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and the full development of its possibilities are exemplified in the sensuous weavings of ‘Tristan’:
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The second type of harmonic formula is one in which remotely related triads follow each other in chromatic order with an enharmonic relationship. The following passage fromLohengrinis an early example of this type:
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and its ultimate development may be seen in the following passage from theWalküre:
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The latter passage contains (at *) another striking feature of Wagner’s harmonic scheme, namely the strong and biting chromatic suspensions which fell on the ears of his generation with much the same effectas must have had those earlier suspensions on the age of Monteverdi. Wagner’s scores are replete with the most varied and beautiful examples of these moments of harmonic strife. In these three features, together with an exceedingly varied use of the chord of the ninth, lie many of the principles upon which Wagner built his harmonic scheme, though it would be folly to assert that any such superficial survey could give an adequate conception of a system that was so varied in its idiom and so intricate in its processes. It must be added that, although, as we have stated, chromaticism was the salient feature of Wagner’s harmony, his fine sense of balance and contrast prevented him from employing harmonies heavily scented to a point of stifling thickness; he interspersed them wisely with a strong vein of diatonic solidity, the materials of which he handled with the mastery of Beethoven. We have already cited the diatonic purity of certain of theParsifalmotives and we need only remind the reader of the leadingMeistersingerthemes as a further proof of Wagner’s solid sense of tonality.
In rhythmical structure Wagner’s music possesses its most conventional feature. We find little of the skillful juggling of motive and phrase which was Beethoven’s and which Brahms employed with such bewildering mastery. Wagner in his earliest work uses a particularly straightforward rhythmical formula; common time is most prevalent and the phrases are simple in their rhythmical structure, an occasional syncopation being the only deviation from a regular following of the beat and its equal divisions. The rhythmical development of his later style is also comparatively simple in its following; rhythmical excitement is largely in the restless figuration which the strings weave round the harmonic body. These figures are usually well defined groups of the regular beat divisions with an occasional syncopation and no disturbance of the regular pulse of the measure. An examination of the violin parts of ‘Tristan’ or theMeistersingerwill reveal the gamut of Wagner’s rhythmical sense. Summing up we may say that Wagner’s methods, radical as they appear, are built on the solid foundation of his predecessors and, now that in our view of his art we are able to employ some sense of perspective, we may readily perceive it to assume naturally its place as a step after Beethoven and Schubert in harmonic development.
It is with hypnotic power that these methods and their effects have possessed the musical consciousness of the succeeding generation and, becoming the very essence of modernity, insinuated themselves into the pages of all modern music. The one other personality in modern German music that assumes any proportions beside the overshadowing figure of the Bayreuth master is Johannes Brahms. As it would seem necessary for the detractors of any cause or movement to find an opposing force that they may pit against the object of their disfavor, so did the anti-Wagnerites, headed by Hanslick,[114]gather round the unconcerned Brahms with their war-cries against Wagner. Much time and patience have been lost over the Brahms-Wagner controversy and surely to no end. So opposed are the ideals and methods of these two leaders of modern musical thought that comparisons become indeed stupidly odious. To the reflective classicist of intellectual proclivities Brahms will remain the model, while Wagner rests, on the other hand, the guide of those beguiled by sensuous color and dramatic freedom. That the two are not irreconcilable in the same mind may be seen in the fact that Richard Strauss showed a strong Brahms influence in his earlier works, and then, without total reincarnation, becamea close follower of Wagner, whose style has formed the basis on which the most representative living German has built his imposing structures. It is, indeed, Richard Strauss who has shown us the further possibilities of the Wagner idiom. Though he has been guided by Liszt in certain externals of form and design, the polyphonic orchestral texture and harmonic richness of Strauss’ later style, individual as they are, remain the distinct derivative of Richard Wagner’s art. The failure of Strauss in his first opera,Guntram, may be attributed to the dangerous experiment of which we have spoken—that of a too servile emulation of Wagner’s methods. In attempting to create his own libretto and in following too closely the lines of Wagner, he there became little more than a mere imitator, a charge which, however, cannot be brought against him as the composer ofSaloméandRosenkavalier.
In Humperdinck’sHänsel und Gretelwe find perhaps the next most prominent manifestation of the Wagnerian influence. Humperdinck met Wagner during the master’s last years and was one of those who assisted at the firstParsifalperformances. While his indebtedness to Wagner for harmonic, melodic, and orchestral treatment is great, Humperdinck has, by the employment of the naïve materials of folk-song, infused a strong and freshly individual spirit into this charming work, which by its fairy-tale subject became the prototype of a considerable following of fairy operas.
To complete the catalogue of German operatic composers who are followers of Wagner would be to make it inclusive of every name and work that has attained any place in the operatic repertoire of modern times.
In no less degree is his despotic hand felt in the realm of absolute music. It was through the concert stage that Wagner won much of his first recognition and it followed naturally that symphonic music must soon have felt the influence of his genius. AntonBruckner was an early convert and, as a confessed disciple, attempted to demonstrate in his symphonies how the dramatic warmth of Wagner’s style could be confined within the symphony’s restricting line; a step which opened up to those who did not follow Brahms and the classic romanticists a path which has since been well trodden.
Outside of Germany the spread of Wagner’s works and the progress of his influence forms an interesting chapter in history. We have seen Wagner resident in Paris at several periods of his life; on the occasion of his first two French sojourns his acquaintance was largely with the older men, such as Berlioz, Halévy, Auber, and others, but during his final stay in Paris, in 1861, Wagner came into contact with some of the younger generation, Saint-Saëns and Gounod among others. It was perhaps natural in a France, which still looked to Germany for its musical education, that these two youthful and enthusiastic composers should champion the cause of Wagner and become imbued with his influence, an influence which showed itself strongly in their subsequent work. While neither of these men made any attempt at remodelling the operatic form after Wagner’s ideas, their music soon showed his influence, though denied by them as it was on several occasions. More open in his discipleship of Wagner and a too close imitator of his methods was Ernest Reyer, whoseSigurdcomes from the same source as Wagner’s ‘Ring’—the Nibelungen myths. Bizet is often unjustly accused of Wagnerian tendencies; though he was undoubtedly an earnest student and admirer of Wagner’s works and has, inCarmen, made some slight use of a leading motive system, his music, in its strongly national flavor, has remained peculiarly free from Wagner’s influence. Massenet, on the other hand, with his less vital style, has in several instances succumbed to Wagner’s influence, and inEsclarmondethere occursa motive so like one of theMeistersingermotives that on the production of the work Massenet was called by a critic ‘Mlle. Wagner.’ Stronger still becomes the Wagner vein in French music as we come down to our own day. Charpentier’s ‘Louise,’ despite its distinctive color and feeling, leans very heavily on Wagner in its harmonic and orchestral treatment. As a reactionary influence against this encroaching tide of Wagnerism was the quiet rise of the new nationalistic French school which César Franck was evolving through his sober post-Beethoven classicism. That Franck himself was an admirer of Wagner we learn from Vincent d’Indy,[115]who tells us that it was the habit of his master to place himself in the mood for composition by starting his working hours in playing with great enthusiasm the prelude ofDie Meistersinger. César Franck numbered among his pupils a great many of those who to-day form the circle of representative French composers. These writers all show the forming hand of their master and faithfully follow in his efforts to preserve a noble, national art. There has, however, crept into many of their pages the haunting and unmistakable voice of the Bayreuth master. Vincent d’Indy, one of the early champions of Wagner and one who, with the two conductors, Lamoureux and Colonne, did much to win a place for Wagner’s music in both opera house and concert room of Paris, is strongly Wagnerian in many of his moments and the failure of his dramatic work is generally attributed to his over-zealous following of Wagner. The strongest check to Wagnerism in France and elsewhere is the new France that asserts itself in the voice of him whom many claim to be the first original thinker in music since Wagner—Claude Debussy. The founder of French impressionism, himself at one time an ardent Wagnerite, tells us that his awakening appreciation ofthe charm of Russian music turned him from following in Wagner’s step. Whatever may have been its source the distinctive and insinuatingly contagious style of Debussy has undoubtedly been the first potent influence toward a reaction against Wagnerism.
A brief word may be added as to the Wagner influence as we find it in the other European nations. Of conspicuous names those of Grieg and Tschaikowsky fall easily into our list of Wagner followers. Undeniably national and individual as both have been, each had his Wagner enthusiasm. Into the works of the former there crept so much of Wagner that Hanslick wittily called him ‘Wagner in sealskins,’ while Tschaikowsky, continually sounding his anti-Wagnerian sentiments, is at times an unconscious imitator. From England there has come in recent years in the work of one whom Strauss called ‘the first English progressive,’ Edward Elgar, a voice which in its most eloquent moments echoes that of Wagner. But perhaps the most significant proof of the far-reaching influence of Wagner’s art is the readiness with which it was welcomed by Italy. As early as 1869 Wagner found his first Italian champion in Boïto and to him was due the early production of Wagner’s works at Bologna. Wagner’s influence on Italian composers has been largely in the respect of dramatic reform rather than actual musical expression; the accusations of Wagnerism which greeted the appearance of Verdi’sAïdawere as groundless as the same cry againstCarmen. InAïdaVerdi forsook the superficial form of opera text that had been that of his earlier works and adopted a form more sincerely dramatic. This was, of course, under the direct influence of Wagner’s reform as was the more serious vein of the musical setting to this and Verdi’s two last operas, ‘Othello’ and ‘Falstaff’; but in musical idiom Verdi remained distinctively free from Wagner’s influence.
With this brief survey in mind the deduction as to the lasting value of Wagner’s theories and practices may be easily drawn. Wagner, the composer, has set his indelible mark upon the dramatic music of his age and that of a succeeding age, and, becoming a classic, he remains the inevitable model of modern musical thought. Wagner as dramatist constitutes a somewhat less forceful influence. Despite the inestimable value of his dramatic reform and its widespread influence on operatic art Wagner’s music dramas must remain the unique work of their author and so peculiarly the product of his universal genius that general imitation of them is at once prohibited by the fact that the world will not soon again see a man thus generously endowed.
Added proof of the enormous interest which has attached itself to Wagner and his works is found in the large and constantly increasing mass of Wagner literature, more voluminous than that heretofore devoted to any musician. The ten volumes which comprise Wagner’s own collected writings,[116]contain much of vital interest, as well as a mass of unimportant items. Besides the poems of the operas, beginning withRienzi, we find all of those essays to which reference has been already made, in which he advances his æsthetic and philosophic principles. There is besides these a quantity of exceedingly interesting autobiographical and reminiscent articles and many valuable pages of hints as to the interpretation of his own and of other works. Of greater interest to the general reader is the two-volume autobiography.[117]This work covers Wagner’s life from childhood to the year 1864, the year in which he met King Ludwig. Dictated to his wife and left in trust to her for publication at a stated time after his death, the book was eagerly awaited and attracted wideattention on its appearance in 1911. In its intense subjectivity, it gives us a vivid and intimate picture of Wagner’s artistic life, and in its narration of external events several episodes of his life, which had before been matters of more or less mystery, are explained. The publication of this autobiography was the signal for a last and faint raising of the voice of detraction against Wagner’s character in its egotistical isolation. The unrelenting attitude of aggressiveness that he adopted was only the natural attendant upon his genius and its forceful expression. To him who reads aright this record of Wagner’s life must come the realization that self-protection often forced upon him these external attitudes of a selfish nature, and that his supreme confidence in his own power to accomplish his great ideals warranted him in overcoming in any way all obstacles which retarded the accomplishment.
B. L.