We remember how at one of Theodore Thomas’s concerts at Central Park
Garden in New York—it was in the ’seventies—when this prelude was played
we heard strong hissing from many who would not have “the music of the
future.” And so today there are “lovers of music” who cannot endure the
music of the present and swear it cannot be the music of future, for
they have ears but they do not and will not hear.
“Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.”
* * *
_Lohengrin_, an opera in three acts, was performed for the first time at
the Court Theater, Weimar, August 28, 1850. Liszt conducted.
Liszt described the prelude as “a sort of magic formula which, like a
mysterious initiation, prepares our souls for the sight of unaccustomed
things, and of a higher signification than that of our terrestrial
life.”
Wagner’s own explanation has been translated into English as follows:
“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 outflow 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 a
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_, a knight of the Grail, 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.
“The prelude is scored for three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two
clarinets, bass clarinet, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones,
bass tuba, kettledrums, cymbals, and strings.”