on her lips she kisses the youth into the first consciousness of his virility—or a semblance of it, for at no time is Parsifal a normal young man. His act of renunciation, in his particular case, denies life. Again I ask, What is the lure that gathers multitudes to witness this most nonsensical, immoral of operas? The answer is, The Music, always The Music. Not Wagner at the flood-tide of his musical passion, nor the composer of Tristan and Isolde, or the Ring or Die Meistersinger; yet an aged wizard who had retained his old arts of enchantment, and so great are they that at times he not only makes one forget his book, but even the poverty of his themes—Parsifal is not musically original; rather it is an extraordinary synthesis of styles, an unique specimen of the arts of combination, adaptation, and lofty architectonics. Let us glance at the score. Never has Wagner been so bald in his exposition as in the prelude. But its simplicity is deceptive. The Love theme,—in A flat, by von Wolzogen named the Love Feast motive,—the Grail Hope theme, the Dresden Amen, and the Faith theme,—these and a subsidiary theme, the Saviour’s Lament, about comprise this overture. And the figure of the Saviour’s agony contains a few of the most poignant bars Wagner ever penned. This short episode is infinitely more sincere than the Faith motive—“What expression would a man like Wagner find for such an experience?” asks Ehlert. The Speech of Promise, _i.e._ the prediction “Durch Mitleid wissend,” is charmingly prophetic, but the first section of Act I drags both dramatically and musically. I am never disappointed in the Kundry music, for I have long known it in Liszt’s B minor sonata, and before Liszt it may be found in the opening bars of Chopin’s B minor sonata. There is much Liszt in this score. The trick of the twice repeated modulation into the upper diminished third, as in the case of the Faith theme, is an old Lisztian device. Kundry’s chief motive is to be found in the B minor sonata. It is not very characteristic, nor is the evocation of Arabia. Kundry enters on Valkyrie pinions, and the best thing she does is her shuddering screech—that same cry of distress so cleverly utilized by Massenet in Le Cid. Wagner draws heavily upon the second act of Die Walküre. Indeed Parsifal is full of Wagner quotations: Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde, Die Meistersinger—there is much in Gurnemanz’s bars—and even Götterdämmerung—the Rhine daughters’ music is heard in the garden scene. Amfortas’s suffering motive is not very convincing, nor are we impressed by the Forest Murmur with its canonic _appoggiaturas_. Ever this essential turn! As in the Good Friday magic spell—written years before the opera—the composer echoes Siegfried and Die Meistersinger,—the first fine, careless rapture of his wood-music he never recaptured. And this is quite natural. An old man, Wagner had reached the end of his ammunition. Many blank cartridges are fired in Parsifal. The Sorcery motive