For the perfect understanding of the story the first act of the drama is the most important. It is also that which the fewest persons closely study. Edward Schuré, in "Le Drame Musicale," says:

While this may be a correct view of the old legend, it is not true of Wagner's drama. In the latter the philtre performs the office of Fate in the ancient Greek tragedy. In the plays of Sophocles and Æschylus mortals fulfil their manifest destinies, but Fate is the secret agency which hurries them forward to their ends. So, in this drama of Wagner's, Tristan and Isolde are the victims of a fatal love before the action begins, and the philtre is only the instrument through which all restraints are removed and the unhappy pair hurled into the vortex of their own passion, helpless victims of cruel Destiny.

Upon the deck of the ship bound for Cornwall Isolde lies silent on her couch. From aloft floats down the song of a sailor, crooning of his absent Irish love. Isolde, starting up, demands to know where she is. Before night, Brangäne tells her, the ship will reach Cornwall. "Nevermore! To-night nor to-morrow," exclaims Isolde, a dread purpose in her mind. And then she bursts into rage, she who has hitherto been silent and even has refused food. Brangäne begs her to free her mind. "Air!" cries Isolde. The curtain is thrown back, showing the stern of the ship and Tristan at the helm. Isolde gazes at him and murmurs:

In these lines we hear a revelation of Isolde's heart. Tristan was hers; he is not. Both must die. She sends Brangäne to summon him to her presence. He offers excuses. Why? Later he tells Isolde, when she asks him why he has avoided her during the voyage, that it was not meet that he who escorted a bride across seas should go near her. She derides the excuse, knowing its shallowness. The man was afraid of himself. He had once wooed this woman and now in her presence he felt the old fascination. He dared not trust his heart.

Brangäne's persistence arouses the squire Kurvenal, who rebuffs her by singing a popular song about Tristan's victory over Morold. Then Isolde in her rage tells the whole story to Brangäne. She tells how the wounded Tristan, calling himself "Tantris," came to Ireland that she might nurse him when he was suffering from a poisoned wound. She tells how she found the nick in his sword and fitted to it the splinter, taken from the head of Morold, not her uncle, as in the old poem, but her lover—making her wrong a much deeper one. She tells how she stood ready to slay him with that sword, but he fixed his melancholy gaze upon her. "Not on the sword, not on my arm; full to my eyes went his look. His misery pleaded straight to my heart." This look was her undoing, and Wagner made its musical symbol one of the salient themes of his score. Tristan swore truth and thanks eternal, yet no sooner had he returned to Cornwall than he suggested the expedition to Ireland to get Isolde as a bride for King Mark, his uncle. It is this for which Isolde craves vengeance. Tristan, having lightly won her love, would present her as a gift to another. She curses him in her rage, and cries, "Vengeance! Death! Death to the two!" Brangäne vainly strives to soothe her. Staring vacantly into space she murmurs: "Unloved by the noblest of men, must I stand near and see him? How can I endure the anguish?" That is the future she dare not, will not face.

What a vast difference already between the original legend and this wonderful dramatisation of it by Richard Wagner! Brangäne says it is foolish for Isolde to fancy that she can remain unloved. Does she forget her mother's magic art, which has provided her with potions of strange power? No, Isolde has not forgotten. She asks for the casket, and when Brangäne shows her the love potion she brushes it aside and declares that the drink of death is for her. Reader, keep this death thought always in mind. It is the basic underthought of the entire drama. In the first act it appears first in the mind of Isolde. She will renounce life, for there is nothing in it for her but misery. In the second act both she and Tristan feed upon the dream of death; and in the third act death unites them.

At last Tristan and Isolde are face to face. She demands revenge for Morold. Tristan offers his sword and bids her slay him. She refuses on the ground that she cannot go before Mark as the slayer of his favourite knight. She invites Tristan to drink atonement with her. He understands, and is ready with her to seek oblivion. Brangäne, bidden to bring the drink of death, hastily substitutes for it the love potion. She will do anything rather than slay her mistress; she condemns her to live and suffer. The words of Tristan as he stands with the cup in hand ready to drink show that he comprehends the situation. He has discovered that Isolde loves him; he knows that he loves her. He prefers death to a life of renunciation or dishonour. He drinks. She seizes the cup and shares the draught. It was not the drink of death. It was for them the drink of hell. Hurled now by the unrestrained passion within them into one another's arms, the man wonders what dream of honour it was that troubled him but a moment ago, and the woman marvels that she trembled at the thought of shame.

"What dreamed I of Tristan's honour?" "What dreamed I of Isolde's shame?" I have purposely dwelt at length on the incidents and dialogue of this wonderful first act, because they furnish the key to the entire drama, and because so many persons, even professed lovers of Wagner, misconstrue the meaning of the action. The ill-fated pair are lovers before the drama begins, but both are labouring under a misunderstanding. She thinks that he does not love her because he has come to carry her home as a bride for his uncle. He thinks that she is athirst for vengeance for the death of Morold. She desires to die rather than face her future. He is ready to die when he divines the true cause of her rage. Better oblivion than a life of misery. Brangäne's unwillingness to be a party to the suicide of her mistress is the motive for the administration of the potion, which simply bursts the bonds of restraint and shows the two hearts to one another free of all disguise.

The rest is simple. In the second act Isolde awaits her lover in the garden. Brangäne warns her of Melot, but she refuses to accept the warning. Is not Melot Tristan's friend? Put out the torch! That is the signal. The burning woman cannot put out the flame of her own passion, but she can and does turn down the torch. What a portentous signal! The turning down of the spear and the torch from time immemorial have meant that death was present. And so Wagner turns down this torch with the awful music of the death motive. Tristan rushes to her arms. They sing to one another in ecstatic accents and in "wrought riddles of the night and day." The torch was the day; it kept them asunder. Its extinction brought night, the only time when they may be together. And so in ever-ascending polyphonic utterances of metaphor, they arrive at last at a naked truth. For them the day is all separation and lies. Only night eternal, the night of death, can make them free. Isolde sings:

Mr. John P. Jackson makes this read in English thus:

Tristan responds that he drank eagerly what he thought was the draught of death. Isolde complains that the draught was deceitful, for instead of sweeping them both into night, it left them in the cold glare of day, where was only separation for them. Tristan answers that with honour and fame both destroyed in the glare of day, their hearts can have but one vast yearning, the yearning for night. Then he leads her to the embowered seat, and there they sing together that marvellous duet beginning:

"O sink around us, night of love; grant forgetfulness that I live." From the tower floats down the warning of Brangäne. The lovers heed it not. Wrapped in each other's arms, they prate of odious day and love-giving night, the night of eternity. Then comes the awakening. Mark, led by Melot, surprises them. Tristan murmurs: "Der öde Tag zum letzten Mal" ("The hated day for the last time"). A moment later he raves at Mark and his courtiers as "Daylight's phantoms, morning's dreams." When the King has finished his long and pathetic address, Tristan turns to Isolde and asks her whether she is willing to follow him to the land where the sun never shines, the wondrous abode of night. Well she knows his meaning, and as he hesitated not on the ship, so she hesitates not now. Melot's sword is ready, and Tristan hurls himself upon it. The wound becomes a consecration, a deed of expiation and release. It takes the solemnity of the loftiest tragedy, leaving, a comet-flight below its elevation, the melodramatic wound of the legend whence Wagner drew his materials.

This is the wound that will not heal without the aid of Isolde's art. There is no jarring note in the Wagnerian version, no libertine Tristan aiding another in a rude liaison, no Isolde of the White Hand. There is only the one master passion. There is only one tragedy. In the third act we find the wounded, wasting, visionary man lying under a linden tree in the courtyard of his own castle at Kareol in Brittany, whither the faithful Kurvenal has borne him. A shepherd draws a melancholy wail from his pipe, and, in answer to Kurvenal's anxious question sighs, "Lone and bare is the sea." For these two are watching for the ship which shall bear the healer, Isolde, to the side of the stricken man. Kurvenal whispers words of encouragement to his lord, but Tristan shakes his head. He has awakened once more to the glare of sunlit noon, and once more the old fantasies of day and night rush through his brain.

When will the blazing of the torch cease to keep him sundered from Isolde? When shall it be night for these two? Kurvenal reveals that he has sent a ship to bring Isolde. The thought is new strength to Tristan. He bursts into a delirium of joy. He sees the ship, the flag waving at the mast. "Kurvenal, siehst du es nicht?" ("Kurvenal, seest thou it not?") Kurvenal sees no sail upon the sea. Again the weary man sinks back upon his rude couch. He relives the story of his love. He raves again as he curses the magic draught, which was not the drink of death. He faints, and for the moment Kurvenal thinks him dead. But no, he revives. He asks again if the ship is in sight. Kurvenal says to-day it must surely come. "And on it Isolde!" cries Tristan. Once more the waning spirit mounts a mighty billow of emotion. "Isolde, how holy and fair art thou! Kurvenal, man, art thou blind? Dost thou not see what I see? The ship! The ship! Isolde's ship! Seest thou it not?"

A new tune peals from the shepherd's pipe. The ship is sighted! The flag of good tidings streams from the mast, the flag which means that Isolde is on board. Fly thou, Kurvenal, to the strand to help her. To-day shall the lovers be united. Frenzy for the last time seizes Tristan. Once, wounded and bleeding, well-nigh slain by Morold, Isolde found him and nursed him back to life. Again shall she find him so. Off, then, foolish bandages. Let the red blood flow merrily. Isolde comes! He hears her calling. What is this? "Do I hear the light? The torch! The signal! It is extinguished! To her! To her!"

And so the hero sinks dying in her arms, and for him at last the longed-for night of total oblivion has come. Isolde prostrates herself upon his body. A second ship is sighted, bearing Mark. Kurvenal, misunderstanding the purpose of the King, resists the entrance of his guard and is slain, after himself giving a fatal wound to the false Melot. Mark has learned the secret of the potion. He recognises the truth that the unhappy pair have been the victims of Fate, and he has come to unite them. Alas, too late! The mightiest of monarchs, Death, has come before him. Isolde, her soul spreading its wings for flight, sings out her apostrophe to her dead hero, a marvellous pæan of praise, the echo of the duet of love, and sinks lifeless on his insensate form. Night and eternal oblivion have come for both. The tragedy is over.

That is the marvellous poem which Wagner made of the old story of Godfrey, a poem in itself worthy, despite its rugged diction, to stand beside the best dramatic literature of Germany, and never once to be thought of as an opera libretto. I have briefly noted some of the points at which Wagner has separated himself from the sources of his story. The manner in which he has in all his poems utilised the original suggestions stamps him as a dramatist of the highest rank, a poet of lofty gifts. In none is this more beautifully demonstrated than in "Tristan und Isolde." It is true that in some of the later versions of the old poem, when possibly the early faith in love philtres was fading, the idea exists that Tristan and Isolde loved one another from their first meeting; but, as Miss Weston properly notes, "there is little doubt that the Minstrel held the fatal passion of the two lovers to be due to the Minnetranc alone." The frequent appearance of magic drinks in old legends is familiar to all students of folk-tales and sagas. Wagner himself gives us another instance of it in the drinks administered to Siegfried by Hagen, an idea which he obtained from the old tales. In his "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama" (which I have been forced to parallel in rehearsing some parts of the story of "Tristan und Isolde") H.E. Krehbiel calls attention to the fact that the existence of the love before the incident of the potion provides that element of guilt which all the ancient dramatists required in order that too much sympathy might not be excited by the sufferings of the hero or heroine. On the whole, then, Wagner's treatment of this much-discussed drink is perfectly clear. There is no excuse for misunderstanding it. And it raises the tragic element of the drama far beyond the level of the early poems.

Another element of the classic tragedy preserved in this work is that of the inevitable doom of the unhappy pair. They are victims of Fate from the outset, and Wagner has kept the prophecy of death constantly before our minds by making it appear to the lovers themselves as the only avenue of escape from their misfortunes. Furthermore, this forethought of death develops in the second act into a conviction and a passionate desire. The exclamations "Let me die" ("Lass' mich sterben") of the lovers are not mere bursts of sensual rhapsodising, but are expressions of their souls' yearning for the plunge into oblivion at the moment of perfect ecstasy. For both dread the turning of the light of day upon them; both foresee a future of separation and misery.

The pessimism of this second act is the feature of Wagner's drama which has aroused the largest amount of discussion. Its peculiarly illogical deduction from a turbulent, passionate, soul-consuming love like that of Tristan and Isolde has frequently called forth unfavourable comment. Yet we are bound to admit that in his treatment of this element of his work the master has been dramatically ingenious. In summarising the story I have indicated his poetic treatment of the cessation of the desire for life and the yearning for death. That he has made it poetic is not to be denied, but it is not consistent. If the lovers had sworn renunciation and had suffered from the enforcement of their vow, there would have been consistency in their desire to die. But in the midst of unbridled indulgence in their passion they would have wished to live, unless there had been surfeit and the subsequent moral reaction. But of this we have no hint. The yearning for death, however, is an outcome of Wagner's absorption of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. This writer was a subjective realist and regarded extant phenomena as the products of the will—that is, the world exists because man wishes to think so. The highest ethical destiny of man is the nullification of the will by the practice of an asceticism which shall remove from him all desire for the objects of sense. These, then, being but creations of the will, shall disappear, and the will, the only reality, shall quietly renounce itself and vanish into the infinite. The doctrine is closely allied to that of the Buddhist Nirvana. Wagner's endeavour to reconcile it with the dramatic ideas of "Tristan und Isolde" was not successful. Asceticism and adultery are not companions. But from the Schopenhauerian pessimism he drew the long-continued harping upon night and death, which is considerably more poetical than the thoughts of the philosopher. In the second act the music of the duet breathes all the pulsing and the languors of consuming passion, and the score effectually masks the dramatic ineffectiveness of the dialogue.

Otherwise the second act is a wonderful conception. In no other part of Wagner's writings is his perfect command of his own union of the arts tributary to the drama more beautifully demonstrated. The picture, the action, the music, combine to create a poetic effect upon the mind of the auditor. The dramatic instincts of Wagner led him to centralise in one meeting of the lovers all the long-drawn passion of the old legend. In the drama we have but one meeting, which brings about the catastrophe. And whatever we may think of the undramatic character of the Schopenhauerian pessimism, which, as I have written elsewhere, is dragged into the story by the neck, it affords ground for a poetic dialogue rich in mysticism and not shocking in suggestion of mere fleshly desire. The dwarf Melot of the legend becomes the faithless friend of Tristan in the drama. He is merely a sketch, for his one action is but a piece of mechanism in the movement of the story.

The substitution of a long harangue for a swift blow of the sword has caused the proverbial finger of scorn to be pointed at King Mark, who comes upon the stage in this act to discover his bride in the arms of his knight. But he is certainly a vast improvement on the Mark of the legend, who was constantly hesitating, who even saw the guilty pair asleep in the forest, but refused to believe because the naked sword lay between them. This Mark at least does not suspect and confide in turns, send them away and then take them back. The long speech explains certain points which are the best defence of Mark's "sermonising," as it is often called. It tells us that he wed a second time only because his court and his people demanded it, and because Tristan himself declared that he would leave Cornwall unless the King yielded. The fact that it was a political marriage, and that the King was old and weary and not prone to emotional flashes, may serve to explain why he talks instead of slaying Tristan on the spot. At any rate Wagner's conception of the voluntary release of the embrace of life by the guilty lovers is carried out, for when Mark does not cut him down, Tristan throws himself upon Melot's sword.

Miss Weston, who makes much of the authority of the old legends and of resemblances in the folk-lore or mythology of antiquity, regrets that the death of Tristan in the third act is less touching than in the legend, where, deceived by Isolde of the White Hand and believing himself forsaken by his own Isolde, he silently turns his face to the wall and breathes out his life with the name of the loved one on his lips. And she furthermore repeats the criticism of Gaston Paris that the final speech of Isolde contains more philosophy than poetry, a weak criticism as one reading of the text will show. Mr. Krehbiel more aptly notes that the elimination of the second Isolde removes from the character of Tristan a stain which was placed upon it by his loveless second marriage, and saves us the shock of seeing the wife and the mistress in contest about his dying couch. Furthermore, the musical treatment of the act is to my mind the most convincing piece of dramatic writing in the literature of the lyric stage. I say this without forgetting the wonders of the first and second acts. There are certain similarities in the musical plans of the three acts. Each begins with a passage intended to create an atmosphere: the first, with the sailor's song floating down from aloft; the second, with the music of the hunt dying away under the black arches of the forest; and the third with the shepherd's pipe wailing the heart-wrecking song of the empty sea. Nothing in the lyric drama excels the potency of the combined scene, action, text, and music at the opening of the second act except the astonishing effect of the preliminary measures of the third.

And then follows a succession of those emotional waves, mounting in foaming crests of tone and sinking in throbbing refluxes, which no other composer ever wrote as Wagner did. Tristan's fevered mind, yearning for the ship, waxes and wanes in crescendi and diminuendi of passion till the suffering and sympathising spectator fancies that his nature will endure no more. And then at the apex of one of the awful upward flights of delirium comes that tremendous climax made by the changing of the melody of the shepherd's pipe. The ship is sighted. Now comes a period of vehement action, ending with the frenzied man's tearing off the bandage, and sinking into Isolde's arms to breathe out his life. Another burst of action follows this crisis, and then the stillness of death itself prevails while the musical finale of the work, the wonderful "Liebestod," falls upon the audience "like the sound of a great Amen." There is nothing in the old legend to suggest the astounding effects which Wagner has heaped up in this last act. It is all the inspiration of a master genius working without trammels in a field created by its own powers.

III.—The Musical Exposition

Let us turn now to a brief examination of the musical structure of "Tristan und Isolde." It is not practicable to make this examination exhaustive, nor would it be profitable. For those who desire to detect each motive of the score as it passes them in the general panorama of tone there are many handbooks. The present writer does not believe that the dramatic influence of Wagner's music upon the auditor is dependent on the latter's full acquaintance with the terminology of the significant themes. That a certain intellectual pleasure is added to the hearing of one of these dramas by a recognition of the identity of the motives is not to be denied, and that their dramatic purport should always be clear to the hearer's mind is beyond dispute; but it should never be the purpose of an auditor to concentrate his attention on the themes. Learn their meaning from the text. Then let them alone, and they will do their work.

In "Tristan und Isolde" we come upon the Wagnerian system worked out to its end. Indeed, the composer went even further. In a letter to Francis Villot in Paris in 1860, afterward published under the title of "Music of the Future," the poet-composer said of "Tristan und Isolde":

The composer sought in this drama to free himself from all the restrictions of historical detail, and to centralise the music upon the expression of the emotions of his personage, to make the play of emotions, and not the succession of incidents, the real material of the drama. This had always been his ideal of the lyric drama, but he had not been certain of its practicability. In the letter just quoted he says on this point:

In beginning the work, he wrote the text without any thought of operatic style. The reader will note that it is written in a freely formed rhymed verse, the rhythms being few, but elastic, and of such a nature that the poetry suggests the form of the melody without hampering the composer. This result could have been achieved only by the procreation of both verse and music by one mind. The organic union of text and tone was conceived in Wagner's brain before pen touched paper. In reference to this he says in the "Music of the Future":

At a first glance this seems to be a contradiction of Wagner's theory that the poem should not impose its form on the music. But we must bear in mind that this poetry was prepared with the avoidance of text domination in the poet's mind. Wagner wrote to Villot that he found that his melody and its form were wholly freed from the old shackles. He composed with the utmost liberty.

Before noting a few of the most significant phrases of this score, which is a shimmering web of leading motives, let us take a glance at the general plan. Here is a work constructed upon a model diametrically opposed to the familiar one of Meyerbeer, the one regnant in Europe at the date of "Tristan und Isolde's" production. Meyerbeer built entirely for the succession of incidents, musical and pictorial. The dramatic idea had to conform itself to this scheme. Wagner built wholly on the ground of the thought and feelings of his personages, and the action and the music had to place themselves as explicators wholly at the service of these inner governors. Yet we shall find that each act of the drama has a clear and symmetrical musical shape, and that although this form is prescribed by the emotional movement, it is none the less grounded upon the fundamental laws of musical form.

Each of the three acts begins with a musical mood picture, in which the elements of external description and inner feeling are skilfully combined. The first act opens with the quaint, peaceful song of the sailor, which suggests a calm sea and a pleasant voyage. The second begins with the hunting music dying away in the forest, music which establishes a nature mood, a mood of moonlight and rustling leaves. The third is ushered in with the music of the empty sea, a descriptive lament whose profound melancholy is not equalled in any other score. Starting from each of these pictures, Wagner develops an act. The sailor's song in Act I. is followed by a sudden interruption of the peaceful mood. Isolde's passion begins to play. It bursts into tumult. The curtain is thrown back, and to accompany the motionless picture of Tristan at the helm, the sailor's song is repeated. Again the music gradually rises in emotional force, till another climax is reached, when Kurvenal trolls his ditty and the insulted Isolde has the curtain closed. Another point of repose, and again with Isolde's passion the music rises, but sinks to languorous yearning as she tells of the glance that won her soul. The wave mounts again as she curses Tristan and cries for vengeance. The music sinks into impressive depths as Isolde proclaims her purpose to administer the drink of death, and here Wagner relieves the strain and makes a sharp contrast by introducing the cries of the seamen outside. Then follow Kurvenal's boisterous entrance, and at length the entrance of Tristan, which is heralded by an orchestral passage voicing the heroism and the fate of the hero, a passage of extraordinary power. The scene between Tristan and Isolde begins reposefully and rises to a climax of passion at the taking of the drink. Then comes a moment of expectancy, followed by an upheaval, and then each utters the other's name in a phrase of deepest yearning. The sailor's music again affords the necessary relief, and the act comes to an end in a turmoil of tone.

The musical scheme of the second act is simpler because the emotions are less complex. After the opening mood picture, Isolde has a brief scene of contest with Brangäne, and at the extinction of the torch the musical wave, which has been growing, curls and breaks. The next one starts with Isolde's waving her scarf. Now we have a rapid, agitated movement, depicting the wild haste of Tristan, the eagerness of Isolde. The lover enters and this movement becomes tumultuous. When its climax is reached the necessary point of repose is made as Tristan leads Isolde to the seat. We have had an allegro agitato; now follows an adagio appassionata, the love duet. Its long-drawn, melting measures are broken once by the watch-cry of Brangäne—so composed that it does not interrupt, but intensifies the mood—and at last the rude interruption of Kurvenal. The contrast here is short and sharp. The dramatic situation is enough. Then follows another slow movement,—the coda of the adagio,—Mark's speech, Tristan's answer, his appeal to Isolde, her answer. With the few crashing measures of Melot and of Tristan's self-impalement, the musical scheme is completed. Its form is perfect; its organic union with the mood scheme of the act complete.

The musical plan of the third act has again more detail, because the story is more incidental. With the melancholy music of the empty sea as a starting-point, Wagner develops a long adagio, whose wave-crests are the summits of Tristan's delirious outbursts. This adagio ends when the shepherd's pipe proclaims the sighting of the sail. Then enters the allegro agitato of the act, the wild rhapsody of Tristan, the tearing off of the bandages, and the death of the hero. With Isolde's mourning over the body we get a point of repose and contrast. The shepherd announces a second ship. Descriptive music of rapid movement follows, till the fight is interrupted by Mark's entrance, and the final slow movement is begun. This movement comes to its majestic climax with the "Liebestod," and with a few bars of finale by the orchestra the work ends, like Tschaikowsky's sixth symphony, with its adagio lamentoso.

The drama is prefaced by a prelude, in which some of the most significant themes of the work appear. The thought underlying the prelude is the insatiable desire of the lovers, ever rising higher and higher in emotional waves till it sinks exhausted in its vain endeavour to find its own satisfaction. Several themes are combined in the musical structure of the Vorspiel, but the most important are those of Love and the Glance of Tristan; the glance which, Isolde tells Brangäne, stayed her hand when she had discovered that Tristan was the slayer of Morold and had lifted the sword to slay him.

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LOVE.

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THE GLANCE.

These two marvellously expressive themes are heard frequently throughout the drama. The sailor's song, with which the first act begins, contains the melody of the sea music, heard several times in the course of the act.

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THE SEA.

This theme belongs to what Mr. Krehbiel has well described as the music of the scene, or scenic music. It deals with the externals of the drama, not with its emotions. The next significant motive to appear is that of Death, which is first heard when Isolde exclaims, "Death-devoted head! Death-devoted heart!"

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DEATH.

Closely associated with this in meaning is the Fate motive, which is first heard in the harmonic scheme of the prelude.

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FATE.

We have now before us nearly all the significant thematic material of the first act. Most of the other melodic features are freely composed and do not figure in the subsequent episodes. The repetitions of the motives quoted will explain themselves to the most casual observer. The re-entrances of the Death and Fate motives are unmistakable in purport, while the reappearance of the Love and Glance themes after the drinking of the potion brings back the opening of the prelude with its story of desire insatiable, love immeasurable.

The play upon the contrasting fancies of night and day, which forms the figurative material of the lovers' dialogue in the second act, suggests new thematic devices, and so the act opens with the proclamation by the orchestra of the Day theme.

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DAY.

Derived from this is the beautiful motive of the Night, which appears in Tristan's long speech dealing with the fanciful contrast of the two. When he says, "Was dort in keuscher Nacht dunkel verschlossen wacht?" ("What watches yonder darkly concealed in chaste Night?") the theme sings softly in the orchestral accompaniment:

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NIGHT.

This luscious, languorous theme plays an important part throughout the act. The hearer will note how beautifully it serves as the introduction to the cantabile of the duo, "O sink' hernieder," and how effectively the composer has made the day and night variations of the one fundamental musical idea carry out the thought of the dialogue. Another theme which appears in the introductory music of the second act is that of the Triumph of Love:

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TRIUMPH OF LOVE.

From a development of this theme, by the simple musical device of augmentation, Wagner constructs the climax of the duo, which becomes again the climax of the last speech of Isolde over the dead body of Tristan:

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Another significant motive heard in the opening measures of the act is the Love Call, which is afterward employed frequently in the action:

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LOVE CALL.

These are the principal and most significant new motives which appear in the love music of this wonderful act. Of course, some of the themes heard in the first act are employed here again, and nothing in the entire score is more charged with meaning than the combination of the motive of the Triumph of Love with the harmonies of that of Death at the instant of Isolde's extinction of the torch. Such feats of musical depiction the attentive listener will find on every page of the score, yet the actual number of motives to which special meanings have been attached is not large enough to tax the memory. The appearance of King Mark in the action is noted by two motives, one used to indicate his personality and the other his grief:

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MARK.

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MARK’S GRIEF.

The third act opens with music descriptive of bitter grief and loneliness. The first phrase, that of grief, is a remarkable thematic development of the second half of the Love motive:

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GRIEF.

The ensuing long ascending passage expresses loneliness most eloquently. This is interrupted by a new motive, heard frequently in this act, the motive of Anguish:

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ANGUISH.

The melody played by the shepherd's pipe has received various titles, but it speaks its own language of melancholy. The music allotted to Kurvenal in the opening scene of the act is similar in character to that which he sings in Act I., and at one place is a repetition of it. In the long speeches of Tristan we hear repeated with powerful dramatic significance the motives of Day and Night, the Love theme, the Death theme, the motive of Anguish, and snatches of the love duo of Act II. The musical material of the entire act is now woven of what has already been heard. The motives melt and flow in a stream of marvellous melody, till at the end Isolde proclaims her hero's greatness in the "Liebestod," which is a repetition, with some developments, of Tristan's "So stürben wir um ungetrennt, ewig einig ohne End'," and the motive of the Triumph of Love:

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There are other motives in this stupendous score, but, as I have already intimated, it would be idle for the music-lover to burden his memory with them. Many of them are thematic developments of phrases first heard in the germinal form, and it is in the overwhelming eloquence of these developments that the power of the score is largely to be found. With the themes already given the lover of the true lyric drama should readily understand the purposes of the composer. For the rest, the perfect organic union of text, tone, and action in "Tristan und Isolde" makes it the most directly expressive of all the later dramas. Only those who go to hear it with the conception of an old-fashioned opera in their minds fail to receive its message. "Tristan und Isolde" is a drama of human emotions uttered in tones. As such it must be conceded a place among the mightiest conceptions of the poetic brain.

DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG

Opera in Three Acts.

First performed at the Royal Court Theatre, Munich, June 21, 1868.

Original Cast.

Weimar, Mannheim, Carlsruhe, Dresden, Dessau, 1869; Berlin, Hanover, Vienna, Leipsic, Stettin, Königsberg, 1870; Hamburg, Prague, Bremen, 1871; Riga, Copenhagen, 1872; Mayence, 1873; Cologne, Nuremberg, Breslau, 1874; Brunswick, 1876; Strassburg, Augsburg, 1877; Gratz, Düsseldorf, 1878; Wiesbaden, Rotterdam, Darmstadt, 1879; Schwerin, 1881; London, May 30, 1882.

First performed in America at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, Jan. 4, 1886.

Cast.

Conductor, Anton Seidl.

DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG

"Tannhäuser" was finished in April, 1844, and in the summer of that year, while at Marienbad, Wagner made the sketch of "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg." He designed this comic opera as a pendant to the serious "Tannhäuser" (see Chapter VI. of the biographical part of this work), and no doubt the historical relations of the minnesingers, who figured in the tragedy, with the meistersingers, who provided him with the characters for his comedy, suggested the nature of the humorous opera and the general manner of the treatment of the subject. The first drafts of the comedy were made in the summer of 1844, but the poem was completed in Paris in the winter of 1861-62. The music was begun in 1862, but, as we have seen, was laid aside when the composer fled from his creditors, as narrated in Chapter XI. of the biography. The work was resumed after King Ludwig had become Wagner's protector, and the score was finished on Oct. 21, 1867.

Something of the character of the German minnesinger we have seen in our study of "Tannhäuser," where Wagner gives an idealised picture of one of their courtly contests in poetry and song. These minnesingers were the German companions and imitators of the French troubadours, from whom they took their origin. Their epoch dates from the reign of Conrad III., of the Hohenstauffen dynasty, who ascended the throne in 1138. In 1148, when he undertook a crusade in company with Louis VII. of France, the nobility of Germany were brought into habitual acquaintance with the nobility of France, who at that time were cultivating Provençal poetry and song in the "gay science" of the Troubadour. The German emperors now began the pursuit of the customs of chivalry. They and their nobles threw open their courts with a brilliant hospitality which rivalled that of France. The splendour of their tournaments, the glitter of their festivals, drew visitors in throngs from far and near. With them came the poet and the singer, and thus the German, who in the crusade had caught the infection of the chanson of Provence, found his first rude attempts brought face to face with the more polished productions of the visiting chanteurs and jongleurs.

The minnelied was the outcome, and for more than a century this form of courtly song was prized by the German people. While the Hohenstauffen dynasty remained on the throne (1138-1272), the literature of chivalry was patronised at court and the song of the minstrel was heard throughout the land. These singers were called minnesingers from the old German word "minne," which means "love"—the topic most dear to the minstrel heart. With the death of the first Frederick, the great Barbarossa, the star of the Swabian dynasty set, and the sweet sounds of the Swabian lyre were soon drowned in the turmoil of the internal disorders which beset Germany in the period of the Great Interregnum. This was a time after the death of the last Hohenstauffen, when various minor princes wore the imperial title without exercising its functions or its authority. The customs of chivalry naturally fell into disuse when there was no central home for them, and the minnesinger became a memory. The period of disturbance was ended with the accession to the throne of Rudolf of Hapsburg. This monarch was engaged during much of his reign in putting down the internal disorders, and his chief business was the overthrow of the powerful and independent nobles. He was furthermore largely occupied with quarrels with the Huns. The court language was changed from West Gothic to East Gothic, which was less national, and much of the southern culture which had characterised the reign of the Swabian emperors inevitably disappeared. The customs of chivalry sought shelter in the courts of minor princes, who were unable to give prizes of sufficient value to attract the knightly singers, engaged, as most of them were, in their final struggle for power and privilege.

The field of poetry and song was left to competitors of lower social standing. A versifying mania now began to pervade the lower classes. Blacksmiths, weavers, shoemakers, doctors, and schoolmasters sought to mend their fortunes by making verses. Poetry became dull, mechanical, pedantic; poets, conceited, shallow, and arrogant. The spirit of the age, filled with the instinct of preservation through co-operation against attack from without, led these people to form themselves into corporations, and Charles IV. (1346-78) gave them a charter. They spoke of twelve minnesingers as their models and masters,[37] and themselves they called mastersingers. They held periodical meetings to criticise each other's productions. Correctness was their chief aim, and they seem to have had little real conception of poetry. Every fault was marked and he who made the fewest was awarded the prize and permitted to take apprentices in the meistersinger's art. At the expiration of his apprenticeship a young man was admitted to the corporation and declared a "Meistersinger."

The first mastersinger of whom we know anything was Heinrich von Meissen, called "Frauenlob" because of his fondness for singing the praise of woman. He founded a guild of meistersingers at Mainz in 1311, and by the end of the fourteenth century most towns in Germany had similar bodies. The school reached its highest development in Nuremberg in the time of Hans Sachs (1494-1575). Sachs is an historical character, and there is abundant opportunity for the study of his style, as 6048 of his works are extant.[38] It was his period which Wagner selected for treatment in his comedy.

The order of meistersingers, however, continued to practise its calling long after this time. At Ulm the institution survived even the changes which the French Revolution effected in Europe. As late as 1830 twelve old mastersingers, after being driven from one refuge to another, sang their ancient melodies from memory in a little inn where the working men used to meet to drink their beer in the evenings. In 1839 only four of the singers survived; and in that year these remnants assembled with great solemnity and, declaring the society of mastersingers disbanded forever, presented their songs, hymn books, and pictures to a musical institution of Ulm. It is said that the last of the four died in 1876.

The meisterlied—mastersong—created by these singers was a lineal descendant of the minnelied, the song of the minnesinger. The latter was constructed in strophes, and each strophe consisted of three parts. The first and second parts were alike in metre and melody, and were called "Stollen." The third part was in a different metre and had its own melody, and it was called the "Abgesang," or aftersong. The minnesingers used three forms: the Lied (song), the Lerch (lay), and the Spruch (proverb). The lay was composed of differently constructed strophes, each with its own melody. The song was in several strophes, all built and set alike. The proverb was in a single strophe. The lied form was that adapted for their use by the meistersingers. Their songs consisted of three "Bars" (staves). Each staff was divided into three "Gesätze" (stanzas). The Gesatz was constructed in three sections, the first two being alike in metre and melody and called "Stollen." The third section differed in metre and had its own melody and was called the "Abgesang," or "aftersong." Thus we see that the "Bar" of the meisterlied corresponded to the strophe of the minnelied. The subjects treated in their songs were usually religious, though secular topics were not excluded. Sometimes didactic or epigrammatic themes were chosen. The tunes were all fixed, and the meistersinger's art was purely poetic. The tunes were called tones and had curious names, such as the blue tone, the red tone, the ape tone, the lily tone. In writing his comedy, Wagner, aiming, as he did, to reproduce in a lifelike manner the customs of the time, adhered to the rules of the meistersingers in the matter of song, and, in selecting a theme to designate the guild, used the melody of the "long tone" of Heinrich Müglin, a meistersinger of the early period. For the construction of the song he lays down the law in the address of Kothner to Walther, when the former reads the rules from the "Leges Tabulaturæ." These laws prescribe the form which we recognise as substantially that of the lied of the minnesinger.

Wagner drew his information as to the manners and customs of the meistersingers from the principal source of all our knowledge of them. This is a book entitled "De Sacri Rom. Imperii Libera Civitate Noribergensi Commentatio," written by Johann Christoph Wagenseil, Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Altdorf, and published in 1697. Not only did the poet-composer find his facts there, but he took from the volume also the names of his characters, for Veit Pogner, Fritz Kothner, Conrad Nachtigall, Balthasar Zorn, Sixtus Beckmesser, and the rest of Wagner's meistersingers all walked the earth in their day and sang their artificial ditties in imitation of their masters, the minnesingers. Beckmesser, who appears as the "low comedian" of Wagner's work, seems to have been a worthy, though prosaic, person in his time. He was certainly not a butt of derision, such as Wagner's character becomes through his own stupidity and vanity.

The story of "Die Meistersinger" is, of course, Wagner's own. His representation of the characters of the masters is his own. The real Hans Sachs is, perhaps, not so well known as the real Wolfram von Eschenbach, but it is probable that he was only a little better than his fellow meistersingers. His works were more popular, and he was doubtless a man of superior ability. But it is not likely that he excelled the rest in refinement and artistic insight quite as much as he appears to do in Wagner's comedy. The story tells us that young Walther von Stolzing, a Franconian knight, has fallen in love, almost at first sight, with Eva, the daughter of Veit Pogner, the most substantial member of the guild, a man of some means. Pogner has decided that his daughter shall wed a meistersinger, and that she shall be the prize of the winner in the forthcoming contest of song. Her own choice is to operate only in so far as to permit her the liberty of rejecting the winner if she does not like him. But she must, in the end, marry someone chosen by a contest and approved by all the masters. Sachs endeavours to have the voice of the general public added to that of the guild, but Pogner is unwilling to introduce too many novelties into his experiment.

Walther meets Eva at the morning service of St. Catherine's Church, in which the principal meetings of the masters were held. She tells him that she must choose a master, and also that if he be not a master, she will have no other. David, an apprentice to Hans Sachs, arrives with other apprentices to prepare the church for an examination in song, and explains very vaguely to the young knight what he must do to become a master. Pogner and the other masters assemble, and Pogner, declaring that the desire of a knight to become a singer brings back the old times, explains the presence of Walther. He presently announces to the masters for the first time his plan in regard to his daughter's choice, a plan which gravely disconcerts Beckmesser, an aspirant for her hand. Walther is now introduced as a candidate for the degree of master. Kothner instructs him in the rules and appoints Beckmesser marker. The marker was a critic whose business it was to note every offence against the rules. Beckmesser conceals himself in the marker's booth, and Walther, having announced love as his theme, sings his song, which is entirely incorrect according to the laws of the guild, but in which Hans Sachs at once discovers the force of a new genius. In spite of his appeals the youth is declared, according to the formula, "outsung," and the meeting dissolves in confusion, Walther vainly endeavouring to make himself heard, Sachs pleading for him, the other masters objecting, Beckmesser scolding and pointing out more faults, and Pogner deeply troubled lest his daughter's already engaged affections make it impossible for him to carry out his plan.

The second act shows us the street, on one side of which is the house of Pogner and on the other that of Hans Sachs. Pogner brings his daughter home, still troubled in his mind and striving to fathom hers. When he has gone into the house, Magdalena, Eva's companion, tells her of Walther's failure, and she determines to ask Sachs for advice. Presently the shoemaker seats himself at his work in the door of his house. The balmy air of the evening, the scent of the elder tree, turn his thoughts to the poetry which he heard at the trial. What though it outraged the rules of the masters and even puzzled him? Within it lay a real power. The singer sang, not to meet rules, but because utterance was demanded by his feelings. Let the masters rage; Hans Sachs is well pleased. This is the substance of the famous monologue of the second act.

Eva comes from Pogner's house and in a most charming scene with Sachs hints that as an avenue of escape from the possibility of marriage with Beckmesser, who intends to compete for her hand, she would be glad to become Sachs's wife. But he discourages this foolish idea. Then she tries to learn the details of the defeat of Walther, and Sachs, to test her feelings, pretends that he and all the other masters were actuated by mere jealousy in voting against the youth. Eva discloses her real feelings. Sachs leaves her, and the next moment she is in the arms of her lover. They plan to elope. Sachs, who has been listening and watching, throws open his window and lets a flood of light into the street just as they are about to depart. Then Beckmesser approaches for the purpose of serenading Eva. Sachs now brings his bench out into the doorway, and begins to sing lustily at his work. Eva and Walther hide, and Beckmesser inquires the reason of Sachs's outbreak. The cobbler protests that he is trying to finish the pair of shoes which Beckmesser had demanded of him that very day. Magdalena, personating Eva, appears at the window, and Beckmesser endeavours to sing his song to her. Sachs's singing and pounding prevent him.

Then they come to an agreement. Sachs is to act as marker, and correct each error with a blow of his hammer. He vows that the shoes will be finished before the song is. Beckmesser sings and Sachs strikes many blows. The shoes are finished first. Then Beckmesser sings desperately and Sachs shouts lustily. The neighbours, aroused by the outcry, begin to appear at their windows and presently in the street. David, seeing Magdalena, his sweetheart, at the window, and Beckmesser serenading her, attacks the singer with a cudgel. The neighbours take sides, and a general mêlée ensues. Walther decides to cut his way through the throng with Eva and escape, but Sachs intercepts him, sends Eva into the arms of her father, and takes Walther into his own house. At that moment the nightwatchman's horn is heard. The crowd melts. The beaten Beckmesser limps painfully away. The watchman passes up the empty street, startled at his own shadow. The full moon rises over the distant roofs, and as the silent street is flooded with its mild light, the orchestra breathes a passage of perfect peace and beauty while the curtain falls. It is one of Wagner's most potent dramatic and musical achievements.

The third act opens in the interior of Sachs's house. The poet-shoemaker is in a reverie, and the prattling of his apprentice cannot rouse him from it. When he is left alone, he breaks into the second great monologue, "Wahn, Wahn." One must read the entire text of this in order to understand it. At its conclusion Walther descends from the chamber in which he has passed the night, and informs Sachs that he has had a "wondrous lovely dream." Sachs bids him put it into verse, and make a mastersong of it. Walther bitterly asks how he can make a mastersong and one that's good. Sachs reproves him and bids him observe law in his poetry. Walther begins the song which he afterward sings for the prize. At the end of the first stanza Sachs stops him and instructs him as to the nature of a "Stollen." After the second "Stollen" he requires the young knight to make the "Abgesang." Giving him several hints as to the construction of his lay, Sachs writes it down, deeply moved by its beauty.

When Sachs and Walther have left the room, Beckmesser enters, and, finding the newly written song, thinks it is by Sachs and that the shoemaker means to enter the contest. When Sachs returns Beckmesser charges him with this intention, and to his surprise Sachs gives him the song, vowing that under no circumstances will he claim it as his own. Beckmesser departs, almost beside himself with joy. Eva arrives and declares that one of her shoes hurts. Sachs smiles incredulously, but pretends to adjust the shoe. Walther, richly clad, appears and stands spellbound at the sight of Eva. Sachs hints that now the third stanza of the song might be produced, and Walther sings it. Eva, deeply moved, throws herself into Sachs's arms, saying that she has reached a new understanding of him and herself. David and Magdalena enter, and Sachs announces that a mastersong has been made. He promotes David from apprentice to journeyman that he may hear the song, which an apprentice could not honour, and then he invites Eva to speak. Here is introduced Wagner's one quintet in purely lyric style, and it is conceded to be one of the loveliest conceptions of this extraordinary work. The party starts for the field of contest, and the scene changes to an open place on the banks of the river.

The various guilds of artisans assemble, and finally the meistersingers enter in formal procession. Sachs, who is hailed by the people in glad chorus, announces the terms of the contest and Beckmesser is summoned to the singer's stand. Trembling in every limb he makes a futile attempt to sing Walther's song, at which he looks vainly at every opportunity. He makes a farce of it, and is laughed to scorn by the people. In a rage he rushes away, pausing only to declare that the song is by Sachs, and not himself. Sachs, however, says that the song is not his and that it is a good song if correctly sung. He calls for some one who can sing it, and Walther appears. The masters, though they divine Sachs's plan, allow the young knight to sing, and the entire assembly, seconded by the conquered masters, declares that he has won the prize. Eva places the crown of laurel on his head, and with him kneels before the well-pleased Pogner. But when he would hang around Walther's neck the insignia of a mastersinger the youth refuses it. Sachs again intervenes and reads the young knight a little lecture on the importance of honouring what is established in art. Walther yields; Eva places the laurel on Sachs's brow, and the curtain falls as the people acclaim him in joyful chorus.

In a letter to Dr. Franz Brendel, dated Aug. 10, 1862, Liszt quoted a part of a letter from his daughter, Cosima, then the wife of Von Bülow. She said: