MUSICAL COMPOSITION

110 MUSICAL COMPOSITIONscattered numbers and wipe them out. He used hisextra instruments, such as the cor anglais, b88Sclarinet, double bassoon, tuba, et hoc genus omne, not tofill up a general clatter and to add extra notes, but asexponents of p88Sages which were written for andrequired their particular type of colour. When heaims at an effect of confusion (such as the coming ofthe swan in:Lohengrin, or, still more, the street row inthe Meistersinger) he arrives at complexity throughsimplicity. Every part in itself runs naturally andsatisfactorily to the player. The result is that it all(to use a common but descriptive phrase) "comes off."This mastery he owed, as he would himself havebeen the first to admit, to his complete knowledge ofMozart, Beethoven and Weber. The so-called moderntype of full-swell instrumentation owes nothing to anyof them. It is only the natural result of revelling toomuch in Wagner's climaxes of polyphonic sound, whichhe used economically, and with which the less experiencedof his successors gamble. The charm of individualconversation between the instruments, of whichSchubert was so great a master, is for the momentabolished. Why? Because in many cases the instrumentshave nothing to say. There is just materialenough for a buzz of general conversation, but no talkersufficiently interesting to arrest the attention of theother talkers. The invention is, therefore, in inverseratio to the colour, and the richness of colour is usedto conceal the poverty of invention. It often succeeds,momentarily; but when the trick is found out thefailure will be proportionately greater. The palette ofa painter is a beautiful study of colour, both simpleand complex; but he would not exhibit it as a picture