And in this Schubert has anticipated Wagner, since the
words in which he writes are as much the absolute basis of his songs
as Wagner's librettos are of his operas." Liszt, too, notes somewhere
that Schubert doubtless exerted an indirect influence on the
development of the opera by means of the dramatic realism which
characterizes the melody and accompaniment of his parlor songs (such
as the "Erl King," the "Doppelgaenger," etc.)--a realism which becomes
still more pronounced in Schumann, Franz, and Liszt, in whose songs
every word of the poem colors its bar of music with its special
emotional tint, instead of merely serving, as in the old _bel canto_,
as an artificial and meaningless scaffolding for the construction and
execution of a melody.
This parallel evolution of the parlor song and the music-drama cannot
be too strongly emphasized: for the same tendency being followed by so
many of the greatest geniuses (some of whom are not Germans) affords
cumulative evidence of the fact that the German style (which, as I
have explained, includes all that is valuable in the Italian method)
is the true vocal style, the style of the future, the style which
cosmopolitan American art will have to adopt.
Pages:
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260