When we listen to the free declamation of the singers at the outset of Der fliegende Hollander - a declamation which is accompanied by 1 The subsequent division into three acts, as given in all the published editions, has been effected in the crudest way by inserting a full close in the orchestral interludes at the changes of scene, and then beginning the next scene by taking up the interludes again.

Hence a need was soon felt e ~ of something to dispel the pessimism of the No, and that something took the form of comedies played in the interludes of the No and called Kyogen (mad words).

Men and women of all ranks began to visit it; the emperor himself consented (f 887) to witness a performance by the great stars of the stage at the private residence of Marquis Inouye; a dramatic reform association was organized by a number of prominent noblemen and scholars; drastic efforts were made to purge the old historical dramas of anachronisms and inconsistencies, and at length a theatre (the Yurabu-za) was built on purely European lines, where instead of sitting from morning to night witnessing one long-drawn-out drama with interludes of whole farces, a visitor may devote only a few evening-hours to the pastime.

But between the sixth and seventh seals and the sixth and seventh trumpets the connexion is more or less disturbed by the insertion of certain interludes containing material foreign in certain aspects to the Apocalypse.

To this period belong five Masses, a dozen operas, over thirty clavier-sonatas, over forty quartets, over a hundred orchestral symphonies and overtures, a Stabat Mater, a set of interludes for the service of the Seven Words, an Oratorio Tobias written for the Tonkiinstler-Societe t of Vienna, and a vast number of concertos, divertimenti and smaller pieces, among which were no less than 175 for Prince Nicholas' favourite instrument, the baryton.