84.—WAGNER'S MELODIES AND CHORDS.
Wagner's music has been much ridiculed for its close harmonies and mammoth combinations of tones. But even in the last twenty years ridicule has subsided and a degree of appreciation has come to prevail, which, although it is only partial, augurs well for our musical advancement and educational possibilities. Some have called Wagner's music tuneless, while the fact probably is that it is too tuneful for their ears, that is, it has, in some cases, too many melodies progressing at the same time,—is too polyphonic in character.
Liszt used to call Wagner's melodic combinations "seven-storied melodies." It is hard for a one-storied musical education to appreciate a seven-storied composition. These heavy harmonic combinations do not make things any easier for the singers in Wagner's operas. One cannot come from an Italian opera where everything is plain sailing and the orchestral accompaniment is a continual aid, and expect such a "calm sea and prosperous voyage" under the German composer. Northern weather is not so peaceful and serene as southern. So with the harmonic barometer.
At many times the singers and the orchestra seem to be pursuing each their own path, and the orchestral tones are not always a guide to what the singers' tones are to be. But from this seeming confusion the master's hand has evolved a higher harmony than the periwigged classicists ever dreamed of.
Whitney, the great bass singer, in speaking of Wagner's huge chords, said that composer generally used about seven notes of the scale on the opening chord, and all the singer had to do was to find the other note and "blaze away on that"—an interesting figure of speech, but with a decided tendency toward hyperbole.