Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/360

 346 REVIEW. borne in mind that a libretto makes no pretence of being literature pure and simple. It claims no existence apart from the music for which it is designed, being as it were a skeleton which it is the duty of the musician to clothe with flesh and blood. It has hardly as yet been understood wherein the difference between a drama and a libretto lies, though an essay by Mr. Robert Bridges upon the composition of words for music, published some twenty years ago, threw a flood of light upon the matter, and still deserves to be read by all interested in the subjeft. The ordinary view of a libretto is that it is a drama which has gone wrong in the baking, and its value is thought to lie in the degree to which it is independent of music. Thus that a libretto can be performed as a play apart from all musical setting a monstrosity which aftually occurred, we believe, in the case of Wagner's ' Siegfried ' is judged to be the highest tribute that can be paid to its excellence, and on all sides we find plays transformed into operas with but little adaptation, while it has sometimes happened that a musician has set to music the text of a play un- altered and unabbreviated, as was the case with Mascagni's ' RatclifF and Debussy's ' Pelleas et Melisande.' So long as this confusion of thought with regard to the essential feature of a libretto prevails, the subjeft cannot profitably be discussed, but it may be hoped that a more reasonable era is in prospeft, since we find that it is possible to produce such an elaborate work, and one showing not nearly so much research, but so keen an interest in the subjeft, as Mr. Oscar Sonneck's catalogue of