Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/215

 paternal love, indignant, wounded, and raised by that very fact to a higher degree of affection, finds expression in cries and tones that are grand and moving. While considering this note of humanity let us not overlook in Wagner the gift of sombre and striking poetry for rendering moments of tragic suspense: see the end of the love scene in Lohengrin, the scene between Brünnhilde and Siegmund in the second act of the Valkyrs, and in the Crépuscule the scene of Gutruna distraught at the prolonged absence of Siegfried and the mysterious signs of misfortune. The use of affecting harmonies, of very low notes brought into prominence, of silent pauses, at these points is incomparable.

But all these tragic and poetic elements are not what most strike the eye when taking a general view of Wagner's works. They occupy a place to one side, as it were, because the human element itself occupies a side place, one might almost say an episodic position. Symbolism, mythology, fantasy, and landscape form the principal mass; they are what the building presents to view when seen from a distance. By the symbolic I mean those entities representing abstract powers who are the real protagonists of the Tetralogy,—Gold, Power, Knowledge, Love. Mythology personifies them, converts them into great figures, and the genius of the poet too shows itself creative and inventive to the same purpose. These figures ally themselves by a thousand affinities with the varied spectacles of nature, they mingle with the thousand pictures of field and forest, mountain and river, and it is the impression of this blending that excites to the highest pitch Wagner's creative imagination; from this come the musical forms that bear the strongest stamp of his individuality, and one may say the greater part of his leit-motiv.