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THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



hesitatingly say that the selection has been 

 very judiciously made ; and, indeed, any 

 one, after reading the volume, will obtain a 

 definite conception of Wagner's personality, 

 which will be felt to be a true conception. 



The book opens with a brief introduc- 

 tion, in which the translator explains some 

 of the difficulties which stand in the way 

 of putting Wagner's German into toleraVjly 

 plain English, and then proceeds to Wag- 

 ner's autobiography ; or so much of it as 

 brings the account down to 1842, since 

 which time his life has been in a great de- 

 gree a public one. 



His youth was idle and stormy, and it 

 was only after hardship and some real mis- 

 ery that he came to thorough worli ; the 

 determining cause of his action seems to 

 have been an intellectual one, rather than 

 an impulse. 



Following the autobiography, come three 

 essays much of the same class : " The 

 Story of the First Performance of an Op- 

 era," "A Pilgrimage to Beethoven," and 

 " The End of a German Musician in Paris." 



The impressions with which one comes 

 away from the reading of the autobiogra- 

 phy are strengthened and amplified by these 

 sketches. 



These belong to Wagner as a man, and 

 confirm the rather unpleasant impression 

 which his own life, as written by himself, 

 conveys ; he seems to have let his enthusi- 

 asm degenerate into waywai'dness, or rather 

 waywardness was his enthusiasm, and his 

 aspect toward the world in general is dis- 

 heartening. We are speaking now of Wag- 

 ner as he was in his earlier .years, before 

 1842, and we recognize the propriety of 

 the selection of the second and third of 

 these essays as exponents of his feeling at 

 that time. Indeed, that must be the suffi- 

 cient excuse for their selection, as the fic- 

 tions themselves are of the slightest and 

 -most trivial description. 



From this point onward we have to deal 

 with quite another phase ; not, indeed, with 

 another Wagner, for the unpleasant impres- 

 sion of his personality remains, but with 

 the same Wagner under new impulses or 

 new intellectual motives. To this period 

 belong the two essays on " Der Freischiitz," 

 which must be classed among the best 

 specimens of musical literature extant. 



They are charming for the keen appre- 

 ciation of the points involved, and for the 

 skill in which characteristics, good and 

 bad, are brought out and set over against 

 each other. Although these, in time, are 

 of the same epoch as the ones previously 

 noticed, they are an outcome of a decided- 

 ly higher phase of feeling. 



Then follow essays on the music of the 

 future, the purpose of the opera, musical 

 criticism, and on the production of " Tann- 

 hauser " in Paris. These are fine in all ways, 

 and show how Wagner's musical theories 

 were taking shape, and define, when taken 

 together, what that shape is. We had 

 meant to give this in brief, but find the 

 task no light one, and we must refer the 

 reader to the essays themselves for an ex- 

 planation. Suffice it to say that Wagner 

 proves, in such a way that all must follow 

 him, that the form of the opera produced 

 by the Italian school is entirely inadequate, 

 not to say absurd. It is absurd poetically, 

 dramatically, and above all musically. He 

 also explains in what way he proposes to 

 remedy these defects, and despite much 

 " fine writing " and vague disquisition an idea 

 may be had of his scheme. Two essays on 

 the plan of the Grand Opera-House at Bai- 

 reuth show that his ideas may be put into 

 definite brick and mortar, although hard to 

 formulate into words. 



The " Legend of the Nibelungen " gives 

 an excellent idea of his skill as an author, 

 and would show to any one not acquainted 

 with his operas that the dramatic situations 

 and the swing and progress of a dramatic 

 climax are likely to be fully understood and 

 adequately treated by him. This volume 

 gives, it seems to us, an adequate idea of 

 Wagner as a man and as a musical the- 

 orist. As a man he is not lovable, scarce- 

 ly admirable. One would call him acute 

 rather than profound. As a theorist, it is 

 impossible to give a suitable judgment in 

 the short limits of a review, which shall 

 not at the same time offend both his friends 

 and his enemies. Any such judgment must 

 be in a large degree personal, and therefore 

 imperfect. Shall we say that dramatically 

 and poetically he stands alone in opera 

 that syrnphonically he has not yet reached 

 the hmits of his master Beethoven that in 

 dramatic vocal forms R. Franz and Schu 



