The Red Cloud chief., 1895-11-22

MTATV&y speaks Of the King
WlSJEV IL of Bavaria as
~WEM more than broth
lSzMSO or, more { h n
r9~ x friend, more than
w wife" and from
some Of his queer
habits, wcmcn's dressing -gown OF
fabulous price, rooms fitted up as
bOud0irs-there Is much reason
TO suspect that he was a sexual
~psychopathic. | have shown. In my
'Homme de Genie that he seems in
many of his letters rot only mad but
imbecile. It is true, too. that he often
repeats the same concept: that he is
bitten obscure and contradictory: that
ne delights in pays upon words; that
ike the mattoids, he underlines the
words which seem to him the most i'm
portant in his works: that. when he
wrote Judaism in Music" he had Il
sort OF delirium Of persecution against
The Jews And certainly Wagner's
musical libretti. which his fanatics add
mire as wells of philosophy. are incom-
nlete. even silly, and their verses are
horrible. But that detracts nothing
rom the merit Of the musician: the
Interviewing Of even Shakespeare's
dramas is often puerile. worthy of pup
pet shows and street players: but the
immense treasure of psychology stored
In them does not on this account lose
q th~Ousandth part Of its value. We
smile at the general slaughter which
puts an end to the last scene: but We
close tho book enthusiastic over the in
finite power of the genius which faith
oms the human soul down to its gid
diest depths. What matters to us the
philosophy which he has chosen to en-
ploy? asks Cesare Lombroso in the
Century.
So we must regard Wagner as a great
musician only. and not as a poet or a
philosopher. His music is a great crea-
lion, and this sufiices: a great creation.
not because of the ideas which it tries
to represent, but because 1t expresses.
with extraordinary power, n of the
most universal sentiments. Even The
n-ost positive man has a very strong
~ pySoii' uSN'
in his imagination. with all those
fowers lacking in his own time: seeing
them from afar. he does not perceive
- those innumerable vulgaritics of
kwhich make our existence so tcdi-
MS; and he thinks that men must have
been happier. Not othes wise, perhaps.
arose the widely diffused legends OF the
Golden Age. Wagner has acre n more
than color this illusion wildly. lie is
only the musician Of this universal sen
time1t, which he has been able TO make
objective, in forms precise and not
evancscent. As to the pc,usation that
Wagner Is incapable of creating SYM
metrical melodies. and that he covered
counterpoint with "'dicu.e. and avoid
ed all burdcnsome labor; that he in
vented the theory of the Leitmotiv be-
cause he was not able to diferentiate
the personages of his operas by giving
TO his music salient characteristics,
these accusations vanish merely at the
m OF his operas-"Lohengrin,"
die Meistersinger," etc.
NOrdau %pronounces atavistic. and
therefore diseased, not only the CO.
operation of the various arts which
Wagner dreamed OF, but also the incom-
plete melody and the natural r~ecitative
Of the Wagnerian ~personages. AS to
he first point, be 1t observed that Wag-
ncr tended not to obscure the specific
characteristics of the various arts. in
order to fuse them into one art, but to
make them work together, each with its
proper means, in the musical! drama.
Whence we perceive the distance which
separates this ideal (Which does not
n its unity exclude diversity from that
'featureless Jelly" into which, accord
ing to Nordau, Wagner would reduce
melOdrama. AS to the unsymmetrical
melody, even though Spencer's hypo-
:hesis be admitted, that primitive song
VAS merely a discourse more animated
:han usual, it does not follow that the
artistic attempt to make the actor sing
a. naturally as possible, with the great
EST conformity to the text, is an atavis-
.ic retrogression; still less, If we bear
IN mind the marvellous concomitant de-
velopment OF the Wagnerian orchestra.
We are willing TO concede that the re-
.itative of Wagner. as II Is constituted.
:evives primitive vocal music; but that
Toes not touch the SOW artistic process
which was necessary for understanding
and using with an artistic purpose all
he natural relations between the sung
and the spoken words.
N.s...l upls... Ia, vN..at.-,-