It was Wagner himself who confessed that he had thrown overboard his theories while penning this marvellous score. In it the music stifles the action. It is the very flowering of the Wagnerian genius; his best self, his fantasy, his wonderful power of making music articulate, are there. And from the tiny acorn in the prelude grows the mighty oak of the symphonic drama. There is something primal, something of the rankness of nature, of life’s odor and hum, and life’s fierce passions in this music—music before which all other pictures of love made by poet, painter, and composer pale. It is one of the most complex scores in existence; yet it is built upon but one musical motive. Because of its epical quality Tristan and Isolde may be compared to the works of the Greek dramatists, to the Divine Comedy, to Hamlet, and to Faust. Its weltering symphonic mass is as the surge and thunder of tropical seas. It seems almost incomprehensible for a single human brain to have conceived and carried to fruition such a magnificent composition. In it are the pains, pleasures, and consoling philosophies of life. Hamlet and Faust are its spiritual brethren. The doubting, brooding spirit of these two dreamers are united to the pessimistic, knightly nature of Tristan. He is human, all too human; as Nietzsche phrased it—but he is also the human glorified. He has grafted upon his mediæval soul the modern spirit, which we are pleased to believe Schopenhauer typified in his profoundly pessimistic philosophy. But this spirit is as old as Himalaya’s hills. Saka-Munyi sang of the pains of love centuries ago; and the bliss-stricken pair, Tristan and Isolde, dive down to death, groping as they sink, for the problems of life, love, and mortality. Death and Love is the eternal dualism chanted by Wagner in this drama. And has the theme ever been chanted so enthrallingly? No one of Wagner’s works enchains the imagination as does this glowing picture of love and despair. From the first beautiful prelude to Isolde’s exquisite death-song—one of those songs the world will not willingly let perish—we are as in a hypnotic trance. The action is psychologic rather than theatric. We are permitted to view two burning souls; we analyze, rejoice and suffer in their psychical adventures. This is not the drama of romantic wooing and the clash of swords; all conventions of music and drama are set aside, are denied. There is a love philter, but it is not the philter which arouses the fatal love; the love is implicit in the lovers before the curtain lifts.