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* * * * *
STUDIES
IN THE
WAGNERIAN DRAMA
BY
HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1904
Copyright, 1891, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
TO
JOSEPH S. TUNISON
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE WAGNERIAN DRAMA: ITS PROTOTYPES AND ELEMENTS.
Wagner a Regenerator of the Lyric Drama.--Greek Tragedy.--Solemn
Speech and Music.--The Poet-composers
of Hellas.--The Florentine Reformers and their Invention
of the Lyric Drama.--Peri and Caccini.--Their
Declamation.--Monteverde's Orchestra.--How Wagner
Touches Hands with his Predecessors.--Poet and
Composer.--Music a Means, not an Aim in the Drama.--A
Typical Teuton, but also a Cosmopolite.--Teutonic
and Roman Ideals.--Absolute Beauty and Characteristic
Beauty.--The Ethical Idea in Wagner's Dramas.--Fundamental
Principle of his Constructive Scheme.
The Typical Phrases.--Symbols, not Labels.--Music as
a Language.--Characteristics of Some Typical Phrases.--Wotan
in Two Aspects.--Form the First Manifestation
of Law in Music and Essential to Repose.--Tonality
and the Effect of its Loss.--Phrases Delineative
and Imitative of External Characteristics.--The
Giants, the Dwarfs, the Rhine; Loge, the God of
Fire.--Prophetic Use of the Phrases.--Their Dramatic
Development.--Wagner's Orchestra and the Greek
Chorus.--Alliteration and Rhyme.--The Ethical Idea
Again. Pages 1-36