Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" Part 2

[Footnote 13: Those who are interested in the subject will find some admirable observations in Lessing's _Hamburger Dramaturgie_, 11tes. and 12tes. Stuck, where the critic compares the ghost of Ninus in Voltaire's _Semiramis_ with the ghost in _Hamlet_. He condemns the former because it is nothing more than a poetical machine, while Shakespeare's is one of the persons of the drama. His position is essentially the same as Wagner's.]

The loose construction of the Italian opera has at least one advantage; it can be trimmed to suit the local exigencies of performance. With the new drama this was impossible. Wagner's insistent refusal to permit any mutilation of his work always appeared to Intendants and Impresarii who were anxious to meet him halfway like monstrous egotism. What Rossini and Meyerbeer had always consented to without the smallest hesitation might, they thought, content a Richard Wagner. The reports of the Intendants to their respective Governments, of Luttichau in the forties, of Royer in Paris in 1861, show how far the authorities were from understanding the nature either of the work which they were undertaking or of the man with whom they had to deal.

Rossini and Meyerbeer had never had any other aim than their own personal success; with Wagner the integrity of his art was far above all personal considerations. On this point no concession on the composer's side was possible. You may take five shillings out of a sovereign and there still remain fifteen shillings, but if you take a wheel from a watch the whole mechanism is destroyed; it was just this that distinguished his productions from operas, and in conceding the principle that they might be trimmed he would have surrendered everything.

It might seem superfluous to have dwelt so long upon a point which, when clearly laid out, can scarcely be controverted, were it not that it has been continually misunderstood, not only by nearly everybody at the present day, but even by critics of the rank of Gluck, Goethe, and Grillparzer. To speak either of music as enforcing the words or of the words as forming a basis for musical expression is to place one of them--in the former case music, in the latter the words--in an inferior position towards the other, whereas they are organic parts of the whole, and co-equals. Wherever either principle is adopted it will result in that very looseness of construction which is the vital infirmity of the Italian opera. And the poetry will be of the kind fashionable with some literary people under the name "lines for music," the principle of which seems to be Voltaire's: _Ce qui est trop sot pour etre dit, on le chante_. Once the principle of organic unity is conceded as the first and most vital condition of a work of art, the rest of Wagner's doctrine follows directly. The governing whole is the drama, the thing to be enacted in its actual representation on the stage, and the different elements, gesture, music, words, are the instruments of its expression, to be so co-ordinated together that each shall express just that which it alone is able to express and no more. The first outcome of the union when rightly and skilfully effected is to impart the one quality which is the final and only aim of all artistic technique--clearness of expression. The new drama can represent not only higher ideas, but can express them more intelligibly than that which uses words alone.

It will now perhaps be asked why these three particular arts and no others have been selected for dramatic purposes. Because they are the three ways in which all living beings utter their thoughts. They have belonged together from the beginning, and still do so; they have parted company for a time, but have never been divorced.

Before considering this it will be well for me to explain some terms which I shall have to use in the following. Poetry has commonly been divided into "lyric", "epic," and "dramatic"; these terms answer to three different phases of expression. Lyric poetry is the purely subjective emotion of the poet uttering itself in words. Epic poetry on the other hand deals with things and people external to the poet.

The drama is, as we have seen, not poetry at all; the actors perform the acts themselves, using words only to explain the reasons for their acts; dramatic poetry therefore involves both lyric and epic elements.

The most primitive, most natural, and simplest means by which a living being can utter itself is gesture--action. It is not necessary to speculate on prehistoric conditions. We need only observe the world around us, the behaviour of our friends and acquaintances, particularly those of South-European blood, to recognize how direct and eloquent is the expression of gesture. On the stage a simple series of dramatic actions can be fully represented by gesture and scenery alone with a very high intensity of emotional expression.

All movement in nature is rhythmic. I need not trouble my readers with the evidences of a fact which is well known in science, but will refer them to the lucid demonstration in Herbert Spencer's _First Principles_, Pt. II., ch. 10.

Rhythmic gesture then, or dancing, is the most primitive art, and it is purely lyric, i.e. subjective. It is very important to bear this fact of dancing, of which acting is only a species, as the primitive form of art before our minds. It is common to men and animals. I have often wondered whether the extraordinary development of Wagner's histrionic faculty did not stand in some mysterious relation to the close sympathy which existed between him and that most consummate of all actors--the dog.

The vital activity of the throat and vocal cords becomes sound; song may therefore be considered as a peculiarly specialized form of gesture, but with the radical difference that as a vehicle of expression it addresses the ear, not the eye. The fact that it enters the brain through a different channel gives the art of sound an entirely different character from that of gesture proper; moreover, from being in time only, not in s.p.a.ce, it is apprehended more immediately by the inner sense, and the impression received is more intimate, more forcible. Still it retains the same lyric or subjective character.

It was, I believe, Lord Monboddo who first observed that inarticulate sound, music in its most primitive form, is the earliest form of utterance, and is prior to language. Lord Monboddo's researches into the origin and progress of language (1773) were valued so highly by Herder that they were at his instance translated into German. The conclusion at which he arrived, that the most primitive form of utterance is not language but music, that language grew out of song just as the art of writing grew out of picture-painting, is especially valuable from the fact that it was afterwards adopted by Charles Darwin.[14]

[Footnote 14: Descent of Man, Pt. III., ch. 19. The whole of that part of the chapter may be read in this connection. Unfortunately, the speculations are somewhat vitiated by the _idee fixe_ of modern science that everything must be referred to "courtship." i.e.

s.e.xuality.]

The "music" which Darwin and Lord Monboddo conceive as the vocal expression of primitive man is of course not the highly-wrought product which we now understand under that term; we may suppose it to have been _rhythmic_ but not _metric_. It was nearer to the cries of wild animals, and to some it may seem at first absurd to describe such sounds as music at all. I do not think so; on the contrary I find in the cries of some animals and many birds all the essential qualities of music. They have tone, rhythm, cadence, in a very high degree, and also melody, though vague and rudimentary. The essential difference between melody and mere succession of sounds consists in its being intelligible, that is, in its conforming to a scale or musical scheme of some sort, but that scale is not necessarily the one recognized in modern music. Our ears are so accustomed to a.s.sociate melody with a certain diatonic scale, and with accompanying harmony, actual or potential, that it is very difficult for us to comprehend as melody successions which do not conform to that scheme, as, for example, the melodies of Oriental nations, the scales of which are far more complex and difficult to understand than ours. It is a very remarkable fact that while the course of evolution is generally from simpler to more complex organisms, that of the musical scale is just the reverse. Primitive scales are highly complex, and involve intervals not appreciable by us as melody; with time they gradually become simpler; and in the diatonic scale, especially in its most modern developments, where the distinction between major and minor tends to become effaced,[15] we seem to have reached the limit, and the scale is reduced to the simplest possible numerical relations. However this may be, I know that to a person who has lived in close converse with nature and possesses a musical ear the cries of wild animals and birds are full of melody in the strict sense, though it is rudimentary and different from that of our concert-rooms. And it is reasonable to suppose that man, when he first emerged with far more highly organized faculties than any beast, would gradually raise his musical expression into something higher, something more melodious, than that of other creatures. Particularly as his reason developed he would devise a scale; the rhythms would become more definite and at the same time more varied and complex. The result of these improvements would be to make his utterances more intelligible.

[Footnote 15: Such is the deduction which I draw from recent theories of harmony. See in this connection _Neue musikatische Theorien und Phantasien_ (Stuttgart, 1906), -- 40. Also Louis and Thuille, _Harmonielehre_ (1908), especially Pt. I., ch. 6. The idea can be traced back to Hauptmann.]

Helmholtz has observed that there is much more in a musical sound than its mere _timbre_, and Wagner has noticed how every musical instrument has not only its vowel sound, or _timbre_, but also its peculiar consonant. We need not go so far as to connect the flute with an "f," the trumpet with a "t," etc., since the instrumental consonants need not conform exactly with those of the alphabet; it is enough that each instrument has its own characteristic way of attacking the tone. So we gain the idea of articulation; the point of its entry into the musical expression marks the beginning of _language_.

Hitherto the expression has been, as we have seen, purely lyric; the lower animals have no other. But as man rises out of his b.e.s.t.i.a.l condition and acquires reason his wants become more numerous and diverse. The mere expression of his inner feelings no longer suffices; he differentiates objects in the external world, and needs sounds--names--to express them. For this he utilizes the newly developed faculty of language. It is the most momentous crisis of his development, the point where he becomes a human being, severed by a wide gap from other animals, and incomparably above them. The mark of language has from the first rightly been made the _crux_ of the theory of the evolution of man; it is the natural inevitable outcome of his developing the faculty of reason. Thus the need for communicating the perceptions of external objects calls forth _epic_ expression.[16]

[Footnote 16: "Auf das was vor mir steht zeige ich; was in mir vorgeht drucke ich durch Tone und Gebehrden aus; was aber abwesend oder einst geschah bedarf, wenn es vernehmlich werden soll einer zusammenhangend geordneten Rede. So ward das Epos."--Herder, _Kalligone_.]

We may now lay down a scheme of the three fundamental vehicles of human expression based on their historical development. We have

_Emotional or subjective:_ Gesture--obvious and material.

Music--warmer, deeper, and more spiritual.

_Rational or objective:_ Language.

But a warning must be added against pressing this cla.s.sification unduly. All schemes of nature are only approximate; there are no such sharply divided compartments into which our notions may be pigeon-holed. Language may of course be intensely emotional, but we may notice that just in proportion as it becomes emotional it calls in the aid of music; the voice becomes melodious, it develops rhythm, accent, cadence, and ultimately becomes poetry, which is language united with a large element of music.

Students of economic science have of recent years given attention to ethnology, and their researches into the origin and primitive characteristics of labour have brought to light some facts which are very interesting to us. The familiar distinction between _work_ and _play_ has no root in nature. Animals do not look upon their labours as a painful task, only to be endured for a time and then to be rewarded by an interval of diversion; to the horse or the dog the day's work is the day's treat; and so with those men whom we contemptuously call "savages." It is the same with artists; no artist has mastered the technique of his work until it has become a pleasure and a plaything to him. There could not be a more significant comment on the unnaturalness of a civilization in which periods of leisure for the workman have to be wrung from the community by legislation. The true workman, like the true artist, is never happy unless he is at work; he needs no diversion.

Of the greatest interest to us are the results of the inquiries of economists into the relations between work, rhythm, and song amongst primitive people. Especially valuable is a treatise by Dr. Karl Bucher, professor of national economy in Leipzig, ent.i.tled _Arbeit und Rhythmus_, which ought to find many readers in England if it were translated. I know few modern books that are more fascinating, and it would be hard to say whether its charm lies more in its solid scientific method or in its admirable literary presentation and apt ill.u.s.trations from the delicate verse-song of the most primitive peoples.

"_Im Anfang war der Rhythmus_." According to Dr. Bucher, all work, when efficient, tends to be rhythmic and each kind of work has its peculiar rhythm. This is especially the case when the labour is carried out in common by a number of people, and the rhythm is embodied in a song, or rhythmic word of command sung by the leader.

Innumerable instances will at once occur to everybody--rowing, hauling, marching, sewing, mowing, etc. In primitive people the impulse to sing the rhythm is even more marked than it is among ourselves, with whom the pressure of civilization helps to suppress all natural expression of feeling, and the disturbance of so many cross rhythms tends to obliterate the primary pulsations. The rhythm is an essential part of the work, and not a mere ornamental adjunct; people sing, not to "keep their spirits up," but to help on the work; until the workman has acquired the rhythm he works imperfectly, and tires very quickly. Those forms of work which do not admit rhythm, such as adding figures, copying MSS., etc., are the most fatiguing.

Still more so is labour where the natural rhythm is subject to frequent interruptions. Hence walking in the streets of a town is much more wearying than walking in the country; you have to break the rhythm at every few steps and never get the "swing." The constant interruptions of rhythm by goods in shop-windows, advertis.e.m.e.nts, etc., is, I am sure, largely the cause of nervous degeneracy in towns.

It cannot surprise us to find that amongst primitive people dancing is the most universal occupation. All dance, dance to frenzy. Originally the dance does not express joy or any other emotion; it is simply the human impulse to activity, work, the most fundamental thing in human nature. From the dance rhythm finds its way into music and poetry, both being in the beginning intended to accompany dancing. One thing is certain, that neither music nor the dance originated in s.e.xuality.

Eroticism scarcely ever occurs in the poetry of primitive peoples. It enters at a later stage.

It is not necessary to trace how, out of these primitive beginnings, there grew the ancient drama of the more civilized countries, always retaining the three elements from which it had sprung in closest union. Speaking of the Indian drama in the time of the semi-mythical Bharata, the Indian Thespis, Sir Monier Williams writes:

The drama of these early times was probably nothing more than the Indian Nautch of the present day. It was a species of rude pantomime, in which dancing and movements of the body were accompanied by mute gestures of the hands and face, or by singing and music. _Subsequently dialogue was added_....

In Greece the early lyric epoch is represented by the Paians, Dithyrambs, etc., at the festivals of Apollo and Dionysos, rhythmic dances to accompaniment of cithara or flute, with words generally improvised. Out of the Bacchic dithyrambs grew the tragedy. In the works of the great Attic tragedians the chorus, or dance-song, which had descended from earlier times still remained the princ.i.p.al feature of the representation. It was the drama that crystallized out of the music and dance, not the music that was called in to support or adorn the drama. Not until the time of Euripides did the chorus become a secondary element of the representation, and from this time on the drama begins to decline, becoming more and more a literary product.

It would be a worthy undertaking for a competent student to set himself the task of bringing order into the chaos of Wagner's theoretical writings. They are crowded with thoughts of the deepest import, which seem to point the way to further inquiry, but which remain suggestions only. The most tiresome quality in Wagner's literary style is that he scarcely ever comes to the point. Whenever he a.s.serts a rule in clear and unmistakable language, it is either brought in almost parenthetically amidst a ma.s.s of rhetoric, or--as, for example, in the dictum of music being a means to the dramatic end--he treats it with scorn, as something too obvious to be stated.

In either case its chances of gaining the reader's attention are seriously diminished by such wrong method. A student who should undertake the task of ordering his thought would need to possess, in addition to the highest musical and dramatic qualifications a metaphysical habit of mind such as is rare at the present day, and a sympathetic capacity for discerning the grains of golden truth amidst the dross. He must construct anew. Wagner's theoretical edifice will not stand as it is; it is too loosely jointed; but the materials are valuable. That there will ever be a real science of aesthetics I do not believe; art would cease to be art if it lost its mystery. For the present at least we must be content to remain in darkness as to the precise conditions of musical expression, and eschew theory. That music does reveal the nature of things in a way different from words can scarcely be questioned. So, too, does all nature through its silent music reveal more than meets the senses. But we cannot say exactly how or why. Enough that the divine reason whereby the world is fashioned is not the same as our human reason, and will not be forced into its forms.

NOTES

I

LUDWIG II. AND WAGNER

Although I have no intention of defending the extravagances of the Wittelsbach kings and may say at once that my sympathies are entirely with the patriotic citizens of Munich who in 1865 succeeded in turning Wagner out of a position which he ought never to have held, it is only fair to point out that even from the standpoint of material gain the lavish expenditure of those art-loving princes has proved a splendid investment, of which the results may now be seen. What is it that has enabled Munich to double its population in about twenty years and has raised it from being a rather sleepy old-fashioned German town to its present flourishing condition and made it the most delightful capital in Europe, a meeting-place for the cultured of every country of Europe and America? What else but the art-collections and musical performances? Had Wagner then succeeded in founding his art-school and theatre, with Semper, the builder of Dresden, as his architect, and his own supreme mind directing the whole, who can say what the result might have been?

II

PLATO AS AN ART-CRITIC

I ought to say here that I find nothing more admirable in Plato than his criticism of poetry, and I cannot understand the difficulties which scholars find in his treatment of artists in the _Republic_ and elsewhere. After all, scholars have as a rule little experience of any art that lies outside the narrow range of their own studies.

Plato's remarks appear to me the perfection of common sense. Would any sane statesman, when devising such a revolutionary political scheme as is contemplated in the _Republic_, not take the opportunity of putting a bridle upon the mischievous vapourings of political poets, reformers, dreamers, schemers, _et hoc genus omne_? It should never be forgotten that the poet with the attractive fascination which he possesses in his art is an enormous power in society, all the more dangerous because his power is so subtle, and his doctrines not in themselves untrue. Can it be doubted that our own Byrons and Sh.e.l.leys, with their frothy extravagances about freedom, have largely contributed both to the socialism and to the libertinism with which the politics of every nation in Europe are now infected? Even the great Schiller was led astray by the false watchwords of his time, and highly as I revere Goethe I cannot deny that the sensuality of his poetry has had a most baneful influence upon modern Germany. Many more might be named, and the subject is well worthy of fuller treatment.

With regard to Schiller, however, it ought to be explained that "freedom" at that time in Germany meant only one thing, freedom from the foreign tyrant--Napoleon.

Remember that it is not all poets whom Plato wishes to banish, not those who feel the responsibility of their high calling, but only a certain cla.s.s. Nowadays poets do not slander the G.o.ds; it is not worth their while, because n.o.body believes in the G.o.ds. They have other ways of undermining society. Plato everywhere shows an unerring feeling for art. Aristotle is a recorder and cla.s.sifier, but no critic.

CHAPTER IV

THE ROOTS OF GERMAN MUSIC

Dr. Milman, in his great _History of Christianity_, observes that no religious revolution has ever been successful which has commenced with the Government. Such revolutions have ever begun in the middle or lower orders of society. The same is true of other branches of the intellectual life of man. Neither Governments nor academies and schools can ever originate anything new in art, politics, language.

All growth springs from the unsophisticated ma.s.ses; growth is organic, from below. The blossom must fade, and the seed fall to the earth before it can bring forth new life. Academical training concerns itself with the models of the past; its useful work consists in criticizing, purifying, directing the raw material into something higher, better, more useful than it was in the rough, as the gardener produces new and better varieties; but it can no more originate than the gardener can create new plants; and in perfecting it often emasculates.

The reason why the Elizabethan drama is so infinitely more impressive than the technically more perfect drama of the Restoration is that it is steeped in nature and reality, whereas the later stage represents men and women under the fashionable conventions of polite society.

"The people" indeed includes high as well as low, but none but the very strongest natures--a Shakespeare, a Beethoven, a Goethe--can endure the stress of Court favour. Where the national nourishment from below is deficient, an elegant artificial semblance may indeed be forced; but it is felt to be wanting in root and to lack that spontaneity and universality which are the very life's breath of all true art and specially mark the art of the people.

In England culture has severed itself entirely from popular life. The very word "popular," unlike the German _volksthumlich_, carries the notion of vulgarity. Yet the lower cla.s.ses among themselves are never vulgar; they only become so when they copy the manners of those above them, and their poetry is the very reverse of what we understand by that word. The _Volkslied_ exhales the very perfume of nature.

It may be uncouth, harsh, weather-beaten, but the perfume remains, and it is never offensive like the modern music-hall song, which is the _Volkslied_ of a cla.s.s that tries to ape its social superiors.