No composer has ever been written about more than Wagner. Indeed, few people have altogether. In the midst of the vast literature on Wagner as a philosopher of music, revolutionizer of harmony, redefiner of opera, master of poetry, dramatic interpreter of mythology, and, incidentally, political revolutionary, it is easy to overlook a basic point: Wagner changed the literal sound of music.
Listen in your mind to the opening of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and then to the opening of Das Rheingold. The Mozart is light, staccato, divided into short phrases, treble-oriented (the melody is the highest part, and harmonized from the top down) and, philosophically, clear and rational. Moreover, the music asks for clarity in performance: clear playing, separated instrumental lines, and clear acoustics to help with the first two.
Das Rheingold is massive and so long-lined as to have lines that go on indefinitely ("endless melody"); it is built from the bottom up and it is philosophically mystical. The performance requirements are warmth, continuity, fullness, bass solidity and relatively reverberant acoustics to support the sound.
Of course, this is oversimplified: Mozart contains Wagnerian passages (the overture to Don Giovanni); Wagner contains few Mozartian ones, but Strauss contains a great many. Still, the essential point remains. The Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Bruckner's massive sound structures, and Mahler's adagios inhabit a sonic world different from that of the Classic period - Mozart and Haydn-and to a great extent, different from that of Beethoven, too. The Beethoven Fifth has the philosophical character of Romanticism heroic passion, extreme intensity and extreme contrasts. But its sound remains based in staccato-accented rhythmic structures, far more so than, say, a Bruckner symphony. This shift in sonic emphasis has vast implications for how the music should be recorded and reproduced. These implications and how they have been largely ignored or misunderstood will be my subject here.
To a great extent, the musical changes I am talking about are written in the scores. The massive orchestrations, the abundance of bass instruments - even the invention of at least one (the "Wagner tuba") - and the long melodic lines propelled by complex chromatic harmony are all literal parts of the music as written. But, in addition, one can hear the changes in the acoustics of the places where the music was intended to be played. |
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