(Born at Leipsic, May 22, 1813; died at Venice, February 13, 1883)

It is not easy for anyone who did not live through the period of the Wagnerian excitement to understand the fierceness of the controversy. The younger generation reads at its ease accounts of protests against compositions by Strauss, Reger, SchÖnberg; how this or that piece was hissed by some in a concert hall and applauded by others; it reads and is amused, but it regards the discussion as academic. The Wagner question, like the Beecher trial, like the Ibsen controversy in Norway, divided households.

The world has moved since 1876. Much water has flowed under the bridge. Wagner is still one of the most commanding figures in the temple, but it is no longer an act of irreverence to discuss him as Verdi, Gluck, Richard Strauss are discussed. It is now generally agreed that this towering genius was after all a mortal; that he was often verbose, that he could be dull in his musical speech, as other geniuses were before him.

The great public today cares nothing about Wagner’s philosophy, or the “metaphysics” of his Ring. Wotan, Mime, Siegfried, and the rest of them, heroic or shabby characters, are as Radames, Salome, MÉlisande, Edgardo, Leonora, Manrico in the tower; they are persons in a drama who sing, and do not speak the dialogue. We have the heartiest admiration for the great scenes in the Ring, and yet find Wotan long-winded and tiresome in his reminiscences and narrations. Mime is like Artemus Ward’s kangaroo, “an amoozin’ little cuss.” Alberich with his gibbering and his jumping about is also amusing. The Dragon and the Bird do not excite our ridicule. We accept them and find their singing no more surprising than the vocal endurance of Tristan on his deathbed or the moving scenery in the first act of Parsifal. The dragon is a familiar figure in art, and we should not rub our eyes more than once if we should see one in the wilds of New Jersey. We enjoy seeing him in his proper place in Siegfried and do not wish to be told what he represents or typifies.

Enemies of Wagner, esthetic enemies, used to reproach him for the “immorality” of his librettos. In TannhÄuser there is the Venusberg. In Die WalkÜre there is the incestuous and adulterous pair whose amorous shoutings shocked Arthur Schopenhauer. Reading the story of Tristan, these rigid moralists held the nose and called for civet. Fie on Kundry’s case!

We now hear little about the “immorality” of the music dramas. King Mark’s long harangue is more immoral than the rapturous duet of the lovers; the Landgrave is more immoral than Venus; for Mark and the Landgrave, by reason of their long-winded platitudes, make Virtue boresome and Respectability a monster.

And in the expression of certain emotions and passions, in the expression of amorous ecstasy and the mystery of death, Wagner reached a height of eloquence that has seldom been attained by makers of music. Hearing the announcement by BrÜnnhilde of Siegmund’s fate, the love song of Tristan and Isolde under the cloak of the conniving night, the rustle and murmur of Siegfried’s forest, we marvel at the genius of the man who first heard these things and had the ability to let the world hear them with him.