Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1900-02-25

scorn his operas? VERY. we'll he answers;
II viii build for myself the most perfect
of opera houses in one of the most in
accessible spots of the world; i will make
the most arbitrary rules for my audiences;
Will compel them to pay four times as
much to hear my works as those of any
one else; will invite the greatest singers
and players to come to me for nothing
and will surround my self, my play house.
my very works, with an atmosphere so
superior to that OF any heretofore known
to art. that it shall be accounted a blessed
thing to visit me-a thing worthy the
greatest sacrifice-a thing to ennoble the
art lovers OF the world!''
Well, he built his temple beautiful and
in it he gave his works in a manner
never thought of by mortal before. He
invented strange times and hours for per-
formances. He made the arbitrary rules
for both performer and listener alike
but they both came at his bidding and
considered the coming an event in their
lives, and returned to their homes with
new song in their hearts and a new art
blessing on their brows.
And next to Wagner's belief in himself
as factor in his success is the dramatic
quality and bias Of his music.
Man is naturally more dramatic than
musical Wagner is a dramatist first and
musician afterwards. His music is but
vehicle upon which ride his dramatic pur-
poses His herds and herdines, dwarfs
and giants, and dragons; gods and
goddesses, are but his puppets whose
strings he pulls. But If you will but
watch them closely and listen intently to
their quaint musical utterances in his
Nbellungen Ring, you can spell the his
tory of the world. For here is sung the
story of mans birth, damnation and
redemption. Evolution and revolution,
philosophy and religion, vice and virtue,
sin and death, life and eternity, are pic
tured before YOU The elements, earth,
air, fire and water are living, breathing
entities. The secrets of nature, the forces
of heaven and hell are exhibited and test
ed, one against the other. And more
potent than all the forces of our own
ture are displayed love, hatred, cruelty,
heroism-act and counterfeit in a perfect
network of motives, desires, aspirations,
hopes, schemes and bargains, until it seems
as if no phase of nature were left unex-
plotted
But deep as is his philosophy, it is
Wagner, the poet, who sings in wondrous
verse his tribute to virtue, his denunciation
of wrong. Strong and stern is his belief.
Wagner, the musician chants his Credo in
such melodic cadences that we accept his
faith; we worship his gods. And it is be-
cause he is philosopher; because he is a
poet; because he is rengion:st-a believer
"a hater of evil and lover of light-that
Richard dWagners music appeals to you
and to me and to the world at large, pur-
suadfng, convincing, enthralling. Wagner
has been called the master of the orchestra.
All! he is this and infinitely more. True,
he is intimate with every degree of tone
of pipe and string. He has tried every
combination of brass and wood wind He
knows the value of every shade of tone,
the length of every sound wave. There
are no colors on his orchestral palate
that he has not mixed; no effects he has
not tried. But this is not all. Having
satisfied himself with the perfect knowl-
edge of his art, he has turned it to most
noble uses. His orchestra is after all but
an instrument in his hand to advance his
ideas, promulgate his theories, proclaim
his doctrine.
For not content with voicing in poetic
phrase his philosophy, his religion, his
story of womans devotion and mans per-
fidy he sings it all in his orchestra-every
argument-every theory-every noble pur-
pose-every base design is told in musical
speech-phrase answers phrase-instrumen
succeeds instrument Each thought, feel
ing, aspiration, emotion deed is a melody,
woven in and about the others with such
dextrous hand, that in the labarynth of
tone there is heard the perfection of har-
mony.
Gounod once said that there was no
music but beautiful music. Wagner's
contention is that music is but the carrier
of the thought and if the thought be noble,
and pure, 1t should he expressed in sweet
and pure melody; but if base and ignoble,
sour and harsh sounds would best picture
it. And so in this wondrous story of the
Ring he has given us most graphic tone
sketches; the whining Nome, the avar-
cious Alberich; the heroic Berynhilda the
treacherous Hagen, the fearless Siegfried,
the ponderous. giants Tafuer and Fasolt,
the joyous Freia and the sad hearted
Wotan. Each is garbed in his own plus-
cal dress, and his very presence is de-
noted by a phrase, cadence in the
orchestra.
An, now, as each character represents
not an individual, but a force phase of
life, and each works out his part in the
great plan, and as we dissect the orches
trail mosaic and pick ou any one block
and study Its individuality and then
place it and select another and another
for like study how wondrous it all seems!
How stupendous an undertaking! How
gigantic success. For here are poetry
and music welded to explain the great
problems of life The gentle arts are used
to demonstrate the perfection of science.
In intoxicating harmonies is told life's
story, is proclaimed mans belief.
FREDERIC DEAN.