GROUT CHAPTER OUTLINE - WAGNER

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Western musical world diversified as the audience for music broadened and became more segmented. Increasing interest in music of the past was balanced by the emergence of new styles of concert music, and a growing seriousness in the concert hall and new forms of entertainment music widened the gulf between classical and popular music. We will focus in this chapter on the classical tradition in Germany, examining how a debate between partisans of Johannes Brahms and of Richard Wagner crystallized divisions within German music. The following chapter treats national traditions in France and eastern and northern Europe and explores the division into classical and popular streams primarily through musical life in the United States.

1. Brahms versus Wagner
1. Brahms sought to create works within the Classical traditions.
2. Wagner and Liszt saw the legacy of Beethoven pointing toward new genres and musical approaches.
3. These divergent views polarized around Brahms and Wagner.
4. Composers debated the relative merits of:
1. Absolute and program music
2. Tradition and innovation
3. Classical genres and forms and new ones
5. Both sides linked themselves to Beethoven.
6. The music from both sides was known as classical music, since it was intended for performance alongside the Classical repertory.

1. Richard Wagner (1813-1883) (see HWM biography, page 690, and Figure 27.5)
1. Wagner was a crucial figure in nineteenth-century culture and one of the most influential musicians of all times.
1. He brought German Romantic opera to a new height.
2. He created a new genre, the music drama.
3. His rich chromatic idiom influenced later composers.
2. Biography
1. He was born in Leipzig, Germany, the ninth child of a police actuary.
2. Wagner began writing operas in the 1830s and held positions with several regional companies.
3. He worked as a music journalist in Paris from 1839 to 1842.
4. He was appointed second Kapellmeister for the king of Saxony in Dresden in 1843.
5. Wagner supported the 1848-49 insurrection and had to flee.
6. In Switzerland he wrote his most important essays.
7. He received support from a new patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in 1864.
8. Although married to Minna (1836-66), he had relationships with other women, including Mathilde Wesendonck.
9. In 1870, he married Cosima von Bülow, a child of Franz Liszt.
3. Writings (see HWM Source Reading. page 692)
1. In a series of essays, Wagner argued that music should serve dramatic expression. His essays include:
1. The Artwork of the Future (1850)
2. Opera and Drama (1851, revised 1868)
2. Beethoven
1. Wagner felt that Beethoven had exhausted instrumental music.
2. The Ninth Symphony showed the path to the future with its union of music and words.
3. He saw himself as the true successor to Beethoven.
3. Gesamtkunstwerk
1. Wagner felt that poetry, scenic design, staging, action, and music should work together to create a Gesmatkunstwerk (total or collective artwork).
2. The words related the events and situations, while the orchestra conveyed the inner drama.
4. Anti-Semitism
1. Wagner wrote about politics and morals in several essays, including the anti-Semitic polemic Das Judentum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music).
2. He attacked both Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn for being Jewish and lacking national roots, although he admired and was influenced by both.
4. Operas
1. Rienzi (1842), a five-act grand opera, was his first major success.
2. Die fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman, 1843)
1. A Romantic opera in the tradition of Weber, the work is based on a German legend.
2. Wagner wrote the libretto.
3. Themes from one of the vocal ballads appear in the overture and recur throughout the opera, functioning like reminiscence motives.
3. Tannhäuser (1845)
1. The story is also adopted from Germanic legends.
2. Semi-declamatory vocal writing appears in this work, which would become Wagner's normal type of text-setting.
4. Lohengrin (1850)
1. Medieval legend and German folklore combine in a moralizing and symbolic plot.
2. The declamatory style is expanded, and recurring themes are more fully developed.
5. Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs)
1. Wagner composed four music dramas based on Teutonic and Nordic legends.
1. Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold)
2. Die Walküre (The Valkyrie)
3. Siegfried
4. Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods)
2. Wagner wrote the first two operas and part of Siegfried by 1857; he completed the rest in 1874.
3. Wagner built his own theater in Bayreuth, where he gave the first performance of the Ring cycle in 1876 (see HWM Figure 27.6).
6. Other music dramas
1. Tristan und Isolde (1857-59)
1. Wagner wrote the libretto, basing it on a thirteenth-century romance by Gottfired von Strassburg.
2. It became one of Wagner's most influential works.
2. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Meistersingers of Nuremberg, 1862-67)
3. Parsifal (1882), his last work, uses diatonic and chromatic music to suggest redemption and corruption respectively.
7. The leitmotiv
1. A leitmotiv is a musical theme or motive associated with a person, thing, emotion, or idea in the drama.
2. All of the music dramas are organized around these themes.
3. Use of leitmotives
1. The meaning of the motive is usually established the first time it is heard.
2. The leitmotiv recurs whenever its subject appears or when it is mentioned.
3. A leitmotiv can be transformed and varied as the plot develops.
4. Similarities among leitmotives may indicate connections between the subjects they portray.
4. Leitmotives differ from reminiscence motives.
1. Leitmotives are for the most part short and characterize their subjects at various levels, as seen in Example 27.3d.
2. Leitmotives are the basic material of the score and are used constantly.
3. The musical material surrounding the leitmotives and their developments creates a sense of an "endless melody."
8. Tristan und Isolde, Act 1, scene 5 (NAWM 128)
1. The scene has a continuous musical flow.
1. The orchestra maintains the continuity.
2. The melodies vary from speechlike to soaring and passionate.
2. The passage uses a number of leitmotives (see HWM Example 27.3).
1. Tristan's honor is introduced at measure 38 and is developed throughout the section.
2. The melodic idea at measure 64 is associated with the love potion.
3. Measures 66-69 contain the "Tristan chord," which was the first chord in the opera.
4. The rising chromatic motive in measures 69-70 represents longing.
3. A pantomime follows as the potion takes control; the actors move and gesture at specific moments in the music.
4. A climax is reached at measure 102 with a deceptive cadence.
5. A new melody begins in the violas at measure 103, joined by the voices calling to each other.
6. Following interruptions from the sailors and Brangäne, the lovers' dialogue uses many of the above motives.
7. A new leitmotiv appears at measure 160.
8. The music hailing the king begins to penetrate the lovers' consciousness at measure 192.
9. Wagner's influence
1. More has been written about Wagner than any other musician.
2. His view of the total artwork affected all later opera.
3. His emphasis on musical continuity was also important.
4. A master of orchestral color, he influenced many composers.
5. Painters and poets found inspiration in Wagner.
6. Unfortunately, Wagner's anti-Semitic writings also found followers, including the Nazis in Germany.