Chapter II: The Artist in Theory (5)

[348] This and other statements as to the genesis of opera are not historically correct.

[349] The most admired of libretto writers of the eighteenth century.

[350] The latest edition of the _Gesammelte Schriften_ (which contains more than one regrettable error), has "_auf natürlichem, künstlichem Boden gewachsen_," instead of _unnatürlichem_ as in the earlier editions. See _G.S._, iv. 15.

[351] I borrow Mr. Edwin Evans's alliterative rendering of these three lines,--"Life's delight is love"; "True love doth lighten loss"; "For 'tis from woe she weaves her wonders." See his translation of _Opera and Drama_, ii. 520 ff.

[352] _I.e._, in modern phrase, the "leading-motives."

[353] _G.S._, iii. 267.

[354] _G.S._, iii. 269.

[355] _G.S._, iv. 65, 66.

[356] _G.S._, iv. 2.

[357] "But if I wish to show that plastic art, being only an artificial art, one abstracted from real art, must cease entirely in the future; if consequently to this plastic art--painting and sculpture--that to-day claims to be the principal art, I utterly deny a life in the future, you will admit that this should not and could not be done with two strokes of the pen." (Letter of 12th January 1850; _Briefe an Uhlig, &c._, p. 26.)

[358] Letter 14 to Uhlig (undated), in _Briefe_, p. 46. Mr. Shedlock, in his admirable English version of these letters, translates "art-egoistic" (künstlerisch-egoistischen) in the second sentence as "artificial egoistic," having apparently read "künstlerisch" as "künstlich."

[359] _Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde_, in _G.S._, iv. 315. He is discussing the reasons that led him to give up the idea of a play on the subject of Friedrich Barbarossa.

[360] "In modern speech, poetical creation is impossible; that is to say, a poetic purpose cannot be _realised_ in it, but only suggested" (_sondern eben nur als solche ausgesprochen werden_). _Opera and Drama_, in _G.S._, iv. 98. There are many other passages of the same tenour.

[361] _G.S._, iii. 178 ff.

[362] _Briefwechsel zwischen Wagner und Liszt_, i. 324.

[363] _G.S._, iv. 128, 129.

[364] In the scene of the Contest of Song in the second Act of _Tannhäuser_, he says, "my real object was, if possible, to compel the hearer, for the first time in the history of opera, to take an interest in a poetic idea, and to follow it up in all its necessary developments." _Mein Leben_, p. 364.

[365] Letter of 8th September 1850; _Briefwechsel_, i. 75.

[366] Much of his laborious insistence on the proper relation between word and tone was due to the disregard of any coincidence between verbal and musical accents in most of the German opera texts and translations of his time, and to the bad enunciation of so many of the singers. He was still complaining of this latter--"the chaotic vocal style of our singers"--in 1879. See _Über das Opern-Dichten und Komponieren im Besonderen_, in _G.S._, x. 166.

[367] Letter 21 (beginning of February 1851), p. 80.

[368] _Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde_, in _G.S._, iv. 316.

[369] _G.S._, iv. 318, 319.

[370] It must always be remembered that the Beethoven of whom Wagner speaks is the Beethoven of the later symphonies, sonatas, and quartets.

[371] Letter 57 (15th February 1852) in _Briefe an Uhlig_, p. 160. It was his complaint against Mendelssohn's conducting of the Beethoven symphonies that it brought out "merely their purely musical side," not their poetical content. Not understanding the spirit of them, Mendelssohn kept to the letter. His inability to understand the inner meaning of the music caused him to fall into the grossest errors of _tempo_. He took the first movement of the Ninth Symphony, for example, so fast that "the whole thing became the direct opposite of what it really is" (Letter 56 to Uhlig, 15th February 1852, p. 162).

[372] Letter 56 to Uhlig, 15th February 1852, p. 157.

[373] Letter 55 to Uhlig (15th February, 1852), pp. 158, 159.

[374] _Opera and Drama_, in _G.S._, iii. 278. The whole of this section should be read carefully.

[375] _Opera and Drama_, in _G.S._, iv. 3.

[376] _Opera and Drama_, in _G.S._, iv. 173.

[377] This term, it must be remembered, is not Wagner's own. It has come into such general use, however, and is so thoroughly expressive, that it is better to employ it than to adopt Wagner's rather circumlocuitous way of expressing the same thing.

[378] The reader who is unable to follow Wagner's exposition in _Opera and Drama_ should turn to _A Communication to my Friends_, in which practically the same ground is covered, but in a much more luminous style.

[379] E. T. A. Hoffmann before him had been very enthusiastic over Beethoven, and no doubt Wagner had been stimulated by Hoffmann in this as in so many other matters. See in particular Hoffmann's _Fantasiestücke_.

[380] _On Franz Liszt's Symphonic Poems_, in _G.S._, v. 187.

[381] _On Franz Liszt's Symphonic Poems_, in _G.S._, v. 109.

[382] It has recently been re-published with an introduction and notes by Dr. Eugen Schmitz. (Verlag Dr. Heinrich Lewy, Munich.)

[383] _Zukunftsmusik_, in _G.S._, vii. 97.

[384] _Zukunftsmusik_, in _G.S._, vii. 127, 128.

[385] Guido Adler, _Richard Wagner: Vorlesungen gehalten an der Universität zu Wien_, pp. 3 ff.

[386] This is a broadly true statement of the historical facts, though it has to be remembered that the theory that the _first_ Florentine reformers aimed at a recitative-like delivery of a dramatic idea is only one of the errors of the popular historian. Their earliest attempts were more in the arioso form. See Hugo Riemann's _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, ii. 2, chap. xxiii.

[387] _Zukunftsmusik_, in _G.S._, vii, 128.

[388] _Ibid._, vii, 129.

[389] _Zukunftsmusik_, in _G.S._, vii. 129.

[390] I do not mean, of course, that it has anything to do with the symphony in the formal sense, but that the orchestra weaves a continuous tissue of its own, instead of merely accompanying the voices as in the earlier operas.

[391] See Appendix B.

[392] _On Operatic Poetry and Composition_, in _G.S._, x. 172.

[393] _On the Application of Music to the Drama_, in _G.S._, x. 186.

[394] _Ibid._, x. 186, 187.

[395] _On the Application of Music to the Drama_, in _G.S._, x. pp. 189, 190. The variation of the theme to which Wagner refers is as follows:

[Music:]