Beethoven, a character study Part 13

[H] Mr. Ellis's translation.

An evidence of Wagner's overpowering genius exists in the originality and unique character of his work, while giving himself up so unreservedly to this spiritual guidance. The two, however, were quite unlike in many respects. Neither could have done the work of the other.

Beethoven, almost a failure in operatic composition, undertook it no more after one trial, while Wagner was irresistibly drawn to this style from the beginning. He felt that with Beethoven the last word had been said in pure instrumental music, while his literary talents also served to draw him into this field of operatic composition where they could find their proper outlet. With that unerring poetic sense which guided him in the selection of his subjects, he always has the romantic element to the fore. The atmosphere of romanticism which invests all his works, is what gives them much of their value. Through the force and purity of his literary instinct, he was enabled to select topics of supreme interest, so that his imagination was kept at white heat while composing. His originality and absolute confidence in himself prevented him from following Beethoven to any marked extent. He was forced to hew out a new path for himself. He was, however, not averse to occasionally taking a hint from him when it would serve his purpose. It is the prerogative of genius to take its material wherever it can be found.

"Plato," said Emerson, "plays sad havoc with our originalities."

Beethoven's influence is plainly discernible in the preludes and overtures of the Wagner dramas, which are symphonic throughout. The frequent use Wagner makes of the trombones, when he wishes to be particularly impressive, recalls Beethoven. Each had a high opinion of the trombone where solemnity was required, and made constant use of it.

Beethoven applied it with peculiar effect in the Benedictus of the Ma.s.s in D, and in the Ninth Symphony, which is paralleled by Wagner's use of it in Parsifal, and in the Funeral march in Siegfried. The extraordinary uses to which he puts the pedal-point, as well as the variation form, are instances which show the influence of the older master.

When, however, he takes an idea from Beethoven, he improves on it, broadening and amplifying it, in general putting it to a better use than it was where he found it. A great dramatic work admits of fuller and longer treatment of an idea than is possible in the other forms in which music can be embodied. The instances just quoted are minor ones of general application. Of the conceptions in which he is specially indebted to Beethoven, the most important come from the Ma.s.s in D. Here the older master, by the very form in which the ideas are cast, had to hold himself in. He was not able to give them the significance in the Ma.s.s, which is perfectly proper in great music dramas; and this enlarging and widening of the poetic conception,--this splendor in which it is portrayed,--not only justifies the course of his follower in adopting it, but also calls attention anew to the commanding genius to whom such things are possible.

Some of Wagner's most entrancing effects have their origin in Beethoven.

His method of using the violins and flutes in the highest register in prolonged notes, as in the Lohengrin Prelude, and in general when portraying celestial music, are obtained from this source. The Ma.s.s in D gives several instances where this idea is presented, not by harp (the customary way), but as Wagner has done in Lohengrin, by the violins and wood-winds in the highest register, beginning pianissimo, gradually descending and augmenting in volume and sonority as the picturing merges from spiritual to worldly concerns. Beethoven's work abounds in intellectual subtleties of this kind. Wagner is sometimes credited with having originated this method for the portrayal of celestial music. Mr.

Louis C. Elson says: "Wagner, alone, of all the great masters, does not use the harp for celestial tone coloring, but violins and wood-winds, in prolonged notes in the highest positions. Schumann, Berlioz, Saint-Saens, in fact all the modern tone colorists who have given celestial pictures, use the harp in them, purely because of the a.s.sociation of ideas which come to us from the Scriptures, and this a.s.sociation of the harp with heaven and the angels, only came about because the instrument was the most developed possessed by man at the time the sacred book was written. Wagner's tone coloring is intrinsically the more ecstatic.... Wagner is the first who has broken through this harp conventionality."

In the Wagner-Liszt correspondence, Wagner states that the Lohengrin Prelude typifies choirs of angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth. This idea and the method of its development can be found in the symphonic thought which follows the Preludium to the Benedictus of the Beethoven Ma.s.s.

It will be necessary to make a short digression and explain a portion of the canon of the Ma.s.s to enable the reader to understand what follows.

During the office of the Eucharist the celebrant repeats certain prayers inaudible to the congregation. These begin during the latter part of the Sanctus, which immediately precedes the Benedictus, and are connected with the ceremony of the consecration of the Host. A part of them are conducted in absolute silence. The choir is not required to be silent during all the prayers said by the celebrant, and the occasion is frequently utilized, particularly at high festivals, by the introduction of orchestral music or a brilliant chorus. The choir is silent during the elevation of the Host and chalice, which takes place immediately after the consecration. It is a period of peculiar solemnity, the congregation kneeling in silent prayer at the signal of a gong. After the consecration the priest elevates the Host and chalice, and with the people still kneeling, offers up a prayer silently, the conclusion of which is as follows: "We most humbly beseech Thee, Almighty G.o.d, command these things to be carried by the hands of Thy holy angels to Thy altar on high, in the sight of Thy Divine Majesty, that as many as shall partake of the most sacred body and blood of Thy Son at this altar may be filled with every heavenly grace and blessing." The central thought of this prayer is that the sacred elements are borne to heaven by invisible hands.

In the Beethoven Ma.s.s a Preludium for orchestra is introduced, to fill in the interval while the celebrant is occupied with these silent prayers. It is an innovation, showing how thoroughly alive Beethoven was to the development of every phase of his subject. Ordinarily, no provision is made for this by the composer, the organist being permitted the privilege of interpolating hymns like the O Salutaris or the Tantum ergo. The Preludium is so timed that it ends at the conclusion of the prayer we have quoted, when the sacred elements are in heaven and are about being returned to earth. It is at this point that the symphonic thought begins, which at the first bar calls to mind celestial harmonies. Here we have the tone-figure, as in the Lohengrin Prelude, given by the violins and flutes in the highest register, beginning in faintest pianissimo. At the second bar the melody begins to descend, being augmented in force by the gradual addition of the more powerful instruments as well as voices when the elements are again on earth. The Lohengrin Prelude has the same idea, but it is developed to a greater extent, with a richer orchestration, the idea being carried to greater length, and rendered more significant in every way, as befits its dramatic character. In both cases, however, the orchestral figure is introduced by the same instruments, and in much the same manner.

The Ma.s.s in D furnishes another instance where the celestial harmonies are introduced to still better purpose than in the Benedictus. It is in that portion of the Credo, beginning with the Et incarnatus. The delicate ethereal nature of this music, as indicated by the violins and flutes in the highest positions, is so transcendental, so imbued with spirituality, as almost to evade a.n.a.lysis. By the magic of Beethoven's art the impression is conveyed that the listener overhears far-off angel voices from other spheres, when the heavens were opened for the descent of the Son of G.o.d to earth. The instruments give out the merest intimations of sound, scintillations that suggest it rather. In the opening bars of the movement, just before the introduction of this tone-figure, he uses an ancient ecclesiastical style, the Plagal, a mode that obtained centuries before Palestrina. Harsh and strident, inharmonious, are the tones, which in the opening Adagio typify the dread, the foreboding and dismay, that can be supposed to have been felt by the Son of G.o.d when the time came to give up a beatific state and enter on the actualities of earthly existence. The sin of the world is already being borne in antic.i.p.ation. Suddenly we are in the midst of celestial harmonies, delicate gradations and mergings of tones, subtleties of expression, ethereal, evanescent, that come faintly at first on the senses, giving us revelations of spiritual heights, of transcendent states and conditions of the soul. Mankind is here afforded a glimpse beyond the veil. These strains continue until the words _et h.o.m.o factus est_ (and was made man) are reached. At this point the melodies are suddenly cut off, the doors are closed, and we are excluded from further partic.i.p.ation in things not meant for mortal ears. A change of tonality and time further accentuates the changed conditions that prevail as the story goes through the events of the crucifixion, death and burial of Christ.[I]

[I] Beethoven's love of strongly defined contrasts is nowhere better ill.u.s.trated than here. The sharp discordant tones, which characterize the opening bars of the movement, are simply pushed aside by the new. It is the subjugation of the worldly by the spiritual, of suffering by happiness.

The Ma.s.s in D can be said to be the parent of some of the Parsifal music. Wagner had the discernment to seize on the intellectual subtleties he found there, and to put them to happiest uses. If we compare the instrumental effects just noted with the exquisitely delicate music that opens the Parsifal Prelude after the introductory _leit motif_, we find a solution to each, as well as an affinity, in the religious mysticism in which each is enveloped. There is a central theme, but so shadowy and unreal as to be hardly apparent. Like a nimbus these shimmerings of sound from the violins surround and permeate it, so that one is not aware of any particular melody, but rather it is perceived that the atmosphere is full of a divine melody, as if by spiritual insight the listener had attained to a state of mind akin to that of the seer, and had, for the time being, become one with the composer. The effect is produced of being in the presence of something holy.

The _Naturlangsamkeit_ necessary to the birth of any great art-work sometimes extends to its recognition and appreciation by the public.

Beethoven considered the Ma.s.s in D his greatest achievement, but it gains ground very slowly. It is rarely mentioned, and seldom performed.

Similarly Bach's greatest works slumbered nearly a century until brought to light by Mendelssohn.

It is significant that Wagner was as world-weary from middle-age on as was Beethoven. Like him he took refuge in creative work. Both were pioneers, always in advance of their time, cheerfully making the sacrifices which this position entails, diverging ever more and more with advancing years from beaten paths and the ideas of others on the subject of their art. Resignation and asceticism, the goal of mankind, was Wagner's solution of the problem of existence, a conclusion arrived at after reading Schopenhauer. Beethoven had also come to it long before reaching middle-age. Wagner was, in his later years, a mystic, as was Beethoven; and like Beethoven his most congenial work in those years was of a religious character.