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The outline must first of all be beautiful." In his own musical architecture one finds well-marked airs, numerous recitatives, Gregorian or Palestrinian choruses, chorales with developments and variations in the old style, and intervening symphonies of some importance. The whole work is to be preceded by a grand prelude, very carefully worked out, to which Don Perosi attaches particular worth.
If in future the so-called recitatives are sung as I have asked Liszt to insist upon their being sung, the halting and freezing impression of whole, long passages will disappear, and the duration of the performance will be considerably shortened.
There I heard Fidelio, given in rather grotesque fashion by unclean Germans and voiceless Italians, and with recitatives. I consequently managed to evade paying frequent visits to this theatre. When I went to say good- bye to Mr. Howard on leaving London, I was surprised to meet Meyerbeer at his house. He had just arrived in London to conduct his Nordstern.
Then, not only is the physical suffering of Christ insisted on in this way, but the chorales, recitatives, and songs lay still greater stress upon it, either directly, by actual description, or indirectly, by uttering with unheard-of poignancy the remorse supposed to be felt by mankind whose guilt occasioned that suffering.
People would not have gone to the theatre to hear dreary recitatives, and from the very first we hear of concessions being made to the singers i.e. to the audience. By degrees there forms itself that peculiar kind of vocal melody which we recognize to-day as distinctively Italian.
Neither Fidelio nor Gluck's tragedies with the exception of Armide, which was put on under pressure of fashion are represented; and when by chance they give Freischütz or Don Juan, one wonders if it would not have been better to let them rest in oblivion, rather than treat them sacrilegiously by adding, cutting, introducing ballets and new recitatives, and deforming their style so as to bring them "up to date."
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.
The new close, however, must unfortunately wait till next season, for a new scene is being painted for it, which cannot be finished; everything else is ready and copied out. For next season we have Spohr's "Faust," with new recitatives, and shall give Schumann's "Manfred" at the beginning of June.
The fiery recitatives of No. 18 in F minor are a glimpse of Chopin, muscular and not hectic. In these editions you will find three different groupings of the cadenzas. It is Riemann's opportunity for pedagogic editing, and he does not miss it. In the first long breathed group of twenty-two sixteenth notes he phrases as shown on the following page.
How much finer, to my idea, are Berlioz's recitatives, with their long and winding rhythms, than Wagner's declamations, which apart from the climax of a subject, where the air breaks into bold and vigorous phrases, whose influence elsewhere is often weak limit themselves to the quasi-notation of spoken inflections, and jar noisily against the fine harmonies of the orchestra.
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