Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/581



was to restore all the time- and tune-elements of music to what he held to be their native plasticity and vital expressiveness. Hence the enormous variety of his phrase-schemes, of his metric patterns, of his melodic and harmonic formulæ. Hence the untrammeled flow of his counterpoint and the exhaustless evolution of his themes. The old stiff formality, as of a military drill, is replaced by the free interplay of social intercourse. When the involved and novel effects of his scores were first heard, it is not strange that they were voted chaotic, incomprehensible, iconoclastic. But, as we now see, this reaching after liberty and vitality was simply the next logical step for musical art. Wagner's importance consists not in his absolute invention of processes hitherto unknown, but in the vigor with which he extended them to legitimate conclusions and in the absolute value of the ideas and feelings which he expressed through them. His powerful influence speedily affected every important type of composition, simply because the musical world was ripe for an advance.

Wagner's elaborate use of the 'leitmotiv' in dramatic effect was evidently important for his purposes. As a technical device it was not new. But his use of it was unexampled in extent and power. It simply illustrates his sense of the living quality in his tonal materials. A thought, a sentiment, a person, a thing, if we are to employ it artistically, must be so embodied as to declare its individuality. If it is active in a dramatic process, it must reappear in its own recognizable form. If circumstances require, its tonal shape may change, though without sacrificing its identity. Just as the original concept plays in and out through the plot and the action, so its tonal counterpoint may be woven into the tonal fabric by which the drama is illuminated and enriched. Here we have a special application of the old notion of thematic development, but the motif is now not a tone-formula, but a plastic organism, not a bit of glass in a musical kaleidoscope, but a living actor in society.

Wagner's characteristic tendency to push to conclusions the methods that current practice employed is finely illustrated in his free treatment of the orchestra as an implement. He insists that all instruments shall be fully developed in compass and timbre, and that their technique shall be adequate for extreme demands. He often writes for more instruments of a kind than had been customary, and for some unusual representatives of the wind groups. The various strings must be numerous enough to be divided, if need be, without loss of dignity and sonority. His scores call often for piccolos, an additional flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, for doubled or tripled horns, extra trumpets, trombones and timpani, for the cor anglais, the bass clarinet, the bass trumpet, the bass and even the tenor tuba, etc. His primary object was to get full harmony on occasions without mixing qualities, but he also secures wonderfully expressive effects by complex novel combinations. Most of his technical innovations were paralleled or transcended by Berlioz (from whom he doubtless received much impetus), but as an orchestral colorist and strategist he was thoroughly original. The artistic occasion for even his most exceptional effects is always a dramatic necessity, rather than the virtuoso's desire for the novel or surprising for its own sake.