[PART III]
THE GREAT MUSIC DRAMAS
[INTRODUCTORY]
It is customary to divide the artistic career of Wagner into three periods, the first embracing the production of the early works and "Rienzi," the second that of "Der Fliegende Holländer," "Tannhäuser," and "Lohengrin," and the third that of the remaining works. It is the opinion of the present writer that the recognition of four periods would make the matter clearer to the lover of this master's creations. The early works, which are not heard except in one or two places, may be left out of consideration. We may then classify "Rienzi" as the production of the first period. "Der Fliegende Holländer" should stand in a period by itself, as representing the purely embryonic epoch of the true Wagner, while "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin" may properly be allotted to a third or transition period. The remaining works may be regarded as belonging to the period of the mature Wagner, though there would be no serious difficulty in subdividing this part of his artistic career. It seems to me, however, that no satisfactory end would be gained by doing so.
The reader of this book has already seen that in writing "Rienzi" Wagner was actuated by purposes entirely different from those which moved him in the creation of "Der Fliegende Holländer." The first of the lyric dramas presently to be examined was, as its maker said, a grand opera pure and simple. Then came the days of despair in Paris, when Wagner, hoping nothing for the future, gave free rein to his artistic impulses and produced the dramatic story of the unhappy Vanderdecken. In the creation of this drama nothing influenced Wagner's mind but the desire to write according to the dictates of his own artistic conscience. But he had not yet worked out a scheme of dramatic composition. He had only just come upon the fundamental ideas of his plan. Its details were still far away from his conception. "Embryonic," then, is the term to apply to this period of his productivity.
With "Tannhäuser" there entered into the field of his artistic vision those broader musical and ethical conceptions of the lyric drama which afterward developed themselves into a complex and influential system. With "Lohengrin" we see these ideas taking more definite shape. The literary and musical plan of the drama is more closely organised, and the musical style is more clearly defined. The diction becomes more akin to that of later works, and the methods show more certainty and more mastery. "Lohengrin" is a long advance beyond "Der Fliegende Holländer." It prepares us for such a work as "Die Meistersinger," though hardly in full for "Parsifal." It must be borne in mind that the original conception of "Die Meistersinger" belongs to the same period as "Lohengrin," and that although the music was not written till long afterward, the score must naturally have been coloured by the first thoughts of the work and so have come somewhat under the influence of the "Lohengrin" style.
In the early dramas we meet with Wagner's inclusion of ethical ideas in his designs. One seeks in vain among the old popular operas of the Rossini or Meyerbeer schools for a drama with a moral. But owing to Wagner's adoption of the myth as the material from which to erect his dramatic structures, the inclusion of an ethical lesson in each of his schemes followed almost inevitably. For mythology is essentially ethical. Wagner, however, humanised the teachings of the mythologies into which he delved by emphasising the beautiful idea of the saving grace of woman. He did not, perhaps, deliberately adopt as the motto of his works the line of Goethe, "The woman-soul leadeth us ever upward and on," but it may be inscribed upon them without violence to their intent. We may see by an examination of the original sources of the dramas how the importance of this thought in the works is due to the deliberate purpose of Wagner himself to bring it to the front. In some of the original stories it plays little or no part, but in the Wagner music drama the "Ewig-Weibliche" is always impressed upon the imagination of the auditor with all the skill of the dramatist and all the eloquence of the musician.