WAGNER
Photograph taken in Munich
“To account for the exceptional array of extra instruments in the scores of the Nibelungen Ring it is enough to say that they are used as special means to special ends.
“Thus at the opening of the Rheingold, the question is what sound will best prepare for and accord with dim twilight and waves of moving water? The soft notes of the horns might be a musician’s answer; but to produce the full, smooth wavelike motion upon the notes of a single chord, the usual two, or four, horns are not sufficient, Wagner takes eight, and the unique and beautiful effect is secured.
“Again, in the next scene, the waves change to clouds: from misty mountain heights the gods behold Walhalla in the glow of the morning sun. Here subdued, solemn sound is required. How to get it? Use brass instruments piano. But the trumpets, trombones and tuba of Wagner’s usual Orchestra cannot produce enough of it. He, therefore, supplements them by other instruments of their family: a bass trumpet, two tenor and two bass tubas, a contrabass trombone and a contrabass tuba. Then the full band of thirteen brass instruments is ready for one of the simplest and noblest effects of sonority in existence.
“At the close of the Rheingold, Donner with his thunder-hammer clears the air of mist and storm-clouds; a rainbow spans the valley of the Rhine and over this glistening bridge the gods pass to Walhalla. What additional sounds shall accompany the glimmer and glitter of this scene? The silvery notes of harps might do it; but the sounds of a single harp would appear trivial, or would hardly be audible against the full Orchestra. Wagner takes six harps, writes a separate part for each, and the desired effect is forthcoming.”[81]
It might seem that after Wagner nothing more could be done with the Orchestra. But the progress of Music, like all other arts, never ceases. We have three more great names to consider—Richard Strauss, Tschaikowsky and Debussy.
“Richard Strauss is an intellectual musician. Saint-Saëns pointed out long ago the master part harmony would play in the music of the future, and Strauss realized the theory that melody is no longer sovereign in the kingdom of tone. His master works are architectural marvels. In structure, in rhythmical complexity, in striking harmonies, ugly, bold, brilliant, dissonantal, his symphonic poems are without parallel. Berlioz never dared, Liszt never invented such marvels of polyphony, a polyphony beside which even Wagner’s is child’s play and Bach’s is rivalled. And this learning, this titanic brushwork on vast and sombre canvases are never for formal music’s sake; indeed, one may ask if it is indeed music and not a new art. It is always intended to mean something, say something, paint someone’s soul. It is an attempt to make the old absolute music new and articulate.
“The greatest technical master of the Orchestra, making of it a vibrating dynamic machine, a humming mountain of fire, Richard Strauss, by virtue of his musical imagination, is painter-poet and psychologist. He describes, comments and narrates in tones of jewelled brilliancy; his Orchestra flashes like a canvas of Monet,—the divided tones and the theory of complementary colors (over-tones) have their analogues in the manner with which Strauss intricately divides his various instrumental choirs: setting one group in opposition, or juxtaposition, to another; producing the most marvellous, unexpected effects by acoustical mirroring and transmutation of motives; and almost blinding the brain when the entire battery of reverberation and repercussion is invoked. If he can paint sunshine and imitate the bleating of sheep, he can also draw the full-length portrait of a man. This he proves with his Don Quixote, wherein the noble dreamer and his earthly squire are heard in a series of adventures terminating with the death of the rueful knight—one of the most poignant pages in musical literature.”[82]
Richard Strauss was born in Munich, in 1864. His father, Franz Strauss, was first horn-player in the Court Orchestra and could play almost every orchestral instrument. He was an extraordinary musician. Once when playing under Wagner’s bâton, the composer said to him: “Strauss, you can’t be such an anti-Wagnerite as I hear. You play my music so beautifully!” “What has that got to do with it?” the horn-player replied.