THE MENTOR 1916.02.01, No. 100,
The Ring of the Nibelung
LEARN ONE THING
EVERY DAY
FEBRUARY 1 1916
SERIAL NO. 100
THE
MENTOR
Wagner’s Festival House at Bayreuth
THE RING OF THE
NIBELUNG
By HENRY T. FINCK
DEPARTMENT OF
FINE ARTS
VOLUME 3
NUMBER 24
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY
Do you stand for Richard Wagner or do you not? That questionwas enough to sever friendships fifty years ago. It created ariot at the Paris Opera in 1861. Wagner’s Art admitted of nocompromise. It was either Gospel or Apocrypha, and it had to beaccepted as one or the other. It commanded enthusiastic admirationor provoked strident resentment. Many came to rail and remainedto worship. Some came in curiosity and left in dismay.For half a century Richard Wagner was the center of bitter conflict.But the people listened to him and seemed to appreciate and understand.In the blackest hours, the messages of Franz Liszt, Wagner’sbest friend, sustained him: “be of good cheer, the people arewith you.” So through half a century the Music Drama withstoodthe assaults of criticism and ridicule—and the burden ofproof now rests with the opposition.
The secret of Wagner’s success with the people and of hisinfluence on dramatic art lies in his naturalness of expression.His dramas are epic poems of primitive elemental life, and theybreathe the fresh, vigorous spirit of the morning of time. Hismusic commands our interest even before we fully understand. Itmakes an irresistible appeal to our feelings. His art is the art thatconceals art. His music seems to us so natural. As the dramaticsituation rises in intensity, so his music seems to lift us on an ever-swellingflood until we are moved to our depths—though we maynot know why. We are simply conscious of having assisted atsomething which has swept us momentarily out of ourselves into aworld of throbbing emotion. And the proportions of the dramabefore us are so well determined that it is hard to say which of allthe various scenes has touched us most. It is as though we hadwalked in a great forest where the rich variety and completenessof nature’s handiwork had been so absorbing that the memory couldnot recall vividly the outlines of single objects. We get a certainintellectual satisfaction from foll