within his own lifetime, he would have put himself on the lines of a scientific criticism; and once safely there, lie could hardly have missed the engagingly obvious fact that Wagner's music has conquered in Germany, being the work from which musical natures derive their keenest emotional excitation. 'A singular aberration of musical art,' as Mr. Rowbotham respectfully terms Wagner's product, it must indeed be which affords operatic managers abroad their mainstay. Hopelessly unable to winnow and weigh, Mr. Rowbotham falls back very artlessly on a theory of Wagner's character, and on a doctrine as to his true duty, that have only to be generally applied to form the double bar to all progress. In brief, the theory and doctrine are that Wagner was a man without the genius of a true artist; miserably failing in his first attempts to hit the taste of the day, he rushed to polemics, and asserted that there were no heroes before Agamemnon, and from that time forth all was madness. Now, quoth Mr. Rowbotham paternally, he ought to have subdued the wilfulness of his thoughts, and taught them to travel in that groove which the cultivated world of the time had agreed to admire as the true one.' A naive recommendation in sooth! What is it but the advice of the typical country gentleman to those restless people who think the great world is no better than it should be—Don't move; do to-day as the world was doing yesterday; and in every emergency consult your grandmother. Happily for art, when an original nature appears he objects to make these domestic references. He brings the cultivated world in time to his feet, and equips it with a new standard of cultivation. History wrongs Beethoven if he did not hold the opinion of his elderly female relative in profound disrespect. There was a public in Vienna of irreproachable taste, which found no satisfaction in his rebellion against the canons; there were even great musicians who thought him a master of cacophony; there must have been many who recommended him to consult his grandmother. And indeed the world has high sanction for treating musical genius cavalierly. To recall but one instance—did not Handel call Gluck an idiot, who knew no more of counterpoint than 'mein cook'?
The truth is Wagner's music has found favour—just as Beethoven's found favour—by its own inherent attractiveness, proving once more that what justifies itself to the sense of a supreme musical genius will in good time justify itself to the average man. Mr. Rowbotham sets down the polemical side of Wagner's productivity to disappointment and spleen; it is wholly unnecessary that he should thus foolishly theorise, because Wagner's written principles, while helping to the understanding of his work, never helped to its toleration where the musical speech was not in itself authoritative. In point of fact, Wagner's theoretical works have been extremely little read; his own admission to this effect stands. It really appears as if Mr. Rowbotham had determined to be the last Philistine; and he is likely to succeed; everything being possible to his triple conservatism. Moreover, he seems especially fitted to resist the most alluring advances on the Wagnerian lines, having scrupulously preserved his dramatic sense from evolution. In its way that is a feat, but one fatal to critical pretensions ; for anything more certain cannot be than that progress on the lyric stage means greater recognition of the necessities of drama. Gluck did something to decry if not to abolish the pestilent tenor with his gymnastics, decorations, and notes shouted on tip-toe, keeping the stage waiting, and who had learned to lord it over poet, composer, stage-manager, and all. In the famous preface to the Alceste there is the germ of Wagner's method—the recognition of the principle that the function of music is the seconding of poetry by enforcing the expression of sentiment and the interest of situation, without interrupting action or weakening it by superfluous comment; the use of instruments in proportion to the degree of interest and passion in the words; the sacrifice of rules when necessary for effect. Precept, of course, was much ahead of practice. Gluck's addiction to a frigid classicism retarded his influence; Mozart came with more instant magic, humanised the lyric stage, and carried the drama to the highest point it has yet attained within the lines of formal music. Wagner appeared on the scene with a personality as amply endowed on the dramatic as on the musical side—a phenomenon in the history of music. There is no denying that had destiny ordered his course so, he might have become chief among the masters of spoken drama. Standing, then, in the line of musical development with the doctrine and practice of Gluck and the culture of the Beethoven orchestra in and behind him, what was the natural outlet for his creative energy? Mr. Rowbotham suggests that Wagner should have taken example by his betters and slaved in the domain of pure music, making the right choice of subjects, giving tonic and dominant their dues, and attending to thematic development. So doubtless did the Rowbothams of Wagner's own day suggest. He united his gifts, instead, in production for the stage; the distinguishing aim, stated concisely but not completely, being to render action associated with music at least as truthful as action in ordinary drama. Wagner's merits apart, what has been the effect on the critical standards of today? Poverty of operatic production limits tests,
