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Updated: June 17, 2025
Church and tablet are the only relics of the mastersingers left in Nuremberg which may be called personal. I had expected to find autobiographic manuscripts of Sachs, but in this was disappointed.
The three melodies which are presented in opposition to the spirit represented by the mastersingers and their typical music, are disclosed by a study of the comedy to be associated with the passion of the young lovers, Walther and Eva. They differ in every respect melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic, from those which stand for the old guildsmen and their rule-of-thumb notions.
I have just digressed a little about Parsifal, because it, and not the Mastersingers, is the true contrary and complement to Tannhäuser.
The counterpoint is not so obviously wonderful as in Tristan and the Mastersingers, but only a contrapuntist equal to Bach and Handel could have written such counterpoint. We may gain a clearer idea of what this means if we compare, not to the disadvantage of one or the other, this Ride with Berlioz's "Ride to the Abyss." At first sight, Berlioz seems the more daring.
However, Wagner settled peacefully at Triebschen, and remained there until the Bayreuth idea took solid and visible shape. He completed the Mastersingers and Siegfried, and made progress with the Dusk of the Gods. When Minna died in 1868 he immediately married Cosima. The idea of what ultimately became Bayreuth took shape. Bayreuth was first thought of for a very prosaic reason.
"In the musical contest it is only the perverted idea of Classicism which is treated with contumely and routed; the glorification of the triumph of Romanticism is found in the stupendously pompous and brilliant setting given to the mastersingers' music at the end. You see already in this prelude that Wagner is a true comedian.
One may read about the ceremonies attending its annual exposition, along with other relics, in the old history of Nuremberg, by Wagenseil, which was the source of Wagner's knowledge of the mastersingers. The disruption of the Holy Roman Empire caused a scattering of the jewels and relics in the imperial treasury, and the present whereabouts of this sacred lance is unknown.
Thus it was but a step from designing in precious metals to the use of colour, and to engraving. In making wood engravings, however, the drudgery of it was left almost entirely to workmen, not artists. Nuremberg was also the seat of musical learning. Wagner makes this fact pathetic, comical, and altogether charming in his "Mastersingers of Nuremberg."
Even more striking than this instance is the treatment of a figure heard first when Pogner announces to the assembled mastersingers his intention of giving his daughter Eva as the prize in next day's contest. It is made up of two distinct sections.
Tristan and Isolda was produced in 1865 and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg three years later. If I had space, it would be amusing to quote the contemporary criticisms passed on the first. Tristan was hopelessly misunderstood at the time, and even now it is misunderstood by many professed Wagnerites.
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