The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1895-11-15
NORDAu AND WAGNER.


so'nc private letters, in which b
speaks Of tho king If Bavaria a
more than brother, moro thai
friend. more than wife, and from
some Of his queer ha women :
dressing gowns of fabulous price
rooms fitted up rs boudoirs-ther,
IL much reason TO suspect that b,
was sexual psychopathic. hav,
shown in my "Homme de Genie
that he seems in many of his letter,
not only mad, but imbecile II i,
true. too, that he often repeats the
same concept; that no is often OBJ
scurc and contradictory; that he de
lights in plays upon words; that,
like the mattoids. he under lines the
words which seem to him the most
important in his works; that when
he wrote judaism In Music" he
had q sort of delirium of persecution
against the Jews. And certainly
Wagner's musical libretti, which his
fanatics admire as wells Of philoso-
ply, are incomplete even silly, and
their verses are horrible But that
detracts nothing from the merit Of
the musician. The Intervening Of
even Shakespeare's dramas is often
puerile, worthy of puppet shows
and street players. but the immense
treasure of psychology stored in
them does not on this account lose
thousandth part Of its value. We
smile at the general slaughter which
puts an end to the last scene, but
we close the book enthusiastic over
the infinite power Of the genius
which fathoms the human soul down
to its giddiest depths. What mat
tiers to US the philosophy which he
has chosen to employ?
So we must regard Wagner as a
great musician only and not as a
poet or q philosopher. His music is
q great creation, and this suffices-
a great creation. not because of the
ideas which it tries to represent, but
because it expresses, with extraor-
binary power. one of the most uni
versal sentiments. Even the most
positive man has very strong in
to embellish bygone ages
in his imagination with all those
lowers lacking in his own time.
Seeing them from afar, he does not
perceive all those innumerable vul-
yarities OF life which make our ex-
silence so tedious, and he thinks
hat men must have been happier.
Not otherwise, perhaps. arose the
widely diffused legends of the golden
'ee. Wagner has done no more than
'olor this illusion WILDLY. He is
'nly the musician Of this universal
which he has been able
o make objective, in forms precise
md not evanescent. As to the accu.
alton that Wagner is incapable of
renting symmetrical melodies and
hat he covered counterpart with ]
idicule and avoided all burdensome
abor; that he invented the theory :
( the leitmotiv because he was not !
BILE to differentiate the personages ,
his operas by giving to his music 8
alient Observation-Disclosures accu. !
atoms vanish merely at the names !
( his operas ohengrin, die
(eistersinger." etc.
Nordau pronounces atavistic, and
herefore diseased. not only the CO.
peration Of the various arts which 7
Wagner dreamed of, bat also the
ncomplete melody and the natural {
of the Wagnerian person ]
ges. As to the first point, be it OBJ 6
srved that Wagner tended not to {
bscure the specific characteristics q
the various arts in order to fuse {
,em into one art, but to make G
lem work together, each with ito ]
roper means, In the musical drama. !
hence We perceive the distance I
hich separates this ideal (Which I
pes not in its unity exclude diver. q
ty) from that featureless Jelly"
ito which, according TO Nordau,
'agner would reduce melodrama.
As to the unsymmetrical melody,
zen though Spenoer's hypothesis ]
8 admitted, that primitive song {
as merely q discourse moro ami.
latod than usual, Il does not follow .
lat the artistic attempt to make the {
ctor sing as naturally a. possible.
18th the greatest conformity to the 9
,xt. Is an atavistic retrogression-
till less II we bear in mind the {
,arvelous ooncomitant development ]
{ the Wagnerian orchestra. We are
'illing to conoede that the recita-
I've Of Wagner, as IL 10 constituted,
svives primitive vocal music. but
nat does not touch the slow artistic
rocess which was necessary for IN.
and using witch an art !
tito purpose al! the natural rels.
ions between the sung and the
poken words. -" Nordau's 'Degen.
Its Value and It's Errors"