And hence the mysterious superterrestrial character
of such new harmonies as we find in the works of Wagner and
Chopin--which are unintelligible to ordinary mortals, while to the
initiated they come as revelations of a new world.
Without feeling the necessity of accepting all the consequences of
Wagner's mystical doctrine, which I have thus freely paraphrased, no
one can deny that the attitude of a composer in the moment of
inspiration is closely analogous to that known as clairvoyance. The
celebrated vocalist, Vogel, tells an anecdote of Schubert which shows
strikingly how completely this composer used to be transported to
another world, and become oblivious of self, when creating. On one
occasion Vogel received from Schubert some new songs, but being
otherwise occupied could not try them over at the moment. When he was
able to do so, he was particularly pleased with one of them, but as it
was too high for his voice, he had it copied in a lower key. About a
fortnight afterwards they were again making music together, and Vogel
placed the transposed song before Schubert on the desk of the piano.
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