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.