Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1895-11-22

boudoirs-there is much reason
to suspect that he was sexual
psychopathic. | have shown, in my
"Homme de Genie" that he seems in
many of his letters not only mad but
imbecile. 1t is true, too, that he often
repeats the same concept; that he is
often obscure and contradictory; that
he delights in plays upon words; that,
like 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 a
sort Of delirium of persecution against
the Jews. And certainly Wagner's
mire as wells uf philosophy, are incom-
plete, even silly, and their verses are
horrible. But that detracts nothing
from 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
a 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 in
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 great
musician only, and not as poet or
philosopher. His music is great crea-
ton, and this sufTices: a great creation,
not because of the ideas which it tries
to represent, but because it expresses,
with extraordinary power, one of the
most universal sentiments. Even the
most positive man has very strong
inclination to embellish bygone ages
in his imagination, with all those
flowers lacking in his own time: seeing
them from afar, he does not perceive
all those innumerable vulgarities of
life which make our existence SO tedi-
GUS; and he thinks that men must have
been happier. Not otherwise, perhaps,
arose the widely diffused legends Of the
Golden Age. Wagner done no more
than color this illusion wildly. He is
only the musician of this universal SEN
timent, which he has been able to make
objective, in forms precise and not
evanescent. AS to the accusation that
Wagner is incapable of creating sym
metrical melodies, and that he covered
counterpart with ridicu!e, and avoid
ed all burdensome labor; that he in
vented the theory of the Leitmotiv be-
cause he was not able to differentiate
lihe personages of his operas by giving
to his music salient characteristics,
these accusations vanish merely at the
names of his 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 recitative
of the Wagnerian personages. AS to
the first point, be it observed that Wag
ner 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
in its unity exclude diversity from that
"featureiess jelly" into which. accord
ing to Nordau, Wagner would reduce
melodrama. AS to the unsymmetricai
melody, even though Spencer's hypo-
thesis be admitted, that primitive song
was merely a discourse more animated
than usual. it does not follow that the
artistic attempt to make the actor sing
as naturally as possible, with the great
est conformity to the text, is an atavis-
tic 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-
citative of Wagner, as it is constituted,
revives primitive vocal music; but that
does not touch the slow artistic process
which was necessary for understanding
and using with an artistic purpose all
the natural relations between the sung
and the spoken words.