In this respect, as in some others, the _Meistersinger_ stands in a class apart from the other works of Wagner's maturity. It is the most purely vocal of all his later works, in the sense that while the orchestral tissue is superbly full and unceasing in its flow, the voice parts have an independence that is rare in the later Wagner. The style is in a way almost a reversion to that of _Lohengrin_, allowance being made, of course, for the more symphonic nature of the orchestral portion, and the more continuous nature of the whole. The _Meistersinger_ is full of "set" pieces--arias, duets, trios, a quintet, choruses, _ensembles_, and so on. The necessity for all these lay in the nature of the subject; and Wagner, at that time at the very height of his powers, has so cunningly mortised all the components of the opera that not a join is observable anywhere. A superficial glance at a table of the _Meistersinger_ motives would be enough to convince us, without any knowledge of the opera, that a great many of the themes have had a vocal origin, either solo or choral. Others owe their length to the fact that Wagner is painting masses rather than individuals; only a fairly extended theme could depict, for instance, the sturdy, pompous old Meistersingers and their stately processions. Where he is not following a vocal line or painting with broad sweeps of the brush, and is free to invent motives for purely orchestral use, he generally throws them into the same concise form as those of the _Ring_--the "Wooing" motive, for example--
which, by reason of its brevity, is one of the most plastic motives in the score. But as a whole the _Meistersinger_ lives in a different world from the _Ring_ or _Tristan_. There is no great fateful principle running through it, that can be symbolised in a short orchestral figure and flashed across the picture at any desired moment, after the manner of the "Curse" or the "Hagen" motive in the _Ring_, or the "Death" motive in _Tristan_. The people in the _Meistersinger_ carry hardly any shadows about with them. Their natures are mostly ingenuous, transparent, unsubtle: such as we see them on the stage at any given moment, such are they to themselves and others in every hour of their lives. It was natural then that they should take upon themselves more of the burden of the drama than the characters of the _Ring_ as a whole,--for these are only instruments in the hand of a fate that is best symbolised by the ever-present orchestra--and that the instrumental voices should co-operate joyously with them, rather than dog them and lie in wait for them, as in the _Ring_, with symbols of reminiscence and foreboding. That the whole essence of the _Meistersinger_ lies in its simple human characterisation and simple story-telling is shown again by Wagner's reverting in the Prelude to the _pot-pourri_ feuilleton form of the _Tannhäuser_ overture,--a form he never used again after 1845, except here.