Die Meistersinger von nurnberg
...n tune with Wagner's opinion that German critics are irrelevant; what was relevant was how art would serve the community. Beckmesser was a caricature of a one-sided narrow-minded critic, who imitated the old traditional German style, but proved himself to be ridiculously helpless. Rowland Cotterill identified the model for Beckmesser was Eduard Hanslick, the critic of the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse.4 In fact, the name of the character was Hanslich in the draft libretto of 1861, and only later did Wagner change the name to Beckmesser.5 Dieter Borchmeyer suggests that the character also resembles the comic figure of the "dottore" in the traditional commedia dell'arte.6 When Wagner wrote the first sketches for Die Meistersingers in 1858, Hanslick had a positive attitude, among other things, towards the overture; but later Hanslick became a boisterous anti-Wagnerian. Cotterill also stated that even though the character of Beckmesser in the final opera is in the traditional style of comedy, it clearly symbolizes an attack on the institution of the critics.7 The two functions of the music sounding in Die Meistersinger, as expressive medium and as component of the story's events are more easily separated in concept than in the German practice. As noted above, Nuremberg is the site of much music making, but such situations shade off into march-like or song-like moments in which the audience can enjoy tunes presumably unheard by the characters. As for the instrumental music, sometimes the orchestra may paint a scene. More often, the score belongs to the thoughts of individual characters. The principal way in which Wagner sought to achieve this in his later operas was the practice of Leitmotifs which are meant to encapsulate the essence of whatever is being portrayed, which may be character, concept, and object or a dramatic situation. Brian Robins remarks on how this works in order to achieve characterization and to establish an aural anchor in the ocean of melodic infinity Wagner employs the so-called memory or leitmotifs, themes which recur when a certain person appears on the scene, or when a certain event is mentioned. Since the facts to which the motives refer constitute more or less the whole plot, and since, moreover, the motives are the most fortunate melodic inspirations of the whole opera, we hear them all evening, singly or together, now from one instrument, now from another, in lighter or darker color.8 In other words, as items from the collection of musical-thematic materials come and go, they acquire textual-dramatic that signify traditional German music. Recognizing recurring music and to perceive its connections with the setting, the characters, and the ideas in the opera are requisites to a understanding of key elements of the score. Wagner developed the use leitmotif’s extensively in his operas. The Prelude to the first act of Die Meistersinger combines many of these leitmotifs heard throughout the opera. The first theme is that of the Mastersinger, which symbolizes the glory of the city of Nuremberg and the Guild of the Mastersingers. The second theme is soft and light, relating to Walther’s love song for Eva. The third theme is the “Guild Banner,” a march of the Mastersingers. Theme four is a developed portion of theme one. It represents more celebration of the Guild of the Mastersingers. Theme five becomes the song that wins the competition for Walther. Various themes associated with the apprentices come later. The prelude concludes with a final restatement of the majestic Mastersinger theme. The musical-thematic viewpoint is shown in these three excerpts. Each involves the leitmotif that features a descending sequences, a prevailingly downward path marked out by an oscillating rise and fall. (Example 1)9 The first exemplifies a highly obscured use of a sequence, which has at the same time a back-to-Bach aspect; the other two exhibit peculiarities in the matter of sequences that may carry special expressive-dramatic significance. Example 2 gives the start of the climactic strain of the Prize Song, and example 3 shows a somewhat similar passage from the Bach A-major prelude.10 A subsequently oft-repeated measure in the song ( ex. 4 ) is congruent with the harmonic progress of example 2 . Example 5, moreover, shows the sequential motions that in example 4 have been packed into the chords. Thus the harmonies evoke, however distantly, the sequential norm. Beckmesser's song, in its turn, often relies on a sequential design (see ex. 8 ), but it is suggestive that the pattern sometimes develops a gap, as though the singer could not properly observe a precedent. Mark A. Radice suggests that in this respect Beckmesser's song and the riotous music that it brings on have a defective shape ( ex. 6 ), just as his nature appears frequently negative, even malformed.11 Finally, more eloquently than this, Sachs is associated with his own distinctive motive, first defined in the third-act prelude and expanded on in the Wahn monologue ( ex. 7 ). (In contour this line is oddly akin to the melody of example 6, especially at its close.) Radice also mentions that the opening downward leap could well initiate a sequence, but this possibility is short-circuited by the line's refusal to rise up to the expected note; its subsequent drooping motion may symbolize weariness, even world-weariness. Then too, the thwarting of the potential sequence may indicate that Sachs is not entirely at one with his beloved Nuremberg, that he finds himself in but is not of the city he would so wisely govern .12 In Die Meistersinger, Wagner ingeniously makes poetry and drama out of an explicit manifesto to musical critics, and proved the depth of his music by developing its everyday resources which shows that its vitality does not depend on that German extreme emotional force. Few things are finer in music or literature than the end of the second act, from the point where Sach’s apprentice begins to riot, to the moment when the watchman, frightened at the silence of the moonlit streets so soon after he has heard all that noise, announces eleven o’clock and bids the folk pray for protection against evil spirits, while the orchestra tells ...