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And over the entire body of Wagner's music, there float, a massive diadem, the towers and parapets and banners of Nuremberg the imperial free city, monument of a victorious burgherdom, of civic virtue that on the ruins of feudalism constructed its own world, and demonstrated to all times its dignity and sobriety and industry, its solid worth. For life itself made the Wagnerian gesture.
The rafters shook, and sinners fell prostrate in the chancel. This, however, was only the beginning. The great opera of Brother Pratt's spirit went on like a rude Wagnerian measure until none could resist it. Men arose from their knees shouting.
Consciousness of folly will turn folly into sense...." Then, not quite relevantly, "Learn to know the love which enfolded Gamuret when Herzeleide's affection burningly overflowed,..." With the assurance that she who gave him life now sends him as a mother's last blessing the First Kiss of Love, she bends over him and places her lips upon his in a prolonged Wagnerian kiss.
Graves was an ardent Wagnerian, and especially devoted to The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. "Shall we have," he whispered to Mr. Hillard, "a Beckmesser fiasco to-night, or will it be a Walter success?" But Mr. Hillard, besides being an author and a critic, cared little for the too literary cleverness of Mr. Graves. He therefore heavily crushed that gentleman's allusion to Wagner's opera.
And so, when Leonora made her appearance on the stage one winter with the winged helmet and the lance of the Valkyrie, she attained an eminence in Wagnerian interpretation that was to follow her for the remainder of her career. Hans himself was carried away by her power, and could never recover from his astonishment at Leonora's complete assimilation of the spirit of the Master.
But a glance into the window showed him the wax lady now dressed in a plain black tailor-made suit, and at once he knew the wearer of the Wagnerian plaids was his real love, and not the stiff creature behind the glass. "Beg pardon!" he exclaimed, stopping the young lady; "but you're mine. Here's the seven ninety-three, and seven cents for candy."
In my note-book I find an entry describing my vain attempts to enjoy the music of a rose-breasted grosbeak, who at that time had never been a common bird with me, while "a pesky Wagnerian red-eye kept up an incessant racket." The warbling vireo is admirably named; there is no one of our birds that can more properly be said to warble.
The plot of 'Mistress Inger' is not veracious or convincing or even plausible; and the play lacks the broad simplicity of story to be found in the later 'Vikings, a saga-like drama, a tale of blood and fate, which recalls Wagnerian opera in its primitive massiveness, in the vigor of its legend, in its tragic pathos, and in its full-blooded characters larger than life and yet pitifully human.
No one, not even Wagner, o'ertops him in this respect, though Wagner and Berlioz and Liszt showed him the way. Why, then, does he lean so heavily on Wagner, not alone on his themes for Strauss is, above all, a melodist but on his moods; in a word, the Wagnerian atmosphere?
For several years the leader of the young school, M. Claude Debussy, has, in his writings in the Revue Blanche and Gil Blas, attacked Wagnerian art.
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