Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde." By George Ainslie Hight. (Stephen Swift.
5s. net.)—Mr. Hight discusses opera in general as an " art-form " in a most obscure chapter upon " Music as an art of expression." He also considers the Wagnerian drama and its origins. Next he proceeds to deal with the special case of " Tristan," with a chapter upon " Wagner's conception of the Tristan mythos " and a somewhat detailed analysis of the words and music of the opera itself. Against Mr. Hight's more abstract discussions we have nothing to urge ; the opera and Wagner are inevitable battlefields for writers upon aesthetics. But " Tristan " is surely a work of art, if ever there was one, which neither needs nor allows of explanation. It is something worse than irrelevant to embark upon "observations" upon the second act, to show that " with Wagner love is a sacrifice, . . . hence the deep mystery of the kinship of love, the vivifying principle, with death, typified in the Hindu emblem of the ling." Nor can one easily forgive the deplorable inadequacy of an attempt such as this at describing the love-duet : " The lovers are raised entirely away from the external world; it is the sleep of approach- ing death into which they sink ; rather dissolution into eternity. The words begin to lose coherence and meaning, and are often purely interjectional." Would Mr. Hight be prepared to attempt a similar paraphrase of the third act of "King Lear" ? Such lapses are more particularly to be regretted since the author makes a large number of interesting technical comments upon the music. If he had limited himself to a musical analysis and had not attempted a literary and philosophical one, his work could only have gained by it.
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