On Conducting (Üeber Das Dirigiren) : a Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music, by Richard Wagner
page 91 of 95 (95%)
page 91 of 95 (95%)
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so indispensable to good singing--but monotonously enunciated,
just as one might pronounce some arithmetical number--and then, let us endeavour to form a conclusion as to the vast difference between the master's original intention, and the impression thus produced. The dubious value of the veneration for Mozart, professed by our music-conservators, will then also appear. To show this more distinctly, let us examine a particular case--for example, the first eight bars of the second movement of Mozart's celebrated symphony in E flat. Take this beautiful theme as it appears on paper, with hardly any marks of expression--fancy it played smoothly and complacently, as the score apparently has it- -and compare the result with the manner in which a true musician would feel and sing it! How much of Mozart does the theme convey, if played, as in nine cases out of ten it is played, in a perfectly colourless and lifeless way? "Poor pen and paper music, without a shadow of soul or sense." (Eine seelenlose Schriftmusik). APPENDIX B. [See p. 62, et seq. of Wagner's "Beethoven," translated by E Dannreuther, London, 1882.] "A BEETHOVEN DAY:" Beethoven's string quartet in C sharp minor. "If we rest content to recall the tone-poem to memory, an |
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