Note 25 — Chapter XII · SOME IDEALS REALISED

A gentleman, who in his youth heard Schnorr sing Tristan, has assured me that he was not the typical German representative of the part, but that he approached in his singing the manner of Jean de Reszke. Schnorr's voice, my informant says, was a beautiful, sweet, lyric tenor, and his style was one in which a fluent and touching cantabile was the most conspicuous feature. This statement, in conjunction with Wagner's declaration that Schnorr fulfilled his ideal, should contribute something toward a destruction of the foolish notion that Wagner's music ought not to be beautifully sung.