WAGNER AND WAGNERISM
Periods of operatic reform; Wagner’s early life and works--Paris:
_Rienzi_, ‘The Flying Dutchman’--Dresden: _Tannhäuser_
and _Lohengrin_; Wagner and Liszt; the revolution of
1848--_Tristan_ and _Meistersinger_--Bayreuth; ‘The Nibelungen
Ring’--_Parsifal_--Wagner’s musico-dramatic reforms; his harmonic
revolution; the leit-motif system--The Wagnerian influence.
I
The student or reader of musical history will perceive that it is
impossible to determine with any exactitude the dividing lines which
mark the epochs of art evolution. Here and there may be fixed a sharper
line of demarcation, but for the most part there is such a merging of
phases and confusion of simultaneous movements that we are forced,
in making any survey or general view of musical history, to measure
approximately these boundaries. It may be, however, noted that, as
in all other forms of human progress, the decisive and revolutionary
advances have been made by those prophetic geniuses who, in
single-handed struggle, have achieved the triumphs which a succeeding
generation proclaimed. It is the names of these men that mark the real
milestones of musical history and on that which marks the stretch of
musical road we now travel stands large the name of Richard Wagner.
That we may the more readily appreciate Wagner’s place as the author
of the ‘Music of the Future’ and the creator of the music drama, it
is necessary to review briefly the course of musical history and
particularly that of the opera as it led up to the time of Wagner’s
birth at Leipzig, May 22, 1813. A glance at our chronological
tables will show us that at the time Beethoven still lived and at
the age of forty-three was creating those works so enigmatic to his
contemporaries. Weber at the age of twenty-seven was, after the freedom
of a gay youth, settling down to a serious career, seven years later
to produce _Der Freischütz_. Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin
were in their earliest infancy, while Schubert was but sixteen and
Berlioz was ten. Thus may it be seen at a glance that Wagner’s life
falls exactly into that epoch which we designate as ‘romantic,’ and to
this same school we may correctly assign the works of Wagner’s earlier
periods. But, as we of to-day view Wagner’s works as a whole, it is at
once apparent that the label of ‘romanticist’ is entirely inadequate
as descriptive of his place in musical history. We shall trace in
this chapter the growth of his art and follow its development in some
detail, but for the moment it will suffice us if we recognize the fact
that Wagner arrested the stream of romantic thought at the point where
it was in danger of running muddy with sentimentality, and turning into
it the clearer waters of classic ideals, opening a stream of nobler
breadth and depth than that which had been the channel of romanticism.
Wagner’s service to dramatic art was even larger, for the opera was
certainly in greater danger of decay than absolute music. Twice had the
opera been rescued from the degeneration that now again threatened it,
and at the hands of Gluck and of Weber had been restored to artistic
purity. Gluck, it will be remembered, after a period of imitation
of the Italians, had grown discontent with the inadequacy of these
forms and his genius had sought a more genuine dramatic utterance in
returning to a chaster line of melody. He also adopted the recitative
as it had been introduced into the earlier French operas, employed the
chorus in a truly dramatic way, and, spurning the hitherto meaningless
accompaniment, he had placed in the orchestra much of dramatic
significance, thereby creating a musical background which was in many
ways the real precursor of all that we know to-day as dramatic music.
Weber we have seen as the fountain head of the romantic school, and
his supreme achievements, the operas, we find to be the embodiment of
all that romanticism implies; a tenderness and intense imaginativeness
coupled with a tragic element in which the supernatural abounds.
Musically his contributions to dramatic art were a greater advance than
that of any predecessor; melodically and harmonically his innovations
were amazingly original and in his instrumentation we hear the first
flashes of modern color and ‘realism’ in music.
It was on these two dramatic ideals--the classic purity and strength of
Gluck and the glowing and mystic romanticism of Weber--that Wagner’s
early genius fed. Wagner’s childhood was one which was well calculated
to develop his genius. With an actor as stepfather, brothers and
sisters all following stage careers, an uncle who fostered in him the
love of poetry and letters, the early years of Richard were passed in
an atmosphere well suited to his spiritual development. While evincing
no early precocity in music, we find him, even in his earliest boyhood,
possessed with the creative instinct. This first sought expression in
poetry and tragic drama written in his school days, but following some
superficial instruction in music and the hearing of many concerts and
operas, he launched forth into musical composition, and throughout
his youthful student days he persisted in these efforts at musical
expression--composing overtures, symphonies, and sonatas, all of which
were marked with an extravagance which sprang from a total lack of
technical training. In the meantime, however, he was not disdaining
the classic models, and he relates in his autobiography[107] his early
enthusiasm for Weber’s _Freischütz_, for the symphonies of Beethoven,
and certain of Mozart’s works. At the age of seventeen he succeeded in
obtaining in Leipzig a performance of an orchestral overture and the
disillusioning effect of this work must have had a sobering influence,
for immediately after he began those studies which constituted his
sole academic schooling. These consisted of several months’ training
in counterpoint and composition under Theodor Weinlich, at that time
musical director of the Thomaskirche. After these studies he proceeded
with somewhat surer hand to produce shorter works for orchestra
and a futile attempt at the text and music of an opera called _Die
Hochzeit_. In 1833, however, Wagner, at twenty-one, completed his
first stage work, _Die Feen_, and in the next year, while occupying
his first conductor’s post at Magdeburg, he wrote a second opera,
_Das Liebesverbot_. The first of these works did not obtain a hearing
in Wagner’s lifetime, while the second one had one performance which
proved a ‘fiasco’ and terminated Wagner’s career at Magdeburg. While
these early works form an interesting historical document in showing
the beginnings of Wagner’s art, there is in them nothing of sufficient
individuality that can give them importance in musical history. The
greatest interest they possess for us is the evidence which they bear
of Wagner’s studies and models. Much of Weber, Mozart, and Beethoven,
and--in the _Liebesverbot_, written at a time when routine opera
conducting had somewhat lowered his ideal--much of Donizetti.
[Illustration: Richard Wagner’s last portrait]
_Enlarged from an instantaneous photograph (1883)_
II
The six years which followed were troublous ones for Wagner. In the
winter of the following year (1837) he became conductor of the opera
at Königsberg, and while there he married Minna Planer, a member of
the Magdeburg opera company, whom he had met the previous year. After
a few months’ occupancy of this post he became conductor at Riga. Here
a season of unsatisfactory artistic conditions and personal hardships
determined him to capture musical Europe by a bold march upon Paris,
then the centre of opera. In the summer of 1839, accompanied by his
wife and dog, the journey to Paris was made, by way of London and
Boulogne. At the latter place Wagner met Meyerbeer, who furnished him
with letters of introduction which promised him hopes of success in the
French capital. Again, however, Wagner was fated to disappointment and
chagrin, and the two years which formed the time of his first sojourn
in Paris were filled with the most bitter failures. It was, in fact,
at this period that his material affairs reached their lowest point,
and, to keep himself from starvation, Wagner was obliged to accept the
drudgery of ‘hack’ literary writing and the transcribing of popular
opera scores. The only relief from these miseries was the intercourse
with a few faithful and enthusiastic friends[108] and the occasional
opportunity to hear the superior concerts which the orchestra of the
Conservatoire furnished at that time.
But the hardships of these times did not lessen Wagner’s creative
activities and from these years date his first important works:
_Rienzi_, ‘The Flying Dutchman,’ and _Eine Faust Ouvertüre_.
Wagner, during his stay at Riga, had become fully convinced that in
writing operas of smaller calibre for the lesser theatres of Germany
he was giving himself a futile task which stood much in the way of
the realization of those reforms which had already begun to assume
shape in his mind. He resolved to seek larger fields in writing a
work on a grander scale. ‘My great consolation now,’ we read in his
autobiography, ‘was to prepare _Rienzi_ with such utter disregard of
the means which were available there for its production that my desire
to produce it would force me out of the narrow confines of this puny
theatrical circle to seek a fresh connection with one of the larger
theatres.’ Two acts of the opera had been written at Riga and the
work was finished during his first months at Paris. Wagner sent the
manuscript of the work back to Germany, where it created a friendly and
favorable impression, and the prospects of an immediate hearing brought
Wagner back to Germany in April, 1842. The work was produced in Dresden
on the twentieth of the following October and was an immediate success.
It is _Rienzi_ which marks the real beginning of Wagner’s career as an
operatic composer; the small and fragmentary works which preceded it
serve only to record for us the experimental epoch of Wagner’s writing.
It is this place as first in the list of Wagner’s work which gives
_Rienzi_ its greatest interest, for neither the text nor the music are
such as to make it of artistic value when placed by the side of his
later productions.
The libretto was written by Wagner himself after the novel by Bulwer
Lytton. The hand of the reformer of the opera is not visible in this
libretto, which was calculated, as Wagner himself frankly confessed, to
afford opportunities for the brilliant and theatrical exhibition which
constituted the popular opera of that time. While the lines attain to
a certain dignity and loftiness of poetic conception, there is no
trace of the attempt at the realization of those dramatic ideals which
Wagner was soon to experience. Everything is calculated to musical
effectiveness of a pronounced theatrical quality and the work presents
the usual order of arias, duets, and ensemble of the Italian opera. The
music for the greater part is matched to the spirit and form of the
libretto. Here again theatrical effectiveness is the aim of Wagner,
and to obtain it he has employed the methods of Meyerbeer and Auber.
Not that the deeper and more noble influences are entirely forgotten,
for there are moments of intensity when the worshipper of Beethoven
and Weber discloses the depths of musical and dramatic feeling that
were his. But of that style which Wagner so quickly developed, of
that marvellously individual note which was destined to dominate the
expression of future generations there is but a trace. A few slightly
characteristic traits of melodic treatment, certain figurations in
the accompaniment and an individual quality of chorus writing is all
that is recognizable. The orchestration shows the faults of the other
features of the work--exaggeration. It is noisy and theatrical, and,
excepting in the purely orchestral sections, such as the marches and
dances, it performs the function of the operatic orchestra of the day,
that of a mere accompaniment.
‘The Flying Dutchman’ was written in Paris and the inspiration for
the work was furnished by the stormy voyage which Wagner had made in
his journey to London. The account which he himself has given of its
composition gives an interesting idea of his methods of working and a
touching picture of the conditions under which it was written. He says
in the autobiography: ‘I had already finished some of the words and
music of the lyric parts and had had the libretto translated by Émile
Deschamps, intending it for a trial performance, which, also, never
took place. These parts were the ballad of Senta, the song of the
Norwegian sailors, and the “Spectre Song” of “The Flying Dutchman.”
Since that time I had been so violently torn away from the music that,
when the piano arrived at my rustic retreat, I did not dare to touch it
for a whole day. I was terribly afraid lest I should discover that my
inspiration had left me--when suddenly I was seized with the idea that
I had forgotten to write out the song of the helmsman in the first act,
although, as a matter of fact, I could not remember having composed it
at all, as I had in reality only just written the lyrics. I succeeded,
and was pleased with the result. The same thing occurred with the
“Spinning Song”; and when I had written out these two pieces, and on
further reflection could not help admitting that they had really only
taken shape in my mind at that moment, I was quite delirious with joy
at the discovery. In seven weeks the whole of the music of “The Flying
Dutchman,” except the orchestration, was finished.’
While one is prompted to group ‘Rienzi’ and ‘The Flying Dutchman’ as
forming Wagner’s first period, in the latter work there is such an
advance over the former in both spirit and style that we can hardly so
classify them.
In ‘The Flying Dutchman’ we see Wagner making a decided break from the
theatrical opera and turning to a subject that is more essentially
dramatic. The mystic element which he here infuses and his manner of
treatment are very decided steps toward that revolution of musical
stage works which was to culminate in the ‘music drama.’ In its form
the libretto presents less of a departure from the older style than in
its subject and spiritual import; there is still the old operatic form
of set aria and ‘scene,’ but so consistently does all hang upon the
dramatic structure that the entire work is of convincing and moving
force.
This same advance in spirit and dramatic earnestness rather than in
actual methods is that which also distinguishes the score of ‘The
Flying Dutchman’ from that of ‘Rienzi.’ The superficial brilliancy of
the latter gives place in ‘The Flying Dutchman’ to a dramatic power
which is entirely lacking in the earlier work. One important innovation
in form must be remarked: the use of the ‘leading motive,’ which we
find for the first time in ‘The Flying Dutchman.’ Wagner here begins
to employ those characteristic phrases which so vividly characterize
for us the figures and situation of the drama. In harmonic coloring
the score shows but slight advance over ‘Rienzi.’ We can observe in
the frequent use of the chromatic scale and the diminished seventh
chord an inclination toward a richer harmonic scheme, but, taken in its
entirety, the musical composition of the work belongs distinctly to
what we may call Wagner’s ‘classic’ period and is still far from being
the ‘music of the future.’
The success of ‘Rienzi’ brought to Wagner the appointment of court
conductor to the king of Saxony, in which his principal duties
consisted of conducting the opera at Dresden. Wagner occupied
this position for seven years; he gained a practical experience
of conducting in all its branches and a wide knowledge of a very
varied musical repertoire which broadened his outlook and increased
considerably his scope of expression. Besides the operatic
performances, the direction of which he shared with Reissiger, Wagner
organized for several seasons a series of symphony concerts at which
he produced the classic symphonies, including a memorable performance
of Beethoven’s ninth symphony on Palm Sunday, 1846.[109] Wagner threw
himself with great zeal into the preparation of this work, one of his
first sources of inspiration.
The result was a performance which thoroughly roused the community,
including the musical profession, which was well represented at the
performance, to a sense of Wagner’s greatness as an interpretative
artist. There were many other events of importance in Wagner’s external
musical life at Dresden. Among these he tells us of the visits of
Spontini and of Marschner to superintend the performances of their
own works and of a festival planned to welcome the king of Saxony as
he returned from England in August, 1844, on which occasion the march
from _Tannhäuser_ had its first performance by the forces of the opera
company in the royal grounds at Pillnitz. In the winter of the same
year we find Wagner actively interested in the movement which resulted
in the removal of Weber’s remains from London to their final resting
place in his own Dresden. In the ceremony which took place when Weber’s
remains were finally committed to German soil, Wagner made a brief but
eloquent address and conducted the music for the occasion, consisting
of arrangements from Weber’s works made by him. In the midst of a life
thus busied Wagner found, however, time for study, and, in the summer
months, for musical creation. His interest in the classic drama dates
from this period and it is to his studies in mediæval lore pursued at
this time that we may attribute his knowledge of the subjects which he
later employed in his dramas.
Two musical works are the fruit of these Dresden years. _Tannhäuser_
and _Lohengrin_. These two works we suitably bracket as forming the
second period of Wagner’s creative work; and, while his advance was so
persistent and so marked that each new score presents to us an advance
in spirit and form, these two are so similar in spirit and form that
they may be named together as the next step in the development of his
style.
_Tannhäuser_ and _Lohengrin_ are designated by Wagner as romantic
operas, a title exactly descriptive of their place as musical
stage settings. While infusing into the spirit and action a more
poetical conception, their creator had not as yet renounced the more
conventional forms of the operatic text. The most important feature of
the opera to which he still adhered was the employment, both scenically
and musically, of the chorus. This, together with the interest of the
‘ensemble’ and a treatment of the solo parts more nearly approaching
the lyric aria than the free recitative of the later dramas are points
which these works share with the older ‘opera.’ The advance in the
musical substance of these operas over the earlier works is very
great. In _Tannhäuser_ we find for the first time Wagner the innovator
employing a melodic and harmonic scheme that bears his own stamp,
the essence of what we know as ‘Wagnerism.’ From the first pages of
_Tannhäuser_ there greets us for the first time that rich sensuousness
of melody and harmony which had its apotheosis in the surging mysteries
of _Tristan und Isolde_. Wagner here first divined those new principles
of chromatic harmony and of key relations which constituted the
greatest advance that had been made by a genius since Monteverdi’s bold
innovations of over two centuries before.
In his treatment of the orchestra Wagner’s advance was also great and
revealed the new paths which an intimate study of Berlioz’s scores had
opened to him. In these two scores, and particularly in _Lohengrin_, we
find the beginnings of the rich polyphonic style of _Tristan_ and the
_Meistersinger_ and the marvellously expressive and original use of the
wind instruments by which he attained, according to Richard Strauss, ‘a
summit of æsthetic perfection hitherto unreached.’
With the advent of these two music dramas there commenced that bitter
opposition and antagonism to Wagner and his works from almost the
entire musical fraternity and particularly from the professional
critics, the records of which form one of the most amazing chapters of
musical history. The gathering of these records and their presentation
has been the pleasure of succeeding generations of critics who, in
many cases, by their blindness to the advances of their own age, have
but unconsciously become the objects for the similar ridicule of their
followers. Great as may be our satisfaction in seeing history thus
repeat itself, the real study of musical development is more concerned
with those few appreciators who, with rare perceptive powers, saw the
truth of this new gospel and by its power felt themselves drawn to the
duty of spreading its influence.
Wagner once complained that musicians found in him only a poet
with a mediocre talent for music, while the appreciators of his
music were those outside of his own profession. This was in a large
measure true and the explanation may be easily found in the fact that
attention to the letter so absorbed the minds of his contemporaries
that the spiritual significance of his art entirely escaped them in
the consternation which they experienced in listening to a form of
expression so radically new. It is interesting to note, in passing,
the attitude toward Wagner’s art held by some of his contemporaries.
That of Mendelssohn as well as that of Schumann and Berlioz was at
first one of almost contemptuous tolerance, which in time, as Wagner’s
fame increased and his art drew further away from their understanding,
turned to animosity. It is somewhat strange to find in contrast to
this feeling on the part of these ‘romanticists’ the sympathy for
Wagner which was that of Louis Spohr, a classicist of an earlier
generation. The noble old composer of _Jessonda_ was a ready champion
of Wagner, and in producing his operas studied them faithfully and
enthusiastically until that which he at first had called ‘a downright
horrifying noise’ assumed a natural form. But he who was to champion
most valiantly the cause of Wagner, and to extend to him the helping
hand of sympathy as well as material support, was Franz Liszt.
Wagner’s acquaintance with Liszt dates from his first sojourn at Paris,
but it was only after Wagner’s return to Germany and the production
of _Rienzi_ that Liszt took any particular notice of the young and
struggling composer. From that time on his zeal for Wagner’s cause knew
no bounds. He busied himself in attracting the attention of musicians
and people of rank to the performances at Dresden, and made every
effort to bring Wagner a recognition worthy of his achievement. In 1849
Liszt produced _Tannhäuser_ at Weimar, where he was court conductor,
and in August of the following year he gave the first performance of
_Lohengrin_. During the many years of Wagner’s exile from Germany it
was Liszt who was faithful to his interests in his native land and
helped to obtain performances of his works. The correspondence of
Wagner and Liszt contains much valuable information and throws a strong
light on the reciprocal influences in their works. And so throughout
Wagner’s entire life this devoted friend was continually fighting his
battles, and extending to him his valuable aid, till, at the end,
we see him sharing with Wagner at Bayreuth the consummation of that
glorious life, finally to rest near him who had claimed so much of his
life’s devotion.
Wagner’s term of office as court conductor at Dresden ended with
the revolutionary disturbances of May, 1849. It is only since the
publication of his autobiography that we have been able to gain any
clear idea of Wagner’s participation in those stormy scenes. While the
forty pages which he devotes to the narration of these events give
us a very vivid picture of his personal actions, and settles for us
the heretofore much discussed question as to whether or not Wagner
bore arms, we can find no more adequate explanation of these actions
than those which he could furnish himself when he describes his state
of mind at that time as being one of ‘dreamy unreality.’ Wagner’s
independent mind and revolutionary tendencies naturally drew him
into intimate relations with the radical element in Dresden circles:
August Röckel, Bakunin and other leaders of the revolutionary party.
It was this coupled with Wagner’s growing feeling of discontent at the
conditions of art life and his venturesome and combative spirit rather
than any actual political sympathies which led him to take active part
in the stormy scenes of the May revolutions. While his share in these
seems to have been largely that of an agitator rather than of an actual
bearer of arms, the accounts he gives of his part in the disturbance
show us plainly that the revolution enlisted his entire sympathies. He
made fiery speeches, published a call to arms in the _Volksblatt_, a
paper he undertook to publish after the flight of its editor, Röckel,
and was conspicuous in meetings of the radical leaders. With the fall
of the provisional government Wagner found it necessary to join in
their flight, and it was by the merest chance that he escaped arrest
and gained in safety the shelter of Liszt’s protection at Weimar.
Wagner’s share in these events resulted in his proscription and exile
from Germany until 1861.
The following six years were again a period of wanderings. While
maintaining a household at Zürich for the greater part of this time,
his intervals of quiet settlement were few and he travelled restlessly
to Paris, Vienna, and to Italy, besides continually making excursions
in the mountains of Switzerland. While Wagner, during this period,
enjoyed the companionship of a circle of interested and sympathetic
friends, among whom were the Wesendoncks and Hans von Bülow, his
severance from actual musical environment acted as a stay to the flow
of his musical creative faculties. Aside from conducting a few local
concerts in several Swiss cities, his life seems to have been quite
empty of musical stimulus. But this lapse in musical productivity
only furnished the opportunity for an otherwise diverted intellectual
activity which greatly broadened Wagner’s outlook and engendered in him
those new principles of art that mark his entrance into a new phase
of musical creation. At the beginning of his exile Wagner’s impulse
to expression found vent in several essays in which he expounds some
of his new ‘philosophy’ of art. ‘Art and Revolution’ was written
shortly after his first arrival in Zürich and was followed by ‘The
Art Work of the Future,’[110] ‘Opera and Drama,’[111] and ‘Judaism in
Music.’[112] He also was continuously occupied with the poems of his
Nibelungen cycle, which he completed in 1853.
In the same year Wagner began work on the musical composition of the
first of the Nibelungen cycle, _Rheingold_, and at the same time he
conceived the poem for _Tristan und Isolde_, the spirit of which he
says was prompted by his study of Schopenhauer, whose writings most
earnestly attracted him at that time. Composition on the Ring cycle
meanwhile proceeded uninterruptedly, and 1854 saw the completion of the
second opera, _Walküre_.
In 1855 he passed four months in London as conductor of the
Philharmonic, an episode in his life which he recalls with seemingly
little pleasure. In the following year (1856) he had completed the
second act of _Siegfried_, when the impulse seized him to commence
work on the music of _Tristan und Isolde_, the text of which he had
originally planned in response to an order for an opera from the
emperor of Brazil. During the next two years Wagner was feverishly
immersed in the composition of this work. The first act was written in
Zürich, the second act during a stay in Venice in the winter of 1858,
and the summer of 1859 saw the work completed in Zürich.
While the earlier operas of the Ring, _Rheingold_, _Walküre_, and
a part of _Siegfried_, were composed before _Tristan und Isolde_,
it is the latter opera which definitely marks the next step in the
development of Wagner’s art. It is impossible to allot to any one
period of Wagner’s growth the entire Nibelungen cycle. The conception
and composition of the great tetralogy covered such a space of time as
to embrace several phases of his development. Between the composition
of _Lohengrin_ and that of _Rheingold_, however, stands the widest
breach in the theories and practices of Wagner’s art, for there does he
break irrevocably with all that is common to the older operatic forms
and adopts those methods by which he revolutionizes the operatic art
in the creation of the music drama. In first putting these theories
into practice we find, however, that Wagner passed again through an
experimental stage where his spontaneous expression was somewhat under
the bondage of conscious effort. The score of the _Rheingold_, while
possessing the essential dramatic features of the other Ring operas and
many pages of musical beauty and strength, is, it must be confessed,
the least interesting of Wagner’s works. It is only when we come to
_Tristan und Isolde_ that we find Wagner employing his new methods with
a freedom of inspiration which precludes self-consciousness and through
which he becomes completely the instrument of his inspiration.
III
The drama of ‘Tristan and Isolde’ Wagner drew from the Celtic legend
with which he made acquaintance as he pursued his studies in the
Nibelungen myths. As has been noted before, Wagner attributed the mood
that inspired the conception of ‘Tristan and Isolde’ to his studies
of Schopenhauer, and commentators have made much of this influence in
attempting to read into portions of ‘Tristan’ and the other dramas a
more or less complete presentation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. But
Wagner’s own writings have proved him to belong to that rather vague
class of ‘artist-philosophers’ whose philosophy is more largely a
matter of moods than of a dispassionate seeing of truths. The key to
the situation is found in Wagner’s own remark: ‘I felt the longing
to express myself in poetry. This must have been partly due to the
serious mood created by Schopenhauer which was trying to find an
ecstatic expression.’ Wagner’s studies had developed in him a new
sense of the drama in which the unrealities of his early romanticism
entirely disappeared. A classic simplicity of action, laying bare the
intensity of the emotional sweep, and a pervading sense of fatalistic
tragedy--this was the new aspiration of Wagner’s art.
The score of ‘Tristan and Isolde’ is one of the highest peaks of
musical achievement. It is a modern classic which in spirit and form
is the prototype of almost all that has followed in modern dramatic
music. Wagner has in this music drama developed his ‘leit-motif’
system more fully than heretofore and the entire score is one closely
woven fabric of these eloquent phrases combined with such art that
Bülow, who was the first to see the score, pronounced it a marvel of
logic and lucidity. In his employment of chromatic harmony Wagner here
surpassed all his previous mastery. A wealth of chromatic passing
notes, suspensions and appoggiaturas gives to the harmony a richness
of sensuous color all its own; while the orchestral scoring attains to
that freedom of polyphonic beauty, to which alone, according to Richard
Strauss, modern ‘color’ owes its existence.
Wagner, on the completion of _Tristan und Isolde_, began to long for
its performance, a longing which he was compelled to bear for eight
years. During these he experienced the repetition of his past sorrows
and disappointments. Again he resumed his wanderings and for the next
five years we find him in many places. In September, 1859, he settled
in Paris, where he spent two entire seasons. After a series of concerts
in which he gave fragments of his various works, Wagner, through the
mediation of Princess Metternich, obtained the promise of a hearing of
_Tannhäuser_ at the Opéra. The first performance was given on March
13th after an interminable array of difficulties had been overcome.
Wagner was forced to submit to many indignities and to provide his
opera with a ballet in compliance with the regulations of the Opéra.
At the second performance, given on the 18th of March, occurred
the memorable and shameful interruption of the performance by the
members of the Jockey Club, who, prompted by a foolish and vindictive
chauvinism, hooted and whistled down the singers and orchestra. The
ensuing disturbance fell little short of a riot.
It was during this last residence of Wagner in Paris that he was
surrounded by the circle through which his doctrines and ideas were to
be infused into the spirit of French art. This circle, constituting the
brilliant _salon_ meeting weekly at Wagner’s house in the rue Newton,
included Baudelaire, Champfleury, Tolstoi, Ollivier and Saint-Saëns
among its regular attendants.
In 1861 Wagner, through the influence of his royal patrons in Paris,
was able to return unmolested to Germany. While the success of the
earlier works was now assured and they had taken a permanent place in
the repertoire of nearly every opera house, the way to a fulfillment of
his present aim, the production of ‘Tristan,’ seemed as remote as ever.
Vain hopes were held out by Karlsruhe and Vienna, but naught came of
them and Wagner was again obliged to obtain such meagre and fragmentary
hearings for his works as he could obtain through the medium of the
concert stage. In 1863 he made concert tours to Russia and Hungary
besides conducting programs of his works in Vienna and in several
German cities. These performances, while they spread Wagner’s fame, did
little to assist him toward a more hopeful prospect of material welfare
and thus in 1864 Wagner at the age of 51 found himself again fleeing
from debts and forced to seek an asylum in the home of a friend, Dr.
Wille at Mariafeld. But this season of hardship proved to be only
the deepest darkness before the dawning of what was indeed a new day
in Wagner’s life. While spending a few days at Stuttgart in April
of that year he received a message from the king of Bavaria, Ludwig
II, announcing the intention of the youthful monarch to become the
protector of Wagner and summoning him to Munich. Wagner, in the closing
words of his autobiography, says, ‘Thus the dangerous road along which
Fate beckoned me to such great ends was not destined to be clear of
troubles and anxieties of a kind unknown to me heretofore, but I was
never again to feel the weight of the everyday hardship of existence
under the protection of my exalted friend.’
Wagner, settled in Munich under the affectionate patronage of the king,
found himself in a position which seemed to him the attainment of all
his desires. He was to be absolutely free to create as his own will
dictated, and, having completed his works, was to superintend their
production under ideal conditions. During the first summer spent with
the king at Lake Starnberg he wrote the _Huldigungsmarsch_ and an
essay entitled ‘State and Religion,’ and on his return to Munich in
the autumn he summoned Bülow, Cornelius, and others of his lieutenants
to assist him in preparing the performances of ‘Tristan.’ These were
given in the following June and July with Bülow conducting and Ludwig
Schnorr as Tristan. Many of Wagner’s friends drew together at Munich
for these performances and the event took on an aspect which forecasted
the spirit of the Wagner festivals of a later day. Shortly after
these first performances of ‘Tristan’ there arose in Munich a wave of
popular suspicion against Wagner, which, fed by political and clerical
intrigue, soon reached a point where the king was obliged to implore
Wagner for his own safety’s sake to leave Bavaria. Wagner again sought
the refuge of his years of exile, and, thanks to the king’s bountiful
patronage, he was able to install himself comfortably in the house at
Triebschen on the shores of Lake Lucerne, which was to be his home for
the six years that were to elapse before he took up his final residence
at Bayreuth. It was here that Wagner found again ample leisure to
finish a work the conception of which dates from his early days at
Dresden when he had found the material for the libretto in Gervinus’
‘History of German Literature’ and at the composition of which he had
been occupied since 1861. This was his comic opera _Die Meistersinger
von Nürnberg_.
While the musical material of _Die Meistersinger_ is such as to place
it easily in a class with ‘Tristan’ as a stage work, it offers certain
unique features which place it in a class by itself. The work is
usually designated as Wagner’s only ‘comic’ opera, but the designation
comic here implies the absence of the tragic more than an all-pervading
spirit of humor. The comic element in this opera is contrasted with
a strong vein of romantic tenderness and the earnest beauty of its
allegorical significance. In _Die Meistersinger_ Wagner restores to the
action some of the more popular features of the opera; the chorus and
ensemble are again introduced with musical and pictorial effectiveness,
but these externals of stage interest are made only incidental in a
drama which is as admirably well-knit and as subtly conceived as are
any of Wagner’s later works, and it is with rare art that Wagner has
combined these differing elements. The most convincing feature of the
work as a drama lies in the marvellously conceived allegory and the
satirical force with which it is drawn. So naturally do the story and
scene lend themselves to this treatment that, with no disagreeable
sense of self-obtrusion, Wagner here convincingly presents his plea for
a true and natural art as opposed to that of a conventional pedantry.
The shaft of good-humored derision that he thrusts against the critics
is the most effective retort to their jibes, while the words of art
philosophy which he puts into the mouth of Hans Sachs are indeed the
best index he has furnished us of his artistic creed.
In the music, no less than in the libretto, of _Die Meistersinger_
Wagner has successfully welded into a cohesive unit several diffusive
elements. The glowing intensity of his ‘Tristan’ style is beautifully
blended with a rich and varied fund of musical characterization, which
includes imitations of the archaic, literally reproduced, as in the
chorales, or parodied, as in Köthner’s exposition of the mastersingers’
musical requirements. The harmonic treatment is less persistently
chromatic than that of ‘Tristan’ owing to the bolder diatonic nature of
much of its thematic material, a difference which, however, cannot be
said to lessen in any degree the wonderful glow of color which Wagner
had first employed in _Tristan und Isolde_. Polyphonically considered,
_Die Meistersinger_ stands as the first work in which Wagner brought
to an ultimate point his system of theme and motive combinations. The
two earlier operas of the Ring contained the experiments of this system
and in ‘Tristan’ the polyphony is one more of extraneous ornamentation
and variation of figure than of the thematic combination by which
Wagner is enabled so marvellously to suggest simultaneous dramatic and
psychological aspects.
_Die Meistersinger_ had its first performance at Munich on June 21,
1868, and the excellence of this first performance was due to the
zealous labors of those who at that time constituted Wagner’s able
body of helpers, Hans von Bülow, Hans Richter, and Karl Tausig. In
the following year, at the instigation of the king, _Rheingold_ and
_Walküre_ were produced at Munich, but failed to make an impression
because of the inadequacy of their preparation.
Wagner in the meantime was living in quiet retirement at Triebschen
working at the completion of the ‘Nibelungen Ring.’ From this date
commences Wagner’s friendship with Friedrich Nietzsche, a friendship
which unfortunately turned to indifference on the part of Wagner, and
to distrust and animosity on the part of Nietzsche.
On August 25, 1870, Wagner married Cosima von Bülow, in which union
he found the happiness which had been denied to him through the long
years of his unhappy first marriage. A son, Siegfried, was born in the
following year, an event which Wagner celebrated by the composition of
the ‘Siegfried Idyl.’
IV
We now approach the apotheosis of Wagner’s career, Bayreuth and the
Festival Theatre, a fulfillment of a dream of many years. A dance
through Wagner’s correspondence and writings shows us that the idea of
a theatre where his own works could be especially and ideally presented
was long cherished by him. This idea seemed near its realization
when Wagner came under the protection of King Ludwig, but many more
years passed before the composer attained this ambition. In 1871 he
determined upon the establishment of such a theatre in Bayreuth.
Several circumstances contributed to this choice of location; his love
of the town and its situation, the generous offers of land made to him
by the town officials and the determining fact of its being within
the Bavarian kingdom, where it could fittingly claim the patronage of
Wagner’s royal protector. Plans for the building were made by Wagner’s
old friend, Semper, and then began the weary campaign for necessary
funds. Public apathy and the animosity of the press, which, expressing
itself anew at this last self-assertiveness of Wagner, delayed the
good cause, but May 22, 1872, Wagner’s fifty-ninth birthday, saw the
laying of the cornerstone. Four more years elapsed before sufficient
funds could be found to complete the theatre. Wagner in the meantime
had taken up his residence at Bayreuth, where he had built a house,
Villa Wahnfried. On August 13, 1876, the Festival Theatre was opened.
The audience which attended this performance was indeed a flattering
tribute to Wagner’s genius, for, besides those good friends and artists
who now gathered to be present at the triumph of their master, the
German emperor, the king of Bavaria, the emperor of Brazil, and many
other royal and noble personages were there as representatives of a
world at last ready to pay homage to genius. The entire four operas of
the ‘Ring of the Nibelungen’ were performed in the following week and
the cycle was twice repeated in August of the same season.
As has been noted, the several dramas of the ‘Ring’ belong to widely
separated periods of his creative activity, and, musically considered,
have independent points of regard. The poems, however, conceived as
they were, beginning with _Götterdämmerung_, which originally bore the
title of ‘Siegfried’s Death’ and led up to by the three other poems of
the cycle, are united in dramatic form and feeling. The adoption of the
Nibelungen mythology, as a basis for a dramatic work, dated from about
the time that _Lohengrin_ was finished. Wagner, in searching material
for a historical opera, ‘Barbarossa,’ lost interest in carrying out his
original scheme upon discovering the resemblance of this subject to
the Nibelungen and Siegfried mythology. He says: ‘In direct connection
with this I began to sketch a clear summary of the form which the
old original Nibelungen myth had assumed in my mind in its immediate
association with the mythological legend of the gods; a form which,
though full of detail, was yet much condensed in its leading features.
Thanks to this work, I was able to convert the chief part of the
material itself into a musical drama. It was only by degrees, however,
and after long hesitation, that I dared to enter more deeply into my
plans for this work; for the thought of the practical realization of
such a work on our stage literally appalled me.’
While the Ring poems constitute a drama colossal and imposing in its
significance, far outreaching in conception anything that had been
before created as a musical stage work, it is in many of its phases
an experimental work toward the development of the ideal music drama
which ‘Tristan and Isolde’ represents. Written at a time when Wagner
was in the throes of a strong revolutionary upheaval and when his
philosophy of art and life was seeking literary expression, we find
the real dramatic essence of these poems somewhat obscured by the mass
of metaphysical speculation which accompanies their development. In
Siegfried alone has Wagner more closely approached his new ideal and
created a work which, despite the interruption in its composition, is
dramatically and musically the most coherent and most spontaneously
poetic of the Ring dramas. It has been already noted that the break
between the musical style of _Lohengrin_ and that of _Rheingold_ is
even greater than that between the dramatic forms of the two works.
In the six years which separated the composition of these two operas
Wagner’s exuberant spontaneity of expression became tempered with
reflective inventiveness, and there pervades the entire score of
_Rheingold_ a classic solidity of feeling which by the side of the
lyric suavity of _Lohengrin_ is one of almost austere ruggedness.
We find from the start Wagner’s new sense of dramatic form well
established and the metrical regularity of _Tannhäuser_ and _Lohengrin_
is now replaced with the free dramatic recitative and ‘leit-motif’
development. Of harmonic color and polyphonic richness _Rheingold_ has
less interest than have the other parts of the cycle, and one cannot
but feel that after the six years of non-productiveness Wagner’s
inventive powers had become somewhat enfeebled. With the opening scenes
of _Walküre_, however, we find again a decided advance, a melodic
line more graceful in its curve and the harmonic color enriched with
chromatic subtleties again lends sensuous warmth to the style to
which is added the classic solidity which _Rheingold_ inaugurates. In
polyphonic development _Walküre_ marks the point where Wagner commences
to employ that marvellously skillful and beautiful system of combining
motives, which reached its full development in the richly woven fabric
of _Tristan_, _Die Meistersinger_, and _Parsifal_.
Wagner has told us that his studies in musical lore were made, so to
speak, backward, beginning with his contemporaries and working back
through the classics. The influences, as they show themselves in his
works, would seem to bear out this statement, for, after the rugged
strength of Beethoven’s style which _Rheingold_ suggests, the advancing
polyphonic interest, which next appears in _Walküre_, reaches back to
an older source for its inspiration, the polyphony of Johann Sebastian
Bach. While, as has been remarked, _Siegfried_ in its entirety forms
a coherent whole, the treatment of the last act clearly displays the
added mastery which Wagner had gained in the writing of _Tristan_
and of _Die Meistersinger_. There is a larger sweep of melody and a
harmonic freedom which belongs distinctly to Wagner’s ultimate style.
In _Götterdämmerung_ we find the first manifestation of this latest
phase of Wagner’s art. A harmonic scheme that is at once bolder in
its use of daring dissonances and subtler in its mysterious chromatic
transitions gives added color to a fabric woven almost entirely of
leit-motifs in astounding variety of sequence and combination.
The inauguration of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre and the first
performances there of the Nibelungen Ring certainly marked the moment
of Wagner’s greatest external triumph, but it was a victory which by
no means brought him peace. A heavy debt was incurred by this first
season’s Bayreuth festival and it was six years later before the funds
necessary to meet this deficit and to provide for a second season
could be obtained. The second Bayreuth season was devoted entirely to
the initial performances of _Parsifal_, with the composition of which
Wagner had been occupied since 1877. The intervening six years had
brought many adherents to the Wagner cause and financial aid to the
support of the festival was more generously extended. After a series of
sixteen performances it was found that the season had proved a monetary
success and its repetition was planned for the following year, 1883.
The history of the Festival Theatre since that date is so well known
that its recitation here is unnecessary. Bayreuth and the Wagner
festival stand to-day a unique fact in the history of art. As a shrine
visited not only by the confessed admirers and followers of Wagner, but
by a large public as well, it represents the embodiment of Wagner’s
life and art, constituting a sacred temple of an art which, by virtue
of its power, has forced the attention of the entire world. Bayreuth,
moreover, preserving the traditions of the master himself, has served
as an authentic training school to those hosts of artists whose duty it
has become to carry these traditions to the various opera stages of the
world.
Wagner was fated not to see the repetition of the _Parsifal_
performances. In September, 1882, being in delicate health and feeling
much the need of repose, he again journeyed to Italy. Settling in
Venice, where he hired a part of the Palazzo Vendramin, he passed
there the last seven months of his life in the seclusion of his family
circle. On February 1, 1883, Wagner was seized with an attack of heart
failure and died after a few moments’ illness. Three days later the
body was borne back to Bayreuth where, after funeral ceremonies, in
which a mourning world paid a belated tribute to his genius, Richard
Wagner was laid to his final rest in the garden of Villa Wahnfried.
V
The first conception of an opera on the theme and incidents of which
_Parsifal_ is the expression dates from an early period in Wagner’s
life. The figure of Christ had long presented to him a dramatic
possibility, and it is from the fusion of the poetical import of his
life and character with the philosophical ideas he had gleaned from his
studies in Buddhism and Schopenhauer that Wagner evolved his last and
most profound drama.
It is the religious color and element in _Parsifal_ that calls forth
from Wagner the latest expression of his musical genius. We find in
those portions of the _Parsifal_ score devoted to the depiction of this
element a serenity and sublimity of ethereal beauty hitherto unattained
by him. As we listen to the diatonic progression of the ‘Faith’ and
‘Grail’ motives, we are aware that Wagner’s genius continually sent
its roots deeper into the soil of musical tradition and lore and that
in seeking the truly profound and religious feeling he had sounded the
depths of the art that was Palestrina’s.
The _Parsifal_ controversy has now become a matter of history. Wagner’s
idea and wish was to reserve the rights of performance of this work
solely for the Bayreuth stage. This plan was undoubtedly the outcome of
a sincere desire to have this last work always performed in an ideal
manner and under such conditions as would not always accompany its
production should it become the common property of the operatic world
at large. This wish of Wagner was disrespected in 1904 by Heinrich
Conried, then director of the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York,
who announced a series of performances of _Parsifal_ at that house
during the season of 1903. The Wagner family made both legal and
sentimental appeals in an attempt to prevent these performances, but
they were unheeded and the work was first heard outside of Bayreuth on
December 24, 1903. It must be said that the performance was a worthy
one, as have been subsequent performances of this work on the same
stage, and, apart from the sentimental regret that one must feel at
this disregard of Wagner’s will, the incident was not so deplorable as
it was then deemed by the more bigoted Wagnerites. By the expiration of
copyright, the work became released to the repertoire of European opera
houses on January 1, 1914, and simultaneous performances in every part
of Europe attested the eagerness with which the general public awaited
this work.
With Wagner’s musical works before us, the voluminous library of
discussion and annotation which Wagner himself and writers on music
have furnished us seems superfluous. Wagner’s theories of art reform
need little further explanation or support than those furnished by
the operas themselves; it is in the earnest study of these that we
learn truly to appreciate his ‘philosophy’ of art, it is in the
universal imitation of these models that we find the best evidence
of their dominating influence on modern art. The Wagnerian pervasion
of almost all subsequent music forms the most important chapter of
modern musical history, but before we turn to the consideration of
this phenomenon let us briefly summarize the achievements of Wagner in
this potent reform which Walter Niemann[113] says extends not only to
music, the stage, and poetry, but to modern culture in its entirety; a
sweeping statement, the proving of which would lead us into divers and
interesting channels of thought and discussion, but which we must here
renounce as not appertaining directly to the history of music in its
limited sense.
Wagner’s reformation of the opera as a stage drama, stated briefly,
consisted in releasing it, as it had before been released by Gluck and
by Weber, from the position which it had occupied, as a mere framework
on which to build a musical structure, the words furnishing an excuse
for the popularities of vocal music, the stage pictures and situations
providing further entertainment. It was to this level that all opera
bade fair to be brought at the time when Meyerbeer held Europe by the
ears. We have in the foregoing sketch of the composer’s life shown
briefly how at first Wagner, still under the spell of romanticism,
effected a compromise between the libretto of the older opera form
and a text which should have intrinsic value as poetry and convincing
dramatic force. Then after reflective study of classic ideals we find
him making the decisive break with all the conventionalities and
traditions of ‘opera,’ thus evolving the music drama in which music,
poetry and stage setting should combine in one unified art. Situations
in such a drama are no longer created to afford musical opportunities,
but text and music are joined in a unity of dramatic utterance of
hitherto unattained eloquence. Then as a final step in the perfection
of this conception Wagner clarifies and simplifies the action while, by
means of his inspired system of tonal annotation, he provides a musical
background that depicts every shade of feeling and dramatic suggestion.
That system may be termed a parallel to the delineative method employed
by Berlioz and Liszt in developing the dramatic symphony and the
symphonic poem. Like them, Wagner employs the leit-motif, but with a
far greater consistency, a more thorough-going logic. Every situation,
every character or object, every element of nature, state of feeling
or mental process is accompanied by a musical phrase appropriate and
peculiar to it. Thus we have motifs of fate, misfortune, storm, breeze;
of Tristan, of Isolde, of Beckmesser, of Wotan; of love and of enmity,
of perplexity, deep thought, and a thousand different conceptions. The
Rhine, the rainbow, the ring and the sword are as definitely described
as the stride of the giants, the grovelling of Mime or the Walkyries’
exuberance. So insistently is this done that the listener who has
provided himself with a dictionary, as it were, of Wagner’s phrases,
can understand in minute detail the comments of the orchestra, which
in a manner makes him the composer’s confidant by laying bare the
psychology of the drama. Such dictionaries or commentaries have been
provided by annotators without number, and in some measure by Wagner
himself, and labels have been applied to every theme, melody, passage
or phrase that is significantly reiterated. A certain correspondence
exists between motifs used in different dramas for similar purposes,
such as the heroic motif of Siegfried in B flat and the one for
Parsifal in the same key. Wagner goes further--in his reference to the
story of Tristan, which Hans Sachs makes in the _Meistersinger_, we
hear softly insinuating itself into the musical texture the motifs of
love and death from Tristan and Isolde, and so forth.
The efficacy of the system has been thoroughly proved and for a time it
seemed to the Wagnerites the ultimate development of operatic language.
Wagner himself indicated that he had but made a beginning, that others
would take up and develop the system after him. It has been ‘taken
up’ by many disciples but it has hardly been found capable of further
development upon the lines laid down by the master. Our age rejects
many of his devices as obvious and even childish. But in a larger sense
the method has persisted. A new sense of form characterizes the musical
substance of the modern, or post-Wagnerian, opera. The leit-motif, with
its manifold reiterations, modifications, variations, and combinations,
has given a more intense significance to the smallest unit of the
musical structure; it has made possible the Wagnerian ‘endless melody’
with its continuously sustained interest, its lack of full cadences,
and its consequent restless stimulation. That style of writing is one
of the essentially new things that Wagner brought, and with it came
the ultimate death of the conventional operatic divisions, the concert
forms within the opera. The distinction between aria and recitative is
now lost forever, by a _rapprochement_ or fusion of their two methods,
rather than the discontinuance of one. Wagner’s recitative is an
arioso, a free melody that has little in common with the heightened
declamation of a former age, yet is vastly more eloquent. It rises to
the sweep of an aria, yet never descends to vocal display, and even in
its most musical moments observes the spirit of dramatic utterance. It
is a wholly new type of melody that has been created, which was not at
first recognized as such, for the charge of ‘no melody’ has been the
first and most persistent levelled at Wagner.
Great as was the manifestation of Wagner’s dramatic genius, the fact
must ever be recognized that his musical genius far overtopped it in
its achievement and in its influence. It is as musical works that these
dramas make their most profound impression. The growth of Wagner’s
musical powers far surpassed his development as poet or dramatist. If
we take the poems of Wagner’s works and make a chronologically arranged
study of them, we shall see that, while there is the evolution in form
and in significance that we have noted above, the advancing profundity
of conception and emotional force may be largely attributed to the
advance which the music makes in these respects. It may be argued
that it was the progress of Wagner’s dramatic genius that prompted
and inspired the march of his musical forces, and, while this may be
to some extent true, it is the matured musicianship of Wagner which
removes _Götterdämmerung_ far from _Rheingold_ in its significance and
not the difference in the inspiration of the two poems, which were
written during the same period.
We have spoken of the immense influence of Wagner as a phenomenon.
Surely such must be called the unprecedented obsession of the musical
thought of the age which he effected. In rescuing the opera from its
position as a mere entertainment and by restoring to its service
the nobler utterances which absolute music had begun to monopolize,
Wagner’s service to the stage was incalculable. Opera in its older
sense still exists and the apparition of a ‘Carmen,’ a _Cavalleria
rusticana_, a truly dramatic Verdi, or the melodic popularities of a
Massenet or Puccini attest the vitality and sincerity of expression
which may be found outside of pure Wagnerism. It is, in fact, true that
as we make a survey of the post-Wagner operas the actual adoption of
his dramatic methods is not by any means universal, omnipresent as may
be the influence of his reforms. The demand for sincerity of dramatic
utterance is now everywhere strongly felt, but the music drama, as it
came from the hand of Wagner, still remains the unique product of him
alone whose genius was colossal enough to bring it to fruition.
More completely enthralling has been the spell of Wagner’s musical
influence, but before measuring its far-reaching circle let us consider
for a moment Wagner’s scores in the light of absolute music and remark
upon some of their intrinsic musical content. Wagner’s principal
innovations were in the department of harmonic structure. Speaking
broadly, the essence of this new harmonic treatment was a free use
of the chromatic element, which, radical as it was, was directly due
to the influence of Beethoven’s latest style. This phase of Wagner’s
composition first asserted itself, as we have before noted, in
_Tannhäuser_ and found its highest expression in ‘Tristan and Isolde.’
The chromatic features of Wagner’s melodic line are undoubtedly in a
measure an outgrowth of this harmonic sense, though it would perhaps
be truer to say that discoveries in either department reflected
themselves in new-found effects in the other. Volumes would not suffice
to enumerate even superficially the various formulæ which these
chromaticisms assume, but a very general classification might divide
them into two groups; the first consisting of passages of sinuous
chromatic leadings in conjunct motion. One of the earliest evidences
of this idiom is found in _Tannhäuser_:
[Illustration: Music score]
and the full development of its possibilities are exemplified in the
sensuous weavings of ‘Tristan’:
[Illustration: Music score]
The second type of harmonic formula is one in which remotely related
triads follow each other in chromatic order with an enharmonic
relationship. The following passage from _Lohengrin_ is an early
example of this type:
[Illustration: Music score]
and its ultimate development may be seen in the following passage from
the _Walküre_:
[Illustration: Music score]
The latter passage contains (at *) another striking feature of Wagner’s
harmonic scheme, namely the strong and biting chromatic suspensions
which fell on the ears of his generation with much the same effect
as must have had those earlier suspensions on the age of Monteverdi.
Wagner’s scores are replete with the most varied and beautiful examples
of these moments of harmonic strife. In these three features, together
with an exceedingly varied use of the chord of the ninth, lie many of
the principles upon which Wagner built his harmonic scheme, though it
would be folly to assert that any such superficial survey could give
an adequate conception of a system that was so varied in its idiom and
so intricate in its processes. It must be added that, although, as we
have stated, chromaticism was the salient feature of Wagner’s harmony,
his fine sense of balance and contrast prevented him from employing
harmonies heavily scented to a point of stifling thickness; he
interspersed them wisely with a strong vein of diatonic solidity, the
materials of which he handled with the mastery of Beethoven. We have
already cited the diatonic purity of certain of the _Parsifal_ motives
and we need only remind the reader of the leading _Meistersinger_
themes as a further proof of Wagner’s solid sense of tonality.
In rhythmical structure Wagner’s music possesses its most conventional
feature. We find little of the skillful juggling of motive and
phrase which was Beethoven’s and which Brahms employed with such
bewildering mastery. Wagner in his earliest work uses a particularly
straightforward rhythmical formula; common time is most prevalent and
the phrases are simple in their rhythmical structure, an occasional
syncopation being the only deviation from a regular following of
the beat and its equal divisions. The rhythmical development of his
later style is also comparatively simple in its following; rhythmical
excitement is largely in the restless figuration which the strings
weave round the harmonic body. These figures are usually well defined
groups of the regular beat divisions with an occasional syncopation and
no disturbance of the regular pulse of the measure. An examination of
the violin parts of ‘Tristan’ or the _Meistersinger_ will reveal the
gamut of Wagner’s rhythmical sense. Summing up we may say that Wagner’s
methods, radical as they appear, are built on the solid foundation of
his predecessors and, now that in our view of his art we are able to
employ some sense of perspective, we may readily perceive it to assume
naturally its place as a step after Beethoven and Schubert in harmonic
development.
It is with hypnotic power that these methods and their effects have
possessed the musical consciousness of the succeeding generation and,
becoming the very essence of modernity, insinuated themselves into the
pages of all modern music. The one other personality in modern German
music that assumes any proportions beside the overshadowing figure of
the Bayreuth master is Johannes Brahms. As it would seem necessary
for the detractors of any cause or movement to find an opposing force
that they may pit against the object of their disfavor, so did the
anti-Wagnerites, headed by Hanslick,[114] gather round the unconcerned
Brahms with their war-cries against Wagner. Much time and patience have
been lost over the Brahms-Wagner controversy and surely to no end.
So opposed are the ideals and methods of these two leaders of modern
musical thought that comparisons become indeed stupidly odious. To the
reflective classicist of intellectual proclivities Brahms will remain
the model, while Wagner rests, on the other hand, the guide of those
beguiled by sensuous color and dramatic freedom. That the two are not
irreconcilable in the same mind may be seen in the fact that Richard
Strauss showed a strong Brahms influence in his earlier works, and
then, without total reincarnation, became a close follower of Wagner,
whose style has formed the basis on which the most representative
living German has built his imposing structures. It is, indeed, Richard
Strauss who has shown us the further possibilities of the Wagner
idiom. Though he has been guided by Liszt in certain externals of form
and design, the polyphonic orchestral texture and harmonic richness
of Strauss’ later style, individual as they are, remain the distinct
derivative of Richard Wagner’s art. The failure of Strauss in his
first opera, _Guntram_, may be attributed to the dangerous experiment
of which we have spoken--that of a too servile emulation of Wagner’s
methods. In attempting to create his own libretto and in following too
closely the lines of Wagner, he there became little more than a mere
imitator, a charge which, however, cannot be brought against him as the
composer of _Salomé_ and _Rosenkavalier_.
In Humperdinck’s _Hänsel und Gretel_ we find perhaps the next most
prominent manifestation of the Wagnerian influence. Humperdinck met
Wagner during the master’s last years and was one of those who assisted
at the first _Parsifal_ performances. While his indebtedness to Wagner
for harmonic, melodic, and orchestral treatment is great, Humperdinck
has, by the employment of the naïve materials of folk-song, infused a
strong and freshly individual spirit into this charming work, which by
its fairy-tale subject became the prototype of a considerable following
of fairy operas.
To complete the catalogue of German operatic composers who are
followers of Wagner would be to make it inclusive of every name and
work that has attained any place in the operatic repertoire of modern
times.
In no less degree is his despotic hand felt in the realm of absolute
music. It was through the concert stage that Wagner won much of his
first recognition and it followed naturally that symphonic music must
soon have felt the influence of his genius. Anton Bruckner was an
early convert and, as a confessed disciple, attempted to demonstrate
in his symphonies how the dramatic warmth of Wagner’s style could be
confined within the symphony’s restricting line; a step which opened up
to those who did not follow Brahms and the classic romanticists a path
which has since been well trodden.
Outside of Germany the spread of Wagner’s works and the progress
of his influence forms an interesting chapter in history. We have
seen Wagner resident in Paris at several periods of his life; on
the occasion of his first two French sojourns his acquaintance was
largely with the older men, such as Berlioz, Halévy, Auber, and
others, but during his final stay in Paris, in 1861, Wagner came into
contact with some of the younger generation, Saint-Saëns and Gounod
among others. It was perhaps natural in a France, which still looked
to Germany for its musical education, that these two youthful and
enthusiastic composers should champion the cause of Wagner and become
imbued with his influence, an influence which showed itself strongly
in their subsequent work. While neither of these men made any attempt
at remodelling the operatic form after Wagner’s ideas, their music
soon showed his influence, though denied by them as it was on several
occasions. More open in his discipleship of Wagner and a too close
imitator of his methods was Ernest Reyer, whose _Sigurd_ comes from the
same source as Wagner’s ‘Ring’--the Nibelungen myths. Bizet is often
unjustly accused of Wagnerian tendencies; though he was undoubtedly an
earnest student and admirer of Wagner’s works and has, in _Carmen_,
made some slight use of a leading motive system, his music, in its
strongly national flavor, has remained peculiarly free from Wagner’s
influence. Massenet, on the other hand, with his less vital style,
has in several instances succumbed to Wagner’s influence, and in
_Esclarmonde_ there occurs a motive so like one of the _Meistersinger_
motives that on the production of the work Massenet was called by a
critic ‘Mlle. Wagner.’ Stronger still becomes the Wagner vein in French
music as we come down to our own day. Charpentier’s ‘Louise,’ despite
its distinctive color and feeling, leans very heavily on Wagner in its
harmonic and orchestral treatment. As a reactionary influence against
this encroaching tide of Wagnerism was the quiet rise of the new
nationalistic French school which César Franck was evolving through his
sober post-Beethoven classicism. That Franck himself was an admirer of
Wagner we learn from Vincent d’Indy,[115] who tells us that it was the
habit of his master to place himself in the mood for composition by
starting his working hours in playing with great enthusiasm the prelude
of _Die Meistersinger_. César Franck numbered among his pupils a great
many of those who to-day form the circle of representative French
composers. These writers all show the forming hand of their master
and faithfully follow in his efforts to preserve a noble, national
art. There has, however, crept into many of their pages the haunting
and unmistakable voice of the Bayreuth master. Vincent d’Indy, one of
the early champions of Wagner and one who, with the two conductors,
Lamoureux and Colonne, did much to win a place for Wagner’s music in
both opera house and concert room of Paris, is strongly Wagnerian in
many of his moments and the failure of his dramatic work is generally
attributed to his over-zealous following of Wagner. The strongest check
to Wagnerism in France and elsewhere is the new France that asserts
itself in the voice of him whom many claim to be the first original
thinker in music since Wagner--Claude Debussy. The founder of French
impressionism, himself at one time an ardent Wagnerite, tells us that
his awakening appreciation of the charm of Russian music turned him
from following in Wagner’s step. Whatever may have been its source
the distinctive and insinuatingly contagious style of Debussy has
undoubtedly been the first potent influence toward a reaction against
Wagnerism.
A brief word may be added as to the Wagner influence as we find it
in the other European nations. Of conspicuous names those of Grieg
and Tschaikowsky fall easily into our list of Wagner followers.
Undeniably national and individual as both have been, each had his
Wagner enthusiasm. Into the works of the former there crept so much of
Wagner that Hanslick wittily called him ‘Wagner in sealskins,’ while
Tschaikowsky, continually sounding his anti-Wagnerian sentiments,
is at times an unconscious imitator. From England there has come in
recent years in the work of one whom Strauss called ‘the first English
progressive,’ Edward Elgar, a voice which in its most eloquent moments
echoes that of Wagner. But perhaps the most significant proof of the
far-reaching influence of Wagner’s art is the readiness with which it
was welcomed by Italy. As early as 1869 Wagner found his first Italian
champion in Boïto and to him was due the early production of Wagner’s
works at Bologna. Wagner’s influence on Italian composers has been
largely in the respect of dramatic reform rather than actual musical
expression; the accusations of Wagnerism which greeted the appearance
of Verdi’s _Aïda_ were as groundless as the same cry against _Carmen_.
In _Aïda_ Verdi forsook the superficial form of opera text that had
been that of his earlier works and adopted a form more sincerely
dramatic. This was, of course, under the direct influence of Wagner’s
reform as was the more serious vein of the musical setting to this and
Verdi’s two last operas, ‘Othello’ and ‘Falstaff’; but in musical idiom
Verdi remained distinctively free from Wagner’s influence.
With this brief survey in mind the deduction as to the lasting value
of Wagner’s theories and practices may be easily drawn. Wagner, the
composer, has set his indelible mark upon the dramatic music of his
age and that of a succeeding age, and, becoming a classic, he remains
the inevitable model of modern musical thought. Wagner as dramatist
constitutes a somewhat less forceful influence. Despite the inestimable
value of his dramatic reform and its widespread influence on operatic
art Wagner’s music dramas must remain the unique work of their author
and so peculiarly the product of his universal genius that general
imitation of them is at once prohibited by the fact that the world will
not soon again see a man thus generously endowed.
Added proof of the enormous interest which has attached itself to
Wagner and his works is found in the large and constantly increasing
mass of Wagner literature, more voluminous than that heretofore
devoted to any musician. The ten volumes which comprise Wagner’s own
collected writings,[116] contain much of vital interest, as well as a
mass of unimportant items. Besides the poems of the operas, beginning
with _Rienzi_, we find all of those essays to which reference has
been already made, in which he advances his æsthetic and philosophic
principles. There is besides these a quantity of exceedingly
interesting autobiographical and reminiscent articles and many valuable
pages of hints as to the interpretation of his own and of other
works. Of greater interest to the general reader is the two-volume
autobiography.[117] This work covers Wagner’s life from childhood to
the year 1864, the year in which he met King Ludwig. Dictated to his
wife and left in trust to her for publication at a stated time after
his death, the book was eagerly awaited and attracted wide attention
on its appearance in 1911. In its intense subjectivity, it gives us
a vivid and intimate picture of Wagner’s artistic life, and in its
narration of external events several episodes of his life, which
had before been matters of more or less mystery, are explained. The
publication of this autobiography was the signal for a last and faint
raising of the voice of detraction against Wagner’s character in its
egotistical isolation. The unrelenting attitude of aggressiveness that
he adopted was only the natural attendant upon his genius and its
forceful expression. To him who reads aright this record of Wagner’s
life must come the realization that self-protection often forced
upon him these external attitudes of a selfish nature, and that his
supreme confidence in his own power to accomplish his great ideals
warranted him in overcoming in any way all obstacles which retarded the
accomplishment.
B. L.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] ‘My Life,’ Vol. I.
[108] Kietz, the painter, E. G. Anders and Lehrs, philologists, were
the most intimate of these friends.
[109] The pamphlet which Wagner wrote and caused to be circulated
publicly in explanation of the symphony is found in Vol. VIII of his
collected works (English edition).
[110] ‘Prose Writings,’ Vol. I.
[111] _Ibid._, Vol. II.
[112] _Ibid._, Vol. III.
[113] _Die Musik seit Richard Wagner_, Berlin, 1914.
[114] Eduard Hanslick, celebrated critic, Brahms champion and
anti-Wagnerite, b. Prague, 1825; d. Vienna, 1904.
[115] ‘César Franck,’ Paris, 1912.
[116] ‘The Prose Writings of Richard Wagner’ (8 vols.), translated by
W. Ashton Ellis, London, 1899.
[117] _Mein Leben_, 1913 (Eng. tr.: ‘My Life,’ 1913).