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It has the kind of energy which is required to render Beethoven's multitudinous energy, or the energy which can be heavy and cloudy in Brahms, or like overpowering light in Bach, or, in Wagner himself, an energy which works within known limits, as in the overture to the "Meistersinger."
The communication of my plan for the immediate composition of the Meistersinger made him almost frantic with delight, and until my departure from Vienna he remained in a state of delirious excitement. I urged my friend to procure me material for mastering the subject of the Meistersinger.
In spite of all my indifference, I must confess that the 'Assumption of the Virgin' by Titian exercised a most sublime influence over me, so that, as soon as I realised its conception, my old powers revived within me, as though by a sudden flash of inspiration. I determined at once on the composition of the Meistersinger.
Susan had a hazy vision of some sensible linen gardening dresses of herself out in the spring sunshine, digging, watering, getting happier and dirtier and hotter every minute Somebody was playing Walther's song from "Die Meistersinger" far downstairs, and the plaintive passionate notes drew Susan as if they had been the cry of her name.
Most of his operas had to wait many years for production, but the kindly care of Ludwig of Bavaria secured the performance of 'Die Meistersinger' a few months after the last note had been written. Unlike many of his other masterpieces, too, 'Die Meistersinger' was a success from the first.
Capital Opera; we used to think it the best, before we had Tannhauser and Lohengrin and the Meistersinger. Victor hinted notes of the Conspiration Scene closing the Third Act of the Huguenots. That sombre Chorus brought Mrs. Burman before him. He drummed the Rataplan, which sent her flying.
Such a picture of a city of another country and of the late Middle Ages exists in the drama of Richard Wagner's Meistersinger; and his Nuremberg of the XVI century, with changes of local colour, is the type of all mediæval towns. General travel was unknown. The activity of the great roads was the march of armies, the roving of marauders, the journeys of venturesome merchants or well-armed knights.
In spite of the acknowledged success of 'Rienzi, Wagner's enemies were never tired of repeating that, like Monteverde, he had invented a new system because he could not manipulate the old. It seems hardly possible to us that musicians could ever have been found to deny that the composer of 'Die Meistersinger' was a consummate master of counterpoint.
I find their style rather pompous and declamatory; and their almost excessive refinement makes them border upon dulness. The form of the duet, too, seems cut and dried, and there are signs of weariness in it. The heaviness of the last pages of Siegfried recalls Die Meistersinger, which is also of that period.
'Die Meistersinger' yields to none of the composer's work in the complexity and elaboration of the score indeed, the prelude may be quoted as a specimen of Wagner's command of all the secrets of polyphony at its strongest and greatest. 'Parsifal, Wagner's last and in the opinion of many his greatest work, was produced in 1882 at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.
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