These five motives which the composer so exquisitely leads before us, in his very moderate introduction, now receive the finishing-touch in the allegro. Thus speaks Von Bulow.
Truly, as Goethe says: “If you perform a piece, be sure to perform the same in pieces.”
I will pass over the introduction, though I have as little taste for such “theme pieces” succeeding each other, as for Opera-overtures, such as that of Tannhäuser, where pilgrim-songs, the love-sick murmurings of the voluptuous Venus, and the tedious Count’s drawling sorrow for his only daughter and heir, form a hash, which in the details, and in the heterogeneous compilation of the same, is unpalatable enough, but which is made unbearable by the soul-killing figures—no! not figures, but by the up and down strokes of monotonous bases, which continue for about sixty measures. Setting aside even all this, we may justly expect in the allegro the expansion of the principle theme I., yet we have no such thing; in place of the “idea” he produces after the first five measures a worthless figure, fit for accompaniment only, which is supported on its tottering basis by the twenty-seven times repeated downstroke of the conductor only.
Q. Excuse me; but the tone-picture, which Von Bulow, R. Wagner’s friend and admirer, calls the forgiving voice (III), reappears twice in wind-instrument music?
A. According to Lobe’s system. Borrow a measure or two from a theme, then a motive, which you may construct from this or that or a third figure, and you have, besides the required unity, the grandest variation.
Do you know, my young friend, what a composer understands by an exploded idea? The technical! All who study the art of composing, as Lobe teaches it, may learn to become compilers but not composers; or they must drink elder-tea, till their visions appear black and blue to them, in order to evaporate the schooling they enjoyed. After twenty-seven measures of earthly smoke, there appears a solitary star, theme I., continuing for four whole measures, followed by a little more mist.
Q. No; I think Bulow says the mist is parted by a firm and punctuated motive.
A. If it is not firm, it is at least fortissimo. Enough, we again hear thirteen measures of unimportant music, concluded by d minor, followed by a new melody for a hautboy, which, as it repeats the two first notes of the first theme, may claim to be considered as belonging there, leading to a third in f major, in company with a tremulando, à la Samiel, crescendo and diminuendo. We have now arrived at the point where we may look for the second theme, “the blossom,” as we before said, but alas, in vain your tortured soul waits, no blossoms! The thermometer sinks again! With the cadence we again hear theme I., after four measures we find ourselves once more in d flat major—no, in a minor, b flat major or b flat minor, or g minor, it is difficult to say which, for this part may be said to belong in the “most inseparably combined, the closest related family of all keys.” Enough, we find ourselves after twenty-six measures exactly at the very place we started from, before the performance of twenty-six measures, namely, in f major.
This movement of twenty-six measures might be wholly thrown out, without one being any wiser—a possibility which, in every good composition, must be looked upon as a great fault, as all parts must be so closely united as to enforce the presence and support of each other.
We will now look at the second theme. In it no critic can find a fault. It unravels itself smoothly, and, after forty-nine measures, conducts us again to motive V. in the introduction, as likewise to figure II., which here does not frown quite so much.