Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Wagner by John F. Runciman
page 41 of 75 (54%)
shall come in due time. First let us note how Wagner sustains his
background and atmosphere throughout the first act. At times, when our
attention has to be concentrated on the personages on the opening stage,
the sea song theme, with its smell of the pungent, salt sea air,
disappears; then, as I have remarked, it gradually creeps in again, so
that we do not realize that it has ever been absent; or, again, as
during the conversation between Isolda and Brangaena, it breaks in
abruptly, with the roar of the seamen's voices and Kurvenal's savage
orders. It is managed with the most consummate skill. Though the tent
blots out a view of the ocean, yet the mast and bellying sail (which
ought to be visible), and the miraculous music, preserve an ever-present
sense of the sea, and in that atmosphere of keen freshness and ozone the
characters begin to work out their destiny. To understand Wagner's real
greatness and the personal quality that differentiates his art from the
art of all other musicians, let us try to realize what this means. Weber
and Mendelssohn had written picturesque music; they gave us landscapes,
the rolling sea, black woods, moaning winds; and having done that, they
were satisfied. But where they left off Wagner began; their completed
picture was for him nothing more than a background. Against it he placed
his characters, with their different thoughts and emotions fully
expressed. Now, in music you cannot express two or more conflicting
emotions, even if you have two themes, each of which shows its own
emotion when played separately, and set them going together. However
many parts a piece of music may be written in, it is the mass of tone
reaching our ears, it is the _ensemble_, that makes the effect. It is
obvious, then, that when Wagner puts a shrieking female on the deck of a
ship which is shouldering its way through a gently-rolling sea, the same
music must serve for the lady and the sea: it must suggest the sea and
express the lady's emotions. He could not give picturesque music to the
orchestra and let the female indulge in real screams, or even musical
DigitalOcean Referral Badge