'SIEGFRIED'
I
In a letter to Liszt Wagner says he would not have undertaken the toil
of completing so gigantic a work as the _Ring_ but for his love of
Siegfried, his ideal of manhood. It is as well, from one point of
view, that his love of his ideal was so intense, for in consequence we
have the _Ring_; but from another point of view it is not so well, for
the youth Siegfried is the least lovable, perhaps the most inane and
detestable character to be found in any form of drama. He is a
combination of impudence, stupidity and sheer animal strength--mere
bone and sinew; his courage comes from his stupidity. The courage and
strength and impudence carry him through to his one victory; then his
stupidity leads him straight to destruction. He possesses not one fine
trait: he is as weak in will and intellect as he is strong in muscle.
In the 'fifties and 'sixties not only Germans but men of all other
nationalities seem to have vainly imagined they had solved all the
problems of this very difficult world by assuming and proclaiming that
might is right. Bismarck acted on this belief; our own Carlyle,
Tennyson and Ruskin preached it; and Wagner, being a feeble creature
physically, fell naturally, inevitably, a victim to the old delusion,
and set to work to glorify the strong man. There is a further
explanation. I need not do more than refer to an idea which took
definite form during the eighteenth century, that as many of the
defects and problems of modern life spring from the very conditions
under which our civilisation alone is possible, a return to a state of
nature, without government, clothes, or even houses to live in, would
be a return to the garden of Eden before the Fall. We see this notion
working in Wagner's mind continually in the prose writings, and in his
last opera we see Parsifal, the "pure fool," "redeeming" an
over-civilised world. To glorify the idiot absolute in this fashion
was to out-Rousseau Rousseau--though Wagner would have scorned the
suggestion. In _Siegfried_ he goes by no means so far; but he goes
quite far enough. Siegfried is no idiot; but he certainly is an
unamiable, truculent savage. He has been reared by a dwarf and
cripple, Mime, and the first we see of him is on his entry with a wild
bear in leash, which beast he drives at his terrified foster-father.
The justification is that he feels instinctively that Mime is bad, low
and cunning--and it does not justify him: Mime, with an ulterior
purpose, it is true, has saved him from death by starvation in his
infancy, and nurtured him, and the least Siegfried could do was to
leave the abject creature in peace. It is true also that he is mending
Siegfried's sword--but this is to anticipate. I cannot accept
Siegfried as a specimen of the highest heroic humanity. The boldness
of a man who because of his dull wits cannot realise danger is of no
use in this world under any imaginable conditions. Siegfried knows no
fear. There is a story of two officers conversing during a battle. One
asked, "Are you afraid?" Reply: "If you were as afraid as I am you
would run away." One, the tale assumes, had a finely organised brain,
the other brute force and insensibility. Which is the nearer approach
to an ideal of noble manhood? Wagner's _Siegfried_ answers, brute
ferocity. Judged by his own standard how would Wagner himself
stand?--as splendidly organised a brain as that possessed by any man
born into the nineteenth or any other century?
II
The continuous clink-clink-clink of a metalworker's hammer is heard;
the curtain rises, and we first see through an opening at the back of
the stage the bright green shining forest; as our eyes grow accustomed
to the darkness in the front we gradually perceive a rude smithy in a
cave, with an anvil, a forge with a smouldering fire, and a deformed
dwarf, Mime, at work trying to piece together the shards of the broken
sword. That sword was Siegmund's, shattered by a blow of Wotan's
spear; and long ago it was to this cave Sieglinda fled, bearing with
her the fragments. Siegmund and Sieglinda are long dead, Sieglinda
after giving birth to Siegfried; not far off is Hate-cave, where the
dragon Fafner lies guarding his precious gold amongst it the Ring;
far away Brünnhilda sleeps on the mountain, surrounded by her wall of
fire. There she lay on the evening of Siegmund's death; there she has
lain since. The world has gone on its way; Siegmund and Sieglinda have
departed; Siegfried has grown to manhood; year by year the young
shoots in the forest have sprouted and the leaves spread to the
sunlight: as we see the forest now, so was it on that fateful day, and
so it has been as the successive summers came. Siegmund lived, died,
and his memory has almost perished; save to the dwarf, the very name
of Sieglinda is unknown; other men have lived and died: nature only
goes on her course, the trees each year bringing forth fresh leaves to
repair last year's losses, as though the lives and deaths of brave men
and women were nothing to her. The earth is sweet and pleasant, but
nature must attend to her own affairs, and her indifference to the
affairs of men, her unchangeableness amidst all the vicissitudes of
men's lives, compel us to realise in such a scene as this at once her
own eternal youthfulness and man's brief, ephemeral existence. At one
stroke Wagner creates the atmosphere for his drama, and gives us as no
other artist has ever given it a sense of the unfathomable mystery of
the world and of life.
The dwarf taps away with his hammer; he longs to patch up the sword
that Siegfried may kill the dragon and he, Mime, get the hoard; he
bewails his weakness, but he does his best. All his labour proves
useless--the sword refuses to be mended; and in comes Siegfried with
his bear. The bear is driven off into the woods; there is a long
altercation and an explanation; Siegfried cannot believe that, as he
has been told, Mime is his father, and he learns the truth. He softens
into something approaching manhood as he hears of his mother's death;
and finally rushes off into the forest, leaving Mime again to his
task. Then follows a scene to be accounted for in only one way. First,
the scene: Mime sits in despair, and there enters an old man with his
slouch-hat drawn down over one eye, wearing a dark blue cloak (it
ought to be dotted with stars), and carrying a spear or staff in his
hands. He gains the sacred hearth, converses with Mime, and finally
bets him his head that he cannot answer three questions. Much to my
surprise when I first saw the score of _Siegfried_, these form merely
an excuse for going again over the ground covered in the _Rhinegold_
and the _Valkyrie_. The Scandinavian hegemony is expounded, and other
matters are gracefully touched on; the only point is made when the
last question is propounded and Mime cannot answer: Who is it shall
forge the sword, slay Fafner, take the hoard, pass through the fire
and take Brünnhilda for his wife? The old man laughs, leaves Mime his
head, but tells him it will fall to the hero who can do all these
things, the hero who knows not fear. He goes off; thunder is heard;
strange lights flicker amongst the trees; and Mime falls into an
ecstasy of terror, suffering all the agonies of a waking nightmare,
until the spell is abruptly broken by the entry of Siegfried. Why we
should have the two previous dramas of the _Ring_ told again in this
way is the puzzle. In the letter to Uhlig (p. 227) Wagner had plainly
given his reasons for writing the _Rhinegold_ and the _Valkyrie_--to
set before the audience clearly and vividly the events leading up to
_Siegfried's Death_, in action, not in narrative. We have seen them in
action, and lo! we get them in narrative! Wagner's idea must have been
to show us Wotan, realising how matters had passed beyond his control,
going about the world as the Wanderer, watching the development of
things and awaiting the inevitable day. He gives us the very awe and
thrill of our Scandinavian forbears with the apparition of the
grey-bearded man in his cloak coloured like deep night--the terrible
god that they believed walked the earth and might enter their
homesteads at any moment. Of course, as we shall see presently, the
answer to the third question prepares the next stage of the drama. But
as to why the whole story of the _Ring_ should be repeated--well, even
gods must have something to talk about if they wish to talk at all;
and the scene serves to sustain and to intensify the atmosphere in
which the whole drama is enacted, the atmosphere of the old sagas. But
I cheerfully concede that it is far too long, and in many respects an
artistic error.
The real drama of _Siegfried_, considering it as a separate,
self-contained opera, is now prepared for, and forthwith begins. We
know Siegfried and the task before him; we know Mime and _his_
task--to find out if Siegfried can be made to fear, and if he cannot,
to encourage him to kill the dragon, win the gold, and then to poison
him. He tries Siegfried with stories of terror, asks him if he has
never felt afraid of this, that and the other; and finding that this
is the veritable Hero, makes his preparation. Siegfried takes the
splinters of the sword--the splinters no smith can weld
together--files them to dust, melts the dust, re-casts the sword and
finishes it. Meantime Mime, working on, brews his poisonous broth,
muttering to himself about his purpose. At the end Siegfried tests the
sword and proves it true by splitting the anvil. All sorts of
allegorical meanings may be found in this gigantic scene; but the
plain meaning is that to a hero, unique, unparalleled in the history
of the world, a patched-up weapon, used previously by lesser men, is
useless: his sword must be new, and only he himself can forge it.
III
Before dealing further with the drama of _Siegfried_ I wish, for a
reason, to say a few words about the music of this First Act. From
_Tannhäuser_ onward Wagner showed in the music of his operas a
complete mastery of what can only be called the business-artistic side
of his art, or perhaps a complete knowledge of effectiveness. In so
long an affair as an opera, and especially a Wagner opera,
effectiveness depends largely on contrast, not simply between scene
and scene of an act, but also in a more marked degree between act and
act of an opera. In the _Dutchman_ there is none of this larger
contrast, and could hardly be, for the _Dutchman_ was originally
planned as an opera in one act. There is contrast enough, but he
contrasts set-piece with set-piece, scene with scene, not act with
act. In _Tannhäuser_ he works on the bigger scale and contrasts act
with act: the opening of the Second reveals a totally different mood
from that of the First, and the Third is entirely different from
either. This is true of the _Valkyrie_; but the _Rhinegold_, like the
_Dutchman_, is all of a piece, and is, moreover, the prelude to a huge
drama. When we come to _Siegfried_ we see at once how he was planning
his music on a still vaster scale: the atmosphere of _Siegfried_ is in
contrast, almost violent contrast, with that of the _Valkyrie_. The
music of the last act of the _Valkyrie_ is of a different character
altogether from that of the beginning of _Siegfried_. This is not
merely due to the development of Wagner's genius and his technical
power, but can be shown to be deliberately planned. Indeed, it ought
not to need any demonstration, knowing as we do know his knowledge and
grip of what is effective in the theatre. It would be absurd to
suppose that he was not perfectly well aware that every one would yawn
if after hearing the _Valkyrie_ his audience found _Siegfried_ to be
simply a continuation of the _Valkyrie_, found the two operas to be
virtually the same work with the scissors put through the score at an
arbitrarily chosen point. Consider the scenery of the two operas:
First Act of the _Valkyrie_, Hunding's hut with the smouldering fire;
Second, a rocky defile in the mountains and no particular weather;
Third, storm round the Valkyries' rock, black flying clouds, the pines
tossing their branches to the tempest, and, at the end, a peaceful
evening sky and then the yellow flames shooting up against it. We must
note the change to the beginning of _Siegfried_: a dark cave, and
outside it the forest, green, fresh and bright; Second Act, the
entrance to Hate-cave, time, night, long before dawn, and at the end a
summer morning, with the sun shimmering on the grass and the trees
gently murmuring in the wind; Third, a rocky ravine in the early
morning, grey storm-clouds scudding past, the wind whistling; at the
end, a mountain top, Brünnhilda sleeping, the peaceful trees, a horse
quietly grazing, morning sunlight. This sequence shows how carefully
the matter was schemed; and we may now turn to the music.
When the same leitmotivs are largely employed throughout a long
operatic work there must be a superficial, or, if I may say so,
external, monotony in the character of the music. A first glance at
the scores reveals to the eye the same series of notes and chords
repeated again and again; to any but the most attentive listener a
first hearing leaves the impression of the same themes and passages
endlessly repeated. But any one who leaves the theatre on an evening
after the _Valkyrie_ bearing with him a vivid memory of the brilliance
and sweetness of the close must at the very least be struck by the
sombre colouring of the opening of _Siegfried_ the following evening.
I do not mean the orchestral colouring, but the intrinsic thing, the
music itself. The tapping of the hammer on steel goes on, and in mock
seriousness the orchestra gives out a series of prolonged sighs or
groans of the most lugubrious character, reaching a climax as poor
miserable Mime at last gives up his job in despair. Mime, we must
remember, is a half-comic personage; and were his music allotted to
some heroic man facing an impossible task it would be much the same,
save that Wagner would not have so exaggerated the hysterical emotion.
To depict a being facing an impossible task with no noble, but with
only an ignoble, motive requires such an exaggerated mode of
expression. Mime's grief is real enough, but the cause of it
contemptible. After a considerable deal in this mournful key comes the
sudden entry of the bright young savage Siegfried, driving the bear.
His first theme is simply a bugle hunting call: Siegfried was then
nothing but a hunter, a wild child of the forest. But as he gets on
with what he has to say Wagner warms up to his work, and we get many
inspired pages, some of them showing the tendency to indulge in
counterpoint of the finest sort which manifested itself more fully in
the _Mastersingers_, though here the movement is fuller of rude
impetuosity. The movement--for it is a distinct movement--in which
Siegfried describes how he had often looked into the smooth-running
brook, and seeing his reflection there knew he did not resemble Mime,
who therefore could not be his father--for the cub is like the
bear--is one of Wagner's loveliest, and full of a delicate pastoral
feeling (again, in contrast with everything in the _Valkyrie_). The
Wanderer music is sublime. The theme was borrowed from Liszt, and
Liszt ought to have been grateful, for the possibilities of his own
musical subject were surely unfolded to him for the first time. In the
music here, even more than in the vision of the stage, we have the
grey Wanderer of the Scandinavian imagination--the mystery of wood,
mountain, river and ravine, with human sadness superadded, is clearly
communicated to us. Passing over the repetitions from the preceding
operas, concerning which I have already said sufficient, we come to
the nightmare music, where Wagner once more manifests that miraculous
gift of depicting, in terms of music, light and colour, a personal
emotion. We can see the flickering lights glaring amongst the trees
and feel Mime's terror.
The forge scene is one of Wagner's most stupendous efforts--for really
inspired, not mechanical, energy it is by far the greatest thing in
the opera. As Siegfried sets to work pulling the bellows, his first
call "Nothung!" (the name of the Sword) is practically the same as the
cobbler's song in the _Mastersingers_; but immediately after it goes
off into a sheer song of spring and the joy of spring; while the
bellows groan and the fire roars the feeling of growing green forest
life overflows into the music, and the intoxicating exhilaration is
expressed as only Wagner himself had expressed it before. When the
hammering business begins we again find a likeness to the Sachs music,
but what a dissimilarity from the petty tapping of Mime! Mime's
theme, and that of all the Nibelung smiths, is characteristic enough;
they are not contemptible in themselves, though through them we find
the whole tribe of these smiths to be contemptible; and the tremendous
swing of this second section of Siegfried's song makes every other
smith's song seem by comparison contemptible. Finally, when Nothung is
ready for action there is a coruscation of light from the orchestra as
the Sword theme, which, of course, we have heard long before, and the
Siegfried-the-hunter theme are blared out and the anvil is split.
Many other points must be left until later. I wish for the present to
give a notion of Wagner's powers at the time he wrote the earlier
portions of _Siegfried_. Had the whole opera been equal to these
portions it might have ranked with the _Valkyrie_. But though his
powers were not yet on the wane, as we get on we shall see that the
subject was getting a little stale. He had not the smallest hope of
seeing his work performed. If ever a man wrote purely for posterity it
was Wagner at this period; and though the general inspiration remained
as deep and powerful as ever, we cannot be surprised if the continuous
white heat of the _Valkyrie_ was checked and broken very often. The
surprising thing is that so circumstanced he achieved so much.
IV
The story of the next Act is so simple that I shall deal with it and
the music at the same time. Near Hate-cave black Alberich, who first
steals the gold, ceaselessly watches: he cannot gain the gold, but its
attraction is irresistible. So he watches while we hear the snarling
music associated with him; and we can feel all the old-time horror of
the malignant semi-deities of the black forests and streams and caves.
Mime and he dispute angrily: Siegfried is about to slay the dragon,
the "Wurm," and the question is who is to have the gold. The music is
all of the sort that Wagner alone after Weber could write--wild, full
at times of frenzied energy, full also, if so forced a phrase may be
permitted, of black colour--black-green made audible as was the thick
darkness that might be felt made to be felt by Handel. Anger cannot be
directly expressed in music; but these dreary snarling noises from the
orchestra and the peculiar use made of the human voice--a use to be
referred to later--enable Wagner to indicate it indirectly in a way
effective on the stage. (We may note once again the contrast between
two successive scenes--the brilliance, the straightforward vigour of
the close of Act I, and these tortuous phrases at the beginning of Act
II.) Day begins to lighten, and Siegfried enters; he reclines on a
green bank and hearkens to a bird carolling amidst the rustling
branches. He tries to imitate its notes on a reed cut with his sword,
that emits strange noises; and at last, annoyed by his lack of
success, he petulantly blows a blast on his horn. This arouses Fafner,
who grumbles and discloses his hiding-place; and presently an
extraordinary reptile, one the like of which never was on sea or land,
comes forth to destroy the intruder. Siegfried (like the ordinary
audience) seems disposed to laugh, but when the monster opens its
giant jaws and sends out flames and steam, and red lights begin to
glare in its eyes, he sees serious matters are at hand. He prepares
for combat, and the battle is terrific, if not very convincing. At
last, however, he penetrates the odd brute in a vital part; it rolls
over and makes dying prophecies; at the last it asks its conqueror's
name and, having learnt it, groans that name once and dies. Siegfried
thereupon penetrates into the cave and returns with the hoard; then he
throws himself once more upon the green bank.
If the reader thinks I treat this episode rather flippantly, let me
promptly admit that this is so. It is pantomime of the most grotesque
sort, not serious opera. The dragon would not frighten a child. The
whole thing is an artistic mistake: the fight should take place with
the beast wholly or nearly out of sight: an occasional lash of the
tail, with plenty of smoke and red fire, would be much more effective
than this construction of lath and pasteboard. The music hardly ever
reaches a high level. There is not in existence any fine music
descriptive of any form of fighting; and here slashing passages on the
strings, blares of the brass, shrieks of the wood-wind, do not cover
the inevitable failure of invention. Fafner's dying speech is better,
for Wagner had something urgent to say on his own account: he wishes
to urge on us the significance of Siegfried's coming career; and he
does it with immense impressiveness. The day of the Ending of the gods
comes a little nearer when Siegfried takes possession of the Ring and
places it on his finger. As was arranged from the beginning of time,
things are taking their course; Fate, answering none who questions,
works out her plans silently, mysteriously, inexorably. A sense of our
darkness regarding our destiny fills the music with a profound
emotion.
If there has been too much of the pantomimic grotesque so far, Wagner
soon offers us compensations. The music now is amongst his freshest
and most fragrant. A reservation must be made touching the absolute
perfection of its beauty, but only a minute one. When first the bird
sang sweetly in the branches outspread above Siegfried's head we heard
the beginning of the piece known in the concert room as "Forest
Voices," the most exquisite sylvan picture ever done in music. A low
rippling figure, or rather part-figure and part-melodic theme, is
heard: it mounts higher, descends again, sways about, swells and dies
away; other melodies are interwoven with it; it becomes more rapid in
its motion, and grows louder until we feel the wind getting up and the
leaves dancing, and then comes the voice of the bird. This may sound a
little high-falutin', but is the only way in which I can render my
impression. The picture is so absolutely convincing that many readers
who, like myself, first heard the thing in a concert room will
remember that with the one hint conveyed by the title no scenery was
needed to make its meaning and feeling quite clear. The bird-voice is
managed with consummate art: a penny toy would have enabled the
composer to give a faithful imitation of bird-song--and would have
spoilt the faithfulness of the whole picture. So Wagner has translated
the real bird-song into terms of art, and thereby given us its spirit
while sufficiently suggestive of the original. It is not sustained for
long. Siegfried, as I have described, tries to cut a reed so as to
imitate it, and there is some innocent fooling as he only gets odd
squeaks out of his instrument; then comes the combat with the Dragon,
and he returns to his place. The one tender spot in his nature,
awakened by the thought of his mother, who died for him, is touched by
the bird-song and the sweet morning; he is filled with vague,
sorrowful yearnings--and presently the bird sings again. But after
killing the monster he had touched its blood--it burnt his finger,
which he instinctively put in his mouth; and the taste of the blood
endows him with the faculty of understanding the speech of beasts and
birds. So now when the bird sings it is a human voice uttering words.
It is with regard to this I make a reservation. The abrupt entrance of
the human voice startles one: the picture is for a moment distorted,
made artificial. After a few hearings one grows accustomed to the
incongruity; but I still think Wagner would perhaps have done better
to let Siegfried tell us what he hears. This is, however, a mere
guess; and it savours of impudence to suggest what so great a composer
as Wagner should have done. The bird first warns Siegfried against
Mime. Mime crawls in with his basin of poisoned soup, meaning to offer
his "son" some refreshment after the labours of the morning. In
whining accents, verging on the ludicrous--for I have said that Mime
is semi-comic--he professes his love; but the dragon's blood also
enables Siegfried to understand what he means, and, just as Beckmesser
in singing the stolen song utters words very different from those he
means, so Mime in what he intends to be affectionate strains tells us
his real purpose. Siegfried plays with him as a cat plays with a
mouse, and at last plunges the sword into him--and from a thicket
comes the malignant laugh of Alberich, barked to Mime's own hammering
phrase. Disgusted, Siegfried returns to his resting place, but the
bird again engages his attention: it sings of the maiden afar off on
the mountain sleeping hedged in by the fire through which he alone can
break. Siegfried's longings take definite form: he will win the
maiden; the bird promises to lead him; it flutters off; he follows;
the curtain drops.
Thus ends one of Wagner's most splendid scenes--certainly the finest
in this opera. The passion of the music, its vivid picturesque
quality, its freshness, go to make it one of the many things of
Wagner's for which no parallel can be found. Wagner's technique had
now reached that supreme height which made _Tristan_ and the
_Mastersingers_ possible; and the spontaneous energy of his
inspiration was unabated. The Act, we may remember, was actually
completed after those two operas, but it was planned and partially
executed before.
V
During the long interval that elapsed between the execution of the
earlier portion of the Second Act of _Siegfried_ and the resumption of
his work many things happened to Wagner. He composed _Tristan_ and the
_Mastersingers_; he went through his worst years of utter despair; he
was taken up by King Ludwig. As I have mentioned, he went to
Triebschen to complete the _Ring_ for the sake of his conception of
the hero Siegfried--and he went there a jaded man. And there is an
unmistakable quality in the music of his Third Act. In _Tristan_ and
the _Mastersingers_ we have the perfectly mature Wagner; inspiration,
invention and technical accomplishment are perfectly balanced. What we
feel immediately in the third act of _Siegfried_ is a certain
over-ripeness--as if the writing of music had become too easy. As we
proceed I shall give some instances of this, though not so many as
might be given.
Siegfried is now on the point of reaching the height of his fortunes.
He has the Sword, has killed the Dragon, secured the Ring and the
magic cap which will enable him to change himself into any shape he
pleases. Following the fluttering bird he comes to a pass on the
mountain-side and encounters Wotan who, we know, had sworn that none
who feared his Spear should pass through the fire. He endeavours to
stop the Hero, who shatters the Spear. Siegfried passes on; the flames
leap up at his approach and subside as he boldly goes on. He finds
Brünnhilda sleeping, awakes her with a kiss, overcomes her resistance,
and the opera concludes with a triumphant love-duet. This is the
skeleton of what is, dramatically if not musically, the most important
of the three acts.
The curtain rises on this mountain pass in a dark dawn: an angry cold
wind whistles and screams, and wild wet clouds are flying. Wotan
stands there; presently he summons Erda, who rises, as in the
_Rhinegold_, with a "frosty light" about her; he asks her what will be
the upshot of the day's doings. Her answer is no answer, and Wotan
replies for her: Siegfried will pass and take Brünnhilda--and then the
End of the gods. The dramatic object of this scene I have never been
able to grasp. Both Wotan and Erda know what the end will be; and I
can only take it that Wagner, fully aware that each of the constituent
operas of the _Ring_ would certainly be performed separately, wanted
to make his intention and the whole plot clear to those who had not
seen the earlier parts of the work. Musically it shows signs of that
over-ripeness I have just spoken of. The introduction is magnificent:
the leaping figure on the strings, the subject that serves for Erda
here (and elsewhere in different shapes for all the elemental beings),
mounting up against it, the phrase expressive of Wotan's anguish
(from Act II of the _Valkyrie_), the Spear theme rising by degrees and
ever increasing force, the whole leading up to the Wanderer
music--these at once tell a story and paint a picture of tempest
amongst the wild mountainous rocks. Had Schopenhauer heard this music
it would have justified his remark about the use of clouds. From the
moment that Wotan begins his invocation the quality falls: the motive
is, for Wagner, a poor, mechanical thing; and an appearance of life is
only kept up by marked rhythms, forced changes of key, and noisy
orchestration. Erda's music is not on the highest level. The colour is
there, and an atmosphere is gained largely through the employment of
music previously heard; but the vocal phrases are not true song, nor
that blending of true song with recitative of which we have already
noticed so many examples.
With the approach of Siegfried, however, at once the superb artist
shows himself: a complete piece made from the fire-music, the
bird-music, and Siegfried the hunter's theme is begun, to be
interrupted for a while, then resumed and worked up into a glorious
thing. The interruption is the scene between Siegfried and his
grandfather the Wanderer. It brings the tragedy of Wotan more vividly
than ever before us, and is from every point of view not only
justified but necessary. Siegfried scoffs at the old dotard, who loves
the boy as his own flesh and blood (if one may say this of a pagan
god) doomed to death by his forbear's ambition and errors. At last
Siegfried, impatient to go on, smashes the Spear and ascends the path
to where we see the distant glow of the flames. The music is supremely
noble and touching, with just a hint here and there of over-facility:
I mean chiefly that the vocal phrases are not tense and full of
character as are those in the _Valkyrie_: they seem to have been _put
in_ to fit the orchestral web. In an earlier chapter I spoke of this
weakness in the _Ring_; and from this point onward till the end of
Wagner's writing days, unless he was writing undisguised song, the
liability to this weakness increased. The over-ripeness shows itself
also in the structure of the music: the parts lack definition (as
microscopists would say). Formalism is not at all a desirable thing;
but if we examine the great works, differing widely in character,
_Tristan_, the _Mastersingers_ and the _Valkyrie_, we find the utmost
distinctness combined with perfect freedom and expressiveness. Even as
early as the Second Act of _Siegfried_ the freedom threatens to
degenerate into sloppiness--or, to put it rather more mildly, at least
into vagueness. Perhaps he felt this himself; for certainly at the end
of the act we are discussing, and often in the _Dusk of the Gods_, he
gives us straightforward song. At best his song-recitative is sublime;
at worst it is insufferably tedious.
The gorgeous journey to the mountain-top is resumed as Siegfried
disappears amongst the rocks and Wotan goes off. We are now done with
him: his last ineffectual stand for supremacy having collapsed, as he
fore-knew it would, he returns to Valhalla to await the end. There is
darkness for a while; then light returns, and we find the scene that
of the termination of the _Valkyrie_. The mountain-top is sunlit;
Brünnhilda's horse Grani is contentedly at graze; Brünnhilda, covered
with her shield, her spear by her side, sleeps, motionless. Siegfried
comes over some rocks at the back of the stage, gazes around him in
wonder, finally discovers Brünnhilda, and with a kiss awakens her. At
first the godhood has not quite gone out of her, and "Woe! woe!" she
cries, as she realises her fate. But womanhood is strong within her;
she yields; hails Siegfried as the highest hero of all the world, and
the opera ends.
The music is nearly throughout the superb Wagner. The long ascending
violin passage which accompanies Siegfried's amazed gazing at the
wonders around him, chief amongst them Brünnhilda, is imagined with
absolute truth; Brünnhilda's Greeting to the sun is Wagner in the
plenitude of his powers, blending music which depicts her outspread
arms with human rapture in an incomparable way; Siegfried's masterful
and passionate entreaties are quite in the strain of Tristan, though
the Scandinavian atmosphere prevails; Brünnhilda's awe-stricken song,
"O Siegfried, highest hero," interprets the birth of love in a woman's
breast with, again, absolute truth; and that the man who had lately
written _Tristan_ could write such a finale is not the least
astounding of Wagner's feats.
The Siegfried Idyll, made of the Siegfried Themes, is, in a word, the
most beautiful thing he ever wrote.