During the long interval that elapsed between the execution of the earlier portion of the Second Act of Siegfried and the resumption of his work many things happened to Wagner. He composed Tristan and the Mastersingers; he went through his worst years of utter despair; he was taken up by King Ludwig. As I have mentioned, he went to Triebschen to complete the Ring for the sake of his conception of the hero Siegfried—and he went there a jaded man. And there is an unmistakable quality in the music of his Third Act. In Tristan and the Mastersingers we have the perfectly mature Wagner; inspiration, invention and technical accomplishment are perfectly balanced. What we feel immediately in the third act of Siegfried is a certain over-ripeness—as if the writing of music had become too easy. As we proceed I shall give some instances of this, though not so many as might be given.
Siegfried is now on the point of reaching the height of his fortunes. He has the Sword, has killed the Dragon, secured the Ring and the magic cap which will enable him to change himself into any shape he pleases. Following the fluttering bird he comes to a pass on the mountain-side and encounters Wotan who, we know, had sworn that none who feared his Spear should pass through the fire. He endeavours to stop the Hero, who shatters the Spear. Siegfried passes on; the flames leap up at his approach and subside as he boldly goes on. He finds Brünnhilda sleeping, awakes her with a kiss, overcomes her resistance, and the opera concludes with a triumphant love-duet. This is the skeleton of what is, dramatically if not musically, the most important of the three acts.
The curtain rises on this mountain pass in a dark dawn: an angry cold wind whistles and screams, and wild wet clouds are flying. Wotan stands there; presently he summons Erda, who rises, as in the Rhinegold, with a "frosty light" about her; he asks her what will be the upshot of the day's doings. Her answer is no answer, and Wotan replies for her: Siegfried will pass and take Brünnhilda—and then the End of the gods. The dramatic object of this scene I have never been able to grasp. Both Wotan and Erda know what the end will be; and I can only take it that Wagner, fully aware that each of the constituent operas of the Ring would certainly be performed separately, wanted to make his intention and the whole plot clear to those who had not seen the earlier parts of the work. Musically it shows signs of that over-ripeness I have just spoken of. The introduction is magnificent: the leaping figure on the strings, the subject that serves for Erda here (and elsewhere in different shapes for all the elemental beings), mounting up against it, the phrase expressive of Wotan's anguish (from Act II of the Valkyrie), the Spear theme rising by degrees and ever increasing force, the whole leading up to the Wanderer music—these at once tell a story and paint a picture of tempest amongst the wild mountainous rocks. Had Schopenhauer heard this music it would have justified his remark about the use of clouds. From the moment that Wotan begins his invocation the quality falls: the motive is, for Wagner, a poor, mechanical thing; and an appearance of life is only kept up by marked rhythms, forced changes of key, and noisy orchestration. Erda's music is not on the highest level. The colour is there, and an atmosphere is gained largely through the employment of music previously heard; but the vocal phrases are not true song, nor that blending of true song with recitative of which we have already noticed so many examples.
With the approach of Siegfried, however, at once the superb artist shows himself: a complete piece made from the fire-music, the bird-music, and Siegfried the hunter's theme is begun, to be interrupted for a while, then resumed and worked up into a glorious thing. The interruption is the scene between Siegfried and his grandfather the Wanderer. It brings the tragedy of Wotan more vividly than ever before us, and is from every point of view not only justified but necessary. Siegfried scoffs at the old dotard, who loves the boy as his own flesh and blood (if one may say this of a pagan god) doomed to death by his forbear's ambition and errors. At last Siegfried, impatient to go on, smashes the Spear and ascends the path to where we see the distant glow of the flames. The music is supremely noble and touching, with just a hint here and there of over-facility: I mean chiefly that the vocal phrases are not tense and full of character as are those in the Valkyrie: they seem to have been put in to fit the orchestral web. In an earlier chapter I spoke of this weakness in the Ring; and from this point onward till the end of Wagner's writing days, unless he was writing undisguised song, the liability to this weakness increased. The over-ripeness shows itself also in the structure of the music: the parts lack definition (as microscopists would say). Formalism is not at all a desirable thing; but if we examine the great works, differing widely in character, Tristan, the Mastersingers and the Valkyrie, we find the utmost distinctness combined with perfect freedom and expressiveness. Even as early as the Second Act of Siegfried the freedom threatens to degenerate into sloppiness—or, to put it rather more mildly, at least into vagueness. Perhaps he felt this himself; for certainly at the end of the act we are discussing, and often in the Dusk of the Gods, he gives us straightforward song. At best his song-recitative is sublime; at worst it is insufferably tedious.
The gorgeous journey to the mountain-top is resumed as Siegfried disappears amongst the rocks and Wotan goes off. We are now done with him: his last ineffectual stand for supremacy having collapsed, as he fore-knew it would, he returns to Valhalla to await the end. There is darkness for a while; then light returns, and we find the scene that of the termination of the Valkyrie. The mountain-top is sunlit; Brünnhilda's horse Grani is contentedly at graze; Brünnhilda, covered with her shield, her spear by her side, sleeps, motionless. Siegfried comes over some rocks at the back of the stage, gazes around him in wonder, finally discovers Brünnhilda, and with a kiss awakens her. At first the godhood has not quite gone out of her, and "Woe! woe!" she cries, as she realises her fate. But womanhood is strong within her; she yields; hails Siegfried as the highest hero of all the world, and the opera ends.
The music is nearly throughout the superb Wagner. The long ascending violin passage which accompanies Siegfried's amazed gazing at the wonders around him, chief amongst them Brünnhilda, is imagined with absolute truth; Brünnhilda's Greeting to the sun is Wagner in the plenitude of his powers, blending music which depicts her outspread arms with human rapture in an incomparable way; Siegfried's masterful and passionate entreaties are quite in the strain of Tristan, though the Scandinavian atmosphere prevails; Brünnhilda's awe-stricken song, "O Siegfried, highest hero," interprets the birth of love in a woman's breast with, again, absolute truth; and that the man who had lately written Tristan could write such a finale is not the least astounding of Wagner's feats.
The Siegfried Idyll, made of the Siegfried Themes, is, in a word, the most beautiful thing he ever wrote.