Music and Its Masters

by O. B. Boise

This law of compensation allows us to disregard elementary laws, when the nature of the situation in hand is such as to warrant and reconcile our musical sense to combinations or successions, which would without this justification sound crude and faulty. The habit of what is called free writing is most pernicious, for compensation must legitimize each irregularity or we lapse into incoherency.

Wagner was a firm, but an equally thoughtful man, and while apparently undisturbed by the cyclone of criticism evoked by his compositions, saw his vulnerable points, and at once set about fortifying them. He studied counterpoint exhaustively, taking Bach as his model, and memorizing many of that master's most characteristic works. He then gave the world "Die Meistersinger" as the fruit of his labor, and therewith forever silenced honest cavillers who had based their adverse criticisms on his ignorance, for that work is a sublime example of contrapuntal virtuosity, and it marks the beginning of a new era in Wagner's development as a musician. His orchestral settings having kept pace with his musical growth, had ripened, had become tempered, consequently "Die Meistersinger" is one of the most beautiful compositions of any time, and in it we have the clear announcement of the new dispensation.

There have been tons of literature printed, having as subjects "The Music of the Future," "Wagner," and "The Music-drama," some of the authors of which have been properly equipped (good musicians and liberally educated men), but more have been literary scavengers. The former class, having been on a war footing ever since Wagner became a bone of contention, are only just now beginning to discuss his creations dispassionately. Most of them were quite naturally arrayed against Wagner, for the most pungent flavor of the educated critic's writing is pedantry. He prefers traditions without originality to originality which does nor conform to traditions.

Wagner's first works almost paralyzed these gentlemen, and they were a long time forgetting and forgiving the shock. Their criticisms were terribly acrid, but, as I have before mentioned, were instrumental in creating the music-drama, inasmuch as through pointing out veritable faults and weaknesses they led Wagner to broaden his scholarship. These critics find it hard to lay down their arms, although the battle is over, and Wagner died in full possession of the field. The few who were from the outset in sympathy with Wagner were quite as intemperate in their laudations as were his opponents in their strictures. They were blind idolaters, and Wagner was their musical "golden calf."

The essence of the creed upon which the new dispensation is based is logical consistency. Poetry, music, and "stage business" are by it required to co-operate in expressing sentiments and in carrying the threads of dramatic schemes. Each of these arts is entirely essential to Wagner's creations. His texts are statues, which music, stage-setting, and action imbue with life. For this reason no one can hope to follow Wagner intelligently who starts without having made himself conversant with his poems. His later texts are heroic epics of no mean order. Their adaptability and musical suggestiveness are phenomenal. They could have been produced only by a musician-poet who had his completed pictures in view while writing them.

They contain a vast amount of a species of word-painting,—viz., the use of words the very sounds of which are expressive. I remember well the hilarity caused among the anti-Wagnerites by the "Nibelungen" text, which was published some years before the operas were performed. Satires and parodies were written; Wagner was described wooing his muse arrayed in fanciful vestments suiting the character of the subject under treatment. That was a happy time for his opponents. Opera texts that were not sentimental lyrics were incomprehensible. The "Call of the Walküre" was to them the climax of inanity; but those who have heard its musical setting will readily understand how its performance hushed these scoffers into respectful silence. I mention this "call" because most musical persons have heard it, and wondered at its adaptability.

Wagner bestowed the utmost care upon each and every task which he undertook; his effects are, therefore, less accidental than those of any other composer. He was in the habit of making three manuscripts,—viz., a sketch in which the outlines of form and character were defined, then a score in which contrapuntal and instrumental material were developed, and, lastly, a manuscript in which, after ample weighing and filing, each detail of dynamic marking, etc., was not approximately but precisely indicated. A Wagnerian crescendo or decrescendo must begin and end with the notes and dynamic force prescribed by the master, or we miss the full realization of his pictures. In securing instrumental color he was liable to mark the various parts played together differently, ranging from forte to pianissimo, according to the combination and registers of the instruments employed.

Wagner left little or nothing to the conductor's discretion. Nevertheless, there are few who have the keen, delicate perception requisite to understanding his aims, and still fewer who have it in their power to so control their forces as to secure their fulfilment.

We will now look at some of Wagner's methods of musical treatment. In the first place, we find the Overture replaced by the Vorspiel (prelude or introduction). The former, in its independent completeness, complying more or less with the exactions of the sonate form, was quite in place when operas consisted of detached pieces; whereas the "Vorspiel," which is analogous to the dramatic prologue, is better adapted to the newer form. It is composed of, or at least it introduces, the pivotal themes of the drama which it precedes. In the prelude to "Parsifal," which begins with the communion theme, Wagner has accorded to it, and to the grail and faith motives, places of honor. They are, indeed, the foundation upon which the whole drama rests, and are the keys to its situations. We find the traditional closing form (Coda) conspicuous by absence, the prelude leading up to and closing in the opening tones of the first act. This omission is grateful, for all careful musical listeners must have been disturbed time and again by the long-drawn, fanfare effects that custom has placed at the end of musical pieces. They are relics of barbarism to which even Beethoven's genius could not impart logical significance. The composer who, having finished the development of his themes, having said what he had to say, appends a closing form composed of either new material or of old inconsequently presented, sacrifices symmetry and vital force.