Classical Mythology, 7th Edition - obinfonet: dia logou

710 THE SURVIVAL OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
age of the life and music of Beethoven is strikingly parallel to that evoked by
the Titan Prometheus. At any rate, Beethoven's career provides the chronological
and spiritual link between eighteenth-century classicism and nineteenthcentury
romanticism. 3
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) gives us a Song of the Fates (Gesang der Parzeri),
for chorus and orchestra and a Song of Lamentation (Nanie), which bewails the
death of beauty, with references to Hades, Orpheus, Aphrodite and Adonis,
Achilles, and Thetis.
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) in the Overture to his opera Tannhauser and
the Venusberg scene that follows (with its depiction of a voluptuous Venus and
her carnal abode) delineates, unforgettably, the archetypal conflict between sacred
and profane love.
Schubert, Wolf Liszt, and Franck. The German Lied of the nineteenth century embodies
much of the passion and longing that are the exquisite torture and delight
of the romantic soul. The musical mood runs parallel to that of the Sturm
und Drang movement in literature as typified by the works of Goethe.
Several of the songs of Franz Schubert (1797-1828), for example, are set to
poems on ancient themes, not only by Goethe but also by Schiller and other poets:
"Amphiaraos," "Der Atlas," "Atys," "Dithyrambe," "Elysium," "Fahrt zum
Hades," "Fragment aus dem Aeschylus" (a chorus from the Eumenides),
"Ganymed," "Die Gôtter Greichenlands," "Freiwilliges Versinken" (with reference
to Helios), "Gruppe aus dem Tartarus," "Heliopolis 1," "Hippolit's Lied,"
"Klage der Ceres," "Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren," "Memnon," "Der
Musensohn," "Orest auf Tauris," "Der entsiihnte Orest," "Orpheus," "Philoktet,"
"Prometheus," "Uranien's Flucht," and "Der zurnenden Diana." Also by
Schubert are two lovely duets, "Hektors Abschied" and "Antigone und Oedip."
Two songs (texts by Goethe) by a later romantic composer, Hugo Wolf
(1860-1903), "Prometheus" and "Ganymed," are staples of the lieder repertoire. 4
Wolf's one symphonic work, a tone poem entitled Penthesilea, is an interesting
piece of program music that is not as well known.
Other fine examples of the genre of the symphonic poem are offered by
Franz Liszt (1811-1886), a sublime Orpheus and stirring Prometheus, and by César
Franck (1822-1890), a beautiful Psyché.
Other Major Composers of the Nineteenth Century and into the Twentieth Century.
The operatic achievements of the nineteenth century are among its most conspicuous
glories, but by then Greek and Roman themes were no longer dominant
and as much in vogue. Yet Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner
(1813-1883) offers exciting parallels for the study of classical mythology, particularly
since he was so profoundly influenced by the Oresteia of Aeschylus. 5 Operas
like Bellini's Norma (the tragic story of a Druid priestess) are, it is true, built
upon Roman legendary themes, but such an exception only brings home to us
more forcefully the changes being wrought in subject matter and style. It is nev-