ATONEMENT.
We have now before us the principal musical materials of the score. But in no other of Wagner's dramas is the mere enumeration of themes so unsatisfactory as it is in "Parsifal." The combination of the musical ideas is so subtle, the building of the large mood pictures, of which they are the elements, so masterly, the effect of the general result so potent with the hearer, that in "Parsifal" one may with the most perfect security throw aside all study of the thematic catalogues and abandon himself to the dramatic influence of the music. This does not mean that "Parsifal" is a more artistic work than Wagner's other dramas, but that the moods are so large and so elementary that music very readily embodies them and brings the auditor under their influence. Much of this is due no doubt to the atmosphere of the Bayreuth Theatre, where alone up to the present this work can be heard. What the effect of "Parsifal" will be when divorced from its present surroundings must be a matter of speculation, but the most devoted Wagnerites will continue to hope that this art-work will not speedily become the property of the ordinary opera-house.
[APPENDIX A]
THE YOUTHFUL SYMPHONY
Most of Wagner's biographers have underestimated the historical importance of the juvenile symphony of the master. Mr. Seidl wrote: "As one takes off his hat in Leipsic before the house in which Wagner was born, in order to honour the spot where a great genius first saw the light, so the musician of the future will take this symphony into his hands with the greatest interest and amazement, since it is one of the foundation-blocks of the structure whose capstones are 'Tristan,' 'Götterdämmerung,' and 'Parsifal.'" The truth is, that most of the biographers never heard the symphony performed. It was produced by the late Anton Seidl in Chickering Hall, New York, on Friday evening, March 2, 1888, and it was my fortune to hear the performance. At that time Mr. Seidl wrote to the New York Tribune the letter from which the foregoing quotation was taken, and gave an account of the finding of the lost parts of the work. He said:
"He [Wagner] was continually recurring to a symphony which he had lost sight of after one performance in Leipsic at a concert of the Euterpe, and one performance in Würzburg. In the latter place it was that the trombone parts were lost. Letters were written in all directions to all his friends and acquaintances, but no trace of the symphony was found. Then he requested the littérateur Tappert, of Berlin, a zealous and lucky discoverer of Wagnerian relics, to make journeys wherever he thought it advisable in the interest of the symphony. Tappert, after many inquiries and much reflection, drafted a plan of discovery following lines suggested by the biography of the master, and set out upon a tour through Würzburg, Magdeburg, Leipsic, Prague, and finally Dresden. In each place he ransacked all the dwellings, inns, theatres and concert-rooms in which Wagner had lived or laboured; but in vain. At last in Dresden he visited Tichatschek, the famous tenor, who at this time was already bedridden. He knew all the houses in which Wagner had lived while he was Hofkapellmeister, but nothing was to be found in any of them. Tichatschek got a little disgruntled at the much questioning to which he was subjected and Tappert had to return to Berlin. Before doing so, however, he requested Fürstenau, the flautist, to cross-question Tichatschek thoroughly some day, when he was in a good humour, concerning the possible whereabouts of some trunks which Wagner had left behind him in Dresden; for Wagner had once said that when he fled from Dresden he left all his possessions and did not know what had become of them.
"The scheme was successful. Tichatschek remembered that in his own attic were several old trunks belonging to he did not know whom. Fürstenau looked through them, but soon came down and declared that, though musical manuscripts were in the attic, they were only unknown parts and that none bore Wagner's handwriting. Tappert called for the parts to be sent to Berlin for his inspection. He recognised at a glance that they were not in his handwriting, but on carefully examining the separate sheets he found memoranda in lead pencil which he thought looked like the youthful handwriting of Wagner. To assure himself, he copied the first theme of the first violin part and sent it to Wagner's wife, who played it on a pianoforte in a room adjoining that in which Wagner, suspecting nothing, sat at breakfast. The master listened a moment in silence and then ran into the room, joyfully shouting that it was the theme of the symphony for which he was hunting. The discovery was made! The parts were sent at once to Bayreuth, and I was called upon to make the score out of them."
The trombone parts of the last movement were missing, but Wagner subsequently discovered the key to the leading of these voices in the elaborately contrapuntal scheme of the movement and rewrote them. The symphony was then ready for performance. It was Wagner's original intention to play the symphony on the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of his artistic career. But he was unable to carry out this plan. He subsequently decided to have it given for the Christmas celebration of 1882, and accordingly it was played under his own bâton in Venice at the birthday fête of his wife.
The symphony, which is in the conventional four movements, and is in the key of C major, contains a curious mingling of juvenility in ideas with maturity of handling. It shows that Weinlig's lessons in counterpoint were not lost, for its polyphony is masterly, and the close working out of the last movement, in the style of Mozart's fugal "Jupiter" symphony, may well have aroused the admiration of Rochlitz.