Whenever it is opposed to the transcendental, the
natural is conceived as dangerous and diabolical. At the moment of the
abrupt inner change in Tannhaeuser, Venus and her world must vanish like
a phantom of the night. "A consuming, voluptuous excitement kept my
blood and nerves tingling while I sketched and composed the music of
_Tannhaeuser_...." says Wagner in one place, and in another he confesses
that sensual pleasure, while attracting and seducing him, filled him
with repugnance. He speaks of his longing to "satisfy my craving in a
higher, nobler element which, unpolluted by the sensuality so
characteristic of modern life and art, appears to me as something pure,
something chaste and virginal, unapproachable and intangible. What else
can this longing for love, the noblest feeling I am capable of, be, than
the yearning to leave this world of facts behind me and become absorbed
in an element of infinite, transcendental love, to which death would be
the gate...."
The dualism in the music of _Tannhaeuser_ is consistently maintained.
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