RICHARD WAGNER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20450, 3 July 1928, Page 7

RICHARD WAGNER.

THE GENIUS OF MUSIC DRAMA. The life of Wagner and his contribution to romantic drama are of such importance that voltfmes have been written recording his personal activities and reviewing hia colossal creations (says a writer in the Melbourne Age). _ The genius of the man was overwhelming in the direction of operatic music. In other than musical spheres he was voluble and egotistic, but unreliable. His was “ the genius of intensity.” No sooner did he begin his, work than he saw a life’s labour awaiting him. Fortunately the genius of growth was also his. Expansion and comprehensiveness of view ever widened his intellectual radius. His clairvoyant insight into dramatic problems enabled him to undertake and to finish a complete work. All that was impossible for talent he craved to fulfil. The vitality which nerved him for Titanic labour was the force of personality. The monuments of his strength he bequeathed to all future generations possessing the power to estimate the worth and magnitude of a unified drama. The lamp of Wagner’s genius kept pace with the lamp of life, and his honours have the sterling quality of his endurance. The life of Wagner is a story of a soul’s courage, of genius doing what it must. Disappointment hung for a long while over his career, only to be despised in an indomitable energy. Ambition spurred him to reject all modifying influences opposed to his ideal. Let his large truths be a riddle to the dull, his advances into the unexplored realms of sound confound the Philistines or the breadth of his conceptions stupefy the provincials, this prophet and iconoclast must nourish his inexhaustible genius and march on to conquer. There are many aspects of Wagner’s career, many sides to his constructive personality, but before all descriptions comes Wagner the artist.

He alone can claim this name, who writes With fancy highland bold and daring flight. Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig on May 22, 1813, the youngest of nine children. His father, a civil officer, much interested in the theatre, died'when Richard was six months old. His mother then married Ludwig Geyer, an actor, poet, and portrait painter, who for his remaining six years proved a good stepfather. The boy acquired a good literary education. At the age of 13 he translated the first 12 books of the Odyssey out of school hours, to the delight of his Greek tutor. Music was an interest, though no special gift was at first manifest. He had a good memory and a good car, but his fingering made the instructor’s hair stand on end. The influence of Weber at the Dresden Opera House drew the young man’s attention to music. Mere we see the foundation and attraction towards a progressive drama, for Weber was working at the problem of national opera in his splendid and successful experiment Der Freischutz. A letter of Wagner’s reads: —“ Nothing pleased me so much as the opera Der Freischutz. I used frequently to sec Weber pass our house on the way homo from rehearsals, and looked og him with reverence.” But even at the age of 14 the dramatic impress of Shakespeare had made its mark. At that age we read of an original drama so tragic as to require no fewer than 42 persons to pass away in the course of the play. Some of the characters had to be brought back as ghosts to provide actors for the fifth act. While routine education provoked a spirit of impatience, if # not rebellion, Wagner’s voracious mind sought its own nutriment. At the age of 17 he had gained an acquaintance with ancient and modern literature, glanced at science, pondered philosophic problems, summed up contending theologies, found idols in Goethe and Schiller, despised conventional drama, showed political bias, and had discovered the music of Beethoven. Dorn doubted “ whether there ever was a young musician .who knew Beethoven’s works more thoroughly than Wagner in his eighteen vh year.” He slept with the quartets, sang the songs, whistled the concertos, and copied the symphonies. After Der Frieschutz, a performance of Beethoven’s Egmont overture made an indelible impression, turning the enthusiast’s mind directly into musical channels and leading, in 1828, to his becoming a musician. Lessons proceeded apace, progress was made with harmony, counterpoint, and composition, though “ throughout by whole life,” said Wagner, “ I have never learnt to play the piano.” Following a course at the Thomas Schule and the University of Leipzig, the self-willed student, impatient of theory, advanced mostly by his own efforts. his practical experience as a chorus master and conductor-, and by his increasing knowledge of music and musicians. The compositions of this period may be passed over, though a symphony deserves mention, as it was given a hearing at a Gewandhaus concert in 1833. The operas Die Hoehzeit, Die Feen, and Das Liebesverbot—not ve ry successful—form . only stepping stones to the great man’s reputation. In 1836 Wagner married Minna Planer, the tragedy actress—a not very sympathetic partner for one of so vital a temperament. A second' marriage took place four years after Minna’s death, to Cosima von Bulow, the daughter of Liszt, who with their son Siegfried survives to the present day. Rienzi, Wagner’s first important opera, written at Riga in the style of Meyerbeer, was designed to please the Parisians by its grandeur, brilliance, beautiful scenery, tragic and heroic situations and bright music. But Pans had no welcome for the mystifying, dramatic fabric of Wagner. When Tannhauser was produced in Paris in 1860 _ the composer met with organised opposition from factious parties, whose violence brought his schemes to disaster. The Flying Dutchman was suggested by Wagner’s stormy sea journey from Riga to Boulogne, which brought to Ins mind the old legend of the Dutch mariner, who, for uttering an oath in anger, was doomed to sail the ocean until the Day of Judgment. The wanderer, allowed to go ashore once in seven years, was to be released from his doom if he could find a woman who would love him faithfully. The Dutchman, meeting with little success at first, came into its own as the composer’s reputation grew. In Tannhauser (based on German legend) Wagner began to reveal his ideas of opera reform, which he carried still further in Lohengrin, the beautiful idyllic drama that pleases the music lover who may be unable to follow the composer in his highest flights. These enthralling works were written in a state of burning exaltation; their author dreaded lest he should die before they could be completed. The composer was worshipped by a section, though not undef-stood. Bizet complained that the bourgeois, for whom h- had written “ Carmen,” bad not understood “ a blessed word of it.” After the production of “ Tannhauser ” Wagner uttered a similar cry. “ Not wounded vanity,” he said, describing his sensations, “ but the shock of an utter disillusionment, chilled my very marrow. It became clear to me that my “ Tannhauser ” had appealed to a handful of intimate friends alone, and not to the heart of a public to whom, nevertheless, I had instinctively turned in the production of this my work.” A period of fourteen years followed, in which Wagner, an exile for active sympathy with political schemes of a revolutionary character, wrote theoretical ami critical essays and other prose volumes devoted to the exposition of his views and

aspirations regarding the drama and operatic reforms, the Intention being to induce the public to understand and participate in his aims as an artist. His association with political disturbances was due to a hope that a re-establishment of the social basis would facilitate a musical and theatrical advance and enthrone the theatre as the centre of culture. Works on the greatest scale yet conceived then followed, including ‘‘The Nibelung’s Ring,” consisting of a PrologueRheingold, followed by three parts, each a complete opera, entitled “ The Valkyrie,” “ Siegfried,” and “ The Dusk of the Gods.” “ The Mastersingers a glorious comic opera—“ Tristan and Isolde,” with “ Parsifal,” a semi-religious festival which awes the spectator with its intense human interest and profound solemnity, close the list of Wagner’s most wonderfully romantic works, creations without parallel in their tremendous scope and finish of detail. With the help of Ludwig 11, King of Batavia, Wagner was rescued from pressing financial difficulties, the endless perplexity of securing good performances, and enabled to devote himself to these latter works. A dream of his life was the erection of an opera house fully equipped for the perfect production of his works. Bayreuth was the result. Here Wagner’s works were given oh a scale of magnificence impossible elsewhere at the time. His invaluable friend, Liszt, did much to increase the master’s fame, and the performances gathered supporters from all parts of the world. Like all great reformers, Wagner had to contend with an amazing whirl of public and private abuse. He was subject to wilful misrepresentation and calumny of a type only experienced on the Continent. “It was like having to walk against the wind with sand and grit and foul odours blowing in one’s face.” The composer died suddenly in Venice on February 13, 1883, and war buried in the garden of his villa, Wahnfried, at Bayreuth; Following the pioneer opera reformer Gluck, Wagner broke from the hard and fast rules of operatic composition and stereotyped, inadequate performance. He conceived the drama as an artistic unity, avoided set-arias, conventional ensembles, and equalised the value and importance oi the plot, acting, staging, music, orchestration, and song. The drama itself was the paramount thing. He wrote his librettos, designed all stage effects, and detailed every minute feature of the performance. Wagner’s use of leit-motif or guiding theme, serves the purpose of imparting symbolic meaning to his music, and of establishing a formal framework for his musical construction _ These pithy personifications, descriptive of the persons of the drama, follow each reference to the characters as they appear or become in any way prominent. The short melodic phrases embody specific meanings; an illuminative ’ symbolism charged with emotional force, they reveal an inner significance, and form the foundation of the musica] structure. They combine and intertwine, change, grow and develop like the tissue of a living organism. To the orchestra entrusted with this labyrinthine texture, a potency and range of expression hitherto unknown, is given. In place of conventional aria, Wagner adopted a heightened form of speech, a kind of recitative or musical declamation with modulations—-inflexions directly expressive of the poetic value of the text. The idea of a fully worked-out German art, thoroughly national and comprehensive, was the composer’s great aim. The tremendous force of Wagner’s personality is at times overwhelming. Criticism of his life and art must acknowledge his unique powers in his own domain. By strength of character he fought his way. In his expression of emotion he fascinates, but at times becomes too imperious. He exploits his resources to the full. His multitudonous effects of stage craft are as absorbing as the music itselt. The orchestration of his scores .might occupy the mind’s attention alone. His luxurious style ranges from secret and subtle inuendoes to emotional convulsions of terrific violence. He is inclined to outrun the limits of the senses in his magnificence. deluging the listener with interests, forgetting the need of rest in the midst of activity, and leaving too little to the imagination. • But this towering giant among the great music makers has moved opera from a mere social entertainment to an art achievement of supreme excellence. No composer of note has been able to resist his influence; no operatic works have since appeared’ to cloud the glory of his vast creations. If the art idea were lost to Europe after the break-up of the Middle Ages. Wagner has done more than any other artist to restore thq conception essential to the production of original expres sions of beauty that, having the quality of permanence, are valid for all time.