This volume, concerned with Wagnerian excerpts most frequently performed
in the concert hall, has been prepared primarily for the audience of the
Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York. Its object is to supply
information in as concise and complete a manner as space will permit. It
makes no boast about originality, particularly since the bulk of the
material involved stems from any number of treatises on the subject of
Wagner and his music.
Wagner
AND HIS MUSIC-DRAMAS
No artist has known a fiercer urge to create than Richard Wagner. None
has labored more mightily to indoctrinate mankind with his convictions.
None has been more scathing in his contempt of reaction, of pretense, of
outdated mannerisms. He wanted his works to be sagas of epic spiritual
and moral power; and, whether or not he achieved his aims, he wrote
music that is voluptuous and emotionally overwhelming.
In a way he glamorized human suffering or, at least, that side of human
suffering expressed through the symbol of renunciation, which one
encounters frequently in his operas. His librettos are filled with
super-noble purpose, with superhuman aspiration. In _Der Ring des
Nibelungen_ he created a world of divinities who are imperfect and
humans who unconsciously strive toward perfection. It is not a new
world, nor is it a brave one, except through the promise of humanity’s
elevation. With _Tristan und Isolde_ he rises to metaphysical heights in
his argument. The theme generally is again renunciation, the attaining
of perfection and solace through it. One comes upon it again in _Die
Meistersinger_, in _The Flying Dutchman_, in _Parsifal_, and so on.
Yet for an artist whose works so idealized all that is good and lofty
and noble, Wagner did little in his own life that could possibly
approach those superior motives. There is a distinction to be made,
therefore, between Wagner the man and Wagner the artist.
Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, on May 22, 1813, the son (allegedly)
of Karl Friedrich and Johanna Wagner. The theory has been advanced that
the composer’s real father was Ludwig Geyer, an intimate friend of the
family, who married Frau Wagner about a year after her first husband’s
death.
[Illustration: Madame Johanna Wagner, niece of the composer, who sang a
leading role in the première performance of _Tannhäuser_.]
Even as a young boy Richard was tremendously fond of the theater. His
mother, not particularly interested in it, threatened to hurl a curse on
his head if he attempted to make a career of the stage.
In any case, when Geyer died several years later, Richard was sent to
Eisleben to become apprenticed to a goldsmith. After a year of puttering
around as a tyro goldsmith he returned to Dresden where the family now
was. In that city he found many opportunities to express his dramatic
urge.
Soon the family moved back to Leipzig and Wagner began to study with
Theodor Weinlig, who was one of the authorities on counterpoint.
His early essays in music (composition now being his aim) were nothing
to become excited about. But the musical life of Dresden and his
intercourse with leading figures of the day worked their influence on
him nevertheless. He spent nights copying Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth
Symphonies. He wrote an overture which Heinrich Dorn, director of the
Leipzig Theater, liked well enough to perform, but it was poorly
received. With characteristic suddenness he entered Leipzig University
as a _studiosus musicae_, really a student with few privileges. But he
plunged with great gusto into all sorts of student activity, which was,
apparently, the real reason for his enrollment at the school.
One of his sisters, Rosalie, and his brother both followed the acting
profession, and they gave him the benefit of their counsel, though no
one knows how much of it he followed.
He wrote a symphony and then began work on an opera, _Die Hochzeit_,
which he never completed. That was in 1832. In the same year he tried
again, actually finishing a work entitled _Die Feen_. It was rejected,
but Wagner, after one or two little pouts, regained his composure. He
accepted an engagement as conductor at Magdeburg and in the course of
his work he composed another opera, _Das Liebesverbot_, which, however,
was given one performance.
At Magdeburg he met Minna Planer, a member of the operatic troupe, who
later became his wife. When she left for Königsberg he followed her and
obtained a conductor’s position at the theater in that city. Then came a
succession of changes. The restless Wagner scurried about with the
spontaneity of a gypsy. When things lagged in one place he quickly moved
to another. So that we find him going to Riga, where he directed both
opera and symphony, to London, to Paris. In the last named he thought he
might finally awaken a musical public to his genius. But he suffered
untold agonies. Poverty possessed him. He and his wife lived in constant
economic turmoil. With all that he managed to compose two more operas,
_Rienzi_ and _The Flying Dutchman_. Both were produced at Dresden under
the sponsorship of Meyerbeer, then a dominant figure in German music.
All this time, though, he wrote a host of compositions, besides penning
many articles on music for various publications, and his fame spread.
His rebellious temperament got him into difficulty often enough, but he
managed, most of the time, to slip out of it. However, in Dresden, where
he officiated as a conductor of the Royal Opera, he clashed with certain
musical authorities who would not brook his bold opposition to standard
ideas. Yet still another opera came to the light of performance when
_Tannhäuser_ was given its first hearing, again at Dresden, on October
19, 1845.
During the previous summer Wagner began work on the libretto of _Die
Meistersinger_ while vacationing at Marienbad. He soon abandoned it,
taking on the libretto for _Lohengrin_ instead. The following year saw
the completion of the _Lohengrin_ score. In 1848 he joined a
revolutionary movement that spread through Europe, launched by the
French Revolution. When the disturbance was quelled some months later,
he fled to Switzerland, but remained there for a short time, heading
soon for Paris.
His wife refused to join him there, remembering too well the poverty of
the previous stay in the French capital. But he started on _Siegfried’s
Death_, which was to grow into the gigantic _Ring_. He flitted about
again, leaving Paris, returning a little later.
Wagner fell in love with Jessie Taylor Laussot, who proved a
benefactress in a financial way. In the meantime, he decided to leave
Minna forever. In Zurich, whither he repaired, he labored unceasingly on
the libretto for _The Young Siegfried_. Then he created the subject of
_The Valkyrie_ and finally that of _The Rheingold_.
It is amusing to note that he wrote his _Ring_ librettos in reverse
order, that is, from what is now _Götterdämmerung_ back to _Das
Rheingold_. Having hit upon a huge theme, he found it increasingly
necessary to broaden its scope, thus accounting for the four operas.
Parenthetically, however, he wrote the music in the correct order.
[Illustration: The reaction of some of Wagner’s musically untutored
contemporaries is amusingly depicted in this caricature from _Figaro_
(1876).]
[Illustration: Wagner as a young man, about the time Meyerbeer
sponsored the first production of _Rienzi_ in Dresden.]
[Illustration: Richard Wagner at the peak of his powers when _Der Ring
des Nibelungen_ was nearing completion.]
Now in Wagner’s life there appears a strange and beautiful influence,
Mathilde Wesendonck, wife of a very wealthy silk merchant. It has been
pointed out that under the spell of this beguiling woman his composing
flourished as never before. At the home of the Wesendoncks he completed
the poem for _Tristan und Isolde_. It is not known how friendly Richard
and Mathilde were, but this is fact: Wagner left his friends’ abode
because he would not bring grief upon Otto Wesendonck.
He went once more to Paris where some very ridiculous things happened
having to do with a suggested ballet for the opera _Tannhäuser_. Wagner,
adamant, would not change the order of his work merely to please
influential gentlemen of the Jockey Club.
In 1864, when Wagner was fifty-one, he settled in Munich—he had been
forgiven for his revolutionary surge—and in this musically flourishing
city he came under the high patronage of King Ludwig of Bavaria. Here he
renewed acquaintance with Liszt’s daughter Cosima, whom he had met some
years before. She was now married to Hans von Bülow, a highly gifted
conductor. The composer and Cosima were thrown together a lot and their
mutual regard soon ripened into love. Poor little Minna, who had been
ill for a long period, died in 1866, a piece of news which saddened
Wagner greatly.
That same year, however, he and Cosima took a place at Triebschen on
Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Bülow, at first angered by his wife’s deed,
soon came to realize the inevitability of it. Besides, he adored Wagner
and his music. He acted sanely therefore, sacrificing his personal
feelings for the sake of Wagner’s art. Cosima and Richard were married
in 1870.
At Triebschen he completed _Die Meistersinger_, _Siegfried_, and the
first two acts of _Götterdämmerung_, besides writing any number of
treatises, articles, and the like. Here, too, the idea of a great
festival theater was born in him, and the originality of the thing soon
won many influential supporters to the cause. By 1871 a site was found
for it at Bayreuth, Germany. The next year he put the finishing touches
to the _Ring_ and the Bayreuth project grew in proportion to his frantic
efforts to raise money for it. In all, it took some four years to erect
this shrine to Wagnerian music. And finally, the première of the
Wagnerian Cycle, running from August 13 to 16, was a tremendous success,
in spite of the heartaches, the headaches, and the discouragement.
[Illustration: Manuscript of a humorous song dedicated by Wagner to
Louis Kraft, proprietor of the hotel in Leipzig where Wagner stopped
during his first trip to Bayreuth.]
With all that he had already accomplished, Wagner could have retired to
the easy life he often so fervently spoke about. But the urge to compose
never left him. He set to work on _Parsifal_, the poem he had completed
some months before. When the opera was all finished he endeavored with
his usual kinetic energy to raise money for its production. It was given
its first performance on July 26, 1882. There were sixteen more
performances.
Wagner, after all the excitement of Bayreuth, left for a vacation in
Venice. In spite of repeated heart attacks, he considered seriously the
writing of another symphony. But he had done his work. There was to be
no second symphony. Wagner died of his heart illness on February 13,
1883. He was buried at Bayreuth.
Overture to “Rienzi”
Bulwer’s _Rienzi_ revived an old desire of Wagner’s to make an opera out
of the story of the last of the Tribunes. He was in Dresden during the
summer of 1837 and there he read Barmann’s translation of the Bulwer
novel. However, he did not begin actual work until the following July.
First, of course, came the text. Later that month he started on the
music. By May 1839, he had completed two acts. The remainder of the
score, with the exception of the Overture, was written and orchestrated
in Paris. The Overture was finished on October 23, 1840.
On October 20, 1842, _Rienzi_ was given its world première at the Royal
Saxon Court Theater, Dresden. Amusingly, the performance began at 6
P.M., and it went on and on until midnight. America was not to become
acquainted with the opera until March 4, 1878, when it was given at the
Academy of Music, New York.
The thematic material employed in the Overture stems from music in the
opera itself, such as the “long-sustained, swelled and diminished A on
the trumpet,” which is the signal for the people’s uprising against the
nobles; Rienzi’s Prayer; a theme of the chorus, _Gegrüsst sei hoher
Tag_; the theme of the revolutionary forces, _Santo spirito cavaliere_;
the stretto of the second Finale, _Rienzi, dir sei Preis_; and a subject
similar to the phrase of the nobles set to the words, _Ha, dieser Gnade
Schmach erdruckt das stolze Herz!_
The score of the Overture calls for one piccolo, two flutes, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, two valve-horns, two plain horns, one
serpent (nowadays replaced by the double-bassoon), two valve trumpets,
two plain trumpets, three trombones, one ophicleide (replaced by the
bass-tuba), two snare-drums, bass drum, triangle, cymbals, and strings.
[Illustration: The People’s Chorus, commencing Act II of _Rienzi_.]
Overture to “The Flying Dutchman”
This compact and brilliantly written Overture calls for the following
instrumentation: piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two
clarinets, four horns, two bassoons, two trumpets, three trombones, bass
tuba, kettledrums, harp, and strings.
John Runciman once remarked about this music, “It is the atmosphere of
the sea that counts; the roar of the billows, the ‘hui!’ of the wind,
the dashing and plunging.... The sea, indeed, is the background,
foreground, the whole environment of the drama.... The smell and
atmosphere of the sea is maintained with extraordinary vividness to the
last bar.”
In the construction of the Overture Wagner makes important use of the
theme of the Dutchman, which appears in the opening measure by horns and
bassoons, and of the up-and-down theme of Senta, the Angel of Mercy,
softly and tenderly sung by English horn, horns and bassoons. This is
the theme which at the conclusion of the piece rises to a triumphant
sonority, indicative of redemption attained.
Overture to “Tannhäuser”
The first concert performance of this well-known Overture took place at
Leipzig, on February 12, 1846, under the direction of Mendelssohn. The
event was a benefit for the Gewandhaus Orchestra Pension Fund.
Wagner himself furnished a “program” for the Overture when the musicians
performing it at a Zurich concert requested an explanation of the music.
The “program” in a translation by William Ashton Ellis follows:
“To begin with, the orchestra leads before us the Pilgrim’s Chorus
alone; it draws near, then swells into a mighty outpour, and passes
finally away.—Evenfall; last echo of the chant. As night breaks, magic
sights and sounds appear, a rosy mist floats up, exultant shouts assail
our ears, the whirlings of a fearsomely voluptuous dance are seen. These
are the Venusberg’s seductive spells, that show themselves at dead of
night to those whose breast is fired by the daring of the senses.
Attracted by the tempting show, a shapely human form draws nigh; ’tis
Tannhäuser, Love’s minstrel.... Venus herself appears to him.... As the
Pilgrim’s Chant draws closer, yet closer, as the day drives farther back
the night, that whir and soughing of the air—which had erewhile sounded
like the eerie cries of the soul condemned—now rises, too, to ever
gladder waves; so that when the sun ascends at last in splendor, and the
Pilgrims’ Chant proclaims in ecstasy to all the world, to all that lives
and moves thereon, Salvation won, this wave itself swells out the
tidings of sublimest joy. ’Tis the carol of the Venusberg itself,
redeemed from the curse of impiousness, this cry we hear amid the hymn
of God. So wells and leaps each pulse of Life in chorus of Redemption;
and both dissevered elements, both soul and senses, God and Nature,
unite in the astonishing kiss of hallowed Love.”
[Illustration: TANNHAUSER
“Wagner, inventor of the bass drum for musical bombardment, applies
himself to his favorite exercise” reads the caption for this
contemporary French caricature.]
The Overture to Tannhäuser is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three
trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, and
strings.
Bacchanale from “Tannhäuser”
The opera was first produced at the Royal Opera House, Dresden, on
October 19, 1845. Some sixteen years later, due to the interest and
influence of Princess Metternich, wife of the Austrian Ambassador to
France, the work was introduced to Paris. For that production Wagner
extended his first scene to include a Bacchanale, the reasons for this
being as amusing to us as they must have been tragic to Wagner. The
Princess revealed, in an article written for the _Pall Mall Magazine_
(London, 1894) some of the reasons for the failure of the opera there,
and it was a complete failure. The Princess says:
“The day of the performance drew nigh and in most circles little good
will was confessed. It was stated generally that a protest should be
made against the abominable futurist music, and it was rumored that
stormy scenes might be expected at the Opera. In the clubs men were
annoyed because Wagner would not have a regular ballet, but only a few
poses of the ballerinas in the Venusberg. The club subscribers to the
Opera expected a ballet at nine-thirty sharp, no matter what the opera.
This, at least, was the custom of the time. No one who knew anything of
art could conceive where a ballet could be introduced into the midst of
‘Tannhäuser.’ Wagner declared that he would not accede to the silly
wishes of the subscribers, because he could not. And he was perfectly
right, but his refusal was to be paid for dearly.”
Wagner had entertained great hopes for this Parisian production of
_Tannhäuser_. To produce his work at the justly famed Opera was reason
enough, what with that organization’s habit of letting expense go hang.
He labored industriously at making revisions, which included a complete
rewrite of the Bacchanalian scene as well as of the music for Venus and
Tannhäuser in Act 1.
When he had completed his revisions he played the music for several
friends. Charles Nuitter, one of these, reported on that private hearing
as follows:
“When we arrived the composer sat down to the piano. He played with
indescribable animation and fury. His hands pounded the keys, and the
same time he strove to acquaint me with the action of the scene, crying
out the entrance of the various groups. ‘Arrival of the fauns and
satyrs; all are put to flight; the confusion mounts to its climax,’ he
flung at me, and his hands continued to bang the keys, the musical
delirium always augmenting. When he was piling on a succession of
quivering chords Wagner suddenly cried, ‘Now a crash of thunder. We are
all dead!’ At that moment a wagon of paving stones discharged its load
into the street, thus producing a prolonged and terrible noise. Wagner
turned round and regarded us with stupefaction, his eyes staring wildly.
It took us some moments to recover from this stirring of our feelings.
Thus it was that I was initiated into the new music.”
The first Paris performance of _Tannhäuser_ took place on March 13,
1861. That was the first of three fiascos in the French capital. The
second occurred on March 18. Napoleon III and the Empress both attended,
but their presence had no effect on the rest of the audience, whose
cat-calls, howls, and kindred strange noises were even louder, if not
funnier, than the first time.
The work was given for the third time on March 24. This was not a
regular subscription performance, and it seemed to all and sundry that
finally a Parisian audience would be honest and unprejudiced in its
attitude toward the opera. However, the composer’s enemies had bought
out the house and the result was the same. Whereupon Wagner withdrew his
score. _Tannhäuser_ was not given again in Paris until thirty-four years
later.
Prelude to “Lohengrin”
In the summer of 1845, while Wagner was at Marienbad, he worked out the
plan for _Lohengrin_. The libretto he wrote during the following winter.
Then came a topsy-turvy scheme of creation. In composing the music he
began with the hero’s Narrative in the last act, “because the monologue
contained the most significant musical germs in the whole score.” He
finished the third act on March 25, 1847, the first act on June 8 of
that year, the second act on August 2, and the Prelude on August 28. The
orchestration was done during the following winter and spring. Franz
Liszt conducted the première of the opera at Weimar on August 28, 1850.
The Prelude was played for the first time in concert on January 17,
1853, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Julius Rietz conducting.
Discussing the Prelude, William Foster Apthorp wrote:
“Like the hero’s career in the opera, it begins, as it were, in the
clouds, then gradually descends farther and farther until it embraces
all the lower tones of the orchestra, and then returns to the clouds
again. Its single theme is developed in free polyphony by various
successive groups of instruments, each of which groups proceeds with
free counter-thematic work as the next group enters with the theme.
First we have the violins _piano_ in their higher registers; then come
the flutes, oboes, and clarinets; then the violas, ’cellos, horns,
bassoons, and double-basses; lastly the trumpets, trombones, and the
tuba _fortissimo_; then comes the _decrescendo_, ending _pianissimo_ in
the high violins and flutes.”
The composer, who could descant with the best of them, paraded his
rhetorical gifts on the Prelude (the translation is by William Ashton
Ellis):
“Love seemed to have vanished from a world of hatred and quarreling; as
a lawgiver she was no longer to be found among the communities of men.
Emancipating itself from barren care for gain and possession, the sole
arbiter of all worldly intercourse, the human heart’s unquenchable
love-longing, again at length craved to appease a want which, the more
warmly and intensely it made itself felt under the pressure of reality,
was the less easy to satisfy on account of this very reality. It was
beyond the confines of the actual world that man’s ecstatic imaginative
power fixed the source as well as the output of this incomprehensible
impulse of love, and from the desire of a comforting sensuous conception
of this supersensuous idea invested it with a wonderful form, which,
under the name of the ‘Holy Grail,’ though conceived as actually
existing, yet unapproachably far off, was believed in, longed for, and
sought for.
“The Holy Grail was the costly vessel out of which, at the Last Supper,
our Saviour drank with His disciples, and in which His blood was
received when out of love for His brethren He suffered upon the cross,
and which till this day has been preserved with lively zeal as the
source of undying love; albeit, at one time this cup of salvation was
taken away from unworthy mankind, but at length was brought back again
from the heights of heaven by a band of angels, and delivered into the
keeping of fervently loving, solitary men who, wondrously strengthened
and blessed by its presence, and purified in heart, were consecrated as
the earthly champions of eternal love.
“This miraculous delivery of the Holy Grail, escorted by an angelic
host, and the handing of it over into the custody of highly favored men,
was selected by the author of ‘Lohengrin’ for the introduction of his
drama, as the subject to be musically portrayed; just as here, for the
sake of explanation, he may be allowed to bring it forward as an object
for the mental receptive power of his hearers.
“To the enraptured look of the highest celestial longing for love, the
clearest blue atmosphere of heaven at first seems to condense itself
into a wonderful, scarcely perceptible but magically pleasing vision;
with gradually increasing precision the wonder-working angelic host is
delineated in infinitely delicate lines as, conveying the holy vessel
(the Grail) in its midst, it insensibly descends from the blazing
heights of heaven. As the vision grows more and more distinct, as it
hovers over the surface of the earth, a narcotic fragrant odor issues
from its midst; entrancing vapors well up from it like golden clouds,
and overpower the sense of the astonished gazer, who, from the lowest
depths of his palpitating heart, feels himself wonderfully urged to holy
emotions.
“Now throbs the heart with the pain of ecstasy, now with the heavenly
joy which agitates the breast of the beholder; with irresistible might
all the repressed germs of love rise up in it, stimulated to a wondrous
growth by the vivifying magic of the vision; however much it can expand,
it will break at last with vehement longing, impelled to self-sacrifice
and toward an ultimate dissolving reveals again in the supremest bliss
as, imparting comfort the nearer it approaches, the divine vision
reveals itself to our entranced senses, and when at last the holy vessel
shows itself in the marvel of undraped reality, and clearly revealed to
him to whom it is vouchsafed to behold it, as the Holy Grail, which from
out of its divine contents spreads broadcast the sunbeams of highest
love, like the lights of a heavenly fire that stirs all hearts with the
heat of the flame of its everlasting glow, the beholder’s brain reels—he
falls down in a state of adoring annihilation. Yet upon him who is thus
lost in love’s rapture the Grail pours down its blessing, with which it
designates him as its chosen knight; the blazing flame subsides into an
ever-decreasing brightness, which now, like a gasp of breath of the most
unspeakable joy and emotion, spreads itself over the surface of the
earth and fills the breast of him who adores with a blessedness of which
he had no foreboding. With chaste rejoicing, and smilingly looking down,
the angelic host mounts again to heaven’s heights; the source of love,
which had dried up the earth, has been brought by them to the world
again—the Grail they have left in the custody of the pure-minded men, in
whose hands its contents overflow as a source of blessing—and the
angelic host vanishes in the glorious light of heaven’s blue sky, as,
before, it thence came down.”
“Der Ring des Nibelungen”
A colossal work in four parts, the _Ring’s_ central theme is one of
redemption. The Norse God Wotan, addicted to the amassing of power, may
not achieve it through deceit or treachery. By trickery he obtains from
the Nibelung Alberich a ring possessing untold powers, made of the gold
of the Rhine. Alberich hisses a curse, in losing it, which only a pure
hero acting as a free agent may remove.
Wotan’s attempts to get the ring, his often devious reasoning, and the
panoplied purpose of the whole, make of the tetralogy an epic study in
the emotions, the humanities, the loyalties, the shortcomings, in short,
in the whole moral and spiritual concept of the individual and society.
The Ride of the Valkyries from “Die Walküre”
In the time intervening between _Das Rheingold_ and _Die Walküre_ Wotan
has worked out a plan to save the gods from destruction. The ring must
not fall into the wrong hands, those of Alberich, for instance, for the
wily and greedy creature knows full well its powers. The thing to do,
then, is to regain possession of it without “craft or violence.” He must
employ some means above such devices. Consequently his plan is to bring
into being a hero who shall not be his servitor, but rather the agency
for the accomplishment through a free, totally unguided will. Thus we
come to the saga of the Walsungs, human descendants of Wotan, and one of
them, Siegmund, is the hero chosen.
The Valkyries are the nine daughters of Wotan by the earth goddess of
wisdom, Erda. And of these Brünnhilde is Wotan’s favorite. She
interferes with her father’s wishes in order to aid Siegmund, however,
and she is given the penalty of mortality by her father. The duet in the
last act of the opera between Wotan and Brünnhilde is one of the most
moving sequences in all Wagner.
The Ride of the Valkyries is an excerpt from the music which leads into
Act III, made into a concert piece by Wagner himself. A great rock
dominates the scene in the opera. It is the Valkyr Rock where now the
maidens are gathering. Fully equipped in shining mail, carrying spears
and shields, they ride swiftly through the storm. At the curtain’s rise
only four of the maidens are discernible on the stage. The others may be
heard announcing their entrance with the exultant Valkyr call. The music
surges to great heights of sound, wild, untrammeled, passionate, driven
relentlessly by powerful rhythms.