St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-12
A RARE EVENT.

RARE EVENT.
Lovers of music, and particularly Of
the Wagner operas, have enjoyed the
opportunity of their lives during the
past week. Never have these mighty
products of a great genius been pro-
duced in st. Paul .they have by the
Damrosch company; and ii is a part of
the characteristic hold which they lay
upon their admirers that instead of
stating with age they seem to reveal
new beauties and deeper and more
varied meaning each time that they are
placed upon the stage. The great or
chestra that Mr.. Damrosch brought to
the Northwest. as well as his company
of famous singers, have rendered the
music Of Wagner as it should be, to
immense audiences, whose bursts of
enthusiasm were really but a weak
indication of all that they felt It has
to live over in imagination, as food at
once for the mental, the intellectual
and the spiritual element in man.
1t seems strange that there could be
any controversy over the meaning and
power of the works of the mighty COM
poser. 1t is surely case for cathol-
lefty of opinion, of which there has been
too little on both sides. If one has no
taste for Wagner, though enjoying
music of different school, why insist
that he become a proselyte? If one
find in the Wagnerian method that
which Satisfies why insist that it is
mere noise-making, not music? Time
and the test of taste will determine
But to any one who has felt the strong
sway of the master there will be no
question Of his Immortality For it is
characteristic Of him above all else
that he appeals to the whole of human
nature. Like Shakespeare, the emo
lions, the passions that he represents
are primal, volcanic, unframed and I'M
modified by convention. He uses tones
not for the mere purpose Of producing
pleasure by Utilization of the auditory
nerve, but to convey general impress
sions and abstract ideas. One of his
great operas is a study in humanity
and it's motives.
More basic even than this is his ap-
peal to the human aspiration. Often
the incidents are rude, and the shad-
owS that lie about them somber. But
40 .far. h.ay,1
root of the matter. Battle and murder
and sudden death, suffering and loss
and betrayal, which form a climax to
ordinary action, are mere incidents
here. Above and beyond all is the
titanic struggle between truth and
falsehood, between good and evil: the
dominant note in a vast universe of
clashing yet ordered sound To speak
this language, understood of the spirit
to the people of all races and lands. to
make it plain even in the midst of a.
violation OF the accustomed, to employ
harmony and even dissonance to ex-
press an idea that flies as straight to
its mark as the printed word, to play
upon the human soul as only a few
of all the untold millions of men have
been able to do, to give to each ac-
cording to his capacity, so that one
catches merely the flotsam of wave Of
sound where another hears the rhythm
of the stars singing together when all
the sons-of God shouted for joy-this
is to be genius, creator, artist supreme.
1t is what the Wagner operas mean to
multitude Of people whom they have
awakened, through unknown harmonies
of tone, to forgotten or unrealized har-
monies of life.