Bluebeard | Page 6

of settled despair, typical of a widower determined never to marry again no matter what the provocation, the last note of the phrase would have been projected downward; but, as you must have perceived, the melody terminates in a tone of something like hope. There is no assurance in it--do not misunderstand me; there is no particular lady projected in the musical text--that would have been indelicate, for we do not know at the moment precisely the date when Bluebeard hung up his last wife; but there is a groping discontent. At the opening of the drama we have not been informed whether Bluebeard has ever been married at all or only a few times, but we feel that he craves companionship, and we know when we hear this "Immer-wieder-heirathenMotiv" (Always About to Marry Again Motive) that he secures it. The sex created expressly to furnish companionship will go on doing so, even if it has to be hung up in the process.
Look again at the second theme, the "Immer-wieder-heirathenMotiv" (Always About to Marry Again Motive). Do you note a mysterious reflection of the first theme in it? Certainly; it would be evident even to a chattering opera-party of the highest social circles. But why is this, asks the sordid American business man, who goes to the music-drama absolutely unfitted in mind and body to solve its great psychological questions. Not because Wagner could not have evolved a dozen Leit-Motive for every measure, but for a more exquisitely refined and subtle reason. The wife is often found to be more or less a reflection of her husband, especially in Germany, therefore an entirely new and original motive would have been out of place. It is this extraordinary insight into the human mind which brings us to the feet of the master in reverential awe; and it detracts nothing from his fame that his themes descriptive of average femininity would have been quite different had he written them for the women of this epoch. The world moves rapidly. This motive slips with a series of imperceptible musical glides into the "Siebente-FrauMotiv" (Seventh Wife Motive): Bluebeard enters well in advance; Fatima, contrapuntally obedient, coming in a little behind.
[Siebente-Frau Motiv]
This Fatima, or Seventh Wife Motive seems to be written in a curiously low key if we conceive it to be the index to the character of a soprano heroine; but let us look further. What are the two principal personages in the music-drama to be to each other?
If enemies, the phrase would have been written thus: [separation of 5 octaves]
If acquaintances, thus: [separation of 3 octaves]
If friends, thus: [separation of 1 octave]
If lovers, thus: [separation of less than one octave]
the ardent and tropical treble note leaving its own proper sphere and nestling cozily down in the bass staff. But the hero and heroine of the music-drama were husband and wife; therefore the phrases are intertwined sufficiently for propriety, but not too closely for pleasure. We might also say, considering Fatima's probable fate, that we cannot wonder that she sings in a low key; and the exceedingly involved contrapuntal complications in which the motive terminates hint perhaps at Wagner's opinion on the momentous question,"Is marriage a failure?"
Next we have the "BruderHochzuRossMotiv" (Brothers on a High Horse Motive), announced by sparkling Tetrazzini chromatics, always at sixes and sevens, darting and dashing, centaur-like, in semi-demi-quavers, like horses' manes and tails mounting skyward, whinnyingly. Fatima's brothers have come to make a wedding visit to their beloved sister, whom they believe happily united to a nobleman of high degree. They have also come because in a music-drama action is demanded and choruses are desirable; being noisy, impressive, popular, comparatively cheap, and the participants less temperamental in character than soloists, therefore more easily managed.
[Bruder Hoch zu Ross Motiv] (with devil-may-care speed.)
If you miss some of the wonderful sinuosity, some of the musical curvatures of the similar "Horses in a Hurry Motive" in "Die Walku're," I can only suggest that the Brothers' mounts were not as the fleet steeds of the gods. Fatima's people were living in genteel poverty, and the family horses were doubtless some-what emaciated; therefore the musical realist could not in honesty depict them other than in an angular rather than curved movement.
The overture next takes up the arrival of the Brothers, who, as the music plainly assures us, dismount, feed their steeds, perform a simple toilette at the stable-yard pump, and then come suddenly upon Bluebeard, whose frenzy for disposing of fresh wives is as sudden and as all-absorbing as his desire to annex them. At the moment of the Brothers' opportune arrival Bluebeard is on the point of severing Fatima's relations with the world. The Brothers advance. A cloud of dust envelops them; they rush forward, dealing telling blows, and the frantic bleating of fleeing