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[Theme Two--Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass.]

is intended to represent the complement to the former, the sacrificial love of Senta, which is to bring the peace. Wagner says: "I had merely to develop, according to their respective tendencies, the various thematic germs comprised in the ballad to have, as a matter of course, the principal mental moods in definite thematic shapes before me. When a mental mood returned, its thematic expression also, as a matter of course, was repeated, since it would have been arbitrary and capricious to have sought another motive, so long as the object was an intelligible representation of the subject, and not a conglomeration of operatic pieces."

The leit motiv system was not so extensively used by Wagner in his earlier works as in his later ones, when the system had become fully developed and he had obtained a complete mastery of its difficult musical technic. In his later works the orchestral score is largely made up of repetitions and elaborations of the various leading motives, and this has led to some grave misconceptions as to the nature and purpose of his system. Many writers have published handbooks purporting to explain the Wagner dramas. These handbooks contain musical reprints of the various thematic phrases, with names which Wagner never thought of giving them. The books simply follow the scores through, page by page, enumerating the various motives as they appear. The result of reading these books is naturally a belief that the principal business of the auditor's mind at the performance of a Wagner drama is to identify each leading motive which is heard, and by doing so to get at the composer's meaning. In other words, those handbooks cause many persons to suppose that the hearer of a Wagner score has to translate the music into definite terms, those terms being labels which will tell him what the music itself does not. This is an utter misconception of the Wagner system, and it has been one of the chief obstacles in the way of its ready acceptance by persons educated in music of the older sort.

It is not necessary to know the name of a single leading motive in any Wagner drama in order to understand the work. Wagner himself did not know all the names found in the handbooks. He did not invent the names. The quotation given above explains what Wagner was trying to accomplish by the use of leading motives. He tried to embody the "principal mental moods" of his dramas in "definite thematic shapes," and to use those thematic shapes whenever he desired to express those moods. Now if the themes do not express the moods, all the names in the handbooks are worthless, because incorrect. If the themes do express the moods, the names are still worthless, because superfluous. Furthermore, if a passage made up of various leading motives does not fairly convey to the auditor the moods and emotions of the text and action to which that passage is set, the whole system is a failure. If it does convey those moods and emotions, then it makes no difference whatever to the auditor whether he knows the names of the leading motives or not. It does not even matter whether he knows that there are any leading motives at all. An acquaintance with the leading motives immensely increases one's intellectual pleasure in listening to Wagner's dramas and enables one better to appreciate their musical form and their subtler details; but I repeat that it is absolutely inessential to an understanding of the dramatic force, eloquence, and truthfulness of the music. The text is the only test to be applied to any opera music. If the music expresses fairly the emotions contained in the text, it is good dramatic music. That was the test which Wagner himself imposed upon opera music, and it is the test by which his work must be judged. Every leading motive in Wagner's dramas is explained by text, usually on its first appearance, but sometimes not till afterward. What is called the sword motive makes its first appearance in the score of "Das Rheingold," when Wotan simply conceives the idea of creating a race of heroes.

[Listen: "Das Rheingold"]

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["Das Rheingold".]