His melodic line, the lyrical passages throughout his
operas, seem to seek to attain it, if not conclusively, at least in
preparation. Those silken excessively sweet periods, the moment of
reconciliation and embrace of Wotan and Brunhilde, the "Ach, Isolde"
passage in the third act of "Tristan," those innumerable lyrical flights
with their beginnings and subsidings, their sudden advances and
regressions, their passionate surges that finally and after all their
exquisite hesitations mount and flare and unroll themselves in
fullness--they, too, seem to be seeking to distill some of the same
brew, the same magic drugging potion, to conjure up out of the
orchestral depths some Venusberg, some Klingsor's garden full of subtle
scent and soft delight and eternal forgetfulness.
And with Wagner, the new period of music begins. He stands midway
between the feudal and the modern worlds. In him, the old and classical
period is accomplished. Indeed, so much of his music is sum, is
termination, that there are times when it seems nothing else. There are
times when his art appears entirely bowed over the past; the confluence
of a dozen different tendencies alive during the last century and a
half; the capping of the labor of a dozen great musicians; the
fulfilment of the system regnant in Europe since the introduction of the
principle of the equal temperament.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25