I have got so unaccustomed to judging in an objective sense that
in everything I go entirely by inclination. I take up only what
attracts my sympathy, and enjoy it, without in the least
analysing that enjoyment in a critical manner. Imagine then the
contradictions which the very choice of the poem necessarily
roused within me. It is more or less a didactic poem. In it
speaks to us a philosopher who has finally returned to art, and
does so with the greatest possible emphasis of resolution;--in
brief Schiller to the life! Besides this, a chorus for a concert!
I have no longer any feeling for that kind of thing, and could
not produce it at any price. I should not know where to take my
inspiration. One other thing: my musical position towards verse
and metre has undergone an enormous change. I could not at any
price write a melody to Schiller's verses, which are entirely
intended for reading. These verses must be treated musically in a
certain arbitrary manner, and that arbitrary manner, as it does
not bring about a real flow of melody, leads us to harmonic
excesses and violent efforts to produce artificial wavelets in
the unmelodic fountain. I have experienced all this myself, and
in my present state of development have arrived at an entirely
different form of treatment. Consider, for instance, that the
ENTIRE instrumental introduction to the "Rhinegold" is based upon
the common chord of E flat. Imagine then how sensitive I am in
these matters and how startled I was when, on opening your
"Kunstler," I hit upon the exact contrary of my PRESENT system. I
do not deny that I shook my head while going on, and that
stupidly I observed in the first instance only the things which
startled me--I mean details, always details. At the same time,
there was something in these details which seemed to strike me in
spite of my unsympathetic mood. At the close I reflected and