Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/339

Rh WAGNER 315 to the one could by any possibility sing the other. Even Peri and Vincenzo Galilei must have known this. But, pretending to ignore the fact, they made a compromise, and endeavoured to imitate what they fondly conceived to be the Greek method of recitative, in the tonality of the modern scales ; and in this way they struck, not upon the form of which they were in search for that was irretrievably lost but anew one, which rapidly developed itself into the kind of music now called recitative. This recitative the most valuable artistic invention of the 17th century they used as the basis of their musical drama ; and, after the lapse of two centuries and a half, Wagner determined that this, and none other, must be the basis of his. Enriching it with all the beautiful accessories that had been amassed by composer after composer during its long period of progressive development, and notably with other very important accessories of his own invention, he built his drama upon it as completely as the first dramatic music was built upon it by the frequenters of the Palazzo Bardi. And in this great fact lies the secret of his gigantic reform. The first Italian opera ever publicly performed was Jacopo Peri s Euridicc, composed to a libretto written by Ottavio Rinuccini, and produced at Florence in 1600, in honour of the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria de Medici. This most interesting work, a rare printed copy of which is preserved in the British Museum, is entirely in recitative ; and the music is so constructed throughout as to aid in the true dramatic expression of the words, at the expense of all attempt at what is now called melody. The operas of Monteverde, Cesti, Cavalli, and all the earlier composers of the 17th century were conceived upon the same principle. But Alessandro Scarlatti (1659-1725), aiming at higher musical per fection, and willing to sacrifice no small amount of dramatic truth to its exigencies, introduced certain constructive forms notably that called the &quot;da capo&quot; which, while adding to the symmetrical beauty of the aria, tended eventually entirely to destroy its dramatic force and its logical consistency as an exponent of the situation presented upon the stage. Later composers carried this abuse very much farther. Handel s strong dramatic instinct kept him above the errors of his time ; but his contemporaries sinned more and more deeply until, for the sake of obtaining popularity, they were ready to fill their operas with unmeaning passages, introduced solely for the purpose of showing off the skill of the favourite vocalists of the period. And so the abuse proceeded from worse to worse until, under Porpora (1686-1766) and Hasse (1699-1783), the opera at Naples and Dresden became a mere concert snng upon the stage without any trace of dramatic propriety whatever. And now arose a reformer whose work will be remembered as long as the musical drama continues to exist. Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1785), disgusted with his own want of success while writing in the vicious style of the period, determined to reform it upon true dramatic principles; and in the preface to his Akestc (1767) he set forth those principles with a clearness which cannot possibly be misunderstood. The history of his great reform has already been narrated in detail (see GLUCK). A careful comparison of the argument laid down in the preface to Akcstc with that set forth in Wagner s Opcr und Drama will prove the aim of the two reformers to have been absolutely identical. That a less perfect identity should have existed with regard to the means they used for the attainment of their common end was naturally to be expected. At the outset of their career both Gluck and Wagner freely employed all the resources at their command, adding to them afterwards as circumstances ] ermitted. But between the produc tion of Gluck s latest and Wagner s first masterpiece art had made enormous strides; the advantage, therefore, in this respect was immeasurably on Wagner s side. In Franco Gluck s principles were carried out more or less con scientiously by Mehul, Cherubini, and Spontini. In Germany they bore still richer fruit. Glorified by the genius of Mozart and Beethoven, and accepted without reserve by Weber, Spohr, Marschner, and the most enlightened of their followers in the German romantic school, they were professed, if not fully carried out, by composers of every degree. But in Italy they produced no effect whatever. Though Rossini sometimes invested his situa tions with a certain amount of dramatic colouring, he never attempted anything farther than this; while Mercadaute, Bellini, Donizetti, and their imitators regarded melody, pure and simple, as the highest, if not the only really important, attribute of art. Under their rule the opera once more descended to the level of a concert on the stage. The effect of their example upon the lower class of German composers was fatal, and ended in the production of a form of Sincjspicl, lacking all the freshness of the Italian Cantilena, and noticeable only for its intolerable vapidity. Not withstanding the attempts of Ilalevy and Meyerbeer to perpetuate in France the traditions of a purer epoch, the musical drama sank, under Auber and his imitators, to the level of a string of dance tunes. The 19th century had witnessed the birth of abuses as flagrant as those against which Gluck had protested in the 18th. It was Wagner s turn now to effect the desired reform, and he elfected it as completely as his predecessor had done but not in the same way. Gluck had begun by propounding a theory, and carried on the good work by consistently putting it into practice. Wagner theorized also ; but for his ultimate triumph he was indebted to the power of his own creative genius to his ceaseless endeavour to realize the preconceived ideal which neither theory nor desire for reform could ever tempt him to forget. &quot; The nature of the subject,&quot; he says, &quot; could not induce me, in sketching my scenes, to consider in advance their adaptability to any particular musical form, the kind of musical treatment being, in every case, suggested by the scenes themselves. I never contemplated on principle, and as a deliberate reformer, the destruction of the aria, the duet, or any other operatic form ; but the disuse of these forms followed naturally from the character of my subjects.&quot; Surely no frame of mind could be more free from prejudice than this. While exercising this unrestrained freedom of thought and action, Wagner found one particular form more useful to him than any other. Mozart in Don Giovanni, and Weber in Dcr Frci- schulz, Eurijanthf, and Obcron, had availed themselves of certain characteristic musical phrases as exponents of emotional or scenic complications of peculiar interest, and had emphasized their mean ing by repeating them at every recurrence of the dramatic situation. In modern musical terminology a musical phrase of this kind is now called a &quot;leading theme&quot; (&quot;Leitmotif&quot;). Wagner has em ployed this expedient more freely than any other composer, and in a way peculiarly his own. Not only has he introduced in his later works a leading theme for every one of the dramatis pcrsonae, and for every prominent feature in the scenery or action of the play, but in many cases he even indicates the changing moods and passions of his principal characters by distinct phrases, which he combines together with a power of part-writing truly marvellous, interweaving them as in. &quot;Siegfried s Trauermarsch,&quot; in the Gottcrdiimmcruncj in such sort as to present the whole story of a life and mission in the music of a single scene. Short-sighted critics have dwelt too much upon the technical ingenuity displayed in scenes of this description, and too little upon the expression thrown into them by the power of Wagner s genius. A diligent student may acquire sufficient mastery over the art of part-writing to enable him to interweave his themes with any amount of mechanical perfection, yet without a trace of the beauty displayed by Sebastian Bach in the involutions of his counter-subjects, or by Wagner in labyrinthine combinations used, not for the sake of vaunting his scholarship, but as his most potent engines of dramatic expression. The plaintive wail of the &quot; Trauermarsch &quot; appeals to hearers who know nothing at all of its ingenious construction, and tells its tale to them beyond all possibility of misunderstanding. It is at this point that genius steps in ; and the power of Wagner s genius is irresistible. It was during the period of bis exile that Wagner matured his plans and brought his style to its culminating point of perfection ; but it was not until some considerable time after his return that any of the works he then medi tated were placed upon the stage. In 1855 he accepted an invitation to London, where he conducted the concerts of the Philharmonic Society with great success. In 1857 he completed the libretto of Tristan und Isolde at Venice, taking as the basis of his scheme the Celtic legend modified by Gottfried of Strasburg s mediaeval treatment of the sub ject (see GOTTFRIED and HOMANCE). But the music was not completed till 1859. In that year Wagner visited Paris for the third time; and after much negotiation, in which he was nobly supported by the Prince and Princess Metternich, Tannhduser was accepted at the Grand Opera. Magnificent preparations were made for its production. It was rehearsed 164 times, 14 times with the full orchestra; and the scenery, dresses, and stage accessories generally were placed entirely under the composer s direction. More than 8000 was ex pended upon the venture; and the work was performed for the first time in the French language on March 13, 1861. But, for political reasons, a powerful clique determined to suppress both the piece and its composer. . A scandalous riot was inaugurated by the members of the Parisian Jockey Club, who interrupted the performance Avith howls and dog- whistles ; and so great was the disturbance that after the third representation the opera was withdrawn to reappear no more. Wagner was broken-hearted. But the Princess Met ternich continued to befriend him, and in 1861 he received through her intercession a pardon for his political offences, with permission to settle in any part of Germany except Saxony. Even this restriction was removed in 1862.