(LIGHT-moe-teef) A short musical figure, sometimes no more than three or four notes, which instantly identifies a person, thing, event, or idea in music and, above all in opera. There are suggestions of the leitmotiv in Gluck and Mozart, as well as various German Romantic operas especially—those of von Weber. Wagner is the most well known practitioner of this device. His music shows how a subtle and intelligent use of leitmotives could not only recall characters or objects to mind, but also could convey to the listener an intricate understanding of how these elements change in the course of the drama—the musical modification or development expressing a new psychological or dramatic state.