The scene changes and on the banks of the River Pegnitz, outside the gates of Nuremberg, the folk assemble for the festival. The various guilds arrive, there is dancing and jollification. At last the mastersingers approach with all due pomp and ceremony. Hans Sachs is hailed by the populace and, when all have taken their places, he calls attention to the prize that is offered. At last Beckmesser advances to sing for the prize. He attempts the poem that Sachs gave him but so mixes and mangles it that his hearers soon are in shouts of laughter and he is forced to desist. He then accuses Sachs of having written it and Sachs, in defense, declares that the poem is not of his own fashioning, that the song is beautiful and that it needs but to be properly given in order to prove its author a master singer. He calls for some one to sing it and Walter advances. The melody and words are so beautiful that both common folk and masters are charmed and when it is ended Eva crowns the singer with laurel. Pogner will place the silver chain of the mastersinger order about his neck but Walter motions him away. He will have " none of the masters." Sachs, however, with dignity and eloquence points out to him the beauty and value of the art that has given such a prize and, as Walter accepts the chain, Eva removes the laurel wreath from her lover's head and with it crowns Sachs himself, the people acclaiming him as " Nuremberg's darling Sachs."
Musically " The Mastersingers " is conceded the most beautiful and the most inspired of all the Wagner operas. Its prelude is a master work, whether viewed in the light of melodic and harmonic beauty or as a wonder in contra puntal writing. The three great songs for Walter, "Am stillen Heerd " (" By quiet Hearth "), in which he tells of his having first learned to sing; " Fanget an " (" Now begin "), with which he tries for the mastership, and the immortal " Prize Song," which he composes in Sachs' room and which he sings with such happy results at the contest, are brilliant refutations of the charge that Wagner could not write fluent, beautiful melody. The quintet, sung in the last act at the " christening " of the " Prize song," remains unsurpassed by anything that Wagner or any of his prede cessors have achieved along the line of effective ensemble writing. The musing of Sachs before his shop and his monologue when alone in his room are of supreme interest and loveliness. The address of Pogner before the master singers is of the finest quality and the entire scene of the serenade of Beckmesser shows Wagner's great genius as musician, humorist and poet in the most brilliant light.