libretto, its poetic and romantic qualities, its dramatic possibilities, as well as its stage setting and the ability of the singers to act well their parts.  An opera is a combination of several arts, in which music is often subordinated.  Not so in the case of sacred music, in which the entire portrayal rests absolutely on the musician’s art.  Of the works of the great composers who wrote both classes of music, those which are devoted to religious subjects will be found vastly superior in almost every instance, with the one exception of Mozart’s and in the case of this composer, his Mass in B flat and the Requiem will bear comparison with any of his operas.  With no regular income, Mozart was compelled to write operas in order to live, but his preference was for sacred music.  Haydn, on the other hand, spent no time on grand opera.  Through his connection with the Princes Esterhazy, which gave him an assured income from his twenty-ninth year to the end of his life, he was in a position to write only the style of music to which he was best adapted by his talents and preference.

Above all other considerations, the opera must be made to pay.  The composers expected to make money from it, and its presentation was always accompanied by enormous expense.  Everything conspired to get them to write what their audience would like, without considering too closely whether this was the best they were capable of producing.  In those times all that people required of an opera was that it should entertain.  If we compare the best opera before Wagner’s time with such works as Bach’s Grand Mass in B minor, or Beethoven’s Mass in D, we will readily see that the composers of those times put their best thought into their sacred compositions.  Bach, Protestant that he was, but with the vein of religious mysticism strong in him, which is usually to be found in highly endowed artistic natures (Wagner is an instance, also Liszt), was attracted by the beautiful text of the Mass, its stateliness and solemnity, and the world is enriched by an imperishable work of genius.  It is significant that he wrote no opera, and Beethoven only one.  Both composers probably regarded the opera as being less important artistically than the other great forms in which music is embodied.

In operatic composition, as we have seen, the musicians of those times were too apt to write down to their public.  No such temptation came to them in their religious works, as no income was expected from this source.  Here the composer could be independent of his public, so this branch of the art was developed to a much greater degree than the other.  A high standard was thus reached and maintained in religious music.

Beethoven by temperament was not adapted to operatic composition.  He was too much the philosopher, his aims being higher than were desired by an operatic audience of that time.  He could best express himself in orchestral music, and his genius drew him irresistibly in this direction.  This predilection appears throughout his works.  In his purely orchestral compositions, his genius has absolute freedom.  When he came to opera he found himself constantly hampered by new and untried conditions.  He soon found that opera has to do with something besides music.  Having once begun, however, he carried it through, perforce, by almost superhuman efforts.