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The extraordinary success of these concerts seemed to indicate that the time was ripe for a complete theatrical production of Wagner's later music-dramas, and Mr. Thomas was already elaborating his plans when an accident frustrated them and took the whole matter out of his hands.
"Music within" is a frequent stage direction in the later Elizabethan plays, and if one remembers the dramatic effectiveness of the Easter music, off-stage, in Goethe's Faust, or the horn in Hernani, one can understand how Wagner came to believe that a blending of music with poetry and action, as exhibited in his "music-dramas," was demanded by the ideal requirements of dramatic art.
Accordingly, he wrote the poems of these: first, "Götterdämmerung," then "Siegfried," "Die Walküre," and "Rheingold." The music to these four dramas was, however, composed in the reverse order, in which they were to be performed. Wagner indulged in no illusions regarding these music-dramas.
These music-dramas go as far beyond "Lohengrin" in certain directions as "Lohengrin" goes beyond the operas of Wagner's predecessors. It was a reckless thing to do, to make another such giant stride before the world had caught up with his first, and he had to suffer the consequences; but genius disregards prudence, and looks to the future alone.
Swinburne's verse, the gem-like brilliance of Stevenson's prose, the all-inclusive sensuousness, touched with sensuality, of Wagner's music-dramas. Because of the charm of beautiful language there are many art-lovers who regard the sensuous qualities of the work itself as making up the entire experience.
Here we find a striking originality and boldness of modulation that has no parallel in music, except in Wagner's last music-dramas. Now we have seen that Moscheles, and other contemporaries of Chopin, found his modulations harsh and disagreeable; and doubtless there are amateurs to-day who regard them in the same way.
We may justly attribute this to Liszt rather than to Chopin, whose nocturne embellishments are but first cousins to those of the Englishman, John Field." Of Wagner: "His music-dramas, shorn of the fetters of the actual spoken word, emancipated from the materialism of acting, painting, and furniture, must be considered the greatest achievement in our art."
Bayreuth is Wagner's creation in the world of action, as the music-dramas are his creation in the world of art; and it is a triumph not less decisive, in its transposition of dream into reality. Remember that every artist, in every art, has desired his own Bayreuth, and that only Wagner has attained it.
I will not waste space on the thousand odd "meanings," "lessons" and so on found by the enthusiastic in Wagner. His ideas were at once the substance and the inspiration of his music-dramas; but he never dreamed of writing copybook headings. He had in language to make his characters talk about these ideas for two reasons, each sufficient in itself.
This opera, indeed, may also be called the direct precursor of Wagner's music-dramas. It contains eight "leading motives," which recur thirty times in course of the opera; and the dramatic recitatives are sometimes quite in the "Wagnerian" manner. But the most remarkable thing is that Weber uses language which practically sums up Wagner's idea of the music-drama.
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