Richard Wagner Part 13

An instance of Wagner's subtle feeling is the pa.s.sage where Wotan "kisses away" Brunnhilda's G.o.dhood and lays her to sleep, as one with the rocks and stones of mother earth, Erda, whose music accompanies the act. Wotan, like Alberich, has renounced love; so just previously we have heard the corresponding pa.s.sage from the _Rhinegold_. We have the lulling Sleep theme, and then comes the Fire-music, a thing unmatched--and, so far as I know, never attempted--in all music. The mighty Spear strikes the ground to the mighty Spear theme; the earth seems to s.h.i.+ver as the fire comes up; then the flames mount, yellow against the deep blue sky; the Loge music sparkles in the orchestra, the strings sustain a continuous whizz and roar, and over it all, and at times in it or under it, swings that lulling Sleep theme. If it is not too futile a word to use, the Siegfried "heroic" theme, as Wotan uses it in commanding the fire (Loge) that only the n.o.blest hero ever born shall pa.s.s to Brunnhilda, is the most pompous form in which it appears throughout the _Ring_; but the situation warrants it, demands it. Amidst the roar of the fire and with the divine lulling phrase, fragments of the Farewell are heard; and twice, as Wotan looks back on his daughter, we hear the Fate theme--the Scandinavian sense that this tragedy _mysteriously had to be_: the mighty G.o.d and lord of the universe himself knows and feels that the things preordained must happen. He goes slowly off; the central tragedy is virtually accomplished; to the end the fire blazes and sparkles, and the curtain descends on a soft chord. The revolving seasons will pa.s.s; strange events will happen in the outer world of men; Brunnhilda will sleep there, the guarding fire seen from afar by awe-stricken warrior tribes.

The spring freshness of the music, its vivid pictorial quality, the intense human feeling expressed, its profound sense of the past and the mystery of things, the G.o.dlike power, place it hardly second, if indeed second, to _Tristan_. There are love-duets in music which may be compared with those in _Tristan_: there is nothing with which the music of the _Valkyrie_ may be compared. The grandeur of Handel's picture-painting in _Israel in Egypt_ is a different quality altogether. Handel is unapproachable; but he worked with a different aim, in a different way, and in a different material. Wagner's music is beautiful and sublime, and he blent the human element with the others in a fas.h.i.+on no other musician has attempted.

CHAPTER XVI

'SIEGFRIED'

I

In a letter to Liszt Wagner says he would not have undertaken the toil of completing so gigantic a work as the _Ring_ but for his love of Siegfried, his ideal of manhood. It is as well, from one point of view, that his love of his ideal was so intense, for in consequence we have the _Ring_; but from another point of view it is not so well, for the youth Siegfried is the least lovable, perhaps the most inane and detestable character to be found in any form of drama. He is a combination of impudence, stupidity and sheer animal strength--mere bone and sinew; his courage comes from his stupidity. The courage and strength and impudence carry him through to his one victory; then his stupidity leads him straight to destruction. He possesses not one fine trait: he is as weak in will and intellect as he is strong in muscle.

In the 'fifties and 'sixties not only Germans but men of all other nationalities seem to have vainly imagined they had solved all the problems of this very difficult world by a.s.suming and proclaiming that might is right. Bismarck acted on this belief; our own Carlyle, Tennyson and Ruskin preached it; and Wagner, being a feeble creature physically, fell naturally, inevitably, a victim to the old delusion, and set to work to glorify the strong man. There is a further explanation. I need not do more than refer to an idea which took definite form during the eighteenth century, that as many of the defects and problems of modern life spring from the very conditions under which our civilisation alone is possible, a return to a state of nature, without government, clothes, or even houses to live in, would be a return to the garden of Eden before the Fall. We see this notion working in Wagner's mind continually in the prose writings, and in his last opera we see Parsifal, the "pure fool," "redeeming" an over-civilised world. To glorify the idiot absolute in this fas.h.i.+on was to out-Rousseau Rousseau--though Wagner would have scorned the suggestion. In _Siegfried_ he goes by no means so far; but he goes quite far enough. Siegfried is no idiot; but he certainly is an unamiable, truculent savage. He has been reared by a dwarf and cripple, Mime, and the first we see of him is on his entry with a wild bear in leash, which beast he drives at his terrified foster-father.

The justification is that he feels instinctively that Mime is bad, low and cunning--and it does not justify him: Mime, with an ulterior purpose, it is true, has saved him from death by starvation in his infancy, and nurtured him, and the least Siegfried could do was to leave the abject creature in peace. It is true also that he is mending Siegfried's sword--but this is to antic.i.p.ate. I cannot accept Siegfried as a specimen of the highest heroic humanity. The boldness of a man who because of his dull wits cannot realise danger is of no use in this world under any imaginable conditions. Siegfried knows no fear. There is a story of two officers conversing during a battle. One asked, "Are you afraid?" Reply: "If you were as afraid as I am you would run away." One, the tale a.s.sumes, had a finely organised brain, the other brute force and insensibility. Which is the nearer approach to an ideal of n.o.ble manhood? Wagner's _Siegfried_ answers, brute ferocity. Judged by his own standard how would Wagner himself stand?--as splendidly organised a brain as that possessed by any man born into the nineteenth or any other century?

II

The continuous clink-clink-clink of a metalworker's hammer is heard; the curtain rises, and we first see through an opening at the back of the stage the bright green s.h.i.+ning forest; as our eyes grow accustomed to the darkness in the front we gradually perceive a rude smithy in a cave, with an anvil, a forge with a smouldering fire, and a deformed dwarf, Mime, at work trying to piece together the shards of the broken sword. That sword was Siegmund's, shattered by a blow of Wotan's spear; and long ago it was to this cave Sieglinda fled, bearing with her the fragments. Siegmund and Sieglinda are long dead, Sieglinda after giving birth to Siegfried; not far off is Hate-cave, where the dragon Fafner lies guarding his precious gold amongst it the Ring; far away Brunnhilda sleeps on the mountain, surrounded by her wall of fire. There she lay on the evening of Siegmund's death; there she has lain since. The world has gone on its way; Siegmund and Sieglinda have departed; Siegfried has grown to manhood; year by year the young shoots in the forest have sprouted and the leaves spread to the sunlight: as we see the forest now, so was it on that fateful day, and so it has been as the successive summers came. Siegmund lived, died, and his memory has almost perished; save to the dwarf, the very name of Sieglinda is unknown; other men have lived and died: nature only goes on her course, the trees each year bringing forth fresh leaves to repair last year's losses, as though the lives and deaths of brave men and women were nothing to her. The earth is sweet and pleasant, but nature must attend to her own affairs, and her indifference to the affairs of men, her unchangeableness amidst all the vicissitudes of men's lives, compel us to realise in such a scene as this at once her own eternal youthfulness and man's brief, ephemeral existence. At one stroke Wagner creates the atmosphere for his drama, and gives us as no other artist has ever given it a sense of the unfathomable mystery of the world and of life.

The dwarf taps away with his hammer; he longs to patch up the sword that Siegfried may kill the dragon and he, Mime, get the h.o.a.rd; he bewails his weakness, but he does his best. All his labour proves useless--the sword refuses to be mended; and in comes Siegfried with his bear. The bear is driven off into the woods; there is a long altercation and an explanation; Siegfried cannot believe that, as he has been told, Mime is his father, and he learns the truth. He softens into something approaching manhood as he hears of his mother's death; and finally rushes off into the forest, leaving Mime again to his task. Then follows a scene to be accounted for in only one way. First, the scene: Mime sits in despair, and there enters an old man with his slouch-hat drawn down over one eye, wearing a dark blue cloak (it ought to be dotted with stars), and carrying a spear or staff in his hands. He gains the sacred hearth, converses with Mime, and finally bets him his head that he cannot answer three questions. Much to my surprise when I first saw the score of _Siegfried_, these form merely an excuse for going again over the ground covered in the _Rhinegold_ and the _Valkyrie_. The Scandinavian hegemony is expounded, and other matters are gracefully touched on; the only point is made when the last question is propounded and Mime cannot answer: Who is it shall forge the sword, slay Fafner, take the h.o.a.rd, pa.s.s through the fire and take Brunnhilda for his wife? The old man laughs, leaves Mime his head, but tells him it will fall to the hero who can do all these things, the hero who knows not fear. He goes off; thunder is heard; strange lights flicker amongst the trees; and Mime falls into an ecstasy of terror, suffering all the agonies of a waking nightmare, until the spell is abruptly broken by the entry of Siegfried. Why we should have the two previous dramas of the _Ring_ told again in this way is the puzzle. In the letter to Uhlig (p. 227) Wagner had plainly given his reasons for writing the _Rhinegold_ and the _Valkyrie_--to set before the audience clearly and vividly the events leading up to _Siegfried's Death_, in action, not in narrative. We have seen them in action, and lo! we get them in narrative! Wagner's idea must have been to show us Wotan, realising how matters had pa.s.sed beyond his control, going about the world as the Wanderer, watching the development of things and awaiting the inevitable day. He gives us the very awe and thrill of our Scandinavian forbears with the apparition of the grey-bearded man in his cloak coloured like deep night--the terrible G.o.d that they believed walked the earth and might enter their homesteads at any moment. Of course, as we shall see presently, the answer to the third question prepares the next stage of the drama. But as to why the whole story of the _Ring_ should be repeated--well, even G.o.ds must have something to talk about if they wish to talk at all; and the scene serves to sustain and to intensify the atmosphere in which the whole drama is enacted, the atmosphere of the old sagas. But I cheerfully concede that it is far too long, and in many respects an artistic error.

The real drama of _Siegfried_, considering it as a separate, self-contained opera, is now prepared for, and forthwith begins. We know Siegfried and the task before him; we know Mime and _his_ task--to find out if Siegfried can be made to fear, and if he cannot, to encourage him to kill the dragon, win the gold, and then to poison him. He tries Siegfried with stories of terror, asks him if he has never felt afraid of this, that and the other; and finding that this is the veritable Hero, makes his preparation. Siegfried takes the splinters of the sword--the splinters no smith can weld together--files them to dust, melts the dust, re-casts the sword and finishes it. Meantime Mime, working on, brews his poisonous broth, muttering to himself about his purpose. At the end Siegfried tests the sword and proves it true by splitting the anvil. All sorts of allegorical meanings may be found in this gigantic scene; but the plain meaning is that to a hero, unique, unparalleled in the history of the world, a patched-up weapon, used previously by lesser men, is useless: his sword must be new, and only he himself can forge it.

III

Before dealing further with the drama of _Siegfried_ I wish, for a reason, to say a few words about the music of this First Act. From _Tannhauser_ onward Wagner showed in the music of his operas a complete mastery of what can only be called the business-artistic side of his art, or perhaps a complete knowledge of effectiveness. In so long an affair as an opera, and especially a Wagner opera, effectiveness depends largely on contrast, not simply between scene and scene of an act, but also in a more marked degree between act and act of an opera. In the _Dutchman_ there is none of this larger contrast, and could hardly be, for the _Dutchman_ was originally planned as an opera in one act. There is contrast enough, but he contrasts set-piece with set-piece, scene with scene, not act with act. In _Tannhauser_ he works on the bigger scale and contrasts act with act: the opening of the Second reveals a totally different mood from that of the First, and the Third is entirely different from either. This is true of the _Valkyrie_; but the _Rhinegold_, like the _Dutchman_, is all of a piece, and is, moreover, the prelude to a huge drama. When we come to _Siegfried_ we see at once how he was planning his music on a still vaster scale: the atmosphere of _Siegfried_ is in contrast, almost violent contrast, with that of the _Valkyrie_. The music of the last act of the _Valkyrie_ is of a different character altogether from that of the beginning of _Siegfried_. This is not merely due to the development of Wagner's genius and his technical power, but can be shown to be deliberately planned. Indeed, it ought not to need any demonstration, knowing as we do know his knowledge and grip of what is effective in the theatre. It would be absurd to suppose that he was not perfectly well aware that every one would yawn if after hearing the _Valkyrie_ his audience found _Siegfried_ to be simply a continuation of the _Valkyrie_, found the two operas to be virtually the same work with the scissors put through the score at an arbitrarily chosen point. Consider the scenery of the two operas: First Act of the _Valkyrie_, Hunding's hut with the smouldering fire; Second, a rocky defile in the mountains and no particular weather; Third, storm round the Valkyries' rock, black flying clouds, the pines tossing their branches to the tempest, and, at the end, a peaceful evening sky and then the yellow flames shooting up against it. We must note the change to the beginning of _Siegfried_: a dark cave, and outside it the forest, green, fresh and bright; Second Act, the entrance to Hate-cave, time, night, long before dawn, and at the end a summer morning, with the sun s.h.i.+mmering on the gra.s.s and the trees gently murmuring in the wind; Third, a rocky ravine in the early morning, grey storm-clouds scudding past, the wind whistling; at the end, a mountain top, Brunnhilda sleeping, the peaceful trees, a horse quietly grazing, morning sunlight. This sequence shows how carefully the matter was schemed; and we may now turn to the music.

When the same leitmotivs are largely employed throughout a long operatic work there must be a superficial, or, if I may say so, external, monotony in the character of the music. A first glance at the scores reveals to the eye the same series of notes and chords repeated again and again; to any but the most attentive listener a first hearing leaves the impression of the same themes and pa.s.sages endlessly repeated. But any one who leaves the theatre on an evening after the _Valkyrie_ bearing with him a vivid memory of the brilliance and sweetness of the close must at the very least be struck by the sombre colouring of the opening of _Siegfried_ the following evening.

I do not mean the orchestral colouring, but the intrinsic thing, the music itself. The tapping of the hammer on steel goes on, and in mock seriousness the orchestra gives out a series of prolonged sighs or groans of the most lugubrious character, reaching a climax as poor miserable Mime at last gives up his job in despair. Mime, we must remember, is a half-comic personage; and were his music allotted to some heroic man facing an impossible task it would be much the same, save that Wagner would not have so exaggerated the hysterical emotion.

To depict a being facing an impossible task with no n.o.ble, but with only an ign.o.ble, motive requires such an exaggerated mode of expression. Mime's grief is real enough, but the cause of it contemptible. After a considerable deal in this mournful key comes the sudden entry of the bright young savage Siegfried, driving the bear.

His first theme is simply a bugle hunting call: Siegfried was then nothing but a hunter, a wild child of the forest. But as he gets on with what he has to say Wagner warms up to his work, and we get many inspired pages, some of them showing the tendency to indulge in counterpoint of the finest sort which manifested itself more fully in the _Mastersingers_, though here the movement is fuller of rude impetuosity. The movement--for it is a distinct movement--in which Siegfried describes how he had often looked into the smooth-running brook, and seeing his reflection there knew he did not resemble Mime, who therefore could not be his father--for the cub is like the bear--is one of Wagner's loveliest, and full of a delicate pastoral feeling (again, in contrast with everything in the _Valkyrie_). The Wanderer music is sublime. The theme was borrowed from Liszt, and Liszt ought to have been grateful, for the possibilities of his own musical subject were surely unfolded to him for the first time. In the music here, even more than in the vision of the stage, we have the grey Wanderer of the Scandinavian imagination--the mystery of wood, mountain, river and ravine, with human sadness superadded, is clearly communicated to us. Pa.s.sing over the repet.i.tions from the preceding operas, concerning which I have already said sufficient, we come to the nightmare music, where Wagner once more manifests that miraculous gift of depicting, in terms of music, light and colour, a personal emotion. We can see the flickering lights glaring amongst the trees and feel Mime's terror.

The forge scene is one of Wagner's most stupendous efforts--for really inspired, not mechanical, energy it is by far the greatest thing in the opera. As Siegfried sets to work pulling the bellows, his first call "Nothung!" (the name of the Sword) is practically the same as the cobbler's song in the _Mastersingers_; but immediately after it goes off into a sheer song of spring and the joy of spring; while the bellows groan and the fire roars the feeling of growing green forest life overflows into the music, and the intoxicating exhilaration is expressed as only Wagner himself had expressed it before. When the hammering business begins we again find a likeness to the Sachs music, but what a dissimilarity from the petty tapping of Mime! Mime's theme, and that of all the Nibelung smiths, is characteristic enough; they are not contemptible in themselves, though through them we find the whole tribe of these smiths to be contemptible; and the tremendous swing of this second section of Siegfried's song makes every other smith's song seem by comparison contemptible. Finally, when Nothung is ready for action there is a coruscation of light from the orchestra as the Sword theme, which, of course, we have heard long before, and the Siegfried-the-hunter theme are blared out and the anvil is split.

Many other points must be left until later. I wish for the present to give a notion of Wagner's powers at the time he wrote the earlier portions of _Siegfried_. Had the whole opera been equal to these portions it might have ranked with the _Valkyrie_. But though his powers were not yet on the wane, as we get on we shall see that the subject was getting a little stale. He had not the smallest hope of seeing his work performed. If ever a man wrote purely for posterity it was Wagner at this period; and though the general inspiration remained as deep and powerful as ever, we cannot be surprised if the continuous white heat of the _Valkyrie_ was checked and broken very often. The surprising thing is that so circ.u.mstanced he achieved so much.

IV

The story of the next Act is so simple that I shall deal with it and the music at the same time. Near Hate-cave black Alberich, who first steals the gold, ceaselessly watches: he cannot gain the gold, but its attraction is irresistible. So he watches while we hear the snarling music a.s.sociated with him; and we can feel all the old-time horror of the malignant semi-deities of the black forests and streams and caves.

Mime and he dispute angrily: Siegfried is about to slay the dragon, the "Wurm," and the question is who is to have the gold. The music is all of the sort that Wagner alone after Weber could write--wild, full at times of frenzied energy, full also, if so forced a phrase may be permitted, of black colour--black-green made audible as was the thick darkness that might be felt made to be felt by Handel. Anger cannot be directly expressed in music; but these dreary snarling noises from the orchestra and the peculiar use made of the human voice--a use to be referred to later--enable Wagner to indicate it indirectly in a way effective on the stage. (We may note once again the contrast between two successive scenes--the brilliance, the straightforward vigour of the close of Act I, and these tortuous phrases at the beginning of Act II.) Day begins to lighten, and Siegfried enters; he reclines on a green bank and hearkens to a bird carolling amidst the rustling branches. He tries to imitate its notes on a reed cut with his sword, that emits strange noises; and at last, annoyed by his lack of success, he petulantly blows a blast on his horn. This arouses Fafner, who grumbles and discloses his hiding-place; and presently an extraordinary reptile, one the like of which never was on sea or land, comes forth to destroy the intruder. Siegfried (like the ordinary audience) seems disposed to laugh, but when the monster opens its giant jaws and sends out flames and steam, and red lights begin to glare in its eyes, he sees serious matters are at hand. He prepares for combat, and the battle is terrific, if not very convincing. At last, however, he penetrates the odd brute in a vital part; it rolls over and makes dying prophecies; at the last it asks its conqueror's name and, having learnt it, groans that name once and dies. Siegfried thereupon penetrates into the cave and returns with the h.o.a.rd; then he throws himself once more upon the green bank.

If the reader thinks I treat this episode rather flippantly, let me promptly admit that this is so. It is pantomime of the most grotesque sort, not serious opera. The dragon would not frighten a child. The whole thing is an artistic mistake: the fight should take place with the beast wholly or nearly out of sight: an occasional lash of the tail, with plenty of smoke and red fire, would be much more effective than this construction of lath and pasteboard. The music hardly ever reaches a high level. There is not in existence any fine music descriptive of any form of fighting; and here slas.h.i.+ng pa.s.sages on the strings, blares of the bra.s.s, shrieks of the wood-wind, do not cover the inevitable failure of invention. Fafner's dying speech is better, for Wagner had something urgent to say on his own account: he wishes to urge on us the significance of Siegfried's coming career; and he does it with immense impressiveness. The day of the Ending of the G.o.ds comes a little nearer when Siegfried takes possession of the Ring and places it on his finger. As was arranged from the beginning of time, things are taking their course; Fate, answering none who questions, works out her plans silently, mysteriously, inexorably. A sense of our darkness regarding our destiny fills the music with a profound emotion.

If there has been too much of the pantomimic grotesque so far, Wagner soon offers us compensations. The music now is amongst his freshest and most fragrant. A reservation must be made touching the absolute perfection of its beauty, but only a minute one. When first the bird sang sweetly in the branches outspread above Siegfried's head we heard the beginning of the piece known in the concert room as "Forest Voices," the most exquisite sylvan picture ever done in music. A low rippling figure, or rather part-figure and part-melodic theme, is heard: it mounts higher, descends again, sways about, swells and dies away; other melodies are interwoven with it; it becomes more rapid in its motion, and grows louder until we feel the wind getting up and the leaves dancing, and then comes the voice of the bird. This may sound a little high-falutin', but is the only way in which I can render my impression. The picture is so absolutely convincing that many readers who, like myself, first heard the thing in a concert room will remember that with the one hint conveyed by the t.i.tle no scenery was needed to make its meaning and feeling quite clear. The bird-voice is managed with consummate art: a penny toy would have enabled the composer to give a faithful imitation of bird-song--and would have spoilt the faithfulness of the whole picture. So Wagner has translated the real bird-song into terms of art, and thereby given us its spirit while sufficiently suggestive of the original. It is not sustained for long. Siegfried, as I have described, tries to cut a reed so as to imitate it, and there is some innocent fooling as he only gets odd squeaks out of his instrument; then comes the combat with the Dragon, and he returns to his place. The one tender spot in his nature, awakened by the thought of his mother, who died for him, is touched by the bird-song and the sweet morning; he is filled with vague, sorrowful yearnings--and presently the bird sings again. But after killing the monster he had touched its blood--it burnt his finger, which he instinctively put in his mouth; and the taste of the blood endows him with the faculty of understanding the speech of beasts and birds. So now when the bird sings it is a human voice uttering words.

It is with regard to this I make a reservation. The abrupt entrance of the human voice startles one: the picture is for a moment distorted, made artificial. After a few hearings one grows accustomed to the incongruity; but I still think Wagner would perhaps have done better to let Siegfried tell us what he hears. This is, however, a mere guess; and it savours of impudence to suggest what so great a composer as Wagner should have done. The bird first warns Siegfried against Mime. Mime crawls in with his basin of poisoned soup, meaning to offer his "son" some refreshment after the labours of the morning. In whining accents, verging on the ludicrous--for I have said that Mime is semi-comic--he professes his love; but the dragon's blood also enables Siegfried to understand what he means, and, just as Beckmesser in singing the stolen song utters words very different from those he means, so Mime in what he intends to be affectionate strains tells us his real purpose. Siegfried plays with him as a cat plays with a mouse, and at last plunges the sword into him--and from a thicket comes the malignant laugh of Alberich, barked to Mime's own hammering phrase. Disgusted, Siegfried returns to his resting place, but the bird again engages his attention: it sings of the maiden afar off on the mountain sleeping hedged in by the fire through which he alone can break. Siegfried's longings take definite form: he will win the maiden; the bird promises to lead him; it flutters off; he follows; the curtain drops.

Thus ends one of Wagner's most splendid scenes--certainly the finest in this opera. The pa.s.sion of the music, its vivid picturesque quality, its freshness, go to make it one of the many things of Wagner's for which no parallel can be found. Wagner's technique had now reached that supreme height which made _Tristan_ and the _Mastersingers_ possible; and the spontaneous energy of his inspiration was unabated. The Act, we may remember, was actually completed after those two operas, but it was planned and partially executed before.

V

During the long interval that elapsed between the execution of the earlier portion of the Second Act of _Siegfried_ and the resumption of his work many things happened to Wagner. He composed _Tristan_ and the _Mastersingers_; he went through his worst years of utter despair; he was taken up by King Ludwig. As I have mentioned, he went to Triebschen to complete the _Ring_ for the sake of his conception of the hero Siegfried--and he went there a jaded man. And there is an unmistakable quality in the music of his Third Act. In _Tristan_ and the _Mastersingers_ we have the perfectly mature Wagner; inspiration, invention and technical accomplishment are perfectly balanced. What we feel immediately in the third act of _Siegfried_ is a certain over-ripeness--as if the writing of music had become too easy. As we proceed I shall give some instances of this, though not so many as might be given.

Siegfried is now on the point of reaching the height of his fortunes.

He has the Sword, has killed the Dragon, secured the Ring and the magic cap which will enable him to change himself into any shape he pleases. Following the fluttering bird he comes to a pa.s.s on the mountain-side and encounters Wotan who, we know, had sworn that none who feared his Spear should pa.s.s through the fire. He endeavours to stop the Hero, who shatters the Spear. Siegfried pa.s.ses on; the flames leap up at his approach and subside as he boldly goes on. He finds Brunnhilda sleeping, awakes her with a kiss, overcomes her resistance, and the opera concludes with a triumphant love-duet. This is the skeleton of what is, dramatically if not musically, the most important of the three acts.

The curtain rises on this mountain pa.s.s in a dark dawn: an angry cold wind whistles and screams, and wild wet clouds are flying. Wotan stands there; presently he summons Erda, who rises, as in the _Rhinegold_, with a "frosty light" about her; he asks her what will be the upshot of the day's doings. Her answer is no answer, and Wotan replies for her: Siegfried will pa.s.s and take Brunnhilda--and then the End of the G.o.ds. The dramatic object of this scene I have never been able to grasp. Both Wotan and Erda know what the end will be; and I can only take it that Wagner, fully aware that each of the const.i.tuent operas of the _Ring_ would certainly be performed separately, wanted to make his intention and the whole plot clear to those who had not seen the earlier parts of the work. Musically it shows signs of that over-ripeness I have just spoken of. The introduction is magnificent: the leaping figure on the strings, the subject that serves for Erda here (and elsewhere in different shapes for all the elemental beings), mounting up against it, the phrase expressive of Wotan's anguish (from Act II of the _Valkyrie_), the Spear theme rising by degrees and ever increasing force, the whole leading up to the Wanderer music--these at once tell a story and paint a picture of tempest amongst the wild mountainous rocks. Had Schopenhauer heard this music it would have justified his remark about the use of clouds. From the moment that Wotan begins his invocation the quality falls: the motive is, for Wagner, a poor, mechanical thing; and an appearance of life is only kept up by marked rhythms, forced changes of key, and noisy orchestration. Erda's music is not on the highest level. The colour is there, and an atmosphere is gained largely through the employment of music previously heard; but the vocal phrases are not true song, nor that blending of true song with recitative of which we have already noticed so many examples.

With the approach of Siegfried, however, at once the superb artist shows himself: a complete piece made from the fire-music, the bird-music, and Siegfried the hunter's theme is begun, to be interrupted for a while, then resumed and worked up into a glorious thing. The interruption is the scene between Siegfried and his grandfather the Wanderer. It brings the tragedy of Wotan more vividly than ever before us, and is from every point of view not only justified but necessary. Siegfried scoffs at the old dotard, who loves the boy as his own flesh and blood (if one may say this of a pagan G.o.d) doomed to death by his forbear's ambition and errors. At last Siegfried, impatient to go on, smashes the Spear and ascends the path to where we see the distant glow of the flames. The music is supremely n.o.ble and touching, with just a hint here and there of over-facility: I mean chiefly that the vocal phrases are not tense and full of character as are those in the _Valkyrie_: they seem to have been _put in_ to fit the orchestral web. In an earlier chapter I spoke of this weakness in the _Ring_; and from this point onward till the end of Wagner's writing days, unless he was writing undisguised song, the liability to this weakness increased. The over-ripeness shows itself also in the structure of the music: the parts lack definition (as microscopists would say). Formalism is not at all a desirable thing; but if we examine the great works, differing widely in character, _Tristan_, the _Mastersingers_ and the _Valkyrie_, we find the utmost distinctness combined with perfect freedom and expressiveness. Even as early as the Second Act of _Siegfried_ the freedom threatens to degenerate into sloppiness--or, to put it rather more mildly, at least into vagueness. Perhaps he felt this himself; for certainly at the end of the act we are discussing, and often in the _Dusk of the G.o.ds_, he gives us straightforward song. At best his song-recitative is sublime; at worst it is insufferably tedious.

The gorgeous journey to the mountain-top is resumed as Siegfried disappears amongst the rocks and Wotan goes off. We are now done with him: his last ineffectual stand for supremacy having collapsed, as he fore-knew it would, he returns to Valhalla to await the end. There is darkness for a while; then light returns, and we find the scene that of the termination of the _Valkyrie_. The mountain-top is sunlit; Brunnhilda's horse Grani is contentedly at graze; Brunnhilda, covered with her s.h.i.+eld, her spear by her side, sleeps, motionless. Siegfried comes over some rocks at the back of the stage, gazes around him in wonder, finally discovers Brunnhilda, and with a kiss awakens her. At first the G.o.dhood has not quite gone out of her, and "Woe! woe!" she cries, as she realises her fate. But womanhood is strong within her; she yields; hails Siegfried as the highest hero of all the world, and the opera ends.

The music is nearly throughout the superb Wagner. The long ascending violin pa.s.sage which accompanies Siegfried's amazed gazing at the wonders around him, chief amongst them Brunnhilda, is imagined with absolute truth; Brunnhilda's Greeting to the sun is Wagner in the plenitude of his powers, blending music which depicts her outspread arms with human rapture in an incomparable way; Siegfried's masterful and pa.s.sionate entreaties are quite in the strain of Tristan, though the Scandinavian atmosphere prevails; Brunnhilda's awe-stricken song, "O Siegfried, highest hero," interprets the birth of love in a woman's breast with, again, absolute truth; and that the man who had lately written _Tristan_ could write such a finale is not the least astounding of Wagner's feats.

The Siegfried Idyll, made of the Siegfried Themes, is, in a word, the most beautiful thing he ever wrote.

CHAPTER XVII

'THE DUSK OF THE G.o.dS'

I

This, the last of Wagner's really great works, was composed in hot haste for the first Bayreuth festival. True, the festival did not take place until some time after its completion; but at the moment Wagner antic.i.p.ated an immediate performance. There is nothing more pathetic, nothing sadder, than the picture of the mighty world-composer struggling against petty odds to complete what might have been a world-masterpiece, and failing because of his hurry. He was sixty years of age; worn by constant combat; worried even then by stupid persecutions and the uncertainties of life; and he went on, if not joyfully, at least indomitably, unconquerably. The result is a work gigantic in idea, but far too rapid and facile in the execution. His pen seems to have run of its own accord; the scenes are spread out to a length positively appalling; pages on pages show no trace of inspiration. Yet the _Dusk of the G.o.ds_ is an opera no other composer could have achieved; and with all its defects it will be a high and holy joy to generations not yet born.

The last hour of the old G.o.ds has come; the Norns spin their web on the Valkyries' rock; it breaks, and they sink into the earth, knowing that all is finished. Dawn breaks, and Siegfried and Brunnhilda come out of their cavern; Siegfried must now go forth to deeds of derring-do, for, like Lovelace, "how could he love her, dear, so much, loved he not honour more?" She bids him go, and he goes; the flames immediately spring up again round her dwelling--for what reason Wagner does not explain. Neither does he explain why Brunnhilda does not travel with her husband--the explanation is made only too obvious afterwards. He travels to the Rhine, and there meets Hagen, Gunther and Gunther's sister Gutruna. Hagen, the son of Alberich, is more or less like Mime, a half-super-natural being, malignant, diabolical, with only one idea, that of getting possession of the gold, and, above all, of the Ring. He knows of Siegfried's "deed," and knows that Siegfried is coming that way; but he keeps the story to himself, and tells Gunther and Gutruna of the fearless hero and of Brunnhilda sleeping on the mountain-top encircled by fire. Gunther desires the woman, Gutruna the man. But only Siegfried can pa.s.s through the fire.

Pat to the moment he arrives, and enters leading Grani. Hagen offers him drink which contains a powder which destroys his memory; he forgets all about Brunnhilda, but not, apparently, about the magic cap; he gazes in rapture at Gutruna, and in a few minutes the pact is made--Siegfried shall take Gunther's form and win Brunnhilda for him; in return he will have Gutruna, who is more than willing. The two men go off together, and the scene changes again to the Valkyries' rock.

Brunnhilda sits alone looking at the Ring; Waltraute, one of the Valkyries, rushes in and demands that Ring. She relates how for want of it Wotan, dreading that it may fall into the hands of Alberich, sits gloomy and silent in Valhalla. But Brunnhilda is now wholly woman and has no sympathy with the G.o.ds; she refuses the Ring, and Waltraute goes off in despair. The flames begin to flicker and dance; Siegfried's horn is heard; and presently he enters in Gunther's form, or at least as nearly in it as can be managed on the stage. He claims and seizes Brunnhilda, sends her into the sleeping-chamber, and, swearing truth to his new friend Gunther, follows with his drawn sword ready to place between him and his bride.

So the act closes. Brunnhilda's horror and shame are unspeakable; she cannot understand; Wotan had promised her the great hero, and this promise is broken and a last humiliation inflicted on her. The act is intolerably long; even were every moment crowded with Wagner's most glorious music the strain on our attention would be terrific. But the music is by no means uniformly of Wagner's best; for pages on pages his sheer craftsmans.h.i.+p fairly gallops away with him. The Norn scene is as purely theatrical as anything he wrote; the atmosphere is, so to speak, artificially weird. The scene between Siegfried and Brunnhilda is more inspired; and the journey to the Rhine is one of Wagner's finest bits of picture-painting. The change of feeling towards the end is superb: a sense of foreboding and dread comes into the music and prepares us for the coming disaster. But when the curtain rises on the hall of the Gib.i.+.c.hungs we at once get more artificiality and theatricality. In using the word theatrical I do not mean there is any return to, for instance, the _Rienzi_ style: the music is theatrical in Wagner's own later way: it seems to fit the situation, but the appearance is an appearance only: the stuff is superficial: the feeling of the moment is not expressed--the music, in a word, is essentially the same as that of many inferior but clever opera composers, only, of course, the Wagner idiom is always there. The Waltraute scene is fine, being largely made up of old material; but I cannot say much for the scene between Brunnhilda and Siegfried. In this first act two important themes are introduced, the Tarnhelm theme and that of the draught of forgetfulness. The first is of the theatrical type: it is a leitmotiv of the same sort as Lohengrin's warning to Elsa; the other is a miracle, one of the wonders of music.

It gives one in a brief phrase Siegfried's dazed sense that something has gone from him, a strange sense of loss; and it has the pathos the moment demands. As for the draught of forgetfulness itself, it cannot be explained as symbolical of anything; it must be accepted as we accept the Tarnhelm and the Rhinemaidens and black Alberich.

II

In the Second Act the scene is again the Gib.i.+.c.hungs' hall. Siegfried and Gunther are away, and Hagen watches by night; his father, Alberich, crawls up from the river and counsels him as to how to get possession of the Ring; then he disappears as dawn begins to show. The music is weird and sinister in Wagner's finest manner. Siegfried comes in and says Gunther and his bride will soon arrive, and goes off with Gutruna, happy as a child; in a magnificent piece of music, largely constructed of a harsh phrase a.s.sociated with Hagen, he (Hagen) calls up the clansmen and women; a pompous bit of chorus greets Gunther and Brunnhilda, and then once more we are plunged into a sea of theatricality. To her amazement, Brunnhilda finds Siegfried there with his new bride, unmindful of her. In rage she denounces him and declares he has shared the joys of love with her; he denies it; but Gunther is shamed, and has no doubt that Siegfried has played him false. Siegfried goes merrily off, and Gunther, Hagen and Brunnhilda swear that he must die. In the music we get any amount of physical energy and dramatic emphasis; but we know this is no longer the Wagner of the _Valkyrie_. I pa.s.s over the Act briefly now, because I can only repeat what I have said before. Of course all the consummate skill of the master is there.

The Third Act opens by the river-side. Siegfried has wandered away from a hunting party, and is attracted by the song of the Rhinemaidens--a regular set piece in the oldest-fas.h.i.+oned of forms, but marvellously beautiful. The nymphs try to coax him to throw them the Ring, which he had wrested from Brunnhilda; he refuses, and they tell him that this day he must die. The other hunters come in, and Siegfried is asked to tell of his adventures, and as he does so Hagen offers him a cup of wine into which he dropped another powder; Siegfried's memory gradually returns, and to Gunther's horror he relates how he first scaled the mountain, pa.s.sed the fire and won Brunnhilda. He means on the first occasion, but it shames Gunther once again. Hagen points in the air and asks Siegfried what he sees above him; two black ravens fly over. Siegfried turns to look at them, and Hagen instantly thrusts a spear into his back; the ravens wing their way to Valhalla to tell Wotan that the fatal hour has come. In a sublime pa.s.sage Siegfried the dying hero sings of Brunnhilda, and dies. Every one save Hagen is horror-stricken; the body is picked up and carried downward through the moonlit mists over the mountain, and the gorgeous funeral march is played. This is built up on Wagner's customary plan: it tells the story of the Volsung race, now ended by the death of Siegfried.

In the second scene of the Act there is one fine pa.s.sage--Brunnhilda's long address--and the rest is manufactured with dexterity and quite uninspired. The body is brought in; Hagen wishes to take the Ring, and a thrill is sent through us as the dead man's arm rises threateningly.

Gunther interferes, and Hagen kills him; Brunnhilda comes on and sees clearly everything; Gutruna claims Siegfried as hers--"he never was yours; he is mine," Brunnhilda replies, and (by trick of true stage-craft) Gutruna is seen to kneel down by the side of her dead brother. She is absolutely alone--even Siegfried, dead, is taken from her, and she instinctively creeps to the only thing that is in any sense hers. Brunnhilda orders the funeral fire to be built; the body is put on it and consumed: Brunnhilda mounts Grani and scatters the ashes, and with them the Ring, into the river; the waters rise, and Hagen rushes after the Ring, to be drawn down; Wotan's power went when the spear was shattered, and now that the Ring is returned to the Rhine no other power controls Loge. He flares up, and we see Valhalla on high in flames.