The music of "Tannhäuser" commands less admiration than the book. Some of it is worthy of the mature Wagner, but much is trivial and some is positively weak and puerile. Wagner had not yet grasped a new conception of the lyric drama; he had thus far only enlarged and extended the old one. He was not yet ready to set aside all the old formulæ; but he was striving to give them a new significance. Hence in "Tannhäuser" there are passages of a familiar operatic cut, such as the scene of Tannhäuser and the courtiers in the first act, ending with the finale of that act, the duet between Tannhäuser and Elizabeth in Act II., and Wolfram's address to the evening star in Act III. On the other hand, most of the score shows wide departures from the older operatic manner. There is a sincere attempt to make the musical forms follow the poem. There is an abundance of real dialogue, in which the setting of the text is constructed on the purest dramatic lines. This is especially true of the scene between Tannhäuser and Venus, the debate in the hall of song, and the narrative of Tannhäuser. But such admirable pieces of writing as the address of the Landgrave to the contestants and the pathetic prayer of Elizabeth have also a large dramatic value because of their perfect embodiment of the feeling of the scene.
The leitmotiv is not employed in "Tannhäuser." Arthur Smolian wrote a pamphlet on the music of this opera. It was prepared for the Bayreuther Taschenbuch of 1891 and translated into English by the indefatigable Ashton Ellis. It professes to name and catalogue the leading motives of "Tannhäuser," but what it really does is to prove that there are none. The author quotes Wagner: "The essential feature of Tannhäuser's character is his instant and complete saturation with the emotions called up by the passing incident, and the lively contrasts which the sudden changes of situation produce in his utterance of this fulness of feeling. Tannhäuser is never a 'little' anything, but each thing fully and completely." Mr. Smolian says: "With the foregoing words, in which Wagner defines the nature of his hero, we might also most fittingly describe the individuality of the 'Tannhäuser' music." Here, then, he should have stopped, for he had spoken the truth, and his thematic catalogue is misleading. The music of "Tannhäuser" is nearly all written freely for the investiture of the passing mood, and those portions which are accorded special meaning and are used for repetition may speedily be enumerated and dismissed.
These divide themselves naturally into two classes, representing respectively the good and the evil principle of the action. These themes, which have such significance that they are repeated in the exposition of the drama, are first heard and most easily identified in the magnificent overture. This opens with a serene statement of the theme typifying the holy thought, the religious mood of the good characters in the play. This thought is employed as the melody of a chorus of pilgrims, and it reappears in a triumphant proclamation at the end of the drama when the good principle emerges victorious from the battle against the evil:
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The intoning of this solemn melody is interrupted in the overture by the intrusion of the music of the bacchanalian orgies in the cave of Venus, which begins with this phrase, given out by the violas:
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Tannhäuser's hymn in praise of Venus appears in the overture and is, of course, again heard in the first scene of the drama. It is repeated with immense significance, but not at all in the manner of a leitmotiv, in the scene of the hall of song.