“Pardon me,” said Sir William Leathbridge, “we owe and pay tribute to the talents of the professor. What we are discussing is the merits of Wagner.”
Marouski now endeavoured to explain to the company what Wagner had endeavoured to express in the piece he had just executed, and wound up by declaring that the German composer was a great genius.
“I admit my inability to appreciate his beauties,” said Sir Eric Batershall, “still I am not singular in the opinion I have formed. In an admirably-written article in a periodical a month or two ago the writer sets forth that, ‘Whereas Mozart’s opera music has been the delight of every concert goer since the day when it was first written—and this, irrespective of the scenes to which it belongs—Herr Wagner’s vocal phrases, detached from the pictures they illustrate, can only strike the ear as so much cacophonous jargon, in which every principle of nature and grace has been outraged, partly owing to poverty of invention and absence of all feeling for the beautiful—partly owing to the arrogant tyrany of a false and forced theory.”
“These are strong expressions, I admit,” said the baronet; “but not a bit too strong, excepting for the fanatics who have set up the Wagnerian idol, and would coerce the rest of the world into the worship of the fantastic creed they have adopted, just the same as the craze for the pre-Raphaelite school of painting, as it was termed, was endeavoured to be forced on the art-loving world many years ago.”
“That is true enough,” said Mr. Downbent; “it was a craze.”
“A sort of epidemic,” returned the baronet; “but hear me for a moment or so. Speaking of Herr Wagner’s profuse musical dialogue, and particularly in relation to ‘Das Rheingold,’ the writer says, ‘The recitative in which the scenes are conducted is throughout dry, unvocal, and uncouth, but Glück might never have written to show how truth in declamation may be combined with beauty of form, variety of instrumental support, and advantageous presentiment of the actors who have to tell a story.’”
“Ah, but you English cannot bear to listen to long descriptive recitative passages,” cried Marouski.
“I admit that as a rule they don’t care about them. Still a great many persons who listen to Wagner’s operas will feel the force of the observations I have just quoted. His interminable dialogues, his annihilation of pleasant comprehensible form of music, and his systematic crushing out of melody from his compositions, must eventually cure the musical public, or the small section of it who are with him, of their unhealthy craze. In the meantime, his operas, ‘dry’ as they usually are, will be revived in the course of the operatic season, and among them ‘Tannhäuser’ is of course excepted. In this work there are long dreary passages to wade through, with little else by way of compensation than the gorgeousness of the mise en scène. The professional march is truly an inspiration, and in the ‘Chant of the Pilgrims,’ Tannhäuser’s ‘Hymn to Venus,’ and the shepherds’ song, concessions are made to those who demand continuous understandable melody. For these indulgences we cannot be sufficiently grateful, and must congratulate ourselves that ‘Tannhäuser’ belongs to Wagner’s middle period, and not to his later style, from which tune is rigorously excluded.”
Signor Marouski smiled, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Ah,” said he, “it is always difficult for a grand original genius to make himself understood or to be fully appreciated by the public.”