LEADING ARTICLES. 



613 



MUSICAL MATTERS. 



WAGNER ]N 191 3. 



In connection with the centenary of 

 the birth of Wagner, we have several 

 articles on Wagner and the Bayreuth 

 Idea. 



Mr. Ernest Newman has written two 

 articles. In the Contemporary Review 

 he points out that Wagner is still by far 

 the most striking and most talked-about 

 person in the world of music. No man 

 who ever wrote music had a personality 

 so complex, or managed to fill the stage 

 so effecti\ely both during and after his 

 lifetime. He had the faith m himself 

 that moves mountains ; he believed in 

 himself both as a man and an artist. 

 He was an almost incomprehensible 

 paradox. Persistently he refused to 

 earn a living like other men, on the 

 ground that it was not good for him to 

 waste himself in the rough and tumble 

 of the world, and he put this theory into 

 practice with courage and thoroughness. 

 After the Dresden catastrophe of 1849, 

 when he was apparently a ruined man, 

 he regarded his exile and the consequent 

 cessation of income merely as a great 

 stroke of luck ; his inner harm'ony would 

 no longer be disturbed by any concern 

 for live'ihood. And some thirteen years 

 later, wnen he was at the end of his re- 

 sources, he turned a deaf ear to the hint 

 that he should try to re-establish him- 

 self by accepting a Kapellmeister's post. 

 " I am differently organised ; I must 

 have beauty, light, brilliance. The world 

 owes me what I need," he said. Crown- 

 ing paradox of all, this musician, who 

 will live by virtue only of the eloquence 

 of his music, set ahnost the least store 

 by that. What lay nearer to his heart 

 Vv'as the regeneration of modern civilisa- 

 tion, or the raising of drama to a 

 potency hitherto undreamt of, with 

 music not as the end but one of the 



means. 



WAGNER AND BF.ETHO\'EN. 



Writing in the Musical Tunes, Mr. 

 Newman notes tnat no one in this cen- 

 tenary year has thought of bringing out 

 a popular working edition of the best 

 of his prose works. The volume, " Opera 

 and Drama," he suggests would be all 

 the better if the essential argument was 



compressed into about half its present 

 bulk. But since two excellent transla- 

 tions of this volume now exist, Mr. New- 

 man thinks a publisher would do the 

 world a real service by issuing a read- 

 able translation of some of the shorter 

 prose writings. Wagner had a striking 

 insight into the soul of Beethoven's 

 music. With a slight change m his ori- 

 ginal make-up he would have been, says 

 Mr. Newman, a composer of the stamp 

 of Beethoven, content to work within the 

 limits of a purely orchestral form. But 

 his musical sense had a more definite 

 poetic turn than Beethoven's. Music 

 meant little or nothing to him unless it 

 spoke directly of humanity and to 

 humanity. No theme must be invented 

 for mere invention's sake ; it must spring 

 into being as the expression of an over- 

 whelming human need, and must answer 

 in all its changes to the changing life 

 of the man or mood it painted. 



ADVICE TO THE SINGER. 



An article in the Musical Times deals 

 with Albert Visetti, the well-known 

 teacher of singing. 



Without health, he says, it is impos- 

 sible to become a singer. Besides health, 

 a certain kind of throat is needed. The 

 Italian throat and the German throat 

 can stand more than the English throat. 

 E\ery singer should begin study in his 

 own country and with his own language. 

 He should have the best masters and not 

 dream of going abroad till he has ac- 

 quired the language of the foreign 

 country he wishes to go to, and knows a 

 little al)out its histor}- and atmosphere. 

 I'urther, he advises ever\one thinkins: of 

 a musical career to stud\- in London. H 

 you go to France )'ou get onl\- French 

 music, if you go to Germany onl\- Ger- 

 man music, but in London )-ou get the 

 music of ever)' nation, for London is the 

 most cosmopolitan cit)' in the world. 

 Mr. V^isetti agrees that there is a crowd 

 of uncm]ilo\'ed \ocalists, but he con- 

 siders it ma}' be due to improjier train- 

 ing. If the jiublic were determined to 

 be satisfied with nothing less than cul- 

 tured singers, he is of opinion that over- 

 crowding would cease, and that real art 

 would prevail. Mr. \'isetti is an ardent 



