The same idea is seen in embryo10 in A Pilgrimage to Beethoven. "If men are to sing, they must have words. Yet who is capable of expressing in words the poetry that should form the basis of such a union of all the elements? The poem must of necessity be something inferior (zurückstehen), for words are too weak an organ for such a task.—You will soon meet with a new composition of mine, which will remind you of what I have just been descanting upon. It is a symphony with choruses. I ask you to observe how difficult it was for me to get over the inadequacy11 of the poetical12 art that I had called in to my aid. I have fully14 resolved to make use of our Schiller's beautiful hymn15 'To Joy'; it is in any case a noble and uplifting poem, even if far from giving voice to what, in sooth, in this connection, no verses in the world could say."[314]
Here we light upon one of the fundamental principles of the Wagnerian ?sthetic. Wagner did not set words to music: the words were merely the projection16 of an already conceived musical emotion into the sphere of speech.[315] There is in most musicians a certain amount of correspondence and interplay between the poetic13 and musical factors. With some composers the musical thought, having begun and completed itself along its own lines and according to its own laws, turns half appealingly, half condescendingly, to words for a title or an elucidation17, as was often the case with Schumann. With others, as with Bach and Hugo Wolf and Strauss, the word, written or implied, is the generator18 of the musical idea. It would be the very midsummer madness of ?sthetics to attempt to decide which is the more purely19 "musical" of these two types of mind. Neither of them is "the" musical mind, any more than Shakespeare's or Milton's or Browning's or Blake's or Pope's or Swinburne's is "the" poetical mind. It is only the most superficial of psychologists and ?stheticians who can regard any human faculty20 as wholly cut off from the rest. Our perceptions of sight, of taste, of touch, of hearing, are inextricably inter-blended, as is shown by our constantly expressing one set of sensations in terms of another, as when we speak of the colour of music, the height, or depth, or thickness, or clarity, or muddiness of musical tone. In every poet there is something of the painter and the musician: in every musician, something of the poet and painter: in every painter, something of the musician and poet.[316] The character of the man's work will depend upon the strength or weakness of the tinge21 that is given to his own special art by the relative strength or weakness of the infusion22 of one or more of the other arts. In composers like Bach, Wagner, Berlioz, Schubert, Wolf, and Strauss the eye is constantly transmitting very definite impression to the brain, with the result that their music readily leans to realistic suggestion: on a composer like Brahms the actualities of the visible, mobile world make comparatively little impression.[317] No one of these types is per se any better than the rest, or has any more right than his fellows to arrogate23 to himself the title of "pure" musician. We must just accept them all as branches of the one great tree.
It is no paradox24 to say that though Wagner was irresistibly25 impelled26 to express himself in the form of opera he was by nature an instrumental composer of the line of Bach and Beethoven. It is the orchestra that always bears the main burden of expression in his later works. His ideal was a stream of endless melody in the orchestra, to the moods of which the words give a definiteness unattainable by music alone. And so, just as he did not "set words to music" in the ordinary way, so he did not set poetic ideas to music in the ordinary way. No man was ever more prompt to interpret great musical works in terms of poetry or life, as anyone may see by reading his elucidations of the Beethoven symphonies or the great C sharp minor28 quartet. But it is important to remember, if we are not to misunderstand him utterly29, that he never supposed that the music was developed consciously out of any such poetic scheme as our fantasy may read into it. The music grew out of the spirit of music, and only rouses a poetic vision in us because it is the generalised expression of many particular visions of the kind. This conception of music was rooted in him from his earliest days of maturity30, as we may see from the article A Happy Evening, which he wrote in Paris in 1841. The narrator of the story is discussing with a friend—evidently intended for Wagner himself—a concert at which they have just heard performances of Mozart's Symphony in E flat and Beethoven's in A. The question arises as to what it is that Beethoven has expressed. The friend, who is designated R., objects energetically to an arbitrary romance being foisted31 upon the symphony:
"It is unfortunate that so many people give themselves useless trouble to confuse musical speech with poetical speech, and to make one of them supplement or replace the other where, in their limited view, this is incomplete. It remains32 true once for all that music begins where speech leaves off. Nothing is more intolerable than the preposterous33 pictures and stories that people imagine to be at the basis of those instrumental works. What quality of mind and feeling is displayed when the hearer of a Beethoven symphony can only keep his interest in it alive by imagining that the musical flood is the reproduction of the plot of some romance? These people in consequence often grumble34 at the great master when some unexpected stroke disturbs the even tenour of the little tale they have foisted on the work: they reproach the composer with unclearness and disconnectedness, and lament35 his lack of coherency. Oh the ninnies!"
R. is afterwards careful to explain that he has no objection to each hearer associating the music, as he hears it, with any moods or episodes he likes out of his own experience. All he objects to is the audience having the terms of the poetic association dictated36 to them by the musical journalists. "I should like to tear the hair from their silly heads when they stuff this stupid nonsense into honest people, and so rob them of all the ingenuousness37 with which they would have otherwise have given themselves up to hearing Beethoven's symphony. Instead of abandoning themselves to their natural feelings, the poor deluded38 people of full heart but feeble head think themselves obliged to follow the course of some village wedding, a thing of which they probably know nothing at first hand, and in place of which they would certainly have been much more likely to imagine something quite different, something from the circle of their own experience.... I hold that no one stereotyped39 interpretation40 is admissible. Definitely as the purely musical edifice41 stands complete and rounded in the artistic42 proportions of a Beethoven symphony, perfect and indivisible as it appears to the higher sense, just so is it impossible to reduce the effects of the work on the human heart to one authoritative43 symbol. This is more or less the case with the creations of the other arts: how diversely will one and the same picture, one and the same drama, affect diverse individuals, and even the same individual at different times! And yet how much more definitely and positively44 the painter or the poet must draw his figures than the instrumental composer, who is not bound, like them, to model his form by the appearances of the everyday world, but who has at his disposal an immeasurable realm in a super-terrestrial kingdom, and to whose hand is given the most spiritual of substances—tone! But it is degrading to this high office of the musician to force him to make him fit his inspiration to the appearances of the everyday world; and still more would the instrumental composer deny his mission, or expose his own weakness, who should try to carry the restricted proportions of merely worldly things into the realm of his own art."[318]
"In instrumental music," he said in later life, "I am a Réactionnaire, a conservative. I dislike everything that requires a verbal explanation beyond the actual sounds."[319] In the light of this declaration, and of the ?sthetic doctrines46 he expounds47 in the article On Franz Liszt's Symphonic Poems and elsewhere, it is interesting to see him setting forth6 the same doctrine45 of music as early as 1840. In A Happy Evening R. lays it down that he rejects all tone-painting, except when it is used in jest or to reproduce purely musical phenomena48.[320] He further dissents49 from his friend's theory that whereas Mozart's symphonies came from nothing but a purely inward musical source, Beethoven may have "first of all conceived and worked out the plan of a symphony according to a certain philosophical50 idea, before he left it to his imagination to invent the musical themes." The friend adduces the Eroica Symphony in support of this contention51. "You know that it was at first intended that this symphony should bear the title 'Bonaparte.' Can you deny, then, that Beethoven was inspired to this gigantic work, and the plan of it decided52, by an idea outside the realm of music?"
R. sweeps his friend off his feet with the vehemence53 of his reply. The Eroica Symphony, he contends, is not a translation into music of the petty details of Napoleon's first Italian campaign. Nowhere does the work suggest that the composer has had his eye on any special episode in the general's career. No realistic explanation of this kind can be made to square with the Funeral March, the Scherzo with the hunting horns, or the Finale with its soft, emotional Andante. "Where is the bridge of Lodi, where the battle of Arcola, where the march to Leoben, where the victory under the Pyramids, where the 18th Brumaire? Are these not incidents which no composer of our day would have passed by had he been writing a biographical symphony on Bonaparte?" Then R. gives his own theory of the genesis of such a work as the Eroica. What stimulates54 the musician to composition in the first place is a purely musical mood: it may have come from either an inner or an outer experience, but it is wholly musical in essence and in its manner of expression. "But the grand passions and enduring emotions that dominate the current of our feelings and ideas for months or for half a year, it is these that urge the musician to those ampler, more comprehensive concepts to which we owe, among others, the origin of a Sinfonia eroica. These great moods, as deep suffering of soul or mighty55 exaltation, may derive56 from outer events, for we are human beings and our fate is ruled by external circumstances: but when they impel27 the musician to production these great moods have already turned to music within him, so that in the moment of creative inspiration it is no longer the outer events that guide and govern the composition, but the musical emotion that this event has generated." We may imagine that the republican Beethoven's emotional nature had been fired by the career and character of Napoleon. "He was no general,—he was a musician: and in his own domain57 he saw the spirit in which he could accomplish the equivalent of what Bonaparte had accomplished58 on the plains of Italy." The product of this passionate59 yearning60 for self-realisation was the Eroica Symphony, "and as he knew well to whom he owed the impulse to this gigantic work, he inscribed61 the name of Bonaparte on the title-page. Yet not a single feature of the development of the symphony can be said to have an immediate62 outer connection with the fate of the hero."
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1
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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4
ordaining
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的现在分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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timbre
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| n.音色，音质 | |
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tacked
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| 用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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14
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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elucidation
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| n.说明，阐明 | |
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generator
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| n.发电机，发生器 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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infusion
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| n.灌输 | |
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arrogate
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| v.冒称具有...权利，霸占 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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impel
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| v.推动；激励，迫使 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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31
foisted
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| 强迫接受，把…强加于( foist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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34
grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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36
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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37
ingenuousness
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| n.率直；正直；老实 | |
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deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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40
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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41
edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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42
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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43
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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44
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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45
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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46
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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47
expounds
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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48
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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49
dissents
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| 意见的分歧( dissent的名词复数 ) | |
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50
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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51
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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52
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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53
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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54
stimulates
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| v.刺激( stimulate的第三人称单数 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用 | |
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55
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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56
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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57
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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58
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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59
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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60
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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61
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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62
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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