275.—THE MODERN TENDENCY.
The modern tendency is to do away with the lengthy repetitions which characterized the music of the old classic school. Quite a number of the standard compositions of that epoch are subject to a pruning-down process when given a modern hearing. Whole acts of some of the longer operas are frequently omitted, such as "Roberto" and "L'Africaine" of Meyerbeer, and in others some of the longer-winded parts are excised in performance. Wagner's "Lohengrin" is treated to this kind of a pruning, and the day will doubtless come when this same process will be used in his later works. The general opera-going public, outside of a certain circle of enthusiasts, do not care to hear operas four and five hours long, or a series of operas that, to complete, one must hear three or four presentations. The day of the bulky three-volumed novel is past.
The "Messiah" is so generally "cut" that we might say it is never given in its entirety. Even with a dozen numbers omitted it takes some two hours to give this great oratorio. In it, also, a majority of the long repeats are omitted.
Beethoven felt this spirit dawning even in his day and was inclined to meet it half way. To the opera of "Leonore" he wrote four different overtures before he was satisfied. In the second of these, of which there are two manuscripts in existence, there are many excisions, some of them being ten, fifteen, or twenty measures in length. Had some other and lesser lights submitted their music to this same pruning operation, their works would be more frequently heard and stand higher in the estimation of the musical public.
