with its Chopin-like chromaticism has meaning; but I confess I do not care for Parsifal’s motive, beautifully as it is developed. It lacks the bold, lusty, clean-cut vigor of his young Siegfried’s horn call. Wagner musically was always true to himself. He unconsciously divined the effeminacy of Parsifal’s nature, and his music is a truer psychological barometer than all the learned pundits who write reams about the purity of Parsifal. Kundry’s Service theme—in “helpful” thirds—is by no means so exquisitely musical as the Mitleid motive in Die Walküre. And what could be more absurd than the use of the Saviour’s Lament motive as the dead swan is reverently carried away. The Herzeleide motive is lovely music, especially when it is thrown into high relief during the next act by Kundry’s blandishments. The fleeting appearance of the Lohengrin Swan motive is a very happy idea. We have now reached the last part of the first act with its _Glockenthema_, its laments of Amfortas,—the accents of woe are genuine,—and the magnificent tonal panorama of boys’ voices, bells, choral music. Here, not without reverence, the composer has successfully emulated the service of Rome. The tripartite choral divisions recall both Goethe’s Faust and the spherical order of voices, and the antiphonal choirs of mediæval cathedrals. The effect is indescribable, especially when the pure, sexless boys’ voices are heard _a capella_. The consummation of this mystical ecstasy is reached when the Grail vase is slowly waved aloft. One realizes that Wagner’s genius, which so often gravitates pendulum-wise between the sublime and the ridiculous, here approaches the former. Act II, in which the ruling key seems to be B minor,—as A flat predominates the preceding act,—naturally introduces fewer new motives. The Klingsor theme, first heard in Gurnemanz’s slightly tedious recital, and the Kundry theme are most in evidence in the stormy prelude. To be quite frank I always find the Flower Girls’ music a disappointment. The Caress valse theme is a trifle commonplace, and only Wagner’s polyphonic skill lends the music some dignity. The evocation of Kundry by Klingsor in the opening scene is full of demoniacal grandeur. Wagner is nothing if not operatic, and here he shows that his old Weber skin has not been completely shed. Kundry’s galloping motive, also employed for Parsifal, is the familiar Valkyrie figure modified. I heard the Erl-King storm through several bars, and the triplet figuration of the Flower Girls is from a trio in one of Schumann’s symphonies—the B flat, if I remember aright.