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That his life should have been simultaneous with the perfect literary unfolding of the old Volkslied in the superb lyrics of Goethe, Heine, and their school, is quite remarkable. Poe-try and song clasped hands on the same lofty summits of genius. Liszt has given to our composer the title of le musicien le plus poétique, which very well expresses his place in art.
Of all modern composers Wagner was the most volksthuemlich; the roots of his art are in the Volks-Sage, the Volkslied, and the dance, and the masses have always been true to him.
At the same time the music of the mass itself received an important impulse from the Volkslied. The employment of well-known popular song-melodies as canti fermi in sacred contrapuntal compositions had a very beneficial effect upon those works, inasmuch as it introduced a bit of fresh popular life into music just at the moment when it was in danger of degenerating into pedantry and triviality.
It has been pointed out by Liliencron that what appears at first sight to be rhythmic chaos in the polyphonic Volkslied is really a highly artistic and effective device for bringing the canto fermo the ancient tune into prominence; whilst the other voices are generally in tempus imperfectum or square time, the tenor is in some other contrasting rhythm.
The very word "popular," unlike the German volksthuemlich, carries the notion of vulgarity. Yet the lower classes among themselves are never vulgar; they only become so when they copy the manners of those above them, and their poetry is the very reverse of what we understand by that word. The Volkslied exhales the very perfume of nature.
She felt excited by the grandeur of the situation, and, in the pauses of the wind, sang low some wild German Volkslied. "Are you a Lorelei?" asked Mr. Dutton, who was never far off. "What do you intend to do with the steamer?" "I don't mean any harm to the ship, but I shan't lull the winds yet. How delightful and magnificent it is!"
It may be uncouth, harsh, weather-beaten, but the perfume remains, and it is never offensive like the modern music-hall song, which is the Volkslied of a class that tries to ape its social superiors.
Other passages well worthy of perusal as specimens of his better style are the description of the theatrical sunset in le Prophete, and especially the admirably worked-out metaphor of the Volkslied as a wild flower in vol. iii. of his collected works, pp. 309 and 372 seq. Very different views have been expressed about Wagner in his capacity of philosopher.
His influence had indeed been profound, and he left as his disciples and successors men of gifts scarcely inferior to his own; but the fashion had changed; Italian humanism and the sway of the Press destroyed worship, destroyed spontaneity, and by the year 1600 the pure vocal style and the Volkslied had both passed away. Our results so far can be very shortly summed up.
Here and there a Volkslied or Marchen shows a national aptitude for stout animal laughter; and we see that the literature is built on it, which is hopeful so far; but to enjoy it, to enter into the philosophy of the Broad Grin, that seems to hesitate between the skull and the embryo, and reaches its perfection in breadth from the pulling of two square fingers at the corners of the mouth, one must have aid of 'the good Rhine wine, and be of German blood unmixed besides.
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