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Your Excellency will find some of his poems in Von der Hagen's four immense volumes, but I recommend you to take your notions of Ritter Tannhaeuser's poetry rather from Wagner. Certain it is that the Pagan divinities lasted much longer than we suspect, sometimes in their own nakedness, sometimes in the stolen garb of the Madonna or the saints. Who knows whether they do not exist to this day?
How undramatic are these explanations we shall realize when we compare them with such soliloquies as Tannhaeuser's account of his pilgrimage or Siegmund's story of his life, which, though equally lengthy, keep us spellbound from the first bar to the last, because they directly lead up to and form part of the scene which is actually before us.
There are days like that when, for no apparent reason, the grotesque in people and things which in ordinary life passes unnoticed, suddenly leaps into view. The programme of the music included the Egmont overture, a valse of Waldteufel, Tannhaeuser's Pilgrimage to Rome, the overture to the Merry Wives of Nicolai, the religious march of Athalie, and a fantasy on the North Star.
Tannhaeuser's wild aspect and manner, Siegmund's desolation and longing for community with other human beings, are in direct connection with the story told. For this the explanations are again inadequate. I am, of course, only expressing an individual opinion, because I feel bound in giving a full account of the work to say how it appears to me; others may very probably feel it differently.
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