When Paul rose from the piano the pent-up feelings of the audience found expression in enthusiastic applause. In the spring of 1913, just after he had turned 17, he wrote the following appreciation of Wagner for the _Llanelly Star_: The 22nd of May, 1913, marks the centenary of an event of supreme importance in the annals of music. To-day just one hundred years ago was born at Leipzig Richard Wagner, king of the music-drama, who towers above all other operatic composers like some lofty mountain rising from the midst of a dull and featureless plain. Such a colossal revolution as was effected by Wagner in Art can hardly find a parallel in any walk of life. What, in brief, was the scope of Wagner's reforms? To answer this question it is necessary to glance at the state in which the opera stood in pre-Wagner days. From the days of Scarlatti the opera had consisted of a number of semi-detached solos, duets or choruses to which tunes were set. These pieces were joined up by any jumble of notes sung by the characters on the stage, usually with no artistic meaning whatsoever, known as the recitative. In a word, the opera was a mere ballad concert. The recitative was so utterly foolish and meaningless, as a rule, that men like Beethoven and Weber, when they composed music-dramas, abolished it altogether, and composed what is known as "Singspiel"--that is, a number of ballads connected simply by spoken words. (The well-known Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are really Singspiels in a lesser form.) Thus it is obvious that the meaning of the opera--that is, a drama whose significance is made more clear by the aid of music suitable to the situation in hand--had been entirely lost sight of.