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Updated: June 25, 2025
Form in art is the creation of the intellect; what goes into it is the outflow of the heart. Thus Liszt created the Symphonic Poem, and Wagner completely revolutionized the musical stage by creating the Music-Drama. Into the Symphonic Poem, into the Music-Drama, they put their hearts; but the creation of these forms was in each an intellectual tour de force.
It is here that the symphony is in danger from an exotic style that had its origin in German music-drama. From this point the Rachmaninow symphony languishes in the fountain of its fresh inspiration, seems consciously constructed with calculating care. There is, after all, no virtue in itself in mere themal interrelation, in particular of lesser phrases.
Caius with the single exclamation, "Falstaff," and the latter's reply, "Ho! there," which are emblematic of the declamatory character of the whole opera; for although many delightful bits of melody are scattered through it, the instrumentation really tells the story, as in the Wagner music-drama, though in this latest work of the veteran composer there is less of the Wagnerian idea than in his "Aida."
It must not be forgotten, however, that side by side with the music-drama and partly preceding it, another form of vocal music grew up in Germany, which in a very similar manner restored the voice to its true sphere as the wedded wife of poetry.
There is melody, almost abundant, in Wagner and Liszt and their German contemporaries. Indeed it was an age of lyricists. The fault was that they failed to recognize their lyric limitation, lengthening and padding their motives abnormally to fit a form that was too large. Hence the symphony of Liszt, with barren stretches, and the impossible plan of the later music-drama.
Besides, in the Wagnerian music-drama, it is intended that beauty of idea and of arrangement of ideas shall be as of great importance as beauty of ornament. Wagner certainly intended "Parsifal" to be such a music-drama; and indeed the idea is only too clearly visible.
She could not find the proper accents required in operas where the words of the text are as important as the melody itself; and she has failed therefore to give satisfaction even in such works as "Faust" and "Aïda," which are intermediate between the old-fashioned opera and the music-drama proper.
It needed the cruel disillusionment of the Paris days, it needed also the time needful for Wagner's normal growth, before he was driven to see that the music-drama, or something that ultimately evolved itself into the music-drama, was the form that he needed for his deepest utterances. Rienzi is old-fashioned opera, barefaced, blatant and unashamed.
Such utterances as these, however, have a specific and different meaning altogether, as will presently be seen. I can by no means believe even Wagner capable of writing a three-act music-drama to prove the truth of a catch-phrase or that he would have dreamed of using such a catch-phrase as the motive of his music-drama.
But while an eminent German critic wrote not long ago that "the music-drama of Wagner constitutes modern opera," it would be a huge mistake to make Wagnerism synonymous with modern music in general. Apart from the opera, there are several other very powerful currents, and while most of them can be traced to the first half of the nineteenth century, they are none the less modern.
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