It is necessary, because the music is so beautiful and also because the piece, like the "Leonore" overtures of Beethoven and the "Meistersinger" prelude of Wagner (of which, indeed, it is a pretty frank imitation) is a sort of epitome of the play, to spend some time with the prelude to "Hänsel und Gretel." After I have done this I shall say what I have to say about the typical phrases of the score as they are reached, and shall leave to the reader the agreeable labor of discovering the logical scheme underlying their introduction and development. The prelude is built out of a few themes which are associated with some of the most significant elements of the play. Not one of them is a personal label, as is widely, but erroneously, supposed to be the case in Wagner's dramas. They stand for dramatic ideas and agencies, and when these are passed in review, as it is purposed shall be done presently, it will be found that not the sinister but the amiable features of the story have been chosen for celebration in the overture. Here, too, in what may be called the ethical meaning of the prelude, Humperdinck has followed the example of Wagner in the prelude to his comedy. Simply for the sake of identification hereafter names will be attached to the themes out of which the prelude is constructed and which come from the chief melodic factors of the opera. The most important of these is the melody sung by the horns at the beginning:-- [Musical excerpt] Let it be called the "Prayer Theme," for the melody is that of the prayer which the little ones utter before laying themselves down to sleep in the wood. The melody seems to be associated throughout the opera with the idea of divine guardianship, and is first heard in the first scene, when Hänsel, having complained of hunger, Gretel gently chides him and holds out comfort in the words (here I use the English version of the opera):-- When past bearing is our grief God, the Lord, will send relief. Humperdinck's splendid contrapuntal skill shows itself in a most varied use of this theme. Once in the prelude it appears in three different forms simultaneously, and in an augmented shape it forms the substratum of the prelude, while other themes are cunningly woven above it. The second theme is an exceedingly bright and energetic little phrase with which the rapid portion of the prelude begins. It shall be called the "Counter-Charm" theme, because it is the melodic phrase which serves as a formula with which the spell which the witch puts upon her victims is released by her as well as by the children who overhear it. When it occurs in the play it has this form:-- [Musical excerpt--"hocus pocus elder bush!"]