Tonality is simply the relation of a musical phrase, or air, or longer composition, to a keynote or tonic chord. To this tonic chord the harmonies of the composition must bear a close and constantly felt relationship. The harmony almost always opens with this chord, and continually recurs to it; and either in its simple form or in some of its inversions, it, its dominant and subdominant, are the perceptibly ruling harmonies of the composition; and upon this tonic chord the composition always ends. That is tonality; nothing more nor less; and to the influence of this principle of tonality is due the distinctive character of modern music. Strange as it will probably seem to most amateurs, news as we have already seen it is to one professor, it was not until after Palestrina's time that the law of tonality asserted itself in music, and that compositions were clearly written with any tonic, that is, manifestly and strikingly in any particular key.[5] But it so happens that Wagner's method of composition has actually led him somewhat away from this principle of tonality. Any musical person will see that in recitative there is much less relation of harmony to the tonic than in airs or in choruses; and Wagner's prolonged, almost endless recitatives are wearisome partly from the very fact that we are so long at sea drifting hither and thither without the rudder of tonality. But what did this matter to the criticaster? He had heard the word tonality, and it was a round, mouth-filling word, somewhat new withal, and therefore good for use against an ignoramus. Perhaps he thought it meant sonority or something of the kind; or he connected it with that lovely phrase "tone-poem." Well, in any case, it has served his purpose astonishingly. [5] It is not necessary that I should give authority for this to any competent person who is acquainted with the music of the ancient composers; but whoever chooses to do so may find the subject fully discussed in Helmholtz's great work, _passim_.