Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/94

 not for your convenience but for mine, a little out-of-the-way town in Germany, where you will have to come in order to see and hear my works, as I wish them to be seen and heard.” And they came. The most renowned artists considered it the highest honor to appear, without a penny of pay, in that modest opera-house built on a hill near Bayreuth; and the powerful, and the rich, and men and women of high culture from all parts of Europe and from across the seas filled that plain auditorium as eager and devout listeners. In the history of art there has never been such a demonstration of public homage as this.

How long Wagner's works will hold the stage as prominently as they do now, will, of course, depend upon what may follow him. So far they are proving an embarrassing, if not positively oppressive, standard of comparison. If a new composer adopts Wagner's conception of the music drama, blending words, music, and scenery in one harmonious poem, together with something like Wagner's methods of instrumentation, he will be liable to be called an imitator, and the comparison with the great original will probably be to his disadvantage. If he does not, if he adheres to old models, or strikes out on lines of his own, his music will be in danger of being found thin and commonplace by the ear accustomed to Wagner's massive and striking powers of musical expression. It may require a genius of extraordinary power to break this sort of thraldom, and for such a genius mankind may have to wait a good while.