It is suggestive to note that the earliest recognised function of
music, before it had learned to enslave itself to mere sensuous
enjoyment, was similar in spirit to that which its latest reformer
demands for it in the art of the future. The glory of its birth then
shone on its brow. It was the handmaid and minister of the religious
instinct. The imagination became afire with the mystery of life and
Nature, and burst into the flames and frenzies of rhythm. Poetry was
born, but instantly sought the wings of music for a higher flight than
the mere word would permit. Even the great epics of the "Iliad" and
"Odyssey" were originally sung or chanted by the Homeridæ, and the
same essential union seems to have been in some measure demanded
afterwards in the Greek drama, which, at its best, was always inspired
with the religious sentiment. There is every reason to believe that
the chorus of the drama of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides uttered
their comments on the action of the play with such a prolongation and
variety of pitch in the rhythmic intervals as to constitute a
sustained and melodic recitative. Music at this time was an essential
part of the drama. When the creative genius of Greece had set towards
its ebb, they were divorced, and music was only set to lyric forms.
Such remained the status of the art till, in the Italian Renaissance,
modern opera was born in the reunion of music and the drama. Like the
other arts, it assumed at the outset to be a mere revival of antique
traditions. The great poets of Italy had then passed away, and it was
left for music to fill the void.
The muse, Polyhymnia, soon emerged from the stage of childish
stammering. Guittone di Arezzo taught her to fix her thoughts in
indelible signs, and two centuries of training culminated in the
inspired composers, Orlando di Lasso and Palestrina. Of the gradual
degradation of the operatic art as its forms became more elaborate and
fixed; of the arbitrary transfer of absolute musical forms like the
aria, duet, finale, etc., into the action of the opera without regard
to poetic propriety; of the growing tendency to treat the human voice
like any other instrument, merely to show its resources as an organ;
of the final utter bondage of the poet to the musician, till opera
became little more than a congeries of musico-gymnastic forms, wherein
the vocal soloists could display their art, it needs not to speak at
length, for some of these vices have not yet disappeared. In the
language of Dante's guide through the Inferno, at one stage of their
wanderings, when the sights were peculiarly mournful and desolate--
"Non raggioniam da lor, ma guarda e passa."
The loss of all poetic verity and earnestness in opera furnished the
great composer Gluck with the motive of the bitter and protracted
contest which he waged with varying success throughout Europe, though
principally in Paris. Gluck boldly affirmed, and carried out the
principle in his compositions, that the task of dramatic music was to
accompany the different phases of emotion in the text, and give them
their highest effect of spiritual intensity. The singer must be the
mouthpiece of the poet, and must take extreme care in giving the full
poetical burden of the song. Thus, the declamatory music became of
great importance, and Gluck's recitative reached an unequalled degree
of perfection.
The critics of Gluck's time hurled at him the same charges which are
familiar to us now as coming from the mouths and pens of the enemies
of Wagner's music. Yet Gluck, however conscious of the ideal unity
between music and poetry, never thought of bringing this about by a
sacrifice of any of the forms of his own peculiar art. His influence,
however, was very great, and the traditions of the great _maestro's_
art have been kept alive in the works of his no less great disciples,
Méhul, Cherubini, Spontini, and Meyerbeer.
Two other attempts to ingraft new and vital power on the rigid and
trivial sentimentality of the Italian forms of opera were those of
Rossini and Weber. The former was gifted with the greatest affluence
of pure melodiousness ever given to a composer. But even his sparkling
originality and freshness did little more than reproduce the old forms
under a more attractive guise. Weber, on the other hand, stood in the
van of a movement which had its fountain-head in the strong romantic
and national feeling, pervading the whole of society and literature.
There was a general revival of mediæval and popular poetry, with its
balmy odour of the woods, and fields, and streams. Weber's melody was
the direct offspring of the tunefulness of the German _Volkslied_, and
so it expressed, with wonderful freshness and beauty, all the range of
passion and sentiment within the limits of this pure and simple
language. But the boundaries were far too narrow to build upon them
the ultimate union of music and poetry, which should express the
perfect harmony of the two arts. While it is true that all of the
great German composers protested, by their works, against the spirit
and character of the Italian school of music, Wagner claims that the
first abrupt and strongly-defined departure towards a radical reform
in art is found in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with chorus. Speaking of
this remarkable leap from instrumental to vocal music in a professedly
symphonic composition, Wagner, in his _Essay on Beethoven_, says--"We
declare that the work of art, which was formed and quickened entirely
by that deed, must present the most perfect artistic form, _i.e._,
that form in which, as for the drama, so also and especially for
music, every conventionality would be abolished." Beethoven is
asserted to have founded the new musical school, when he admitted, by
his recourse to the vocal cantata in the greatest of his symphonic
works, that he no longer recognised absolute music as sufficient unto
itself.
In Bach and Handel, the great masters of fugue and counterpoint; in
Rossini, Mozart, and Weber, the consummate creators of melody--then,
according to this view, we only recognise thinkers in the realm of
pure music. In Beethoven, the greatest of them all, was laid the basis
of the new epoch of tone-poetry. In the immortal songs of Schubert,
Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Franz, and the symphonies of the
first four, the vitality of the reformatory idea is richly
illustrated. In the music-drama of Wagner, it is claimed by his
disciples, is found the full flower and development of the art-work.
WILLIAM RICHARD WAGNER, the formal projector of the great changes
whose details are yet to be sketched, was born at Leipsic in 1813. As
a child he displayed no very marked artistic tastes, though his ear
and memory for music were quite remarkable. When admitted to the
Kreuzschule of Dresden, the young student, however, distinguished
himself by his very great talent for literary composition and the
classical languages. To this early culture, perhaps, we are indebted
for the great poetic power which has enabled him to compose the
remarkable libretti which have furnished the basis of his music. His
first creative attempt was a blood-thirsty drama, where forty-two
characters are killed, and the few survivors are haunted by the
ghosts. Young Wagner soon devoted himself to the study of music, and,
in 1833, became a pupil of Theodor Weinlig, a distinguished teacher of
harmony and counterpoint. His four years of study at this time were
also years of activity in creative experiment, as he composed four
operas.
His first opera of note was "Rienzi," with which he went to Paris in
1837. In spite of Meyerbeer's efforts in its favour, this work was
rejected, and laid aside for some years. Wagner supported himself by
musical criticism and other literary work, and soon was in a position
to offer another opera, "Der fliegende Holländer," to the authorities
of the Grand Opera-House. Again the directors refused the work, but
were so charmed with the beauty of the libretto that they bought it to
be reset to music. Until the year 1842, life was a trying struggle for
the indomitable young musician. "Rienzi" was then produced at Dresden,
so much to the delight of the King of Saxony that the composer was
made royal Kapellmeister and leader of the orchestra. The production
of "Der fliegende Holländer" quickly followed; next came "Tannhäuser"
and "Lohengrin," to be swiftly succeeded by the "Meistersinger von
Nürnberg." This period of our _maestro's_ musical activity also
commenced to witness the development of his theories on the philosophy
of his art, and some of his most remarkable critical writings were
then given to the world.
Political troubles obliged Wagner to spend seven years of exile in
Zurich; thence he went to London, where he remained till 1861 as
conductor of the London Philharmonic Society. In 1861 the exile
returned to his native country, and spent several years in Germany and
Russia--there having arisen quite a _furore_ for his music in the
latter country. The enthusiasm awakened in the breast of King Louis of
Bavaria by "Der fliegende Holländer" resulted in a summons to Wagner
to settle at Munich, and with the glories of the Royal Opera-House in
that city his name has been principally connected. The culminating
art-splendour of his life, however, was the production of his
stupendous tetralogy, the "Ring der Niebelungen," at the great
opera-house at Bayreuth, in the summer of the year 1876.