{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-12:liederkranz-club-banquet",
  "slug": "liederkranz-club-banquet",
  "title": "The Liederkranz Club Seidl-Stanton Banquet",
  "subtitle": "In honor of Anton Seidl and Theodore Stanton.",
  "excerpt": "After-dinner tribute at the Liederkranz Club banquet honoring conductor Anton Seidl and Theodore Stanton.",
  "year": 1891,
  "volume": 12,
  "category": "After-Dinner",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/liederkranz-club-banquet/",
  "wordCount": 1263,
  "body": "The Liederkranz Club, Seidl-stanton Banquet\n\nNew York, April 2, 1891\n\nTOAST: MUSIC, NOBLEST OF THE ARTS.\n\nIT is probable that I was selected to speak about music, because, not\nknowing one note from another, I have no prejudice on the subject.\n\nAll I can say is, that I know what I like, and, to tell the truth, I\nlike every kind, enjoy it all, from the hand organ to the orchestra.\n\nKnowing nothing of the science of music, I am not always looking for\ndefects, or listening for discords. As the young robin cheerfully\nswallows whatever comes, I hear with gladness all that is played.\n\nMusic has been, I suppose, a gradual growth, subject to the law\nof evolution; as nearly everything, with the possible exception of\ntheology, has been and is under this law.\n\nMusic may be divided into three kinds: First, the music of simple time,\nwithout any particular emphasis—and this may be called the music of\nthe heels; second, music in which time is varied, in which there is\nthe eager haste and the delicious delay, that is, the fast and slow, in\naccordance with our feelings, with our emotions—and this may be\ncalled the music of the heart; third, the music that includes time and\nemphasis, the hastening and the delay, and something in addition, that\nproduces not only states of feeling, but states of thought. This may be\ncalled the music of the head,—the music of the brain.\n\nMusic expresses feeling and thought, without language. It was below and\nbefore speech, and it is above and beyond all words. Beneath the waves\nis the sea—above the clouds is the sky.\n\nBefore man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had hopes and\nfears and passions, and these were rudely expressed in tones.\n\nOf one thing, however, I am certain, and that is, that Music was born of\nLove. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have\nbeen uttered a strain of music. Possibly some mother, looking in the\neyes of her babe, gave the first melody to the enraptured air.\n\nLanguage is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we\nfeel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are\ntranslated into music. Music is the sunshine—the climate—of the soul,\nand it floods the heart with a perfect June.\n\nI am also satisfied that the greatest music is the most marvelous\nmingling of Love and Death. Love is the greatest of all passions, and\nDeath is its shadow. Death gets all its terror from Love, and Love\ngets its intensity, its radiance, its glory and its rapture, from the\ndarkness of Death. Love is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave.\n\nThe old music, for the most part, expresses emotion, or feeling-,\nthrough time and emphasis, and what is known as melody. Most of the\nold operas consist of a few melodies connected by unmeaning recitative.\nThere should be no unmeaning music. It is as though a writer should\nsuddenly leave his subject and write a paragraph consisting of nothing\nbut a repetition of one word like \"the,\" \"the,\" \"the,\" or \"if,\" \"if.\"\n\"if,\" varying the repetition of these words, but without meaning,—and\nthen resume the subject of his article.\n\nI am not saying that great music was not produced before Wagner, but\nI am simply endeavoring to show-the steps that have been taken. It was\nnecessary that all the music should have been written, in order that the\ngreatest might be produced. The same is true of the drama, Thousands\nand thousands prepared the way for the supreme dramatist, as millions\nprepared the way for the supreme composer.\n\nWhen I read Shakespeare, I am astonished that he has expressed so much\nwith common words, to which he gives new meaning; and so when I hear\nWagner, I exclaim: Is it possible that all this is done with common air?\n\nIn Wagner's music there is a touch of chaos that suggests the infinite.\nThe melodies seem strange and changing forms, like summer clouds, and\nweird harmonies come like sounds from the sea brought by fitful winds,\nand others moan like waves on desolate shores, and mingled with these,\nare shouts of joy, with sighs and sobs and ripples of laughter, and the\nwondrous voices of eternal love.\n\nWagner is the Shakespeare of Music.\n\nThe funeral march for Siegfried is the funeral music for all the dead;\nShould all the gods die, this music would be perfectly appropriate. It\nis elemental, universal, eternal.\n\nThe love-music in Tristan and Isolde is, like Romeo and Juliet, an\nexpression of the human heart for all time. So the love-duet in The\nFlying Dutchman has in it the consecration, the infinite self-denial,\nof love. The whole heart is given; every note has wings, and rises and\npoises like an eagle in the heaven of sound.\n\nWhen I listen to the music of Wagner, I see pictures, forms, glimpses of\nthe perfect, the swell of a hip, the wave of a breast, the glance of\nan eye. I am in the midst of great galleries. Before me are passing,\nthe endless panoramas. I see vast landscapes with valleys of verdure\nand vine, with soaring crags, snow-crowned. I am on the wide seas, where\ncountless billows burst into the white caps of joy. I am in the depths\nof caverns roofed with mighty crags, while through some rent I see the\neternal stars. In a moment the music, becomes a river of melody, flowing\nthrough some wondrous land; suddenly it falls in strange chasms, and the\nmighty cataract is changed to seven-hued foam. .\n\nGreat music is always sad, because it tells us of the perfect; and such\nis the difference between what we are and that which music suggests,\nthat even in the vase of joy we find some tears.\n\nThe music of Wagner has color, and when I hear the violins, the morning\nseems to slowly come. A horn puts a star above the horizon. The night,\nin the purple hum of the bass, wanders away like some enormous bee\nacross wide fields of dead clover. The light grows whiter as the\nviolins increase. Colors come from other instruments, and then the full\norchestra floods the world with day.\n\nWagner seems not only to have given us new tones, new combinations, but\nthe moment the orchestra begins to play his music, all the instruments\nare transfigured. They seem to utter the sounds that they have been\nlonging to utter. The horns run riot; the drums and cymbals join in\nthe general joy; the old bass viols are alive with passion; the 'cellos\nthrob with love; the violins are seized with a divine fury, and the\nnotes rush out as eager for the air as pardoned prisoners for the roads\nand fields.\n\nThe music of Wagner is filled with landscapes. There are some strains,\nlike midnight, thick with constellations, and there are harmonies like\nislands in the far seas, and others like palms on the desert's edge. His\nmusic satisfies the heart and brain. It is not only for memory; not only\nfor the present, but for prophecy.\n\nWagner was a sculptor, a painter, in sound. When he died, the greatest\nfountain of melody that ever enchanted the world, ceased. His music will\ninstruct and refine forever.\n\nAll that I know about the operas of Wagner I have learned from Anton\nSeidl. I believe that he is the noblest, tenderest and the most artistic\ninterpreter of the great composer that has ever lived.\n"
}