The music was like a
fragrant atmosphere to the drama, softening and refining what was harsh,
giving a needed stress here and there, and investing the whole story
with a subtle and uplifting charm.
The drama of Parsifal teaches its own great lessons of life. Yet one or
two suggestions of interpretation may not be amiss, for it is
confessedly one of the most mystical of modern dramas. It may perchance
be considered as representing the strife between paganism and
Christianity in the early centuries of the Church,--the powers of magic
and the hot passions of the human heart contending against the advancing
power of Christian truth and the victorious might of Purity as portrayed
in the guileless hero. Or it may be considered as representing in a
mystic legend the spiritual history of Christ coming in later presence
among the sons of men and imaged in the mystic Parsifal. Wagner mentions
that this Scripture was often in his mind when writing Parsifal--"Hath
not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? The foolishness of God is
wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Or this,
further, it may represent, in striking and inspiring way,--that the pure
in heart shall win the victories in life; that the guileless are the
valiant sons of God; that the heart that resists evil passion and is
touched by pity for the world's woe is the heart that reincarnates the
passionate purity of the Christ and can reveal again the healing power,
the Holy Grail of God.
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