Chapter I

THE WAGNERIAN DRAMA: ITS PROTOTYPES AND ELEMENTS.

Wagner a Regenerator of the Lyric Drama.--Greek Tragedy.--Solemn
Speech and Music.--The Poet-composers
of Hellas.--The Florentine Reformers and their Invention
of the Lyric Drama.--Peri and Caccini.--Their
Declamation.--Monteverde's Orchestra.--How Wagner
Touches Hands with his Predecessors.--Poet and
Composer.--Music a Means, not an Aim in the Drama.--A
Typical Teuton, but also a Cosmopolite.--Teutonic
and Roman Ideals.--Absolute Beauty and Characteristic
Beauty.--The Ethical Idea in Wagner's Dramas.--Fundamental
Principle of his Constructive Scheme.
The Typical Phrases.--Symbols, not Labels.--Music as
a Language.--Characteristics of Some Typical Phrases.--Wotan
in Two Aspects.--Form the First Manifestation
of Law in Music and Essential to Repose.--Tonality
and the Effect of its Loss.--Phrases Delineative
and Imitative of External Characteristics.--The
Giants, the Dwarfs, the Rhine; Loge, the God of
Fire.--Prophetic Use of the Phrases.--Their Dramatic
Development.--Wagner's Orchestra and the Greek
Chorus.--Alliteration and Rhyme.--The Ethical Idea
Again. Pages 1-36