110/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
In the music-drama, Wagner has essayed to present ideas simultaneously in poetry, scenic art, and music, so that they shall command the undivided attention of all the perceptive faculties. Ideally, the music-drama represents the highest achievement of Art, because it attempts to express the profoundest human experiences in the most comprehensive manner.
It is an advance beyond the spoken drama, in so far as music has power to awaken deeper, more subtle feelings than words. A similar universal artform was sought in the Greek tragedy; but the crude, undeveloped condition of instrumental music at that period prevented its employment as a substitute for the chorus, which served as a background for the action, and furnished a sort of commentary on the play by intonating the deeper sentiments of the actors.
Schopenhauer says, “The delicate relation in which music stands to the true nature of all things will explain the fact that if suitable music be heard to any scene, action, event, environment, it will seem to reveal the secret sense of these, and act as the most correct and clearest comment upon them.”
Yet, important as are its achievements, the music-drama falls far short of a perfect standard in actual performance; for even though fulfilling its intended purpose, so far as its musical features are concerned, it is evident that in stage art much must be left to the imagination,
even after the exercise of due care and ingenuity in regard to the various devices employed. But this fact only emphasizes the importance of presenting to the senses an illusion as complete as possible, that the imagination may not be continually challenged by them.
An invaluable, and at the same time almost universally neglected, opportunity for becoming acquainted with the deeper life of the soul may be found in improvisation. Here the deeper Self enjoys perfect freedom of expression, so that the heart’s choicest treasures are poured out in the most lavish fashion.
No method of self-development exceeds in importance this simple indulgence in intuitive expression. It opens the door to a world entirely foreign to most lives, calling into activity at once the perceptive and creative faculties, and adding immeasurably to one’s appreciation of what is real in experience.