Bluebeard | Page 7

sheep is heard in a wild double-tonguing of the united brass instruments, very effective, especially in the open air, though a little trying to nervous ladies in the front rows of an opera-house. This is the celebrated "KilkennischeKatzenMotiv" (Motive of Mortal Combat). It is a syncopated movement, and when given at the piano, is to be played furiously, first with one hand and then with the other, till the performer is quite weary.
[Kilkennische Katzen Motiv] (ad infinitum, until one is deceased)
We find all through these measures most peculiar phrases, introduced by half-formed musical rhythms, which are a presentiment of the mental unrest and nervous prostration of Fatima, who does not know whether Bluebeard will kill the Brothers or the Brothers will kill Bluebeard. She has never been an opera-goer and does not realize that there are inexorable laws in these matters and that the villain always dies; that he agrees in his contract to die, no matter how healthy he may be, no matter how much he dislikes it nor how slight the provocation. However, this scene is made notable by the famous "Suspense Motive," one hundred and seven-teen bars of doubt given by the big brasses and contra-bassoons.
There is much in this sort of programme music that is not easily intelligible to a young man who, having purchased an admission ticket, is wandering from back to back of one opera-box after another; but when fully comprehended, these special phrases are replete with emotion and insight. Several motives are so dexterously woven into one gush of melody that they cannot be disentangled by any ordinary method, and have to be wrenched apart by the enthusiast, who employs, when milder means fail, a sort of intellectual dynamite to extricate the meaning from the score. With the aid of this lecture, which is better than an ear-trumpet and a magnifying-glass, we can, however, trace a "SchwertMotiv" (Sword Motive), showing the weapons used in the combat; the "Glu'ckseligkeitMotiv" (Felicity Motive), well named, for we must remember that Fatima is witnessing the duel from the castle window, her heart beating high at the prospect of widowhood; and, toward the end, the famous "AusgespieltMotiv" (Motive of Spent Strength and Spilled Blood).
[Glu'ckseligkeit Motiv]
[Ausgespielt Motiv]
The "AusgespieltMotiv" is written in four flats, but as a matter of fact only one person is flat, viz.: Blue-beard, who has just been slain by Mustapha. The other three flats must refer to the sheep accidentally hit by the younger brothers, who aim for Bluebeard, but miss him, being indifferent marksmen.
Why does the union of these motive, "BruderHochzuRoss" (Brothers on a High Horse), "KilkennischeKatzen" (Mortal Combat), "Schwert" (Sword), "Glu'ckseligkeit" (Felicity of Fatima), and "Ausgespielt" (Spent Strength and Spilled Blood), when blended in one majestically discordant whole, produce upon us a feeling of profound grief mingled with hysterical mirth?
[Ensemble Motiv Blaubart-Schwert-Glu'ckseligkeit-Leichen]
And why do the measures grow more and more sad as they melt into the touching "BlutaufdemMondMotiv" (Blood-on-the-Moon Motive)?
[Blut auf dem Mond Motiv] (slowly and with infinite pathos)
Simply because in a mortal combat somebody is invariably wounded and sometimes killed. Wagner sang of human life as it is, not as it might, could, would, or should be. From the "BlutaufdemMondMotiv" (Blood-on-the-Moon Motive) we glide at once into a dirge, the "Leichen," or Corpse, Motive, one of those superb funeral marches with which we are familiar in the other music-dramas of Wagner; for the master, though not an Irishman, is never so happy as on these funeral occasions.
[Leichen Motiv]
If any brainless and bigoted box-holder should ask why the "Blaubart Motiv" is repeated in this funeral march, I ask him in return how he expects otherwise to know who is killed? Will he take the trouble to reflect that these are the motives of the Vorspiel, and that the curtain has not yet risen on the music-drama?
But why, he asks, do we hear an undercurrent of mirth pulsating joyously through the prevailing sadness of this "LeichenMotiv," or funeral march? Simply because we cannot be expected to feel the same unmixed grief at the death of a wife-murderer as at the death of a wife-preserver! Ah, where shall we find again so subtle a reading of the throbbing heart of humanity!
The "SchwertMotiv" mingles again with the haunting strains of the half-sad, half-glad "LeichenMotiv," until the Vorspiel ends abruptly with a single note of ineffable meaning, thus:
[Tod und Ho'lle Motiv] (off the keyboard to the left)
This is very interesting to the student, and means much, if it means any-thing. The sword of the elder brother, Mustapha, has gone through Bluebeard, if not the swords of the other Brothers. This, you say, might not have been necessarily fatal, since those hardy ruffians of a bygone age were proof against many a stab; but in this case the sword of the heroic Mustapha was accompanied by the killing "Schwert