The Master then sat down at the piano, and related to us the poem
of Siegfried, upon which he was at that time working. He played the
themes, measure by measure, and declaimed and sang with such ardour,
such vigour, and such a perfect expression that we seemed actually to
be living the whole drama. The hero, at the moment of re-forging the
sword, strikes a single blow upon the anvil, and Mime, terror-struck,
falls over backward. Wagner rose and almost disappeared entirely in the
great violet curtains, in order the better to exemplify the fright of
the gnome. He emerged again laughing, and declared that, not being in
any sense a pianist, this music of the future was too difficult for him.
"I will outline the second act better," said he; and he revealed to us
the whole bird scene in such a delightful way that no later execution
of it, anywhere, has quite exalted us to the height of that vivid first
impression.