Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/578



close to the traditions and genius of the whole Germanic race. And he further distanced all forerunners in the vigor with which he proceeded for himself—not through a librettist—to work his materials into plots, to select, individualize and combine his personages, and to construct the text in full. In all this his work was that of a true dramatic poet. His final method—the persistent use of a rugged, archaic diction in strongly alliterative verse—was part of his general effort to remove the hearer's mind from ordinary associations and stimulate the imagination to the utmost. But this handling of the text also followed from his doctrine that in the final embodiment the three expressional elements, language, action and music, must be so blended as to be inseparable—a trinity with the effect of organic unity. As he proceeded, the composite conception of these three took shape in a text ready for stage presentation, a plan of actors, costumes, settings and detailed action, and a musical score that should give complete tonal utterance to the sentiments thus made to deploy before the audience. Concerning his literary and histrionic method this is not the place to speak. But the strictly musical features are remarkable.

The heart of the Wagnerian opera as a musical work is the orchestra, which is treated not as an accessory, but as the central exposition of the whole drama. Here we see the function of the Greek 'chorus' raised to its highest power, except for the absence of words. The drama moves on amid a continuous depiction by the instruments of the emotional process involved. The text and the action supply the images of fact and the intellectual conceptions generally which are to be associated with this emotional process, and which justify it. At many points the momentum of thought may be enough to enable the orchestra to proceed almost or quite unaided. No preceding composer had ventured thus to transfer the emphasis to what had been considered a mere apparatus of accompaniment. Furthermore, into the instrumentation was poured a wealth of technical invention for which earlier writers offer but meagre suggestion. The make-up of the orchestra was enlarged by adding new instruments to the standard classical nucleus. New effects were devised, such as the use of extended passages for divided violins playing in harmonics. A system of 'leitmotive' was gradually developed—characteristic themes regularly attached to particular emotional or personal elements in the plot, recurring in some form whenever these special elements appear in fact or even in thought. All the received methods of composition—harmony, counterpoint and form—were stretched to their limits with an imperial originality and independence, so as to increase their emotional expressiveness to the utmost. This making the orchestra the dramatic protagonist was the most daring feature of his work. Its substantial validity is attested by its profound effect not only upon all later opera-writers, but also upon most later writers of purely orchestral music. It was a consummation of the great orchestral development that began with the classical Viennese composers, but it was executed in terms wholly different from theirs. Many of the details correspond to those in the orchestral innovations of Berlioz.