murderous fanaticism. We know of no more appalling phenomena in the whole of history than women politicians. And so it is not jealousy of Elsa – on Friedrich’s account, for example – which motivates Ortrud, rather does her entire passion reveal itself in the scene in Act II when—following Elsa’s disappearance from the balcony – she leaps up from the minster steps and calls out to her old, long-vanished gods. She is a reaction-ary, a woman concerned only for what is outdated and for that reason is hostile to all that is new – and hostile, moreover, in the most rabid sense of the word: she would like to eradicate the world and nature, simply in order to breathe new life into her decaying gods. But this is no idiosyncratic, sickly whim on the part of Ortrud, rather does this passion consume her with the whole weight of a woman’s longing for love – a longing which is stunted, undeveloped and deprived of an object: and that is why she is so fearfully [P. 249] impressive.” [584W-{1/30/52}Letter to Franz Liszt: SLRW, p. 248-249]
[585W-{2/13/52}Letter to Theodor Uhlig: SLRW, p. 252]
[P. 252] “It is the non-musician who has led the way to a true understanding of Beethoven’s works: quite involuntarily he desired to know what the composer had actually had in mind when writing the music. This led to the first difficulty. Imagination, in its search for understanding, fell back upon all manner of arbitrary inventions of bizarre features and romantic images. The grotesque and generally trivial nature of the ideas imputed in this way to Beethoven’s compositions was soon sensed by those whose feelings in the matter were more refined, and thus such ideas came to be rejected. Since these images were inappropriate, it was thought better to reject all such ideas entirely. And yet a perfectly legitimate feeling lay behind this urge to create such images: but the only person capable of identifying the desired object (an object which the tone-poet himself had had in mind – without necessarily knowing it) was the one man who, in turn, was entirely familiar with the characteristic essence of the work in question.” [585W-{2/13/52}Letter to Theodor Uhlig: SLRW, p. 252]
[586W-{2/52} Explanatory Programme: Tannhaeuser Overture: PW Vol. III, p. 230-231]
[P. 230] {FEUER} “ … in drunken glee Bacchantes drive their raging dance anddrag Tannhaeuser to the warm caresses of Love’s Goddess, who throws her glowing arms around the mortal drowned with bliss, and bears him where no step dare tread, to the realm of Being-no-more (Nichtmehrseins). (…) … from afar is heardagain the Pilgrims’ Chant. As this chant draws closer yet and closer, as the day drives farther back the night, that whir and soughing of the air – which had [P. 231] erewhile sounded like the eerie cries of souls condemned – now rises, too, to ever gladder waves; so that when the sun ascends at last in splendour, and the Pilgrims’ Chant proclaims in ecstasy to all the world, to all that lives and moves thereon, Salvation won, this wave itself swells out the tidings of sublimest joy. ‘Tis the carol of the Venusberg itself, redeemed from curse of impiousness, this cry we hear amid the hymn of God. So wells and leaps each pulse of Life in chorus of Redemption; and both dissevered elements, both soul and senses, God and Nature, unite in the atoning kiss of hallowed Love.” [586W-{2/52} Explanatory Programme: Tannhaeuser Overture: PW Vol. III, p. 230-231]
