[386] This is a broadly true statement of the historical facts, though it has to be remembered that the theory that the first Florentine reformers aimed at a recitative-like delivery of a dramatic idea is only one of the errors of the popular historian. Their earliest attempts were more in the arioso form. See Hugo Riemann's Handbuch der Musikgeschichte, ii. 2, chap. xxiii.
[387] Zukunftsmusik, in G.S., vii, 128.
[388] Ibid., vii, 129.
[389] Zukunftsmusik, in G.S., vii. 129.
[390] I do not mean, of course, that it has anything to do with the symphony in the formal sense, but that the orchestra weaves a continuous tissue of its own, instead of merely accompanying the voices as in the earlier operas.
[391] See Appendix B.
[392] On Operatic Poetry and Composition, in G.S., x. 172.
[393] On the Application of Music to the Drama, in G.S., x. 186.
[394] Ibid., x. 186, 187.
[395] On the Application of Music to the Drama, in G.S., x. pp. 189, 190. The variation of the theme to which Wagner refers is as follows: