[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.