The Nineteenth Century
The Music of the Future
Bayreuth



THE PERFECT WAGNERITE



PRELIMINARY ENCOURAGEMENTS

A few of these will be welcome to the ordinary citizen visiting
the theatre to satisfy his curiosity, or his desire to be in the
fashion, by witnessing a representation of Richard Wagner's
famous Ring of the Niblungs.

First, The Ring, with all its gods and giants and dwarfs, its
water-maidens and Valkyries, its wishing-cap, magic ring,
enchanted sword, and miraculous treasure, is a drama of today,
and not of a remote and fabulous antiquity. It could not have
been written before the second half of the nineteenth century,
because it deals with events which were only then consummating
themselves. Unless the spectator recognizes in it an image of the
life he is himself fighting his way through, it must needs appear
to him a monstrous development of the Christmas pantomimes, spun
out here and there into intolerable lengths of dull conversation
by the principal baritone. Fortunately, even from this point of
view, The Ring is full of extraordinarily attractive episodes,
both orchestral and dramatic. The nature music alone--music of