He had tried a new experiment, which proved a failure.

The second and third acts had their preludes, and the songs of the minstrel had their melodies and accompaniments, and all the principal scenes had been provided with illustrative music in the Wagnerian manner, with this difference, that the dialogue had been "pointed," as a church musician would say--that is, the rhythm was indicated with exactness, and even the variations of pitch, though it was understood that the purpose was not to achieve song, but an intensified utterance, halfway between speech and song.

This was melodrama, as Herr Humperdinck conceived it and as it had no doubt existed for ages--ever since the primitive Greek drama, in fact.

It is easy to understand how Herr Humperdinck came to believe in the possibility of an art-form which, though accepted, for temporary effect, by Beethoven and Cherubini, and used for ballads with greater or less success by Schumann, had been harshly rejected by his great model and master, Wagner.

Humperdinck lives in Germany, where in nearly every theatre there is more or less of an amalgamation of the spoken drama and the opera--where choristers play small parts and actors, though not professional singers, sing when not too much is required of them.