Hugh Reginald Haweis - August, 1876

from My Musical Life, pages 519-20:

The grotesque music given to both Mime and Alberich, like so much of WAGNER'S misunderstood recitative, aims, no doubt, at following the inflections of the human voice as it is affected often by very commonplace moods, as well as by the meaner impulses of arrogance, vexation, anger, and spite. What we lose in musical charm we gain in a certain ingenious sense of reality. I think the power of WAGNER, the solidity of his work, largely turns upon this. He is never afraid of length, of silence, even of dulness, caused by protracted or delayed action. Like DE BALZAC, he knew well how to work up slowly and surely to a consummate effect, and his effect never hangs fire, nor is it ever liable to an anticlimax, that bane of second-rate artists.

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cite as

Hugh Reginald Haweis, My Musical Life (London, 1898), p. 519-20. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1437994269353 accessed: 28 March, 2024

Listeners

Hugh Reginald Haweis
Cleric, Writer
1839-1901

Listening to

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Siegfried
written by Richard Wagner

Experience Information

Date/Time August, 1876
Medium live
Listening Environment in the company of others, outdoors, in public

Originally submitted by sp327 on Mon, 27 Jul 2015 11:51:09 +0100
Approved on Mon, 25 Apr 2016 13:25:58 +0100