ntiates his art from the
art of all other musicians, let us try to realize what this means. Weber
and Mendelssohn had written picturesque music; they gave us landscapes,
the rolling sea, black woods, moaning winds; and having done that, they
were satisfied. But where they left off Wagner began; their completed
picture was for him nothing more than a background. Against it he placed
his characters, with their different thoughts and emotions fully
expressed. Now, in music you cannot express two or more conflicting
emotions, even if you have two themes, each of which shows its own
emotion when played separately, and set them going together. However
many parts a piece of music may be written in, it is the mass of tone
reaching our ears, it is the _ensemble_, that makes the effect. It is
obvious, then, that when Wagner puts a shrieking female on the deck of a
ship which is shouldering its way through a gently-rolling sea, the same
music must serve for the lady and the sea: it must suggest the sea and
express the lady's emotions. He could not give picturesque music to the
orchestra and let the female indulge in real screams, or even musical
imitations of real screams. That would be to step beyond the boundaries
of art; for neither real screams nor their imitations are beautiful,
and--if a truism may be pardoned to complete a nice sentence--without
beauty there can be no art. In spite of much nonsense that has been
written and talked, Wagner never sacrificed beauty. Those foolish tales
which I used to read in my youth--of how Wagner appropriately, if
daringly, sustained discords through long discordant situations--what
are they but the blatherskite of long-tongued persons who could talk
faster than they could think? Wagner would not sacrifice beauty. He
made the characters say, in notes as well as words, what they had to
say; he always got the colour and atmosphere of the scenic surroundings
into the music. By inspiration and marvellous workmanship he made each
phrase serve a double purpose: it expresses the emotion of the person
who sings, it gives the atmosphere in which the person is singing. More
than anything else, it is this that gives his music its individual
character. Such music is bound to remain for ever fresh. So long as
trees and grass, rain and sunshine, running waters and flying cloud-scud
are things sweet to man's thought, so long will the music of Wagner's
operas remain green, always new and refreshing, full and