At present he has apparently6 no inclination7 towards opera. The raw works of his adolescence8 had all been instrumental; among them was the Overture9 in B flat major (1830) that was performed in the Leipzig Theatre, and in which the drum-beat every four bars ended by moving the audience to uncontrollable merriment. It is not till the summer of 1832 that he plans a first opera. Die Hochzeit; he writes the text, but composes no more than a fragment of the music. Meanwhile he produces, as the result of Weinlig's schooling10, a number of works more or less in the conventional style. The pianoforte sonata in B flat major that was published by Breitkopf & H?rtel as the composer's Op. 1 is dedicated11 to Weinlig, under whose eye the work was written. His teacher had evidently seen the need for curbing12 the exuberance13 of the boy's undisciplined mind. He made him write simply, in the set forms, and with regard to the clarities of the pure vocal14 style. For this first sonata, Wagner tells us, Weinlig induced him to take an early sonata by Pleyel as a model; the whole work was to be shaped on "strictly15 harmonic and thematic lines." Wagner himself never thought much of it. But if it is no more than an imitation of the current sonata style, it is an unmistakably capable imitation. Weinlig was right; he had given his pupil independence. In all these youthful works, indeed, we are struck by the unquestioning self-confidence of the manner, and by the boyish vigour16 that animates17 them. As a reward for his docility18 in the matter of the sonata he was allowed by Weinlig to compose a pianoforte fantasia in F sharp minor19. He treated this, he says, in a more informal style. It is really a quite powerful work for a boy of eighteen. It defines a mood, and maintains it with singular persistence20; it expresses something truly felt; it comes from the brooding absorption of spirit that was afterwards to produce the Faust Overture. It is liberally sown with recitative passages that suggest some knowledge of Bach (the Chromatic21 Fantasia or the G minor Fantasia for the organ), or of Beethoven (pianoforte sonata in A flat. Op. 110, &c.). The manner and feeling of the adagio22 suggest the slow movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony, the later ornamentation of the main melodic23 idea being quite in the style of that movement. Altogether the Fantasia is by no means a work to be despised; it is the one composition of Wagner's of this period in which we catch a decided24 note of promise for the future.
The Polonaise in D major for four hands (1831) is more in the conventional manner, but quite interesting, and as original as we can expect from the average young composer of eighteen. The A major sonata (Op. 4, 1831) flows on in the glib25, confident way that is characteristic of all his early instrumental works, and has many good points. The weakest movement is the third—a rather amateurish26 fugue. There is some expression in the slow movement, and a general freedom of style everywhere except in the fugue. The idiom as a whole is that of the early Beethoven, but occasionally the writing suggests a boy who knew something of Weber and of the later Beethoven, though his invention and his technique were as yet equal only to imitating the simpler models.
For its day the Symphony in C major (1832) is a very capable piece of student work; the interest slackens very considerably27 in the finale, but the other movements are handled with the customary young-Wagnerian vigour and confidence. In spite of the ease and the cleverness of it, however, we can rarely feel that it is anything more than a piece of competent school work, though there is undeniable thoughtfulness in the andante.
The work of the next five years varies in quality and purpose in a most puzzling way. In 1832 he writes the King Enzio Overture, under the influence, as he tells us in Mein Leben, of Beethoven. It is plainly modelled on the dramatic overture of the Egmont and Coriolan type—a type that Mendelssohn, in the Ruy Blas and elsewhere, afterwards cultivated, without however adding anything to it. The young Wagner has a thorough grasp of the form. The Overture is concise28 and well balanced; all the details are clearly seen in relation to the dominant29 idea. The thematic invention is good, the themes being not only expressive30 in themselves but capable of bearing the weight of a certain amount of dramatic development. Yet after writing this fine Overture, that really may point without presumption31 to Beethoven as its parent, he was capable of producing in 1836 the shapeless and frothy Polonia Overture, which is the oddest mixture of a pseudo-Polish idiom and the cheap, assertive32 melody of Rienzi. Here and there it gives us a foretaste of his later power of climax-building, but on the whole it is a feeble and amorphous33 work. The Rule, Britannia Overture (1836) is hardly any better; it is a long-winded and pointless dissertation34 on our patriotic35 song, the original tune36 being by far the best thing in it. The Columbus Overture of the preceding year is rather better. Its style is a curious blend of Beethoven, Rienzi, and the Italian opera; it is oddly anticipatory37 of Liszt in its repetitions and its make-believe development: but the work has a sort of strength. It is evidently the outcome of a vision clearly seen, and translated into as good music as Wagner's powers at that time permitted.
Meanwhile in 1832—the same year as the King Enzio Overture and the C major symphony—he had written Seven Compositions to Goethe's Faust—"The soldiers' song," the "Peasants under the linden," "The song of the rat," "The song of the flea38," Mephistopheles' song ("Was machst du mir vor Liebchens Tür"), Margaret's song ("Meine Ruh' ist hin"), and a "melodrama39" to accompany the recitation of Margaret's prayer to the Virgin40.[396] Almost all of these have individuality, the least notable being Mephistopheles' song. The soldiers' song is breezy, with one or two crudities in the vocal part-writing. The "Bauern unter der Linde" is fresh and gay; the rat and flea songs are fairly humorous; it is rather curious that Wagner's rat song should begin with the full scale of D major in descending41 motion, while that of Berlioz commences with the same scale in ascent42. Margaret's song is quite good, though it moves a little stiffly, and has neither the ardour of Schubert's setting nor the perfect mating of idea and expression that we find in that masterpiece. Wagner, indeed, developed very slowly. For a long time his genius could only move heavily: there was no swiftness in him, either of idea or of form,—no consuming heat. The melodrama is expressive, and the reiterated43 syncopations are effective. Wagner probably chose the melodrama form, rather than a purely44 lyrical setting of the words, because he felt that the former gave the dramatist in him more scope.
In 1832-33 the dramatic impulse became very strong in him. He had written the Hochzeit fragment and Die Feen by the end of 1833, and between 1834 and 1836 he finished the Liebesverbot. Already he had a technique equal to the expression of all the dramatic thinking of which he was capable at that time. How dexterous46 his hand had become is shown incidentally in the aria he added to Marschner's Vampyr in 1833,—a very vigorous and finished piece of work. There is the same skill in the "Romance of Max" that he added to the Singspiel Marie, Max and Michel (1837). There is piquancy47 in the scoring of the latter, and the vocal part has a rhythmic48 variety that we do not often find in Tannh?user and Lohengrin. Apparently the only non-dramatic work he wrote at this time was the New Year Cantata49, which is one of the freshest and most pleasing works of his youth. It consists of an overture and four other movements; the chorus takes part in the second and fourth of these, but in the latter the vocal parts are merely sketched in, and the words are lacking. In the slow opening section of the overture he introduces in the violas and 'cellos51, with excellent effect, the theme of the andante of his C major symphony; it is apparently intended to symbolise the sadness of the departing year. It is impossible not to be captivated by the sincerity52 and the transparent53 simplicity54 of this little work.
During 1838 and 1839 his time was fully55 taken up with his theatrical56 duties at K?nigsberg and Riga, the composition of Rienzi, and the working out of other dramatic ideas; so that from 1837 to 1840 what may be called the occasional compositions are few in number. With the exception of the aria for Marie, Max and Michel, and the Faust compositions, his vocal works had so far all been settings of words of his own. Between 1837 and 1844 the texts of almost all his songs and choral works were by other people. At Riga, in 1837, he set a poem by Harald von Brackel in praise of the Czar Nicholas, for soprano or tenor57 solo, chorus, and orchestra. The piece is appropriately broad and massive, and imposing58 enough in mere50 volume; but it is impossible to believe that Wagner's heart was in a work of this kind.
Of much more interest is Der Tannenbaum, a setting of a poem by Scheuerlein (end of 1838). The song is expressive, though the effect lies more in the general colour, the harmony, and the pictorial59 realisation of the scene—the brooding tree, the river, and the boy are all differentiated—than in any particularly striking quality in the melody. The vocal line has more flexibility60 than is usual with the young Wagner. In July 1839 he entered upon his Paris adventure. For a while he eagerly pursues his fortune among the theatrical directors; then, as his hopes fail him and need gnaws61 at his heart, he produces a number of vocal works that he trusts may appeal to the French singers and the French public. Some of these are pot-boilers pure and simple, the writing of which must have been gall62 and bitterness to the young composer who had begun to realise the wonderful music there was in him. The lowest depth is touched in the vaudeville63 chorus, La Descente de la Courtille (1840)—a frank prostitution of his genius to the most superficial French taste of the time. Almost as bad is the song, Les adieux de Marie Stuart. A bar or two here and there bears the signature of the true Wagner—he cannot quite keep his real self out of it; but on the whole the song is a desperate, pitiful attempt to manufacture something in the conventional French and Italian operatic idiom of the day. Wagner's tongue must have been in his cheek when he penned such passages as these:
Je n'ai désiré d'être reine que pour régner sur les Fran?ais,
que pour régner sur les Fran?ais.
To the same period and the same catchpenny mood belongs the Aria of Orovisto that he wrote in the hope that Lablache would sing it in Bellini's Norma. It is an amusingly absurd but skilful64 imitation of all the tricks-of-the-trade of the Italian opera of the 'thirties.
Other works of this time are more sincere, and most of them have a decided charm. The Albumblatt in E major, written for his friend Kietz, is a simple but engaging piece, with a touch or two of melodic commonplace—the occasional insertion, for example, of a triplet group in a duple-time phrase. The little work is curiously65 like the Lohengrin of seven years later in general texture66, in melodic and harmonic build, and in the peculiar67 white light in which it is bathed. The songs to French words, written at Paris in 1839-40, vary greatly in quality. The Tout68 n'est qu'images fugitives69 never descends70 to the depth of banality71 reached in the Marie Stuart, but the effort to be ingratiatingly French is plainly evident. The Dors, mon enfant, Mignonne, and Attente are all charming; he thinks of the French style and the French public no more than is necessary to lighten the heaviness of his native German manner, and the results are sometimes surprising, particularly in the matter of rhythm. For many years to come, as he admits in a well-known letter to Uhlig, he was obsessed72 by a vocal rhythm of this type:
—a type upon which hundreds of phrases in the Flying Dutchman, Tannh?user, and Lohengrin are constructed. The best of these French songs have a rhythmic freedom and flexibility that he rarely attained73 in his later operas. Look, for example, at the following delightfully74 elastic75 vocal line from Attente:
Cicogne, aux vieilles tours fidèle, ? vole et monte à tire d'aile de l'église
à la citadelle, du haut clocher, du haut clocher au grand donjon.
It has always been evident that the rhythmic sameness of the earlier operas was mainly due to the monotonously76 regular recurrence77 of accents in the German verse he wrote at that time. These French songs make it clear—as, by the way, does the aria for Marie, Max and Michel—that when a more varied78 metrical scheme was given him his music spontaneously varied with it. One cannot help feeling that in some ways it is a pity he did not meet with more success at Paris—that he was not allowed, in fact, to write some large work with the deliberate intention of appealing to the French taste by an exploitation of the styles and the formulas the Parisian public loved most. Such a work would not have represented the real Wagner, and in the end would probably have been negligible; but it would have given a much needed lightness and elasticity79 to his imagination, without harming him in any way. He would have benefited by such an experience as emphatically as Handel and Mozart benefited by their experiences with Italian opera. As it was, a certain slowness and ponderousness80 remain characteristic of Wagner to the end of his days. This inability to concentrate rapidly is instructively shown in his French setting of Heine's Les deux Grenadiers (1839-40). In general expressiveness81 the song need not fear comparison with Schumann's: perhaps Wagner's treatment of the "Marseillaise" at the end is even better. But the work has nothing of Schumann's terseness82, ease, and lyric45 spontaneity; the whole thing moves a little stiff-jointedly.
The Paris period is a curious one in Wagner's artistic83 history. He wrote some very good songs, and one or two deplorable things like the Marie Stuart and La Descente de la Courtille; at the same time he was finishing Rienzi and working at the Flying Dutchman, and the Faust Overture assumed its first form. In April 1842 he settled at Dresden. Between then and 1848 he composed Tannh?user and Lohengrin, and conceived the first idea of the Ring and other works. During this period he wrote no songs or pianoforte pieces: the occasional compositions are all choral works, which is sufficiently84 accounted for by the fact that Wagner had a good male-voice choir85 at his disposal. The most considerable of these works is The Love Feast of the Apostles (1843). Towards the end it has a touch of the melodic commonplace that Wagner found it so hard to avoid at this time; but the earlier choral portions are impressive in their simplicity and sincerity, and the whole thing is admirably stage-managed, so to speak. The effect of the voices from on high, and of the first entry of the orchestra at the descent of the Spirit, must have been very striking in the Dresden church.
The other choral works of this period are on a smaller scale. For the unveiling of a memorial to King Friedrich August I Wagner wrote in 1843 a Weihegruss for male voices and brass86 orchestra, to words by Otto Hohlfeld. The choral portion of this work was published in 1906; the whole version is now published in Breitkopf & H?rtel's Gesamtausgabe, and shows how indispensable is the orchestral part—the long-held vocal notes, for example, being helped out by trumpet87, trombone, and horn fanfares88, and the whole thing gaining enormously in richness by the discreet89 occasional entries of the brass. The general style of this work, as of the Greeting of Friedrich August the Beloved by his Faithful Subjects (August 1844), is that of the Tannh?user-Lohengrin epoch90; some passages in the Greeting, indeed, are extraordinarily91 reminiscent of the "Hall of song" chorus. For the re-interment of Weber's remains92 at Dresden, in December 1844, Wagner wrote a four-part male chorus that again recalls the operatic works of this time. It is the most expressive of Wagner's works of this class, but on the whole a little disappointing; his heart was so thoroughly93 with Weber that one would have thought the occasion would have wrung94 some music of the first class out of him.
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1 sketched | |
v.草拟(sketch的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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2 adorn | |
vt.使美化,装饰 | |
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3 sonata | |
n.奏鸣曲 | |
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4 aria | |
n.独唱曲,咏叹调 | |
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5 culminated | |
v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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7 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
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8 adolescence | |
n.青春期,青少年 | |
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9 overture | |
n.前奏曲、序曲,提议,提案,初步交涉 | |
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10 schooling | |
n.教育;正规学校教育 | |
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11 dedicated | |
adj.一心一意的;献身的;热诚的 | |
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12 curbing | |
n.边石,边石的材料v.限制,克制,抑制( curb的现在分词 ) | |
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13 exuberance | |
n.丰富;繁荣 | |
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14 vocal | |
adj.直言不讳的;嗓音的;n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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15 strictly | |
adv.严厉地,严格地;严密地 | |
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16 vigour | |
(=vigor)n.智力,体力,精力 | |
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17 animates | |
v.使有生气( animate的第三人称单数 );驱动;使栩栩如生地动作;赋予…以生命 | |
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18 docility | |
n.容易教,易驾驶,驯服 | |
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19 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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20 persistence | |
n.坚持,持续,存留 | |
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21 chromatic | |
adj.色彩的,颜色的 | |
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22 adagio | |
adj.缓慢的;n.柔板;慢板;adv.缓慢地 | |
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23 melodic | |
adj.有旋律的,调子美妙的 | |
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24 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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25 glib | |
adj.圆滑的,油嘴滑舌的 | |
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26 amateurish | |
n.业余爱好的,不熟练的 | |
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27 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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28 concise | |
adj.简洁的,简明的 | |
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29 dominant | |
adj.支配的,统治的;占优势的;显性的;n.主因,要素,主要的人(或物);显性基因 | |
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30 expressive | |
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的 | |
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31 presumption | |
n.推测,可能性,冒昧,放肆,[法律]推定 | |
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32 assertive | |
adj.果断的,自信的,有冲劲的 | |
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33 amorphous | |
adj.无定形的 | |
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34 dissertation | |
n.(博士学位)论文,学术演讲,专题论文 | |
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35 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
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36 tune | |
n.调子;和谐,协调;v.调音,调节,调整 | |
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37 anticipatory | |
adj.预想的,预期的 | |
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38 flea | |
n.跳蚤 | |
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39 melodrama | |
n.音乐剧;情节剧 | |
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40 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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41 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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42 ascent | |
n.(声望或地位)提高;上升,升高;登高 | |
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43 reiterated | |
反复地说,重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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45 lyric | |
n.抒情诗,歌词;adj.抒情的 | |
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46 dexterous | |
adj.灵敏的;灵巧的 | |
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47 piquancy | |
n.辛辣,辣味,痛快 | |
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48 rhythmic | |
adj.有节奏的,有韵律的 | |
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49 cantata | |
n.清唱剧,大合唱 | |
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50 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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51 cellos | |
n.大提琴( cello的名词复数 ) | |
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52 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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53 transparent | |
adj.明显的,无疑的;透明的 | |
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54 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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55 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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56 theatrical | |
adj.剧场的,演戏的;做戏似的,做作的 | |
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57 tenor | |
n.男高音(歌手),次中音(乐器),要旨,大意 | |
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58 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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59 pictorial | |
adj.绘画的;图片的;n.画报 | |
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60 flexibility | |
n.柔韧性,弹性,(光的)折射性,灵活性 | |
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61 gnaws | |
咬( gnaw的第三人称单数 ); (长时间) 折磨某人; (使)苦恼; (长时间)危害某事物 | |
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62 gall | |
v.使烦恼,使焦躁,难堪;n.磨难 | |
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63 vaudeville | |
n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
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64 skilful | |
(=skillful)adj.灵巧的,熟练的 | |
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65 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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66 texture | |
n.(织物)质地;(材料)构造;结构;肌理 | |
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67 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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68 tout | |
v.推销,招徕;兜售;吹捧,劝诱 | |
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69 fugitives | |
n.亡命者,逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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70 descends | |
v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 );下去;下降;下斜 | |
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71 banality | |
n.陈腐;平庸;陈词滥调 | |
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72 obsessed | |
adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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73 attained | |
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况) | |
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74 delightfully | |
大喜,欣然 | |
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75 elastic | |
n.橡皮圈,松紧带;adj.有弹性的;灵活的 | |
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76 monotonously | |
adv.单调地,无变化地 | |
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77 recurrence | |
n.复发,反复,重现 | |
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78 varied | |
adj.多样的,多变化的 | |
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79 elasticity | |
n.弹性,伸缩力 | |
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80 ponderousness | |
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81 expressiveness | |
n.富有表现力 | |
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82 terseness | |
简洁,精练 | |
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83 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
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84 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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85 choir | |
n.唱诗班,唱诗班的席位,合唱团,舞蹈团;v.合唱 | |
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86 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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87 trumpet | |
n.喇叭,喇叭声;v.吹喇叭,吹嘘 | |
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88 fanfares | |
n.仪式上用的短曲( fanfare的名词复数 ) | |
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89 discreet | |
adj.(言行)谨慎的;慎重的;有判断力的 | |
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90 epoch | |
n.(新)时代;历元 | |
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91 extraordinarily | |
adv.格外地;极端地 | |
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92 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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93 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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94 wrung | |
绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 ); 握紧(尤指别人的手); 把(湿衣服)拧干; 绞掉(水) | |
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