I have devoted this chapter to an explanation of the Wagner system, because it is the vital element in this master's work. In it are to be found the novelties in his method of applying the principles of Peri, Gluck, and Weber. If the reader will refer to the Gluck preface previously quoted and to the excerpts from Weber's letters, he will perceive how in this system Wagner was only carrying out their ideas in a musical form invented by himself. This new method of Wagner's has been imitated with disastrous results by some composers to whose works it was unsuited, and to whose genius it was foreign. Wiser modern writers, like Massenet and Verdi, have adopted the broader features of it--the continuous melody, the arioso declamation, and the independence and illustrative agency of the orchestra--without attempting to make extensive use of leading motives. Massenet has used them moderately, Verdi not at all. But in "Falstaff" Verdi has filled his orchestration with illustrative melodic fragments, which are not repeated. All recent composers have treated the orchestral parts of their operas with much freedom, and have scored them with great instrumental richness. This advance in operatic writing is due chiefly to Wagner. It is quite impossible to estimate at a time so soon after the composer's death how deep and permanent will be his influence upon operatic art, but it is plain that every writer of to-day has yielded some allegiance to him, and every one has striven to attain dramatic fidelity. Better librettos are written for operas; and public taste, in almost every country where opera is given, demands that the lyric stage shall present for consideration a genuine _drama per musica_. This demand for sincerity has spread into other branches of musical art, and it can fairly be said that Wagner has done more for the general advancement of musical taste in his day and immediately after it than any other composer who ever lived. Chapter XXVII The Lessons of Musical History Characteristics of the three great periods: Polyphonic, Classic and Romantic--Purposes of composers and possibilities of music in each--Limitations of the periods and their reasons--The contest between Classicism and Romanticism.