Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/218

 was of Jewish race. I mention the point, and confine myself to saying that if a certain "oriental splendour" which as M. J. Marnold justly observes, distinguishes Wagner's music may be plausibly traced to Semitic blood, we have also to reckon with his incontestable and entire sincerity of expression, which comes from another source.

What on the other hand belongs to German origin and formation in Wagner's music is the workmanship, the massive technique, the florid polyphony, the powerful and heavy tramp of the harmony, that has no caprices or jumps.

Wagner introduced into the musical theatre two novelties of far-reaching importance; they have made in the figurative no less than in the literal sense of the words a great noise in the world. These novelties are the enrichment of the orchestration and the leit-motiv. Some reflections on these two matters will be useful. They may have the advantage of emphasising the rule of extreme precaution which is necessarily imposed on young French musicians when they feel tempted to imitate the Wagnerian procedure.

The question of orchestration has a technical side, and it may be laid down generally that it is a very delicate matter exactly to appreciate novelties brought into the technique of the art by a musician, a school, or a period.