This exposition of Wagner’s theories will have failed to achieve its purpose if the reader does not now clearly perceive that its fundamental postulate is that the opera is a _drama_ in which music is merely the chief vehicle of expression. This ruling idea led Wagner not only to abandon the old formulæ, but to do many things which would, perhaps, be inexpedient to attempt in absolute music. The great Bayreuth master has been severely censured, by those who cling to the belief that music should always be pretty, for having written many harsh progressions and for having indulged in remarkable boldness in his harmonies. These so-called sins of the master must find their justification in the fact that he was not aiming at purely musical beauty. The whole purpose of his work was “exact and lifelike embodiment of the poet’s thought.” When the emotion of an actor was harsh, the music had to be harsh. When the emotions were grand and beautiful, the music had to be of a similar character. It is for these reasons that we find the snarling anger of Alberich and Mime, the bitter hatred of Ortrud, the fury of Isolde, voiced in music which is not pretty, but which is truthful. But on the other hand, when Wagner has to express the sorrows of the Volsungs, the fierce and sudden passion of Siegmund and Sieglinde, the awful revulsion of feeling in the death of Siegfried, or the highest elevation of woman’s love in the last moments of Isolde, he rises to a sublime height of melody, an overwhelming dignity of harmony, and an irresistible eloquence of instrumentation not equalled by any other composer. As Louis Ehlert, not a Wagnerite, has well said: “Wagner’s music always impresses us with the idea that we are in the presence of genius. It may at times be ugly, obtrusive, and noisy; but it is never silly and insignificant.”[20] Much of the pungency of Wagner’s music, which makes it disagreeable to timid ears, is due to his progressiveness in the matter of harmony. He has gone to the furthest limit in the use of passing notes, as primarily embodied in the polyphony of Bach. He has followed the rule thus formulated by Dr. Parry:— “Suspensions are now taken in any form and position which can in the first place be possibly prepared even by passing notes, or in the second place be possibly resolved even by causing a fresh discord, so long as the ultimate resolution into concord is feasible in an intelligible manner.”[21]