n, idiot--Wagnerite:
there, the most personal conscience is bound to submit to the levelling
charm of the great multitude, there the neighbour rules, there one
_becomes_ a neighbour."

Wagner As A Danger.

1.

The aim after which more modern music is striving, which is now given the
strong but obscure name of "unending melody," can be clearly understood by
comparing it to one's feelings on entering the sea. Gradually one loses
one's footing and one ultimately abandons oneself to the mercy or fury of
the elements: one has to swim. In the solemn, or fiery, swinging movement,
first slow and then quick, of old music--one had to do something quite
different; one had to dance. The measure which was required for this and
the control of certain balanced degrees of time and energy, forced the
soul of the listener to continual sobriety of thought.--Upon the
counterplay of the cooler currents of air which came from this sobriety,
and from the warmer breath of enthusiasm, the charm of all good music
rested--Richard Wagner wanted another kind of movement,--he overthrew the
physiological first principle of all music before his time. It was no
longer a matter of walking or dancing,--we must swim, we must hover.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} This
perhaps decides the whole matter. "Unending melody" really wants to break
all the symmetry of time and strength; it actually scorns these things--Its
wealth of invention resides precisely in what to an older ear sounds like
rhythmic paradox and abuse. From the imitation or the prevalence of such a
taste there would arise a danger for music--so great that we can imagine
none greater--the complete degeneration of the feeling for rhythm, _chaos_
in the place of rhythm.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} The danger reaches its climax when such music
cleaves ever more closely to naturalistic play-acting and pantomime, which
governed by no laws of form, aim at effect and nothing more.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
Expressiveness at all costs and music a servant, a slave to attitudes--this
is the end.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

2.

What? would it really be the first virtue of a performance (as performing
musical artists now seem to believe), under all circumstances to attain to
a _haut-relief_ which cannot be surpassed? If this were applied to Mozart,
for instance, would it not be a real sin against Mozart's spirit,--Mozart's
cheerful, enthusiastic, delightful and loving spirit? He who fortunately
was no G