The "_Ausgespielt_Motiv_" is written in four flats, but as a matter of fact only one person is flat, viz.: Blue-beard, who has just been slain by Mustapha. The other three flats must refer to the sheep accidentally hit by the younger brothers, who aim for Bluebeard, but miss him, being indifferent marksmen.
Why does the union of these _motive_, "_Bruder_Hoch_zu_Ross" (Brothers on a High Horse), "_Kilkennische_Katzen_" (Mortal Combat), "_Schwert_" (Sword), "_Glu'ckseligkeit_" (Felicity of Fatima), and "_Ausgespielt_" (Spent Strength and Spilled Blood), when blended in one majestically discordant whole, produce upon us a feeling of profound grief mingled with hysterical mirth?
[Ensemble Motiv Blaubart-Schwert-_Glu'ckseligkeit_-Leichen]
And why do the measures grow more and more sad as they melt into the touching "_Blut_auf_dem_Mond_Motiv_" (Blood-on-the-Moon Motive)?
[Blut auf dem Mond Motiv] (slowly and with infinite pathos)Simply because in a mortal combat somebody is invariably wounded and sometimes killed. Wagner sang of human life as it is, not as it might, could, would, or should be. From the "_Blut_auf_dem_Mond_Motiv_"(Blood-on-the-Moon Motive) we glide at once into a dirge, the "_Leichen_,"or Corpse, Motive, one of those superb funeral marches with which we are familiar in the other music-dramas of Wagner; for the master, though not an Irishman, is never so happy as on these funeral occasions.
[Leichen Motiv]
If any brainless and bigoted box-holder should ask why the "_Blaubart__Motiv_" is repeated in this funeral march, I ask him in return how he expects otherwise to know who is killed? Will he take the trouble to reflect that these are the motives of the _Vorspiel_, and that the curtain has not yet risen on the music-drama?
But why, he asks, do we hear an undercurrent of mirth pulsating joyously through the prevailing sadness of this "Leichen_Motiv_," or funeral march?
Simply because we cannot be expected to feel the same unmixed grief at the death of a wife-murderer as at the death of a wife-preserver! Ah, where shall we find again so subtle a reading of the throbbing heart of humanity!
The "_Schwert_Motiv_" mingles again with the haunting strains of the half-sad, half-glad "_Leichen_Motiv_," until the _Vorspiel_ ends abruptly with a single note of ineffable meaning, thus:
[Tod und Ho'lle Motiv] (off the keyboard to the left)This is very interesting to the student, and means much, if it means any-thing. The sword of the elder brother, Mustapha, has gone through Bluebeard, if not the swords of the other Brothers. This, you say, might not have been necessarily fatal, since those hardy ruffians of a bygone age were proof against many a stab; but in this case the sword of the heroic Mustapha was accompanied by the killing "Schwert Motiv," consequently the villain is dead.
But what has become of him? We have the one clue only, which will be known by all students in future as the "_Tod_und_Ho'lle_ _Motiv_," just given above: Bluebeard has gone where we will not follow him unless we are obliged. Is this asserting too much? Alas, it is only too evident. If it had been Wagner's intention to refer to the glorious immortality of a godlike hero, we should have had the exquisite strains of a heavenly harp, thus:
[rising arpeggios]
or the whir of angels' wings, thus:
[trills off the right-hand end of the keyboard]
And a final significant note, thus:
[a good 1 ?inches above the treble staff] (Stretch the keyboard a little if necessary and play a half, if there is not room for a whole note.)whose piercing sweetness and dizzy altitude would have symbolized Heaven, or at least _Walhalla_.
Alas, it is all too plain. We have this:
[1 inch below the bass staff]
enough in itself to show his whereabouts; and as if that were not enough, this:
[_Verdammungs_Motiv_] (Allegro frantico.) [2 dissonances, ?and 1 inches below the bass staff]
to show that he is uncomfortable!
It will be interesting for the student to note the difference between the "_Verdammungs_Motiv_" of "Bluebeard" and the" Damnation Motive" of Wagner's earlier opera, "Tannha'user."[Damnation Motive]
Both are strong, tragic, and powerful, but the sins of Bluebeard are gross and those of Tannha'user subtle; consequently the peril of each is foreshadowed in its own way, it being very clear that Bluebeard's fate is final, while Tannha'user, as we know, is saved by the spiritual influence of Elizabeth, a very different lady indeed from the frivolous and mercenary Fatima.
The plot of this music-drama itself is made beautifully clear by this _Vorspiel_ and lecture-recital, so that even a mother and child at a matine'e can follow the tone-pictures without difficulty; but the libretto, which is a remarkable specimen of Wagner's alliterative verse, only helps the more to rivet attention and compel admiration. I have given you an idea of the brief overture, and the opera itself opens with a somber recitative, descriptive or symbolic of the Dark Ages of Juvenile Literature.
