Wagner

by John F. Runciman

It is necessary to rehearse in this way the dramatic bases of Tannhäuser and Wagner's succeeding operas for two reasons. First, the drama, which played a big enough part in the Dutchman, now becomes more important, more essential, than ever. Many an old Italian opera may be heard without the hearer knowing in the least what it is about; indeed, in many cases the less one knows of the plot, the more one enjoys the music. But the reverse is true of Wagner. Certain portions of Tannhäuser, for example, can be listened to with pleasure simply as noble or beautiful music: the overture, Tannhäuser's Song to Venus, the Pilgrims' Marching Chorus, Wolfram's "O Star of Eve," Elisabeth's Prayer, and so on. On the other hand, without an acquaintance with the story, and each stage of the story as it progresses, much of Venus's music in the first act loses its significance; the duet of Elisabeth and Tannhäuser in the second act loses its pathos, and the huge finale is meaningless, even as music; and the greater portion of the third act is simply bewildering. When we know what is being sung or done, the music is as clear as the day. Wagner knew this better than anyone, and, as I pointed out in commenting on the Dutchman, he brought his whole theatrical experience and training to help him to make the drama as simple and comprehensible as possible. When the Wagner battle was raging in the seventies and eighties, the sages pointed to the necessity of understanding the drama for the purpose of understanding the music as a defect of the Wagner music-drama, and a proof of Wagner's inferiority as a composer. But one would like to ask the sages how many songs are there which do not afford a finer artistic enjoyment when the words are understood?

A second reason for thoroughly knowing the drama of the later Wagner operas is that without that knowledge the leit-motif, which now becomes a formidable element, is likely to be wholly misunderstood and its artistic value missed. Nine-tenths of the absurdities written and talked about the leit-motif are due to ignorance of the nature of the dramatic situations in which it is used, and in consequence the purposes for which it is used. The leit-motif (leading theme) had very humble beginnings. Who was the first to employ it I really don't know. It was simply a theme which made its first appearance with one of the personages of the opera, and afterwards was used whenever that personage came on again or was referred to. Or it was connected with some thought, someone's destiny, someone's plans, and either because it expressed truly the right emotion, or because it acted by association of ideas, whenever it sounded from the orchestra the thing desired was recalled to one's mind. So used it was a useful father than a highly artistic device. Wagner constantly used it so for matters which did not demand lengthy treatment, such as Lohengrin's warning to Elsa or the curse on the gold in the Ring. But while continuing to make this elementary application of it, rather for dramatic than for musical purposes, he at the same time developed it until it ceased to be merely a leading motive, but became the very stuff of the music itself. Much of the music of the later operas is spun out of what appear at first nothing more than the old leading motives. The process by which this is done will be discussed later; for the present let us see how far Wagner goes with it in Tannhäuser.

In the Dutchman there are two principal themes, the first—

standing for Vanderdecken, the curse laid on him, and the whole idea of the phantom ship; the second—

for Senta. They are short and clean-cut; they recur when wanted, and are subjected to little modification. There is not a single theme of this description in Tannhäuser. The first act is perfectly easy to follow. There are no leit-motifs. The Venus and bacchantic music will be heard again in the second and third acts; but the rest consists of numbers almost as completely detached as those that make up the Dutchman, though the joinings are not only more skilful, but are real music and not mere padding. Wagner had not by any means yet arrived at the continuous music of his later work; in spite of his desire to sweep on from the beginning to the end of each scene, he was still forced to take frequent breath and disguise the stoppage as cleverly as he could. The first scene contains many of Wagner's most inspired melodies, notably the despairing song of Venus towards the end, a tune that might have come from Schubert. The old Weber influence is to be seen in the contours of many of the themes, as well as their orchestral colour; and the steadfast four-bar rhythm reminds one, in spite of the difference of subject, irresistibly of Euryanthe. It was not until the Tristan period that Wagner got rid of this. In the second scene of the first act we find all the musical machinery of old-fashioned opera, but used with a mastery that leaves the Dutchman far behind. There is first the shepherd's delightfully fresh song, in wonderful contrast to the scents and stifling heat of the Venus cave music; then comes the Pilgrims' Chorus; then come Tannhäuser's friends with at least one number, Wolfram's appeal, which is distinct and separate from the rest of the music as a goldfish is from the water it swims in. The act ends with a regular set finale, altogether on the old models.

The second act opens with Elisabeth's scena; then follow her duet with Tannhäuser, the march and chorus as the company troop in to hear the contest of minstrels, the various songs, Tannhäuser's fatal mistake, Elisabeth's intercession for him, the voices of the pilgrims setting out for Rome, and Tannhäuser's rush to overtake them. No use is made of the leit-motif; only when Tannhäuser loses his wits and sings in praise of Venus do we get reminiscences of the Venusberg music. In the third act the structure is the same. Number flows into number, it is true, without full-closes—without full-stops, so to speak; but those who have never before heard a note of Wagner can follow as easily as they could a Gluck or Mozart opera. The Pilgrims' Chorus occurs again, and again we have the Venus music, when Tannhäuser, demented, sees her in the heart of the mountain and hears her calling him.

In 1845 Tannhäuser was produced. When the score was published—those quaint lithographed scores: I believe some of them still exist in the British Museum—Schumann got it, and seemed to like it, since he showed it as a treasure to Hanslick, a musical critic of Vienna. Mendelssohn also liked a canon in the second act—Mendelssohn, who ought to have understood and loved the picturesque in it better than anyone. All fantastic dreams of another Rienzi and a huge popular success had long since melted away: the creative instinct in Wagner was master of the situation; never again did he plan anything to please the public, save, comical to relate, when he began on the story of Tristan.

In The Flying Dutchman Wagner had exploited the uncanny, the terror and mystery of gray winter seas; in Tannhäuser he turned to the conflict between the gross, lurid passions of man and the sane, pure side of his nature; and now, in Lohengrin, he was to give us an opera which for sheer sustained loveliness has only one parallel in his works—the Mastersingers. It is the most delicately beautiful thing he wrote; its freshness is the freshness that seems unlikely to fade with the passage of time. Curiously, too, while full of the spirit of Weber—it is the most Weberesque of all his operas—of Weber who loved darksome woods, haunted ruins and all the machinery of the romantics, it is full of sweet sunlight and cool morning winds: the atmosphere of Montsalvat, the land where it is always dawn, pervades it. As a painter in music of landscape, seascape, of storm, rain amongst the leaves, spring mornings, and calm sunny woodland scenes, Wagner has no equal. There is nothing theatrical on this side of his art: the footlights and back-cloths disappear, and the very thing itself is before us.