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18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "between him and Chopin. Moreover, his praise of Chopin is always pitched in such a high key that it would seem as if praise could no higher go. It was he who first proclaimed Chopin's genius authoritatively, and to this fact he often referred subsequently, with special pride. Th...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "He has not been understood hitherto, and to the present day he is underestimated. Great progress will have to be made in taste and in the appreciation of music before it will be possible for Chopin's work to become popular. Heine also wrote that his favorite pianist was Chopin,"...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "says Czerny," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he continues," }, { "from": "human", "value": "" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How uninteresting is the style of any previous master (excepting Beethoven) compared with his! What a litany of gone-by,...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The wide arpeggios in the left hand, _maintained in a continuous stream of tone_ by the strict legato and fine and constant use of the damper pedal, formed an harmonious substructure for a wonderfully poetic _cantabile_." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he played t...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "F sharp minor Prelude," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The achievements of Mozart and Beethoven as pianists have long been forgotten; and their pianoforte compositions, although undoubtedly classical works, must give way to the diversified artistic treatment of that instrument by the modern school. Mr. Joseph Bennett quotes this sen...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Athenæum, in which he says:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The delicacy of M. Chopin's tone and the elasticity of his passages are delicious to the ear. He makes a free use of _tempo rubato_, leaning about within his bars more than any player we recollect, but st...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Stile Nobile, in which the singer, he says," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Mendelssohn, who always liked a" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "repeatedly expressed his aversion to Chopin's _rubato_. Nevertheless, traces of it may be found in the rhythms of the classical school. Although Mozart's _tempo_ in general was as strict and uniform as th...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "the note, not of its duration, but its _accent_. Every student of music knows that the symphony and sonata are called" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "This composer, he said," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Moments Musicals, Mendelssohn," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Songs without Words, Weber, Polonaises, and Field, Nocturnes. But these were merely straws which indicated in which direction Chopin's genius would sweep the field and clear the musical atmosphere. His pol...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Oh, how sad it must be to die in a foreign country," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Weber in" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oberon," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Lucrezia Floriani." } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Nation that if all pianoforte music in the world were to be destroyed, excepting one collection, my vote should be cast for Chopin's preludes. If anything could induce me to modify that opinion to-day, it would be the thought of Chopin's études. I would never consent to thei...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "All's well that ends well," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "He shut himself up in his room for entire days, she says," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As regards his creativeness, George Sand says that" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Siegfried or" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Faust," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Barber of Seville --he lived in the same house with his librettist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The admirable unity of the 'Barber,' in which a person without previous information on the subject could scarcely say whether the words were written for the music or th...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Faust. And Schumann, in one of his private letters, indicates very clearly why his" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Faust is such an inspired composition. Speaking of a performance of this work he says:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It appeared to make a...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Fidelio. I refer to the third" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leonora" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Fidelio were directly inspired in Beethoven by the emotional exaltation resulting from one of his unhappy love affairs. Mr. Thayer doubts this story, because he could not find anything in Beethoven's sketch-books corroborating it; but even if it should be a myth, there are many ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I have discovered, he writes to his bride," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was in 1838, two years before his marriage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Schumann himself admits, as Professor Spitta remarks," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "as...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "We observed he continues," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In another piece, inspired by the sight of carnations, they found that Mendelssohn intended certain arpeggio passages" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If I only had that theme on paper. He always pr...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Faust came to him unbidden during his rambles among Italian hills. Weber's melodies are so much like fragrant forest flowers that one feels sure before being told that he came across them in the woods and fields. His famous pupil, Sir Julius Benedict, relates that Weber took as ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Der Freischütz affords a remarkable confirmation of this statement. Weber began to compose this opera mentally on February 23, but did not write down a single note before the second of July. That is, he kept the full score of this wonderful work in his brain for more than four m...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Inquiries into Human Faculty," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "and he knows a lady, the daughter of an eminent musician, who often imagines she hears her father's playing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The day she told me of it, he says," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "These they can whistle in the street and be happy, while the harmonies and orchestral colors elude their comprehension and memory. Consequently they call these works" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "" }, { "from": "human", "value": "or" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Exercise your imagination, he says," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And again he says," }, { "from": "human", "value": "You must not rest until you are able to understand music on paper." } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, yes! he exclaimed," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Freischütz, got his imagination into the proper state of creative frenzy by picturing to himself his bride as if she were singing new arias for him. Now, in one of Wagner's essays there is a curious passage which seems to indicate that Wagner habitually conjured his characters b...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I say, the song's not so bad; _whose is it?_ so completely, in a fortnight, had it vanished from his mind. Grove recalls the fact that Sir Walter Scott once similarly attributed a song of his own to Byron;" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In hearing Schubert's composit...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Don Giovanni," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Don Giovanni, at Prague, he remarked to the leader of the orchestra:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have spared neither pains nor labor in order to produce something excellent for Prague. People are indeed mistaken in imagining that art has been an easy matter to m...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is it possible to play those tones on your instrument? Mozart asked; and when he was told it was, he replied," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then it is your affair to bring them out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the" }, { "from": "gpt", ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "as we generally say) as Mozart. This is illustrated by an amusing trait described by his biographers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beethoven was extremely fond of washing. He would pour water backwards and forwards over his hands for a long time together, and if at...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Genius is its own reward, he says." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If we look up to a great man of the past we do not think, How fortunate he is to be still admired by all of us; but, How happy he must have been in the immediate enjoyment of a mind the traces of which...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Götterdämmerung and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsifal" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Bring me my sketches." } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Flying Dutchman," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Siegfried or" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tristan." } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "In great haste, owing to business affairs, I add a sort of lexicon of indistinctly written words, which I have placed within brackets. This will probably make the letter appear very picturesque and piquant. The idea is not so bad. Adio, clarissima Cara, cara Clarissima. Then fol...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Thus I sat alone all the afternoon, revelling in the wild storm which ploughed through my hair, and composing a poem of praise to the Northeast wind" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In and near Heidelberg the student is the most prominent and respected individual, sinc...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Attempts were frequently made by his friends to teach him more sociable habits. Thus, at Leipsic," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dr. Carus's family are anxious to introduce me to innumerable families--'it would be good for my prospects,' they think, and so do I, and ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I should like to confide to you many other things regarding my character--how people often wonder that I meet the warmest expressions of love with coldness and reserve, and often offend and humiliate precisely those who are most sincerely devoted to me. Often have I queried and ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "However employed, whether passing quietly through the street, carrying water from the pond, or assisting in some grave procession, no sooner do they hear the rapid beats of a distant drum, than they begin to caper and dance spontaneously. The bricklayer will throw down his trowe...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "They firmly believed, says Naumann," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Music has the power to make Heaven descend upon earth. This art was constantly kept under rigid supervision by the government, and 354 years before Christ, one of the Emperors issued a special edict a...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But by and by they would take down their harps again from the willow bows and seek solace for the sorrows of the long exile in recalling the loved melody of their native land, and the...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I don't care much about newspapers. I can get along without them. But, in a second, a smile drove away the frown and he added:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have given orders that no one shall be admitted. However, you have come a long way--and as I have found it ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "History of Musical Æsthetics." } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "That this was the general sentiment in England is also proved by the oft-quoted passage in" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Merchant of Venice," }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man that hath no music in himself Nor is not moved with concord of sweet...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "It cannot be doubted, says Eduard von Hartmann, in his" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Philosophie des Schönen," }, { "from": "human", "value": "and Shelley, in his" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Defence of Poetry, says," }, { "from": "...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Consolations of the Miseries of my Life; Shakspere called music" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The food of love; and Chopin, in one of his letters to a friend, after referring to his first love affair, adds," }, { "from": "human", "value": "How often ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I felt raised above all care, all pain, all fear, and every taint of vulgarity was washed out of the world. I think this is an extremely happy expression. Female writers sometimes have a knack of getting at the heart of a problem by instinct, more easily than men with their supe...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Laws, says that" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Gods, pitying the toils which our race is born to undergo, have appointed holy festivals in which men rest from their labors. Lucentio, in" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Taming of the Shrew," }, ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Whatever strengthens and purifies the affections, enlarges the imagination, and adds spirit to sense, is useful. Music is useful because it does this, and it is useful in many other ways. Singing strengthens the lungs, playing the muscles, and both stimulate the mind. Milton, Sc...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "(Edwards). For thus emancipating the composers from the tyranny of the singers Rossini deserves great credit, and still greater honor is due him for having shown, in his" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "William Tell, which he wrote for Paris, and in which he discarded ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You have nothing more to learn! Caffarelli is the first singer in the world!" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The passages in much of the music of that date, especially that of Porpora, are really instrumental passages ... and possessing but little interest beyond the surprise that their exact performance would create. People did not ask themselves whether it was worth while for singers...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Dictionary of Music and Musicians, calls attention to the injurious action of Italian opera on the English School by breeding indifference to the text." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From Handel's time until a very recent date, she says," }, { "from": "human"...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Lord's own Conservatory," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Most of our Italian guests, he says," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ordinary epithets applicable to a voice, such as sweet, sympathetic, flexible, expressive, sound almost too commonplace to be applied to Patti's voice at its best, as it was when she sang the _va...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "At a more recent period, Frederick the Great, on hearing of the proposed engagement of a German singer, exclaimed:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What! hear a German singer! I should as soon expect to derive pleasure from the neighing of my horse! Beethoven knew that...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "À Travers Chants:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They say that the Germans sing badly; that may seem true in general. I will not broach the question here, whether or not their language is the reason of it, and whether Mme. Sontag, Pischek, Tichatschek, Mlle. Lind, wh...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The harshness of a language, he says," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rheingold:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Weia! Waga! Woge, du Welle, Walle zur Wiege! Wagalaweia! Wallala, weiala, weia!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Walküre," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Rheingold" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Garstig glatter Glitschriger Glimmer! Wie Gleit ich aus! Mit Händen und Füssen Nicht fasse noch halt'ich Das schlecke Geschlüpfer." } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is it not undeniable, writes a correspondent," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lohengrin, had expressed a similar opinion. And many years later, in writing of Schnorr von Carolsfeld's wonderful impersonation of _Tristan_, he begs the reader to note that the last act of...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "She thinks that at least six years of faithful study are necessary to develop the voice in accordance with artistic principles. Herr Hey is somewhat more lenient, three years of thorough training sufficing, in his opinion, as a preparation for the stage. Much, of course, depends...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Liszt, too, notes somewhere that Schubert doubtless exerted an indirect influence on the development of the opera by means of the dramatic realism which characterizes the melody and accompaniment of his parlor songs (such as the" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Erl Kin...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing shows so plainly the want of a good school of singing as Schubert's songs. Otherwise, what an enormous and universal effect must have been produced throughout the world, wherever the German language is understood, by these truly divine inspirations, these utterances of a...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Fidelio," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euryanthe," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lohengrin, and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tannhäuser, which for years had to fight for every inch of ground, are now masters of the situation, and gaining ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Ernani and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gazza Ladra" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Siegfried to" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ernani, even if" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ernani could be depended on for as large audiences as Wagner's opera, which is far from being the case; and I have myself heard some of them confess that after re...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "In Italian opera, he says," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In this blessed land putting a serious opera on the stage is not at all a serious thing. A fortnight is generally time enough. The musicians of the orchestra, and the singers, who are generally strangers to ea...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hush! hush! Handel is in a passion." } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Lohengrin," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Siegfried, for instance, there is no chorus at all. The first act ends with _Siegfried's_ cleaving of the anvil with the sword which he has just forged before the eyes of the audience; and the third ends with the love duo. In these cases there are only two persons on the stage; ...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Die Meistersinger" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Die Meistersinger also affords proof that if Wagner banished concerted music from his later works, it was not because he lacked inspiration for that kind of work. Although extremely Wagnerian in its harmonies, it is one of those numbers which even Wagner's enemies admire. Some y...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Faust, Weber's" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Euryanthe, and most of Meyerbeer's operas, if given without cuts, would last over four hours. But in these cases no irreparable harm is done by a few cuts, whereas in Wagner's operas there are very few bars that can be sp...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Die Philosophie des Schönen," } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "will weary him so much that he will probably resolve to avoid the opera in the future. Thus opera suffers in the same way that society suffers: the late hour at which all entertainments begin prevents the" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tristan or" }, { "from"...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Sensation and Intuition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although, he says," }, { "from": "human", "value": "I went to the first performance decidedly prejudiced against the noisy _Zukunftsmusik_, I found that after patient study of these operas I became s...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Siegfried" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Siegfried" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Oh, yes! I know a chord which is _simply divine_! Then she played--what do you fancy?--the _simple major triad_--A flat in the bass, and A flat, C, E flat an octave higher--which is the most elementary of all chords, the very alphabet of music. If she found this commonplace chor...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "opera until they have heard it two or three times. They will soon find that the word" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "is a very relative and changeable term in music. To one who really admires Shakspere and Homer, a fashionable novel is tedious beyond endurance; just s...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Tannhäuser when that opera was produced in Paris in 1861; who created the part of _Siegmund_ in 1876 at Bayreuth; and who, in his way, has done as much to popularize Wagner's operas as Liszt did during the Weimar period, when people had to go to that city to hear" }, { "...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Lohengrin" } ]
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Rheingold and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Siegfried, at the Bayreuth festival--little fancying, perhaps, that she would twelve years later be the queen of German opera in America. She takes excellent care of her voice, and never allows the weather to interfere wit...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Lohengrin was the only one of Wagner's early operas that American audiences cared for. But" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tannhäuser has, in a few years, become more popular than" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lohengrin, thanks largely to its better sta...
18560
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Tristan and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Die Meistersinger, which he never surpassed, many regard the first act of" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Die Walküre the most finished of Wagner's creations; and certainly it has a marvellously impressive clima...
9775
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hands up!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, silly, unbelieving child!" } ]
9775
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hands up," } ]
9775
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "We'd ought to be near there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few yards over to the right," } ]
9775
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "W. F. & Co." } ]
9775
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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Twelve thousand, he murmured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We ain't but once before got that much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I can get the ranch now; six thousand'll cover everything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Are you honestly ca...