another. For the detached numbers of the opera
Wagner substituted his "continuous melody;" and he provided an organic
connection of all the parts by means of the "leading motives" or
characteristic melodies and chords which recur whenever the situation
calls for them. In the same spirit Liszt transformed the symphony into
the symphonic poem, which is continuous and has a leading motive uniting
all its parts.

There is another aspect to the symphonic poem, in which Liszt deviated
from Wagner. In Wagner's operas there is plenty of descriptive or
pictorial music, but no program music, properly speaking; for even in
such things as the Ride of the Valkyries, or the Magic Fire Scene, the
music does not depend on a programme, but is explained by the scenery.
In programme music, on the other hand, the scene or the poetic idea is
simply explained in the programme, or else merely hinted at in the title
of the piece. Crude attempts in this direction were made centuries ago,
but programme music as an important branch of music is a modern
phenomenon. Beethoven encouraged it by his "Pastoral Symphony," and the
French Berlioz did some very remarkable things in this line in his
dramatic symphonies; but it remained for Liszt to hit the nail on the
head in his symphonic poems. The French Saint-Saens followed him, rather
than his countryman Berlioz; so did Tschaikowsky, Dvorak, and most
modern composers, up to Richard Strauss, whose symphonic poems are the
most widely discussed, praised, and abused compositions of our time.

To the great names contained in the preceding paragraphs another must
be added,--that of an Italian. By an odd coincidence, Verdi was born in
the same year as Wagner, 1813. But what is far more remarkable is that
at the close of their careers, so different otherwise, these two great
composers met again--in their music, Verdi as a Wagnerian convert. Up to
his fifty-eighth year Verdi had written two dozen operas, all made up of
strings of arias in the old-fashioned way,--superb arias, many of them,
especially in "Il Trovatore" and "Aida," but still arias. Then he rested
from his labors sixteen years; and when he appeared on the st