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Do they not always proceed monotonously from the first bar to the last? With the members of the "elegant" tribe of Capellmeisters the "conception" of the tempo consists of an application of the Mendelssohnian maxim "chi va presto va sano." Let the players who happen to have any regard for proper execution make the best of it in passages like: or the plaintive:
You have already two Capellmeisters, so I don't know what I could have, for I would not be subordinate to Vogler." "That you would never be," said he. "Here not one of the orchestra is under the Capellmeister, nor even under the Intendant. The Elector might appoint you Chamber Court composer; only wait a little, and I will speak to Count Savioli on the subject."
More is known of our mighty old Capellmeister Bach than of Shakespeare; less than of Miss Marie Corelli. The main thing is that he lived the greater part of his obscure life in Leipzig, turning out week by week the due amount of church music as an honest Capellmeister should. Other Capellmeisters did likewise; only, while their compositions were counterpoint, Bach's were masterworks.
They could not conceive how the novel and surprising effect at the close had been produced, and scarcely credited my assertion that a moderate tempo was the sole cause. Our Capellmeisters are not particularly pleased at a success such as this.
It would appear that general directions also tend to vex and confuse Capellmeisters, especially when they are expressed in plain German words. Accustomed to the conventional Italian terms these gentlemen are apt to lose their wits when, for instance, I write "moderate."
But our older Capellmeisters rarely knew as much they did not choose to recognize the need of a large increase in the number of stringed instruments to balance the augmented number of wind instruments and the complicated uses the latter are now put to.
Now, such experiences are apt to embitter the most harmless persons. All the more so, since Capellmeisters and Musikdirectors are daily occupied at the theatres, and are bound to serve in a sphere in which they are absolutely helpless and impotent. And the causes of their impotence, with regard to the composition of an opera, are also the causes of their inability to conduct an opera properly.
We all remember the solemnly pathetic and passionate beauty of Seraphael's burial by night, with the music winding up among the stars; but did it in reality exceed the actual progress of the dead Master's ashes from city to city, met in the twilight and the evening by music, gray-headed Capellmeisters receiving him with singing in the open midnight, and fresh songs being flung upon his coffin like wreaths with the sunrise?
Such "chiefs" are famed for their skill in "bringing out" a new opera in a fortnight; for their clever "cuts"; for the effective "closes" they write to please singers, and for their interpolations in other men's scores. Practical accomplishments of this sort have, for instance, supplied the Dresden Opera with one of its most energetic Capellmeisters.
Ought he not himself to be surprised at this? Is he not, in his turn, in a position to pray, "Forgive them, they know not what they do?" But as I wished to speak of Conducting proper, and do not want to lose my way in the operatic wilderness, I have only to confess that I have come to the end of this chapter. I cannot dispute about the conducting of our capellmeisters at the theatres.
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