of operas. Out of the blue sky comes the Montsalvat
(not necessarily the Grail) motive; it descends with
ever-gathering fulness, through key after key, until
at last it culminates in a tremendous climax for the
brass: then comes a wondrous cadence, falling
slowly, as a mountain stream falls over slabs of smooth-worn
mountain rock, until we get back to the original atmosphere.
The Montsalvat vision has faded away into the blue
whence it came. Wagner afterwards achieved some
marvellous things, but none more marvellous than this.
The curtain rises: there is a rum-tum-tum by
the orchestra. We are at once in the discord
of a turbulent armed camp: the fury of Telramund
against those who are not convinced of his evidently
prejudiced view that Elsa holds the lands he wishes
to hold, is made to resound in the orchestra as not
the most expert Italian composer could make it resound
by the voices. When Elsa enters to defend herself
the music changes its character utterly; it is the
embodiment of the sweetness of young feminine kindly
nature; and it is odd that Wagner, when writing this
music, which he fancied was the most German ever written,
should have gone so far as, in some of its finest parts,
to steal bits of the Austrian hymn, composed, as we
may remember, by not even an Austrian, but a Croatian,
pure Slav, composer. Elsa’s account of her
dream is not dramatic as Wagner, by the time he wrote
his next work, would have understood the term—in
shape it is an Italian aria, and everything is at
a standstill until it is finished—yet it
occurs fittingly, and prepares us by ethereal music
for the music of a gentleman who is very unethereal.
In form the whole scene is as near as may be a regular
Italian opera scene. King Henry the Fowler and
his nobles show mighty patience in sitting or standing
it out to the end. The business of a champion
for Elsa being called for, the moments of suspense,
the prayers of Elsa and her attendant maidens, the
fiery impatience of Telramund and the premature triumph
of Ortrud are all done with Wagner’s consummate
skill in writing purely theatrical music; and when
the swan and the hero are sighted the excitement is
worked up with the same skill to a glorious triumph,
and we hear the Lohengrin, “as hero,”
theme in its full splendour. Then comes the fighting
music, which, like all fighting music, is mediocre
stuff, and the gorgeous set piece, the finale.
This last is quite old-fashioned opera, but it is
not forced in: it happens inevitably. The
themes are mainly new, but the Lohengrin heroic theme
is worked in triumphantly. Technically there
is no advance or change in Lohengrin: the
counterpoint and interweaving of themes of Tristan
and the Mastersingers were to come a few years
later. Indeed, there is less of Wagner the contrapuntal
virtuoso in Lohengrin than in Tannhaeuser.
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