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Updated: May 27, 2025
Wagner gave a title to the prelude of Act III, "Tannhäuser's Pilgrimage," and it differs only in that from his other preludes and overtures. To those who know what is to follow it tells a story more or less distinctly, while those who hear it for the first time must feel the atmosphere and emotion, and thus be prepared for the drama.
He had sacrificed every selfish hope to serve both Elizabeth and Tannhäuser, had employed himself to further their union. What now is happening is plainly terrible to him. His opinion of the friend has undergone in the last moments a grievous subversion. He has been wounded to the soul by the bold and profane tone of Tannhäuser's argument.
Tannhauser was therefore a Ghibelline, as was plainly the folk-poet who made him the hero of the ballad which tells of his adventure with Venus. Tannhauser's extant poems, when not in praise of princes, are gay in character, with the exception of a penitential hymn a circumstance which may have had some weight with the ballad-makers.
What the remembrance is in this circle of Tannhäuser's arrogance appears from the frequency of reference to it. The remainder of the hunting-retinue has now joined the Landgrave; the scene is brilliant with swarming figures of hunters, hounds, and horses. With bright horn-calls the train starts homeward, on its rejoicing way "to her!"
There is first the shepherd's delightfully fresh song, in wonderful contrast to the scents and stifling heat of the Venus cave music; then comes the Pilgrims' Chorus; then come Tannhäuser's friends with at least one number, Wolfram's appeal, which is distinct and separate from the rest of the music as a goldfish is from the water it swims in.
Now, in the twentieth century, it is indeed hard to understand how an intellect so keen as our Richard's, a dramatic and poetic instinct almost infallible with regard to all other things, could have failed to see and feel the absurdity of Elisabeth's death being necessary to Tannhäuser's salvation.
From the first he unmistakably got the minstrels' contest in his own Tannhäuser; from the second, Tannhäuser's coming home after being cursed by the Pope. So things went on. Richard's mother, Richard, Louise, Ottilie and Cäcilie formed the household; Uncle Adolph and Aunt Sophie lived not far off; and they had plenty of friends.
Spiritual love is hymned by Tannhauser's companions. Wolfram von Eschenbach likens it to a pure fountain from which only high and sacred feelings can flow. Tannhauser questions the right of those who have not experienced the passion as he has felt it to define the nature of love. Goaded by the taunts and threats of rude Biterolf, he bursts forth in a praise of Venus. The assembly is in commotion.
"Take it a bit easy now, sir. You'll 'ave it 'ard enough over there," he used to say to one and another. At eleven o'clock one of the Kansas men came to tell Claude that his Corporal was going fast. Big Tannhauser's fever had left him, but so had everything else. He lay in a stupor. His congested eyeballs were rolled back in his head and only the yellowish whites were visible.
Victor had tea in a special corner of the officers' smoking-room every afternoon he would have perished without it and the steward always produced some special garnishes of toast and jam or sweet biscuit for him. Claude usually managed to join him at that hour. On the day of Tannhauser's funeral he went into the smoking-room at four.
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