It is worth pausing for a moment to note how quickly the popularity of Wagner was rising at this period. Only the distant onlooker could perceive how large a place the master was beginning to fill in the hearts of English music-lovers. Failing the opportunity for hearing his complete works upon the stage, they had perforce to be content to hear them, either whole or in part, upon the concert platform. The demand for this kind of thing became remarkable, and it was satisfied by the most conservative as well as the most advanced musical institutions. Imagine two concert performances of "Parsifal" (with very few cuts, moreover) being given in London only a couple of years after the first production of that glorious music-drama at Bayreuth! Yet this was actually done in the autumn of 1884 by the Royal Choral Society, under Joseph Barnby, with Therese Malten (the original Kundry), Gudehus, and Scaria in the principal parts. And really the exacting work was very creditably interpreted.