We may not find the name of Stephen Heller (1813–1888) on many of the “grown-up” programs, but no pupils’ recitals are complete without several of his lovely melodies.
He was the friend of children and devoted himself more to teaching and writing for the young minds and small hands than did any of his companions. Heller was intended for a lawyer, but his talent as shown at nine was great enough for him to study with Carl Czerny in Vienna. He became a fine concert pianist and toured Europe. Taken ill during one of these tours, he was adopted by a wealthy family who allowed him all the time he wanted for composing. Most of his study was done in Paris where he was a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and other prominent artists of the day.
He left several hundred piano pieces, nearly all masterpieces in a field where he stands practically alone. He wrote in the style developed by Mendelssohn and Schumann, and what Chopin is to the music world of the “grown-ups,” Heller is to the young student.
Painted by Kriehuber.
Franz Schubert.
After the Painting by Bendemann.
Robert Schumann.
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
After the Painting by F. V. Delacroix.
Frédéric Chopin.
After a painting by Lenbach.
Richard Wagner, the Wizard.
Richard Wagner, the Wizard, called out of the past a vast company of gods and goddesses, giants, knights and heroes, kings and queens. He made them live for us with all their joys and sorrows, loves and hates, in his great music dramas, for which he has been recognized as one of the rare geniuses of the world.
Evoked by his music-magic they pass before us,—the gods and heroes of Walhalla,—Wotan, Brünnhilde, valiant Siegfried, Pfafner the giant who is turned into a dragon, Mime the dwarf, the Rhine Maidens and the Valkyries; Parsifal the guileless youth who became the Knight of the Holy Grail, and Lohengrin his son, the beautiful knight who marries Elsa, a lady of rank of the Middle Ages.
We see the minnesingers Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach in one of their famous Minstrel Tournaments with the hand of the lovely Elizabeth as a prize; we also meet the lovable shoemaker-mastersinger Hans Sachs in Nüremberg, of the 16th century, and David his merry apprentice, lovely Eva Pogner and the charming knight Walter von Stolzing, and Beckmesser the clownish mastersinger; then there are the imperious Irish Queen, Isolde and Tristan, her lover, with Kurvenal his faithful servant. Wagner makes not only the mythological persons relive but he brings back realistic pictures of the everyday life and customs of the German people of the Middle Ages.
Wagner had his idea of what opera should be and nothing short of his ideal interested him. He kept to his purpose and accomplished miraculous things whether he suffered or starved or was banished from his country.
Richard was born at a time, favorable for hearing and knowing the Viennese composers of the 18th and early 19th centuries, who had increased the importance of the orchestra. He could hear too the music of Schumann and Schubert, with all the new beauty and warm feeling they radiated. This new depth appeared not only in the orchestra but also in piano and vocal music. In Wagner’s time, people felt deeply about everything,—science, philosophy, literature, and especially politics; and many were the quarrels and discontents among nations. Even our own country was torn by a cruel war.
Wagner listened to the works of Mozart and of Beethoven, whom he admired immensely. He approved of Beethoven’s use of the chorus in the Ninth Symphony, which had no little effect on his work and ideals.
Among the people who most influenced Wagner was Gluck, who first fought for sincerity and truth in opera drama. Gluck did not have the advantage of the grown up orchestra and freer forms, yet Gluck did so much to free opera that Wagner was fortunate indeed to have come after him. Another great influence was Weber, who mixed everyday story in a delightful play of fancy and picturesqueness. Wagner, after hearing Weber’s Die Freischütz, was very much impressed.
Meyerbeer, a contemporary, although rather artificial and always working for effects, nevertheless showed Wagner the value of gorgeous scenic productions. Wagner was fond of the stage, and Meyerbeer’s big scenes sank into the mind of the young composer-poet, who liked to be called a poet rather than a musician!
Musically, Franz Liszt was probably the greatest influence in Wagner’s life and we often hear in Wagner’s works bits of melody which remind us of Liszt.
It is not fair to say that he was great just because he followed Gluck, Weber, and Mozart, for he brought music out of its old ruts and was copied by hundreds of composers.
The hero of this chapter was born in Leipsic in 1813 and was the youngest of nine children. His father died shortly after his birth and his mother married an actor playwright named Geyer and they all went to live in Dresden. His stepfather felt that Richard had musical gifts and he proved a very kind and wise parent. He died when the boy was only eight.
Richard must have been a most interesting little chap, for he always did everything with what we would call “pep” and persistence. He loved poetry and was devoted to the theatre. His stepfather had always allowed him to go “back stage” at the playhouse, so the youth became familiar with stage craft, which he used later in producing his music dramas.
He read the Greek and German poets and dramatists at a very early age. He was the first of the musical geniuses to be trained in the arts before he started music. So we can picture a little chap, “stage-struck,” studying when he should, seeing plays when he could, and listening to the works of Weber and Beethoven which enchanted him, and storing up ideas, but as yet showing no great leaning toward music as a profession.
The family moved back to Leipsic in 1827 where he went to school until he entered the university in 1831. He heard much orchestral music and became so deeply charmed with Beethoven, that he copied the Ninth Symphony from a score, to become familiar with it. The Ninth Symphony with chorale takes about two hours to perform, imagine how long it took to copy it! An instance of the wizard’s energy and “stick-to-it-iveness”!
He began to study music with C. G. Müller, for Beethoven’s works made him decide that he wanted to know more. He also was taught by Theodore Weinlig, the cantor or singer of St. Thomas’ school. At sixteen, he wrote a play which had so tragic a plot that he killed off forty-two of the characters, and afterwards said, he had to bring some back as ghosts to wind up the drama, for there were no characters left alive! His drama reading made him exaggerate tragedy in his own play! After this he wrote a sonata, a polonaise and a symphony, in classic style, performed in 1833.
In 1830 there had been a political revolution in Germany and it greatly impressed the young man for he was an independent thinker in politics as well as in music.
He visited Vienna in 1832 but he found it so appreciative of Hérold’s opera Zampa and Strauss’ waltzes that he could not bear it and left almost immediately. He was much like Beethoven in disposition for he was quick to anger and kind in great gusts, and could be most agreeable to his friends.
He had gone to Vienna with his symphony but showed it to no one; it is said that Mendelssohn saw it but forgot about it. Here he wrote the poem and some poor music for an opera Die Hochzeit (The Wedding) which he tore up the next year.
Then off to Prague went he (1832), and wrote his first libretto, for you must remember he did not go to people like Metastastio or Molière for his libretto but wrote his own. Had he not been a composer he certainly would have been a literary man. In fact, he was, for he wrote more pamphlets and books than many a writer! Yet, he showed his real genius as a composer.
But he was so poor now that he was glad to get a job as a chorus master at the mean salary of 10 florins ($5) a month! It was here he wrote the opera Die Feen (The Fairies) a wildly romantic work, after which he returned again to Leipsic. For the first time he heard Wilhelmine Schroeder-Devrient sing, whose marvelous talent influenced him all his life. In 1834 as a conductor of a troupe with headquarters in Magdeburg, he tried to produce his second opera the tragic Das Liebesverbot (Forbidden Love), modeled after Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure; but it was so badly given that it was a dismal failure. The second was like Bellini and Auber, both of whom he admired and it was too early in his life (twenty-one) to show new ways of composing.
Soon he went to Königsberg, where (1836) he married Wilhelmina Planer, a young actress whom he met in the theatre, and he spent the year trying to get his Magdeburg troupe out of difficulties. Later he was given a post in Riga.
While at Riga his duty was to lead orchestral concerts, at many of which Ole Bull the Norwegian violinist played, here too, he read Rienzi of Bulwer-Lytton, the English writer, and wrote a libretto and opera on the showy model of Meyerbeer. He said himself that it “out-Meyerbeered Meyerbeer.” Leaving hastily, debts and all, with Rienzi in his hand, he went to Paris (the goal of all composers) in a sailing vessel, with his new wife and a dog named Robber, stopping over in England. The trip took four long perilous weeks. From the sailors he learned the story of the Flying Dutchman, which he afterwards used in his opera of that name.
We wish we could tell you the whole story of this gale-tossed, unhappy mariner, the Flying Dutchman, and how at last he found happiness and relief from storms and troubles of life by finding his mate in the maiden Senta. You will love the music and the story which is woven about Senta in the beautiful ballad bearing her name.
In this opera, Wagner first used the leit-motif or leading theme (particularly in the overture) which he used as we use a name or description of a person, idea or thing, except that he used them in music instead of in words. For example, when Senta comes in to the story, either as someone’s thought or as a person, or when she is spoken of, her theme is heard, woven into the music. So it is when Siegfried appears in the operas of the Ring of the Nibelungen, you hear the Siegfried theme; when the Gold is mentioned, you hear the Gold theme; or if the Giants appear, their theme is heard,—so it is with the Dragon and everything connected with the story. You hear in some form, their name plates, as it were, and so by listening, you can follow just what is going on through the music. This is one of the things that Wagner developed, though Gluck and others had attempted to use it.
During his stay in Paris, he had a struggle for existence and did everything possible to gain a livelihood, while striving to get a hearing for his compositions. He wrote, in his misery, the Faust Overture, the first work to win recognition.
He went to see Meyerbeer on his way to Paris, for Meyerbeer was very popular and his approval could have aided poor Richard. Some say Meyerbeer helped him and others say he did not. Wagner gained little from him. Even when he first went to see Liszt, who later became his best friend, it is said that Liszt snubbed him. Wagner never stopped writing his theories for the papers, and a hot-headed young scribbler he was! Yet withal he submitted the story of The Flying Dutchman to the director of the Paris Opera House who rejected it as an opera, but gave the story to Dietsch, the conductor, to write the music. This did not daunt Wagner, who, after a defeat, worked harder or his next task. So he wrote another Flying Dutchman, story and music and orchestration in seven weeks!
However, luck began to favor him, and Rienzi (1842) was accepted by the Dresden Opera and was so successful that he became conductor in Dresden, which saved him for a while from money worries, and The Flying Dutchman, which had gone begging so long, was loudly demanded. Strange to say, this wonderful legend did not succeed, for the people missed the little tricks of Meyerbeer and they could not understand the flowing music in new form. Wagner was very disappointed for the story was one of the old German (Teuton) legends and he thought the German people would love it.
Later, however, Spohr gave it with great success at Cassel, and won Wagner’s gratitude for his understanding and kindness.
Now comes Tannhäuser, an entrancing legend which inspired him to study more deeply into the Teutonic legends. This he produced in Dresden, and other German cities played it later. Everything became topsy-turvy in the musical and political world. Wagner was writing fiery things about freedom in music and politics, nothing to amount to much, but enough to rouse his enemies, who became hateful and hissed Tannhäuser,—calling it nerve-killing, distressing music without melody. How could anyone fail to find melody in Oh Thou Sublime Sweet Evening Star, the Pilgrim’s Chorus, the Venusburg music and the colorful overture with themes of the whole opera? Yet music affects people this way when it is new in structure. “There is no melody” is said today when the so-called modern music is played. This should make us stop and listen carefully and look back on what happened to the writers of the past when they dared differ from the crowd. Perhaps calling your attention to this will make you listen with open ears and open minds to the new, which so soon becomes the familiar.
So Wagner, while conducting other operas in Dresden, began on Lohengrin and finished it in 1847. But he was impetuous and his written articles irritated the people. His ideas were fiery and his musical speech so odd, that even Schumann, who was very sympathetic, only partially understood him or his music. However he did say that Wagner would have a great influence on German opera, but Mendelssohn, after hearing Tannhäuser, only liked the second finale. Even his friend Madame Devrient, though she loved and admired him, said: “You are a man of genius but you write such eccentric stuff, it is hardly possible to sing it.”
Never did Wagner feel that he was at fault, so great was his faith in his ideas of doing away with arias, of not having stopping places in an opera, just to begin some other song, and of making the words equally important to the music.
While working at Lohengrin he had started his studies of the Icelandic and Germanic Saga, the Nibelungenlied. These tales changed under his pen into the story of Siegfried, which he wove into the trilogy known as The Nibelungen Ring or Trilogy with a Prologue, as he called it, and as we call it now—The Tetralogy (in four parts).
The four dramas of the Ring of the Nibelung are:
(1) The Rhine Gold (Das Rheingold)
(2) Valkyrie (Die Walküre)
(3) Siegfried
(4) The Twilight of the Gods (Die Götterdämmerung)
Many things happen in these tales but it takes the four to tell the one big story:
Alberich the wicked Nibelung, a gnome, in his greed steals the gold from the Rhine Maidens who were guarding it, hidden in the Rhine. They tell him that the one who fashions a ring out of the gold will rule the world, but must forego love. Alberich makes the ring but Wotan the god of the gods wrests it from him. During the drama various people secure the Ring but it had been cursed by Alberich and brings disaster to all who get it. Finally the very gods themselves are doomed to destruction, and Brünnhilde the oldest of the Valkyries, the daughters of Wotan, returns the stolen treasure to the waters of the Rhine.
The Wizard has painted in magnificent music the great Rhine River, flowing across the stage; the fire surrounding Brünnhilde until she is rescued by the valiant Siegfried, who knows no fear; Valhalla the home of the gods; the hunt in which Siegfried drinks from the magic horn of memory; and his funeral pyre into which Brünnhilde casts herself and her horse carrying the ring which she has taken from Siegfried’s finger back to the Rhine Maidens from whence it came.
The scenes are gigantic and so is the music. Wagner, with his ideals for freedom and the betterment of humanity, used these legends as a cloak to cover his personal opinions which would have been looked upon as anarchism if he had not used such clever and artistic symbols. In Alberich’s greed for the gold, is hidden Wagner’s ideas of the Government’s greed for power against which he had fought so strenuously. Another lesson is that anyone possessing the gold is denied love, showing that greed kills human feelings.
Because the Opera at Dresden did not use the things he liked, he rebelled openly against the popular political and musical ideas; he was banished and went to Zürich, Switzerland. Here he wrote more fiery literature and made more enemies and a few friends, and the enmity he stirred up against himself delayed his success. He hoped for a better state of political life in order to write freer and more beautiful music.
While he was in Zürich, Liszt, in Vienna, produced Lohengrin with success. It was given to celebrate Goethe’s birthday (1850), before a brilliant audience, and now Wagner’s fame seemed sure, though his “pockets were empty.” Lohengrin’s success was slow in Germany, as it took about nine years to reach Berlin and Dresden. It was thought to be without melody! Can you hear Lohengrin’s song to the Swan, the Wedding March or the Prelude? Listen to it in your mind’s ear or auralize it! Wagner’s themes were so marvelously interwoven and he did such amazing things with his orchestra, that it was difficult for people to unravel the torrential new music. They were not prepared for endless music flowing on like speech, suiting the music to the word and not stopping the action to show off the singer’s skill. What Gluck tried to do, Wagner did. His operas were music dramas because the action or drama was his first thought.
For fifteen years in exile, he gave himself to literary work and composition. He had ample time now to write of his musical theories and his feelings about life.
Soon, London called him to lead the Philharmonic Society, which he did during the time he was completing Valkyrie and sketching Siegfried. He tried to interest the English in Beethoven and others whom he loved, but of little avail. The people preferred the delightful delicacy of Mendelssohn to the solidity of Beethoven. So here again he made more enemies than friends, and his bitter pen did not help to smooth things over. By the time he left London, he had finished the Valkyrie.
In this great music drama, he tells the story of Siegmund and Sieglinda, Brünnhilde and the Valkyries who carried the dead warriors from the battle fields on their saddles to Valhalla. You hear in the galloping music of the Ride of the Valkyries and the Fire Music and Love Song of the first act, such music as never was written by anyone but Wagner! Oh, it is a wonderful legend, explaining itself, in Wagner’s own poems and with the short music name tags (leit-motifs) which are enlarged and turned around and intermingled with other name tags and which stand out beautifully when you know how to listen.
While in Zürich, Wagner met the merchant Otto Wesendonck, whose beautiful and poetic wife Wagner loved dearly. She was a great influence in his life and they were friends for many years. It was during his friendship that he started the love drama of Tristan and Isolde.
In 1859 he finished the love drama which tells of Tristan and the lovely Queen of Ireland and how they drank the love potion and how they loved and were separated. A noble story with some of the most grippingly beautiful music ever written!
But with this masterpiece of masterpieces completed, he could get nobody to produce it. Everyone said it was impossible to sing it, and we know even today that it takes very special musical gifts and few can do it well. For it is quite true that Wagner, with all his theories about composition, thought little of the singer’s throat muscles and more of what he wanted to say.
Poor Wagner was disconsolate! He could not get his works performed and he was still prevented from returning to Germany, the country he loved. So off he went to Paris and there Tannhäuser failed utterly after three terrible, turbulent, horrible performances, which almost ended in riots, no doubt planned ahead by his enemies.
But to offset this disaster, he was allowed to return home and everyone rejoiced in his arrival. No doubt his treatment in Paris softened the German heart.
Not long after this Wagner and his wife separated and some years later in 1871, he married Cosima Liszt, who had been the wife of Hans von Bülow.
After Wagner conducted opera on a tour through Russia, Hungary, Bohemia (Czecho-Slovakia) and many German cities, Ludwig II, King of Bavaria, sent for Wagner and offered him an income, and from this time on Wagner composed without financial worries. He was commissioned in 1865 to complete The Ring, and Tristan and Isolde was performed by Hans von Bülow.
Again political intrigues and his enemies drove him to Switzerland, and after Tristan and Isolde was given and while he was in Switzerland, he completed The Ring and Die Meistersinger, the most beautiful comic opera in the world, which was also produced by von Bülow in Munich, June 21st, 1868. And now we fulfill our promise to you, which we made in Chapter VIII about the Meistersinger:
Walther von Stolzing, a young knight, falls in love at first sight with Eva the beautiful daughter of Pogner, the goldsmith of Nüremberg, who has promised her to the winning singer in the coming Festival of the Mastersingers. Beckmesser, the old town clerk, counts on winning as he also loves Eva. As Walther does not belong to the music guild, he has to pass the examination. Beckmesser gives him so many bad marks for not keeping the committee’s rules that he is not admitted.
But Hans Sachs, the greatest Meistersinger of all, the town cobbler, thought Walther a beautiful singer even though he broke musical laws and the very freedom and the new loveliness in his music charmed him.
In the evening when Walther and Eva try to run away, Beckmesser decides to serenade Eva. Hans Sachs, cobbling shoes in his doorway interrupts Beckmesser’s ludicrous serenade with a jolly song, in which he marks all Beckmesser’s mistakes with his hammer, just as Beckmesser had marked Walther’s. The neighborhood is aroused, confusion follows, Beckmesser gets a beating and Hans Sachs slips Eva and Walther into his own house.
Next day Walther sings a song to Hans which he has dreamed and Hans writes it down. Beckmesser comes in and finding the words steals them, sure he could win if he sang a song of Hans Sachs.
Beckmesser fails miserably and Sachs calls on Walther to sing it. Here he sings Walther’s Prize Song, which wins the approval of the Meistersingers, and the prize—lovely Eva.
Here we get a splendid idea of what Wagner felt about new music, for in the Meistersinger he tried to picture the jealousies of composers, who condemned the beauty of his inspiration and new ideas and methods.
Never was there an opera more delightful for young people, who love the melodies and charming pictures of medieval Nüremberg.
About this time the Valkyrie and Rhinegold had been given at the Court Theatre in Munich (1869–1870). The King gave up his plan to build a new theatre for these stupendous works, which needed special machinery because of the elaborate stage effects. Wagner insisted that scenery was as important as the words and music. So he started to build, by general subscription over all Europe, a theatre at Bayreuth. He succeeded so well that not only did Europe contribute but America, too, and groups of people banded together to collect money for it. Wagner was now the fashion and finally the new opera house opened August 13th, 1876, with The Ring, for he had finished Die Götterdämmerung the year before.
Artistically it was successful but not financially. If his pen had been dipped in honey and not in bitters, he would have won his public more easily, but he seemed unable to be diplomatic. So off he went to London and other places to conduct concerts to make money to pay the debts of his new theatre. Later he wrote the Festival March, for the Philadelphia Centennial (1876), which helped financially.
The people were divided into two camps,—those for Wagner, and those against him. So strong was the feeling, that during the 1880’s, in Germany, signs in cafés read: “It is forbidden to discuss religion or Wagner”! The proprietors wished to save their chairs and china which the fists of their patrons would destroy.
During this time he was at work on Parsifal, a drama in music as serious as oratorio yet with the most thrilling stage effects and richness of music. Parsifal, Tristan and Isolde, The Ring and Die Meistersinger are to every other opera what a plum pudding is, compared to a graham cracker. In fact, all Wagner’s late music dramas are like plum puddings, so rich and compact are they.
Parsifal was produced in 1882 in Bayreuth and was not given again for six years. Later it was the occasion for yearly pilgrimages to Bayreuth, as if to a shrine. It is so long that it takes the better part of an afternoon and evening to perform it, yet you sit enraptured before its gripping spell of beauty and holiness.
In 1903 the musical world was startled by the first performance in America of Parsifal, as Wagner, in his will, had forbidden a stage performance outside of Bayreuth. It was covered by copyright until 1913, which was supposed to have protected it from performance. Heinrich Conried, director of the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York City, in his eagerness for novelties, disregarded the master’s wish, and mounted an elaborate production under the direction of Alfred Hertz. This so offended the Wagner family that they refused to allow anyone who had taken part in that performance to appear in Bayreuth.
Bayreuth became a Mecca, to which pilgrims went every other year, to attend the festivals. After the World War, Wagner’s family turned to America for help to continue these festivals, interrupted by the war, as the Wizard himself had done, when building his theatre. In 1924 his son, Siegfried, visited America, conducted some symphony concerts and secured funds to carry on the festivals.
Parsifal is a combination of three legends—of which one is the Parsifal of our old friend the Minnesinger Wolfram von Eschenbach (1204). (Chapter VIII.)
It is the story of the Redemption of Mankind, told in symbols with great beauty of poetry, music and scenery. It is certain to fill you with religious fervor, for it reaches the depths of your soul and raises you above the things of the earth. Amfortas, the guardian of the Holy Grail, whose wound represents the suffering of mankind, hears the mystic voice of his father, Titurel, who tells him that not until a sinless one comes with pity in his heart will the wound be healed. Parsifal, “the guileless fool,” is his redeemer.
The year following the first production of Parsifal Wagner’s health began to fail and he went to Venice where he died suddenly in 1883. He was buried with fitting honors at Bayreuth which always honors the memory of the Great Master of German Opera.
Here is a picture of Wagner in the words of his brother-in-law: “the double aspect of this powerful personality was shown in his face; the upper part beautiful with a vast ideality, and lighted with eyes which were deep and severe, gentle or malicious, according to the circumstances; the lower part wry and sarcastic. A mouth cold and calculating and pursed up, was cut slantingly into a face beneath an imperious nose, and above a chin which projected like the menace of a conquering will.”
When Wagner reached his full power, he composed drama rather than opera in the old sense.
His music explained the words and action and expressed the state of mind of the character.
The melodies are used very much like the theme in a sonata. These leit-motifs (leading motives) are usually carried, as we told you, in the weavings of his wonderful orchestral webs. This theme or leit-motif or name tag, is tossed from instrument to instrument in numberless entrancing ways. Sometimes he uses a flickering theme for flames as in the fire music of The Valkyrie or glorious chimes or trumpetings as in Parsifal to cast a holy spell; but, whatever he uses, he charms and holds you spellbound.
He combines the counterpoint of the 16th century masters, with a most modern feeling for harmony, inherited from the classic Germans. He used harmony in a new way with a freedom it never before had reached, and pointed the way for modern composers of today.
As the Wizard, Wagner throws a glamor over the most mystic happening, as when Siegmund, in Die Valkyrie, withdraws the Sword from the tree; or in the most commonplace fact as when Eva tells Hans Sachs that she has a nail in her shoe. In The Meistersinger, you can always tell that he is making fun of Beckmesser, because his name tag shows him to be petty and ridiculous.
Although Wagner’s music is rich, very clear to us and beautiful, in his day it seemed complicated and discordant, because of its great volume and sonority, the result of the perfect part-writing.
For the first time, he makes the brasses of equal importance to the string and wind instruments. It is thrilling to hear the trombones and his beautiful use of trumpets. He used many of Berlioz’s ideas in muffling horns and added new instruments, too, among them, the bass clarinet and the English horn (cor anglais), which is a tenor oboe and not a horn at all!
Wagner had a beautiful way of dividing up the parts for violins and other instruments into smaller choirs which answered each other and with which he could get special effects. For example, the Prelude of Lohengrin is probably the nearest thing in shimmering music to what the angels must play, so heavenly is it. Here he divides the violins into many parts and it is far more beautiful than if they all played the same thing. Thus, he gave more value to the instruments and greatly improved the orchestra.
His preludes in which you hear the leading motives or name tags, are a table of contents for what follows.
Wagner did not use tricks of decoration like Meyerbeer nor did he give show-off pieces for his singers’ benefit. His idea was to use sincere musical speech to tell the story and not one bit did he care how hard the singer worked to carry out his idea.
Wagner, above all, was a dramatist, choosing lofty and noble themes of heroic and ideal subjects in which his imagination could play. He loved the sublime and the great spectacle.
The chief interest of Wagner’s opera is in the orchestra which carries the theme webs. He used neither the folk song in its simple beauty nor accepted classic arias which could be taken out and sung. His song is often declaimed and appears not to sing with the orchestra, for the voices are used as instruments and not to show off vocal skill. Yet, Liszt was quick to take out from the operas and transcribe for piano the Fire Music, the Ride of the Valkyrie and many others which we now sing and whistle.
Finally, Wagner by his example has given courage to the man of ideas, if he will believe in himself and work without ceasing.
After reading about the feats of the Wizard it is not surprising that he had many followers,—those who openly claimed to take him for an example, and others who did not realize how much they received from him and would not like to have been called his followers!
After following the Italian methods of writing opera and having become a very famous composer, Verdi received inspiration from Wagner in the last three or four years of his very long life. He was much loved and it is difficult to tell whether it was his operas or his beautiful character which prompted the affection. He was called “the Grand Old Man of Italy.” A national hero was he, and the Italians’ idol. Praise and flattery did not make him proud but spurred him to work through trouble and good fortune, and so he became one of the greatest opera writers. He was born a few months after Wagner, in the village of Roncole near Parma, and his life was interesting, for he lived at the time when opera was popular and was going through the Wagner upheaval which spread all over Europe.
He had a unique chance to make opera more important in Italy, and succeeded in giving it a new impetus, even though in the beginning his popular things followed popular patterns.
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) was the son of an innkeeper and, as a little boy, showed marked musical talent. He was a good obedient little fellow, but always rather melancholy in character and never joined the village boys in their noisy amusements. “One thing only could rouse him from his habitual indifference, and that was the occasional passing through the village of an organ grinder. To the child, who in after years was to afford an inexhaustible repertory to those instruments for half a century all over the world, this was an irresistible attraction. He could not be kept indoors, and would follow the strolling player as far as his little legs could carry him.” (Grove’s Dictionary.)
Who has not heard the Miserere from Il Trovatore played, all out of tune, by an Italian organ grinder who sends a little monkey around with a cup to gather in the pennies? We remember an organ grinder in San Francisco who ground out the Miserere. Each year or two that we returned there were more of the notes missing. Ten years later, the performance was quite “toothless” and sounded very funny.
All his life, Verdi kept a little spinet that his father bought for him in 1820. We see him then, at seven, deep in musical study and at ten he was the organist of Roncole, going to school in Busseto, a nearby town. One night when he was walking the three miles to go back to Busseto after church, the poor little fellow was so weary that he missed the road and fell into a canal, narrowly escaping death! Is it not splendid that his village appreciated his talent and gave him a scholarship which made it possible for him to go to Milan to continue his musical studies!
He did not compose an opera until 1839 when his Oberto in the style of Bellini was produced in Milan with such success that he received orders to write three more from which he gained much good-will and fame.
It must have been a thrilling time for opera writers, because Wagner was composing, too, and you know the great excitement he caused. Amidst this interesting whirl of opinion, Verdi wrote one of the operas ordered by the Milan director, and during this time he was sorely stricken by the deaths of his wife and two lovely children. Besides this, his opera failed and in his discouragement the poor young man made up his mind to give up composition. However, a rare good friend coaxed him back to his work after a little rest, and he produced his successful Nebucco (Nebuchadnezzar) (1842), I Lombardi the next year and his well known Ernani (1844). In this, his first period, he used as models, Bellini and men of his type, not writing anything startlingly new.
In his second period he wrote operas nearly as fast as we write school compositions, and among the famous things are Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore, La Traviata (story from Dumas’ Camille or Dame aux Camelias), (1853), and The Masked Ball (1859). Ernani and Rigoletto are founded on stories by Victor Hugo. The first performance of La Traviata in Venice was a failure due more to the performers, than to the opera itself which still crowds opera houses of the world.
The greatest opera of his third period is Aida (1871), one of Verdi’s masterpieces. An opera on an Egyptian subject was ordered by the Khedive of Egypt for the opening of the Italian Opera House in Cairo, for which Verdi received $20,000. Mariette Bey a famous Egyptologist made the first sketch in order to give the right local atmosphere to the libretto. Curiosity ran so high that every seat was sold before the first night and it was a great success. Think how electrified the audience must have been by the tenor solo, “Celeste Aida,” one of Caruso’s greatest successes; by the realistic Nile scene; the voice of the priestess in the mammoth Egyptian temple, and the famous march with trumpets made specially for it!
Dear old lovable Verdi was a wise man as well as an accomplished composer. He used more modern methods in Aida to hold audiences who were hearing about Wagner and his startling innovations.
Other operas of this third period were La Forza del Destino and one given at the Paris Grand Opera, Don Carlos, which was not up to his standard. Until this time he showed great mechanical skill and a sense of color and melody. The great singers have revelled in the operas of his second period. In our day Marcella Sembrich, Nellie Melba, Frieda Hempel, Luisa Tetrazzini, Amelita Galli-Curci, Florence Macbeth and many others have sung the coloratura,—frilly, soaring, gymnastic-singing, still very popular. However in Aida, Verdi departed much from the usual, and people said that he was copying Wagner, because they didn’t know the difference between the influences which change a person’s ways, and imitation.
So he deserted the old models, Auber, Meyerbeer and Halévy for something more substantial, his deeper and gigantically conceived Aida. James Wolfe of the Metropolitan Opera said of the bigness of this work as produced at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York: “I have played before audiences of 30,000 in arenas in Mexico. I am so at home in the opera that I do cross-word puzzles waiting for my cue, and yet at the Metropolitan when I first played the King in Aida with its flaming music, its hundreds of people and its scores of horses, I was over-awed and frightened!”
After this, Verdi’s splendid mass, The Requiem, was written for the death of the Italian hero Manzoni. In it he approaches the German school in depth and seriousness, veering away from the emptiness of Italian writing.
In his last efforts he seems definitely influenced by Wagner; for, with his Otello and Falstaff we find a new Verdi, surpassing in form and sincere melody anything that he had done. He was very fortunate to have Arrigo Boito, his friend, to write librettos based on Shakespeare’s Othello and Merry Wives of Windsor. When Falstaff was given in New York (1925) a young American baritone, Lawrence Tibbet, in the rôle of Ford, flashed into fame.
Verdi was a man of the people, loving Italy and being loved in return, a master of voice, ready to take good suggestions to improve his work, always kind, high-minded, and generous. He knew the orchestra and wrote for it in a way that not only gave, in his last three masterpieces, a new flavor to Italian opera, but led the way for future composers.
Arrigo Boito (1842–1918), journalist, poet, and composer sprang into prominence with his Mefistofele, in which the Russian singer, Chaliapin, has attracted huge audiences at the Metropolitan. When it was first given in Italy, the audiences missed the coloratura arias, and the critics were very hard on the young composer. So he went back to journalism for many years. His next opera Nero has a gory plot, but is real and not embroidered as were most of the Italian operas. Boito had studied in Germany and had absorbed much of the realism and truthfulness that Gluck and Wagner, taught. Nero had an elaborate first performance (1924) by the celebrated Arturo Toscanini, one of the greatest living conductors, at La Scala in Milan. It is a tremendous stage spectacle, surpassing in scenic effect many of the older melodramas.
In 1890 the first truly realistic opera was written in Italy. A prize was offered by the publisher Sonzogno and an unknown man, Pietro Mascagni, won it with Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry). He was born in 1863, the son of a baker. He was a musical boy, but his father wished him to be a lawyer, so he had to work at the piano in secret. One day when he had been locked up by his father who did not want him to practise, he was discovered by his uncle, who sympathized with him and took him to Count Florestan, who helped the young musician to study in Milan.
Mascagni’s work in Cavalleria Rusticana was vivid and he used both the old and the new style of writing. It is full of the most entrancing melody (the Intermezzo, the Brindisi, or drinking song, and Santuzza’s aria, Voi lo sapete). He also wrote Iris and Amico Fritz, which never equalled Cavalleria.
With Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1858–) it was different, for only after writing a number of operas did he produce a success in the world-famous I Pagliacci. He wrote the tragic story of these strolling players as well as the music, which is not as popular in style as Cavalleria, but it is superbly put together and very dramatic. As these operas are both short, they are often performed together. The rôle of Canio (I Pagliacci) was one of Caruso’s masterpieces. How wonderful to think that his voice has been preserved for the future generations through his records of which Ridi Pagliaccio (Laugh Clown) is one of the finest. It is generally admitted that Caruso’s voice was the most glorious of our age, and certainly there was no artist more idolized than he. In this same opera Antonio Scotti’s performance of the famous Prologue is equally beautiful.
Umberto Giordano (1867) goes into peculiar realms for subjects for his operas. He uses local political intrigues and literature for his themes, and is known especially for his André Chenier and Fedora which are given in many opera houses of the world. In Siberia he uses folk songs of Russia. He has recently set The Jest by Sem Benelli librettist of L’Amore dei Tre Re (The Love of Three Kings) by Italo Montemezzi.
Now we come to a delightful opera maker, Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924). He is the greatest modern Italian with the exception of Verdi. He has a distinctive touch that gives him individuality. He keeps a nice balance between voice, orchestra and melody. His music is always full of color and feeling. His themes, for the most part, touch the heart and have gained wide popularity.
His first opera was Manon Lescaut, the same story which Massenet used in his delightful opera Manon; La Bohème is his next and is often said to be his best. It is a tale of artist life in the Latin Quarter of Paris and is full of romance, color, gaiety and sadness. His story is taken from Murger’s Vie de Bohème, which was a fortunate choice. Madame Butterfly is another of his glittering successes. It has a decided Japanese flavor in its musical phrases. It is based on a story by John Luther Long, which was made into a play by David Belasco. Butterfly was one of Geraldine Farrar’s loveliest rôles.
Tosca, in which Farrar, Caruso and Scotti made a famous trio, is a blood curdling drama of murder, cruelty and love, full of music which mirrors the story. The libretto was taken from Victorien Sardou’s La Tosca, a celebrated drama in which the “divine Sarah” (Bernhardt) made one of her most brilliant successes.
He uses interesting little musical devices which make it easy to recognize a Puccini piece, and his music has charm. It is built on Italian tradition but is distinctly of the 19th century. He enjoyed the greatest popularity of his day, and there have been few, excepting perhaps Verdi and Wagner, whose operas have been so well known. His beautiful melody, piquant airs, fine rhythms, clever orchestration and humanness of plot, make Puccini very often touch the edge of opéra comique. Although he uses a musical phrase over and over again, it is not like the Wagner leit-motif. There are no concerted finales or clearly defined stopping places as there used to be in earlier operas. So you see, Puccini profited by Wagner and Verdi.
His Girl of the Golden West, a California story of the days of ’49, had its world première (first production) at the Metropolitan Opera House (1910). For some time Puccini had been looking for a libretto for a new opera. While in New York, to be present at the Metropolitan production of Madame Butterfly, he was also searching for material in the hope of finding an American story. Again David Belasco came to his aid. His own Girl of the Golden West, a picturesque play, was being given and he invited Puccini to see it. He was interested and turned it into an opera. The rehearsals at the Metropolitan were most interesting with Puccini and Belasco working together. Emmy Destinn and Caruso sang the leading rôles.
It is realistic, dramatic, beautiful in parts, and not written for coloratura exhibitions! But when it was produced it proved too Italian for Americans and too American for the Italians, so Puccini was disappointed in its lack of success.
Puccini’s operas, as well as Verdi’s and others, have a new popularity, that of the mechanical player audience, the gramophone and playerpiano.
One of the most delightfully witty opera writers is Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876), son of a German father and Italian mother, and writer of The Secret of Suzanne (her secret was that she smoked!) a very droll and amusing story. He is musical grandchild to Mozart, so delicately does he sketch and so charming is his melody. If you hear his operas, including the tragic and exciting but beautiful The Jewels of the Madonna, you will certainly say that he can make more out of a little, than almost anyone. With a small orchestra he seems to work miracles, and his melodies are gracious and his rhythms captivating.
Whether it was Lucrezia Bori (Spanish soprano) or Montemezzi who made L’Amore dei Tre Re (The Love of Three Kings) so entrancing, is hard to say. Here is lovely music flowing on endlessly! It is rich and deep; the voice is handled delightfully, and the orchestration is masterly and beautiful throughout. The Love of Three Kings is real music drama and few other operas have so fine a libretto.
Montemezzi with his American wife paid a visit to America (1925) and was fittingly received at the Metropolitan Opera House where Edward Johnson and Lucrezia Bori delighted people with the lovely opera.
Some of the other modern names in Italy are Giovanni Sgambati (instrumental pieces); Giuseppi Martucci (instrumental pieces); Marco Enrico Bossi, a famous Italian organist whose visit to this country in 1925 ended tragically, as he died on the boat on his way home, and Buongiorno, Eugenio di Parani and Franchetti, and Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886), composer of La Giaconda.
Now let us turn to what France has done in opera in the second half of the 19th century.
When Meyerbeer was musical czar of Paris, we see not only Wagner in France, but six other important composers. Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) was a tone poet; Charles Ambroise Thomas (1811–1896), Charles François Gounod (1818–1893), and Georges Bizet (1838–1875) were opera writers; Charles Camille Saint-Saëus (1835–1921) was a composer of concertos, piano and chamber music and of one famous opera; and César Franck the Belgian (1822–1890) who lived in Paris, although not an opera writer, influenced the composers of opera who lived after him.
Mignon came from the heart of one of these, Ambroise Thomas, winner of the Prix de Rome, and in 1871 the director of the Paris Conservatory. He wrote several works, among them a successful opera Hamlet, yet none have done as much for his reputation as Mignon.
Félicien David (1810–1876) is known for his symphonic poem Le Desert and his Laila Rookh, an opera which was given at the Opéra Comique.
Another well known name is Benjamin Godard (1849–1895). Do you remember the Berceuse from his opera Jocelyn? He wrote Le Dante and La Vivandière and many salon pieces for young students of the piano.
Faust, in connection with music, makes us think of Gounod. Gounod was born in Paris and showed musical ability when a boy. He was graduated from the Conservatory and won the Prix de Rome (1837).
His interest always seemed to be in religious music for he went to Italy to study Palestrina and Bach. His study resembled a church for it had stained glass windows and an organ, and furnishings which gave it a religious atmosphere. After he returned from Rome he studied for the priesthood but soon gave it up.
Gounod’s musical training was very broad for at first he was influenced by Rossini, Weber and Mozart, and later by Bach and Palestrina.
His Messe Solennelle (Solemn Mass) was given in 1861 and his Faust in 1859. This is considered to be one of the most tuneful operas written in the 19th century, and packs opera houses all over the world. His Romeo and Juliette, though not as popular is still given and his Médecin Malgré Lui (Doctor in Spite of Himself) (from Molière’s play), “is a gem of refined setting” says Clarence Hamilton.
Among his other operas are Philemon and Baucis, La Reine de Saba (The Queen of Sheba) both inferior to Faust.
During the Franco-Prussian war he lived in London where he produced his oratorios The Redemption and Mors et Vita (Death and Life) with his Gounod Choir, and held in England a somewhat similar place to Handel and Mendelssohn, for he, too, had many disciples.
He was a master of beautiful melody and instrumentation.
There is a new school in Paris whose slogan is, “Back to Gounod” in order to recapture his way of writing melody!
In Georges Bizet we see a man of genius who produced but one great work. To be sure he lived only thirty-seven years, two years longer than Mozart with his hundreds of pieces, yet Bizet is of great importance in French opera and is looked upon by musicians as a man of rare power, and he is loved by everyone for his marvelous Carmen. Louis Gruenberg, the American composer, said, “I have looked in vain for a flaw in Carmen but it is perfection throughout. It is the one opera in the world that wins both musicians and the masses alike, and it disarms criticism.”
Emma Calvé will always be remembered as Carmen, for she not only sang the part with its intense melody and Spanish color, but she lived it on the stage.
Bizet is an amazing orchestral tone painter, and one of the greatest of all opera writers.
The story of Carmen is taken from a novel of Prosper Mérimée and is full of the sun, the shadows, the fascinating dances, the bull fight and the romance which belong particularly to Spain. Carmen is an opéra comique, for in the original version as played in Paris it has spoken dialogue.
His other things full of charm are Jeux d’enfants, four-hand pieces, the Arlesienne Suite (dances) so pictureful and emotional. It is used as ballet sometimes for Carmen.
Bizet was not appreciated and at first Carmen was a failure, but many geniuses ahead of their time have shared the same fate.