If custom required poets to attach Hallelujah-Hosanna verses to their finished poems, the result would not be intrinsically more incongruous than that produced by the average musical coda. A piece of music should end roundly, with a peroration, but this peroration must be adapted to the character and length of that which has preceded it, must grow out of the themes from which the piece has been developed, and form an integral part of the whole. The oft-mentioned intangibility of our art seems to induce timidity among her devotees, and unfortunately this timidity is often greatest among those who are best fitted to introduce innovations.
We will next consider the vocal treatments of Wagner's texts. Following his course from the beginning, we find the singer's parts grow less and less melodic, but the listener, if not the singer, has more than adequate compensation for this loss of lyric quality in the dramatic power gained. Reverting to our simile of the statue, the stage setting and orchestra provide an atmosphere, and the singer breathes into the text the breath which launches it into life.
In his later dramas Wagner makes the vocal parts purely musical declamation. He endeavors to, and usually succeeds in intensifying the elocutionary effects through changes of pitch and expressive rhythm, but gives the singer's convenience and voice limitations little attention. The singer's parts are, therefore, very difficult to learn and exhausting to sing, and they afford so little opportunity for display that only a love of art, strongly flavored with self-abnegation, could induce singers to attempt them.
My study of Wagner's works has greatly increased my respect for the intellects of Wagnerian singers. Any man or woman who can sing a leading part in one of the music-dramas acceptably, must have been endowed with strong throat and lungs, and must have acquired a faultless vocal method.
It is almost needless to say that the texts are set without any of those old-time illogical repetitions in which composers indulged, in order that happy thoughts—good musical episodes—might be amplified. Wagner never lost sight of his central idea, and made everything bend to its fullest realization.
His orchestra does not accompany, in the common acceptation of that term, but sings into its many-voiced melody the sentiments and moods suggested by the text. The principal means used in the attainment of this end is the "Leit Motif." Its auxiliaries are the countless shades of harmonic and instrumental color which Wagner commanded.
These "Leit Motifs" (leading and characteristic themes) constituted Wagner's vocabulary. They expressed to him personalities, moods, or sentiments, as the case required, and they were consequently chosen to impersonate these in his schemes. They sometimes consist of a few tones, and again of phrases. They appear in varied forms to suit changing conditions, but their impersonations are only made clearer through their elastic adaptability. These themes seldom appear in the vocal parts, but Wagner makes them, through adaptation and instrumentation, express each shade, from sunlight to storm, from love, trust, and worship, to wrath, fear, and hate, and in this way follows his text on parallel lines,—music by the side of and reinforcing poetry.
Wagner's demands on the stage-carpenter and scene-painter are so great that none but large theatres with ample means can properly realize his ideas of pictorial illustration. He possessed remarkable talent for inventing scenic effects, and disregarded cost.
Wagner originated the idea of having the stage overshoot the space allotted to the orchestra, the effect of which has been good in most instances where applied. It has two advantages over the common placing,—viz., it brings the singer nearer his audience, which facilitates his task of making himself understood, and it has a grateful tendency to suppress obstreperous brass, who have a way, when placed in front of the stage, of making singers forgotten. I have seen singers struggle with tense muscles and swelling veins to make a vocal climax with no other result than an heroic spectacle.
When a conductor allows his brass to bury the more modest elements of his orchestra under their clangor, he shows incapacity,—either a lack of control or a coarse conception of their mission,—and as this incapacity is quite common, any mechanical device which will insure moderation on the part of our assertive friends who play the trumpets and trombones is worthy of commendation.