But the grouping of the characters is
admirable; the truculent witch Ortrud is a fine foil to the ingenuous
Elsa, and Lohengrin's spotless knighthood is cast into brilliant relief
by the dastardly treachery of Telramund. The story of 'Lohengrin' lacks
the deep human interest of 'Tannhaeuser,' and the music never reaches the
heights to which the earlier work sometimes soars. But in both respects
'Lohengrin' has the merit of homogeneity; the libretto is laid out by a
master hand, and the music, though occasionally monotonous in rhythm,
has none of those strange relapses into conventionality which mar the
beauty of 'Tannhaeuser.' Musically 'Lohengrin' marks the culminating
point of Wagner's earlier manner. All the links with the Italian school
are broken save one, the concerted finale. Here alone he adheres to the
old tradition of cavatina and cabaletta--the slow movement followed by
the quick. The aria in set form has completely disappeared, while the
orchestra, though still often used merely as an accompaniment, is never
degraded, as occasionally happens in 'Tannhaeuser,' to the rank of a 'big
guitar.'
The opening notes of 'Lohengrin' indeed prove incontestably the
increased power and facility with which Wagner had learnt to wield his
orchestra since the days of 'Tannhaeuser.' The prelude to 'Lohengrin'--a
mighty web of sound woven of one single theme--is, besides being a
miracle of contrapuntal ingenuity, one of the most poetical of Wagner's
many exquisite conceptions.
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