Each not only speaks in
a language of its own, but expresses in that language a life which the
others cannot express. As color and fragrance combine to make the
flower, but the color expresses what the fragrance cannot express, and
the fragrance expresses what the color cannot express, so in the musical
drama, music, poetry, and painting combine, not by duplicating but by
supplementing each other. One may describe in language a symphony; but
no description will produce the effect which the symphony produces. One
may describe a painting; but no description will produce the effect
which the painting will produce. So neither music, nor painting, nor
both combined, can produce the same effect on the soul as poetry. The
"Midsummer Night's Dream" enacted in pantomime, with Mendelssohn's
music, would no more produce the same effect on the auditors which would
be produced by the interpretation of the play in spoken words, than
would the reading of the play at home produce the same effect as the
enacting of the play with what are miscalled the accessories of music
and scenery. The music and scenery are no more accessories to the words
than the words are accessories to the music and scenery. The three
combine in a triple language to express and produce one life, and it can
be expressed and produced in no other way than by the combination of the
three arts in harmonious action. This is the reason why no parlor
readings can ever take the place of the theatre, and no concert
performance can ever take the place of the opera.
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