[H] Mr. Ellis’s translation.

An evidence of Wagner’s overpowering genius exists in the originality and unique character of his work, while giving himself up so unreservedly to this spiritual guidance.  The two, however, were quite unlike in many respects.  Neither could have done the work of the other.  Beethoven, almost a failure in operatic composition, undertook it no more after one trial, while Wagner was irresistibly drawn to this style from the beginning.  He felt that with Beethoven the last word had been said in pure instrumental music, while his literary talents also served to draw him into this field of operatic composition where they could find their proper outlet.  With that unerring poetic sense which guided him in the selection of his subjects, he always has the romantic element to the fore.  The atmosphere of romanticism which invests all his works, is what gives them much of their value.  Through the force and purity of his literary instinct, he was enabled to select topics of supreme interest, so that his imagination was kept at white heat while composing.  His originality and absolute confidence in himself prevented him from following Beethoven to any marked extent.  He was forced to hew out a new path for himself.  He was, however, not averse to occasionally taking a hint from him when it would serve his purpose.  It is the prerogative of genius to take its material wherever it can be found.  “Plato,” said Emerson, “plays sad havoc with our originalities.”  Beethoven’s influence is plainly discernible in the preludes and overtures of the Wagner dramas, which are symphonic throughout.  The frequent use Wagner makes of the trombones, when he wishes to be particularly impressive, recalls Beethoven.  Each had a high opinion of the trombone where solemnity was required, and made constant use of it.  Beethoven applied it with peculiar effect in the Benedictus of the Mass in D, and in the Ninth Symphony, which is paralleled by Wagner’s use of it in Parsifal, and in the Funeral march in Siegfried.  The extraordinary uses to which he puts the pedal-point, as well as the variation form, are instances which show the influence of the older master.

When, however, he takes an idea from Beethoven, he improves on it, broadening and amplifying it, in general putting it to a better use than it was where he found it.  A great dramatic work admits of fuller and longer treatment of an idea than is possible in the other forms in which music can be embodied.  The instances just quoted are minor ones of general application.  Of the conceptions in which he is specially indebted to Beethoven, the most important come from the Mass in D. Here the older master, by the very form in which the ideas are cast, had to hold himself in.  He was not able to give them the significance in the Mass, which is perfectly proper in great music dramas; and this enlarging and widening of the poetic conception,—­this splendor in which it is portrayed,—­not only justifies the course of his follower in adopting it, but also calls attention anew to the commanding genius to whom such things are possible.