Before examining the means by which the varying atmospheres of the different scenes are got, I ask the reader to notice the way in which the rather pointless, inexpressive melody of the _Dutchman_ appears now again, but so transformed as to be scarce recognizable. Compare the musical illustration (_o_) on page 119 with (_a_) at the end of this chapter. The type of tune is the same, but the first is commonplace and not quite worthy of the situation in which it occurs; the second has a glorious, though dignified, swing, and thoroughly expresses the words of welcome which Wolfram addresses to the errant Tannhäuser. Compare Daland's song in the _Dutchman_ with Wolfram's description of how Elisabeth has pined, or Senta's last passages in the final scene with Elisabeth's salute to the hall of song. We feel at once how, by dropping Italian, French and mediocre German models, and writing in the way that came natural to him, Wagner at once became a composer of the first rank, from whom great expressive melodies sprang spontaneously. The noble passages in the _Dutchman_ were drawn out of him, despite his conscious or unconscious imitation of what were considered the best models of the day, by sheer force of feeling; and I pointed out how, when the situation gave him a chance, he took it. In _Tannhäuser_ he has become a splendid artist whose brain refused to shape the commonplace. Later on his style was to become more individual, more purely his own; but so far he had now got--and it was a very long way. The pilgrims' chorus melody, which first appears in the overture, is, to my mind, very Weberesque. It is not particularly strong--for Wagner--and hardly bears the weight of the brass with which it is afterwards thundered out; but think of it and of Rienzi's prayer! The second part, of course, is Wagner at a sublime height, but of that presently. What I wish is to give examples of how he has discarded all the involutions, convolutions, twiddles and twaddles of melody, and gone back to the simplicity and directness of Weber and Beethoven. His earlier manner and type of tune, the operatic manner of his day, had, I make no doubt, its origin in the advisability, not to say the necessity, of writing so as to please singers who could sing in the Italian style and no other. Wagner had now ceased to think of singers' whims. He had a matter to find utterance for, and he went to work in the most direct way, considering nothing but his artistic aim. We know he conceived _Tannhäuser_ at a white heat, and in a condition of white heat wrote the words; and though he afterwards cooled down and had, he said, to "warm up" to his work again, yet he warmed up so effectually that he composed at furious speed, haunted by a terror lest he should not live to complete the opera. This fervour alone might account for his artistic development in the _Tannhäuser_ period. It drove him to find the secret of the one true mode of expression--the law of simplicity, the