Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
Beckmesser tries to sing Walther's words to the melody of his own serenade, the result being such indescribable balderdash that the assembled populace hoots him down, and he rushes off in confusion, Walther's turn then comes, and he sings his song with such success that the prize is awarded to him with acclamation.
There is something hushed and fixed in Walther's aspect, as if he listened to voices no one else could hear, gazed upon some vision invisible to others. He is still under the spell of a recent marvellous impression.
See also G. 27: ponunt dolorem, etc. Ut transierit. The clause is obscure. For the meaning of nova, cf. 22. For transierit, cf. transitio, H. 2, 99; 3, 61; and Freund, sub v. This is Walther's interpretation.
That haunting strain from Walther's song, repeated slowly, as by one savouring it with pensive pleasure, again sings itself to his inward ear; it, indeed, is partly to blame for his mood of gentle unrest. The memory will not let him alone of that marvellous, that unprecedented experience of the afternoon.
The people gather to watch and hear and judge; Beckmesser makes a muddle of the song and is laughed off the scene; then Sachs pleads Walther's case, and he is allowed, though not a master, to sing. He triumphs, and by one stroke is admitted to the guild and wins the prize. Virtually the play ends here. Sachs' winding-up address can only be dealt with in connection with the music.
With the consummate craftsmanship Wagner possessed at this period he adds to the score the utterance of the masters' disapproval, of Sachs' approval, of Beckmesser's pedantic maliciousness, of the riotous fooling of the apprentices, until we have them all hard at work united in accompanying Walther's song in what is nothing more nor less than a grand operatic finale.
He had lived so long in beautiful harmony with Bertha, and Walther's friendship had made him happy for so many years, and now both of them had been so suddenly taken from him that his life seemed at times more like a strange fairy-tale than an actual mortal existence. A knight, Hugo von Wolfsberg, became attached to the quiet, melancholy Eckbert, and seemed to cherish a genuine fondness for him.
Walther's experience with the pedantry which had condemned him the day before, when he had sung as impulse, love, and youthful ardor had prompted, leads him to decline the distinction; but the old poet discourses on the respect due to the masters and their, work as the guaranty of the permanence of German art, and persuades him to enter the guild of mastersingers.
Indeed, Wagner was never loath to acknowledge his indebtedness, and there are on record several instances when he paraphrased Walther's song to his masters, and signaled the composers who had aided him most in his development. To-day, the debt is very plain. At every turn, one sees him benefiting, and benefiting very beautifully, by the work of Beethoven.
Before the last note has died, all are clamouring together, awarding to Walther the master-prize. "Reach him the wreath! There is no lover or singer like him!" And then Walther's exquisite morning-dream comes true.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking