The year following the first production of _Parsifal_ Wagner’s health began to fail and he went to Venice where he died suddenly in 1883. He was buried with fitting honors at Bayreuth which always honors the memory of the Great Master of German Opera. Here is a picture of Wagner in the words of his brother-in-law: “the double aspect of this powerful personality was shown in his face; the upper part beautiful with a vast ideality, and lighted with eyes which were deep and severe, gentle or malicious, according to the circumstances; the lower part wry and sarcastic. A mouth cold and calculating and pursed up, was cut slantingly into a face beneath an imperious nose, and above a chin which projected like the menace of a conquering will.” HOW THE WIZARD CHANGED OPERA When Wagner reached his full power, he composed drama rather than opera in the old sense. His music explained the words and action and expressed the state of mind of the character. The melodies are used very much like the theme in a sonata. These leit-motifs (leading motives) are usually carried, as we told you, in the weavings of his wonderful orchestral webs. This theme or leit-motif or name tag, is tossed from instrument to instrument in numberless entrancing ways. Sometimes he uses a flickering theme for flames as in the fire music of _The Valkyrie_ or glorious chimes or trumpetings as in _Parsifal_ to cast a holy spell; but, whatever he uses, he charms and holds you spellbound. He combines the counterpoint of the 16th century masters, with a most modern feeling for harmony, inherited from the classic Germans. He used harmony in a new way with a freedom it never before had reached, and pointed the way for modern composers of today. As the Wizard, Wagner throws a glamor over the most mystic happening, as when Siegmund, in _Die Valkyrie_, withdraws the Sword from the tree; or in the most commonplace fact as when Eva tells Hans Sachs that she has a nail in her shoe. In _The Meistersinger_, you can always tell that he is making fun of Beckmesser, because his name tag shows him to be petty and ridiculous. Although Wagner’s music is rich, very clear to us and beautiful, in his day it seemed complicated and discordant, because of its great volume and sonority, the result of the perfect part-writing. For the first time, he makes the brasses of equal importance to the string and wind instruments. It is thrilling to hear the trombones and his beautiful use of trumpets. He used many of Berlioz’s ideas in muffling horns and added new instruments, too, among them, the bass clarinet and the English horn (_cor anglais_), which is a tenor oboe and not a horn at all!