WAGNER. The highest ideals of German opera culminated in the music dramas of Wagner. He aimed to substitute a noble form of art in the place of mere pleasure-giving and sensational fabrications. Music, poetic ideas, action and stage setting were all to be worthy of the subject intended for presentation. By developing the so-called _Leit-motiv_, Wagner discovered a most potent factor for recalling past events, for emphasizing those present, and for anticipating those of the future. To-day Wagner stands forth as the accepted champion of dramatic reforms, as the most eminent composer of the nineteenth century, and as the greatest master of orchestration in the annals of the world. Although at first susceptible to tone-color as an end to itself, he learned to subordinate it to the demands of the musical and poetic ideas of the immediate dramatic situation. He emphasized solidity, made the orchestra firm and supple, increased its melodic as well as harmonic force, and used it for two definite purposes: to render emotion and to portray action and situations. His orchestration does not deviate from well-established and approved traditions, but the grouping and treatment of instruments are entirely new. Every phase of his inexhaustible variety in string writing is of surpassing beauty. The use of deep, sonorous basses never interferes with harmonic clearness or with the outline of melodic and rhythmic movement. The modern extreme development of unsupported wood-wind and their numerical distribution are entirely due to Wagner. The most radical changes are those affecting the brass. Of incalculable value was the permanent employment of valve-horns and valve-trumpets, the immense development in horn writing, the discarding of opheicleides, and the introduction of a complete group of tubas. Much of Wagner's warm and rich orchestration is due to a substratum of soft brass harmonies that are apparently not audible at all. No composer knew better than he how to obtain the best effects from instruments of percussion without overstepping the bounds of artistic refinement. Greatest of masters for the orchestra, Wagner brought that organization to its highest point of evolution. Further prominent representatives of the "New Movement" are Cornelius, Bruckner, Lassen, Ritter, Draeseke, Weingartner, Nicodé, Richard Strauss. The masterful and ingenious instrumentation of Cornelius proves him a worthy follower of Wagner. Bruckner's orchestration, though clever, lacks buoyancy and warmth. That of Lassen, Ritter, Draeseke and Weingartner contains many sterling qualities, but has not advanced the evolution of orchestration to any perceptible degree. Nicodé's methods present some of the most interesting specimens of modern orchestration.