Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-15

Br1tennhilde Mrs. Mtelke
Die Waikuere: Act iii. Ride Of the Valkyries.
Orchestra.
Bearing in mind that "Die Walkuere" and
"Siegfried" are, respectively, the second and
the third of the four connected music
dramas forming the "Nfbelungen Ring" the
following paragraph from the Festival pro
gramme book wifi be of service as stating
briefly the gradual course of Wagners de-
velopment and the order of his works:
Half decade IN time as as well as great differ
nnd and the Yet
% products f IF wagner @ own indivdUaity1 1 from the
later and most characteristically Wagnerian music
which time wagner had become so dissatisfied
with the artistic life of the day thai he concluded
attained through general political conyusion:
and he accordingly took part in the revolution Of
leave the % country as fugitive. The rst Years Of
his exile were spent in Switzerland, and during five
himself to writing those critical and aesthetic essays
and treatises which served alike to mature his own
principles Of operate reform and and to explain them them
and reflection clearly In af his subsequent
works,in tile four dramas Of the :'Nibelungel
Ring the composition of which was interrupted
by the writing of Tristan and Isolde' and .'Die
Meistersinger," and finally in 'Parsifal,'' his
swan-song,
A Gulf to Be Always Remembered.
This gulf between the earlier and later
series VI NOThS SuOulu always Do DOTue III
mind. Great as is the superiority in dra-
matte consistency and in other points of
fThe Dutchman," ''Tannhaeuser'' and
"Lohengrin" over the operas of the prevail
ing italian school, had Wagner stopped
there much the greater part of all this war
fare for and against him would never
have been aroused. Those three operas
not music-dramas-only foreshadow the
fully developed composer-dramatist the
real Wagner; they are very widely popular
where his later and truly Characteristic
works have not penetrated; to them the
only in a modified degree Many extracts
from them are just as suitable in every
way for concert performance as are
numbers from any Of the more dramatic
"Die Meistersinger," Wagner's only comedy
opera, in which although the orchestra
tion is of the'most matured period, the histo-
rical and satirical nature of the plot and
poetry call for an altogether different mode
Of treatment, having set pieces, ensembles,
marches, O dance, etc.
1t will at once be seen, therefore, that Mr.
Seidl has prudently chosen for this Festival
works that lie. closest to the older and bet
ter understood operate forms. The "Rhine
Journey" music last night, only the last two
numbers this evening, the "Walkuere'
finale tomorrow afternoon and the
lude and finale tomorrow night-scarcely
one-tlIird of all the Wagner numbers-com-
pleted the list of extracts from the later and
most genuinely s'Wagnerian" music-dramas.
heard IN concert and most intelligible to the
uniformed audience In sooth the rabid
anti Wagnerite can find but little in this
Festival, even from his own standpoint (if
he really knows the vast difference between
certain of the masters works. against which
to aim his Parthian darts. This is altogether
as it shouldbe. C. WIS.