Wagner and his works - 1907 Author:Henry Theophilus Finck Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE FIRST OPERAS I Have dwelt somewhat longer on what may be called the concert period of Wagner's life than other biographers, because the facts thus brought... more » together show that, as he had already mastered the technique of symphonic composition before his twentieth year, he might have lived to equal or surpass his greatest predecessors in this field had not fate and his theatrical instincts fortunately urged him into what he felt to be the higher domain of the music-drama. That was his true sphere; he needed a poetic or pictorial idea to evoke a deeply original motive from his creative imagination; and it is for this reason that none of his concert compositions — neither these early ones nor those of a later period — quite equal the best parts of his music dramas, with the exception of the "Siegfried Idyl," in which, however, the chief themes are borrowed from the Siegfried drama. In turning, therefore, to the operatic period of his life, we reach at last the real Richard Wagner. THE WEDDING In speaking of his visit (in 1832) to Prague, where his symphony in C had its first performance, Wagner adds: — " I also wrote there a tragic opera-text, The Wedding. I do not remember where I found the mediaeval subject. An insane lover climbs through the window into the bedroom of his friend's be'frothed, who is awaiting her bridegroom ; the bride struggles with the madman and throws him down into the courtyard, where he gives up the ghost. At the fur ral rites the bride utters a cry and falls dead on the corpse. Ha/!ng returned to Leipzig, I immediately composed the first number of this opera, which contained a grand sextet1 that gave Weinlig much satisfaction. My sister did not like the libretto, and I destroyed it entirely." The principal interest attaching to this performa...« less