| Contents |
Part I: Cultural decadence of the nineteenth century. Mercury, god of merchants, reigns over modern culture ; The rabble and the philistines set artistic standards ; Criticism of the Vienna Opera House ; Italian opera, an excuse for conversation and social gatherings ; Paris demanded a ballet in Tannhauser ; Jews in music ; Christian hypocrisy ; Contrast between the present-day theatre and the Greek ; The dissolution of the drama ; The necessity of revolution ; What is utopia? ; The revolution -- Part II: The Greek ideal. Greek art and drama ; A fellowship of players, communion of players and audience ; The fellowship and the community, the priest as actor ; The folk creates art ; Definition of the folk ; Myth as it relates to the folk and to art ; The value of myth is its eternal truth ; Feeling is the basis of understanding -- Part III: The origins of modern opera, drama, and music. Development of the aria, Gluck's contribution ; Mozart and Rossini, the death of opera ; Weber's contribution ; Nadir of opera: music by Meyerbeer, libretto by Scribe ; Opera affirms the separation of the arts ; Origin of modern drama: the romance and Greek drama ; Essence of the romance ; Myth diluted by Christianity ; The romance versus the drama, romance turns to politics eventually ; The state versus the individual, understanding versus feeling ; Poetry is impossible in modern speech ; While language declines, music, a new language of feeling, develops, until poetry becomes either philosophy or blends with music ; Haydn and Mozart develop dance music into the modern symphony and make use of folk song and speaking melody ; Yet they fail to achieve dramatic pathos or continuity of action, their works are characterized by a "lofty glee" ; Beethoven makes music express storm and stress, but absolute music can express only mirth or endless yearning, it lacks the deed, the moral will. The Ninth Symphony is the redemption of music into drama ; Three descriptive and analytic programs, the importance of identifying the poetic subjects of Beethoven's works: a. The "Eroica" Symphony, b. The "Coriolan" overture, c. The Ninth Symphony (with parallel passages from the poems of Goethe -- Part IV: The artwork of the future. Music and reality, Schopenhauer's theory extended by Wagner ; Beethoven's symphonies reveal another world, whose logic is the logic of feeling ; Poetry will combine with music in drama which also obeys the logic of feeling ; Essence of drama is knowing through feeling ; Need to concentrate motives in drama ; Myth represents a concentration of motives, summary of relations of myth, drama, feeling, and motives ; Word speech must be strengthened to suit mythic drama ; From ordinary speech a new art speech must be created, a concise and vigorous style ; Rhythm determined not by artificial metrics but by the natural liftings and lowerings of the speaking accent ; Alliteration unifies expression, Stabreim defined and illustrated ; Poetic value of Stabreim ; Use of rhyme, passing over of word speech into tone speech ; Different functions of the word poet and tone poet ; Melody and feeling ; Tonality and expression, setting Stabreim ; Modulation and action ; Harmony imparts feeling tone to melody ; Poet and musician unite in the orchestra ; Orchestra's power of speech, analogy with gesture ; Foreboding and remembrance ; Example from Lohengrin ; The new musicodramatic unity ; Relation of the poet to the musician ; One artist or two? ; Conclusion -- Part V: Wagner's development. Autobiographical sketch ; Rienzi ; The Flying Dutchman: use of myth ; Tannhauser, the conception of higher love ; Lohengrin, its novelty. Elsa and Lohengrin as antithesis, representing the unconscious and the conscious ; Siegfried. Turning point in Wagner's artistic development, abandons history for myth ; Breaks with operatic conventions ; Growing inwardness of his art, concluding with Tristan, where only "inner movements of the soul" are depicted ; Spiritual crisis: Schopenhauer, the longing for death -- Prelude to Tristan und Isolde ; Negation of the will, Dante, Buddhism ; Overthrow of humanistic values, changes in The Ring ; Relation of Tristan to The Ring ; Nibelungen myth considered as a "sketch for a drama" ; Commentary on The Ring ; Parsifal. Letter to Mathilde Wesendonck, May 30, 1859 -- Part VI: The art of performance. Conducting, relation of melody to tempo, establishing the correct tempo, the principle of modifying tempo, performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ; Acting, performing The Flying Dutchman ; Singing, Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Wagner's ideal Heldentenor -- Part VII: Bayreuth. The founding of the Festspielhaus, Wagner's speech on the occasion, the design of the theatre, hidden orchestra, perspective arrangement, stage space ; "Parsifal at Bayreuth", final festival in 1882, acting technique, scenery, rehearsals ; The staging of Tristan and Isolde by Appia -- Part VIII: Politics. On state and religion, state guarantees stability, basic Wahn of political life is patriotism, public opinion, the king and religion, dogma and allegory, the function of art ; German art and German policy: German and French civilizations contrasted, development of the German nation, the Romantic movement, the decline of German art, need for the German princes to support German art, German union. |
