SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
Wagner’s music
WAGNER
«SIEGFRIED»
There is nothing so thrilling as first impressions. I remember when, as a child, I heard fragments of Wagner’s music for the first time at one of old Pasdeloup’s concerts in the Cirque d’Hiver. I was taken there one dull and foggy Sunday afternoon; and as we left the yellow fog outside and entered the hall we were met by an overpowering warmth, a dazzling blaze of light, and the murmuring voice of the crowd. My eyes were blinded, I breathed with difficulty, and my limbs soon became cramped; for we sat on wooden benches, crushed in a narrow space between solid walls of human beings. But with the first note of the music all was forgotten, and one fell into a state of painful yet delicious torpor. Perhaps one’s very discomfort made the pleasure keener. Those who know the intoxication of climbing a mountain know also how closely it is associated with the discomforts of the climb–with fatigue and the blinding light of the sun, with out-of-breathness, and all the other sensations that rouse and stimulate life and make the body tingle, so that the remembrance of it all is carved indelibly on the mind. The comfort of a playhouse adds nothing to the illusion of a play; and it may even be due to the entire inconvenience of the old concert-rooms that I owe my vivid recollection of my first meeting with Wagner’s work.
How mysterious it was, and what a strange agitation it filled me with! There were new effects of orchestration, new timbres, new rhythms, and new subjects; it held the wild poetry of the far-away Middle Ages and old legends, it throbbed with the fever of our hidden sorrows and desires. I did not understand it very well. How should I? The music was taken from works quite unknown to me. It was almost impossible to seize the connection of the ideas on account of the poor acoustics of the room, the bad arrangement of the orchestra, and the unskilled players–all of which served to break up the musical design and spoil the harmony of its colouring. Passages that should have been made prominent were slurred over, and others were distorted by faulty time or want of precision. Even to-day, when our orchestras are seasoned by years of study, I should often be unable to follow Wagner’s thought throughout a whole scene if I did not happen to know the score, for the outline of a melody is often smothered by the accompaniment, and so its sentiment is lost. If we still find obscurity of meaning in Wagner’s works you can imagine how much worse it was then. But what did it matter? I used to feel myself stirred with passions that were not human: some magnetic influence seemed to thrill me with both pleasure and pain, and I felt invigorated and happy, for it brought me strength. It seemed as if my child’s heart were torn from me and the heart of a hero put in its place.
Nor was I alone in the experience. On the faces of the people round about me I saw the reflection of my own emotions. What was the meaning of it? The audience consisted chiefly of poor and commonplace people, whose faces were lined with the wear and tear of a life without interest or ideals; their minds were dull and heavy, and yet here they responded to the divine spirit of the music. There is no more impressive sight than that of thousands of people held spellbound by a melody; it is by turns sublime, grotesque, and touching.
this was: Wagner’s Music
go to next chapter: Sunday concerts
