What else is all this but old-fashioned Italian opera with a new name?
What else but an inartistic mixture of Scribe libretto and Northern
mythology? Music-drama--fudge! Making music that one can _see_ is a
death-blow to a lofty idealization of the art.
Puzzled by the richness of Rentgen's vocabulary, by his want of logic,
Alixe asked herself many times whether she was wrong and her husband
right. She wished to be loyal. His devotion to his work, his inspiration
springing as it did from poetic sources, counted for something. Why not?
All composers should read the poets. It is a starting-point. Modern
music leans heavily on drama and fiction. Richard Strauss embroiders
philosophical ideas, so why should not Richard Van Kuyp go to Ireland,
to the one land where there is hope of a spiritual, a poetic renascence?
Ireland! The very name evoked dreams!
When Rentgen called at the Van Kuyps' it was near the close of a warm
afternoon. The composer would not stir, despite the invitation of the
critic or the pleading of his wife. He knew that the angel wings of
inspiration had been brushing his brow all the morning, and such visits
were too rare to be flouted.
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