CHAPTER V WAGNER AND THE MUSIC DRAMA

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It is quite proper to devote a chapter to Richard Wagner, for his later works are not only examples of the most skillful and purposeful employment of the contrapuntal and instrumental resources which he, in common with his contemporaries, inherited from the past, but they show how audacious genius may safely pursue its purposes out beyond beaten paths into unexplored regions of tonal expression.

Why may genius do this, which is so uniformly fatal to the less gifted? It is because of its comprehensive grasp of logical sequence and its intuitive choice of adaptable means.

Ripe genius is a definite talent which has been subjected to exhaustive discipline, which is familiar with traditions, and takes full cognizance of pedantic forms, but is guided by an art feeling engendered by this knowledge, and not by the knowledge itself.

It is a law unto itself. It conceives a picture, a poem, or a musical sentiment, and communicates it to us through means that are often as unfamiliar as is the effect of the whole original; for it usually avoids the ruts of travelled ways, its clear view of the objective goal enabling it to follow the less frequented stream-side or mountain-top paths.

Wagner was, in the last thirty years of his life, a ripe genius. He was the sixth of our musical high-priests, and he filled the art temple with a characteristic song incense which will pervade its atmosphere as long as human passions continue to furnish art impulse.

There is a class of pedants who still take satisfaction in calling Wagner's music artificial; but these short-sighted critics cannot or will not properly survey the field of his activity and its fruits. No human mind could, unless impelled by natural, sequential feeling and virile imagination, write even one of his later dramas without manifold exhibitions of weakness in redundancies and lapses in significance. The fact that Wagner's works, from the "Meistersinger" on, show few, if any, such barren moments, adequately evidences their natural growth from musical germs.

A great creator always incites a large number of lesser lights to imitate his methods, but few of them do so successfully. Wagner is not, however, answerable for the vague effects of his dramatic means, when they are transplanted into Wagnerish overtures and symphonic poems. He evolved situations that made these means legitimate and significant; isolated, they fall into bizarre artificiality. Although we cannot fail to be influenced by the elements which Wagner added to tonal resources, they, like all other elements, must be applied because most adaptable to the development of the musical scheme in hand, and not because of their newness.

"A prophet is not without honor save in his own country." This was strikingly exemplified by the attitude of professional Leipzig towards Wagner during the earlier stages of his career. Leipzig was at that time regarded by the outlying world as the musical centre of the universe, a Mecca with a magic balm, dispensed by a priesthood whose Mahomet was Mendelssohn.

The town had been a prominent seat of learning since the first part of the fifteenth century, had possessed Bach as cantor of its "St. Thomas' school," had for a long series of years maintained its "Gewandhaus" concerts, and was the greatest of all book- and music-selling marts.

These circumstances combined to make Leipzig stand out in bold relief on the world's map, but it required Mendelssohn's magnetism to make its attractions irresistible.

The Conservatory faculty of those days included all the most prominent musicians domiciled in Leipzig, for the town was too small to furnish adherents for such contra-minded parties or factions as exist in larger cities. Mendelssohn had enlisted his forces with well-directed regard for harmony, but their creed, although properly placing Bach as the corner-stone of musical faith, was too narrow in its tenets to admit those to communion whose fancy led them outside the pale of traditional forms. They were even lukewarm towards Schumann, who had lived among them, had created a period,[A] and had contributed treasures to musical literature so luminous with genius that, as the mists of prejudice clear away, they will eclipse forever all contemporaneous productions in the various forms which they followed. The rugged boldness of originality was in the esteem of the Leipzig pedagogue but an exhibition of crude ignorance. Those who could not or would not recognize Schumann's great throbbing heart in his writings, because he, in expressing his individuality, did not always follow prescribed formulÆ, would naturally have rejected Wagner, for his earlier works were not cast in classic moulds.

Those of Wagner's creations which had been before the public previous to 1860 were characterized by few departures from Weber and Meyerbeer in scheme. Wagnerian harmonies were, however, too strong for the Leipzig critic, but the public flocked to hear them, and was pleased.

Original ideas often find first recognition among the non-professional, because musical leaders are so saturated with pedantry that sparks of genius cannot quickly kindle them to enthusiasm.

In 1862 the Gewandhaus directors made a great concession; they invited Richard Wagner to conduct his "TannhÄuser Overture" at one of their concerts. This was a fatal mistake, for his triumph was complete, and their influence as opponents of the "music of the future" was correspondingly weakened. I have discussed Leipzig at such length, not because it was Wagner's birthplace, but because from this town, with all its intolerance and smallness, started the only short road to success. Leipzig's endorsement was a universally accepted voucher.

Wagner had found this direct path barred, and his wanderings in surmounting or circumventing obstacles lasted for a long series of years, but his faith remained steadfast, and he reached the goal of his ambition a far stronger man because of the difficulties he had overcome. His appearance at the Gewandhaus was only a station on his course to already assured success, and not his starting-point.

Wagner found opera a succession of solo, ensemble, and chorus pieces, strung upon plots often too slender to give them coherence.

Texts had been made subservient to music, and that, in turn, to the singer's convenience and ambition for display. Operas were written as early as the thirteenth century, but Cherubini was the first Italian, and Gluck the first German, to produce works that have survived. Cherubini was followed by Rossini, a man of genius, but too indolent to fully develop his gifts. Had his beautiful sensuous melodies been put into richer settings, had more earnest thought been added to his spontaneity, his operas would have taken their places among the undying creations.

Flashes of genius ultimately tire. It is the steady light of genius, fed by knowledge and earnestness (as in Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann), that can hold the world's attention restfully, which means perpetually.

Bellini, with "Norma" and "Sonnambula," and Donizetti, with "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "Lucretia Borgia," still hold a place on the operatic stage, but their grasp is weakening. Verdi was the best equipped of all Italian opera composers, and his "Trovatore," with it rare gems, will crown his memory to the end of musical time. His later works, "Aida," "Othello," and "Falstaff," written under the influence of the Wagner period, are quite different from his earlier operas in instrumentation and in treatment of themes. In them he is more logical and stronger, but less sensuous. They furnish the first instances of Italian music dressed in foreign garb; of Italian music written under pressure from without. It has until recently been Italy's province to shed influence over the musical world. I construe Verdi's concessions to Wagner as the strongest possible endorsement of the latter's ideas. No other composer was in position to pay such tribute to Wagner's forceful and far-reaching art sense.

The Italian composers of the new school are musical brigands, who for a brief space succeeded in taking tribute from the musical world. Their leader, Mascagni, made such a sensational raid with his "Cavalleria Rusticana" that young Italy jumped into the breach he made, and evidently thought to take possession of our temple, regardless of their lack of equipment and discipline. Although but few years have elapsed since this assault on art, its episodes have already been relegated to the realm of disturbing memories.

"Cavalleria Rusticana," the first and best of its class, has some merits; it is short, melodious, and dramatic, but its melodies are often sentimental, and its dramatic points are usually made through the audacious employment of crude means. The direct influence of this work and its reception, conspired for harm to art.

Gluck was a Teuton, and although educated in Italy and adopted by France, can with propriety be called the father of German opera. His "Iphigenia in Tauris" and "Orpheus and Eurydice" will always be regarded as classic models of lyric writing. Gluck's schemes differed little from those of the Italian school, but his harmonic and instrumental methods were German.

Mozart was a phenomenal combination of inconsistencies. His routine and creative genius were of the highest order, his spontaneity and finish make his music delightful alike to amateurs and musicians, but he seldom seems to take matters seriously. "Don Juan," the "Requiem," and his string quartets are exceptions, for in these he is earnest and does his genius full justice.

Beethoven gave us "Fidelio." He was equally endowed with Mozart, but was actuated in what he did by earnest, deep feeling. "Fidelio," although built on the old and now discarded lines, will only take second place (musically) when some genius arises capable of writing symphonies to supersede Beethoven's nine. In "Fidelio" we still have the string of well-defined pieces, but they are rich in harmonization and polyphony.

Weber made a great impression on opera. His audacious use of the orchestra and of modulation, opened up new fields of possibility, and there is a doubt as to whether modern German opera would have become what it is, had Weber not lived. He was gifted with an inexhaustible store of melody, was equal to all dramatic situations, however exacting, and could court popular favor without belittling his art,—a very rare quality. Weber was at first Wagner's model, and "Rienzi" and "Der Fliegende HollÄnder" bear a distinct Weber impress.

Meyerbeer was a German, but early adopted Italian methods. He was an excellent business man, possessed ample means, and therefore secured deserved recognition early in his career, instead of having lived almost a life of deferred hopes, as is usually the good musician's lot. Meyerbeer is melodious, and is often dramatic, but unlike Weber, sometimes belittles his art in catering to public tastes. His pageant and ballet music are the most characteristic and impressive features of his operas.

Wagner expressed contempt for Meyerbeer, but evidently recognized the grandeur of the operatic pageantry of which he was the creator. We see evidences of this phase of Meyerbeer's influence until we pass the "Lohengrin" stage.

Many other good operas were produced during the first half of this century, but as they were not potential factors in operatic evolution, I shall mention them only in passing.

Adam wrote "Postillion;" Auber, "Fra Diavolo," "Die Stumme von Portici," etc.; Flotow, "Martha" and "Alessandro Stradella;" HÉrold, "Zampa;" Kreutzer, "Nachtlager von Granada;" Lortzing, "Der Waffenschmied," "Der Czar und Zimmermann," etc; Marschner, "Hans Heiling," "Der Templer und die JÜdin," and "Der Vampyre;" Nicolai, "The Merry Wives;" Spohr, "Jessonda" and "Faust," and Schumann, "Genoveva." All of these operas are still given at least occasionally, and most of them are excellent musical compositions.

The situation at the time when Wagner first manifested a defined tendency towards the music drama was as follows: Gluck had given the world his two great works, and they, together with "Fidelio," "Don Juan," "The Magic Flute," "The Marriage of Figaro," "Der Freischutz," and "Oberon" of the German, and "Trovatore," "William Tell," "Norma," "Lucia di Lammermoor," "La Sonnambula," "Robert le Diable," "Der Prophet," and "Die Hugenotten" of the Italian, were the most prominent and best examples of operatic writing.

Although the first steps towards the emancipation of opera from inconsistencies were the result of conditions rather than of premeditation, Wagner had sufficient genius to appreciate the power inherent in logical sequence: a power which, when compared with that resulting from eccentric modes, is as the progress of the ages to that of a leaf borne by the wind. Logical sequence moves onward with irresistible momentum, whereas fragmentary diction is blown about by every wind of caprice.

The condition which most influenced Wagner's conceptions was his relation as poet to his musical undertakings. He was in each instance first poet and then composer, and nothing could have been more natural than his early evinced disposition to guard his texts from distorted, disconnected renderings. This disposition grew, as through experience his grasp became more and more comprehensive. There were no backward steps in his career. It was like his schemes,—consequent,—advancing unwaveringly from inception to full realization in "Parsifal" and "Tristan und Isolde."

Wagner had courage adequate to sustain him in following his conceptions through ridicule, want, and almost utter friendlessness. No discouragement could divert him from the even tenor of his chosen course. His early operas, although their texts were treated with unwonted respect, gave little intimation of the revolution which was to be accomplished by their author, and it is extremely doubtful whether Wagner at this period had a shadowy conception even of that later ideal, which time and experience developed, in which music and the pictorial element were not only to collaborate with, but were to reproduce the situations and sentiments of his poems.

This kind of tone painting, in which the composer endeavors to endow his musical phrases with definite significance, is justifiable and effective when they are so closely associated in performance with the motive text as to derive directness from its more tangible character. Such efforts must not be classed with so-called program music.

"Der Fliegende HollÄnder", "Rienzi," and "TannhÄuser" might have been produced through the co-operation of Weber and Meyerbeer, with Wagner's individuality as a flavor. In them the voices are given melodies in clear-cut form, and they contain pompous Meyerbeerisms almost approaching the bizarre. This Wagner flavor, which consisted largely of a disregard of harmonic laws and key relationships, as dictated by the pedantic school, caught the public, but it aroused the violent opposition of older musicians. They denounced Wagner as a crazy ignoramus and his operas as abominations.

Viewed from a theoretical stand-point, there was that in Wagner's earlier works which in a measure justified his critics. He was not a good contrapuntist, and he consequently violated tenets of musical structure when conformity would have been more adequate.

The relations borne by plastic musical diction to the elementary rules of tonal science are so little understood, and a clear understanding of these relations is so important, that I feel justified in reiterating in different form what was said in a former chapter,—viz., that musical theory as a whole is but the codification of nature's adjustments. Extraordinary requirements license exceptional means and modes, but when composers abandon the letter of musical tenets and substitute therefor the higher law of compensation, they enter upon a field in which pitfalls abound, and through which nothing but keen judgment, founded upon experienced erudition, can safely guide them.

This law of compensation allows us to disregard elementary laws, when the nature of the situation in hand is such as to warrant and reconcile our musical sense to combinations or successions, which would without this justification sound crude and faulty. The habit of what is called free writing is most pernicious, for compensation must legitimize each irregularity or we lapse into incoherency.

Wagner was a firm, but an equally thoughtful man, and while apparently undisturbed by the cyclone of criticism evoked by his compositions, saw his vulnerable points, and at once set about fortifying them. He studied counterpoint exhaustively, taking Bach as his model, and memorizing many of that master's most characteristic works. He then gave the world "Die Meistersinger" as the fruit of his labor, and therewith forever silenced honest cavillers who had based their adverse criticisms on his ignorance, for that work is a sublime example of contrapuntal virtuosity, and it marks the beginning of a new era in Wagner's development as a musician. His orchestral settings having kept pace with his musical growth, had ripened, had become tempered, consequently "Die Meistersinger" is one of the most beautiful compositions of any time, and in it we have the clear announcement of the new dispensation.

There have been tons of literature printed, having as subjects "The Music of the Future," "Wagner," and "The Music-drama," some of the authors of which have been properly equipped (good musicians and liberally educated men), but more have been literary scavengers. The former class, having been on a war footing ever since Wagner became a bone of contention, are only just now beginning to discuss his creations dispassionately. Most of them were quite naturally arrayed against Wagner, for the most pungent flavor of the educated critic's writing is pedantry. He prefers traditions without originality to originality which does nor conform to traditions.

Wagner's first works almost paralyzed these gentlemen, and they were a long time forgetting and forgiving the shock. Their criticisms were terribly acrid, but, as I have before mentioned, were instrumental in creating the music-drama, inasmuch as through pointing out veritable faults and weaknesses they led Wagner to broaden his scholarship. These critics find it hard to lay down their arms, although the battle is over, and Wagner died in full possession of the field. The few who were from the outset in sympathy with Wagner were quite as intemperate in their laudations as were his opponents in their strictures. They were blind idolaters, and Wagner was their musical "golden calf."

The essence of the creed upon which the new dispensation is based is logical consistency. Poetry, music, and "stage business" are by it required to co-operate in expressing sentiments and in carrying the threads of dramatic schemes. Each of these arts is entirely essential to Wagner's creations. His texts are statues, which music, stage-setting, and action imbue with life. For this reason no one can hope to follow Wagner intelligently who starts without having made himself conversant with his poems. His later texts are heroic epics of no mean order. Their adaptability and musical suggestiveness are phenomenal. They could have been produced only by a musician-poet who had his completed pictures in view while writing them.

They contain a vast amount of a species of word-painting,—viz., the use of words the very sounds of which are expressive. I remember well the hilarity caused among the anti-Wagnerites by the "Nibelungen" text, which was published some years before the operas were performed. Satires and parodies were written; Wagner was described wooing his muse arrayed in fanciful vestments suiting the character of the subject under treatment. That was a happy time for his opponents. Opera texts that were not sentimental lyrics were incomprehensible. The "Call of the WalkÜre" was to them the climax of inanity; but those who have heard its musical setting will readily understand how its performance hushed these scoffers into respectful silence. I mention this "call" because most musical persons have heard it, and wondered at its adaptability.

Wagner bestowed the utmost care upon each and every task which he undertook; his effects are, therefore, less accidental than those of any other composer. He was in the habit of making three manuscripts,—viz., a sketch in which the outlines of form and character were defined, then a score in which contrapuntal and instrumental material were developed, and, lastly, a manuscript in which, after ample weighing and filing, each detail of dynamic marking, etc., was not approximately but precisely indicated. A Wagnerian crescendo or decrescendo must begin and end with the notes and dynamic force prescribed by the master, or we miss the full realization of his pictures. In securing instrumental color he was liable to mark the various parts played together differently, ranging from forte to pianissimo, according to the combination and registers of the instruments employed.

Wagner left little or nothing to the conductor's discretion. Nevertheless, there are few who have the keen, delicate perception requisite to understanding his aims, and still fewer who have it in their power to so control their forces as to secure their fulfilment.

We will now look at some of Wagner's methods of musical treatment. In the first place, we find the Overture replaced by the Vorspiel (prelude or introduction). The former, in its independent completeness, complying more or less with the exactions of the sonate form, was quite in place when operas consisted of detached pieces; whereas the "Vorspiel," which is analogous to the dramatic prologue, is better adapted to the newer form. It is composed of, or at least it introduces, the pivotal themes of the drama which it precedes. In the prelude to "Parsifal," which begins with the communion theme, Wagner has accorded to it, and to the grail and faith motives, places of honor. They are, indeed, the foundation upon which the whole drama rests, and are the keys to its situations. We find the traditional closing form (Coda) conspicuous by absence, the prelude leading up to and closing in the opening tones of the first act. This omission is grateful, for all careful musical listeners must have been disturbed time and again by the long-drawn, fanfare effects that custom has placed at the end of musical pieces. They are relics of barbarism to which even Beethoven's genius could not impart logical significance. The composer who, having finished the development of his themes, having said what he had to say, appends a closing form composed of either new material or of old inconsequently presented, sacrifices symmetry and vital force.

If custom required poets to attach Hallelujah-Hosanna verses to their finished poems, the result would not be intrinsically more incongruous than that produced by the average musical coda. A piece of music should end roundly, with a peroration, but this peroration must be adapted to the character and length of that which has preceded it, must grow out of the themes from which the piece has been developed, and form an integral part of the whole. The oft-mentioned intangibility of our art seems to induce timidity among her devotees, and unfortunately this timidity is often greatest among those who are best fitted to introduce innovations.

We will next consider the vocal treatments of Wagner's texts. Following his course from the beginning, we find the singer's parts grow less and less melodic, but the listener, if not the singer, has more than adequate compensation for this loss of lyric quality in the dramatic power gained. Reverting to our simile of the statue, the stage setting and orchestra provide an atmosphere, and the singer breathes into the text the breath which launches it into life.

In his later dramas Wagner makes the vocal parts purely musical declamation. He endeavors to, and usually succeeds in intensifying the elocutionary effects through changes of pitch and expressive rhythm, but gives the singer's convenience and voice limitations little attention. The singer's parts are, therefore, very difficult to learn and exhausting to sing, and they afford so little opportunity for display that only a love of art, strongly flavored with self-abnegation, could induce singers to attempt them.

My study of Wagner's works has greatly increased my respect for the intellects of Wagnerian singers. Any man or woman who can sing a leading part in one of the music-dramas acceptably, must have been endowed with strong throat and lungs, and must have acquired a faultless vocal method.

It is almost needless to say that the texts are set without any of those old-time illogical repetitions in which composers indulged, in order that happy thoughts—good musical episodes—might be amplified. Wagner never lost sight of his central idea, and made everything bend to its fullest realization.

His orchestra does not accompany, in the common acceptation of that term, but sings into its many-voiced melody the sentiments and moods suggested by the text. The principal means used in the attainment of this end is the "Leit Motif." Its auxiliaries are the countless shades of harmonic and instrumental color which Wagner commanded.

These "Leit Motifs" (leading and characteristic themes) constituted Wagner's vocabulary. They expressed to him personalities, moods, or sentiments, as the case required, and they were consequently chosen to impersonate these in his schemes. They sometimes consist of a few tones, and again of phrases. They appear in varied forms to suit changing conditions, but their impersonations are only made clearer through their elastic adaptability. These themes seldom appear in the vocal parts, but Wagner makes them, through adaptation and instrumentation, express each shade, from sunlight to storm, from love, trust, and worship, to wrath, fear, and hate, and in this way follows his text on parallel lines,—music by the side of and reinforcing poetry.

Wagner's demands on the stage-carpenter and scene-painter are so great that none but large theatres with ample means can properly realize his ideas of pictorial illustration. He possessed remarkable talent for inventing scenic effects, and disregarded cost.

Wagner originated the idea of having the stage overshoot the space allotted to the orchestra, the effect of which has been good in most instances where applied. It has two advantages over the common placing,—viz., it brings the singer nearer his audience, which facilitates his task of making himself understood, and it has a grateful tendency to suppress obstreperous brass, who have a way, when placed in front of the stage, of making singers forgotten. I have seen singers struggle with tense muscles and swelling veins to make a vocal climax with no other result than an heroic spectacle.

When a conductor allows his brass to bury the more modest elements of his orchestra under their clangor, he shows incapacity,—either a lack of control or a coarse conception of their mission,—and as this incapacity is quite common, any mechanical device which will insure moderation on the part of our assertive friends who play the trumpets and trombones is worthy of commendation.

Now let us see what can be done towards putting ourselves still more closely in sympathy with the master, and to better prepare ourselves to follow his creations intelligently. Following intelligently does not imply merely the recognition of episodes of especial significance or beauty, but much more: it implies the loss of no contributive detail and an easy grasp of the combined means.

Exhaustive study alone can make this possible. Its importance must serve to excuse my reverting to the subject of texts. One should never take a book into an opera-house, but should make it superfluous through earnest and repeated readings at home. We should at least so familiarize ourselves with the text of works worthy of hearing, that we can anticipate situations and keep in touch with each and every detail of action and shade of meaning. This having been accomplished, and having made ourselves acquainted with the more important Leit Motifs, we shall be intellectually equipped to follow the master in the development of his music-drama on the lines and through the methods we have considered.

I do not wish to claim that the most favorable conditions would enable us to fully understand intentions, or to discover all points of beauty and strength in one hearing; our study should, however, have placed us quite inside the cold curiosity line. We would be entitled to a creative sense akin to that felt by a co-worker: our natures would have been made acoustically receptive and responsive.


FOOTNOTE:

[A] Composers who originate forms or methods that recommend themselves to the musical world because they voice recognizable advance in art expression, create periods. Mendelssohn was in his more earnest moods a modernized Bach. He did not originate forms, but adapted those of his great ideal to our nineteenth century habits of thought and feeling. He did this inimitably, but he was more finished than forceful or bold, and his impress on art was consequently not deep, although extremely salutary.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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