On Tuesday, November 3, 2020 at 7:39:56 AM UTC-10,
gggg...@gmail.com wrote:
Concerning this Youtube upload, the following was in the Comments section:
With the exquisite quintet in the third act of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg ("Blessed, as the sun"), Wagner used an ensemble style that he had not employed since his early opera Lohengrin. Wagner eschewed ensemble writing in his later operas. He
believed that ensembles -- trios, quartets, quintets, and the like -- impeded the dramatic flow; in an ensemble the characters stand still on the stage and embark on what might be termed a group soliloquy. For Wagner the dramatic rhythm was everything.
Opera, in Wagner's theory, should flow from beginning to end like a play. In Wagner's mind ensembles in opera had no dramatic purpose; they did not advance the story, rather, their existence was justified by the composer's need to express himself
musically.
Why did Wagner include a quintet in Meistersinger? Most authors who have considered the question, such as Wagner biographer Robert W. Gutman, have said that the Meistersinger quintet is simply an atavism: a throwback to an earlier operatic style.
Wagner, the composer, wanted to express himself musically, so Wagner the composer triumphed over Wagner the theorist and dramatist.
I would offer a different explanation.
The third act of Meistersinger takes place on June 21, the day on which the summer solstice occurs. Solstice, from the Latin for sun stands still, in astronomy, is either of the two points on the ecliptic that lie midway between the equinoxes (
separated from them by an angular distance of 90°).
At the solstices (winter or summer) the sun's apparent position on the celestial sphere reaches its greatest distance above or below the celestial equator, about 23 1/2° of arc. At the time of summer solstice, around June 20 or 21, the sun is directly
overhead at noon at the Tropic of Cancer.
For several days before and after each solstice the sun appears to stand still in the sky, i.e., its noontime elevation does not seem to change from day to day.
Perhaps Wagner wanted to express the idea of the solstice symbolically in the drama of Meistersinger; perhaps he wanted to embed the idea of standing still into the fabric of the play. And the quintet in the third act was employed as the musical means
to that end. The characters standing still in the ensemble was the most potent way of expressing the dramatic theme of the sun appearing to stand still in the sky.
Concerning DER ROSENKAVALIER, the following concludes:
- It is the purpose of art to show us that something does lie beyond time. Most of the action in Der Rosenkavalier is synchronous with clock time. But at the moment near the end when the Marschallin brings order out of chaos, when three radiant soprano
voices rise in the suspended moment of “Heut’ oder Morgen oder den ubernächsten Tag” – “Today or tomorrow or the day after tomorrow” – a moment greater than the others has at last been reached. The action is halted, the three characters
stand fixed on stage and, in the time-honored tradition of opera, the music makes its own time.
Some thoughts lie too deep for words, but not for music. The transcendent trio of Der Rosenkavalier, the song of three people caught up in the most important moment of their lives, assures us that this is what makes us human – we alone among
creatures have a consciousness that reaches beyond the present moment. We are able to conceive, beyond time, some notion of an eternal and immutable. The still point of the turning world. When the mind reaches to that eternity, a man, or a woman, can say
to the moment, with Goethe’s Faust, “Linger on, thou art so fair.” In the trio of Der Rosenkavalier we reach such a moment – a moment beyond time. At a moment like that, when we sense what lies beyond our ordinary lives, all the clocks really are
standing still.
http://wesclark.com/thisthat/marschallin.html
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