Let me begin by quoting a few of these.  The phrase (a, page 118) immediately suggests Tristan, as it screams higher and higher with ever-increasing intensity of passion; a variant of it (b) is charged with the same feeling, and is used in the same way.  The feeling is not the same as in Tristan; both are used when Eric makes his last despairing appeals to Senta.  But look at (c).  Compare it with one of the themes (d) expressive of Wotan’s anguish, and then recollect that (c) is used when Vanderdecken, in veiled speech, tells Daland of his woes.  When Vanderdecken is yearning for Senta’s love, and trembling lest by telling the truth he should frighten her, we get (e), afterwards developed with such poignant effect in the first and last acts of Tristan.  Vanderdecken enters with Daland, and Senta, almost stunned, sets eyes on him for the first time.  The musical phrase is (f), which, simplified and more direct in its appeal, was to be used when Siegmund and Sieglinda first gaze on one another.  Then the passage (g) is one which the reader will find mentioned in my chapter on Tristan (p. 263) as standing for quite a multitude of things in the Ring.  A curious case is the little phrase (h) which occurs in the middle of the watchman’s song.  Of no significance here, of what tremendous import it is in the first act of Tristan.

None of these phrases or passages is developed with the power and resource characteristic of Wagner’s later work; but it is astonishing that after the baldness and noise of Rienzi he should have gone straight on to invent such music at all.  He was still groping his way, and had to trust to the conventional framework of opera construction to a large extent; that is, each act is divided into set numbers, even when the numbers are based on music which has been heard before and to which, therefore, a definite meaning has become attached.  He could not yet trust himself in an open sea of music, as he did in Tristan; rather, we have a chain of lakes, the music sometimes overflowing out of one into another.  The marvellous continual development of themes with intricate interweavings and incessant transmogrifications—­all this was part of the technique of the Tristan period.  Neither in the Dutchman nor in Tannhaeuser nor in Lohengrin is there any sign of it.  Of what may be called leitmotivs there are only three, the Dutchman (i) and Senta (j), while a portion of the second (k) may be regarded as a third, for it is used by itself, independently.  One little group of notes (l) I have seen described as a leitmotiv; and if it is one, I should like to know what it stands for.  As can be seen, it is a bit of the Senta theme (fourth bar of j); and in the overture a long connecting passage is built on it.  But it also forms part of the chorus of sailors in the first act, part of the watchman’s