Passing the visions, passing the night, Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrade's hands, Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul, Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song, As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night, Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy, Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night I heard f

The following pages contain little if anything that is new, or that would be likely to interest those who are already at home in Wagner's work. They are intended for those who are beginning the study of Wagner. In spite of many books, I know of no Wagner literature in English to which a beginner can turn who wishes to know what Wagner was aiming at, in what respect his works differ from those of the operatic composers who preceded him. Some sort of Introduction appears to me a necessary prelimin

A new work on Wagner requires some justification. It might be urged that, since the Meister has been dead for some decades and the violence of party feeling may be assumed to have somewhat abated, we are now in a position to form a sober estimate of his work, to review his aims, and judge of his measure of success. Such, however, is not my purpose in the following pages. I conceive that the endeavour to estimate an artist's work involves a misconception of the nature of art. We can estimate prod

The distinction so often made with a genius between the "man" and the "artist" has been justly ridiculed by Wagner himself. For the truest individuality of an artist is in his art, not when he leaves his own proper sphere and enters one that is foreign to him. Beethoven is the writer of symphonies and sonatas, not the suspicious friend and unmannerly plebeian. The man is the same in both relations, i.e. his character remains the same, only it manifests itself differently under changed conditions

Nothing probably has more tended to discredit Wagner's art with thoughtful people than the statement sometimes made by his following that he has created a new art. Wagner himself never made any such claim. When he speaks of a new indigenous art of pure German growth, he is merely contrasting it with the foreign art--Italian operas and French plays--upon which Germans had lived hitherto. When an art, like music or the drama, begins to flourish on a new soil, it is certain to exhibit new features,

Dr. Milman, in his great History of Christianity , observes that no religious revolution has ever been successful which has commenced with the Government. Such revolutions have ever begun in the middle or lower orders of society. The same is true of other branches of the intellectual life of man. Neither Governments nor academies and schools can ever originate anything new in art, politics, language. All growth springs from the unsophisticated masses; growth is organic, from below. The blossom m

We have already seen that the drama is distinguished from all other forms of art by its essential quality of directly enacting the things to be communicated instead of merely describing them. Since only human things can fitly be so enacted by human beings, dramatic art is generally identical with human art; it is the art of representing the actions of men and women--or of deities conceived as idealized human beings--in such a way as to reveal the motives by which they are impelled, their charact

The origin of the Tristan myth is lost in antiquity. The Welsh Triads, of unknown date, but very ancient, know of one Drystan ab Tallwch, the lover of Essylt the wife of March, as a steadfast lover and a mighty swineherd. It is indubitably Celtic-Breton, Irish, or Welsh. There were different versions of the story, into the shadowy history of which we need not enter; the only one which concerns us is that of a certain "Thomas." Of his French poem fragments alone have come down to us, but we have

Wagner's treatment of his material is worth a closer consideration because it is characteristic of his conception of the drama. Like every poet of the first order he regards it exclusively from the moral standpoint. In a former chapter I drew a distinction between the drama which depends upon the play of human actions for their own sakes and that in which the interest is centred in the motives or characters of the actors. The character of any individual is only another name for his permanent wil

In this chapter I propose to consider certain criticisms which are often made on Wagner's treatment of the drama, which differ from some of those mentioned before, in being intelligible and worthy of respect, since they have not been made maliciously or through ignorance. In so far as they are invalid they rest upon misunderstandings which can easily be accounted for by Wagner's unparalleled originality, by the novelty of his art, necessarily involving a wide departure from the classic standards

"Art generally ... as such, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as a vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing. "Art, properly so called, is no recreation; it cannot be learned at spare moments, nor pursued when we have nothing better to do. It is no handiwork for drawing-room tables, no relief of the ennui of boudoirs; it must be understood and undertaken seriously or not at all. To advance it, men's lives must be given, and to receive it, their hearts." These words, amon

Before beginning the detailed consideration of our work, I wish to say a few words on some features of the music. As I am writing for the general reader and not for the musician, I shall endeavour to express myself in generally understood terms, and avoid technical details. Each of Wagner's works presents a distinct and strongly defined musical physiognomy marking it off from all the others. The music of each is cast in its own mould and is at once recognizable from that of the rest. The most ch

It remains for us now to examine the work itself, scene by scene, that we may see how the principles of art which we have been considering in the preceding chapters are illustrated. The following notes are written with a practical end; they are intended to assist those who are unacquainted with the work and are about to hear it for the first time to follow the composer's intentions. They do not profess to give a full commentary or explanation, but only to start the reader on the right path that

  Tu sentiras alors que toi-même tu environnes tout ce que   tu connais des choses qui existent, et que les existantes que tu   connais existent en quelque sorte dans toi-même.-- Avicebron   (MUNK). ACT II.--If the essence of the drama lies in contrast and surprises, then Tristan und Isolde may be called the most dramatic of Wagner's works. In the first act we had the picture of a woman of volcanic temperament goaded to fury by cruelty and insult; in the second we have the same woman gentle, lig

ACT III.--Wagner has described the slow introduction to Beethoven's C sharp minor quartet as the saddest music ever written. If there is anything sadder, it is the instrumental introduction to the third act of Tristan und Isolde . Tristan, after being wounded by Melot, has been carried off by Kurwenal to his own home, Kareol in Brittany, where he is discovered lying asleep on his couch in the castle garden, Kurwenal by his side. Nothing could exceed the desolation of the scene, nor the utter woe

Wagner always looked upon himself as one who had broken a new path in art and done some of the first rough work, not as having completed the road. Those who seek to continue his work must have the same goal before their eyes as he had. It is the fate of a great man who more than others longs for human fellowship and love, to live alone and, after death, to overwhelm his contemporaries and successors; he occupies a space which leaves no room for others. In the thirty years which have elapsed sinc