United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I do not say that there may not be a decadent side in Wagner, revealing super-sensitiveness or even hysteria and other modern nervous affections. And if this side was lacking he would not be representative of his time, and that is what every great artist ought to be.
It has also been brilliantly orchestrated. Two songs without words make up opus 96: while "Meditation" shows too evident meditation on Wagner, "A Love Song" gets quite away from musical bourgeoisery. It is free, spirited, even daring. It is patently less devoted to theme-development than to the expression of an emotion.
With the advent of our steaks, the band struck up a selection from Wagner. I know of no modern European composer so difficult to eat beefsteak to as Wagner. That we did not choke ourselves is a miracle. Wagner's orchestration is most trying to follow. We had to give up all idea of mustard. B. tried to eat a bit of bread with his steak, and got most hopelessly out of tune.
The libretto alone might have won Wagner immortality, so original is it and perfect in intention; and the music seems to be no longer a mere accessory to the effect, but the very essence and fragrance of the great conception. Giuseppe Verdi, the last and most widely successful of the school of Italian opera proper, was born at Roncole, near Busseto, October 9, 1813.
Wagner does a thing perfectly analogous; but as I have remarked with regard to Weber and Mendelssohn and their picturesque music, where Handel, having painted his tremendous picture, had achieved his end and was satisfied and left off, is just the point where Wagner begins what to him is much the more important thing, the drama.
"You can't follow it without that," said Pestsov, addressing Levin, as the person he had been speaking to had gone away, and he had no one to talk to. In the entr'acte Levin and Pestsov fell into an argument upon the merits and defects of music of the Wagner school.
César Franck bored her, and Wagner gave her a headache. Her favourite instrument was an old harpsichord, on which she played Mozart, while her daughters thundered out Liszt and Rubinstein upon a concert grand, and you, dear Professor, when in a good humour, strode about the house whistling horribly out of tune.
The whole story of this first visit to Paris is sordid, squalid, miserable to a degree; and I don't know that we can be surprised. When Wagner sailed from Pillau he had not had a single work of any importance performed. Nay, more, he had not written a work of any importance.
The aristocracy were resolved that this state of affairs should continue; the average citizens were resolved that it should not. What did Wagner propose? obedience to the puppet king and a reformed opera! It is small wonder that he was considered a visionary.
Now, it is idle to say, in answer to all this, that Wagner proves the truth of his premisses by the deductions he draws in the drama, as in Euclid a proposition is stated to be a truth and then proved to be a truth. In Wagner nothing is proved.
Word Of The Day