John F. Runciman

“ Brünnhilda, let us always remember, stands for human love, affection—not love in the Tristan sense—but that love of which Goldsmith sang that He "loved us into being"; the love of human being for human being so strong that not for so many thousands a year as a judge, so many pitiable hundreds a year as a magistrate, immortality as an omnipotent ruler or a Wotan, will it perpetuate or permit a wrong on a human being. To win omnipotence Wotan has inflicted wrong upon wrong—wrong upon wrong on those he had created for his purpose, on those the fine part of his nature loved. ”

“ The superb vocal writing, the beauty and sheer strength of the orchestral parts, the gorgeous colouring, and the human passion blent with the sense of the green yet fiery spring, all go to make up a thing unique in opera. A tide of life rushes through it all; and the man's technical accomplishment was so fine and complete that he found immediate incisive expression for every shade of emotion, or complex blend of emotions, and every sensation. The jealous, savage ferocity of Hunding is there; Siegmund's and Sieglinda's despair, hope and final burst of ecstatic joy ”

“ At this period of his life Wagner was by no means so economical as he afterwards became; he squandered his pearls with prodigal hands. In a few pages are enough melodies and themes to set up a Puccini—or for that matter a Strauss or an Elgar—for life. The blending of the death-theme with one of the love-themes, when Isolda speaks of love's goddess, "the queen who grants unquailing hearts ... life and death she holds in her hands," is one of the miracles of music—stern beauty made up of defiance of fate and careless voluptuousness. ”

“ Never did a more fiery impetuous stream flow from any composer: never was there, in a word, more inspired music. The profusion of the material is wonderful, and even more wonderful is the concentrated quality of that material. In the Ring and Parsifal—as in Lohengrin and Tannhäuser—there are longueurs; in Tristan there are none: not a bar can be cut; there is not a bar that does not hold us. In a paradoxical mood, or irritated, by being obstinately, wilfully, stupidly regarded as one of the trade setters of opera-texts, Wagner declared to Bülow that "one thing is certain, I am not a musician." ”

“ There is nothing uncanny in the music: we have that delight in the sheer force of the elements which we inherit from our earliest ancestors: the joy of nature fiercely at work which is echoed in our hearts from time immemorial. The shrilling of the wind, the hubbub, the calls of the Valkyries to one another, the galloping of the horses, form a picture which for splendour, wild energy and wilder beauty can never be matched.
Technically, this Ride is a miracle built up of many of the conventional figurations of the older music. ”

“ The Rhinegold ends with a storm, the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder; in each Act of the Valkyrie there is a storm; the Third Act of Siegfried opens with a storm; there is one storm in the Dusk of the Gods. Wind screaming through the pines, the plash of rain, the driving of thunder-clouds—these are the pictorial inspiration of the Ring as surely as old Nuremberg is the pictorial inspiration of the Mastersingers. These Scandinavian gods are the divinities of river and wood and mountain, and Wagner made full use of them. ”

“ It is now one hundred years since Richard Wagner was born, thirty since he died. In every land he has his monument in one shape or another; his music-dramas can be heard all the world over; all the ancient controversies as to their merits or demerits have died down. The Bayreuth theatre, the outward and visible sign of his inner greatness, has risen to the point of its most splendid glory and lapsed into the limbo of tenth-rate things. ”

“ It is not wholly theatre music: that passage in the bass, galloping up and down the scale against a tremolando accompaniment, is in itself fine music; even Hunding's rough cow-horn makes a musical effect. When Wotan's fury breaks forth and he rides off in godlike wrath—even here the music is glorious, taken simply as music. Had all the Ring been done with the superb mastery of this and the preceding Act, we should have an art creation to be set above every other art achievement in the world—above anything done by Æschylus, Sophocles and Shakespeare. ”

“ I doubt whether Wagner ever again in his life had such an ethereal moment: it is sheer fervour and sweetness, unmixed with the hot human passion of Tristan or the smoky philosophies of the Ring. To wish Senta had a reasonable cause for her ecstasy of self-immolation is, of course, to wish the Dutchman were not the Dutchman. In truth, we must take the scenes as they come without inquiring too curiously; the storm music which goes with the wanderer, and the moments of glorious splendour that come to the redeeming woman, are things worth living to have written and worth living to hear. ”

“ A theme then makes its appearance in its first vague form, a theme which in one shape or another Wagner uses throughout the four operas for the elemental beings—here, the water nymphs, afterwards Erda. The mass of tone swells out; the music becomes more active; and at last the voices of the Rhinemaidens are heard. The whole of this is one of Wagner's most delightful things. It is another illustration of his rule that a composer should never leave a key as long as he can say what he wants while staying in it; for some hundreds of bars there is no change, and then only a slight one. ”

“ Eva steals out from her father's door, and at once the dramatic motive of the action deepens. We have had up to now the joy and beauty of the night, the aroma of the trees, and all the warmth of Sachs' artist's heart as he dwells on Walther's song of spring: now the human element comes in and is reflected in the music. Eva wants to know whether there is any hope for Walther or any chance of help from Sachs, and she tries to find out without fully disclosing the secret of her love. ”

“ After Wagner had completed the Ring, a work which, in regard to its gigantic size and proportions, stands without a parallel in music, he was an exhausted and beaten man. Outwardly he was a highly prosperous musician—more successful from some points of view than Mendelssohn or Meyerbeer: at least he had, without means, achieved a greater triumph than they, starting with their fathers' thousands or millions, had dreamed of. No Mendelssohn, no Meyerbeer, no Rossini, would have dreamed of gaining a king, even the king of a minor bankrupt state, as his lackey—and his generous paymaster. ”

“ That is to say, my relative at once felt the magical truthfulness of Wagner's touch: the sweet, clear air, the sunlight; and that is the atmosphere Wagner wanted to establish at the beginning of this most magical of operas. Out of the blue sky comes the Montsalvat (not necessarily the Grail) motive; it descends with ever-gathering fulness, through key after key, until at last it culminates in a tremendous climax for the brass: then comes a wondrous cadence, falling slowly, as a mountain stream falls over slabs of smooth-worn mountain rock, until we get back to the original atmosphere. ”

“ In a letter to Liszt Wagner says he would not have undertaken the toil of completing so gigantic a work as the Ring but for his love of Siegfried, his ideal of manhood. It is as well, from one point of view, that his love of his ideal was so intense, for in consequence we have the Ring; but from another point of view it is not so well, for the youth Siegfried is the least lovable, perhaps the most inane and detestable character to be found in any form of drama. He is a combination of impudence, stupidity and sheer animal strength—mere bone and sinew; his courage comes from his stupidity. ”

“ Mediæval Nuremberg, with its thousand gable-ends, its fragrant lime-trees and gardens, its ancient customs, its processions of the guilds and crafts, its watchman with his horn and lantern, calling the hour, its freshness and quaint loveliness by day and its sweetness on soft summer nights—it is these Wagner employed all his superb musico-pictorial art to depict; they are the background to the purely human element of the play, and at the same time they help to express that element. ”

“ The energy, superhuman energy, of the thing is amazing: the storm throbs in the forest: one feels the pulse of the storm-god; the sforzando shocks and shrieks add to the terrific wildness of the scene. Pitilessly, ever higher and higher, the wind shrieks, always to that beating bass, until, amid the clatter and screaming, we hear Donner, exulting in his mad strength and swinging his mighty hammer as he rides. The lightning crackles vividly in the orchestra, the thunder rolls, crashes and growls, and the thunder-god can almost be heard betaking himself off to continue his riot afar. ”

“ Happily at this time of day there is no need to try to disprove this; for when we hear the first act of Tristan the first thing to strike us must surely be its richness in melody. It teems with tunes—it is an unbroken tune from the first note of the prelude to the last chord of the act. At times we feel the terrific energy as something that might easily grow wearying to the nerves, and then comes a long song, such as Brangaena's remonstrance to Isolda, which is a sheer delight to the ear and prepares us for the next dramatic outburst. That is the first thing to strike us ”

“ Beethoven got as near to the naked truth as ever composer did in dealing with the emotions of humanity; Mozart, too, worked his miracles; Weber, non-Viennese though he was, gave us weird, fantastic pictures of fairy adventures in the darkness of grim woods, but nothing more. It was left for Wagner to give us in a few bars a picture, such as no painter could have painted, of the blue heavens on an almost unimaginably fine day. The blue sky, the thin, clear air, the sunlight, are all given us in the first few bars. ”

“ Then the Valhalla music, glorified by a gorgeous accompaniment, is heard again, only interrupted by the wail of the Rhinemaidens below, sorrowing for the loss of their pretty, harmless toy. Wotan hears the cry, and passes on to feast in his castle. Grim care goes with him; but he has the consoling idea of the free hero and the irresistible sword. So ends the Rhinegold—Fricka content to have both Wotan and Freia; the other gods not much concerned about anything; Wotan full of apprehensions and also of determination—determination to rule without paying the price of rulership. ”

“ Let me repeat that the Mastersingers is notable for the endless flow of beautiful melodies, neither broken and scrappy nor, on the other hand, approaching monotony: there is infinite variety combined with magnificent breadth; for the nobility hidden under homeliness—a characteristic most marked in Sachs' music; for miraculous colouring now pitched in a low and tender key, now blazing as in the last finale; for the picture of Nuremberg in the old time, and for the vigour and fun with which the old life is depicted. ”

“ Frederick returns to curse Ortrud and Lohengrin in the same breath; all the sweetness goes out of the music as Elsa disappears from view, and the scene closes as it opened, in gloom.
As daylight breaks Wagner indulges in one of the effects he was fond of at this period. The reveille is sounded from a turret, and an answering call comes from a distance; and the two parties trumpet it in alternation until every one is awakened. It is a quasi-musical effect only: there is no invention: the trumpet chords serve the purpose and nothing more. ”

“ The artisans march past in their holiday clothes, each guild bearing its banner; the banners wave in the bright sunlight, and there is plenty of colour as well as of bustle and gaiety; but all is homely in style—there is not a noble person in the crowd—and the thing is carried through by the vividly imagined music, the energy and sparkle of it, the positive splendour of the orchestration. The various guild-choruses are full of humour, the many ridiculous things being saved from lapsing into mere horseplay and nonsense by the endless series of beautiful tunes. ”

“ Reams of good paper and gallons of good ink have been used in writing about the musician, the composer of the most magnificent operas in the world; weeks, months, years have gone to the writing. But all the paper, all the ink, all the labour, all the mental effort and sympathy and love seem a bagatelle when we look through the bibliographies and realize how much paper, ink, effort—not always to be called mental—sympathy and love have been used up in expounding Wagner's philosophy. ”

“ The one truth which emerges and speaks unequivocally is that Richard, deeply dissatisfied with the theatre of the day, and tracing its sad degeneracy to the corrupt state of society, wished to see society upraised, not that men and women might live more happily, but that a finer, nobler theatre might flourish. The most magnificent egotist of the century, it seemed to him the prime concern of mankind that Richard Wagner's works should be understood and loved. Being an egotist also, if I may say so, on a national scale, he thought humanity could only be redeemed by German art. ”

“ At one stroke Wagner creates the atmosphere for his drama, and gives us as no other artist has ever given it a sense of the unfathomable mystery of the world and of life.
The dwarf taps away with his hammer; he longs to patch up the sword that Siegfried may kill the dragon and he, Mime, get the hoard; he bewails his weakness, but he does his best. All his labour proves useless—the sword refuses to be mended ”

“ Amidst the roar of the fire and with the divine lulling phrase, fragments of the Farewell are heard; and twice, as Wotan looks back on his daughter, we hear the Fate theme—the Scandinavian sense that this tragedy mysteriously had to be: the mighty god and lord of the universe himself knows and feels that the things preordained must happen. He goes slowly off; the central tragedy is virtually accomplished; to the end the fire blazes and sparkles, and the curtain descends on a soft chord. The revolving seasons will pass; strange events will happen in the outer world of men ”

“ The only other possible one is that self-sacrifice is a worthy and beautiful thing in itself. In itself, I say, for Senta's self-sacrifice is purely a fad: she knows nothing of Vanderdecken save a rumour shaped into a primitive ballad. Such self-sacrifice is not worthy, not beautiful; but, on the contrary, a very ugly and detestable form of lunacy. In truth, not only is there no lesson in the Dutchman, but the whole idea is so absurd that only the power of the music enables us to swallow it at all. The condition on which the Dutchman can be saved is purely arbitrary ”

“ Brünnhilda's Greeting to the sun is Wagner in the plenitude of his powers, blending music which depicts her outspread arms with human rapture in an incomparable way; Siegfried's masterful and passionate entreaties are quite in the strain of Tristan, though the Scandinavian atmosphere prevails; Brünnhilda's awe-stricken song, "O Siegfried, highest hero," interprets the birth of love in a woman's breast with, again, absolute truth; and that the man who had lately written Tristan could write such a finale is not the least astounding of Wagner's feats. ”

“ Sachs' song is merrily trolled out, but underneath its joviality we feel the greatness of the man—a man so great in character that no suits of shining armour, no heralds and no waving banners are needed to make him impressive: he remains, even while he works at his last and sings a sort of club-dinner song, the simple cobbler-poet, great by reason of his sincerity and his artist-soul. The street scrimmage is the most realistic thing of the sort ever attempted, not to say achieved. It is customary to describe the music as a fugue, and, if that is so, no more unfugue-like fugue was ever penned. ”