'"
Mozart, he adds, always wrote music, but _good_ music he could only
write when he was inspired, and when this inspiration was supplied by
a subject worthy of being wedded to his muse.
No doubt Wagner was right in maintaining that Mozart's operas contain
his best music. Where among all his purely instrumental works is
anything to be found as inspired as the music in the scenes where the
ghostly statue nods at _Don Juan_, and subsequently where it enters
his room and clutches his hand in its marble grasp? I venture to add
that even Beethoven, although he is not generally regarded as an
operatic composer _par excellence_, and although his fame chiefly
rests on his symphonies and other instrumental works, nevertheless
composed his most inspired music in connection with his one opera
"Fidelio." I refer to the third "Leonora" overture, and to the music
in the prison scene, where the digging of the grave is depicted in the
orchestra with a realism worthy of Wagner, and where the music when
_Leonora_ levels her pistol at the villain reaches a climax as
thrilling as is to be found in any dramatic work, musical or literary.
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