Famous composers and their works, Vol. 3

by Unknown

The highest hero of worlds hid’st thou,
O wife, in sheltering shrine.

Thenceforward we know that melody to be the theme of Siegfried, the hero. Immediately following this is introduced a theme which appears again in the full voicing of the orchestra after Brünnhilde has restored the Rhine gold to its rightful owners and immolated herself on Siegfried’s funeral pyre at the end of the last drama of the series. If we wonder at its meaning there, we refer to its first appearance in “Die Walküre,” and find that Sieglinde utters it as a proclamation of the divine womanhood of Brünnhilde:—

Oh, marvelous sayings,
Maiden divine.

Another example will show how a representative theme may be modified, according to the development of the person whom it represents, without losing its identity. The theme which has special reference to Siegfried’s buoyancy of spirit, the producer of youthful enthusiasm, is intoned by the hero on his horn thus:—

In “Die Götterdämmerung,” when Siegfried has become a fully developed man, this melody is modified so as to signify his mature heroism. It is then proclaimed by the orchestra thus:—

As the writer has had occasion to say elsewhere, “The alteration to which the music is subjected is one of rhythm. The motif changes from six-eight to common rhythm. The effect produced is one of those which are founded upon the nature of music. A six-eight rhythm is light and tripping; a four-beat rhythm is firm and solid.” This alteration of the representative theme, then, “develops the character of the melody along the same lines as Siegfried’s character has developed,—from lightness and ebulliency to firmness and solidity.” These examples should be sufficient to give the reader a tolerable comprehension of the manner in which Wagner worked out his new operatic form. It seems necessary now only to lay special stress upon the suggestion already offered, that the listener at the performance of a Wagner music-drama does not treat either himself or the composer fairly when he busies his mind wholly with the identification of the themes as they present themselves successively to his hearing. The proper effort is to get at the organic connection between action or thought and the music, to read each by the light of the other, and to see whether it is not possible to penetrate by means of the two into the spirit of the drama. If the hearer accomplishes this, he will have at least the right to say that he has approached the consideration of this art work of Wagner’s in a spirit of fairness; and though he may not know the title of a single theme, he will have a far better understanding of their meaning than they who have committed to memory some one of the thematic handbooks.

This exposition of Wagner’s theories will have failed to achieve its purpose if the reader does not now clearly perceive that its fundamental postulate is that the opera is a drama in which music is merely the chief vehicle of expression. This ruling idea led Wagner not only to abandon the old formulæ, but to do many things which would, perhaps, be inexpedient to attempt in absolute music. The great Bayreuth master has been severely censured, by those who cling to the belief that music should always be pretty, for having written many harsh progressions and for having indulged in remarkable boldness in his harmonies. These so-called sins of the master must find their justification in the fact that he was not aiming at purely musical beauty. The whole purpose of his work was “exact and lifelike embodiment of the poet’s thought.” When the emotion of an actor was harsh, the music had to be harsh. When the emotions were grand and beautiful, the music had to be of a similar character. It is for these reasons that we find the snarling anger of Alberich and Mime, the bitter hatred of Ortrud, the fury of Isolde, voiced in music which is not pretty, but which is truthful. But on the other hand, when Wagner has to express the sorrows of the Volsungs, the fierce and sudden passion of Siegmund and Sieglinde, the awful revulsion of feeling in the death of Siegfried, or the highest elevation of woman’s love in the last moments of Isolde, he rises to a sublime height of melody, an overwhelming dignity of harmony, and an irresistible eloquence of instrumentation not equalled by any other composer. As Louis Ehlert, not a Wagnerite, has well said: “Wagner’s music always impresses us with the idea that we are in the presence of genius. It may at times be ugly, obtrusive, and noisy; but it is never silly and insignificant.”[^[20]]