New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-01-20
Liszt and Wagner as Professors and Practisers

List was Wagncr's fatherin-law;
but with thai fact this article has no
concern. What does matter is that
List was a believer in Wagrer's
theories of dramatic composition and,
so far as he could be, follower Of his
methods. He tried to put them into
practice, so far as the oratorio style
and his small dramatic talent would
permit him to do so, in est. Elizabeth"
Had he been hercely honest re-
former, Of kin with the medieval relig
ionists, he would have raised revolu-
ton in every city tina. threatened to
produce his work in the theatre and
sent all his misguided friends to the
stake But he wasn't Of that sort. He
would, we believe, have tolerated the
liberalization of his "Christus" had
some Knicsc, Motif, Strauss or Be-
danzky been able to find a way to
dramatizc the "Beatitudcs.' OF course,
he would have protested, and then per-
mitted his friends to interpret his pro-
tests in a Pickwickian sense. List is
dead, and most Of his music, except
some pianoforte pieces, two or three of
his orchestral works, including "Ma-
zeppa" (Which is an inflated pianoforte
ttude of his early years., has been put
upon the shelf, whence it is taken
down, carefully busted and spasmodi-
cally promulgated about once in a
decade by some of his devotces. Wag
ner, in whom he sincerely believed for
more than one substantial reason, is
also dead; but his works are very much
alive, and his artistic doctrines have
leavened the music of the entire Occi-
dental world. Owing to the domestic
us well as artistic kinship of the two, it
is but natural that all true blue, dyed
in-thewool Lisztians should profess to
believe that Wagner had as high an adj
miration for LISTS music as List had
for his. We do not believe it, and there
is little evidence to support it. We be-
lieve that privately Wagner harbored
convictions concerning his Katherine
laws music vastly different from those
to which he gave public expression
The matter is Of small consequence,
though it will never be believed by the
Lisztians, who profess to find fore
shadowings of "Parsifal' in "St. Eliza
BETH We should like to see chapter
and verse; but that is also of small
moment, 50 let it pass. But since List
was a siucare Niscinlo of \Voona ,,,o,,1 !
not Agur, the son of Jakeh, were he
Nouchsafed to sit in stall DIS at the
metropolitan at ii performance of "St.
Elzabeth, not wonder as greatly as we
wonder why Wagncrs principles are SO
hagrantly violated in the action as we'll
as the scenic outfit Of LISTS work. pro-
fessedly made by devout admirer of
both composers?
\ Violation of Wagncrian Principles
When Wagner was requiting the
kindness which he had received at the
hands of Mcyerbeer on his first So
.ourn in Paris by holding the latter's
operas up to scorn, he made a great
ado about his Efekthascherci his
strivings for mere sensuous appeal
without dramatic justification, his eff
fects without cause. How absurd was
the sunrise in LIE Prophetic" for in
stance. What need of sunrise? A
theatrical effect merely. But this sum
rise is nothing to a dozen absurdtes
in contravcntion Of dramatic propri-
ETY. in est. Elizabeth" When "Tann-
hauser" had its first presentation at
the festival theatre in Bayreuth there
was still so much reverence for the
verities in the stage decorations that
two pictures of the Wartburg Valley