THE MUSICAL THEORY OF THE GERMAN ROMANTIC WRITERS

6" NE must have lived in Germany," says Heine, "to understand the popularity of song and of poetry, and the close connection that exists between the two." This connection is a singular characteristic of Germanic thought, which ever attempts to interblend the various realms of life. The French mind, which insists on being clear-sighted, analyses, separates and distinguishes genres; and never were they more separated than in the classics, where this mind was clearest and most logical. On the other hand, when we say that the German tongue is synthetical, we state a form of the German mind whose analogue is seen in all its intellectual manifestations. The poets are all dramatists and novelists. The painters are moralists in colour. The moralists are metaphysicians. Integral artthe blend of all the arts-is the latent theory of all artists: Wagner, far from being a precursor, is but a culmination. There is a strange work, "Die Ruinen am Rhein," written by Nicolas Vogt at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In it the author states that he is depicting the struggle between Christianity and paganism, by combining the legends of Don Juan and Faust. For this purpose, he has recourse to various arts: he introduces pictures by Raphael and Michelangelo, music by Mozart and Haydn, while the play finishes with the final chorus from The Creation. The reason why music, more frequently than other arts, comes into literature, is because it is a "national cult," as Wagner clearly proved. Not that the Germans appreciate it any better than we do, and, as Jean-Christophe says, "Even in Germany, no longer are there many true musicians"; rather is it that this cult stands out as an age-long institution. Not only were emperors and princes the patrons of orchestras, they themselves even composed. Ferdinand III (1637), who brought Italian opera into Vienna, composed arias. Leopold I (1658) left behind him seventy-nine religious works and one hundred and fifty-five arias. Of Frederick II we have sonatas and concertos for the flute, various airs, and the overture to the Re pastore (1747). Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven's friend, wrote a variation on Diabelli's waltz-theme.