the influence of Chopin. Since then, it has leavened the spirit of
modern music in a manner which has never been sufficiently emphasized.
I am convinced that even Richard Wagner was, unconsciously, influenced
by it through Liszt; for one of the chief peculiarities of his style
is a sort of dramatic _rubato_ which emancipates his music from the
tyranny of the strict dance measure. In his essay on the proper
interpretation of Tannhäuser, Wagner declares that the division of
music into regular measures, or bars, is merely a mechanical means for
enabling the composer to convey his ideas to the singer. As soon as
the singer has grasped the idea, he says, the bar should be thrown
aside as a useless incumbrance, and the singer, ignoring strict time,
should be guided by his feelings alone, while the conductor should
follow and preserve harmony between him and the orchestra.

It might be said that this dramatic _rubato_ is something different
from Chopin's _rubato_. _Rubato_ literally means "robbed," and it is
generally supposed that the peculiarity of Chopin's style consisted
simply in this, that he prolonged certain notes in a bar at the
expense of the others--robbing from one what he gave to his neighbor.
But this is a very inadequate conception of the term. Chopin's
_rubato_ means much more than this. It includes, to a large extent,
the frequent unexpected changes of time and rhythm, together with the
_ritardandos_ and _accelerandos_. It includes, secondly, those unique
passages, first conceived by Chopin, where the right hand has to play
irregular groups of small notes--say twenty-two, while the left hand
plays only twelve; or nineteen, while the left plays four--passages in
which Chopin indicated as clearly as Wagner did in the words just
quoted that the musical bar is a mere mechanical measure which does
not sufficiently indicate the phrasing of the romantic or dramatic
ideas that lie beyond the walls of a dance-hall.