The greater the performance, the more prominently this comes
out sometimes, as in the case of Shakespeare whose indebtedness to
Christopher Marlowe and others will at once come to mind.
To Beethoven and to Shakespeare, Wagner paid tribute on all occasions.
Especially is this true in his relation to Beethoven, to whom he readily
yields the palm in the realm of music. In the eight volumes of his
_Gesammelte Schriften_, no single fact stands out more clearly than his
recognition of Beethoven as his chief, his master, from whom proceeds
all wisdom and knowledge and truth. One can hardly read any of Wagner's
prose writings without seeing how readily he falls into the place of
disciple of Beethoven. "I knew no other pleasure," he says in A
Pilgrimage to Beethoven, "than to plunge so deeply into his genius that
at last I fancied myself become a portion thereof." The Pilgrimage,
though an imaginative work, is the medium he employed to give utterance
to his regard for Beethoven. His letters to musical friends, to Liszt,
to Fischer, especially those to Ulig, are filled with praise of the
older master.
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