OF CLASSICAL MUSIC

by Stephen Fry

  In a way, Wagner basically carried out a root and branch overhaul of music. Gone were the rules. Gone was the form book, the structure. Wagner, and indeed many of the romantics, but Wagner most of all - to be fair - said simply, 'Why should we?' and then did his own thing. As a child, he had loved Beethoven, and used to spend hours and hours copying out the scores and making arrangements of his music. He also loved the operas of Mozart - the first true German opera composer, he called him - and, if you add to this as healthy respect for the composer of the day, Meyerbeer, well, you can see how it all came about, in a sense. Throw in the fact that, as we know, he was only 5 feet 5 inches tall, and everything becomes crystal clear. The equation would read: pB x kB + 1?(?)

  1 1-1 =WO

  – h That's 'Passion for Beethoven x knowledge of Beethoven + love of Mozart opera, all over lack of height = Wagner operas'. Obviously. Now open your text books at page 182 and work quiedy through chapters 7 and 8, while I go off to the staff common room.

  Wagner wanted to make a new form - not just music, not just opera, but a real living, breathing, organic new form. In Wagner's new form, the music and the plot would be inextricably linked - one couldn't move independentiy of the other, both were of equal importance. He called it 'music drama', a harking back to the dramma per musica of the Renaissance. They weren't just operas, though, to him - they were different. The music had to grow out of the drama - and the drama could advance only with the help of the music. So, no, you couldn't simply stop, every now and again, and 'stand and deliver' a pretty aria, for the sake of having an 'extractable' song which people could sing in recitals. His music would build and build, taking its cue from the story - and, as we know, he could write his own librettos too. Well, who else would know how to write librettos exactly how he wanted them? Who else would get it, as it were? But, if the music was going to be more or less continuous, how would he keep the audiences involved? He did want them to be able to at least keep up, but if the music was all just constantly new and unheard, page after page, how could they? How would they get what was going on, if there was no stopping, and everything flowed from what had come before? And more importantly, WHERE WOULD THEY COUGH?

  LEIT MUSIC

  he way he got round it was this. He kept writing what he called 'leitmotiv' - short, snappy(-ish) tunes that denoted either characters or moods or general themes. These would crop up, whenever he needed to get his point across, often over and over again, and sometimes long after they had been first heard. In fact, there is a great quote from the conductor, Sir Thomas Rentagob Beecham, which comes from the time he was taking an opera orchestra through its Wagnerian paces: 'We've been rehearsing [this opera] for two hours, now, and we're still playing the same bloody tune!' What a wag he was. But also, imagine you are not stopping a piece of music for two, maybe three hours even. After a while, you begin to lose any sense of what key you are in, because Wagner was always flitting around, shifting seamlessly between different keys. It must have been a whole new world for people, hugely unsettling. And that's not to mention the staying power you needed to simply sit through the opera - sorry, music drama - in the first place. In fact, while we're in the mood for great quotes, one of the other best quotes in all music concerns this aspect of Wagner operas. It's got to be one of my all-time favourite Wagner quotes after Woody Allen's 'I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.' It is: 'A Wagner opera is where it starts at 6 o'clock. After two hours you look at your watch and it says 6.20.' True, it's not for everyone, the five-hour-long works, with intervals which, honestly, last as long as some of his rivals' entire operas.

  And the reason we pulled in in 1845 was because he was about to let it all hang out for the first time. October the 19th, 1845, was when he unveiled his first all-singing, all-dancing, true music drama. It went by the fantastic kennel name of: Cannhauger anb the Ringing Contest on the Wartburg

  …or simply Tannhduser, for short. So, you see: despite the fact that he might have been getting everything else right, he was hopeless at titles. I mean, Tannhduser and the Singing Contest on the Wartburg. Reminds me of our old family holidays - we had a Wartburg. Yes. Never had a singing contest on it, though, as far as I can remember. Had an aerial that you had to pull up by hand, and those funny ventilator slats at the back. Made an awful noise, it did. Loved it, though. Sorry. I'm off with the fairies.

  As I said, they're not for everyone the humungously long operas of Wagner, and this may account for the popularity of this early masterpiece, Tannhduser, which nowhere near tops the scale when it comes to length, coming in at a mere four days, eighteen hours. It also comes complete with one of the best overtures in opera, a storming and rounded piece of work which manages to warn the listener about most of the tunes that are going to come up in the opera. As a result, it's become one of the most played opera overtures not only of Wagner's personal output, but of all opera.

  Now, if you don't mind - or, indeed, if you do - I'm going to move on to the period of 1848/49/50, which means skipping some five or so years - or one whole Wagner opera length, if you like.

  ISN'T IT ROMANTIC?

  O

  K, let me take you right to the edge, now. Imagine it's 1849. The next year, 1850, is the year, according to the music books -and you will note I don't include this book in that august number -that music became true ROMANTIC and not just EARLY ROMANTIC. Or, as some like to call it, HIGH Romantic, which I presume means Romantic but they still use incense and Latin. 1850 is the year when we are allowed to think of music as really, fully fledged Romantic. So, in 1849, we're right on the edge. Officially, we're still early Romantic period, but only just. If someone gave us a leg up and we could see over the wall, you'd see the High Romantic garden in all its lush glory. But what was it that tipped everything over the edge, as it were, into fully formed, card-carrying Romanticism? Well, pardy it was a case of things just working themselves through - people will always take a movement to its limit, before someone presses the hooter and it's on to the next big thing. But more importandy, if you take romanticism as being a by-product of music + world events -remember Beethoven: half man, half real-life revolutionary - well, then it becomes clear that revolution is the fuel of the romantics. Ever since Eroica, you haven't been able to have one without the other. So what was the main thing that tipped the early romantics over the edge, into becoming out-and-out high romantics? Well, more than anything, it was the events of last year.

  RICHARD, THE GREAT, AND VIV THE REVOLUTION

  1848 was THE year for revolution, more than any other year had been in recent history. In Paris, Louis Philippe had abdicated and the French National Assembly had elected the recendy escaped Louis Napoleon as President of the French Republic. In Vienna, Prince Metternich resigned during the first uprising, then, during a second, Emperor Ferdinand I decides to get out too, while the going is good, and nips to Innsbruck for a spot of skiing. A further, third uprising sees him abdicating fully in favour of his nephew, Franz Joseph. In Rome, Count Rossi, the papal premiere, is assassinated and Pope Pius gets out, sharpish. It's happening all over, too. Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Milan, Parma, Prague, the Isle of Sheppey©, Rome - all of them undergoing a massive period of Revolution, with a capital R. Er, and in bold. And italics. And underlined. I think I've made my point.

  Come 1849, and Wagner himself is caught up in it all, too. He starts giving hardline, radical speeches, in support of the rebels, and even selling revolutionary pamphlets on the street. Can you imagine that? Bumping into Wagner on the street, trying to sell you a magazine? 'RW: Guten tag, Guvnor Buy a Grofi Issue? Pleb: Sorry? RW: Go on, buy a Grofi Issue, support the keinen Haus mensch…

  …er, please? Pleb: Oh, J, er, I already bought one, Wagner, honest.

  It's…at home. RW (tuts): Er, well, wass about du, squire? Buy a Grofi bsue? Come on, Grofs bsue, who'll take my last eins? What a strange concept. Anyway, as a result, when the revolt in Wagner's bit of the world, Dresden, eventually comes to nothin
g, Wagner is forced to flee to Zurich to escape prosecution. In fact, he's forced to stay in Zurich for thirteen years, until the heat dies down. Thirteen years! That must have been some heat. It was left to friends and champions, like Liszt, to keep Wagner heard in his native land. That's 1849's amazing turn of events. What about 1850, hmm?

  EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT

  CLASSICAL MUSIC BUT

  WERE AFRAID TO ASK, LIKE: 'WHAT ABOUT 1850, HMM?' Ј"io. 1850. Right, well, let's see, Chopin has been dead for a year, vJMendelssohn for two years, and even Edgar Allen??? has finally found out whether death puts on a red masque or not. In England, William Wordsworth has shuffled off, too, and is replaced as Poet Laureate by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. California is the newest recruit to the American state roster - not surprising after the Gold Rush of a couple of years back - and, over in China, the Taiping rebellion is causing all sorts of trouble, with; Hun Hiu-tsuen proclaiming himself Emperor.

  Actually, what a jolly good wheeze - proclaiming yourself Emperor, I mean. Great idea. In fact, I might try it now. Let's see: '3???? amp;?. p/wclaim nuf amp;eif ЈmpЈ*w of the United Jiingdem, and of all it amp; colonies, including- all of.WovfoM, of, comae, and not forgetting, the. Qnand??Ј? of SheppeyJ Mmm. Well. I don't feel any different.

  Wonder if it's worked. I might be Emperor now, for all I know. I'll see if I can annex a small country, maybe, or - an even better test - see if I can't get a cabbie to take me south of the river.

  JAKE AND ELWOOD. AND RICHARD

  B

  ack to 1850. Around the same time that Turgenev produces his play, A Month in the Country, Wagner is still enjoying the second of his thirteen years of enforced exile in the mountains. But he hasn't stopped writing. Of course not. This is a man who, to borrow from the Blues Brothers, is on a mission from God. Or, as he himself put it: 7 am being used, as the instrument for something higher than my own being warrants… I am in the hands of the immortal genius that I serve for the span of my life and that intends me to complete what only I can achieve.' Mmm. I've got to say, I think the Blues Brothers' line is a little snappier.

  But that's not the point in 1850. The point, in 1850, is that Richard 'Don't call me Lindsay!' Wagner comes up with his best work yet - his first TRUE masterpiece, as some would have it. It is, of course, an opera. Sorry, a 'music drama'. But this opera has no overture. Instead, it has a prelude. It has leitmotivs coming out of its ears. It is more seamless, more perfect than any of his other attempts so far. It's fan - bloody - tastic!

  But who would conduct it? In Germany, I mean. Let's face it, the world premiere of Wagner's new opera wouldn't create quite as much of a stir anywhere else really - it has to be Germany. But who would be brave enough to stage the work of a self-confessed revolutionary, wanted by the authorities for crimes against the state?

  Well, step forward good old Franz Liszt. Liszt has been making people sit up and take notice with his music-making in Weimar. In fact, both he and Weimar are, as a result, the talk of the country. His uncompromising commitment to good music has brought it an international reputation - a bit like Sir Simon Rattle and Birmingham in the 1980s. And where better to premiere the work of the revolutionary exile, Wagner? (That's Weimar, I mean, not Birmingham.) And the work that had them all worked up? Lohengrin. Or to give it its full kennel name: 'HoFjengrin, tlje i^olp???? an amp; tfje legenbarp ????? of kernel itempsiteb, go off for a long toeekeno orienteering in tfje country'© OK, so I'm lying about the full title. So shoot me. Anyway, best get to 1851. I've such a lot to tell you.

  WOMEN ARE LIARS

  1851. Quick rain check on the population of various parts of the world as they stand in 1851. Britain is currently on around 20 million, America an amazing 23, France 33, Germany 34, but in first place, with a whopping 430 million, the winner is China. Well done, China. Come on down!

  And what news to impart? Well, big news really. Cuba has just declared its independence, France has a new constitution following a coup by Louis Napoleon, and Britain? Well, the first double-decker buses appear. OK, not exactiy huge news for Britain, but still. Things are a little quiet.

  In the US, the brand-new New Tork Times carries an ad for the equally brand-new, first-ever, continuous stitch sewing machine, freshly patented by one Isaac Singer, while, over in Paris, photographic pioneer Louis Daguerre keels over, on his own doorstep, and dies. So - he not only invented the first photographs, he also pioneered the mat finish.

  The English art cognoscenti are also mourning the death of one of their finest painters, JMW Turner. The big read this year is Herman Melville's Moby Dick, and the brand-new modern building for everyone to complain about is William Cubitt's King's Cross train station. Although platform 9% had yet to be added. But in the world of music, Verdi has something up his sleeve. His green sleeve, you might say. Imagine you're there. Where? There. In Venice. At the Teatro La Fenice.

  Let's say… you're in the orchestra. Yes, that's it. You're in the orchestra. You've been to three dress rehearsals so far and, every time you get to a certain part of the opera, you hit a blank page. And I mean literally. Where there should be an aria, there's a blank page. Bloody odd. Whenever you get to it, everyone looks up at the conductor, questioningly. The conductor - who is also the composer - says something like, 'Oh… we'll… fill that bit in later.' Bloody odd. It happens again. And again. In fact, every time you get to that particular bit. How dashed, decidedly, brow-beatingly, breathtakingly, bloody odd! Until, that is, the very last dress rehearsal, which is on the day of the opening night. Only then, does Verdi - our conductor/ composer - stump up the missing aria.

  Why? Well, it turns out Verdi knew he was on to a winner. In fact, so convinced was he that he was on to a winning, hit tune, that he wanted to make sure it stayed under wraps until the opening night, for fear of some unscrupulous composer stealing it. And he was right, too. By that I don't mean someone stole it -1 mean he did have a hit tune on his hands. It is usually translated as 'Women are fickle', but I do remember one amazing production at ENO, by Dr Jonathan Miller, which had it translated as 'Women are liars', which I thought was certainly giving it some. His opera, Rijjoletto, opened that night, complete with the hit tune he had kept from even his own orchestra until the same day - 'La donna? mobile'.

  And you've got to admit - corking tune. You could see why he'd want to protect it. It's one of those that, once you've heard it, you can't get it out of your head. And the words are so good too. 'Women?.?? liars…ttUTl tlim tlim teedle tum dum dum dum, deedle dum…'

  EIGHT MINUTES TO SEVEN

  ? ne year on from Kigoletto, and, my, what a lot has happened. Louis Napoleon is now more or less a king - or at least has given himself the powers of a monarch, in much the same way I gave myself the powers of an Emperor, earlier. Got to be honest, it hasn't changed me. I still eat in the staff canteen, park in the staff car park - everything. Louis N, however, is still calling himself President. Again, much like me - I don't make a big thing of insisting everyone calls me Emperor. Obviously, if they do, I do tip more. Along some of the same lines, the Iron Duke has died at the grand old age of eighty-four, living just long enough to witness the very first England Cricket Eleven. Presumably, that means he lived long enough to see the very first England Cricket Eleven Batting Collapse, too. Charles Dickens seems able to write no wrong, so to speak, and the blockbusters keep on coming - this year, it's Bleak House, which is competing for shelf space alongside Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Artistically speaking, William Holman Hunt's The Light of the World and Millais's Ophelia are probably the most important works. As regards 'the music' in 1852, the big noise is still Richard Wagner.

  In 1852, Wagner was still in exile in Zurich. Although Liszt had kindly premiered Lohengrin in Weimar, Richard was, as he himself used to say, still one of the few Germans not to have seen it. And yet it had made him the most famous composer in his own land. You can see why, putting all this together, he might one day have the desire to build his own opera hous
e, can't you? That would solve the problem of not being able to mount your own work.

  RW is, however, by no means wasting his time out there in the land of cows and chocolate. He is hard at work on his grandest project yet -well, to be honest, would you expect me to say anything else? I mean, I can hardly imagine myself writing the line 'He had decided to tone things down a bit, go smaller-scale, maybe only write in his spare time when he wasn't committing to his love of insurance underwriting!' No. Richard was clearly one of life's 'bigger, better, grander' people, and this next idea is not just an opera, but a huge CYCLE of operas. Four, in fact, which would form one huge opera-event, and which were going to tower over all opera before or since, from the very moment they were first heard. Wagner gave his project the title The King of the Nibelung, and it was conceived in much the same way as the Star Wars films were. First of all, he wrote the words - the libretto - to something that he called 'Siegfried's Death'. Siegfried is the hero - so, if it helps, picture him as the nineteenth-century Luke Skywalker. He was then about to set out on the music to go with his words when he thought that, in fact, he really should explain the story that led up to it. So he wrote the words to the 'prequel', as it were, which he called 'The Young Siegfried' - a sort of 'Siegfried, the Phantom Menace', if you like. Then, he wrote the words to another prequel to that - 'The Valkyrie' - and then yet another prequel - 'The Rhine Gold'. Wow -one book and three prequels. So you see: Star Wars, then Star Wars -the Phantom Menace, then Star Wars- Attack of the Clones, etc - it was all more or less done by Wagner some 150 years earlier.