“Die Walküre” Analyzed.
Reading edition
Professor Eliphalet J. Snodgrass, emeritus professor of æsthetic chemistry at Chicago University, has analyzed the specimen of Wagner’s “Die Walküre” we sent him last Wednesday morning, and he finds that this inspired work of the great 321German master is composed of the following proportionate parts:—
Libretto 06
String-music 12
Wind-music 15
Motives 25
Bass-drums and cymbals 14
Lycopodium and sheet-iron thunder 13
Flapdoodle, flubdub, and imagination 15
Total 100
This chemical analysis is confirmed, we understand, by the numerous musical critics of the Chicago press, who have surveyed the performance of “Die Walküre” at the Columbia this week, with quadrants, theodolites, and tuning-forks, in the parquette circle. We are not sure but what a study of these critics, as they appear under full headway at an opera, is more profitable than a study of the performance on the stage. At least, an observation of their methods teaches us the means by which the human mind can arrive at perfection in the art of musical criticism.