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TO
ANTON SEIDL
of whom Wagner wrote in his last letter, " Seidl delights
me greatly," and who first made Americans acquainted
with the greatest of Wagner's music-dramas — "Tristan
and Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," and the Nibelung
Tetralogy — this book is dedicated by the author as a
slight return for the pleasure so often received from
his poetic and inspired interpretations.
PREFACE
Although only half a century has elapsed since Rich-
ard Wagner first became prominent as an operatic com-
poser, it may be safely asserted that more has already
been written and printed about him than about any other
dramatic author excepting Shakespeare. To add to this
collection two more volumes may seem a rash and super-
fluous proceeding; but if the reader will take the trouble
to compare these volumes Avith other works on the same
subject, he will see at a glance that the biographic
treasures had been very far from exhausted by my prede-
cessors. There are many short AYagner biographies in
the market, written by Tappert, Muncker, Pohl, ISTohl,
Gasperini, Hueffer, Dannreuther, Kobbe, and others.
Several of these are excellent in their way, but they all
attempt to present, in from a hundred to two hundred
pages, a subject which requires a thousand pages for
adequate treatment.
The only two elaborate biographies are Glasenapp's
and JuUien's. Glasenapp, having been the first in the
field, had to do some hard pioneer work, for which he
deserves credit. But his treatise exists only in German,
and it will probably never be translated, as it is too ver-
bose, and contains too many dry details of merely local
interest. Nor is it complete ; it ends with the Parsifal
vii
viii PREFACE
year, and gives no account of Wagner's death. The
operas, too, are not analyzed; it is simply a biography.
JuUien's book is valuable for its numerous portraits, car-
icatures, and other illustrations, as well as for the light it
throws on the French episodes in Wagner's life, although
in this respect Servieres's Wagner Juge en France is more
complete and entertaining. For other tlian French read-
ers Jullien presents his subject from too Gallic a point
of view. Apparently he does not read German, since
he gets his views of Wagner's literary and theoretical
works at second hand, from Grove's Dictionary and
other sources; but his greatest blemish is his total ina-
bility to understand Wagner's character. This character,
owing to peculiar circumstances, was, indeed, often as
difficult to understand as the " Art-work of the Future "
itself. But in the case of a man who has so many
enemies as Wagner had, it is tlie duty of a biographer to
carefully verify all statements, and not to accept as
gospel truth stories manufactured by hostile newspapers.
Wagner's personality, as presented by Jullien, is as
much of a caricature as any of the pictures in his book.
While Jullien misrepresents his character, the other
biographers, including Glasenapp, have very little to say
about it, devoting themselves chiefly to his writings,
musical and literary. It is, indeed, only since the
appearance of all the biographies here mentioned, that
an opportunity has been given us to see the real Wagner.
The three volumes of letters to Liszt, Uhlig, Fischer,
and Heine have thrown a flood of light on his person-
ality, and my cordial thanks are due to the publishers
for permission to make use of this invaluable source of
information regarding the most important creative period
PREFACE IX
in Wagner's life, the years of his exile. I also wish to
thank Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co. for permission
to quote from the interesting new material, including
forty Wagner letters, contained in Praeger's Wagner as
I Knew Him; and Mr. Theodore Thomas for kindly plac-
ing at my disposal all the correspondence relating to the
Centennial March. Of other new sources of information,
I must mention the fifteen letters to Frau Wille, printed
in the Deutsche Rundschau in 1887 — letters which bring
the most romantic episode in Wagner's life — his friend-
ship with King Ludwig — vividly before our eyes ; and
Oesterlein's monumental Wagner Katalog in three vol-
umes, containing references to about 30,000 letters and
other documents bearing on Wagner and his friends
and artists — a work which immensely facilitated my
researches in German libraries. Personally I am in-
debted to Herr Oesterlein for placing the treasures of
his Museum, including some valuable manuscripts, at
my disposal, at a considerable sacrifice of his time.
I think I may safely say that I am indebted to previ-
ous biographers for less than a twentieth part of the
material contained in these two volumes; all the rest is
based on my personal experiences, on Wagner's own
autobiographic writings, and other original documents,
including a collection of Wagner iana which I began
seventeen years ago, and which I have found of great
use, especially in the chapters relating to the critics.
Some readers may tliink that too much space has been
devoted to these hostile criticisms, and that some of the
quotations are cruel, inasmuch as the writers have since
become partial or complete converts. I have indeed
mercilessly quoted their own ivords, but the cruelty is not
X PREFACE
mine. These critics are self-impaled; they helped to
make Wagnerian history, and I, as veracious historian,
am bound to chronicle the facts. Besides, these men had
no end of fun in ridiculing Wagner and his admirers in
former years ; now that the tide has turned, have we not
a right to a little fun at their expense? The comicality
of these criticisms will, like good wine, still further im-
prove with age; and these opinions have also a serious
value as contributions to the history of aesthetic taste.
Schiller once suggested that the hundreds of similar
criticisms on him and Goethe should be collected for
such a purpose.
As regards the plan of this book, I have endeavored
to avoid what might be called the chronological-mosaic
style of biography, which consists in presenting the
facts in loose connection, in the year and month they
occurred in. The arrangement here adopted of present-
ing the various phases of Wagner's history, activity, and
personality in pictures complete in themselves, without
neglecting the main chronological divisions, will, I hope,
commend itself to the reader. This method is facilitated
by the roving life Wagner led — the constant changes of
residence from Dresden to Paris, to London, Vienna,
Venice, Zurich, Lucerne, etc., which add so much to the
interest of his career. The frequent subdivisions into
chapters and sub-chapters make it easy for readers who
care only for the biography, to skip the other parts.
But Wagner the man was so thoroughly identified with
Wagner the artist, that a complete biography had to
include a consideration of his works too.
H. T. F.
New York, March 1, 1893.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I
rASB
PRELUDE — POETIC PROPHESIES 1
A THEATRICAL FAMILY 5
RICHARD WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD 10
A Versatile Stepfather 11
Weber in Dresden 13
First Musical Impressions 15
Richard not a Prodigy — and why 16
Boyhood Anecdotes 21
Richard turns to Music 24
Concert Pieces 28
Worship of Beethoven 31
A Second Symphony 34
THE FIRST OPERAS 35
The Wedding 35
The Fairies ST^
At Magdeburg — A Step Backward 41
The Novice of Palermo 43
First Critical Essay 48
KONIGSBERG and RIGA 51
An Imprudent Marriage 51
xi
xil CONTENTS
FAOE
The Happy Bear Family 67
Two Acts of Kienzi 59
A EoMANTic Episode 26
FIRST VISIT TO PAEIS 65
A Stormy Sea- Voyage 65
A Series of Disappointments 68
Loss OF THE Columbus Overture 77
Musical Drudgery 79
Stories and Essays 81
"-Truth in Fiction — Personal Revelations 82
In the Workshop of Genius 86
The Lion shows his Claws 87
Composition of the Flying Dutchman 89
RIENZI IN DRESDEN 93
Preliminary Letters 93
First Performance of Rienzi ^99,
The Story of Rienzi 105
Wagner's Opinion of Rienzi 108
An Undiplomatic Speech 112
Merits and Demerits of Rienzi 112
^fJhrUB FLYING DUTCHMAN 116
/ Story op the Flying Dutchman 119
Poetic and Musical Characteristics 125
Wagner's Opinion of this Opera 131
^'Critical Philistines and Prophets 132
Berlioz, Cornelius, Liszt, and Spohr 138
What Beethoven would have said 141
CONTENTS Xlil
PAGE
WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR 144
The Love Feast of the Apostles 146
Webek's Remains transferred to Dresden 147
A Surprising Beethoven Performance 151
Uhlig, Bach, Palestkina 155
What Wagner did for Gluck 157
U^wo Spontini Anecdotes 161
TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN 163
The Story of Tannhauser 164
The Poem and the Music 173 •
Is Tannhauser a Music-Drama? 176
The First Performances 181
Why the Ending was changed 186
\,;G^itical Philistines and Prophets 187
Liszt, Spohr, and Schumann 193 ,
REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL 199
Creation of Lohengrin 199
'Why Wagner became a Rebel 200
Reform or Revolution ? 205
Flight to Weimar , . . . . ' 220
Wanted by the Police 224
In Paris again 226
Minna Wagner joins her Husband 228
WiELAND THE SmITH , 232
LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR 235
Doubt and Daring , 235
The Story of Lohengrin 240
Xiv CONTENTS
PAOK
(^J)The First Performance 247
^»") Wagner's Opinion of Lohengrin 251
Liszt on Lohengrin 255
Robert Franz on Lohengrin 259
y^ Further Comments 263
' Progress of Lohengrin 271
i/Critical Philistines and Prophets 277
(v
LITERARY PERIOD 288
( \
Six Years Lost to Music 288
Art and Revolution 291
The Art- Work of the Future 293
Opera and Drama 296
Evolution of the Opera 300
A Communication to my Friends 306
Wagner's Opinion of Other Composers 308
Judaism in Music 322
WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING 348
How the Poem was written 348
Life in Zurich 369
A Modern Prometheus 365
The "Circus Hulsen" in Berlin 374
Money Troubles 382
Friends in Need 390
Hygiene and Gastronomy . , o 396
Love of Nature and Travel 404
Composition of Rheingold 409
A Faust Overture 412
CONTENTS XV
PAGK
WAS WAGNER A GREAT CONDUCTOR ? 420
A Thorough Drill-Master 421
Principles of Interpretation 424
Testimony of Experts 432
Concerts and Operas in Zurich 435
Four Months in London 443
PRELUDE. — POETIC PROPHEC IES
"Hitherto Apollo has always distributecl ine poetic gift with
his right hand, the musical with his left, to two persons so widely
apart that up to this hour we are still waiting for the man who
will create a genuine opera by writing both its text and its music."
Perhaps there is not, in the whole history of the fine
arts, a more curious coincidence than is contained in the
fact that the foregoing sentence was penned by the emi-
nent German novelist Jean Paul, not only in the same
year that Richard Wagner was born, but in the same
quiet town of Bayreuth, where, sixty-three years later,
the ideal of a musico-dramatic art in which poem and
music are of equal value, was first revealed in the Wag-
^ ner Theatre, specially built for the purpose.
^ Jean Paul was by no means the only German author,
» nor the first one, who longed for and predicted the
♦^ appearance of a poet-composer who would destroy the
' crude mosaic of various arts, known as Italian opera,
^ iuid create in its place a genuine music-drama in which
poetry, action, scene-painting, and music would all be
treated with equal artistic care, and combined into a
harmonious whole. Almost all the great German poets
expressed similar longings. Lessing, who died thirty-
two years before Wagner was born, wrote that *'the
affinity between poetry and music is so great that Nature
herself seems to have destined them, not so much for a
1
2 PRELUDE
combination as for one and the same art. There was
indeed a time when the two were united as one art. I
do not care to assert that the process of their separation
was not a natural one, still less to censure the special
cultivation of one or the other separate art; but I may
be permitted to express my regrets that, in consequence
of this separation, a»,unioi;i of the ^wo arts is hardly ever
thought of; or, if thought of, one of them is made a mere
handmaid of the other, so that we have no such thing as
a simultaneous effect produced by the two arts in equal
proportions."
Herder, who died ten years before Wagner was born,
expressed his belief in the advent of a composer who
would annihilate the old operatic kling-klang and " erect
an Odeon, a coherent lyric structure in which poetry,
music, action, and scenery Avould be one and united."
Wieland, in 1775, hailed Gluck as a reformer of the
opera, but added that others like him would be needed
before the sirens could be banished from the stage and
the muses restored. " Enough that he has shown us what
music could do if, in these days, there were, somewhere
in Europe, an Athens, and in this Athens there appeared
a Pericles who would do for the opera (Singspiel) what
that statesman did for the tragedy of Sophocles and
Euripides."
Substitute for " Athens " Bayreuth, and for " Pericles "
King Ludwig II. of Bavaria, and we have here another
historic anticipation as striking as Jean Paul's. To cite
only one more poet, Schiller, who died eight years before
Wagner was born, wrote : " I always had a certain faith
in the opera, believing that from it, as formerly from the
choruses of the ancient Bacchus festivals, the tragedy
POETIC PROPHECIES 3
might be evolved in a nobler form." Could Schiller
have lived to hear tlie Gotterdammerung, the most power-
ful tragedy since Hamlet and Kixy Lear were written, he
would have undoubtedly confessed that his confidence in
the opera had not been misplaced.
It is certainly a most signiftcant fact that five of the
most eminent literary men of Germany, — Schiller, Less-
ing, Herder, Wieland, and Jean Paul, — two of whom are
Germany's greatest dramatic poets, should have indorsed A--
Wagner's ideal of a music-drama by anticipation. And^"
if it was the literary geniuses wlio first broached the plan \
of a perfect music-drama, in which poetry should no I >♦
longer be the handmaid of music but its equal, it was the I *~*'^
rmisical geniuses among Wagner's contemporaries — /
Spohr, Liszt, Biilow, Eaff, Cornelius, Tausig, Koberty
Franz — who first saw that he had realized that ideal i^^
his operas: a fresh confirmation of the dictum that it
takes genius to appreciate genius — at least on its first
appearance. The professional musicians and critics, on
the other hand, fought tooth and nail against Wagner's
attempt to expel the sirens from the stage and to restore
the muses. He was attacked, lied about, vilified, with
a fury and persistence that seem almost incredible to-day,
even to those of us who have lived through part of this
Forty Years' War. Ignorance, love of routine, fanat-
icism, chauvinism, race hatred, pedantry, and philistin-
ism united in waging a war against one man such as no
other man outside of politics and religion has ever been
confronted with. The books, pamphlets, and newspaper
articles that served as ammunition on both sides would
fill the largest building in the land; and how bitter the
feeling has been, future generations will be able to
">
4 PRELUDE
understand when they read that in German society, for
many years, it was considered bad form to speak of
Wagner, because of the violent conversational collisions
sure to follow; and that a club in New York gave a semi-
humorous point to the matter by posting a placard
announcing as forbidden topics of discussion, " Religion,
Politics, and Wagner." It is this Forty Years' War of
Genius against Philistinism that will form the plot of
the romantic story of Wagner's life.
A THEATRICAL FAMILY
That very prevalent form of liuman vanity which
bases a family's claim to aristocratic distinction on the
fact that its ancestors can be traced back several genera-
tions, ought to receive a rude shock from the discovery
that in the case of the greatest men of genius — who form
the only true aristocracy — the pedigree is almost always
unknown. Richard Wagner forms no exception to this
rule. His industrious German biographers have not yet
succeeded in tracing his genealogy farther back than to X
his grandfather, Gottlob Friedrich Wagner, who was only
a humble custom-house official in Leipzig, where he had
to see that nothing was smuggled through the city gates.
His son Friedrich (Richard Wagner's father, who was
born in the same year as Beethoven — 1770) rose some-
what higher in the social scale. He began as clerk in
the city courts, but on account of his superior intelligence
and knowledge of French he was, during the French occu-
pation of Leipzig, entrusted with the task of reorganizing
the police system, and appointed chief of police by Mar-
shal Davoust.
It is possible that Richard Wagner may have inherited
some of his pugnacious disposition from his father's
occupation. One thing he certainly did inherit from
him, and that is his love of the theatre — a trait which
characterized almost all the members of the Wagner
6
6 A THEATRICAL FAMILY
family (both in the ascending and the descending scale)
of whom any record has been preserved. Nor was it
merely a fondness for tlieatrical performances, but a
special talent for taking part in them. To cite a few
instances : Richard's father had the privilege of being
one of those who witnessed the first performance in Leip-
zig of Schiller's Jungfrau von Oiieayis, in the poet's pres-
ence; and he also appeared occasionally as an amateur
actor before an audience including royal spectators. Then
there was Richard's uncle, Adolf Wagner, who does not
appear to have acted, but who manifested his interest in
the theatre in the higher sphere of playwright and other-
wiser His first printed essay was on the Alcestis of Eurip-
ides, which was followed by a satiric comedy of his own,
numerous translations, a contribution to the history of
the theatre, an essay on the theory of the comic, etc. ;
and what is of special interest with reference to his
nephew's later aspirations, is the fact, exhumed by Herr
Glasenapp, that in 1806 he arranged a careful perform-
ance, on the amateur stage, of Apel's Polyidos after the
manner of the antique tragedy, superintending all the
details personally.-^
Of Ricliard's three brothers and four sisters, several
distinguished themselves in connection with the stage.
Albert, who was born fourteen years before Richard,
acquired fame as vocalist, actor, and stage-manager.
When he was leading tenor at Breslau, a critic wrote:
" His method is good, his trill beautiful, his voice power-
ful, although somewhat affected by the climate." Rich-
1 Lists of Adolf Wagner's writings and translations may be found in
Oesterlein's Wagner Katalog, III. 438-9, and in Glasenapp's biographic
sketch of Richard's uncle, in the Bayreuther Blatter, 1885, pp. 197-223.
A THEATRICAL FAMILY t
ard's oldest sister, Kosalie, was specially educated for
the stage; she became a leading actress at the Leipzig
theatre, and in some roles was preferred even to the
famous Schroeder-Devrient, to whom Richard owed so
much of his inspiration, as we shall see later on. The
eminent critic, H. Laube, wrote that he had never seen
Goethe's Gretchen enacted with such deep feeling as by
Kosalie Wagner : —
" For the first time the expression of Gretchen's madness thrilled
me to the marrow, and I soon discovered the reason. Most actresses
exaggerate the madness into unnatural pathos ; they declaim in a
hollow ghostly voice. Demoiselle Wagner used the same voice with
which she had shortly before uttered her thoughts of love ; this
gruesome contrast produced the greatest effect."
The critic who wrote these lines was also one of the
earliest to discover the dramatic genius of Wagner in his
first creative period. The two parted company when
Wagner produced those later music-dramas on which his
claims to immortality chiefly rest; yet the world will
always be indebted to Heinrich Laube for the existence
of the charmingly simple and partly ironic autobiography
which takes up the first twenty pages of the first volume
of Wagner's Collected Writings. It covers the first
twenty-nine years of his life, and the circumstances
under which it was written are of interest. Laube, who
was about to assume editorial control of the Zeitung fiir
die Elegante Welt, wrote to Wagner for a sketch of his
life which miglit be elaborated into a biographic article.
Wagner complied, but when Laube received his manu-
script, he decided to print it as it was, remarking, in a
prefatory notice, that he had expected a sketch only:
"but the Paris experiences have made of the musician
8 A THEATRICAL FAMILY
an author too : I should only spoil the biographic sketch,
were I to make any alterations." He was right, and this
sketch ^ remains to the present day one of the few reliable
sources of information regarding Wagner's childhood.
Besides Rosalie, Richard's sister Luise appeared as an
actress, and Klara was educated to appear in Italian
opera, but subsequently married a member of the Brock-
haus family, of encyclopsedia fame. To this list of
theatrical sisters, brother, uncle, and father, must be
added two nieces, Albert's daughters, Johanna and Fran-
zisca, the former of whom was one of the most famous
dramatic singers of her time. She was the first to sing
the part of Elizabeth in Tannhduser, and at the end of
her brilliant career was offered the Professorship of
Dramatic Singing in the Royal School of Music at Mu-
nich, which she accepted, " in the hope of training young
artists in the spirit and traditions of her uncle, to be
worthy interpreters of his works." ^
Not content with thus diffusing a theatrical spirit
throughout the Wagner family, the Fates ordained that
Richard should, before he reached his third birthday,
receive a stepfather who was a noted professional actor
— Ludwig Geyer. After appearing with success in vari-
ous German cities, Geyer received an appointment at the
Dresden theatre, with a salary of 1040 thaler, and the
obligation to appear only once or twice a week; which
left him plenty of time for his other occupations, of which
more will be said presently. The critics especially
1 An English translation of it will be found in Burlingame's Wag-
ner's Art Life and Theories, and a French version in Benoit's R. Wag-
ner Souvenirs.
2 Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, IV. 346.
A THEATRICAL FAMILY 9
emphasized his versatility as an actor; and the attitude
of the audiences is slioAvn by the fact that once, on his
return to the Leipzig tlieatre, he was applauded so rap-
turously that he dropped his role for a moment and made
a speech of thanks — an inartistic proceeding which gave
rise to sarcastic comment, and which lie himself deeply
regretted afterwards.
RICHARD WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
The house in which Rich arc! Wagner was born, in
Leipzig, does not exist any more. It was located in the
Briihl, Number 88, but was found unsafe, in 1885, and
torn down. The buikling which has been erected in its
place bears a tablet (visible from the courtyard) with the
information that Richard Wagner was born there on
May 22, 1813. The time of his birth was one of great
importance in the military history of Germany, and
lovers of coincidence will find satisfaction in the circum-
stance that the composer who was destined to free German
music from foreign influences and establish a national
art, was born at the same time and in the same city of
Leipzig, where the great battles were fought which at
last freed Germany from the French invaders. But the
Wagner family had to pay dearly for this victory. The
consequence of the great carnage in the battle-field of
Leipzig was an epidemic fever which carried off many
victims, among them Friedrich Wagner, on the very day
when his little son Richard completed the first half-year
of his life. In the following month his brother Albert
also had an attack of typhoid fever, and even Richard
appears to have had symptoms ; his health was so poor as
to worry his mother, and remained in an unsatisfactory
condition until he reached his fourth birthday.
10
A VERSATILE STEPFATHER 11
A VERSATILE STEPFATHER
Poor widow Wagner was left in a sorry predicament,
with a numerous progeny and nothing to support them
but a small pension from the government. Under these
circumstances she can hardly be blamed for not observing
the customary year of mourning. Men who are willing
to marry a widow with seven children, the oldest of
whom is only fourteen, are not over-abundant; and the
impecunious widow, solicitous for the welfare of her chil-
dren, therefore acted wisely in marrying, though only
about nine months had elapsed since her husband's
death, an old friend of the family who was willing to
take upon himself such a burden for the love he bore the
widow. ^ This act in itself affords the best possible tes-
timony regarding the character and the attractiveness of
Richard's mother, concerning whom otherwise little is
known. Her brightness and amiability appear to have
made her especially congenial to artists, and among those
who occasionally dropped in for a friendly chat with her
was not less a personage than Weber, the creator of the
opera (Der Freischiitz) which first aroused young Rich-
ard's musical instincts.
Throughout his life Richard Wagner referred to his
mother as mein liebes Miitterchen (my dear little mother),
and at the age of forty -three he told his friend Praeger ^
I Glasenapp, in his biography of Wagner (1882, I. p. 12), states that
Geyer married the widow Wagner two years after lier husliand's death ;
but in the Waijner Jahrbuch (188(i, p. 4.5) lie gives more precise data,
which lead to the conclusion here adopted. Nine months after Frau
Wagner's second marriage, Ciicilie Geyer was born, who subsequently
married Eduard Avenarius, to whose son we are indebted for some
reminiscences of Richard's childhood.
=* Wagner as I Knew Him, London, 1892, p. 12.
12 RICUARB WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
that he could not then see a lighted Christmas tree with-
out thinking ol the kind woman, nor prevent the tears
starting to his eyes when he thought of the unceasing
activity of that little creature for the comfort and welfare
of her children. Praeger is doubtless riglit in suggesting
that the exquisitely tender strains in Siegfried with which
the orchestra accompanies the references to Siegfried's
mother, symbolize Wagner's love for his own mother.
"I verily believe," he says, "that Richard "Wagner never loved
any one so deeply as his liebes Miitterchen. All his references to
her of his childhood period were of affection, amounting almost to
Idolatry. With that instinctive power of unreasoned yet unerring
perception possessed by women, she from his childhood felt the
gigantic brain power of the boy, and his love for her was not un-
mixed with gratitude for her tacit acknowledgment of his genius."
Ludwig Geyer, who married this widow with seven
children, was, as already stated, a distinguished actor.
But acting was by no means his only accomplishment;
indeed, his gifts appear to have been almost as varied as
those of his talented stepson Eichard. He wrote a
number of comedies, the best of which, Der Bethlehemi-
tische Kindermord, exists in four editions and was often
played.^ Geyer's third gift, which seems to have almost
amounted to genius, was his skill as a portrait-painter.
He was indeed a painter before he became an actor, and
retained the pencil even after he had gone on the stage.
The critics noted the influence of the actor on the painter
in teaching him to seize on those peculiarities of facial
expression of the emotions which, through constant
1 In 1873 a performance of it was given at Bayreuth, on the sixtieth
birthday of Wagner, who was greatly pleased by this opportunity to
renew the impressions of his youth.
WEBER IN DRESDEN 13
repetition, become fixed, and thus constitute physiog-
nomic individuality. He had the honor of being asked
to paint the portraits of the King and Queen of Saxony,
and on one of his theatrical visits to Munich he painted
many members of the highest aristocratic and military
circles.
WEBER IN DRESDEN
But it is the fourth accomplishment of the_.y.ej?satile-
Geyei. that chiefly interests the admirers of Wagner,
because it is connected with the real beginnings of Ger-
m"a&>opei;a in Germany. Besides being an actor, a play-
wright, and portrait -painter, Geyer was also a tenor, and
he had the honor of appearing as such in Joseph in Egypt,
the first performance given under Webe r's direction after
his^ appointment as conductor at the Dresden Opei:a.
Previous to Weber's advent in Dresden the opera there
had been exclusively Italian, and even when a German
opera was given, it had to be first translated into Italian.
In 1815 Count Vitzthum induced the King to found a
German opera as a sister institution to the Italian, and
Weber was chosen to superintend it. The Italians, who
had previously monopolized affairs, became jealous at
this, and a series of ignoble intrigues commenced, in
which the court and the press were not on the side of the
honest German composer, but of the insolent, proud
foreigners. Weber was attacked with very much the
same weapons which Avere used subsequently to harass
and torture Wagner all his life. Fortvmately Weber,
without being as pugnacious, as Wagner, possessed the
same iron will and conscientious devotion to what he
considered his duties towards his art and his ideals. When
14 RICHARD WAGNEIVS CHILDHOOD
an attempt was made to give him merely the title of
Musikdirector instead oi CajieUmeiste^', which would have
ranked him lower than Morlacchi, the conductor of the
Italian opera, he replied: —
" I do not demand any more than what was offered me, and what
T accepted ; but I cannot allow any deviations, and least of all allow
myself to be placed under Morlacchi. German and Italian art must
have equal rights, for I do not desire, either, to be placed above
him. The world will doubtless decide which of us is the first."
The Italian company, however, had the best singers,
and Weber, to complete his casts, was obliged to call
upon the local actors and actresses. It was thus that
Geyer, the actor, came to be a member of the lirst Ger-
man Opera in Dresden; and the fact is suggestive and
prophetic, as it were; for it was Richard Wagner's car-
dinal maxim that operas should be above all things
dramas, and operatic singers, actors.
One more utterance of Weber's may be appropriately
quoted here, because it shows how similar his views were
to Wagner's, and confirms the truthfulness of Cornelius's
fine saying that " Weber was a genius who died of the
longing to become Wagner. " Wagner is rooted in Weber,
in his music as in his ideals (a point which will be dwelt
on at length in a future chapter), and the following
words, written by Weber when he first tried to establish
German opera in Dresden, are strikingly similar to those
which Wagner uttered more than half a century later, at
Bayreuth : —
"The Italians and the French have fashioned for themselves a
distinct form of opera, with a framework which allows them to
move with ease and freedom. Not so the Germans. Eager in
the pursuit of knowledge, and constantly yearning after progress,
FIRST MUSWAL IMPRESSIONS 15
they endeavor to appropriate anything which they see to be good
in others. But they take it all so much more seriously. With the
rest of the world the gratification of the senses is the main object ;
the German wants a work of art complete in itself, with each part
rounded off and compacted into a perfect whole. For him, there-
fore, a fine ensemble is the prime necessity."
FIRST MUSICAL IMPRESSIONS
There can be no doubt that Weber's opportune arrival
in Dresden to found a German Opera had much influence
in moulding the musical taste and inclinations of young
Eichard Wagner. His mother's marriage to Geyer, who
was at that time a member of the Court Theatre, of
course caused the family to remove to that citj", where
Richard had frequent opportunity to see Weber and hear
his music. As he himself tells us in his autobiographic
sketch : —
V " Nothing gave me so much pleasure as the Freischiltz ; I often
saw Weber pass by our house when he came from rehearsals ; I
always looked upon him with a holy awe. A family tutor, who
explained Cornelius Nepos to me, also gave me lessons on the
piano ; hardly had I got beyond the first five-finger exercises when
I secretly learned, all by myself, and at first without a score, the
Freischiltz overture; my teacher surprised me at it one day and
said that I would never amount to anything. He was right : I
never did learn to play the piano."
"At this period," he adds, "I only played for myself; over-
tures were my favorites, and I played them with the most atro-
cious fingering. I could not play a scale correctly, and I conceived
a great aversion to all rapid passages. Of Mozart I liked only the
overture to the Mcujic Flute ; Don Juan I disliked because it was
composed to an Italian text, which seemed to me so silly." ^
Another straw that showed which way the wind was
blowing.
16 RICHARD WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
In the meantime Geyer also had died, when Kichard
was only eight ^ years old.
"Shortly before his death," Wagner writes, "I had learned to
play on the piano ' Ueb' iinmer Treu' und Redlichkeit ' and the
' Jungf ern-Kranz ' [from the Fi'eischutz'\, then quite new. The
day before his death I had to play these two pieces for him in the
adjoining room, and I heard him say to my mother, in a faint
voice, ' Could he perhaps have talent for music ? ' The following
morning, after his death, mother came into the room where her
children were assembled, and spoke a few words to each of us ;
and to me she said : ' Of you he wanted to make something.' I
remember," Wagner adds, "that for a long time I imagined that
I would become somebody."
The mother, too, appears to have been of that opinion,
for Laube relates in his Reminiscences that he used to
visit her, and that she repeatedly asked him, " Do you
think that Richard will make his mark?"
EICHARD NOT A PRODIGY — AND WHY
Most of the great composers have manifested their
special talent at so early an age that they may be classed
as musical prodigies. Wagner, by his own confession,
was not a prodigy ; and when his operas began to make
their way in the world, in spite of the unprecedented
opposition of critics and other philistines, his opponents
frequently brought forward this fact to prove that he
could not be considered a genius. They forgot that most
prodigies are doomed to early oblivion; that Beethoven
found his first music lessons as irksome as Wagner did,
and even shed tears over them ; and that Weber, in his
1 Wagner, in his autobiographic sketch, says seven ; but that is a
slip of memory, as Geyer died on Sept. 30, 1821.
RICRAED NOT A PRODIGY — AND WHY 17
eighth year, was accosted by his teacher in almost the
same words that Wagner's teacher used : " Karl, you may
become anything else in the world, but a musician you
will never be." But it is hardly worth while to take the
argument of Wagner's opponents seriously. Modern
science has shown that the higher an organism, the longer
it requires to reach maturity, as we see, for example, by
comparing man with lower animals. The fact that
Wagner's genius matured slowly might therefore be
looked on as a presumption in his favor, rather than
otherwise.
The principal reason why Wagner did not astonish the
natives by his feats as a wonder child is that his mental
powers were not focused into one gift or talent, as is the
case of most musicians, but that he was, in childhood as
in manhood, many-gifted, like his stepfather. Geyer
evidently felt that there was something in Eichard, as
the deathbed anecdote just related shows; but he could
not quite make up his mind as to what it was. He first
intended to make a painter of him; "but I was very
awkward in drawing," Wagner writes in his autobio-
graphic sketch; and to Herr Glasenapp^ he remarked,
in 1876 : " I wanted to paint big pictures, like the life-
size portrait of the King of Saxony in my stepfather's
atelier; instead of that, I was always made to draw eyes
only, which I did not like." It is more than probable,
liowever, that if Geyer had lived and Wagner had over-
come his aversion to technical drudgery and persevered
in this art, he would have distinguished himself in it
ultimately, to judge by the wonderful pictorial imagina-
tiveness shown in the scenery of his operas, wliich com-
1 Wagner Jahrbuch, 1886, p. 61.
18 RICHARD WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
pelled even his fiercest opponent, Dr. Hanslick, to remark
that
"It is especially the pictorial sense of Wagner that is at work
incessantly in the Mbelung's Ring; it appears to have furnished
the first impulse for many of the scenes. In looking at the photo-
graphs of Joseph Hoffmann's poetically conceived decorations, the
thought involuntarily occurs that such pictures may have arisen
first in Wagner's imagination and brought forth corresponding
music."
The first scene in Rheiiigold, where we see the three
Rhine daughters swimming about under the water, a
section of which occupies the whole stage to the top, and
appears to flow on steadily ; the wild mounted maidens
in the WalMire, riding among the clouds, and alighting
on precipitous rocks, filling the air with their Aveird song;
the forest scene in Siegfried, where the hero lies under a
large tree with spreading branches, and listens to the song
of the birds and the rustling of the leaves, so beautifully
imitated by the orchestra ; the final scene of the Gotter-
ddmmerung, where the river begins to rise and inundate
the ruins of the hall, bearing on its swelling waves the
Rhine daughters once more, and accompanied by the surg-
ing sounds of the symphonic flood; the magnificent eccle-
siastic scenes in Parsifal, which are like pictures of the
old Italian masters brought to life, — these and other
scenic conceptions bear witness to Wagner's pictorial
genius; for all of them are described in detail in his
poems, and still more minutely in the orchestral score,
leaving the scene-painter no further task than the exe-
cution of his minute directions.
Another branch of mental activity in which Rich-
ard Wagner might have won distinction had he devoted
BICHABD NOT A PRODIGY — AND WHY 19
himself to it, js classical philology. At the age of nine
he was placed in the Kreuzschule at Dresden, where he
remained till he was fourteen. Latin did not interest
him very much, but for Greek literature, history, and
mythology he had an ardent enthusiasm which culmi-
nated in the translation, at the age of thirteen, of
tiie first twelve books of Homer's Odyssey — a self-im-
posed task which naturally pleased his instructors very
much. At, the age of fifteen the Wagner-Geyer family
moved back to Leipzig, and Richard was placed in the
Xikolaischule, the teachers in which appear to have been
of inferior calibre to those in Dresden, since they did not
succeed in fanning his ardor for classical study as his
former teachers had done. Eichard was, moreover, sub-
jected to the indignity of being placed in a lower class
than the one he had been in at Dresden ; and this hurt
his feelings so much that he became careless and neglected
his studies.
It is an odd circumstance that for the first fifteen years
of his life Richard Wagner did not exist — officially at
least, for he was entered at the Dresden Kreuzschule as
Richard Geyer, and it is not likely that this name was
changed till he left that school, in 1827.
Richard's poetic talent manifested itself at the early
age of eleven. "One of our classmates had died," he
writes, "and the teachers imposed on us the task of writ-
ing a poem on his death; the best was to be printed; it
was my own, but only after I had pruned it of its exces-
sive verbiage." This success appears to have inspired
him with the ambition to become a poet. He attempted
some dramas after tlie Greek type, and also began to
study English, for the sole purpose of being able to read
Shakespeare in the original : —
20 RICHARD WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
"I made a metric translation of Romeo's monologue," he says.
"The study of English was also soon abandoned ; but Shakespeare
remained my model ; I projected a grand drama, a sort of compound
of Hamlet and King Lear ; the plan was extremely grandiose : forty-
two persons died in course of the piece, and in developing the plot
I found myself compelled to make most of them reappear as ghosts,
because otherwise there would have been no personages left for
the last acts."
This drama occupied him two years (14-16) ; and he
adds that at the time when he lost his interest in classical
philology it was the only thing that he was devoted to.
A few years ago Wagner's nephew Ferdinand Avena-
rius published in the Allgemeine Zeitung of Munich a
few new details regarding this wonderful tragedy, which
he obtained from his mother (Wagner's youngest sister,
Ciicilie Geyer). It seems that Ciicilie was initiated into
the secret of the tragedy before the others, who were to
be surprised by its grandeur on its completion. Work
on the tragedy was frequently interrupted, and pros-
pered most when Richard's mother was ill in bed, on
which occasions Richard used to shirk school and lock
himself up in his room, where he was heard declaiming
wildly.
"One demoniac passage," writes Avenarius, "my mother
remembers distinctly. A living person walks up to a ghost, who
warns him back with the words, ' Touch me not, for my nose will
crumble to dust on contact.' My mother says that this passage
did not produce the intended effect on her even at her age, and it
seems that Richard himself soon began to doubt the tragic value
of his drama, although he long continued his work on it. A friend
of my uncle told me that one day when she asked Richard how
far he had got with his tragedy, he replied : ' Well, I've got them
all dead but one ' (Nu, bis auf einen hab' ich sie alle todt)."
BOYHOOD ANECDOTES 21
BOYHOOD ANECDOTES
The articles of Ferdinand Avenarius contain several
other anecdotes of Richard's childhood which invite cita-
tion, as they add to our rather scant knowledge of that
part of his life. When Weber passed by Richard's win-
dow, after a rehearsal at the opera, the boy would call
his sister to the window and exclaim, "Look here; that
is the greatest man in the world — Jioiv great he is, you
cannot understand." And although Cacilie could not at
first see anything " great " in the crooked-legged little
man, with his large spectacles on his large nose, with the
gray coat and the vacillating gait, she soon followed her
brother's example of looking on him with " religious
awe." Richard was very fond of going to the theatre,
especially to hear the Freischiitz: and when permission
to go was withheld he found a way to have his will. He
stood in a corner and kept count of the passing minutes :
" Now they are giving this . . . now that . . . now that
..." and so on, accompanying this recital with tears
and sobs as if his throat were bursting. Finally his
mother lost patience — "Away with you, you sniveller,"
and away he was in a second. Among his early reminis-
cences is a day when he begged his mother for a penny
to buy music paper for copying a piece by Weber.
Never was little Richard more delighted tlian when his
mother took him out for a walk; his love of nature and
fresh air showed itself in his earliest years, and his little
hand-sled was one of his favorite companions. His first
recorded joke is connected with this sleigh. His mother
had made a " new " dress for one of his sisters, evidently
22 BICHARD WAGNERS CHILDHOOD
out of one of her own old ones. The result was too
shiny to suit the girl, bvit Richard consoled her with
the remark : " Never mind, we can go sleighing on that,
without getting off." One day Cacilie accompanied her
brother and mother to the river, where they had to wait
for the boat. Cacilie was very fond of going about with
bare feet, but on this occasion she missed her shoes and
stockings, as the weather turned very cold. "Wait a
moment," exclaimed Richard, "I'll give you one of my
boots, and the other feet we can keep warm by putting one
on the other." This anecdote was subsequently related
by Wagner in Paris to the artist Kietz, who made a
sketch of this scene, and of others suggested by Wagner's
early reminiscences.
The reminiscences of early life always remained re-
markably vivid in Wagner's mind, as we are told by
Ferdinand Praeger, the first chapters of whose Wagner
as I Knew Him (1892) are interlarded with several in-
teresting stories of Wagner's boyhood told by himself
and previously not placed on record. Richard was nine
years old when he slej)t away from his mother's home
for the first time. He was sent on a long visit to his
uncle Geyer at Eisleben, the birthplace of Luther, one of
the heroes of Wagner's youth. "My family," he re-
marked to Praeger in 1856, " had been among the staunch-
est of Lutherans for generations. What attracted me
most in the great reformer's character was his dauntless
energy and fearlessness. Since then I have often rumi-
nated on the true instinct of children, for I, had I not
also to preach a new Gospel of Art? Had I not also to
bear every insult in its defence, and had I not too said,
' Here I stand ; God help me ; I cannot be otherwise ' '? "
BOYHOOD ANECDOTES 23
This first journey made a deep impression on the boy,
"who was born with an instinct for travel : —
" Can one ever forget a first impression? And my first journey
was such an event ! Why, I seem even to remember the physi-
ognomy of the poor lean horses that drew the jolting ' postkarre.'
They were being changed at some intermediate station, the name
of which I have now forgotten, when all the passengers had to
alight. I stood outside the inn eating the ' butterbrod ' with which
my dear little mother had provided me, and as the horses were
^bout to be led away I caressed them affectionately for having
brought me so far. How every cloud seemed to me different from
those of the Dresden sky ! How I scrutinized every tree to find
some new characteristic ! How I looked around in all directions
to discover something I had not seen in my short life ! How grand
I felt when the heavy car rolled into the town of Eisleben ! "
The love of animals, and sympathy with their trials,
thus evinced at this early age, subsequently became one
of Wagner's most marked traits, which he sliared with
most men of genius. Anotlier trait was that he preferred
rambling about the country to. learning the rules of
grammar, and used to beguile his uncle to tell him stories
that he might escape work. During his school days he
was frail and small of stature, which served him as an
advantage, for the teachers wondered at the unusual
energy and intelligence displayed by one of his pigmy
frame. With liis schoolmates his violent temper brought
him into frequent collisions", which, however, rarely
degenerated into blows. He was fond of practical jokes,
and his superabundant animal spirits gave rise to various
escapades. He used to frighten his mother by jumping
down stairs and sliding down the banisters, but as he
always turned up fresh and smiling, he was allowed to
have his way, and was even asked to entertain visitors
24 BICHAEB WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
with his pranks. The following anecdote, related by
Praeger, shows how on one occasion he barely escaped
with his life. A holiday had been unexpectedly an-
nounced at the Kreuzschule, to the great delight of the
boys : —
" Caps were thrown in the air, when Wagner, seizing that of
one of his companions, threw it with an unusual effort on to the
roof of the school-house, a feat loudly applauded by the rest of the
scholars. But there was one dissentient, — the unlucky boy whose
cap had been thus ruthlessly snatched. He burst into tears.
Wagner could never bear to see any one ciy, and with that prompt
decision so characteristic of him at all periods of his life, decided
at once to mount the roof for the cap. He re-entered the school-
house, rushed up the stairs to the cock-loft, climbed out on the
roof through a ventilator, and gazed down on the applauding boys.
He then set himself to crawl along the steep incline towards the
cap. The boys ceased cheering at the sight, and drew back in fear
and terror. Some hurriedly ran to the ' custodes.' A ladder was
brought and carried up stairs to the loft, the boys eagerly crowding
behind. Meanwhile Wagner had secured the cap, safely returned
to the opening, and slid back into the dark loft just in time to hear
excited talking on the stairs. He hid himself in a corner behind
some boxes, waiting for the placing of the ladder, and ' custodes '
ascending it, when he came from his hiding-place, and in an inno-
cent tone inquired what they were looking for, — a bird, perhaps?
' Yes, a gallows bird,' was the angry answer of the infuriated ' cus-
todes,' who, after all, were glad to see the boy safe, their general
favorite."
We must now return to our narrative, interrupted at
the moment when the young poet had killed off all but
one of the forty characters in his drama.
RICHAKD TURNS TO MUSIC
A very important result followed the writing of this
sanguinary and ghostly drama. While he was at work
RICHARD TURNS TO MUSIC 25
on it, Richard for the first time became acquainted with
the music of Beethoven, at a Gewandhaus concert in
Leipzig. It made a deep impression on him, especially
the music to Goethe's Egmont, which filled him with such
great enthusiasm that he made up his mind to embellish
his own drama with music of the same style. It did not
enter the head of this ambitious youth of sixteen that
there would be any special difficulty in carrying out such
a project. To familiarize himself with the laws of har-
mony and counterpoint he borrowed Logier's treatise for
a iceek and studied it diligently : " but this study did not
bear fruit as fast as I had fancied; its difficulties stimu-
lated and attracted me; 1 resolved to become a musician."
Thus, although he had had piano lessons previously,
and had been deeply impressed by Weber's music in his
childhood, it was not till his sixteenth year that Wagner
discovered his true vocation. Moreover, he was at first
obliged to keep his new resolution to himself, for his
family had by this time discovered that he had been
neglecting his studies and giving most of his time to his
tragedy. To confess the existence of his new hobby
would have poured oil on the discontent provoked by this
discovery ; and Eichard therefore composed, in the strict-
est secrecy, a sonata, a quartet, and an aria. When he
had made a little more progress in his new art, he had
the courage to tell his family about it; but they only
looked on it as a fresh caprice, all the more so as it had
not been preceded by careful study or justified by the
acquisition of skill in performing on some musical instru-
ment. However, the family humored his whim in so far
as to engage a music-teacher, to see whether it had any
substantial foundation. The experiment proved unsuc-
26 RICHARD WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
cessful. Just as, in his childhood, he had preferred
playing overtures to five-finger exercises, so now, in his
youth, he disgusted his teacher by neglecting his elemen-
tary studies in counterpoint and composing overtures for
grand orchestra.
Obviously there was a certain American trait in the
make-up of young Eichard Wagner's character: Inothing
but the biggest of its kind would satisfy him. We have
seen how, at the age of five, instead of learning to draw
eyes, he wanted to begin by painting life-size portraits
of kings; how, at thirteen, he took upon himself, vol-
untarily, the Herculean task of translating Homer's
Odyssey, and accomplished half of it; how, at four-
teen, he began a tragedy which was to combine the grand-
eur of two of Shakespeare's dramas. And now, at sixteen,
we find him again, trying his new-fledged musical wings
by soaring at once to the highest peaks of orchestral
achievement, without wasting any time on the humble
foothills. Nor was it enough to write overtures : others
had done that; consequently Richard's must be a "new
departure." As he himself remarks : " Beethoven's ninth
symphony appeared like a simple Pleyel sonata by the
side of this marvellously complicated overture " — refer-
ring to one of his compositions which was played during
an entr'acte at the Leipzig theatre. To facilitate the
reading of this astounding score he had conceived the
novel idea of writing it in three kinds of ink, red for
the strings, green for the wood-wind, and black for the
brass instruments. "This overture was the climax of
my absurdities," Wagner writes, and he goes on to tell
how, at its performance, the public was at first astonished
at the perseverance of the drum -player, who had to tap
RICHARD TURNS TO MUSIC 27
his instrument fortissimo every fourth bar, throughout
the piece; how this astonishment gradually changed to
open disgust, and ended in an explosion of general
hilarity, to the young composer's great discomfiture.
Nevertheless, Wagner adds that this first performance
of a piece of his own made a deep impression on him ;
and Heinrich Dorn, who conducted this overture (and
who subsequently assisted Wagner in getting a position
at Riga), related in his Ergebnisse aus Erlebnissen that
"young Richard, at that time a very modest youth,
thanked me on the following day, visibly surprised, for
having done him this service. I could only assure him
that I had easily divined his talent, and that I had been
especially pleased on finding that I had to make no cor-
rections at all in the orchestration (as is very apt to be
necessary in the case of beginners), and that I expected
the best of his future." Dorn also says that at the
rehearsal the musicians were convulsed with laughter at
this extraordinary piece.
This fiasco taught Wagner a useful lesson, and brought
him back to his senses. He matriculated at the Univer-
sity of Leipzig, less with the intention of devoting him-
self to a profession than from a desire to attend lectures
on aesthetics and philosophy. The dissipations peculiar to
German student life attracted him for a while, and made
him neglect all his favorite studies, including music, to
the distress of his relatives, who began to feel pretty
certain that he was a good-for-nothing, and would never
amount to anything. The reaction came soon. The
unfettered freedom and gross indulgences of student life
filled him with disgust, and at last he made up his mind
to devote himself to a careful and systematic study of
28 EICHARD WAGNERS CHILDHOOD
music. Previous attempts with a pedantic teacher named
Gottlieb Miiller had led to no useful results; but tliis
time, as good luck would have it, he fell into the hands of
one of Bach's successors as Cantor at the Thomasschule,
— Theodor Weinlig, — who possessed the rare gift of
making the study of counterpoint as attractive as play.
Before the end of six months, Weinlig himself brought
these lessons to a close, having found that Wagner could
solve the most difficult problems in counterpoint; and he
told his pupil in conclusion : " Probably you will never
be called upon to write a fugue ; but the fact that you can
write one will give you technical independence, and make
everything else easy."
CONCEKT PIECES
About this time Wagner learned to admire Mozart, and
he composed a sonata in which he took great pains to be
natural and simple. This sonata was published by
Breitkopf und Hartel, and although it does not show
any traces of Wagner's peculiar style, it is notable as
being the first piece of his that ever got into print. -^
To reward the young composer for the fetters placed on
him in these pieces Weinlig permitted him to compose
something to suit his own taste. The result was a fan-
tasia in F sharp minor for piano, which has never been
printed, but which is, according to W. Tappert,^ much
more interesting and individual than the sonata and the
'^t>
1 The best movement, the menuet, is obtainable to-day as No. 84 of
the Perles Musicales. A facsimile of the original title-page is printed
in the Wagner Jahrbuch, 1886, p. 366. No. 24 of the Perles Musicales
is a polonaise of Wagner's, composed, like this sonata, at the age of
eighteen.
2 Richard Wagner : Sein Leben u. Seine Werke, 1883, p. 5.
CONCERT PIECES 29
polonaise. Other pieces of this period are a concert
overture in D-minor, an overture to Raupach's Koniy
Enzio, and a concert overture with fugue, in C-major,
none of which have been printed. Of the last named
Wagner says that " it was composed after the model of
Beethoven, whom I now understood somewhat better,
and was produced at a Gewandhaus concert, Avith encour-
aging success." The AUgemeine Musikalische Zeitung
(1832, p. 296) says of the same piece : —
' ' Much pleasure was given us by a new overture by a still very
young composer, Herr Richard Wagner. The piece was thoroughly
appreciated, and, indeed, the young man promises much : the com-
position not only sounds well, but it has ideas and is written with
care and skill, with an evident and successful striving for the
noblest. We saw the score."
A performance of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony also
led Wagner to Avrite a pastoral play dramatically sug-
gested by Goethe's Laune der Verli'ebten.
Of more importance than these shorter compositions
was a symphony in C-minor, which had a most interest-
ing history. After completing it Wagner placed it in
his trunk and made a trip to Vienna, "for no other pur-
pose," as he relates, '''than to get a glimpse of this famed
musical centre. What I heard and saw there was not to
my edification; wherever I went I heard Zampa or
Strauss's potpourris on Zampa — two things that were
an abomination to me especially at that time. On my
return I remained some time in Prague, where I made
the acquaintance of Dionys Weber and Tomaschek; the
former had some of my compositions played at the Con-
servatory, among them my sympliony."
So much Wagner relates in his Autobiographic Sketch
30 RICHARD WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
(1843). In a letter to the editor of the Musikalisches
Wochenblatt,^ written at Venice forty years later and six
weeks before his death, he gives further details. Hav-
ing returned to Leipzig, he naturally desired to have the
symphony played at the Gewandhaus. Hofrath Rochlitz,
who was at that time the presiding chief, carefully ex-
amined the score, and Avhen Wagner called on him per-
sonally, he put on his spectacles and exclaimed : " What
do 1 see? Why, you are a very young man indeed; I had
expected to see a much older and more experienced com-
poser." This was encouraging, and not long thereafter
the symphony was played at the Gewandhaus, and
favorably received, all the movements, too, with the
exception of the second, being loudly applauded by a
large audience.
A few years later Mendelssohn became director of the
Gewandhaus concerts.
" Astonished at the excellent achievements of this still so young
master," Wagner writes, " I sought his acquaintance, during a
later sojourn in Leipzig (1834 or '35), and on this occasion yielded
to a strangely inward (innerliche) necessity by giving him — or
rather forcing on him — the manuscript of my symphony with the
request not at all to examine it, but only to take it under his care.
Probably I fancied that perhaps he would take a look at it after all
and say something to me about it. But this never happened. In
the course of years, my paths often brought me near Mendelssohn
again ; we met, we dined, we even played together once in Leipzig ;
he attended the first performance of my Flying Dutchman in
Berlin, and found that, inasmuch as the opera had after all not
proved quite a failure, I ought to be satisfied with my success ; on
the occasion of a performance of Tannhduser in Dresden he also
remarked that a canon in the adagio of the second finale had pleased
1 Reprinted in Vol. X. of the Gesammelte Schri/ten, pp. 400-406.
WORSHIP OF BEETHOVEN 31
him. Only of my symphony, and the manuscript of it, he never
said a word, which was reason enough why I never inquired after
it."
For almost half a century nothing was known of this
manuscript, and Wagner had given it up as lost, when it
was discovered in an old trunk in Dresden. The circum-
stances of this discovery, and of the performance of the
symphony in Venice, a few weeks before Wagner's death,
may, however, be more fitly and dramatically related in
a later chapter.^ Here we need only add that, according
to Wagner's own testimony, clearness and virility were
his aim in writing this work, and that, besides Beethoven,
Mozart was his prototype. In regard to length, the
symphony suggests the former rather than the latter of
these composers, for it has been noted that it contains
1836 bars, while Mozart's longest symphony has only
half that number. Beethoven's influence is also shown
in the structure and in not a few " allusions " of the sym-
phony; for Beethoven was at that time, as during the
remainder of his life, his special idol.
WORSHIP OF BEETHOVEN
It was the announcement of the great symphonist's
death that had first drawn Wagner's attention to his
music. The Egmont music inspired him, as we have
just seen, with the plan to set his own great ghost trag-
edy to music; and in the opinion of the composer,
Heinrich Dorn (who at that time was a friend of Wag-
ner's, but subsequently became a bitter enemy and rival),
" there was perhaps never at any time a young composer who was
more familiar with Beethoven's works than the eighteen-year-old
Wagner of that time. He possessed most of the master's over-
1 See Index, under " Symphony I."
32 BICHARD WAGNER'S CHILDHOOD
tures in scores copied by his own hand ; with the sonatas he went
to sleep, with the quartets he got up ; the songs he sang, the (juar-
tets he whistled (for in his playing there was no progress) ; in
short, it was a true furor teutonicus, which, in its union with an
intellect of scientific cultivation and unusual activity, promised to
yield vigorous shoots."
This was at the age of eighteen, and many years later
Wagner proved his unaltered affection for Beethoven by
writing his well-known analytical programmes of some
of his idol's symphonies or overtures ; the special twenty-
seven-page article on the performance of the ninth sym-
phony; and that monument of artistic enthusiasm, the
essay on Beethoven, which takes up seventy-four pages
of the ninth volume of his collected works, and was writ-
ten at the age of tifty-seven ; not to speak of the countless
references to Beethoven and his works scattered through
his various essays.^ In Paris, about the time when Rienzi
was completed, he conceived the plan of writing a Bee-
thoven biography, and it was one of Heine's jokes that
Wagner always had the words ami de BeetJioven printed
on his visiting-cards.
Two of the earliest extant letters of Wagner's should
be alluded to in connection with this topic. The first,
dated Oct. 6 (1830), is addressed to the well-known music
publishers, B. Schott's Sohne in Mayence, and contains
an offer to arrange Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for
two hands.
'« For a long time," he writes, " I have made Beethoven's mag-
nificent last symphony the object of my profoundest study, and
1 These, like Wagner's allusions to all other composers, and to his
own works, will be found conveniently grouped together in the two
volumes of Glasenapp's Wagner Encyclopddie (Leipzig, E. W. Fritzsch,
1391).
WORSHIP OF BEETHOVEN 33
the more I came to realize the great vahie of this work, the more
it grieved me to know that it is still so imperfectly understood, or
nltogether ignored, by the greater part of the musical public. To
make this work more familiar, the best method seemed to me a
serviceable arrangement for the piano, such as, to my great regret,
I have never succeeded in finding — for that four-hand arrangement
of Czerny's surely can no longer be considered sufficient. My great
enthusiasm has thus led me to make an attempt to arrange this
symphony for two ha)ids, and I have so far succeeded in arranging
the first and perhaps most diiiicult movement in the most accurate
and complete manner possible. I therefore venture to approach
your respected firm with the question whether you would be in-
clined to publish such an arrangement (for of course I should not
like to continue this difficult work, at present, without this cer-
tainty). As soon as I am assured of this, I shall at once go to
work and complete what I have begiin. Therefore I humbly beg
for a speedy answer, and as far as I am concerned you may be
assured of the greatest zeal.
" Your Honors'
" My Address : Humble Servant,
Leipzig, im Pichhof vor'm Richakd Wagner. ■»
Halli'schen Thor 1 Treppe."
This offer was evidently not accepted. Beetlioven's
last symphony was not appreciated then as it now is
(largely owing to Wagner's efforts and influence), nor of
course was Wagner's name of any commercial value at
that time.^
Apparently humbled by his failure, the eighteen-year-
old musician wrote another letter on Aug. 6, 1831, to
1 War/ner Jahrbuch, 1886, p. 470.
2 What fabulous sums publishers would pay to-day for the manu-
script of Beethoven's sympliony arraiif^ed by Warner may he inferred
from the fact tliat a concert manager in Berlin a few years ago paid
Wagner's heirs .W.CXK) marks for tlie privilege of owning, /or one year
only, the exclusive right of permitting performances of Wagner's newly
discovered symphony in C !
34 BICHAlil) WAGNERS CHILDHOOD
the Bureau de Musique in Leipzig, in which he offered
to make arrangements for the piano at lens than the usual
rates, after convincing the Bureau of his fitness by some
trial tasks for which he woukl ask no compensation : " I
am prompted to this request by a lack of occupation, and
the wish to find employment in work of this sort."
A SECOND SYMPHONY
It is commonly supposed that Wagner wrote but one
symphony; but in 1886 W. Tappert, one of his most
intimate friends, who had been given free access to all
his papers and music manuscripts, discovered a sketch
of a second symphony which was made in August, 1834.
The allegro is complete ; of the adagio there are twenty-
nine bars, ending abruptly. Wagner himself never men-
tioned this symphony, and seemed to have forgotten it
entirely. In this second symphony Herr Tappert dis-
covered traces of Weber's influence, besides Beethoven's;
and he adds significantly : —
" We did not even need the wondrously polyphonic stage-festi-
val-play Parsifal to justify the assertion that Wagner was the
greatest contrapuntist of his time. Only half a year his lessons
with Cantor Weinlig continued ; what astounding results they had
is proved also by the unfinished sketch of the E-major symphony.
Ask in our conservatories whether the young men there, after sev-
eral years' study, can accomplish in free composition what Richard
Wagner accomplished at the age of eighteen to twenty-one. And
this chosen one was stigmatized by the academic critics and the
ignorant laity at their beer-tables as an amateur! " '■
^ Tappert's article on the E-major symphony, with musical illustra-
t:ons, will be found in the Musikalisches Wocfienblatt for Sept. 30 and
Oct. 7, 1886,
THE FIRST OPERAS
I HAVE dwelt somewhat longer on what may be called
cl:e concert period of Wagner's life than other biog-
raphers, because the facts thus brought together show
that, as he had already mastered the technique of sym- \/
phonic composition before his twentieth year, he might
have lived to equal or surpass his greatest predecessors
in this field had not fate and his theatrical instincts
fortunately urged him into what he felt to be the higher
domain of the music-drama. That was his true sphere;
he needed a poetic or pictorial idea to evoke a deeply
original motive from his creative imagination ; and it is
for this reason that none of his concert compositions —
neither these early ones nor those of a later period —
quite equal the best parts of his music dramas, with the
exception of the "Siegfried Idyl," in which, however,
the chief themes are borrowed from the Siegfried drama.
In turning, therefore, to the operatic period of his life,
we reach at last the real Richard Wagner.
THE WEDDING
In speaking of his visit (in 1832) to Prague, where his
symphony in C had its first performance, Wagner adds : —
" I also wrote there a tragic opera-text, The Wedding. I do not
remember where I found the mediseval subject. An insane lover
climbs through the window into the bedroom of lii.^ friend's be-
Wo
36 THE FIRST OPERAS
trnthed, who is awaiting her bridegroom ; the bride struggles fvith
the madman and throws him down into the courtyard, where he
gives up the ghost. At tlie fu' ^ral rites the bride utters a cry and
falls dead on the corpse. Ha/'ug returned to Leipzig, I immedi-
ately composed the first number of this opera, which contained a
grand sextet ^ that gave Weinlig much satisfaction. My sister did
not like the libretto, and I destroyed it entirely."
The principal interest attaching to this performance
lies in the evidence it affords that Wagner, from the very
beginning of his operatic career, was led by his poetic
instinct to write his own dramatic texts. His literary
friend, Lanbe, had, abont this period, offered him a
libretto entitled Kosziusko ; but Wagner refused it, on
the grounds that he was at that time solely engaged
with purely instrumental music. The secret reason,
probably, was that he felt just as anxious to exercise his
poetic as his musical faculties; and that, even at that
early period, he had a vague presentiment that dramatic
music, to be perfect, must not be a mere lining, so to
speak, to the poetic costume, but both the poem and the
music must be conceived at the same time, and subtly
interwoven — that, in short, the poem must be "dyed in
the wool " with the musical colors. This may be a homely
simile; but if the reader will reflect on it for a few min-
utes, it will perhaps make Wagner's theory of the music-
drama clearer to him than pages of abstract aesthetic
disquisition.^
1 When Wagner wrote "sextet" his memory betrayed him. The
manuscript shows this piece to be a septet. Besides this septet the in-
troduction and a chorus are still existent in manuscript. In 1879 the
owner of the manuscript of the septet offered it for sale. Wagner
brought suit to prevent this sale, but the courts twice decided against
him. — (Tappert, in Musikalisches Wochenblatt, Aug. 30, 1887).
2 Throughout his whole career Wagner remained faithful to his
principle of writing his own dramatic poems, although, especially in
THE FAIRIES 37
THE FAIEIES
Of Wagner's earliest operas the first three had a curi-
ous fate. Of The Wedding, as we have just seen, three
numbers only were set to music, whereupon the libretto
was destroyed by the composer himself. The Fairies,
the second of his operas, though completed, was never
performed during his lifetime. The third opera. The
Novice of Palermo, was given once, under Wagner's own
direction, under extraordinary circumstances presently to
be related, and never again repeated.
The Fairies was composed at Wiirzburg, whither
Wagner had gone at the age of twenty to visit his elder
brother Albert, who was engaged in the theatre there
as singer, actor, and stage-manager, and who, Richard
hoped, would be able to give him useful advice, and per-
haps help him to find employment. The best that Albert
could do for him, however, was to get him appointed
chorus master, at a salary of ten florins a month. In
return for this favor, Richard composed for Albert an
the last two decades of his life, when his operas began to be by far the
best paying works given at the German opera houses, any literary man
who was also " in the libretto business " would have been only too
glad to ally hinis(!lf with such a successful con)poser. In 1882 Wagner
wrote to a young author in Vienna, declining an opera libretto which
the latter had forwarded him: "Why? Because I have, indeed, read
your libretto; I have, indeed, tested it; and I have, indeed, found it
good — but not so good that, for its sake, 1 should suddenly prove false
to a principle to which I have been true for nearly a wliole generation ;
the principle, namely, of writing my own dramatic texts. At any rate,
I save money by this — for you must know I am a great miser ! If you
come to Venice you will be able to convince yourself that your some-
what voluminous manuscript is in good company — it has, in my library
of librettos sent to me, the number of 2985. A respectable figure, is it
not, my young friend ? "
l«l^4
38 THE FIRST OPERAS
aria of 142 bars, to replace a shorter one of fifty-eight
bars in Marschner's Vampire.^
In his autobiographic sketch, Wagner relates : —
"In this year [1833] I composed a three-act romantic opera,
77te Fairies, for wliich I liad arranged the text myself from Gozzi's
.^ The Serpent- Woman. Beetlioven and Weber were my prototypes:
in the ensembles many things were successful ; the finale of the
second act in particular promised to be very effective. Extracts
from this opera given at concerts in Wurzburg were received
favorably."
Early in 1834 he took his score under his arm, went
back to Leipzig, and offered it to the director of the
''' theatre. At that time, however, as we have already seen,
Italian and French operas had a monopoly of the German
theatres, and native composers had to beg for perform-
ances of their works as a special favor. A foreign opera
of the same calibre as The Fairies might have found
favor with the director, but for a product of native talent
there was no demand, and so the fairy opera was put
aside, and nothing more was done for it during its author's
lifetime.
In his Eine Mittheilung an meiy\e Freunde (written in
1857 and reprinted in Vol. IV. of the Collected Works,
p. 313), Wagner gives some further interesting details
regarding The Fairies : —
" It was written in imitation of the ' romantic ' opera of Weber
and also of Marschner, whose works were at that time just coming
into notice at Leipzig. . . . What attracted me to Gozzi's fairy-
tale was not only its adaptability for operatic purposes, but the
1 The manuscript of this aria is in possession of W. Tappert of Berlin.
A phototype facsimile is appended to his R. Wagner: Sein Leben und
Seine Werke, and is of interest to those who wish to compare Wagner's
earliest musical handwriting with that of his later periods.
THE FAIRIES 39
subject itself interested me. A fairy who renounces immortality
for the possession of a beloved mortal can win the gift of mortality
only through certain severe conditions, the non-fulfilment of which
on the part of her lover threatens her with dire calamity ; the lover
succumbs to the trial, which consists in his being called upon not
to repel the fairy in whatever (compulsory) cruel form she may
appear to him. In Gozzi's tale the fairy is hereupon changed to a
snake ; the repentant lover restores her to her proper form by
kissing the snake : thus winning her as his wife. I altered this
plot by having the fairy changed to a stone, from which she is
brought back to life by the lover's passionate song, whereupon
instead of the fairy being dismissed with him to the land of mor-
tals, both are welcomed by the Fairy King into the happy world of
the immortals."
The Fairies was finished on Dec. 7, 1833, and had its
first performance on June 29, 1888, at Munich — fifty-
five years after its completion, five years after Wagner's
death ! The truth is that Wagner was not proud of this
opera in later years, and intended that it should never
be performed. But when his last music-drama, Parsifal,
was being prepared for performance at Bayreuth, the
necessity of raising funds induced liim, in return for the
pecuniary and artistic support he received from the King
of Bavaria, to grant the Munich Court Theatre the right
of performing Parsifal, although this ran counter to his
pet idea of reserving Parsifal exclusively for the festivals
at Bayreuth. He found it possible, however, to make an
arrangement with the Munich authorities by which tliey
waived their right to deprive Bayreuth of its Parsifal
monopoly, in return for the permission to produce The
Fairies at Munich exclusively.^ The director of the
1 King Liulwig, liowever, reserved the right to have Parsifal pro-
duf-ed in Munich at thoso not infrequent ijerl'ornianees wliieh, at liis
conunand, were given witli himself as sole spectator. For this purpose
40 THE FIRST OPERAS
Royal Opera, seeing that The Fairies could hardly be
expected to attract audiences by the beauty of its music
and its poetry, like its author's later operas, wisely con-
chided to bring it out in a most gorgeous but thoroughly
artistic scenic attire. This, combined with the curiosity
to hear the first effort of the most popular operatic com-
poser of the century, made The Fairies a quite unexpected
success. It had a "run" almost like an operetta during
the first season, and is now still played quite frequently,
especially during the tourist season, when many of the
Bayreiith pilgrims visit INIunich.
The text-book of The Fairies has few of those poetic
lines which abound in its author's later dramas, although
there are some passages and situations quite worthy of
the author of Lohengrin and Siegfried. The scenic
arrangements already bear witness to Wagner's pictorial
fancy, and the choice of a mythical subject is significant
of a composer who based ten of his thirteen operas
on legendary and supernatural stories. Musically, the
most striking trait of this opera is, as the composer him-
self intimates, its imitation of Beethoven, Weber, and
Marschner ; he might have added Mozart, for there are as
distinct "allusions" to Do7i Juan and the Magic Flute,
as there are to Fidelio, Euryanthe, and Oberon. There
are also a few germs of ideas which he developed in his
a new mise-en-scene was provided, as sumptuous as that in Bayreuth.
The eminent Wagnerian tenor, Heinrich Vogl, who took part in all
tliese private Parsifal performances, told nie that eight of them were
given altogether, the King's appetite for Wagner's music being insa-
tiable up to the end of his life. To the King's subjects it must have
been a consideration as tantalizing as it was romantic and unique, that
Wagner's last, and in some respects grandest, work was being given
over and over again in their Court Theatre, and no one permitted to
hear it but their monarch.
AT MAGDEBURG. — A STEP BACKWARD 41
later operas (especially Rlenzi and the Flying Dutchman)
and in the Faust overture. There is also that peculiar
bombastic striving for exaggerated expression which
characterizes much of thef?fE?izt music; but of the melo-
dic beauty, harmonic originality, and varied orchestral
coloring of his later works there are but few traces, while
on the other hand the management of the orchestra, alone
or in combination with the chorus, already shows much
of that ingenuity which enabled him subsequently to
Avrite those magnificent ensembles in Lohengrin and the
Meister singer ^
AT MAGDEBURG. — A STEP BACKWARD
Not only was Wagner's creative genius slow in devel-
oping, but in the period we have now arrived at he
actually made a step backward^ gave up the serious
musical ideals which Weber and Beethoven had taught
before him, and began to flirt with the coquettish, seduc-
tive operatic muse of the period, who promised him
success and luxury if he would throw himself into her
arms. He had accepted an appointment, in 1834, as
musical director of the opera at Magdeburg, where he
had an opportunity to become thoroughly familiar with
all the trivial operatic melodies of the time. "The
1 More detailed accounts of the performance of The Fairies in
Muiiicli may be found in the Musikalisches Wochenblatt, July 19 and
Auj^. 1, 1888, and in Mr. L. C. Elson's European Reminisceiices (Chi-
cago, 1891, pp. 99-102). Mr. Elson found it strange to hear "the con-
ventional aria, scena, cavatina, prayer, and mad scene in a Wagnerian
work. The opera throughout," he says, " crushes the critics who have
maintained tliat Wagner was hy nature incapabh; of composing tunes.
... It is one of the ' ifs ' of musical history whether Wagner could not
have composed comic opera, in the French sense, had he practised
more in this vein. Thank Heaven, he did not 1 "
42 THE FIRST OPERAS
rehearsing and conducting of these light-jointed fash-
ionable French operas, the cleverness and brilliancy of
their orchestral effects," he writes (IV. 316), "often
gave me a childish sort of pleasure when I could let
these things loose, right and left, from my conductor's
desk." His artistic conscience was demoralized by see-
ing what enthiisiasm this trivial sort of music produced.
Why not write similar things and become the man of the
hour? His score of The Fairies became a matter of
indifference to him, and he no longer thought of getting
it performed. It was too serious, and of too elevated a
character to suit his new mood; and he now began to
meditate on a very different sort of opera, concerning
which he says : —
"A strange demoralization of my taste had resulted from my
connection (during two winters at Magdeburg) witli German
operatic affairs, and this demoralization was manifested in the
whole conception and execution of my new opera in such a way
that surely no one could have recognized from this score the youth-
ful Beethoven-and- Weber enthusiast."
This " demoralization " affected not only his artistic
conscience, but his general views of life. He had, through
books and personal intercourse, come under the influence
of a class of revolutionary writers, who attacked social
hypocrisy and preached doctrines that smacked of anarchy
and free love. It was in this mood that he wrote his
new opera. The Novice of Palermo, of which he has him-
self -^ given a most interesting and amusing account.
1 Das Liebesverbot ; Gessaynmelte Schriften, Vol. I. pp. 27-40. Eng-
lish version iu BurUngame's Art Life and Theories of Wagner, pp. 27-
40.
TEE NOVICE OF PALERMO 43
THE NOVICE OF PALERMO
" One fine morning I stole away from my surroundings, to take
a solitary breakfast on the Schlackenburg, and at the same time to
sketch a new opera-poem in my notebook. I had chosen for this
the subject of Shakespeare's Measure for Measr(re, which I now, in
harmony with my present mood, transformed in a very free manner
into an opera-book to which I gave the title Das Liebesverbot [the .
Love-Veto] . The ideas of ' Young Europe ' that were in the air at
that time, combined with the reading of [Heinse's] Ardinghello, and
intensified by the peculiar mood which my operatic experiences
had put me into, supplied the keynote for my production, which
was especially aimed against Puritan hypocrisy, and thus led to the
bold glorification of ' unchecked sensuality.' I took great pains to
look at the serious Shakespearian subject only from this point of
view ; I saw only the sinister, severe governor, himself burning with
a violent passion for the young novice, who, while imploring him
for the pardon of her brother who is condemned to death for an
amorous intrigue, has through the contagiousness of her warm
human feelings aroused in the stern Puritan a consuming flame.
That these powerful motives are in Shakespeare's piece so richly
developed merely in order to be found the more weighty at last in
the scales of justice, I did not at all care to notice ; what I was
concerned about, was to expose the sinfulness of hypocrisy and the
unnaluralness of moral prudery. Consequently I dropped the
Measure for Measure entirely, and made avenging love alone inflict
l)unishment on the hypocrite. I transferred the scene from the
fabulous Vienna to the capital of glowing Sicily, in which a
German governor, disgusted with the incredibly easy morals of the
population, attempts to carry out a Puritan reform, in which he
lui.serably fails."
To this brief sketch Wagner adds a long and detailed
analysis of the plot, which it is hardly worth while t(
follow here, as the opera will in all ])robal)ility never bt
revived. Its single performance at Magdeburg, how-
44 THE FIRST OPERAS
ever, took place under circumstances so extraordinary
that they must be briefly related.
The city of Magdeburg, where Wagner composed his
Novice of Palermo and conducted the Opera two winter
seasons, is to-day one of the most flourishing commercial
cities in Germany, with a fortress of the first rank and
a population of 160,000. In 1836, however, it had only
40,000, and the business men and soldiers who made up
its population do not appear to have cared much for
opera. Tliis we learn from a correspondent of the Neue
ZeUschrift fur Musik, who exclaims : " What more do you
want than the assurance that we have had a better opera
this winter than ever before? What do you say if I add
that everybody admitted this, and yet no one went to the
opera, and that the house had to be closed before the
winter season was over? " He then goes on to describe
the singers, and continues : —
"If you add to all this that a young, clever artist, like Musik-
director Richard Wagner, succeeded with ardor and skill in creating
an excellent ensemble, it was inevitable that we should have had
some great artistic treats." Yet the philistines neglected the opera,
and "I can see in the case of Wagner and persons like him and
myself, what a torture it is to have to live in such a commercial
and military city while all one's nerves and fibres ci'ave for activity."
It was under such discouraging circumstances that
Wagner was doomed to bring out for the first time in his
life an opera of his own composition. In return for some
travelling expenses incurred by him in an official capacity
he was entitled to a benefit performance. He naturally
seized on this opportunity to produce his new opera.
This involved a considerable outlay for scenery and
rehearsals, and as he did not wish to load this on the
THE NOVICE OF PALERMO 46
management, which was already on the point of bank-
ruptcy, he agreed to give two performances, and to reserve
for himself the profits of the second only. It was near
the end of the season, but this did not seem a disadvan-
tage, as the last performances of the season were usually
better attended than the preceding ones. Unfortunately,
some of the singers, whose salary was in arrears, handed
in their resignation, and it was only owing to Wagner's
personal popularity with them that he succeeded in
retaining them a little longer. Ten days only were avail-
able for rehearsing an opera of great dimensions and with
many difficult ensemble numbers. To continue in Wag-
ner's own words: —
"I relied, however, on the success of special efforts to which,
for my sake, the singers willingly submitted, studying their parts
day and night ; and as, in spite of this, it was simply impossible
to establish any certainty of execution and memory on the part
of the hard-worked artists, I finally counted on a mii-acle to be
worked through the skill in conducting which I had already ac-
quired. What a peculiar faculty I did possess for helping the
singers, and for keeping up a certain apparent smoothness of move-
ment notwithstanding their uncertainty, was actually shown at
the few rehearsals with orchestra, where I succeeded, by means
of corLStant prompting, singing along loudly, and giving direc-
tions concerning the acting, in keeping the whole so far in order
that one was justified in hoping that the result might be quite
tolerable."
In making tliese calculations he forgot that a per-
formance is a different matter from a rehearsal; for when
tlie house was filled with spectators the conductor could
not sing along and give loiul hints as before; the conse-
quence being an utterly chaotic representation which
must have bewildered the audience all the more as no
46 THE FIRST OPERAS
librettos had been printed to explain the plot. No wonder
that, at the second performance, fifteen minutes before
the rising of the curtain, the comiDOser saw no one in the
parquet but his housewife and her husband, and a Polish
Jew in full costume. He hoped for a few more specta-
tors, but the curtain was fated never to rise again on his
opera. A quarrel, prompted by jealousy, broke out
among the singers behind the scenes and reached such
dimensions that the stage manager had to come before
the curtain and announce that no performance would
take place, on account of "unforeseen impediments."
Thus ended the season, and Wagner's opera.
Not that he gave it up at once in consequence of this
mishap, which could hardly be called a fiasco, as the
opera had really had " no show " at all. The correspon-
dent above referred to concludes his notice of the new
opera with these words : " This much I know, that the
work will succeed if the composer can get it performed
at a good theatre. There is much in it; everything sounds
well; it has music and it has melody, which is pretty far
to seek in our German operas of the period." Wagner,
too, had faith enough in his opera to offer it to the man-
agers in Leipzig and in Berlin, but without success.
Three years later, when he was in Paris, he tried to bring
it out at the Theatre de la Eenaissance; its frivolous
subject seemed well suited for the French stage. Three
numbers had already been translated, so successfully, as
Wagner attests, " that my music sounded better to the
French words than to the original German text; for it
was music such as is most easily understood by the
French, and everything promised well when the Theatre
de la Renaissance became bankrupt! All trouble, all
THE NOVICE OF PALERMO 47
hopes, liad therefore been in vain. I now gave up my
Liebesverbot entirely; I felt that I could not respect
myself any longer as its composer." This attitude
regarding the Novice of Palermo was of course not
altered but rather accentuated later in life. In 1866
he dedicated the score to King Ludwig 11.^ with the
following lines in which he pronounces it a " sin of his
youth," from which he begs the monarch to absolve
him by accepting it : —
"Ich irrte einst und mocht'es nun verbiissen:
Wie mach' ich mich der Jugendsiinde frei ?
Ihr Werk leg' ich demiithig Dir zu FUssen,
Dass Deine Gnade ihm Erloser sei."
1 The score of this opera, the performance of which thus had the
curious fate of being twice frustrated by the failure of an operatic
institution, is preserved at the Munich opera-liouse. In July, 1891, I
visited the eminent Wagnerian tenor, Heinrich Yogi, who, when not
employed at the Munich opera-house, lives with his family at a country
seat near Tutzing on Lake Starnberg, where he has large grain-tields,
tine scenery, including a small private lake, and, as guardian of his
house, a large dog named Wotan, a direct descendant of one of Wag-
ner's famous animals. Herr Vogl gave me much valuable information
regarding Wagner's life at Munich and his relations with the King,
which will be only made use of in its place. Regarding the Novice of
Palermo he told me an interesting circumstance which, I believe, has
never got into print. After the tremendous success of The Fairies the
thought naturally occurred that Wagner's other juvenile opera might
perhaps be revived opportunely. The artists were therefore selected and
a rehearsal was held which lasted five hours, and which sealed the fate
of The Novice of Palermo. "The arias and other numbers," said Herr
Vogl, " were such ludicrous and undisguised imitations of Donizetti
and other popular composers of that time, that we all burst out laugh-
ing and kept up the merriment througliout the rehearsal. I was for
giving the opera, in spite of this, as a curiosity, and because it could
of course not injure Wagner's reputation ; nor was the Intendant quite
averse to giving it. Ultimately, however, we all agreed that it would
])e better to leave it alone, less on account of the nuisii; than because
of the licentious character of the libretto. So the manuscript was
shelved again."
48 THE FIRST OPERAS
Concerning the music of this opera Wagner himself
says, in several places : —
' ' I had abandoned abstract mysticism and learned to love the
material. An attractive subject, wit, and cleverness seemed to me
delightful things : as regards my music I found both among the
French and Italians. I gave up my prototype Beethoven. ... At
a concert I produced the overture to my Fairies ; it was very well
received. ... A good impression was made on the public by a
New Year's cantata ^ which I had written hastily. Such easy suc-
cesses confirmed me in the belief that, in order to please, one must
not be too scrupulous regarding one's means. In this mood I
continued the composition of my Novice of Palermo. I did not
take the slightest pains to avoid imitating the French and the
Italians " — all the less as he had noticed what tremendous effects
a great artist like Joan Schroeder-Devrient was capable of pro-
ducing even in so flimsy a work as Bellini's Romeo and Juliet.
He mentions Au\)er, Verdi, and Bellini as among his new models,
and concludes that ' ' if any one should compare this score with
that of The Fairies he would find it difficult to understand how
such a complete change in my tendencies could have been brought
about in so short a time. A compromise between the two was to
be the goal of my further artistic development."
FIRST CTRITICAL ESSAY
The sudden change in Wagner's ideals and methods
will seem less enigmatic when we bear in mind that he
was simply swimming with the musical current, and as
a youth of only twenty-two could hardly be expected to
have the strength to swim against it, as he did later,
beginning with the Flying Dutchman. Not he alone but
1 In this cantata Wagner made use of the andante of his first sym-
phony — one of the very few cases where he followed a device resorted
to by Handel and other famous composers, of borrowing from his own
earlier works.
FIRST CRITICAL ESSAY 49
the whole German nation turned their backs on Beethoven
and Weber, who had just composed their greatest works
— Fidelio and Eun/anthe — and listened only to Rossini,
Auber, and other Italian and French composers. Wagner
himself voiced the opinion of the average opera-goer of
that time in his first critical essay, which was printed
in the Zeituvg fur die EleganteWelt (June 10, 1834), and
which contains opinions regarding vocal music, the
opera, and German composers diametrically opposed to
his more mature opinions expressed in later years. The
essay is too long to reprint here,^ but the following
remarks on Weber's Euryanthe may be cited as an
example : —
" What petty calculation in its declamation, what timid employ-
ment of this or that instrument to enforce the expressiveness of a
word ! Instead of sketching a situation with a single bold and
broad stroke, he breaks up the general impression by minute
details and detailed minuteness. How difficult he finds it to give
life to his ensembles ; how the second finale drags ! Here an
instrument, there a voice, wants to-day something awfully wise,
and ultimately none of them knows what it says. And as the
hearers have to confess, at the end, that they did not understand
anything, they console themselves with the fact that at any rate
it must be regarded as very erudite, and therefore worthy of great
respect. Oh, this unfortimate erudition — this source of all Ger-
man evils ! "
Compare with this the reference to Euryanthe in one
of his last essays (X. 219), and the change in his critical
opinions will be found no less pronounced than the
growth in his musical and poetic style, from the Novice
of Palermo to Siegfried. "This Euryanthe,'^ he exciaims
1 See the Wafjncr Jahrbuch, 188G, pp. 377-379.
50 THE FIRST OPERAS
with an artist's exaggeration, "in wliich, notwithstand-
ing its reputed tediousness, every single number is worth
more than all the opera seria of Italy, France, and
Judcea ! " Yet in spite of this extravagant statement,
Wagner retained to the end of his life the conviction
that — in their own way — the Italians and the French
had a more perfect and harmonious operatic style than
the Germans, whose opera was too much based on foreign
models to be truly national and unique. It was the aim
of his life to create a national German opera, as unique
as were the Italian and the French styles ; and in this he
succeeded.
KONIGSBERG AND RIGA
The failure of the Magdeburg opera company once
more threw Wagner on his own resources, which were
not great; in fact, they were of a 7ninns quantity. He
had borrowed money right and left (a habit which he
kept up from necessity for many years), in the hope and
expectation of repaying it from the proceeds of the second
performance of his opera at Magdeburg; b\it as that
second performance was never given, he found himself
in debt and out of employment at the same time. He
made his first visit to Berlin to try to secure a perform-
ance of his Novice of Palermo, but failed. Then, hearing
that the Konigsberg Theatre needed a musical director,
he went there to apply for the position; but as he could
not get a definite answer at once, he wrote to his friend,
Heinrich Dorn, to inquire whether he could not secure a
place for him.^ Dorn was not able to do anything, for
the time being, but meanwhile the Konigsberg position
was assigned to Wagner, who took possession of it in
January, 1837, after nine months of enforced inactivity.
AN IMrRUDENT MARRIAGE
Two months previously to this event Wagner had taken
a step which was to affect his life most seriously for
1 Tliis letter is printed in Dorn's Ergebnisse aus Erlebnissen, 1877,
p. 158.
51
62 KONIGSBEBG AND RIGA
almost twenty-five years. At Magdebiirg he had become
engaged to an actress named Wilhelmine (or Minna)
Planer, and on Nov. 24, 1836, he married her in Konigs-
berg. Now it is not necessary to agree with Bacon and
Schopenhauer that men who wish to achieve greatness in
literature or art should never marry at all; but this much
is certain, that it is very foolish for an ambitious and
struggling composer, without a position, and with plenty
of debts, to marry at the age of twenty-three as Wagner
did (Nov. 24, 1836).^ He had to suffer many years for
this hasty step, and in a poem which he wrote into his
diary on Aug. 4, 1840, in Paris, he gives us his own
opinion on the matter, somewhat in the style of Heine,
extolling the blessing of having a wife, to those who
can afford one, but vowing, for his part, that, were he
ten years younger, he would act more wisely.^
Richard Pohl says, in his short Wagner Biography,'
of Minna Planer, ''the pretty young actress," that "she
was a faithful, self-sacrificing wife who bore with him
long and devotedly all cares and privations, in Paris
even the bitterest poverty. But she was a prosaic,
domestic woman who never understood her husband, and
who might have been an impediment to his far-reaching
ideas, his high-flying plans, if Richard Wagner could
have been impeded in his course by anything. The
1 This recalls the case of Berlioz, who at thirty married Miss Smith-
son, of whom he says : " On the day of our wedding she had nothing in
the world but debts, and the fear of never again being able to appear
to advantage on the stage because of her accident ; I, for my part, had
three hundred francs [$60] that my friend Gounet had lent me, and
had quarrelled again with my parents."
2 The poem may be found in Kurschner's TTafirncr Jahrbuch for 1886,
p. 290.
8 Sammlung Musikalisher Vortrdge, Nos. 53, 54, p. 141.
AN IMPRUDENT MARRIAGE 63
natural end was that they separated — many years later,
it is true. Twenty-five years these two ill-mated per-
sons lived together and sought to get along with each
other."
Another intimate friend of Wagner's, Wilhelm Tap-
pert, remarks ^ that " the Meister himself held the mem-
ory of his first wife in great honor; it annoyed him to
read disparaging allusions to Minna. Though she did
not understand his genius, she bore — especially in their
first years — the trials of life without grumbling, and she
was, especially during the first visit to Paris — according
to the Meister's own assurance — an excellent housewife,
who lovingly and faithfully shared much sorrow and little
joy with him."
The opinion of an eyewitness, the painter, Friedrich
Pecht, who met the young couple at this period, may
also be quoted : —
" We all liked the very pretty Frau Wagner, especially since one
could no longer recognize in her the former actress ; she was most
amiable, and exemplary in her conduct ; yet, after all, hers was a
sober, unimaginative soul, entirely devoted to her husband, fol-
lowing him humbly wherever he went, but without a conception ot
his greatness, and, with all her love and devotion, still presenting
an irreconcilable contrast to him with her mind set on the strict
and formal commonplace relations of society."
The domestic privations began soon after their mar-
riage. "The year which I spent in Konigsberg was
entirely lost to my art, througli the pettiest cares. I
wrote a single overture : Mule Britannia," ^ Wagner writes
1 Richard Wagner : Sein Leben und Seine Werke, p. 16.
2 This overture, like two others which he wrote at this period in
MaK<1el)ur{r and Ri^a — Columbus and Polonia — have never been
printed. The manuscript of the Columbus overture is lost, while that
of the Polonia is in the possession of Wagner's heirs.
54 KONIGSBERG AND RIGA
in his Autobiographic Sketch, and in another place he
says : " I was in love, married in a fit of obstinate reck-
lessness, tortured myself and others under the disagree-
able influence of a home without the means to keep it up,
and thus sank into the misery which ruins thousands
upon thousands." In brief, he had married in very much
the same spirit of obstinate recklessness that had led him
to bring out his Novice of Palermo under the most dis-
couraging circumstances. It was fortunate that this
marriage was childless. Had the support and education
of a large family been added to Wagner's burdens in
his early manhood, the world would probably have never
seen that series of gigantic music-dramas which have
revolutionized modern taste.
Domestic cares were not the only thing that troubled
him at this time. He wanted to become a great com-
poser. His operatic instinct did not leave him in peace,
and led him to read novels, not as other people do, for
amusement, but solely with a view to finding a subject
for a libretto. Die Hohe Braut, a novel by Heinrich
Konig, seemed to offer the material for a grand opera in
five acts. He sketched the plot in full, but instead of
working it up into a libretto for himself, he sent it to
Scribe in Paris with a request to convert it into an opera-
book and to let him compose the music. This step was,
of course, not prompted by any distrust of his own poetic
faculty, but by a desire to secure the famous Scribe as a
collaborator. He had probably read that The Huguenots
of Meyerbeer, the popular collaborator of Scribe, had in
forty performances yielded three hundred thousand
francs; and as Wagner never aimed at anything lower
than the highest, he unhesitatingly applied at ''head-
AN IMPRUDENT MARRIAGE 55
quarters." Scribe of course paid no attention to this
letter from an unknown young musician, and in a subse-
quent communication to Wagner said he did not remem-
ber having ever received it (he probably received hundreds
like it) ; and this Avas the first of a long series of disap-
pointments which Wagner was to suffer from hopes based
on Paris.
His remarkable and positively obstinate persistence
in this matter is strikingly brought out in a letter which
he wrote to his friend Lewald,^ who had lived in Paris
and was at that time an influential editor in Leipzig.
(He was subsequently incarcerated in Berlin for nine
months on account of his liberal opinions.) To him
Wagner appealed, with the request to use his inflvience
to secure the collaboration of Scribe in his operas.
After explaining about the sketch he had made of the
novel Die Hohe Braid for a libretto, he continues : —
"This sketch, accompanied by a letter, I gave to my brother-in-
law Friedrich Brockhaus with the request to forward it to Paris.
After waiting six months in vain for an answer, I wrote agam to
Scribe, and took the blame for his silence on myself, as I had to
confess that he must be at a loss what to answer, since he had no
knowledge whatever of me or of my faculty for composing. To
remove this dithculty, I enclosed the score of my opera the Love
Veto, or the Novice of Palermo, after Shakespeare's Pleasure for
Measure. I begged him to get the opinion of Auber or Meyerbeer
on tliis score, and to be guided thereby in the decision whether I
was able to compose an opera good enough for Paris. In case this
opera should meet with approval, I offered it to him also, with the
1 Printed in tlic Frankfurter Zeitumj (Jan. 3, 1888), where it is
explained that Wai^iier had a liabit, from liis youth to liis last days, of
writiiij; a first sketch of all his letters in note-books. The one contain-
iiii; tliis letter and several others was offered at an auction sale of
manuscripts, and thus found its way into the Frankfurter Zeitung.
66 KONIGSBERG AND RIGA
explanation that he could easily have a rough French translation of
it made by any one and convert this at his discretion into a Scribe
libretto, to be offered to the Opera Comique.
"To this letter I received in June, 1837, a detailed answer from
Scribe, vsrhich completely exonerated him of the charge of previous
negligence — for he had never received the letter forwarded by
Brockhaus, and therefore did not know what I desired. He thanked
me for the score I had sent, begged for further details regarding
my desires, and promised to do for me anything that was in his
power.
" This was not so bad, and I hastened to .send him, from Dres-
den, an old copy of the lost sketch for my five-act opera on the sub-
ject of this Hohe Braut. This letter I put into the post — unstamped
to insure safe delivery — and that is the end of the story."
The question now was, had Scribe received this last
letter? Would not Lewald try to find out and see what
he could do about it? In case neither of those two pro-
jects was approved, Wagner was ready with a third one —
Rienzi, which he declares " much grander " than its prede-
cessors. " I intend to compose it in the German language,
to make an attempt whether there is a possibility of
getting it performed in Berlin, in course of fifty years, if
God grant me so long a life. Perhaps Scribe will like
it, in which case Rienzi will learn to sing French in a
moment; or else this might be a way to goad the Ber-
liners to accept the opera, if they were told that Paris
was ready to bring it out, but that preference was for
once to be given to Berlin ; for a stage like that of Berlin
or Paris is absolutely necessary to bring out such a work
properly. There will be no lack of material or untiring
effort on my part, for I feel convinced that I should have
already done the Lord knows what if only the doors were
once opened for me."
THE HAPPY BEAR-FAMILY 67
Wagner evidently believed in himself at this period,
and this consciousness of his powers, and faith in his
future, can also be read between the lines when he closes
his letter to Lewald Avith the offer of a share in the
profits, and the humorous promise that if Lewald can
help him by interesting Meyerbeer or others in his cause,
he will be surely rewarded by the thanks of posterity:
" In that case there can be no doubt that the Germans
will place an extra statue of you in the Pantheon, which
no doubt they will soon erect to their great men, and the
Lord, in His surprise that a German author has assisted
a poor German composer to honors in Paris, will be at a
loss as to what blessing to bestow on you."
THE HAPPY BEAR-FAMILY
All this correspondence, as already intimated, led to
no result. Before it was written the Konigsberg theatre
had become bankrupt, and the unlucky Wagner was again
thrown out of employment. Fortunately, his friend
Dorn came to the rescue this time. He succeeded in
getting for him the position of Musik-director, and for
his wife aTplace^as an actress in a new theatrical com-
pany organized by the poet Carl von Holtei in the Russian
city^f Riga.^
In the aiitumn of 1837 he assumed his duties at Riga,
concerning which he relates : —
1 A Konigsl)erg correspondent of the Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik
(1837) notes Wagner's departure from that city, and adds: " He was
liere too short a time to be able to show his varied talents. His com-
positions, of which I heard one overture and saw the score of another,
indicate the gift of individual creativeness. .Some people are clear in
their characters and their works from the begiiming, otliers have to
first work their way through a chaos of passions. The latter, it is true,
reach a hiyher yoal."
58 KONIGSBEBG AND RIGA
" I found good material for an opera company, and went to work
with mucli zeal to make good use of it. During this period I com-
posed several airs for interpolation in operas by the singers. I also
wrote the text of a two-act comic opera, the Happy Bear-Family,
the subject of which I had taken from a story in the Thousand
and One Nights. Two numbers of it were already finished when I
discovered, to my disgust, that I was again on the way to compose
a la Adam ; my deepest feelings were lacerated by this discovery.
I loathed the work, and left it unfinished. The daily rehearsing
and conducting of the music of Auber, Adam, and Bellini soon
helped to change my former delight in it to utter weariness."
This was the beginning of his recovery from his tem-
porary aberration of taste, and the recovery was acceler-
ated by the fact that the daily contact with theatrical
life and its petty vanities and intrigues began to inspire
him with as much distaste as the trivial, clap-trap music
he was usually called upon to conduct. He relates some-
where that in his childhood, notwithstanding his love of
the theatre and the opera, he had manifested an aversion
to the thought of becoming an actor, even while he
amused himself by attempts at acting in his room. The
images with which his imagination had been filled on
reading about the ancient Greek drama seemed to have
inspired in him, as he believed, an aversion to tlie painted
actors on the stage and their artificialities. This aver-
sion reached a climax at Riga.
" What we understand by theatrical life (Komodiantenwirth-
schaft) soon revealed itself to me in its true light, and the opera
which I had begun to compose for such a sphere suddenly began
to disgust me so violently that I threw everything aside, confined
my relations with the theatre more and more to the mere fulfilment
of my duties as conductor, avoided all contact with the actors, and
withdrew into that region of my inner self where the ardent longing
to escape from my habitual surroundings was being nurtured."
TWO ACTS OF BIENZI 59
In this desire for isolation he went so far as to choos(>
his residence in a remote suburb. His aversion to stage-
life did not, however, induce him to neglect his duties.
On the contrary, it is on record that the singers were
annoyed by the long and frequent rehearsals to which
he subjected them and in which he never seemed to
be satisfied, and finally they made a complaint to Director
Holtei, who, though he doubtless knew that his Kapell-
meister was only doing his duty, begged him " not to kill
the singers " in his zeal.-^
TWO ACTS OF RIENZI
The experiences which Wagner had so far made with
his own early operas, and his observations regarding the
fate of other composers, convinced him of the utter ina-
bility of provincial audiences to form ^judgment con-
cerning a new opera, unless it had already been approved
*at^some royal institution. He therefore decided to plan
his next opera on so large a scale that he would not be
tempted to try it at a provincial theatre \ where even a
success would not be likely to be more than local. In
this determination he sketched the five acts of Rienzi,
and found that the subject practically necessitated the
colossal dimensions he had determined upon. The sketch
was made in the summer of 1838, and in the autumn
following he began to compose the music with the feel-
ing, as he says, that he was now sufficiently advanced in
his artistic development " to demand something valuable
and to expect sometliiug invaluable. The thought of
being consciously shallow or trivial, if only for a single
1 Glasenapp, I. pp. 74, 75.
60 EONIGSBERG AND RIGA
bar, was terrible to me. With great enthusiasm I con-
tinued to compose during tlie winter, so that in the
spring of 1839 the first two long acts were done. About
this time my contract with the theatre-director came to
an end, and special circumstances made it undesirable for
me to stay any longer at Eiga."
These " circumstances " were of a disagreeable nature,
and they were partly his fault, partly his misfortune.
It was his misfortune that the failure at Magdeburg of
his Novice of Palermo, in which he had risked his own
and borrowed money, had left him saddled with debts
which he had been unable to liquidate with his small
salary at Konigsberg. It was his fault, in part at least,
that these debts continued to grow during his sojourn
at Riga. The plain fact is that Wagner had more than
the usual share of improvidence allotted to men of
genius, and his aristocratic tastes and habits led him
into many expenditures which he could have avoided.
He lived, while at Riga, with his wife and one of her
sisters, in an expensive suburb of the city, which com-
pelled him to pay two or three times a day the cab-fare
between his house and the theatre. His wife, still an
actress, in which capacity she had shown considerable
talent, had not yet developed the gift of economy which
subsequently distinguished her; and that she did not
bring her husband a penny of dowry may be inferred from
the fact that she was the daughter of a poor spindle-
maker who had eleven other children.
An interesting draught of a letter of this period has
been preserved ^ in which Wagner's desperate situation
is vividly painted by himself. It seems that the manager
1 Frankfurter Zeitung, Jan. 5, 1888.
TWO ACTS OF RIENZI 61
of the opera had discharged an assistant conductor,
whose duty it was to rehearse and bring out minor operas
and operettas. On hearing this, Wagner wrote to one
of the regisseurs, offering to do this man's work for a
slight advance in his salary. He recalled the circum-
stance that Manager Holtei, on securing him as first
conductor, had mentioned the previous engagement of an
assistant conductor as a reason why he could not offer
him the full salary of a thousand silver rubles, which
his predecessor had obtained. The conclusion of this
letter is one of those mixtures of pathos, irony, self-
confidence, and humor so characteristic of Wagner : —
"I offer to do everjthing I can ; I am willing to work for the
theatre day and night, to undertake any responsibility I can carry
out, willing to orchestrate whole operatic scores ; but in return for
this I also wish to be rescued from my present predicament ; I owe
that to myself and my position. ...
" To sum up, briefly and concisely, my dear sir, I beg you to
remit entirely the advance made me on my salary (excepting of
course the thirty rubles which I last obtained of you, and five of
which are to be deducted on every pay-day), and offer in return
for this to undertake anything you may wish to charge me with,
excepting boot-blacking and water-carrying, tohich latter my chest
could not endure at present ; but I loould even copy music did I not
fear from such a melancholy occupation a despondent turn of my
temperament.
"The opportunity to help me is present, and I am convinced
you will seize on it joyfully, were it only in order that posterity
might some day be able to say of you, ' He was the man who,'
^^^- ' ^^^' " Your most devoted
"Richard Wagner."
What result, if any, this letter may have had, is not
known. Shortly thereafter Holtei gave up the director-
62 KONIGSBERG AND RIGA
ship of the Eiga theatre, and his successor, a tenor
named Hoffmann, apparently had no use for Wagner,
whose pecuniary embarrassments had, moreover, reached
a stage which made life in Riga unbearable. For two
years he had been cherisliing a plan to go to Paris, which
was then reputed the musical centre of the world, to seek
his fortune there with his operas. This plan he was now
ready to carry out. But when he tried to leave Riga he
found that this was not so easy as he had fancied. His
creditors had invoked the courts for assistance in collect-
ing their dues, and when he applied for a pass he was
informed that he could have one as soon as he brought
proofs that his debts had been paid.
A ROMANTIC EPISODE
Wagner's trip from Riga to Pillau and thence by sail-
ing-vessel to England has always been looked upon as
one of the most interesting events in his life ; but there
is more romance in it than previous biographers have
revealed.^ When Wagner realized that he could not
leave Riga openly, he resolved to do so secretly. To him
it seemed as absurd then as it does to us now that he
should be prevented from carrying out his grand operatic
plans by a handful of debts. His wife was initiated
into the secret plot, and one day she disguised herself as
the wife of a lumberman and was taken by him as such
across the Russian boundary into Germany. Wagner
soon followed, assisted, it seems, by his theatrical friends,
who advanced him a few months' salary to enable him to
1 The documents on which the following narrative is hased are the
articles in the Frankfurter Zeitung, above referred to, and .Dorn's
Ergehnisse aus Erlehnissen (1877, pp. 161-165).
A ROMANTIC EPISODE 63
escape his importunate creditors. He disguised himself
as well as he could, but at that time it was not easy to
pass the Eussian boundary. "The boundary line," says
Dorn, "was almost hermetically closed; every thousand
yards there was a sentry box, in which a Cossack held
guard, if he did not happen to be inspecting his territory ;
besides this, there was a patrol of pickets to watch the
giuirds themselves." A Konigsberg friend of Wagner's,
Abraham Moller, had made careful prej^arations to facili-
tate his flight. He had found means to secure one of the
sentry boxes as a refuge for him while its owner was
on his tour of inspection ; and a way was also found of
keeping the pickets out of sight for the time being. Four
days later Wagner was safely looking, from his window
in the Arnau tavern, on Konigsberg, one mile away;
but fear of meeting any of his creditors there kept him
from entering that city. After a brief rest, his friend
Moller saw him safely to the seaport of Pillau, where
he met his wife and dog, and together they embarked on
a small and frail vessel for Paris and the Grand Opera,
via London.
It was a bold, almost reckless, undertaking for an
impecunious artist to leave his native country, where at
least lie was sure of his daily bread, and plunge into the
terrible wilderness of an unknown city. What others
thought of Wagner's expedition may be inferred from
this passage in Strodtmann's Life of the poet Heine : —
" Laube, who had been introduced by Heine to all French authors
of repute and talent, made him in turn acquainted with Kichard
Wagner, who had carried out the bold plan of going, as an un-
known musician, witli a wife, an opera and a half, a small purse,
and a terribly large and terribly voracious Newfoundland dog, from
64 KONIGSBERG AND RIGA
Eiga to London on a sailing-vessel, 'and from London to Paris, in
the hope of winning there gold and fame : in Paris, where half
Europe competes noisily for notoriety, where everything must be
sold and certainly paid for, however meritorious it be, if it expects
to get into the market and obtain recognition. Heine folded his
hands devoutly at this confidence of a German artist. And Wag-
ner was to find out soon enough how little chance he had, notwith-
standing Meyerbeer's warm recommendations, to bring out one of
his operas in Paris."
FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
A STORSIY SEA-VOYAGE
Wagner himself was too sanguine to feel any doubts
as to his expedition. He felt capable of producing great
thinars and therefore believed that all he needed to do
was to go to a city where great things were appreciated
to be welcomed immediately. So he went on board the
sailing-vessel Avith a light heart, " a wife, a small purse,
and an enormous Newfoundland dog." This trip is inter-
esting, not only as a biographic event, but because it
proved of the greatest artistic value to Wagner by pro-
viding him with the " local color " for both the poetry
and the music of the Flying Dutchman. Before leaving
Riga he had already become acquainted with this legend,
through Heine's version of it, and many realistic details
were added by the tales of the sailors and the rough
experiences of the voyage, concerning which he wrote : —
" This voyage will never fade from my memory ; it lasted three
weeks and a half and was full of adventures. Three times we
were overtaken by violent storms, and once the captain was com-
pelled to seek safety in a Norwegian harbor. The passage through
the Norwegian fjords i made a wondrous impression on my fancy ;
1 Praeger gives this further detail regarding this journey: "The
three passengers, Richard Wagner, his wife, and dog, were miserably
ill. On one occasion the bark was driven into a Norwegian fjord : tlie
crew and its passengers — there were no otliers on board beside the
Wagner trio — landed at a point where an old mill stood. The poor
65
66 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
the legend of the flying Dutchman, as I heard it confirmed by the
sailors, acquired a definite, peculiar color, which only my adven-
tures at sea could have given it. To recover from the extremely
fatiguing trip, we remained a week in London, where nothing
interested me so much as the city itself and the Houses of Parlia-
ment, — of the theatres I did not visit one."
Here he came near losing one of his few possessions.
While living at a boarding-house in Great Compton
Street, Soho, his beloved dog disappeared one day ; fortu-
nately he turned up again two days later, " to his master's
frantic joy."^
London was too expensive a place for one whose purse
was as lean as Wagner's; so, after the expiration of a
week, he took his wife and his dog across the Channel to
Boulogne. Now, this French town was not a cheap
place either, having been a famous seaside resort even
in those days. But Wagner was not only willing to-
deplete his purse here for another week, he actually
remained four weeks, and the reason of this was that the
wretches, snatched from the jaws of death, were hospitably received
hy the owner, a poor man. He produced his only bottle of rum and
struck joy into all their hearts by brewing a bowl of punch. It was
evidently appreciated by the hapless ship's company, as Wagner was
hilarious when he spoke of what he humorously called his ' Adventures
at the Champagne Mill.' When tbe weather h.ad cleared sufficiently,
the ship set sail for London and arrived without any further mishap."
1 Mr. Daunreuther, who relates this incident (Grove's Dictionary of
Music and Musiciaiis, IV. p. 350), adds: "Wagner's accurate memory
for localities was puzzled when he wandered about Soho with the writer
in 1877 and failed to find the old house. Mr. J. Cyriax, who has zeal-
ously traced every step of Wagner's in London, 18.3it, '55, and '77, states
that the premises have been pulled down." Details regarding Wagner's
first sojourn in London, the loss of his dog and his hardly less-beloved
siiuff-'.iox (which fell out of his pocket when he was boarding a ship, —
and lie almost fell in, too, in his attempt to rescue it), together with
his impressions of London and opinions of the English, may be found
in Praeger's book, Chap. VII.
A STORMY SEA-VOYAGE 67
one man who could best help him along in Paris was
spending the summer in Boulogne. This man was Meyer-
beer, who received him in the most amiable manner,
examined the manuscript of the two acts of Rienzi, and
promised to do all he could for him in Paris. ^ He gave
him letters of introduction to the publisher Schlesinger,
who subsequently proved a useful friend, to the directors
of tlie Op^ra and the Theatre de la Kenaissance, and to
Habeneck, conductor of the Conservatory concerts. Pro-
vided with these, and with an almost empty purse, but
full of hope, he entered Paris, "the illimitable city of
splendor and squalor," as he described it in one of his
newspaper letters.
It was a curious coincidence, and seemed a good omen,
that he who was destined to become Germany's greatest
dramatic composer found lodging in a house adorned with
a bust indicating that Moliere was born under that roof.
But if, as a writer on Moliere has remarked. Prance's
own greatest dramatist had to complain of a "general
conspiracy of all authors against himself," what right
had Wagner, unknown and a foreigner, to expect better
treatment at the hands of the Prench? For two years
1 Praeger (p. 80) writes: "Indeed, Meyerbeer expressed himself so
strongly on the libretto as to request Scribe to write one for him in
imitation of it. When talking over this incident with me, Wagner said
that he believed Meyerbeer's lavish praise of the book was uttered
partly with a view to its purchase, but that Wagner's enthusiasm for
his own work prevented Meyerbeer from making a direct offer. . . .
Wagner saiil he believed Meyerljeer's laudation of the music was per-
fectly sincere ; ' for,' he cynically added, ' the first two acts are just the
very part of the opera which please me least, and which I should like
todisowii.' " The resultof Meyerbeer's encouraging criticisms was that
Wagner took Minna to a restaurant and ordered his favorite beverage,
champagne, althou.i;h he could afford only a pint bottle. "To Wag-
ner," says Praeger, "champagne represented the perfection of ' terres-
trial enjoyment,' as he often phrased it."
68 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
and a half — from September, 1839, to April, 1842 — he
lived in Paris, and these three winters and two summers
in the French capital may be described as a period of
poverty, hopeless struggle for fame, and an almost unin-
terrupted series of disappointments. Let us briefly con-
sider these disappointments, numbering them so as to
get their cumulative impression on their victim.
A SERIES OF DISAPPOINTMENTS
First Disappointment. — The letter of recommendation
to Habeneck, which Meyerbeer had given Wagner, had
the good result of giving him free access to all the rehear-
sals of the famous Conservatoire orchestra. Here he
heard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony once more, and under
the inspiration of it he wrote his Faust overture, of which
more will be said in a later chapter. A further stimulus
was given him by the efforts of Schlesinger to secure a
performance of this overture at the Conservatory concerts
and Habeneck' s apparent consent. An item actually
appeared in Schlesinger 's paper, the Gazette Musicale,
stating that " an overture by a remarkably talented young
German composer, M. Wagner, has just been rehearsed
by the Conservatory orchestra, and received with general
applause. We hope soon to hear this work, and to give
an account of it." The truth, however, was that the
directors had declared the overture " a long enigma " and
decided not to play it.^ It is true, the same impression
had been made at first on Habeneck and his musicians
by the very symphony of Beethoven's, the clear and fin-
ished performance of which Wagner now admired so
1 A. Jullien, if. Wagner : Sa Vie et ses CEuvres, p. 28.
A SERIES OF DISAPPOINTMENTS 69
much. But Habeneck had kept on rehearsing it during
a second and a third winter, until every detail was intel-
ligible. It did not occur to him that the same method
might have the same results with Wagner's overture, for
musicians never learn by experience. So Wagner had to
suffer the pangs not only of a refusal after trial, but of
disappointed hopes based on the possible consequences
of a successful debut at a concert of the leading institu-
tion in Paris. ^
The Second Disappointment was the failure of the
Renaissance theatre, just on the eve of the performance
of the Novice of Palermo, as related in a previous chapter.
Wagner had already lost his artistic interest in this trivial
work, but its performance would perhaps have paved his
way to the Grand Opera, and it would also have flattered
his vanity to have the news go across the Rhine that an
opera of his which had failed at a German provincial
theatre had proved a success in the musical centre of the
world. But he was not fated to have his vanity flattered
in any such way at Paris.
Tliird Disapjyointment. — Another opportunity to appear
before the public as a composer was apparently given by
the performance of a play by Dumas, arranged as an opera
by riotow in behalf of Polish fugitives in Paris. It
occurred to Wagner that his overture Polonia might make
1 JuUien (I.e. pp. 27, 28) makes the curious error of stating that
WaKuer intended to write an opera based on Goethe's Faust, and
consequently holds the short-sit^hted Conservatory authorities responsi-
ble for the loss of such an opera to the world by discouraging it at the
beginning. The truth of the matter is made clear by Wagner in the
fourth volume of his Ocsammelte Schriften (p. 322), where he speaks
of "the rapid conception and equally rapid execution of an orchestral
piece which I called an overture to Goethe's Faust, but which in reality
was to form the first movement of a grand Faust symphony."
70 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
an acceptable and appropriate addition to the programme,
so lie took his only copy of the score — he was very care-
less about his manuscripts in those days — to the leader
of the orchestra at the Kenaissance, M. Duvinage, who
promised to examine it, but did not produce it. Wagner
left Paris without calling for his score, and he never
heard of it again until forty years later, when, after a
series of romantic escapes from paper-baskets, it got into
the hands of the conductor Pasdeloup, and thus back to
Wagner, who had it performed in Palermo on his wife's
birthday, two years before his death. ^ Hdbent sua fata
Uhella!
Fourth Disappointment. — Another way in which Wag-
ner tried to get before the public and earn bread and
butter for his family — reduced by the loss of the dog,
who had been stolen, to his owner's great grief — was by
composing romances to French words, in the hope that
they would be sung in the salons, and there perhaps
attract the attention of some manager, who might, in
consequence, order an opera of their author. Flimsy
castles in the air! That no one wanted his music to
Heine's Tioo Grenadiers is not so surprising, for it is not
one of his better efforts ; but that his charming settings
of Victor Hugo's IJAttente, Ronsard's Mignonne, and the
cradle song Dors, mon Enfant, should have found neither
singer to introduce them, nor publisher to print them, is
strange — or rather is not strange, considering Parisian
taste of that tiine. As a last resort, Wagner offered them
to the editor Lewald for his periodical Europa (in which
the three last-named pieces subsequently appeared),
1 The interesting details of this story will be found in Jullien (pp.
28, 29).
A SERIES OF DISAPPOINTMENTS 71
accompanying his offer with the following comments,
which throw a lurid liglit on his situation : —
"I take the liberty to send you three songs for Europa. You
write that, on demand, you will pay from five to nine florins for a
piece [§2.50 to $4]. As life in Paris is uncommonly expensive, I
hope you will kindly consent to allow me the maximum, — per-
haps you may even agree to add a florin in view of the extremely
elegant copy." He goes on to beg that the pieces may be printed
soon, as he needs the money : " Only a rogue would pretend to be
what he is not : to such straits have they reduced me here."
A still deeper and more pathetic insight into his
unfortunate situation is given by some jottings made in
his diary at this time.^ Thus he writes, under date of
June 23, 1840 : —
" In these dark days I'am beginning to feel more and more deeply
the necessity of keeping a regular diary. I hope that the writing
dovyn of my prevailing moods, and the reflections springing from
them, will afford me relief, as tears do to a heart oppressed. Tears
have come into my eyes unbidden this moment ; is it a proof of
cowardice or of unhappiness to yield willingly to tears? A young
German journeyman was here ; he was in poor health, and I bade
him come again for his breakfast. Minna took the occasion to
remind me that she was about to send away our last pennies for
bread. You poor woman ! Right you are ; our situation is a sad
one, and if I reflect on it, I can foresee with certainty that the great-
est conceivable misery is in store for us ; an accident only can
bring improvement ; for an accident I must almost consider the
contingency of being helped by others voluntarily and without any
personal interest ; this last hope would be humiliating if I were
convinced that I could expect nothing but alms ; fortunately I am
compelled to assume that men like Meyerbeer and Laube would
not lielp me unless they believed that I deserved help. Weakness,
caprice, and accident may, however, still intervene and estrange
1 Priiited iu IJer ZeiU/eist, Nus. 18-20, 188C.
72 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
these persons from me. That is a terrible thought ; and this doubt
and the uncertainty regarding their good will is painful and
sickens my heart."
On June 29 we find this entry in the diary : —
" How this is to come out next month I do not know ; my
fears are turning to despair. I have now indeed an opportunity to
earn a trifle by writing articles for the Gazette Musicale ; I shall
also send articles to Lewald in Stuttgart for Europa, to see if I
can make some money that way. Yet in the most favorable case
I cannot avoid being crushed by what is impending at this moment.
Twenty-five fi-ancs is all I have left. With this I am expected to
pay on the first a bill of exchange for 150 francs, and on the
fifteenth my quarterly rent is due. All fountains are dry. From
my poor wife I am still concealing the pass at which we have
arrived ; I constantly hoped Laube would send something ; I
would then have told her how, without him, we could have had
nothing to count upon, and how I had kept it secret from her, so
as not to add to the cares which have already shaken her constitu-
tion. But now I fear this will be impossible. On the first I shall
have to reveal the secret. The Lord help us ! that will be a terrible
day, unless assistance arrives."
Praeger relates (85) that —
' ' after one more wretched day than the last, he suggested to
Minna the raising of temporary loans upon her trinkets. Let the
reader try and realize the proud Wagner's misery and anguish
when Minna confessed that such as she had were already so dis-
posed of. . . . It was then, in this hour of tribulation, that the
golden qualities of Minna were proved. . . . The hitherto quiet
and gentle housewife was transformed into a heroine. . . .
Thoughts of what the self-denying devoted little woman did then
have many a time brought tears to Wagner's eyes. The most
menial house duties were performed by her with willing cheerful-
ness. She cleaned the house, stood at the wash-tub, did the
mending and the cooking. She hid from her husband as much of
the discomforts attaching to their poor home as was possible. She
A SERIES OF DISAPPOINTMENTS 73
never complained, and always strove to present a bright, cheerful
face, consoling and upholding him at all times. In the evening
she and his dog, the same that was temporarily lost in London,
were his regular companions on the boulevards."
Fijlh Disappointment. — Temporary assistance may have
arrived, for Wagner writes elsewhere that he did not
know till he came to Paris the full meaning of the word
"friendship," but his efforts to help himself by keeping
in his proper sphere as composer continued to be failures.
Humbled by his ill luck, and urged on by the pressure of
debts, he actually undertook the task of writing the
music of an ordinary carnival vaudeville : " but in this,
too, I was frustrated," he writes, "by the jealousy of a
musical money-maker " ; and JuUien records that " at the
first rehearsals the actors declared that his music could
not be executed, so it had to be given up."
Sixth Disajypointmeyit. — As a composer he could not
descend any lower than this ; and as he had never acquired
mechanical dexterity on an instrument, he could not apply
for a place in an orchestra. But he had a voice, and the
thought occurred to, him that he might perhaps get a
place as chorus singer in a small Boulevard theatre. " I
came out of this," he Avrites, "worse than Berlioz did
when he found himself in a similar predicament. The
leader of the orchestra, who had to examine me, discov-
ered at once that I could not sing at all, and that he had
no use for me."
The fact of the future composer of the Nibelung Trilogy
and Parsifal being found unfit to sing in the chorus of a
second-rate Boulevard theatre is perhaps as comic as any
incident in the whole history of music. But it has its
pathetic side in showing to what extremities a series of
74 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
disap25ointments had reduced a man of geniiis at the time
when he was already capable of writing such an inspired
opera as the Flying Dutchman, and the no less remarkable
literary sketches, essays, and criticisms, to which refer-
ence will presently be made.
Seventh Disojipointmeiit. — When Wagner left Riga for
Paris with two acts of Rienzi in his trunk, he doubtless
had sanguine visions of soon seeing this opera in the
gorgeous scenic attire which the Paris Opera alone at that
time could have afforded to give it, and sung by the fore-
most European artists. Having arrived in Paris, —
"I at first put my half-finished Rienzi aside," he writes (IV.
321), "and endeavored in every way to make acquaintances in
the world-city. For this, however, I lacked the requisite personal
qualities : of tlie French language, to which I felt an instinctive
aversion, I had ac(juired only a superficial knowledge for every-
day use. I felt not the least inclination to assimilate the traits of
the French, hut I flattered myself with the hope of being able to
approach them in my own way. I credited music, the world-lan-
guage, with the power of bridging an abyss between me and the
Parisians, as to the existence of which my feelings did not deceive
me. — When I attended the brilliant performances at the Grand
Opfira, which was not often [for good reasons], I was overcome by
a voluptuous feeling which formed in my heated imagination the
wish, the hope, yes, even the certainty, of being able to triumph
here some day : this external splendor, applied to the uses of artis-
tic inspiration, appeared to me the culminating point of art, and I
did not feel at all incapable of reaching this point."
The discovery that it would take years of skilful
manoeuvring and intriguing to get Rienzi performed at
the Grand Opera was, however, one of the first of his
disappointing experiences in Paris. He did indeed com-
plete the score during his residence in that city, but it
A SERIES OF DISAPPOINTMENTS 75
was with a view to its performance in a German theatre.
A change for the better seemed imminent, when IMeyer-
beer, who unfortunately had been absent from Paris most
of this time, returned. He was the only one of the great
musicians in Paris that took an interest in Wagner,
whose acquaintance with French composers and others ^
led to no tangible results, as they all seemed too miich
taken up with their own affairs to look after struggling
young composers. Not so Meyerbeer, who at once in-
quired after the fate of his protege, and, finding him in
such desperate straits, took him to Leon Pillet, tlie direc-
tor of the Grand Opera, with a view of securing for him
an order to compose a short opera in two or three acts.
The subject was already at hand, namely, the story of the
Flying Dutchman, which had haunted Wagner ever since
his sea-voyage. He made an arrangement with Heine
for the use of those features in the story which were
added by him, and having made a sketch of the plot, he
handed it to Leon Pillet with the request to have it
worked up into a libretto in French verse.
1 Among Wagner's famous acquaintances in Paris were Berlioz,
Hale'vy, Scribe, Vieuxtemps, and tlie Germans Kietz, Laul)e, and Heine.
Auber he appears not to have met on this first visit, although he ad-
mired his operas, and on one occasion came near losing his only source
of income by writing an article for the Gazette ifiisiatle, extolling
Auber and chiding the French for their partiality to Donizetti and Ros-
sini. The editor refused to pul)lish tliis article against the idols of the
day, and told Wagner to "leave i)olitics(!) alone." It would have
been interesting to know Heine's opinion of Wagner, but he had no
opportunity to hear his music. Theodore Hagen relates that Heine
once said to him, "Do you know what I find suspicious about Wagner?
Tlie fact tliat Meyerlieer recommends him." To Laubc, Heine once
remarked: "I cannot help feeling a lively interest in Wagner. He is
endowed with an inexhaustible, productive mind, kept in constant
activity by a lively temperament. From an individuality so replete
with modern culture we may expect the development of a solid and
powerful modern music."
76 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
So far matters had progressed when Meyerbeer once
more left Paris. Not long thereafter Wagner was as-
tounded to hear from M. Pillet that he liked his sketch
and wished him to let him have it for another composer
to whom he had promised a libretto some time before !
The director added that Wagner would no doubt be the
more willing to agree to this arrangement as he could
give him no hope of bringing out his own opera before
the expiration of four years, and in the meantime he could
easily find another subject for it ! Wagner was naturally
indignant at this offer and refused to accept it, hoping
for the return of Meyerbeer to set matters right again.
In the spring he left the city to live at Meudon, and
there he heard one day that M. Pillet had actually gone
so far, without his consent, as to give his Flying Dutch-
man sketch into the hands of the poet Paul Pouch^, to
be made into a libretto for that "other composer," wlio
proved to be a man named Dietsch. Fearing that, under
some pretext or other, he might lose his rights to his
sketch altogether, Wagner at last agreed to sell it for five
hundred francs. He had his revenge, however; for the
Vaisseau Fantdme, in a version differing greatly from his
own plan, and with music by Dietsch, proved a failure,
and was shelved after eleven performances. M. Dietsch
was doubtless convinced that the cause of his failure was
Wagner's sketch; and he, too, had his "revenge" eigh-
teen years later, when he was conductor at the Grand
Opera, as we shall see when we come to the romantic
story of Tannhmiser in Paris.
Meyerbeer's efforts to help along Wagner were in every
case so fruitless — and Meyerbeer was a very influential
man at that time — that there is some justification for
LOSS OF THE COLUMBUS OVERTURE 77
doubt as to whether he was really sincere in his at-
tempts to assist him. Mr. Dannreuther remarks on this
point :^ —
"What did Meyerbeer do by way of patronage? He wrote a
letter introducing Wagner to M. Fillet, fully aware that there was
not a ghost of a chance for an unknown German at the OpSra.
To foist Wagner, with his Liebesverbot, upon Antenor Joly and the
Theatre de la Renaissance was, in the eyes of Parisians, little bet-
ter than a practical joke ; twice or thrice in the year that rotten
concern had failed and risen again : ' mon theatre est mort, vive
mon theatre,' was M. Joly's motto. Meyerbeer introduced Wag-
ner to his publisher, Schlesinger. And this is all that came to pass
at Paris — unless the fact be taken into account that Scribe imi-
tated an important scene from Bienzi in Le Frophete without
acknowledgment. ' '
LOSS OF THE COLUMBUS OVERTURE
The letter of introduction to Schlesinger, on the other
hand, proved of the greatest utility to Wagner, wlio
might have literally starved while composing his first two
great operas — Rienzi and the Flying Ihitchman — had it
not been for the employment given him by the publisher
Schlesinger in the arrangement of music for various in-
struments and in writing articles for his musical paper.
Schlesinger was even the means of bringing about Wag-
ner's one opportunity of appearing as a composer before
a Parisian audience. At a concert given for the subscri-
bers to his paper, the Gazette Musicale, he placed at the
liead of the programme the Columbus overture, which
Wagner had written at the age of twenty -two, — a piece
of which Laube has remarked tliat it showed its composer
undecided as to whether he should follow Beethoven oi-
1 Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musiciant, Vol. IV. p. 358.
78 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
Bellini, and which accordingly made an impression some-
what like a Hegelian essay written in the style of Heine.
A French critic, Henri Blanchard, discussing its perfor-
mance in Paris, put the question whether Wagner in-
tended to represent the infinity of the ocean, the horizon
that seemed endless to the companions of Columbus, by
means of the tremolos on the high notes of the violins.
He found that the brass was used too frequently, yet the
overture seemed to be "the work of an artist having
grand, definite ideas and well acquainted with the re-
sources of modern instrumentation."
This performance also was the occasion of Wagner's
being once more, after a long interval, brought to the
notice of his countrymen. The Leipzig Neue Zeitschrift
fur Musik, edited by Schumann, had this notice : —
"At the ninth concert which Herr Schlesinger gave to his sub-
scribers, on Feb. 4, there was performed, among other things, an
overture by Richard Wagner, a Saxon, if we are not mistaken, who
seemed to have disappeared from the musical world, but who, we
are glad to see, is showing himself active again."
In short, the reception of this overture was sufficiently
favorable to prompt its author to send it to Jullien in
London with a request to have it performed at a prome-
nade concert. Jullien, however, returned the manuscript,
and when it was brought back, Wagner had not money
enough to pay the cost of transportation from London to
Paris. The package consequently remained in the hands
of the company, and was probably sold as waste-paper.
At least, all the later efforts of Wagner's friends to trace
it proved futile.^
1 These details were given by Wagner himself to a friend of JuUien's
who first recorded them. A few further details are given by Praeger,
p. 03.
MUSICAL DRUDGERY 79
Thus, even the one apparent exception to Wagner's
Parisian disappointments proved a misfortune in the end;
for although the Columbus overture, which represents
the great navigator previously to the discovery of America
and at the moment when land was first espied, was not
one of his most valuable compositions, it would have
been of extreme interest as a curiosity, especially during
the Columbus Centennial celebrations.
jrUSICAL DEUDGERY
The employment which Schlesinger gave Wagner —
proof-reading and arranging popular melodies and operas
for the piano and other instruments, including even the
vulgar cornet-a-piston. — was not at all to the taste of the
ambitious young genius who longed to give all his time
to creative work; but under the circumstances it was a
godsend, without which he would have been crushed by
his poverty, which gradually became so oppressive that,
as he wrote to Liszt some years later, he was sometimes
tempted by his em2:)ty stomach to commit a crime.
Among the arrangements made at this time, one deserves
to be mentioned in full, because it places in curious jux-
taposition the creator of the music-drama with the chief
perpetrator of the now almost obsolete prima-donna
operas: "ia Favorite, opera in four acts by Scribe,
German version by A. Wagner. Music by G. Donizetti.
Complete pianoforte score with German and French text,
by Kichard Wagner. Berlin: Schlesinger."
A few years previously, the arrangement of this kind
of music would have been less irksome to the future com-
poser of Parsifal — in 1S;3.5, for instance, when he wrote
80 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
an article on Bellini entitled " A Word in Time " ^ in
whicli lie lauded Bellini and vocal melodj'- at the expense
of German opera-composers, and expressed sentiments
directly opposed to those which his more mature judg-
ment began to approve about this time. The final impulse
which induced him to retrace his " Step Backward " from
Beethoven to Bellini was his observation of the methods
of famous Italian singers at the Grand Opera. Here he
could see plainly that operas were popular in proportion
as they gave the singers opportunities for brilliant dis-
plays of technical skill, while singers were popular in
proportion to their lack of conscience in tickling the
public's ears with these meaningless feats of virtuosity,
regardless of dramatic truth. The singer was everything:
the composer and his work nothing. His Parisian cor-
respondence to German papers is full of sarcastic refer-
ences to this class of singers — and hearers ; and in one
of the essays included in his Gesammelte Sdiriften (Vol.
I. pp. 207-222) entitled '' the Virtuoso and the Artist "
he gives a most amusing account of a performance at the
Opera of Mozart's Don Juan, a work which obviously
discommoded the singers and bored the audience. Yet
the house was crowded, and every one seemed on the tip-
toe of expectation: and why? Because on this evening
Mubini sang his famous trill on A and B.
" Rubini did not become truly divine until he got on to his B ;
that he had to get onto if an evening at the Italian opera was to
have any object. Now, just as a circus-tumbler balances himself on
his board before he jumps, so Rubini stands on his F for three bars,
swells it for two bars cautiously but irresistibly, but on the third
1 In the Rigaer Zuschauer. Reprinted in Kiirschner's Wagner
Jahrbuch, 1886. p. 381.
STOBIES AND ESSAYS 81
bar he seizes the trill of the violins on the A, sings it with increas-
ing vehemence, jumps up, on the fourth, to the B, as if it were the
easiest thing in the world, and then, before everybody's eyes,
executes a brilliant roulade and plunges down into silence. That
was the end ; anything else might happen now, no matter what.
All the demons were unchained, not on the stage, as at the end of
the opera, but in the auditorium. The riddle was solved : it was
to hear this feat that the audience had assembled, had, for two
hours, put up with the absence of all the accustomed operatic
delicatessen, had pardoned Grisi and Lablache for taking this music
seriously, and were now divinely rewarded by the success of this
one wonderful moment when Rubini jumped up onto his B."
STOKIES AND ESSAYS
This essay, in which Wagner shows so vividly how the
opera in Paris had sunk to the level of the circus, —
appealing to the sense of astonishment at feats of mechan-
ical skill instead of to the aesthetic and dramatic sense,
— is by no means his only literary effort of this period
which proves that Laube Avas quite right when he wrote
in 1843, by way of prefacing the publication of Wagner's
Aiitobiographic Sketch, that the Parisian experiences had
also made of the musician an author whose *' copy " could
not be improved by "editing." The literary products
of these years which Wagner deemed good enough, in
1871, to reprint in his Collected Works, include two
novelettes: A Pilgrimage to Beethoven, An End in Paris;
a dialogue on the nature of music, entitled A Hajypy
Evening; and essays on Music in Germany, The Virtuoso
and the Artist, The Artist and Publicity, Rossini's Stab((f
Mater, On the Overture; besides two essays on the ]icr-
formauce of the Freischiitz, one being intended for French
readers, tlie other for Germans, and an Account of a Neiv
Parisian Opera, Halevy's Reine de Chypre.
82 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
Although these articles appeared in a French paper,
The Gazette Musicale, Wagner wrote them in German, as
he did not have the gift of his friends Heine and Liszt
of writing equally well in these two languages. Of the
first two on the above list the original German has been
preserved; the others were re-translated by Wagner's
second wife, Cosima, daughter of Liszt. The articles on
musical life in Paris which he wrote for several German
papers — the Dresdener Abendzeitung, Lewald's Europa,
and Schumann's Neue Zeitsclirift (which printed the
amusing article on Rossini's Stabat Mater), — were ex-
cluded by him from the Gesammelte Schriften.^
TRUTH IN FICTION. — PERSONAL REVELATIONS
If Goethe gave his autobiography the title of Truth
and Fiction, Wagner conversely might have called his
Paris sketches Autobiographic Novelettes and Essays ; for
no one who is at all familiar with his adventures in Paris
can fail constantly to read between the lines of these
articles their author's own experiences and aspirations.
The Pilgrimage to Beethoven begins with a sarcastic
invocation to Poverty and Care, his constant companions,
who have always kindly protected him from the oppres-
sive sunlight of fortune. Then follows a genuine auto-
biographic touch : —
" A medium-sized town of Central Germany was my birthplace.
I do not recall clearly what I was intended to become, but I
remember that one evening I heard a Beethoven symphony for the
first time, that I had an attack of fever thereafter, and that, when
I had recovered, I had become a musician. This may explain
1 Some of these are reprinted, with notes, in Kiirschner's Wagner
Jahrbuch, 1886, pp. 273-286.
TRUTH IN FICTION 83
why, although in course of time I became familiar with other
beautiful music, I still loved aud worshipped Beethoven above all.
I ceased to know any other pleasure but that of immersing myself
in the deeps of his genius until I came to imagine myself to be a
part of him, and as this smallest part I began to respect myself,
to adopt nobler views and ideals ; in short, I became what wise
people commonly call a fool."
This enthusiasm leads to the desire to go to Vienna,
solely to have the supreme pleasure of seeing the great
master. To earn the necessary money he writes sonatas,
but gets laughed at for his pains, and finally he is obliged
to degrade himself by writing galops and operatic arrange-
ments, which at last leads to his goal. His adventures on
the Avay with a band of strolling Bohemian musicians and
with an eccentric Englishman cannot be related here for
lack of space. But the following remarks on the opera,
which he takes the liberty to put in the mouth of
Beethoven, are very interesting as showing that the com-
poser of Rienzi w\is at the age of twenty-seven already
quite clear in his mind regarding some of the essential
features of the modern music-drama : —
" 'Annoying labor ! ' exclaimed Beethoven (with reference to the
revision of his Fidelio to make it more palatable to opera-goers of
his day) : ' I am not an opera-composer, at least know no theatre
for which I would care to write another opera ! If I were to write
an opera after my own mind, people would run away ; for they
would find in it none of the ai'ias, duets, terzets, and all the stuff
with which people at present make up an operatic patch-work ; and
what I would write in their place no vocalist would want to sing, no
auditor to hear. The only thing they know is glittering unreality,
brilliant nonsense, and sugar-coated tediousness. Were any one to
write a true nmsic-drama, he would be considered a fool, and would
indeed be one if he did not make it for himself alone, but tried to
bring it before the public' "
84 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
No artist has ever so strikingly foreseen and prophesied
his whole career as Wagner did his own in these words,
which were penned between the composition of Rienzi
and the Flying Dutchman, in this first novelette, of which
Jullien says that it struck its Parisian readers so much
" by its mixture of poetry and raillery, of enthusiasm and
bitterness, that Berlioz, a good critic in such matters,
considered it worth while to insert a special notice of it
in the Journal des Debats.'^ Indeed, it is not too much
to say that Heine himself, in his letters from Paris, did
not use a better literary style, or keener wit and irony
— with the same sentimental undercurrent — than Wag-
ner did in some of his sketches, notably in those entitled
the Virtuoso and the Artist and Le Freischiitz, which are
admirable samples of sarcasm, persiflage, and artistic
insight.-^
In the second novelette, Ein Ende in Paris, the hero
is the same poor young musician who had gone to Vienna
to see Beethoven. He is now in Paris, with the determi-
nation to succeed or perish: " Li one year from now,'' he
tells his friend, *' you will he able to find out my residence
from every boy in the streets, or else yoxi ivill receive a notice
from me where you must go — to see me die."^ He goes
1 English versions of some of these novelettes and essays may be
found in Burlingame's Wagner's Art Life mid Theories.
2 Great as was Wagner's confidence in his own genius, he would have
been doubtless astounded could behave been foretold how very literally
this semi-autobiographic prophecy would be fulfilled half a century
later. The Paris Figaro of Sept. 17, 1891, gives an account of the
preparations made by the police to meet the 20,000 persons who were
expected to " demonstrate " on the occasion of the first performance of
Lohengrin at the Grand Opera. In the crowd was an old woman, well
known to all frequenters of the Boulevards, who was knocked down in
the rush. When she was picked up, she exclaimed, " What in the world
is going on here? " " Here was a person who did not know Wagner ! "
PERSONAL REVELATIONS 85
through the same stages as Wagner — tries honest ope-
ratic work; tries songs; degrades himself to the level
of the public by writing trivial dance music; but the
directors procrastinate their promises, artists have no
ear for him, the newspapers are ruled by cliques ; his
enemy even steals his dog, his only solace, for whom he
has saved all his crusts till he himself is thrown on his
death-bed by starvation. After the funeral, his friend
writes : —
" It was a sad affair. The keen wintry air choked the breath ;
no one could speak, and the funeral address was omitted. And
yet I must tell you that he whom we buried here was a good man, a
brave German musician. He had a kind heart and often wept lohen
he saw how the poor horses were tortured in the streets of Paris.
He was of a gentle disposition and never lost his temper when the
street urchins pushed him off the narrow sidewalks. Unfortunately
he had a tender conscience, was ambitious, had no talent for' intrigue,
and once had in his youth seen Beethoven, which turned his head
so completely that he could not possibly get along in Paris."
I have italicized two lines in the above extract, because
they call attention to two of the most prominent traits in
Wagner's character, — his love of animals and his inabil-
ity to further his own cause except in the most straight-
forward and stubbornly honest way, which made him so
many enemies among ignorant operatic managers, incom-
petent artists, and bloated critics.
" I had not considered," writes the friend of the dead musician,
"that I had to deal, not with one of those individuals whose per-
suasions are easily acquired and altered, but with a man whose faith
the Figaro writer concludes (" En voila une qui ne connait pas
Wagner"). Lohengrin was given .sixty-one times between Sept. IG,
1891, and Sept. IG, 1892, the receipts being over a million francs.
86 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
in the divine and indisputable truth of liis art had reached such a
degree of fanaticism that it imposed on a cliaracter that was natu-
rally most peaceful and tender an inflexibly stubborn aspect."
Another conspicuous trait, illustrated by Wagner himself.
IN THE WORKSHOP OP GENIUS
Into Wagner's inner life none of the essays of this
period affords a deeper insight than the one on The Artist
and Publicity. Especially remarkable, as showing the
natural affinity between the greatest musician and the
greatest philosopher of the nineteenth century, is the fol-
lowing sentence written by Wagner many years before
he became acquainted with Schopenhauer's writings, and
touching on one of the great pessimist's favorite topics
(see his chapter on "Genius," in the second volume of
his Welt als Wille und Vorstellnng) . "Happy the genius
on whom fortune has never smiled ! — Genius is so much
unto itself! What more could fortune add?" This
thought Wagner develops in another paragraph which
takes us into the very workshop of creative genius : —
" When I am alone, and the musical fibres within me vibrate,
and heterogeneous sounds form themselves into chords whence
at last springs the melody which reveals to me my inner self ; if
then the heart in loud beats marks the impetuous rhythms, and
rapture finds vent in divine tears through the mortal, no-longer-
seeing eyes — then do I often say to myself : What a fool you are
not to remain always by yourself, to live only for these unique
delights, instead of struggling to get before that horrible multitude
which is called the public, in order to get the absui-d permission to
continue the exercise of your talent for composing ! What can
this public, with its most brilliant reception, offer you to equal in
value even the one-hundredth part of that holy rapture which comes
from within ? "
THE LION SHOWS HIS CLAWS 87
Why, nevertheless, genius struggles for publicity, is
the question Wagner tries to answer in this essay, which
is very suggestive reading. Here I have room for only
one more passage, which, if I am not very much mis-
taken, depicts Wagner's own state of mind and his actions
when he was inspired with the plan of the Flying Dutch-
rfYian — the first opera in which he is really himself : —
" Happy the genius on whom fortune has never smiled. — Genius
is so much unto itself ! What more could fortune add ?
" That is what he says to himself, smiles, and laughs, and new
strength comes over him ; it dawns and grows : something new
resounds within him, morTfe clear and rapturous than ever, A work,
such as he himself had never dreamed of, grows and flourishes in
quiet solitude. This is it ! That is the right thing ! All the world
will surely be enchanted : hear it once and then — ! See how the
madman runs ! It is the old street, which now seems new and
delightful to him ; the mud bespatters him ; here he runs against a
lackey in full uniform, whom he mistakes for a general and gi-eets
respectfully ; there he collides with a no less worthy bank messenger,
with a well-filled money-bag on his shoulder, and comes off with a
bleeding nose. All these are good signs ! He runs and stumbles,
and finally arrives again in the sanctum of his miseiy I "
THE LION SHOWS HIS CLAWS
That a genius witli such a creative furor should not
have been allowed, during almost three years, to appear
more than once before the Parisian public — and even
then only with one of his most immature overtures ; that
he should have been kept from creative activity by the
necessity of making " potboilers " (musically : potpourris)
— in 1841, during nine months at a stretch, he had to giv(^
all his time to such "ignoble work," as he calls it — that
he had to borrow of friends, borrow his furniture, lose
88 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
his Columbus overture because he could not pay the
expressage on it; that, during all this time, his mind
was harassed by anxiety regarding to-morrow's bread and
the anguish of seeing his poor wife share all these sor-
rows, — surely this was enough to turn the most amiable
enthusiast into a sour misanthropist and a revolutionary.
"I now entered on a new path — that of revolt against the
present state of artistic life, with whose conditions I had
endeavored to make friendship when I sought its most
brilliant centre in Paris." It was this feeling of a nec-
essary revolt that (besides the pangs of hunger) had made
him seize the pen to write criticisms. When Schlesinger
first invited his young protege to write articles for his
paper (besides arranging scores and popular melodies), " it
was all the same to him," says Wagner, "but not to me.
While regarding that musical drudgery as my deepest
humiliation, I seized the literary pen to avenge myself
for that humiliation. ... In my novelettes I narrated
in a fictitious form, and with considerable humor, my own
experiences, especially in Paris, up to the death by star-
vation which I fortunately escaped. What I wrote was
in every line a cry of revolt against our modern art-life.
I have been repeatedly assured tliatthis afforded consid-
erable amusement."
Wagner has been often censured for his brusque and
polemic ways. But he was a peaceful and amiable man
in his youth (to his friends all his life) — a sleeping lion,
who might have remained gentle had he been gently
treated ; but as his fur was almost incessantly rubbed the
wrong way, is it a wonder that he began to put out his
\claws before he was thirty, and to growl louder and louder
'^t a world that would not believe he was a lion until
it had felt his heavy paws?
COMPOSITION OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 89
COIVIPOSITION OF THE FLYLNG DUTCHMAN
The thirty months spent in Paris were, however, by no
means wasted. They cured him of his love of the cheap
operatic tricks of Donizetti, Herokl, and Adam, and
made him return to his first love — Weber and Beethoven ;
they cured him forever of the desire to win success by
writing down to the popular taste — he never again
stooped to conquer; ^vhile the vanity, insincerity, and
trickiness of the famous Italian singers in Paris showed
him how unjust he had been to the artists of his own
country. The reason why the German singers had
seemed bunglers was (as he points out in his Parisian
essay on Music in Germany, Vol. I. p. 189) that they
were asked to sing Italian colorature arias which were
unsuited for German throats. Give them German vocal
music to sing, and you will find that " these bunglers are
the truest artists, and are imbued with a warmer glow in
their hearts than was ever diffused over you by those
who have hitherto delighted you in your elegant
saloons." He was soon to discover the literal truth of
this assertion, in the devotion of Tichatschek and Schroe-
der-Devrient, and later in the noble art and conscientious
endeavors of Schnorr von Carolsfeld, the Vogls, Nie-
mann, Betz, Scaria, Materna, Malten, Sucher, Brandt,
and many others, who have helped to create a new art of
realistic dramatic song. But the most important result
of his first visit to Paris was that, notwithstanding
the endless petty interruptions and cares, he found time
to finish Rienzi and compose the whole of the Flyitig
Dutchman. Two acts of Rienzi were, as we have seen,
90 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
finished at Riga before the composer left for Paris, where
the other three acts were completed in 1840. When he
wrote these last acts he had already given up the hope of
seeing this opera in Paris, and it was some German
opera-house that he had in view — especially Dresden,
which had at that time the best dramatic singers, and
was about to have a new opera-house.
As regards the Flying Dutchman, its history has been
told up to the day when its author, fearing to lose his
sketch altogether, had sold it for five hundred francs.
Fortunately there was nothing in the contract to prevent
his using the same sketch to make a libretto for him-
self; and so, as the weird subject had already taken full
possession of him, he set to work immediately. Not
in Paris, however. The approach of spring (1841) had
awakened his ardent longing for country life. Coun-
try life near Paris was, however, a luxury not easily
obtainable.
" It is not possible," lie exclaims (in one of his letters to German
newspapers entitled Pariser Amusements), "to retire into soli-
tude, out of reach of the influence of Parisian life, without making
a considerable journey. Happy the banker who can make such
journeys ! Happy the born Parisian who needs no such journeys !
But woe to the German residing in Paris who is not a banker ! He
will be surely swallowed up in this sea of unenjoyed enjoyments if
he does not succeed in becoming a banker. Ye 30,000 Germans in
Paris, may you succeed in this ! "
At last he was fortunate in finding a quiet place, near
a forest, at Meudon, two leagues from the city, where
there was nothing to interfere with his creative activity.
To compose the opera, he relates, he needed an instru-
ment : —
COMPOSITION OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 91
"For after nine months' interruption of all composition, I had to
create a new musical atmosphere. So I hired a piano, and after it
had arrived my mind was greatly disturbed ;IJe^red tajnake 4he
discovery tliat I was aolonger a musician. With the sailors'
chorus and the spinning song I began, and loudly did I give vent
to my sincere joy on discovering that I was still a musician. In
seven weeks the whole opera was completed. At the end of this
time the pettiest cares began to oppress me again ; two entire
months elapsed before I could get a chance to write the overture
for the finished opera, although I carried it about in my head
almost complete.
' ' Of course my most ardent desire was now to bring out the
opera in Germany as soon as possible ; from Munich and Leipzig I
received refusals ; the opera was not suited for Germany, I was
told. Fool that I was, I had imagined it was suited specially for
Germany, since it touches chords which can vibrate only in a
German. At last I sent the score to Meyerbeer in Berlin, with the
request to secure its acceptance at the Court Theatre there. With
considerable promptness this was effected.^ As my Bienzi had in
the meantime also been accepted at Dresden, I now looked forward
to the performance of two of my operas at the leading German
theatres, and involuntarily the conviction forced itself on me that,
strange to say, Paris had proved to me of the greatest use as
regards Germany. In Paris itself I had no prospects for some
years to come, so I left it in the spring of 1842. For the first time
I saw the Rhine; with tears^irL_my eyesj, the poor artist, swore
eternal allegiance to my German fatherland .^^" ■
With these words Wagner closes his admirable Au-
tobiograpldc Sketch, and as his Mittheilmuj an Meine
Freunde also does not contain many personal details of a
later date, we shall henceforth have to rely for anthentic
information at first hand on other documents, chief
among which are the letters to and from Liszt; to his
1 But between tlie promise and the performance several years
elapsed.
92 FIRST VISIT TO PARIS
Dresden friends Ulilig, Fischer, and Heine ;^ to Frau
Wille, Praeger, and others.
Fortunately, Wagner leaped into sudden fame on his
return to Dresden, so that from this time on the news-
papers and periodicals are full of information regarding
him. This source of information can and will, however,
only be used with the greatest caution, since there has
never been a man, outside of politics, concerning whom
so many malicious and stupid falsehoods have been
printed as concerning Richard Wagner — for four decades,
from the first performance of Rienzi, in 1842, to the first
performance of Parsifal, in 1882, and even later.
1 These letters have been published in three volumes by Breitkopf &
Hartel, in Leipzig. Excellent English versions were made soon after
their appearance, of the Wagner-Liszt letters by the late Dr. F. Hueffer,
and of the letters to Dresden friends by Mr. J. S. Shedlock. New York,
Charles Scribner's Sons. In regard to the Autobiographic Sketch it
may be added here that the slight changes which Wagner made in it
when the article was reprinted in his Collected Works are carefully
noted in the Wagner Jahrbuch, 1886 (pp. 288-289).
RIENZI IN DRESDEN
PRELIMINARY LETTERS
The biographer of the famous Wagnerian tenor Tich-
atschek, relates that one day, towards the close of 1840,
the Intendent of the Dresden Opera received from Paris
the manuscript of a new opera, which was so enormously-
bulky that its size and weight alone, apart from the fact
that its author was unknown to fame, woiild have suf-
ficed to make most managers decide, without opening it,
that it was not suited for performance. It was the score
of Eienzi, and was accompanied by two letters both dated
Dec. 4, 1840, one addressed to the General-Director, Herr
von Liittichau, the other to Friedrich August II., King
of Saxony. From the letter to Liittichau two passages
may be quoted here : ^ —
" It has always been one of my most alluring hopes that one of
my dramatic compositions might be performed at the Court Theatre
in the capital of my native country, and latterly I have devoted
most of my time to the completion of an opera, the principal roles
in which I wrote especially witii a view to their interpretation by
some talented artists who enjoy the good fortune of being con-
nected with the Dresden Opera. This work, a five-act opera
entitled Bienzi., I have just completed, and now hasten to send
your Excellency the score and the text-book, together with the
1 These letters are printed complete in Robert Proelss's Geschichte
des Ho/theaters in Dresden, p. 118 seq.
93
94 BIENZI IN DRESDEN
request that you might permit the first performance to take place
in the Court Theatre. . . .
"When I made up my mind to write a grand opera with the
intention of offering it to the Dresden Court Theatre for the first
performance, I discovered that the plan of building a new and
magnificent theatre was about to be realized ; the reports I received
regarding the grand dimensions of this projected building led me
to conceive the mise-en-scene of my opera in a sumptuous manner,
corresponding to the character of such a theatre. Your Excellency
will therefore see by a glance at my poem that the work might
perhaps be specially adapted to be placed on the list of new works
that have been chosen for the first performances in the new house.
Perhaps I may even be pardoned the boldness of pointing out
that it might not be at all improper to give an honorable place
on this list to the work of a Saxon who has honestly endeavored
to consecrate to his country his best and most mature artistic
efforts."
In the letter to the King, whom he addresses as "Al-
lerdurchlauchtigster Herr, Allergnadigster Herr und
Konig," Wagner recalls the fact that his stepfather
Geyer had been honored by permission to paint the por-
traits of the royal family; and in the concluding para-
graph he begs his Majesty's permission to dedicate his
opera to him.
Nothing was apparently attained through these letters
except the retention of the manuscript for future refer-
ence. To accelerate matters, Wagner again applied to
Meyerbeer, who addressed the following letter to Liitti-
chau : —
"Your Excellency will pardon me, I am sure, if I molest you
with these lines, for I remember your constant good-will towards
me so well that I could not refuse the request of an interesting
young countryman, who perhaps has a too flattering confidence
in my influence on your Excellency, to assist his project with these
PRELIMINARY LETTERS 95
lines. Herr Richard Wagner of Leipzig is a young composer who
has not only had a thorough musical education, but who possesses
much imagination, as well as general literary culture, and whose
predicament certainly merits in every way sympathy in his native
country. His" most ardent wish is to produce his opera Bie7izi,
of which he has written both the text and the music, in the new
royal theatre in Dresden. Some selections from it which he played
for me I found rich in conception [phantasiereich] and of great
dramatic effect. May the young artist enjoy the protection of
your Excellency, and find occasion to see his remarkable talent
more widely appreciated. I once more implore your Excellency's
pardon, and beg you. to preserve towards me your gracious good-
will. Most respectfully
" Your Excellency's most obedient servant,
"Metekbeer."
Not till three months later, however, did Wagner
receive from the royal director the announcement that
Rienzi had been accepted; and this decision was owing
chiefly, it seems, to the efforts of Tichatschek, who
saw at once wdiat a fine heroic role this opera offered
liini, and of the Chorus-Director, Wilhelm Fischer, who
subsequently became one of Wagner's most intimate
friends. Half a year before he left Paris he began to
correspond with Fischer regarding the projected per-
formance of Rienzi in Dresden; while the letters to
Ferdinand Heine, an old friend of the Wagner family,
who was at tliat time designer of costumes at the Court
Theatre, begin even six months sooner — which shows
how long-deferred were Wagner's hopes, even after the
acceptance of his opera. Indeed, between its formal
acceptance and its performance on Oct. 20, 1842, no
fewer than sixteen months elapsed. Of the tortures
to which Wagner was subjected during this period of
96 RIENZI IN DRESDEN
suspense his letters to Fischer and Heine give many
striking illustrations.^
The first of the letters to Ferdinand Heine is interest-
ing as showing that half a century ago some German
theatre-goers appear to have had similar scruples regard-
ing religious representations on the stage to those that
still prevail in England. Religious objections had been
made against the plot of RienzL To overcome these Wag-
ner points out that Catholic costume was involved in this
case rather than Catholic principles; that the Pope ap-
pears not as a religious authority but in his capacity as a
worldly ruler; and that precedents for his proceedings
could be found in the operas La Juive and Les Hugue-
nots. He concludes with these words : —
"Priests and ecclesiastics have, I presume, marched in solemn
procession across the Dresden stage before this ? I should be
obliged if you would confirm this belief. Besides, no one is better
qualified than you, my dear sir, to give the costume a certain
mixed effect, which, e.g., will make it impossible for the Censor
to definitely point out a cardinal, although every spectator can
recognize him." (Sly dog !)
These religious difficulties having been overcome, other
obstacles arose to procrastinate matters. Before Rienzi
could be thought of, AcRle de Foix, the seventh opera of
the third-rate composer, Eeissiger, who was conductor
of the Dresden Opera, had to be brought out. Reissiger
pretended, at first, to be interested in Rienzi, and wrote
Wagner a letter to that effect; but when the tantalizing
procrastinations began, he refused to answer a single
1 They should be read by all who are interested in Rienzi, especially
by those who take part in its performance, as they contain a great
many valuable hints for its correct interpretation not recorded else-
where.
PRELIMINABY LETTERS 97
line to Wagner's numerous letters of inquiry. Nor did
Tichatscliek deign to reply to his letters. Regarding
Scliroeder-Devrient, who was to create the role of
Adrian o, he wrote to Heine : —
" I believe I have already written her a dozen letters : that she
has not sent me a single word in reply does not surprise me very
much, because I know how some people detest letter-writing ; but
that she has never sent me indirectly a word or a hint disquiets
me greatly. Great Heavens ! so very much depends on her ; it
would be truly humane on her part if she would only send me this
message — perhaps by her chambermaid — 'Calm yourself! I am
interested in your cause ! ' "
He even had gone so far as to flatter this prima donna's
pride by begging her to name the person who should sing
the part of Irene (imagine the later Wagner doing such
a thing!) — without receiving a reply. Then he heard
that another opera, Halevy's Guitarrero (of which he
himself had had to make the pianoforte score before he
could raise the funds to leave Paris) was to precedei2/en2;t.
The final blow was given by the news that, owing to a
caprice of Schroeder-Devrient's, Rienzi was to be post-
poned once more for a revival of Gluck's Armida. It
was getting on towards Easter, and it seemed probable
that Rienzi would not be given at all that season. This
probability caused him to pour out his heart in a most
pathetic letter to Heine, imploring him to leave no
stone unturned to accelerate matters : —
"If you or any one else knew just exactly how my whole sit-
uation, all my plans, all my resolutions, would be annihilated by
such a procrastination, you would have pity on me. ... I am
really quite exhausted ! Alas ! I have so few pleasant experiences,
that it would have been a matter of indescribable significance to
me if at least in Dresden my affairs had prospered."
98 RIENZI IN DRESDEN
The uncertainty regarding the performance of his
opera did not, however, prevent him from writing long
letters to Fischer, giving hints, or Promemoria, as he
calls them, as to the way in which the difficulties of the
score are to be overcome. He suggests how the cast
should be distributed; begs Fischer to increase the
chorus in the church scene by adding the students of the
Kreuzschule, if possible; and for the pantomimic scene
he does not hesitate to make the bold suggestion that
the principal parts must be played by the regular actors
of the Dresden Theatre, if justice was to be done to them :
all of which suggests the Wagner of later years. He
sums up his position in these words : —
"It is above all things of the most unspeakable importance to
me that the first performance of my opera should be flawless and
as complete in every respect as possible. I have too long de-
ferred to do something for my reputation, and for the sole reason
that I considered a poor first performance oi a new opera, such as
alone could be given at a provincial theatre, as certain death to
any work, however great its natural vitality ; knowing also that
many a promising talent has come to early grief by being compelled
to place his works before the world in a mutilated and unrecog-
nizable condition. For eight years — that is, ever since the time
when I considered myself prepared to come before the public — I
have therefore remained quiet, and have constantly refused every
opportunity to have my works brought forward in an incomplete
manner ; all the more must I now be anxious that this, my first
appearance, should be as successful as possible."
The danger of indefinite procrastination, or worse,
finally became so great, that he could no longer resist
the impulse to return to Germany, to see if his personal
presence might not have a beneficial effect. Apart from
this he felt an unconquerable desire to see his native
FIEST PERFORMANCE OF RIENZI 99
coiiiitry after five years spent in Russia and France- •■
Riga and Paris. His wife, also, needed the baths at
Teplitz; so, after putting the necessary money in his
})urse by doing some more musical drudgery for Schles-
inger, he crossed the Rhine, as was told at the end
of the last chapter, and swore his fatherland eternal
allegiance.
FIRST PERFORMANCE OF RIENZI
On his return to Dresden, he was warmly welcomed
by his friends, and found to his surprise that the
preparations for Rienzi were going on satisfactorily.
The new Opera House had been opened just a yea.v before
he left Paris, and it "v/as a happy coincidence that this
fine monument of the architect Semper's genius, which
was to be the scene of the first performances of Rienzi,
the Flying Dutchman^ and Tannhiiuser, had been inaugu-
rated with Weber's Earyanthe, the true root of Wagner's
nmsic-dramas. As the rehearsals of Rienzi were not to
begin till July, Wagner found time to take his wife to
the baths at Teplitz. This summer resort in the Bohe-
mian forest always remained one of his favorite refuges.
Here he had conceived some years before the plan of
The Novice of Palermo, and here, on this occasion, he
sketched the plot of Tannhauser, with the legend of which
he had become acquainted before leaving Paris ; and his
voyage to Dresden had opportmiely taken him through
the Thuringian Valley, where he got a glimpse of the
lofty Wartburg which forms the scenic background of this
opera. This castle he was destined not to see again till
seven years later, when his Tannhauser had been com-
pleted and performed, and when he was on his way to
Switzerland as a political exile, pursued by the police.
100 RIENZI IN DRESDEN
It was fortunate for tlie prospects of Rienzi that its
composer was at hand to superintend its production ; for,
as he himself confessed, " the exceedingly elaborate com-
position required many improvements and alterations"
to adapt it to stage requirements. His spare moments
he devoted to the versification of an operatic sketch which
he had made some years before and which he now offered
to Conductor Eeissiger, who wanted a new text, and who
had a habit — like other unsuccessful operatic composers
— of attributing his ill luck to his poor librettos. This
sketch was the Hohe Braut, based on Konig's novel,
which he had once sent to Scribe. Eeissiger, however
(with perhaps some reasonable excuse), suspected that
what Wagner did not care enough for to use himself,
might not be good enough for him either, and so he re-
fused the poem. Unwisely, as it turned out, for a
composer of not much better calibre, named Kittl, sub-
sequently set it to music and produced it at Prague under
the title The French before Nice with considerable suc-
cess, which the critics attributed largely to its excellent
libretto.
Apart from this rebuff by Eeissiger, however, Wagner's
fortunes had turned completely on his arrival in Dres-
den. Unlike the management of the Berlin and' Paris
Operas (as we shall see later on), the Dresden authorities
had common sense enough to know that a man who has
the genius to compose a grand opera ought to know best
how it should be performed. His advice was not repelled,
but sought for, and in place of being an obscure, strug-
gling musician, as he was in Paris, he now found himself
respected and looked up to as a man of some importance.
This change in his situation was accelerated by the fact
FIRST PERFORMANCE OF RIENZI 101
that the singers and the players grew more and more
enthusiastic over Rienzi as they became more familiar
with the score. This enthusiasm, of course, soon became
a matter of general gossip throughout Dresden, so that
expectations regarding the new opera were raised to an
unusuall)'' high pitch.
Nor were they destined to be disappointed. On the
contrary, the success of Rienzi was so pronounced, its
reception by the audience so brilliant, that Wagner, with
one stroke, became the hero of the hour. It is true, he
had everything in his favor. The cast included the two
best dramatic singers that Germany had at the time —
Schroeder-Devrient and Tichatschek — and several others
of merit. Eeissiger was a good enough conductor for this
opera, and his orchestra excellent, while Fischer had
seen to it that the chorus was at its best, and Heine
had taken care that the numerous costumes, which the
management had provided for the occasion with lavish
generosity, should be worthy of the performance and the
scenic outfit. Yet all this, combined with the enthu-
siasm of the performers, could not have insured such a
brilliant success, had not the opera been made of the
right metal to suit the audience that heard its iirst per-
formance. The impression made on this audience by the
hitherto unknown Wagner may best be inferred from
the fact tliat he was not only called before the curtain
several times, but that the audience remained to the end oj
the opera. This may seem a dubious compliment, but
under the circumstances it was anything but dubious;
for Rienzi, at its first performance, horribile dictu, lasted
no less than six hours, from six in the evening till close
upon midnight. The fourth act of tlie five did not begin
102 RIENZI IN DRESDEN
till ten o'clock — a time when the old-fasliioned Germans
uf that period were accustomed to seek their beds, even
after seeing the longest opera ever placed before them;
and here were two more acts of a new opera by a new
composer to come after that hour !
Wagner himself, in spite of his triumph, was horrified
at this unheard-of length of his opera. In reply to
Fischer's preliminary objections to the extreme duration
of Rienzi, which he had calculated at five hours, he had
responded that this must be a mistake, as his own calcu-
lations made it only about four hours, excluding inter-
missions. The result showed that Fischer was nearer
right than Wagner, who accordingly hastened to the
theatre early the next morning to cut up his work mer-
cilessly.
" I did not believe the Intendant would ever repeat the opera,"
he relates.! 4t After two o'clock I returned to see whether the cuts
had been made according to my directions ; before that had been
done I felt that I could not look any one of the singers or players
in the face. But I was accosted with ' Herr Wagner, we are not to
make this cut, nor that one.' ' Why not ? ' I asked. ' Well, Herr
Tichatschek was here and said we should not make the cuts.' I
laughed. Has Tichatschek gone among my enemies ? In the
evening I asked him about it. Tears came into his eyes as he replied,
' I shall not permit any cuts ; it was too heavenly ! ' "
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the first
performance of Rienzi (Oct. 20, 1892) the German papers
published a long letter written by Wagner (on Nov. 6,
1845) to friends in Paris, and containing some more
details of interest : —
1 These words are cited by Glasenapp (I. p. 142) from a stenographic
report made by Dr. Bierey in Dresden, of Wagner's own narrative in a
circle of friends.
FIRST PERFORMANCE OF RIENZI 103
" Children, it is true ; my opera has had an unprecedented suc-
cess, and this is the more surprising since it was the Dresden public
which gave expression to this success — a public which had never
before been in the position to express a first opinion on an important
dramatic work. . . . Well, you know about the result of the firet
performance — therefore no more about it ; it has marked an epoch
ill the annals of German operatic performances. The opera has
since had its fourth performance, and what is more, — an unheard
of event, — always at raised prices and with over-crowded house.
. , . What seems most remarkable to me is the patience of the
public ; I have shortened as much as possible, but still the opera
lasts (from six) till half-past ten, and at no performance yet has
any one been seen to leave his seat: with the greatest expecta-
tion and attention everybody remains to the fall of the last curtain,
and that means something in Dresden. When I went about to
make cuts I had some curious experiences : the singers said, ' Yes,
it is terribly fatiguing,' but no one wanted any cuts : Tichatschek
I almost begged on my knees to permit a pruning of his terribly
exhausting role : impossible ! Always his answer was, ' No ; for it
is too heavenly ! It is too heavenly ! ' "
This opinion seemed to be shared by the public, and the
correspondent of the Leipzig Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik
(Schumann's paper) wrote: "I express my inmost con-
viction when I say : A pity for every bar that is taken
out." To obviate the necessity of mutilating the score
the opera was divided into two sections and given on two
consecutive nights. Berlioz was among those who heard
it (or rather the last three acts) in this form, and in his
Voyage Musical en Allemagne, he commented favorably on
it. Later on it was reduced to five and one-half hours
and again given on one evening, always to full houses.
Wagner's name was made, but how about his income?
In the letter just quoted from, he tells of the rumors that
he had received 2000 thaler for Rienzi. The truth, how-
104 BIENZI IN DRESDEN
ever, was that, after the third performance the Intendaiit
had sent him a flattering letter enclosing 300 thaler
($225), "although," as he said, "the usual honorarium
for an opera was only twenty louis d'or " (107 thaler).
This was much less than Wagner felt he had a right to
expect after " such a fabulous success, " and he resolves
hereafter not to leave such things to the " generosity " of
Intendants, but to make his own terms. Under such cir-
cumstances, he writes, his Paris creditors will have to
wait, all the more as his older Magdeburg creditors are
threatening legal prosecution, and he has some scores to
settle at Dresden too. But he has the most sanguine
hopes for the future. He longs to meet his Paris friends
again: "for you must know, we are still orphaned: in
the evenings we sit alone, alone, and no one comes as
formerly. Ah! how strange that the most distressful
periods of life should leave behind such sweet memories !
— Children, we must arrange to meet again ! Only wait
till my operas bring me a handsome profit; when the
creditors [Gldubiger] are disposed of, it will be the turn
of the believers [Glauhige7i].''
Intendant Liittichau was so much pleased with the
success of Rienzi that he was eager to follow it up at once
with a second opera by the same composer. The Dutch-
man score had long been at Berlin, but the performance
had been postponed again and again in favor of operas by
such men as Lachner. Wagner now asked for his score,
but his request was not heeded, whereupon he peremp-
torily demanded that it should be returned, else he would
hold the possessors responsible for consequences. Upon
this it was forwarded to Dresden and produced there.
But before describing that event we must linger a moment
over the plot and the music of Rienzi.
THE STORY OF RIENZI 105
THE STORY OF RIENZI
Act I. Scene: a Eoman street at night; the church
of St. John Lateran in the background, to the right the
liouse of the papal notary Rienzi. Th£.-patrician Orsini
and his followers place a ladder against Rienzi's house
and attempt to abduct his sister Irene, " the most beau-
tiful girl in Rome." While Irene struggles against her
captors, a rival patrician faction, the Colonnas, arrive,
and fight for her possession. Among them is Colonna's
son, Adriano, who is in love with Irene, and who, on
recognizing her, immediately fights his way to her side
and protects her. Amid the tumult, in which the popu-
lace has taken part, Rienzi arrives. He reminds the
people of their promise to him to wait for the proper
moment to strike, and denounces the patricians for their
nefarious conduct. The latter leave to settle their quar-
rel outside the city gates, and Rienzi is asked by Cardi-
nal Raimondo when he is going to begin the war against
the nobles. In reply Rienzi informs him and the people
that the moment for attack will be announced by a long-
drawn trumpet sound. Rienzi then persuades Adriano
to desert his faction and become a true Roman. The
lovers are left alone to exchange vows, and apprehensions
of evil, when suddenly the fatal sound of the trumpet
is heard, first at a distance, then nearer. The day
breaks; organ and chorus are heard in the church; the
populace assembles and frantically proclaims Rienzi as
King of Rome. Rienzi declines to accept any title but
that of the people's Tribune; and the act closes with an
oath to avenge the crimes of tlie nobles.
106 RIENZI IN DRESDEN
Act II. Scene : a large hall in the Capitol. Messen-
gers of peace arrive and proclaim the victory of the
people and their new Tribune over the enemy. Rienzi ap-
pears, and the proud patricians are obliged to do homage
to him. Left alone, they plot against his life, and Orsini
is chosen to assassinate him at the coming festivities.
But Adriano has overheard the plot and warns Eienzi.
The foreign ambassadors arrive in solemn procession to
hand their papers to Rienzi, who astounds them by the
bold announcement that henceforth Rome will choose its
own King. They remain, however, to witness the fes-
tivities, which include a pantomimic representation of
the tragedy of Tarquinius and Lucretia, followed by a
combat of knights in mediaeval costume with Roman
warriors. The nobles gradually crowd around Rienzi, and
Orsini stabs him, but he is saved by a concealed steel
breastplate. For this ncAV outrage all the nobles are
condemned to death. But Adriano, assisted by Irene,
begs for his father's life, and Rienzi, despite the warning
of his friends, pardons all the nobles on their oath of
submission.
Act III. Scene: a public square in Rome. Great
tumult and ringing of alarm bells. The nobles, having
broken their oath, are again offering battle, and the pop-
ulace wildly clamors for its leader. Rienzi appears on
horseback, with Irene and the senators. Adriano once
more attempts to hold back Rienzi from exterminating
the nobles, offering to effect a reconciliation, but Rienzi
sternly refuses. Irene and Adriano are again left alone.
When the plebeians return they proclaim Rienzi's fresh
victory, and among the bodies brought back is that of
Colonna. At sight of it Adriano swears vengeance on
THE STORY OF RIENZI 107
Eienzi for his father's death. A triumphal procession
ends the act.
Act IV. Scene : street near the Lateran church. The
senators Baroncelli and Cecco lament that the ambassa-
dors, offended by Eienzi's remarks, have left Eome, and
that trouble is in sight. Baroncelli accuses Eienzi of
treason. His motive in pardoning the nobles, he says,
was to become one of their number through the marriage
of Irene and Adriano. This accusation is overheard by
Adriano, who, seeing his opportunity for revenge, steps
forward and asserts that it is true. In the midst of a
festive procession, Eienzi now marches to the church.
Adriano's intention to murder him is prevented by the
presence of Irene, and the conspirators who bar his way
are cowed by his manly words. Suddenly, just as Eienzi
sets foot on the church steps, a chant of malediction is
heard within, and Cardinal Eaimondo appears and places
the ban of excommunication on him. The nobles have won
their cause by an alliance with the all-powerful Church.
Eienzi's followers disperse in dismay. Adriano entreats
Irene to fly with him ; but she repels him and declares
she will stay and perish with her brother.
Act V. Scene : a hall in the Capitol. Eienzi's prayer,
that his great work may not be thus undone. Irene
appears, and he urges her to save herself by going with
Adriano; but in vain. Eienzi determines to address the
people once more, and leaves. Adriano, goaded to mad-
ness by his love and grief, makes one more vain attempt
to persuade Irene to go with him. The tumult grows
outside, and the scene clianges to the open place in front
of the capitol. The infuriated populace refuses to listen
to Eienzi's words and sets lire to the Capitol. Adriano
108 RIENZI IN DRESDEN
sees Irene and Rienzi arm in arm, surrounded by flames,
and rushes into the fire the moment the Capitol crashes
to the ground, burying him with the others. As the
curtain falls, the nobles are seen cutting down the mis-
guided people.
WAGNER 'S OPINION OF RIENZI
No creative artist has ever been less trusted by his
contemporaries in his opinion of his own works at the
time they were written than Richard Wagner; yet we
can see to-day that no artist ever had a clearer perception
of his strong and his weak points than he. Tliis is con-
spicuously proved by the judgments he passed on Rienzi
at various times. The most objective and disinterested
critic of to-day could not more definitely point out what
is most and what is least satisfactory in this opera than
he has done himself.
The reader therefore will doubtless be grateful if,
instead of giving my own humble verdict on the opera, I
bring to a focus Wagner's own remarks thereon, which
are scattered through a dozen of his essays and letters;
all the more as I see no reason for differing from any one
of these judgments, except that I should place more
emphasis than he himself did on the dramatic power and
interest of his Rienzi poem, which Meyerbeer is said to
have declared the best libretto he had ever seen, and
which is certainly one of the best constructed and most
exciting ones produced up to that time; entirely free
from what must be called the versified rot of which most
opera librettos are made up, ^nd which induced Voltaire
to make his oft-quoted remark that " what is too silly to
be spoken is sung." Wagner's whole career as a dramatic
WAGNER'S OPINION OF EIENZI 109
poet may be summed up by saying that it was an attempt
to remove this reproach from operatic poetry. And this
process began with Bienzi, although by no means in the
radical manner of his later dramatic poems.
Kegarding Wagner's attitude toward his early operas,
two opinions have long been current, thanks to persistent
misrepresentations based partly on ignorance, partly on
malice and dishonesty : one being that he overvalued all
his own works, the other that he entirely " repudiated "
his early operas, including Rienzi, the Flying Dutchman,
and even Tannlidnser and Lohengrin. Both are equally
erroneous. So far was he from overvaluing Rienzi, that
in the preface to the first volume of his Collected Works
he actually apologized for printing the Rienzi libretto
side by side with his other poems.
"If in writing this opera-book," lie continues, "I had in the
least entertained the ambition of being a poet, I think the develop-
ment of my mind at that time would have enabled me to write
sufficiently correct verses, since I had succeeded in this even in an
earlier attempt, The Novice of Palermo^ to such a degree as to win
tlie approval of my quondam friend Laube."
He then goes on to explain that what made him care-
less in executing the Rienzi poem was his daily experience
that the public of that time accepted the trashiest
librettos in German, or translations from the French, so
long as the subject was theatrically effective, or the music
particularly good, as in Jessonda and Euryanthe.
In another place (IV. p. 319) he says that in preparing
the text for Rienzi he had
" practically no other thought than that of writing an effective
opera libretto. The ' Grand Opera,' with all its scenic and musical
splendor, its accumulation of massive effects, musical and emotional,
110 RIENZI IN DRESDEN
stood before my eyes ; and the aim of my artistic ambition was not
only to imitate it, but to surpass all previous examples in reckless
extravagance. Nevertheless, I would be unjust to myself were I to
name this ambition as the sole motive that guided me in the con-
ception and execution of my Bienzi. The subject really inspired
me, and I added nothing to my concept that did not have direct
reference to the source of this inspiration. i . . .
"To the language and versification I gave no more care than
seemed to me necessary for securing a good opera text, free from
triviality. It was not my aim to write duos and trios ; but they
seemed to present themselves in this and that place naturally, since
I looked at my subject solely through operatic spectacles. So,
again, I did not seek in this subject an excuse for a ballet, but with
the eyes of an opera composer I espied in it a festival which Bienzi
had to give to the populace) and in which he would have to place
before them a dramatic spectacle from ancient history as a theat-
rical exhibition ; this was the story of Lucretia and the expulsion
of the Tarquins connected therewith.
"That this pantomime," he adds in a footnote, "had to be
omitted in the theatres where Bienzi was given was an annoying
disadvantage to me ; for the ballet which took its place diverted
criticism /rom my nobler intentions, and gave it nothing to see here
except an ordinary operatic spectacle."
It is most significant of Wagner's high dramatic mis-
sion that even here in Bienzi, where he had no thought
of reforming the opera, he not only avoided trashy and
trivial verses, but sought to replace the ordinary vulgar
ballet by a spectacle logically called for by the situation.
In a footnote to the preface of Vol. I. he furthermore
explains that the text of Bienzi is there printed in its
original form " as a means of correcting the judgment of
1 It must be remembered that Rienzi was planned as early as the
Riga days. Wagner dwells on the pleasure it gave him at that time to
forget the worries and cares that were his daily experience in the
artistic atmosphere of the grand historic subject which he had chosen
for his opera.
WAGNER'S OPINION OF EIENZI 111
those ^vho know the opera only in the mutilated form in
which it is now given in the theatres; and who are there-
fore astonished at the clumsy manner in which the
grotesque effects are piled on one another."
All these extracts show that Wagner, without being
particularly proud of this early and noisy child of his,
nevertheless had a good word for it on occasion. And
although he liimself frankly pointed out that its music
was inspired by, and modelled after, that of Auber, Meyer-
beer, and Halevy, he also wrote these words : " However
coldly I may look back on my early opera, I must admit
this much, that it is pervaded by a youthful, heroic enthu-
siasm." In the letters to Liszt (1849-1858) there are
several references to Rienzi, in which he declares that
he has no heart to reconstruct this opera, because he
has got beyond it; that he values it chiefly as a possible
source of income; and that he is willing to let the Paris-
ians try it, even if they bungle it, since it is no longer
" a heart-care " of his, and since, after all, it is better
suited to Parisian taste than any of the later operas.
These remarks show, indeed, that, as I have said, he was
not particularly proud of Rienzi, but not that he disa-
vowed it entirely, as his opponents always maintained,
or that he considered it a "sin of his youth." This
misconception — to use a mild epithet — dates from an
incident that occurred when Wagner first brought out
Rienzi in Berlin. It is so characteristic of the tactics of
liis enemies, and reveals an important trait in his own
character so strikingly, that it nuist be briefly told,
jjartly in his own words.
112 BIENZI IN DRESDEN
AN UNDIPLOMATIC SPEECH
At that time (Oct. 26, 1847) Wagner had added the
score of Tannhduser to that of the Flying Dutchman, and
with these two works he had already created a style of
his own, which naturally made him look with less favor
on the imitative Rienzi, with its spectacular pomp, deaf-
ening noise, and general operatic shallowness. Unfortu-
nately he never was a good diplomatist. He could not
feign the same interest in Rienzi that he now felt for the
other two operas, and he forgot that, although Ids geniiis
had outgrown his early opera, the same was not true of the
general public. But he could not repress his own feelings.
"I always was a bungler in lying," he says. "For example,
nothing injured me more than the fact that, conscious of being
able to do better things than Bienzi, I made a speech to the artists
at the dress rehearsal in which I declared the exaggerated demands
made on the artists by that opera as an ' artistic sin of my youth. '
The reporters immediately dished up this expression before the
public and made it feel in regard to this work that, inasmuch as
its composer himself had declared it to be a ' thorough failure,' its
production before the art-cultivated Berlin public was an imperti-
nence deserving of castigation. Thus my ill success in Berlin was
in truth referable more to my badly played role as a diplomatist
than to the opera itself, which, if I had approached it with full
faith in its value and in my eagerness to make it appreciated,
might have been as successful as other operas of much less attrac-
tiveness that were produced in that city."
MERITS AND DEMERITS OF RIENZI
The reader will now thoroughly understand Wagner's
attitude towards this work. His feeling toward it may
MERITS AND DEMERITS OF EIENZI 113
have been comparable to that which Schiller must have
had in regard, to his Rohhers as compared with his more
mature dramas. But Die Riiuher is still frequently
played in Germany, and so is Rienzi} Probably it would
have disappeared ere this had it not been kept afloat by
the grander works from the same pen which followed it;
yet it is hardly correct to say that its value to-day is only
historic. It has numerous passages which are interest-
ing in themselves, and others because they foreshadow
harmonic and orchestral peculiarities of the later AVag-
ner; while the overture, wliicli was written after the
whole opera had been completed, is an excellent piece for
popular concerts, at which it is always warmly applauded.
As ordinarily given, Rienzi is tedious, but with a dramatic
conductor like Anton Seidl, and in its title-role, a Nie-
mann or a Schott, who bring out the dramatic as well as
the musical points, it is to this day an entertaining spec-
tacle. Whereas many of its airs are as trivial and light
as any admirer of barrel-organ tunes could desire, Rienzi's
prayer and several of the finales have a wide melodic
sweep and an originality which will for many years pre-
serve their claim to an occasional hearing. There are
not a few melodic and dramatic buds — traces of true
Wagnerian melos, striking modulations, and telling bits
of instrumentation — that were unfolded in his later
works, including some distinct prophetic allusions to
Tannhduser and. Lohengrin ; wliile the effectiveness of
the libretto betrays the genuineTlramatist — the greatest,
from a theatric point of view, tluit Germany has ever
produced.
1 Iii(nziha.<l tliirty-one performances in Germany during the operatic
season ISSD-OO, and forty during the season IS'JO-t)!.
114 RIENZI IN DRESDEN
The most serious blemisli in Rienzi is the assigning of
the lover's role to a woman, an absurdity which strikes
us to-day none the less forcibly, though we bear in mind
that in the palmy days of Italian opera this was the
regular custom, which reached its climax of idiocy in
one of Bellini's operas in which even the typical mascu-
line lover, Romeo, is impersonated by a woman! In
those good old times operas were written solely for the
singers and the admirers of their vocal skill; and how
little the sense of dramatic propriety was developed, is
shown most vividly by the fact that such an amorous
absurdity could be perpetrated even by Wagner, who was
destined soon thereafter to become the creator of the
genuine music-drama, in which " the play is the thing, "
and the vocal and instrumental music merely a means of
intensifying the emotions of the dramatis j^ersonm.
On listening to Wagner's later music-dramas people
often wonder where he got the reputation of being such
a noisy composer. But when they hear Rienzi with its
loud orchestra, enforced by a military band on the stage,
its drums and alarm bells, its trumpet calls, and loud
vocal parts, they wonder no longer. He got that reputa-
tion when Rienzi was first produced; and first impres-
sions being hard to efface, it has clung to him ever since.
During a performance of Rienzi one is inevitably
reminded of the Berliner who exclaimed on hearing a
military band in the street immediately after witnessing
one of Spontini's operas, "Thank Heaven! At last some
soft music ! "
THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
Tappert quotes from an interesting letter by Laube
to Stage-manager Moritz of the Stuttgart Opera in which
these sentences occur : " Would not Wagner's Rienzi be
something for you? It has proved immensely successful
in Dresden and the steam-cars are full of pilgrims who
come to see it." So it seems that with Rienzi already
began that custom of making pilgrimages to the cities
where Wagner's operas were first or best performed,
which continued subsequently in the case of the Flying
Dutchman and Tannhduser in Dresden; Lohengrin in
Weimar; Tristan and Isolde and Die Meistersinger in
Munich; and The Nihelung's Ring and Parsifal iwViUj-
reuth ; a custom which marks a distinct innovation in the
history of music and is very characteristic of the whole
AVagner movement — an eloquent tribute to the novelty
and grandeur of these works, which attracted even those
who came with the firm determination to be repelled by
them.
The success of Rienzi was still more emphasized when,
after the first few performances, the conductor's baton
was placed in the hands of Wagner himself, who, of
course, was much better qualified to bring out the telling
points of the score than Keissiger. No wonder that, as
already noted, the Intendant Liittichau was anxious to
follow up this success immediately with a production of
115
116 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
Wagner's other untried score. Thus it happened, oddly
enough, that, just as the Flying Dutchman had been com-
posed within the remarkably short time of seven weeks,
immediately after the completion of Rienzi, so also was
it fated to have its first performance within ten weeks
after that of Rienzi. Such a sudden change in the for-
tunes of a composer who had up to that time knocked in
vain at innumerable theatre doors, was startling enough :
"I who had hitherto been lonely, deserted, homeless,
sudd^enTy found myself loved, admired, by many even
regarded with wonderment," he exclaims; and the situ-
ation naturally threw him into a state of happy elation,
and nurtured hopes which, as he found before long, were
not to be fulfilled.
" I gladly accepted the offer of the Dresden director," he relates
(IV. 399), "and completed the rehearsals in a short time without
bothering much about the means of execution. The opera seemed
to me infinitely easier to put on the stage than the preceding
Rienzi, the scenic arrangements more simple and intelligible. The
principal male role I almost forced on a singer, who had sufficient
experience and self-knowledge to feel that he was not equal to his
task. The performance was, in its main features, a complete
failure. In face of this work the public felt all the less inclined to
give the stamp of approval because the style itself of the opera
displeased it, since it had expected something very similar to
Bienzi, and not something entirely opposed to it. My friends
were dismayed at this result ; they seemed anxious to obliterate
this impression on them and the public by an enthusiastic resump-
tion of Rienzi. I myself was in sufficiently ill humor to remain
silent and to leave the Flying Dutchman undefended."
Although the failure of this opera was chiefly owing
to the public disappointment in not finding it written
d la Rienzi, there were other reasons for its non-success.
THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 117
It had been somewhat hastily and carelessly prepared,
and the cast was not of the best, while its new vocal style
offered to the singers difficulties of an unwonted kind, and
called for histrionic qualities which they did not possess.
Schroeder-Devrient alone was satisfactory ; " she studied
the role of Senta, and impersonated it with such a true
creative impulse and perfection that her achievement
alone saved this opera from being entirely uncompre-
liended by the public, and even aroused the most demon-
strative enthusiasm." But this very circumstance was
one of the things which displeased Wagner. He had
hoped that his opera would succeed by its own intrinsic
merits, whereas now it seemed to be a prima-donna opera,
after all ; that is, dependent for its success on the art and
popularity of a favorite singer — for the time being, at
any rate.
Perhaps the Flying Dutcliman might have been saved
even under these circumstances had it been more satis-
factorily put on the stage. What Wagner thought of
its staging is shown in this extract from a letter to
Fischer, written ten years later, and comparing the per-
formance of this opera under his own direction at the
small and humble theatre of Zurich with that at the
Royal Dresden Theatre : —
"Now more than ever have I realized what a poor performance
of tliLs work of mine Dresden gave, inasmuch as I have been forced
to acknowledge — without any illusions — that it was possible even
in a small provincial theatre like this to bring about a thoroughly
efficient, and therefore effective, performance. When X recall what
an incredibly awkward and wooden setting of the Fli/ing Dritcli-
man the imaginative Dresden machinist,_^llanel, put_on his mag-
nificent stage, I am even now filled with retrospective ra,ge. Ilerrn
Wachter's and Risse's genial and energetic efforts are also faith-
118 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
fully stored in my memory. That I did not succeed, during my
six years' royal Capellmeistership, in reviving this opera (with
Mitterwurzer, etc.) and getting it respected, can only be under-
stood by one who has some conception of what a Dresden Court
Theatre is."
It must be remembered that this was written in 1852.
To-day Dresden has the best-managed opera-house in
Germany and the best performances of Wagner's operas.
Wagner himself heard his Flying Dutchman there in
1881, and expressed his special satisfaction with the new
scenery and the clever manoeuvring of the two ships.
But for exactly ticenty years after its first performances
this opera was not heard again in Dresden. _ It was
brought out at Cassel five months after the Dresden.
premih-e, and at Berlin in 1844; then /or exactly ten years
thereafter no opera-house at all produced it! In Vienna
it was not heard till 1860, and in Munich and Stuttgart
not till 1864 and 1865, and Hamburg till 1870; so slowly
did his operas travel at first! But the times have
changed. In 1883 both Dresden and Berlin gave their
hundredth performance of the Flying Dutchman; and
during the operatic year 1889-1890 it was given 101
times in the cities of Germany, and in 1890-1891, 129
times : which shows how fifty years after their first pro-
duction Wagner's early operas are still growing in
popularity.
Old people are constantly complaining of the irrever-
ence of our young people of to-day. But if, as the Ger-
mans quaintly put it, "the egg considers itself wiser
than the hen," is this not because the hen has often acted
so foolishly ? How could the young Dresdeners who
attended the hundredth performance of the Flying Dutch-
STORY OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 119
man in 1883 help feeling a sense of superiority over
their benighted ancestors who had so miserably failed
to see the poetic aiid musical beauties of this opera that
they actually allowed it to disappear after the fourth
performance, and did not insist on hearing it again till
twenty years later? Let us lirst briefly examine this
drama and its music, and then see what, apart from the
long neglect after its first performances in Dresden,
Cassel, and Berlin, was the nature of its reception by
contemporary critics and what was the reason of this
unjust treatment.
STORY OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
The preliminary story of the Flying Dutchman's doom,
which forms the " exposition " of the play, is so graphi-
cally told in the ballad which Senta sings in the second
act that I cannot do better for the reader than quote
Mr. J. P. Jackson's translation of it: —
"Yohohoe! Yohohoe ! Yohohoel
Saw ye the ship on the raging deep —
Blood-red the canvas, black the mast ?
On board unceasing watch does keep
The vessel's master, pale and ghast !
Hui ! How roars the wind ! — Yohohoe f
Hui ! How bends the mast ! — Yohohoe !
Hui ! Like an arrow she flies,
Without aim, without goal, without rest !
Yet can the weary man be released from the curse infernal.
Find he on earth a woman who'll pledge him her love eternal.
Ah ! Where canst thou, weary seaman, but find her ?
Ohj pjay to Heaven that she
Unto death may faithful be 1
120 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
11.
"Once round the Cape he wished to sail
'Gainst 'trary winds and raging seas ;
He swore : — ' the' hell itself prevail,
I'll sail on till eternity ! '
Hui ! This Satan heard ! Yohohoe !
Hui ! Took him at his word ! Yohohoe !
Hui I And accursed he now sails,
Through the sea, without aim, without rest !
But that the weary man be freed from the curse infernal.
Heaven shall send him an angel to win him glory eternal.
Oh, couldst thou, weary seaman, but find her !
Oh, pray that Heaven may soon
In pity grant him this boon !
III.
"At anchor every seventh year,
A wife to woo he wanders round ;
He wooed each seventh year, but ne'er
A faithful woman has he found !
Hui ! The sails are set ! Yohohoe I
Hui ! The anchor's weighed ! Yohohoe !
Hui ! False the love, false the troth !
Thou shalt be freed, yea, through my heart's devotion!
Oh, that God's angel guidance gave him !
Here he shall find my love to save him ! "
Act I. The stage represents a wide expanse of ocean.
It is dark, and a violent storin is raging. The ship of
the Norwegian mariner Daland has just cast anchor near
shore, and his sailors are furling up the sails noisily.
Daland steps ashore and climbs a rock to reconnoitre.
He finds that seven miles more would have taken him
safely into his harbor and home; but the storm has
STORY OF TUE FLYING DUTCHMAN 121
willed that he should not embrace his daughter Senta
that evening. Patience is the only remedy, and after
setting a watch he goes into his cabin to sleep. The
steersman keeps watch a while, sings a song to his
sweetheart, and then goes to sleep, too. The storm
begins to rage again, and in the distance the Flying
Dutchman's ship, with blood-red sails, is seen approach-
ing. Its anchor sinks with a crash, and the Dutchman
steps ashore. The seven years are once more over, and
once more has he come ashore to search for a woman
faithful unto death. He relates in most pathetic ac-
cents, intensified by the orchestral discords and sombre
coloring, how often he has sought death by plunging
into the ocean's depths, by steering the ship against
perilous rocks, by exposing his treasures to the greedy
eyes of murderous pirates — but all in vain. His ex-
pected release through a woman's faith has so often
disappointed him that his only hope now is in the Day
of Judgment, when all the world will fall to pieces.
" Anniliilation be my lot " are the last words of his mon-
ologue; and "annihilation be our lot" is Aveirdly re-
echoed by the chorus of his doomed comjDanions in the
hold of the phantom ship.
Daland reappears on the deck of his ship, discovers
the Dutchman's vessel, and chaffs his watchman for fall-
ing asleep. He espies the Dutchman and greets him
with a seaman's cordiality. The Dutchman invokes his
liospitality for a short time, and promises in return a
share of his treasures, of which two sailors, at his com-
mand, bring ashore a box as a sample. "I have neither
wife nor child and never shall I find my home; all my
wealth shall be your own, if you will take me to your
122 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
hearth." Daland is delighted, and when the Dutchman
asks if he lias a daughter and is willing to arrange a
marriage, he proves no better than most simple-minded,
money-loving captains would under the circumstances,
and promises that Senta shall be his. The storm, mean-
while, has abated, a favorable wind is blowing, and
Daland takes advantage of it and sails ahead, after re-
ceiving the Dutchman's promise that he will follow at
once.
Act II. shows us a large room in Daland' s house.
Senta's nurse, Mary, and a number of girls are sitting
picturesquely and cosily grouped around the fireplace,
spinning and singing a merry chorus. Seuta sits apart
in a large chair, with her arms folded and gazing dream-
ily at a picture on the wall representing a pale man with
a dark beard and in black attire. The merry song of
her companions does not interest her; it jars on her
mood, and she scolds them for it. "Very well," they
reply, "you sing us something better!" Senta complies
and sings the ballad already quoted — the legend of the
Flying Dutchman, at whose portrait she has been gazing
so long that her soul has been liypnotized into a pity-
ing love of the unhappily immortal mariner. At the con-
clusion she jumps up from her chair and exclaims, with
an ecstatic expression, that she will be tne woman who is
to release him through her faith. While Mary chides
her for this folly, and threatens to remove the gloomy
picture, Erik, a young huntsman, comes in and an-
nounces that Daland will soon be here. Mary and the
girls go to prepare a feast for him and the sailors, and
Erik is left alone with Senta. He had heard the con-
clusion of her ballad, and her vow to marry the Dutch-
STORY OF THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 123
man, to his great consternation, for he had believed that
Senta loved him and would intercede with her father in
his behalf, but finds now that she has pity only for the
doomed mariner and none for him and his disappointed
love.
In despair, he leaves her, still gazing at the picture
on the wall. The door opens and in comes Daland
accompanied by the Dutchman. At sight of him Senta
cannot suppress a shriek of astonishment, and, ignor-
ing her father, she gazes on the guest as if under a spell.
Her father chides her for her cold reception, but she
has only one thought, — " Father, who is the stranger ? "
Daland smiles, for this gives him a chance to come to
the point at once. " He is a mariner, " he explains, " who
has won rich treasures in distant lands and now has come
to woo for your hand." Then, whispering into her ears
that she must win this man, as such a chance will never
recur, he leaves them alone to arrange matters. For the
first time the Dutchman feels, at sight of this maiden,
the real passion of love; and as she was his before he
had arrived in person, Daland, on returning, finds them
ready to plight their troth.
Act III. Scene : a bay on a rocky coast near Daland's
house. In the background, and not far apart, are the
ships of the Norwegian and the Dutchman. The former
is gaily illuminated and the sailors are having a merry
time. In gruesome contrast to this, the phantom ship
preserves a deathly silence and is wrapt in unnatural
darkness. As the sailors are singing and dancing, a
group of girls arrives with baskets full of food and wine.
At first they ignore the chaffing of the Norwegian sailors,
being intent on serving the Dutchman's crew before
124 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
them. But to their calls and offers of refreshment there
is no answer : —
" They do not drink ! they do not sing !
And in their ship there burns no light ! "
the Norwegian sailors sing; whereupon they join the
girls in a half-mocking, half-terrified invocation of the
phantom ship's crew to join their merry-making. Sud-
denly the sea, while remaining calm everywhere else,
begins to rise around the phantom ship ; blue flames play
on its masts, and the storm wind howls through the cor-
dage. The crew become visible and sing a demoniac
chorus, taunting their absent captain with his ill-luck in
finding a faithful woman : " Your bride, say, where she
remains ! Hui, on, to sea again ! "
As a boy whistles to overcome his fear in the dark,
so the Norwegian sailors at first try to drown the noise
of the phantom crew's chorus and the horrible storm
which rages around their ship ; but as this only intensi-
fies the tumult, they lose heart, make the sign of the
cross and leave deck in terror. The phantom crew
bursts into coarse, mocking laughter, and in a moment
the silence of death again comes over ship, wind, and
ocean.
Senta comes out of the house, followed by Erik ; both
are greatly agitated. Erik, in despair, implores her to
reconsider her determination to marry the bridegroom
her father has brought. Senta replies that it is her
duty, and that she cannot see Erik again; she denies
that she has ever pledged her faith to him; whereupon
he recalls the time and scene where they stood by the
sea, her father having left her in his care ; when her arm
POETIC AND MUSICAL CHAEACTEBISTICS 125
was around his neck and the pressure of her hand surely-
amounted to a confession of love. The Dutchman, unper-
ceived, has approached, and heard this tale. His mind
is made up instantly. Ignorant of the depth of her pas-
sion, he concludes that she is a mere coquette, who will
play with his love as she has played with Erik's. All
is lost. " Farewell, vSenta ! " he exclaims, with a look and
tone of terrible despair. She tries to retain him, and
reassures him of her love, but he whistles to his crew to
weigh the anchor. Then, turning to her once more, he
tells her the fate from which he is about to preserve her.
Eternal damnation is the lot of all who have betrayed
him. She, however, shall be saved because she has not
yet plighted her faithful love before the altar. He
points to his ship whose blood-red sails are being
hoisted, and the anchor raised : —
" The oceans of all zones examine, ask the seaman who
sails on these oceans : he knows this ship, the terror of
the pious: the Flying Dutchman I am called!" With
these words he has reached his vessel, which immediately
sails aAvay. Senta tears herself away from Daland and
Erik, runs to a projecting rock, and plunges into the sea.
By this act of self-sacrifice the doomed mariner is
released. His ship falls into pieces and sinks out of
sight, while Senta and the Dutchman rise from the water
heavenward, transfigured.
POETIC AND MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
A sad story and a weird one, but admirably adapted
for the purposes of a music-drama; and one which, in
some form or other, has fascinated poets from the most
remote times. The Greek legend of Ulysses in search
126 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
of wife and home, and the Christian legend of the wan-
dering Jew are variations of it. Their key-note is the
longing for rest after the storms o fjife -:- such a longing
for home as Wagner felt when Paris had refused him its
artistic hospitality. I t was this symbolic personal ele-
ment in the le gend which inspired hjm at the time t o
such a degree of creativ e ardor that in composing— this.
operaTTie pro duced a new^form of the music-dramaVr
Among the poets and prose-writers who preceded
him in the use of his weird mythical subject are
Hauff, who wrote a fairy tale of a phantom ship, and Cap-
tain Marry at, whose novel of that name is well known.
It is not probable that he knew the latter, though he may
have borrowed some details from Hauff. The poet to
whom he was chiefly indebted was Heine, who, in his
Memoiren des Herrn von SchnabelewopsJci, tells about a
Flying Dutchman drama given at Amsterdam, in which
the doomed mariner is saved by a woman faithful unto
death. According to Dr. F. Hueffer, who has made a
special study of this matter, it was, however, more prob-
ably from an English than from a French source that
Heine obtained the outlines of this legend : —
"The two most striking additions to the old story," he says,i
"in Heine's account of the imaginary performance, are the fact of
the Dutclmian's taking a wife, and the allusion to a picture. Both
these features occur in a play by the late Mr. Fitzball, which at the
time of Heme's visit to London (in 1827) was running at the
Adelphi Theatre. Adding to this the fact that the German poet
conscientiously studied the English stage, nothing seems more likely
than that he should have adopted the features alluded to from the
English playwright. Here, however, his indebtedness ends. Fitz-
ball knows nothing of the beautiful idea of woman's redeeming
1 Richard Wagner in the " Great Musicians " Series, p. 17.
POETIC AND MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
love. According to him, the Flying Dutchman is the ally of a
monster of the deep, seeking for victims. Wagner, further devel-
oping Heine's idea, has made the hero himself to symbolize that
feeling of unrest^nd^ceaseless struggle which finds its solution in
deat|L^aiiOoigetfiilness_alpne. The gap in Heine's story he has
filled up by an interview of Senta with Eric, her discarded lover,
which the Dutchman mistakes for a breach of faith on the part of
his wife, till Senta's voluntary death dispels his suspicion." ^
Wagner, who — contrary to the misrepresentations of
his enemies — was always the severest critic of his own
works, points out that in the poem of the Flying Dutch-
man there is much that is indefinite ; that the dovetail-
ing of the situations is imperfect, the poetic language
and verse often devoid of individual traits. I consider
this judgment altogether too severe, and I prefer to agree
with Liszt that " the arrangement and conception of the
text-book betrays in itself a genuine artist, a poet by the
grace of God, a hand of which every line, every stroke
of the pen, rises far above the opera texts heretofore known."
What I have always admired most in this opera is not
the weird ballad, or the spinning chorus, or even the
storm scenes, in which realism verges on reality, but the
quaint, unique, and wonderful responsive choruses in
the last act, concerning which Liszt says : —
"Tlie first part of the third act, where the Norwegian women
and sailors, gradually overcome by terror, invoke the phantom ship,
produces by its versification, as it colors the tliought and rhythmi-
cally impresses the ear, an effect similar to that given by Hiirger's
ballads, which till the heart with a secret tremor. The dialogue is
carried on in distiches ; each of them adds one more shade to the
1 Mr. Ellis, the editor of The Meister (London, 1892), has written a
long article on "A Flying Dutchman Fallacy," in which he disputes
Dr. Ilueffer's " Fitzball Theory."
128 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
fear-filled darkness. The short songs and ballads rank with the
best of their kind ever created." i
Musically this scene is no less remarkable than it is
dramatically. The verses are not o nly intrinsically
musical, but seem to demand the very melodies and h ar;
monies wedded to them. Liszt points out how one of
the most gruesome effects is jjroduced. After the girls
have invoked the crew of the phantom ship, there is a
sudden awful pause in the orchestra, which has been
playing in C major. It is broken by a scarcely audible,
deep, long-drawn chord of the horns in a key as remote
as possible from the preceding one — C sharp minor.
This uncanny, ghostly effect is repeated three times, with
increasing terribleness. It is one of those numerous pas-
sages in the Flyin g Dutchman which betray the born
music-d ramatist, the tone poet, who was to sur pass all his
p ^decessors in th p. pmnti ouni realism of his music.
It would be impossible, without writing a special vol-
ume on this opera (Liszt has devoted 107 pages to it),
to note all the places which would repay comment. I
have dwelt on the above passage because it has been
ignored by most commentators, who have followed the
crowd in heeding chiefly the more lyric parts of the score,
including the spinning chorus, the ballad, the steersman's
song, etc. Now these are undeniably beautiful pieces
— so beautiful that they prove that, if Wagner had
chosen to continue writing music of that kind, he would
have been second to none. But they are not, after all,
the best things in the opera. These are the more dra-
matic parts — the weird responsive choruses above re-
ferred to, the Dutchman's monologue in the first act
1 Franz Liszt, Dramaturgische Blatter, II. p. 234.
POETIC AND MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 129
(when sung by an artist like Reiclimann), the duo
between him and Senta in the second act, and especially
the storm music of the first and last acts, of which Liszt
has given such an eloquent description that those who
read French or German can at least feel the emotions
inspired by this opera even if they have no opportunity
to see or hear it.
It is in considering this dramatic side of the Flyiyig
Dutchman that we can best realize the import of the fol-
lowing sentence penned by Wagner (Vol. I. pp. 2, 3) : —
" So far as my knowledge extendSj^I can discovfir in the life of
no other artist so striking a change, in so short a time, as took
place within me between the composition of Rienzi and the Flying
Dutchman, the first of which was hardly ready when the second,
too, was almost completed."
Rienzi is simply an opera of the old type, in whic^h thp.
plot aiid th e verse s exist chiefly for the purp ose of ena-
bling the" composer and the singers, the scene-painters and
stag e managers, to dazzle the public with a mosaic of
anas, choruses, and all the pomp a nd glitter o f operatic ,
spectacle; whereas the Flying Dittchman is cmnusic-dramaA
that is, a piece in which "the plot^ahd'tlieliction exist lo r
their own sake, while the .mus ician merely colors the
srtuation,^ as a painter does his sketch. -Ja-th.e. old-
fashioned~operas the singers were expected to preserve
merely a very general sort of correspondence between
their actions and the music, whereas in the Flying Dutch-
man Wagner, in writing the music, began the method of
liaving in his mind's eye tlie gesture, action, and facial
expression that are to accompany every bar of the
singer's part, in harmony with the orchestral part,
Even among Wagner's admirers there are many who are
130 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
not aware to what an extent this method is employed
already in this early work. They should read the ten-
page guide to the performance of the Flying Dutchman
in Vol. V. of his Collected Works. By way of example,
he devotes three pages to the Dutchmari's first scene,
beginning as follows : —
' ' While the trumpets sound their low notes (B minoi') at the
close of the introduction, he has stepped forward over a plank
placed by the sailors between the ship and a rock on shore. The
first note of the ritornelle of the aria (the low E sharp of the
basses) is accompanied by the first step of the Dutchman on
shore ; his staggering gait, characteristic of seamen when they first
come on shore after a long voyage, is again musically accompanied
by the wavy movement of the 'cellos and violas ; the first quarter
of the third bar coincides with his first step, his arms being always
folded and his countenance lowered ; the third and fourth steps
concur with the notes of the eighth and tenth bars," etc.
Of course the singer is not expected to follow all these
directions slavishly : they are rather intended as hints of
the general method; but they throw a flash light on the
method itself, which is something new in operatic prac-
tice. At the same time it must be borne in inind that
the [ new method is not consistently employed in this
ope ra ; there* are exceptions — r epetitions of verses, a nd
bits of tri vial ^^ggi'-Italian cantilena, both in the vof^al
and orchestral parts, which characterize the Flying Dutcl
man as a transition opex aJrom the old to the new style;
and we sha ll see later on that Tannliauser, .a iKl_even
Lohengrin, bear some marks of tTris''gradual change from
the opera to the perfected music-drama.
WAGNER'S OPINION OF THIS OPERA 131
wagner's opinion of this opera
Among the letters to F. Heine there is one of reniark-
al)lr interest for the light it throws on this important
cuunge in Wagner's artistic method. In it he explains
how he was impelled instinctively
"to allow the full fragrance of the old tale to spread itself undis-
turbed over the whole. Thus only did I believe that I could chain
the audience to that rare mood in which, provided one is gifted
with some poetic sense, even the gloomiest of legends may win
one's affection. So, also, in writhig^the music, I could not, if I
would realize my intentions, look right or left, or make the slight-
est concession to modern taste, because this would have been
both inartistic and unwise. The modern division into arias, duets,
finales, etc., I had to give up at once, and in their place relate the
legend in one breath, as should be done in a good poem. In this
manner I produced an opera of which I cannot comprehend, now
that it has been performed, how it could have pleased ; since it is,
in all its external features, so utterly unlike what is now called an
opera, that I can understand how much I asked of the public, —
namely, that it should at once put aside all that had hitherto enter-
tained and gratified it in an opera. That this opera, nevertheless,
made many friends for itself, not only in Dresden, but especially
in Cassel and Riga, and that it won even the favor of the public,
appears to me as a finger-sign which points out to us that we must
only write just as our inborn German poetic feeling dictates, never
making concessions to foreign taste, and simply choosing our sub-
jects and treating them in the manner which most gratifies our-
selves, in order to be sure to win the favor of our countrymen. In
this manner we may also once more secure an original German
operatic .style ; and all who despair of this and import foreign
models, may take an example from i\\\ii Dutchman, which certainly
Is conceived as no Frenchman or Italian would have ever con-
ceived it." '
132 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
This letter alone would disprove the absurd notion that
Wagner "repudiated" the Flying Dutchman. I have
already pointed out that he did not even " repudiate "
Rienzi in the sense of condemning it absolutely; and that
he was still farther from such an attitude towards the
Flying Dutchman, is proved, in addition to the letter just
quoted, by the Guide to its correct performance, which
he wrote many years later, and by the fact that, in 1852,
— nine years after the birth of the opera, — as well as at
other tinieg, he systematically revised the score ; and in
the fifty-ninth letter to Uhlig he explains this process
and what led him to do it, ending with this paragraph :
" On the whole, however, this work has again greatly interested
me ; it has an uncommonly impressive color, most definite in char-
acter. It is curious to see how embarrassed I still was at that
time in the use of musical declamation ; and the operatic style of
singing (for instance I ^ ^ !^ ) still weighed heavily on
my imagination."
The reader will observe with what charming frankness
Wagner always notes his own weak points, as well as the
strong ones. The same is true of his judgments of other
musicians, as we shall see later on; yet his enemies suc-
ceeded in making the whole world believe that he over-
rated his own works and abused all the great composers
of the past. To these critics we must now attend for a
moment.
CRITICAL PHILISTINES 1 AND PROPHETS
Wlien Wagner triumphantly called Ferdinand Heine's
attention to the favor his new opera had won with the
1 What is a Philistine ? Wagner, in liis letters, constantly applies
this term to his enemies, and it is well known that Schumann conceived
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PROPHETS 133
public, and based thereon hopes for the future of a new
style of German opera, he took time by the forelock —
very much so. It was, indeed, applauded at Dresden,
and its author called before the curtain; it was also
given at Cassel, at Riga, and at Berlin; but everywhere,
after a few performances, it disappeared from the stage,
not to be revived for a decade at any German theatre.
The public evidently found it too much of a mono-
cluome — too much of the same gloomy color from be-
ginning to end, and too void of the usual operatic tinsel.
But it was not the public that was to blame most for
Wagner's disappointment in his hopes of being appre-
ciated at once as the creator of a new style of German
opera. The critics were at fault. What is the highest,
the most important function of musical criticism ?
Surely not to chronicle the details of each night's per-
formance, but to recognize genius in its germs and to
foster its gro^\i;h in every possible way. But the Ger-
it to be so much of the mission of his life to comhat pedantry and con-
servative prejudice in music, that he gave to many of his critical arti-
cles a semi-fictitious form, representing them as the opinions of several
individuals who, together, represented the cause of David against the
Philistines and were called Davklsbundler. In English literature the
term Philistinism was first formally introduced by Matthew Arnold, in
his essay on Heine, where he defines it as " inaccessibility to new ideas,"
and says: "Philistinism must have originally meant, in the mind of
those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened
opponent of the chosen people, of the people of the light. The party
of change, the would-be remodellers of the old traditional European
order, the invokers of reason against custom, the representatives of the
modern spirit in every sphere where it is applicable, regarded them-
selves, with the robust self-confidence natural to reformers, as a chosen
people, as children of light. They regarded their adversaries as hum-
drum people, slaves to routine, enemies to light ; stupid and oppressive,
but at the same time very strong." Fetis of Paris, Dr. Hanslick in
Vieima, and Mr. Joseph Bennett in London, are what the Germans
would call Frachtexemplare of the Philistine.
134 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
man critics, with a few honorable exceptions, did exactly
the opposite. They abused Wagner, told lies about
him and his works, and did all in their power to hum-
bug the public, until, after many years, the public re-
fused to be humbugged any longer and compelled the
unwilling critics to capitulate before its judgment —
to follow it, instead of leading it, as they should have
done.
The opposition began with Eienzi, although in that
case it was less violent than subsequently, as Rienzi,
being cut after the fashionable operatic pattern, did not
appear to the critics to be in such " bad form " as the
later operas, which followed Nature instead of Fashion.
Yet even Rienzi had its enemies, especially in Berlin,
the centre of German intelligence and wit. A specimen
of this " wit " is preserved in the Musikalisch Kritisches
Repertorium for 1844, where a " bright and clever connois-
seur " is quoted as saying of Rienzi, " one step further
and there will be no more music." Another wit varied
this joke by calling Rienzi "an opera without music."
Still another funny Berliner wrote to the Leipzig Sig-
nale : " At first, people crowded to Rienzi, now they have
to be driven there by the police ! It has been suggested
to send the Polish captives to Rienzi. Mieroslawsky
is said to have turned pale with terror when he heard of
this." A correspondent of tlie Neue Zeitschrift filr Musik
ends a favorable report of the Rienzi performance in
Berlin with these words : —
" Nevertheless I fear the opera will not long remain in the rep-
ertory ; for all the critics are up in arms against it, the Intendant
is not friendly to Wagner, the King, at whose command the opera
was given, has not yet seen it, Meyerbeer left the city in great
haste," etc.
CRITICAL PniLISTi:Ni:S AND PEOPHETS 135
It might be said that Eienzi partly deserved this fate,
but it must be remembered that at that time its weak-
nesses were not as patent as they are now. The Flying
Dutchman, which certainly did not merit such treatment,
fared even worse. The Signale had this notice from
Dresden: "Richard Wagner's second opera has also
created a furore at its first performance ; all the papers
agree in this. To us somebody has written tliat it is the
most tedious thing he has ever heard." Herr Tappert
surmises that this " somebody " was a man named Schla-
dabach who, it seems, had a sort of monopoly for supply-
ing all outside papers with news about musical matters
in Dresden — always hostile to Wagner, when he was con-
cerned. This may be true, but the foolish and mali-
cious Schladabach soon found numerous imitators and
allies in all parts of Germany — and out of Germany.
" I hear everywhere complaints about the lack of agree-
able melodies that can be retained in the memory, and
about the too heavy orchestration," writes a correspond-
ent of the Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik — a complaint at
which every schoolboy will smile to-day. The Leipzig
Signale, at that time a leading musical paper, sums up
the Cassel performance in two lines: "Wagner's latest
opera, the Flying Dutchman, has been given at Cassel.
Two imposing ships, which sailed across the stage with
marvellous ease, created great enthusiasm." Of the
drama and the music not a word! When the overture
was first performed in IVIilan, a local paper called it "an
infernal racket"; and a French critic, Fiorentino, was
actually made " seasick " by it ! But all this seems mild
compared to the gentlemanly remarks of a writer in the
London Musical World more than a decade later.
136 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
"This man, this Wagner, this author of Tannhduser, of Lohen-
grin, and so many other hideous things, — and, above all, the over-
ture to Der FUegende Hollaender, the most hideous and detestable
of the whole, — this preacher of the 'Future,' was born to feed
spiders with flies, not to make happy the heart of man with beau-
tiful melody and harmony. What is music to him or he to music ?
His rude attacks on absolute melody may be symbolized as matri-
cide. . . . Who are the men that go about as his apostles ? Men
like Liszt, madmen, enemies of music to the knife, who, not born
for music, and conscious of their impotence, revenge themselves
by endeavoring to annihilate it," etc., etc.
In Vienna, always a cliief seat of critical Philistinism,
— in Vienna, where Schubert was allowed to die so poor
that his brother had to pay the funeral expenses, and
where Mozart was so greatly " assisted " by the critics
that he had to be buried in a pauper's grave, which does
not exist any more, — in Vienna, .the leading critic, long
since professor of musical history at the University, —
Dr. E. Hanslick, — wrote, as late as 1859, regarding the
Flying Dutchman : " Wherever, in this opera, the de-
scriptive element does not prevail, where it ceases to be
' marine ' and begins to be music, Wagner's weakness
stands fully revealed: his poverty of invention, and his
amateurish method." Does not the spinning song, one
of the most universally popular melodies ever composed,
afford a striking proof of the professor's acumen! It
is in a Vienna paper, too, that we come across one of
the first AVagner Prophets. In the AUgemehie Weiner
Musikzeitung of 1843 there is a review of the musical
season in Dresden, in which this sentence occurs : " Wag-
ner's operas have proved successful, but will in all prob-
ability not remain on the stage long. " Quite so. That
was in 1843, and in 1890-1891 these two operas had 1G9
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PROPHETS 137
performances in Germany and Austria. True, fifty
years can hardly be considered "long," when we remem-
ber that nineteen of every twenty operas live only a year
or two, while of all operas ever composed hardly a dozen
have survived a century.
It will be remembered that when Wagner sent his
Dutchman score to the Royal Opera at Munich, before
he left Paris, it was returned to him with the answer
that it was "not adapted to German taste." Munich
actually waited more than twenty years — till 1864 —
before it brought out this opera, and then not till King
Ludwig had commanded its production. Once placed
before the public, it soon became so popular that, a few
years ago, it reached its hundredth performance there,
in spite of the severity of the critics, one of whom wrote
after the first performance that "the second act saved
what the first or tliird had spoiled ! "
An amusing reminiscence of the first Paris episode in
Wagner's life may be found in Felix Clement's Dic-
tionnaire des Operas, d, propos of the same opera.
Speaking of Dietsch's music to Wagner's sketch, he
remarks, "the legend which furnished the subject of
this work is so bizarre that the public could not accept it.
Justice was nevertheless rendered to the music." How
is it, M. Clement, tliat the Vaisseau Fantome, with
Dietsch's music, disappeared forever after a dozen per-
formances, while with Wagner's music it still has almost
a hundred and fifty performances a year in Germany
alone ? We shall meet some of our brilliant Critical
Philistines again in later cliapters, and also the Wagner
I'rophets, who, as we all know, are still "at it " predict-
ing his speedy collapse in spite of half a century of dis-
138 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
appointments! It has been truly said that man is a
" reasoning animal. " He always learns by experience !
BERLIOZ, CORNELIUS, LISZT, AND SPOHR
Schumann, in one of his tits of disgust at the inability
of the German Critical Philistines to recognize the gen-
ius of Chopin, exclaims that criticism always lags behind
unless it emanates from creative minds. The whole his-
tory of Wagnerism is proof of this. With few excep-
tions, the small fry of criticism were bitterly opposed to
it, while its first powerful champions were men of crea-
tive genius — Sj)ohr, Liszt, Cornelius, Franz, Raff, and
others. Berlioz was one of the first men of genius who
heard the Flying Dutchman, and while finding some
things to criticise in it, he wrote that " it appeared to me
remarkable for its sombre coloring and certain stormy
effects perfectly justified by the subject." Another com-
poser, whose operas are only just beginning to win their
merited popularity, Peter Cornelius, — who was himself
one of the most pitiable victims of Critical Philistinism
which allowed him to die under persecution and with
few to recognize his merits, except Liszt, — wrote of the
Flying Dutchman that it was the first opera of which the
poetry and the music were conceived at the same time,
each conditioning, limiting, and stimulating the other,
thus producing a higher ideal union.
Liszt's opinion of the Flying Dutchman is already
known to the reader. One more of the critical gems
scattered through his 107-page essay on this opera may,
however, be quoted. Of the overture, which our British
Philistine found so " hideous and detestable, " Liszt says :
" One feels tempted to exclaim, as in looking atTreller's
BERLIOZ, CORNELIUS, LISZT, AND SPOHR 139
marine pictures, ' It is wet I ' One scents the salt breeze
in the air. . . . One cannot escape the impressiveness
of tliis ocean-music. In ricli, picturesque details it must
be placed on a level with the best canvases of the great-
est marine painters. ISTo one has ever created a more
masterly orchestral picture. Without hesitation it must
be placed high above all analogous attempts that are to
be found in other musico-dramatic works " — including
Mozart's Idomeneo, concerning which the reader will
find some instructive remarks in this essay of Liszt's.
But it was not only representatives of the " new school "
that found delight and merit in Wagner's opera. The
very first composer who appreciated it was a gentleman
of the "old school," the venerable Spohr. At the age of
sixty -nine, when most artists — especially musicians —
are deaf to new impressions, he heard the Dutchman at
Dresden ; and how much he was impressed by it may be
inferred from the fact that he was the first (after Dresden)
to bring it out (at Cassel), only five months after its pre-
miere. We read in his Autobiography (Vol. II. p. 271)
how, after perusing the text of this opera, he declared it
"a little masterpiece," and regretted " not having had,
ten years previously, a similar and equally good one for
my own composition." To his friend Liider, whom he
invited to the performance, he wrote: —
"This work, altliough it comes near the boundary of the new-
rf)mantic school a la Berlioz, and is giving me unheard-of trouble
with its immense difficulties, ^ yet interests me in the highest degree
since it is obviously the product of pure inspiration, and does not,
1 This sounds amusing to-day. What would Spohr have said to
Tristan or tlie GdUerdcimmerinif/ .' Tin; italics in this extract are my
own. Critics and professors will please heed them.
140 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
like so much of our modern operatic music, betray in every bar
the striving to make a sensation or to please. There is much crea-
tive imagination in it, its invention is thoroughly noble, and it is
well written fur the voices, while the orchestral part, though enor-
mously difficult, and somewhat overladen, is rich in new effects
and will certainly, in our large theatre, be perfectly clear and intel-
ligible. At the end of this week the rehearsals will begin in the
theatre, and my curiosity is greatly aroused as to how the fantastic
subject, and the still more fantastic music, will impress me on the
stage. In so far I think my judgment is already clearly fixed, that
I consider Wagner as the most gifted dramatic composer of the
time.- His aims in this work are at any rate noble, and that tells
in these times where everything seems to be calculated to produce
a sensation or to tickle the ears of the vulgar."
Now we all know that Wagner was ever a most ungrate-
ful wretch — for have we not been told so a thousand
times? What did he do after these demonstrations of
friendship on the part of Spohr, who, besides, wrote to
Wagner — who had never even asked him to bring out
his opera — a letter in which he expressed his pleasure
at coming across a young composer who showed in every-
thing he did that he took a serious view of art? In
reply to all this, what did Wagner do when he heard that
his opera had been well given and favorably received?
He wrote Spohr an enthusiastic letter of thanks in which
he congratulated himself on having found in the vener-
able master a champion who took hold of his cause with
such superior intelligence, energy, and good will ; adding
that these qualities in a conductor were even more impor-
tant to the success of an opera than the best singers. And
in 1860, when Wagner heard of Spohr 's death, he added
insult to injury by writing a eulogy of him in which he
lamented the "rich endowment, power, and noble pro-
WHAT BEETHOVEN WOULD HAVE SAID 141
ductivity " that had passed away with one who was " the
last of those noble, serious musicians whose youth was
still illuminated by the direct rays of Mozart's sun."
" He was a serious, honest master of his art ; the maxim of his
life was belief in his art ; and his keenest enjoyment sprang from
the strength of this faith. This serious faith made him free from
every personal pettiness ; whatever was unintelligible to him, he
left alone as foreign to his nature, without opposition or persecu-
tion. That was the so-called ' coldness and inaffability ' with which
he was often reproached." (See Vol. V. p. 135, etc.)
If the reader is a pessimist by nature, he will per-
haps reply that this eulogy of Spohr was merely written
by way of retaliation for the services rendered him by
that master. But if he will read on, he will discover in
our very next chapter what Wagner thought of, and did
for, four great masters who were either dead when he
was born, or died while he was a child, — Bach, Gluck,
Weber, and Beethoven.
WHAT BEETHOVEN WOULD HAVE SAID
Beethoven died when Wagner was fourteen; indeed,
it was the news of Beethoven's death that first called
Wagner's attention to his music, of which he subse-
quently became such a fanatical admirer and champion
that, as we have seen, Heine remarked of him jocularly
that he even had " friend of Beethoven " printed on his
visiting-card. Would Beethoven have returned this ad-
miration? Would he, for example, have approved of the
wild and dissonant storm music which makes up such a
great part of the Flying Dutchman score? I say boldly
that he would ; and I base this assertion on the attitude
142 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
which he assumed toward Weber's Freischiitz, which,
with its gruesome Wolf's-Glen music, was at first consid-
ered very '' Wagnerian " (so to speak) by the critics, one
of them, the poet Tieck, going so far as to declare it
"the most unmusical noise that ever raged on a stage."
What Beethoven thought of these " Wagnerian " scenes
in the Freischiitz may be read in Max Maria von Weber's
admirable biography of his father (Vol. II. p. 509) : —
" The profound originality, which of course did not escape him,
made a deep impression on him, and he exclaimed in presence of
his friends, striking the score with his fist : ' The usually so gentle
little man, — I should not have considered him capable of such a
thing! Weber must now write operas, nothing but operas, one
after the other, and without many scruples. That Caspar, the
monster, stands there like a house. Wherever the devil puts in
his paws, we are sure to feel them.' And when somebody recalled
the second finale, and the musically unheard-of things therein, he
exclaimed : ' Yes, that is quite so ; but the effect on me is absurd,
I can see of course what Weber is after, but he certainly has written
devilish stuff here. When I read it, — as at the Wild Hunt, — I
have to laugh, and yet I feel that it is the right thing, — und es
wird dock das Jiechte sein ! ' And deeply agitated, he added,
'■ Such a thing must be heard — 07ily heard, but as — I — ' "
Poor deaf Beethoven ! But the critics — who had no
lack of ears — what did they do for Weber, next to Wag-
ner the greatest dramatic composer Germany has pro-
duced? Instead of conscientiously studying the score
of his immortal Euryanthe and explaining its beauties to
the public, they dubbed it Ennyanthe, and attacked it so
savagely that it proved a financial failure; and poor
Weber, who was ill with consumption, had to accept an
offer, against his conscience, to write an opera for London
in order to leave a small sum for his family after death.
WHAT BEETHOVEN WOULD HAVE SAID 143
He knew it would kill him — and it did; but the critics
had had their joke about Ennyanthe, and the public its
laugh, and that was, of course, the main thing. Subse-
quently Euryanthe was recognized as a great masterwork.
Did this teach the critics a lesson? or did any one of
them have the humility of Beethoven, to exclaim, when
anything struck him as "devilish stuff"; "and yet it
must be the right thing "? The answer will be found in
this book, passim; for the critical farce, like history,
repeats itself after the appearance of each new opera by
Wagner, without exception.
WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
It was with Weber's Euryanthe that the new opera-
house in Dresden had been opened on April 12, 1841 ; and
it was with the same opera that Wagner chose to be tried
as an applicant for the position of royal conductor, on
Jan. 10, 1843, It seemed as if, with his return to Dres-
den, fortune had begun to smile on him perpetually.
Not only was his Rienzi brought out, and triumphantly
successful; not only was this immediately followed by
the demand for the Flying Dutchman; but it happened
most opportunely that just about this time two men who
were associated with Reissiger in supervising the per-
formances at the Eoyal Opera, Morlacchi and Rastrelli,
died in rapid succession. Now, since Wagner had not
only become the hero of the day with his two operas, but
had shown his rare ability as a conductor in presiding
over their rehearsals and public performances, what more
natural than that he should be looked upon as a proper
and desirable colleague to Reissiger?
Strange as it may seem, he did not at once embrace
this plan with the eagerness that might have been
expected. He remembered his toilsome and tiresome
experiences as conductor at Magdeburg, Konigsberg, and
Riga, followed by his disappointments regarding operatic
affairs in Paris. He knew that he would have to spend
his days and nights in preparing and conducting operas
144
WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR 145
most of which he detested for their lack of artistic value
and shallow brilliancy; and in his secret heart he may
have shared the belief of a Dresden correspondent that it
was not desirable to make a man of his creative capacity
waste his time in rehearsing operas. His friends, how-
ever, could not appreciate such reasons; and, yielding to
their advice and to the natural desire of his wife to have
at last a regular and respectable income, he made up his
mind to try for the vacant place.
"There were many applicants besides Wagner. As possible
successors to Morlacclii only Glaser and Wagner were taken into
consideration. The former wished to have the same rank as Reis-
siger, while the composer of Rienzi at first appeared to be satisfied
with the title of music-director and a salary of 1200 thaler (§900).
The Intendant von LUttichau recommended him urgently. Wag-
ner afterwards produced weighty considerations with which he
succeeded in securing an appointment to a full Kapellmeistership,i
at a salary of §1125."
Almost a year had elapsed between Wagner's arrival
in Dresden and his appointment as Royal Conductor.
For six years he occupied that position, and the most
important artistic fruits of this period were the scores of
Tannhduser and Lohengrin, the first of which was per-
formed on Oct. 19, 1845, while Lohengrin was reserved
for a different fate. But before considering these two
operas it will be well to dwell on some minor composi-
tions of this period, and on Wagner's activity as a con-
ductor.
1 This version of the affair, given by Tappert (p. 24), differs some-
what from Glasenapp's (Vol. I. pp. 150-154).
146 WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
THE LOVEFEAST OF THE APOSTLES
After overcoming the scruples which he had at first
entertained in regard to a resumption of theatrical
life, he entered on his duties with joy and pleasant
anticipations of the fine performances he would be able
to give with the excellent artists then gathered at the
Dresden Opera, and also in the concert rooms. He
was installed on Feb. 2, and his first official act was to
assist Berlioz at the rehearsals for the concerts he was
about to give in Dresden — " which he did with zeal and
the greatest good-will, " — avec zUe et de tr^s bon coeur, — as
Berlioz himself wrote at the time ; ^ adding that Wagner
was "a young artist of precious endowments. R. Wag-
ner, besides his twofold talent as man of letters and
composer, possesses also that of an orchestral conductor.
I have seen him conduct his operas with rare precision
and energy."
Although the duties of a royal Kapellmeister might
have seemed sufiiciently arduous, since there were three
or four operas to be rehearsed and performed each week
by the two conductors, Wagner still found time to engage
in various concert enterprises. He accepted the leader-
ship of the Liedertafel, a vocal society presided over by
Dr. Lowe ; and for a festival that was to be given in the
summer of 1843 he composed the Love Feast of the
Apostles, a biblical scene for three choirs of male voices
and orchestra. Wagner rarely was at his best when he
wrote for the concert hall, and this piece is no exception
1 How shamefully he requited this service in 1861, when Wagner so
greatly needed a friend in Paris, we shall see in a later chapter.
WEBER'S BEMAINS 147
to the rule. Its especial significance lies in the origi-
nality of its conception and the manner in which the born
opera-composer is revealed even in a concert piece like
this. For more than half an hour the apostles, dejected
by the Saviour's death, sing alone, without accompani-
ment, when suddenly, with the words of the apostles,
•• Wliat murmuring fills the air? What sounds, what
strains?" the orchestra comes in and illustrates the
words with a most thrilling effect. Nor was this the
only theatrical effect. Another one, quite as remark-
able, which was, many years later, adopted in Parsifal,
was the placing of forty select voices in the lofty cupola
of the church, which produced a magic impression on
every one — except, of course, the critics, one of whom
asserted that Wagner could not even write grammatically
correct music (he was at that time at work on Tann-
hduser!) and that if his teacher Weinlig (to whose widow
this composition was dedicated), could have heard it, he
would have turned in his grave! ^
WEBER's remains transferred to DRESDEN
In securing Wagner as its leader, the Liedertafel not
only got hold of the best conductor it could have found
1 More detailed descriptions of tliis composition may be found in
Hanslick's Aus clem Concertsaal, p. 314, and Noufllard's B. Wagner, p.
172. That Wagner, in 1852, thought well of this work is Indicated by
this passage in a letter to Liszt: "It is really incomprehensible to me
that our numerous vo(^al societies have not yet produceil my Love Feast
of the Apostles. ... In a large hall and with a large chorus, you can
easily leave the instrumentation as it is. Only let me call your atten-
tion to the fact that I was compelled, in Dresden, after certain main
divisions of the work, to indicate the pitch again by means of two
harps : the larger a chorus, the more inevitably it flattens from time to
time."
148 WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
in Germany, but gained a most ardent champion for a
cause which it had much at heart ; namely, the project of
transferring the ashes of Weber from London to Paris.
A traveller had reported that the plain coffin which
contained Weber's remains had been stored in such a
careless way in the vaults of St. Paul's, that there was
danger that it might before long be unrecognizable.
This aroused a project in Germany to reclaim the coffin
and bury it in German soil. Several concerts had been
given, one by the Liedertafel, but the necessary funds
had grown so slowly that there was danger that the pro-
ject would have to be abandoned. Wagner's appoint-
ment to a leading musical position brought new hopes.
It was known that he was an almost fanatic admirer of
Weber, who would be sure to throw his whole soul into
the undertaking, and so he did. The first thing to be
done was to secure a performance at the Opera for the
benefit of the scheme; but peculiar difficulties stood in
the way. At first it was given out that the King felt
religious objections to such a disturbance of the dead;
then the royal director, von Liittichau, tried to persuade
Wagner of the impracticability of the scheme. Why
should Weber, in particular, be honored in this manner?
Given such a precedent, would not the widows of other
royal conductors, of Morlacchi or Reissiger, be justified
some day in bringing similar claims? Wagner's attempt
to make clear the difference between these cases was per-
haps less decisive than the argument that other opera-
houses had given such benefit performances, including
one under Meyerbeer at Berlin, which netted 2000 thalers,
and that it would therefore be disgraceful for Dresden
not to do the same honor to its own great former Kapell-
WEBER'S REMAINS 149
meister. This had its proper effect; and with the funds
derived from these performances, Weber's oldest son
could at last be sent to London to bring over the coffin.
He returned with it on Dec. 14, 1844, and the Ger-
mans, according to their usual custom, tried to atone
by their homage to the dead for the neglect and vitupera-
tion which alone they have for a living genius. A grand
■ torchlight procession was arranged, followed by the rela-
tions and friends of Weber, by members of musical soci-
eties, and a vast crowd of spectators. The funeral march
for the occasion had been arranged by Wagner from two
Euryanthe motives for eighty wind-instruments. The
weird tremolos of the violas in the thrilling tomb-motive
he arranged for twenty muted drums playing pianissimo;
and the effect of the whole was so impressive, so appro-
priate, and peculiarly reminiscent of Weber, that Schroe-
der-Devrient, who had known him personally, declared
she had never witnessed a ceremony in which the means
were so successfully adapted to the end; and other
witnesses who had watched the procession from their
windows, declared to Wagner that the effect was grand
beyond expression. Thus did Wagner manifest his
dramatic genius in life as in art; and in order that this
real ceremony might not be less impressive and perfect
than a stage performance, he made the musicians learn
their parts by marching across the stage at the last
rehearsal.
When the coffin arrived at the chapel of the Catholic
cemetery, Schroeder-Devrient placed a wreath on it, and
Wagner delivered a funeral address. Weber's poor
widow had just lost her youngest son, aged twenty.
Wagner made a pathetic allusion to him as having been
150 WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
fated to convey to the manes of his father the message
of his countrymen's love, and then continued : —
" So the Englishman now does you justice, the Frenchman ad-
mires you, but the German alone can love you ; you are his own,
a beautiful day from his life, a warm drop of his blood, a piece of
his heart ; who shall blame us if we wished that your ashes, too,
should be a part of the dear German soil ? Never has there been
a more German musician than you. Wherever your genius bore
you, into whatever distant, bottomless realm of fancy, always still
did it remain chained with a thousand fibres to the heart of the
German people, with which he wept and laughed, like a credulous
child when it listens to the legends of fairy tales of home."
This was the first public address that Wagner ever
made, and the only one in which he did not speak extem-
pore. He relates^ a curious psychologic phenomenon
which occurred during its delivery : —
"As I was completely filled with my subject and the way I
intended to treat it, I felt so sure of my memory that I had taken
no precautions for an accident, whereby I gave my brother Albert,
who stood near me, a moment of great perplexity, as he confessed
that, deeply impressed as he was, he could not help confounding
me for not giving him the manuscript to prompt with. For it hap-
pened that, after I had begun my speech with a distinct and full
voice, I was for a moment so strongly affected by the almost start-
ling effect which my own voice, its sound and accents, made on
me, that, as in a trance, I imagined that I not only heard but saw
myself, facing the silent audience ; and by thus placing myself as
an object before myself I assumed a state of intense expectation of
what was to come, just as if I were not the same man that stood
there as speaker. No fright or aberration of attention accompa-
nied this state ; only there was such a disproportionately long
pause that whoever saw me musing with absent stare could not
know what to think of me. At last my silence and the breathless
1 Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. II. pp. 59, 60.
A SURPRISING BEETHOVEN PERFORMANCE 151
stillness about me recalled me to the fact that I was there to speak
and not to listen ; immediately I proceeded and spoke my address
to the end so fluently that the famous actor, Emil Devi'ient, assured
me subsequently that he had been marvellously impressed, not
only as a spectator of the touching funeral ceremonies, but also,
and especially, in his capacity as a dramatic orator."
The ceremonies were brought to a close by the sing-
ing of a poem especially written and composed for the
occasion by Wagner. Nor did his efforts cease here.
Having brought back Weber, it remained to build him a
worthy monument, for which a place had been selected
near the opera-house. If the reader will look over the
second and third letters of the Wagner-Liszt correspond-
ence, he will find that they are eloquent appeals for
the assistance, in this matter, of the generous pianist,
through whose efforts, mainly, the Beethoven monument
had first been made possible.
A SURPRISING BEETHOVEN PERFORMANCE
Half a century ago subscription concerts were not so
customary in German cities as they are now. Besides
playing at the opera and in the church, the royal orches-
tra of Dresden gave a public performance only once
a year, for the benefit of the widows and orphans of
former members. It was customary on these occasions
to produce an oratorio and a symphony, which were
conducted in rotation by the two Kapellmeisters. For
the concert in 1846 Keissiger had charge of the oratorio,
while the symphony was in the hands of Wagner, who
selected Beethoven's Ninth. Thereat great consterna-
tioiiluTrong-the members of the orchestra, who were so
alarmed that they actually sent a deputation to General-
152 WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
Director von Liitticliau, begging him to use his authority
in preventing Wagner from carrying out his nefarious
and reckless plan!
But what was there so very alarming in Wagner's
decision to perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony? The
answer to his question throws a brilliant light on the
taste and actions of the kind of musicians, conductors,
and critics who at that time, as later, were Wagner's
determined enemies.
At that time the conservatives among the professional
musicians had not yet succeeded in understanding the
"real Beethoven"; that is, the compositions of his third
period. These works, which are now considered the
grandest of all, were then pronounced obscure, unnatu-
ral, the aberrations of a mind hampered by deafness.
The trouble, as usual, was not in the music, but in the
interpreters, who did not understand Beethoven's inten-
tions and his novel way of expressing them, which is
now known as his "third style," and of which the Ninth
Symphony is the finest example. This symphony was
at that time very rarely given in Germany. Reissiger
had produced it in Dresden some years previously to
the events we are now considering, but it failed to give
satisfaction to the audience — or the conductor. Con-
sequently the symphony was in bad odor, and the
musicians feared that if it were given at their " Pensions-
concert," the widows and orphans would go empty-
handed.
Wagner knew better. He had once as a youth heard
this symphony at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipzig and
was surprised to find so little in it compared to what he
had expected from the score, with which he was even
A SURPRISING BEETHOVEN PERFORMANCE 153
then thoroughly familiar (the reader will remember that
when he was seventeen he offered an arrangement of it
for the piano to a publisher); in Paris, however, he
heard it under Habeneck, who had compelled his musi-
cians to rehearse it over and over again until they
thoroughly understood it: consequently the audience
understood it too, and it proved a great success. Con-
vinced, therefore, that, if Beethoven's greatest work was
unpopular in Dresden, this was simply the fault of its
misinterpret^rs, Wagner resolved to remedy this state
of affairs, and to reveal Beethoven's genius in its true
light. So he stubbornly refused to modify his plan;
but in order to avert the possibility of a small audience,
he aroused the curiosity of the public by various notices
which he inserted in the newspapers anonymously.
Then he wrote and printed a sketch which later became
the basis of his famous ten-page " Programme " for this
symphony, in which he analyzes the sentiments expressed
in it, partly by means of apposite verses happily chosen
from Goethe's Faust.^ His next step was to borrow
the orchestral parts in Leipzig, as the Dresden orchestra
did not wish to bear the expense of buying them. Re-
gardless of expense, he insisted, however, in carrying
out his intention of making some changes in the concert
liall, to facilitate a rearrangement of the orchestra by
which it was concentrated in the centre, while the chorus
surrounded it in seats rising amphitheatrically around
it, whereby the vocal music was rendered more effect-
ively, and all the sounds were better blended.
Then the rehearsals began. With what thoroughness
and perseverance they were carried out may be inferred
1 This programme is repriuted in Vol. V. of the Gesammelie Schriften.
154 WAGNER AS BOYAL CONDUCTOR
from this one fact that there were no fewer than twelve
special meetings of the contrabasses and 'cellos, for the
unique recitative at the beginning of the last movement,
which was repeated until the musicians succeeded in
combining the greatest freedom and energy with the
deepest sentiment and expression. The choruses were
rehearsed with the same zeal until his own leading voice
could no longer be heard in the enthusiastic volume of
sound. Into the orchestral parts he wrote the expres-
sion marks with his own hand.
For all their pains Wagner and his musicians were
most liberally rewarded. Already at the final rehearsal
the hall was full, and the sum netted reached the unpre-
cedented figure of more than 2000 thalers ; the directors
confessed themselves converted, and to make sure of
a similar income, requested Wagner annually, as long as
he remained in Dresden, to repeat the Ninth Symphony
at their Pensionsconcert. The eminent Danish com-
poser, Niels Gade, assured Wagner that he would gladly
pay twice the admission price merely to hear that reci-
tative of the basses once more; and the philologist. Dr.
Kochly, told him that he had been able for the first time
to follow a symphony from beginning to end with sym-
pathetic understanding. And how about our friends,
the critical clowns? They cut their usual capers, as a
matter of course, and one of them wrote that the per-
formance was poor — excepting the choruses, which were
good because they had been trained by Court-organist
Schneider ! This was a lie, — Schneider had not trained
the chorus, — but a critical lie in re Wagner is hardly a
phenomenon that calls for comment.
Eeissiger, fearing that Wagner would succeed where
UHLIG, BACH, PALESTRINA 155
he had failed, had gone so far as to actually intrigue
against the Symphony, and to point out "Beethoven's
regrettable aberrations." And Wagner, the notorious
" enemy " of all the great composers, what did he think
of this " regrettable aberration " ?
" It is not possible," he writes, " tliat the work of a master can
ever have taken possession of a pupil's heart with such magic
power as that which overwhelmed me when perusing the first
movement of this symphony. Had anybody surprised me before
the open score, as I went over it to consider tlie means of its exe-
cution, and noted my tears and frantic sobs, he would truly have
asked himself in astonishment if this was the conduct of a royal
Saxon Kapellmeister ! Fortunately I was on such occasions spared
the visits of our orchestral directors and their revered first Kapell-
meister, and other gentlemen versed in classical music."
UHLIG, BACH, PALESTRINA
Among those who attended this historic performance
of the Ninth Symphony were two young men, one of
whom subsequently became one of the most able Wag-
ner conductors, and the other one of the greatest Wagner
singers — Hans von Biilow and Schnorr von Carolsfeld.^
Among the number of those who were converted on this
occasion to Wagner's cause was also Theodor Uhlig,
who subsequently became the valued assistant, friend,
and champion of the exiled composer, and to whom the
lion's share of the Letters to Dresden Friends are ad-
dressed. Uhlig was himself a composer, who, in his
early youth, wrote almost a hundred vocal and instru-
mental pieces. He w^as at first a decided opponent of
Wagner, and even wrote a musical burlesque of his
1 Glasenapp, I. 218.
156 WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
style; but on hearing him conduct the Ninth Symphony,
he realized what injustice he had done him, and in course
of time his conversion became so complete that he wrote,
shortly before his death: "I sympathize with Wagner
from the bottom of my heart, so thoroughly that for me
the rest of the musical world, with very few exceptions,
hardly exists." We shall see later on of what inestimable
service this friend was to Wagner during the years when
he could not have ventured on German soil without risk-
ing his freedom, if not his life.
Besides Beethoven and Weber there were other classi-
cal composers for whom Wagner showed his " insolent
contempt " by his actions and writings during the Dres-
den period. One of these was the Italian Palestrina,
whose vocal music he tried to introduce in the Catholic
Court Chapel: "I wanted to relieve the hard-worked
members of the orchestra, add female voices, and intro-
duce true Catholic church music, a capella. As a speci-
men I prepared Palestrina's Stabat Male)-, and suggested
other pieces, but my efforts failed."^ Wagner showed
the influence of Palestrina on his own style, three
decades later, in Parsifal.
Bach was another of the idols for whom he never
ceased trying to make converts. At one of his sub-
scription concerts, in 1848, he brought out one of those
magnificent motets of Bach in which, as he says, "the
lyric stream of rhythmic melody mingles with the waves
of an ocean of harmonies," — which recalls Beethoven's
saying, "Not Bach [brook] but Ocean should be his
name." In such efforts he was ably assisted by one of
1 Said in conversation with E. Dannreuther. Grove's Dictionary of
Music and Musicians, Vol. IV. p. 354.
WHAT WAGNER DID FOR GLUCK 157
the Dresden friends to whom the famous letters are
written, — Wilhelm Fischer, for whose achievements as
chorus director Wagner chiims an ahnost historic sig-
nificance. Thus, as Wagner relates, " he had tauglit liis
theatre-chorus the motet,
. " ' Singet dem Herrn' in such a manner that, relying on the
uncommonly clever and certain execution of the singers, I could
venture to take the first allegro, which is commonly, on account of
its horrible difficulties, taken as a most cautious moderato, at a
really fiery pace, which once more, as is well-known, almost fright-
ened our critics to death."
WHAT WAGNER DID FOR GLUCK
In his capacity as operatic conductor, also, Wagner
favored the classical repertory as much as in his power
lay; but this matter, of course, was controlled ultimately
by the royal Director, Avho, in turn, felt obliged, for
pecuniary reasons, to give the public most frequently
what it most frequently wanted to hear. You may be
sure that it was not Wagner's fault that, for example, in
the year in which Tannhduser was first given (1845),
Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini had thirty-three per-
formances together, while Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber
combined had only twenty-four.^ How much the great
German composers needed such a champion as Wagner,
may be inferred from the extraordinary fact that two
of the finest productions of German genius — Marsch-
ner's Hans Ileilmg (that gloomy but splendid opera which
cast its shadow on the Flying Dutdiman) and Gluck's
1 Interesting statistical tables, comprising tJie years 1842-1845 and
1885 at all the leading German opera-houses, may be found in Kiirsch-
ner's Wagner Jahrhuch, 188G, pp. 43C-4G5.
158 WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
Armicla — had never been heard at Dresden till Wagner
brought them out, though Marschner's masterwork was
eleven years old, and Gluck's sixty-six! I have already
stated that Wagner chose Weber's Euryanthe for his
" trial performance " : the first opera after his installa-
tion was Gluck's Armida, which made a deep impression.
A still greater success for Gluck Wagner won by the
revival of Ipliigenie in Aulis, which (as the statisti-
cal tables referred to in my last foot-note show) liad
almost entirely disappeared from the German opera-
houses. But he was not satisfied with simply reviving
Gluck's great work. Suspecting that Spontini or others
might have tampered with the score, as used at Berlin,
he sent to Paris for the original edition, and found his
suspicions verified. A most serious blunder had been
made in the overture, in which some one had ignorantly
and impudently inserted the word allegro, where the orig-
inal score had no change of tempo. ^ This falsification,
which utterly marred the dignity of the overture, had
been universally accepted, and was responsible for the
unsatisfactory close which Mozart had made for this
overture. Wagner altered this close, in accordance with
the spirit of the correct score, and at concerts his version
is now accepted by all intelligent conductors. He also
altered the closing scene of the opera, ^ for reasons simi-
lar to those which induced him to change the last scene
in his own Tannhduser, about which more anon. He
also touched up the instrumentation in some places.
Kor was this all. The reader has doubtless heard of
Rousseau's curious opinion that the French language was
1 See the details in Wagner's Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. V. p. 148.
2 Details may be found in Glasenapp, Vol. I. pp. 226-228.
WHAT WAGNER DID FOR GLUCK 159
not suitable for music. Gluck's Tphigenie in Aulis, how-
ever, made him change his mind, and induced him to
confess frankly that for good, expressive music French
was as well adapted as any other language. But the
German translation of Gluck's text was so barbarous that
Wagner could not persuade himself to use it, before he
had spent many hours in correcting it and making the
word-accents correspond with the musical accents.^
The result justified all this labor. Gluck's opera was
a brilliant success, and was repeated six times before
the close of the season. But did any one thank him
publicly for his labor of love, and point out what he had
done to bring back Gluck's opera to honor? Not a bit
of it. The critics had pointed out beforehand that this
opera was " an unfortunate choice, involving a waste of
time and trouble; for nowhere has it been possible to
preserve successfully on the modern stage this work
of Gluck, which is most antiquated in its form, and
unredeemed by its dramatic contents." After this it
would have been undiplomatic to change front, for that
would have made conspicuous Wagner's share in the suc-
cess of this revival. In this matter Adolphe Jullien has
gone among the Philistines. Gluck, he says (p. 67),
was not so antiquated that his scores needed retouching ;
what would Wagner have thought of the possibility that
some one might hereafter retouch his own scores? To
which I reply that Wagner, throughout his life, continued
(like Bach) to retouch and improve his own scores, and
that he would have been the last to wince at the thought
that some great composer of the future would bring one
of his operas "up to date," if in that way it could be
1 See the Wagner-Liszt Correspondence, Vol. I. No. 41.
160 WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
redeemed from universal neglect. That was the case with
Gluck's opera, as we have seen. The question is less
one of art than of common sense. If conservative critics
and pedants would rather have the scores of the old
masters unaltered and unperformed on their shelves than
retouched and brought to life again with a possibility of
success, I am unable to follow them; and I am sure that
most of my readers will sympathize with my feelings on
this subject.^
Liszt, as usual, showed his level-headedness and com-
mon sense in this matter. While he was conductor at
Weimar he paid much attention to Gluck; and in one of
his letters to Wagner he writes: "Would you feel
inclined, later on, to make arrangements of Alceste,
Orpheus, Armida, and Iphigenie in Tauris similar to that
of Iphigenie in Aulis, and what would you ask as compen-
sation?" Wagner replied: " Concerning your excellent
suggestion regarding the editing of Gluck's operas —
which gave me much pleasure — I shall soon write you
1 Mr. Joseph Bennett, in his extraordinary parody of Wagner's life,
published in the London Musical Times (1890-1891), remarks that in
this Gluck arrangement " Wagner exhibited his ' discontent with exist-
ing things ' in a manner which even his most fanatical followers would
hardly care to defend." Had Mr. Bennett's ignorance of his subject
been somewhat less complete and symmetrical, he would have known
that Wagner's most fanatical /oe. Professor Eduard Hanslick, cordially
approves of his version of this opera, in which, he says, " a fine conser-
vative feeling for the characteristics of the past goes hand in hand with
a clear perception of modern requirements. True," he continues, " a
critic conveys to the reader a greater sense of his own importance if he
wails over the omission of every little note as an irreparable loss. But
a truer friend and benefactor of Gluck is he who, by sacrificing a few
minor details, helps one of his operas to success, than those purists
who, from their classical heights, would rather look down on its fail-
ure." Wagner's additions in the last act Hanslick pronounces " mas-
terly traits, which enormously increase the dramatic effect without
asserting themselves too independently."
TWO SPONTINI ANECDOTES 161
a more definite answer. " But as there is no further alhi-
sion to the matter, we must suppose that the plan was
frustrated by other projects and tasks.
TWO SPONTINI ANECDOTES
Most opportunely we find, in one of the papers in which
Wagner describes his experiences in Dresden,^ an anec-
dote which shows how great composers would be apt to
look on their modern " editors " — provided they are such
editors as Franz was of Bach and Handel, and Wagner
was of Gluck, Beethoven, and Palestrina : —
" In course of a conversation with Spontini I begged him to tell
me why he, wlio was usually so much addicted to an energetic use
of the trombones, oddly kept them in silence in the magnificent
triumphal march of the first act {La Vestale). Astonished, he
asked me, ' Didn't I write a part for the trombones ? ' I showed
him the printed score, whereupon he begged me to add a part for
tlie trombones, to be used, if i:)0ssible, at the next rehearsal. 'Jlitn
he said: 'In your Bienzi I heard an instrument which you call
the " bass-tuba " ; I do not wish to banish this instrument from the
orchestra ; write a part for it in my Vestale.'' It gave me pleasure
to comply with this request, and I did so with care and discretion.
When, at the rehearsal, he first noted the effect of this addition,
lie cast on me a really most tender look of gratitude, and the im-
pression made on him by this not-difficult enrichment of his score
was so lasting that some time later he sent me from Paris a most
friendly letter, in which he begged me to send him a copy of these
additional parts which I had written ; only his pride did not per-
mit him to admit by iiis language that he desired something that
I had written for him, so he said : ' send me a copy of the trom-
bone parts in the triumphal march and of the bass-tuba part, as
they were played under my direction at Dresden.' "
1 Reminiscences of Spont hi i , Vol. V. p. 120.
162 WAGNER AS ROYAL CONDUCTOR
Of this extraordinary pride and vanity of Spontini,
"Wagner's Reminiscences contain several other amusing
illustrations, only one of which, however, can be cited
here, as the others belong rather in a Spontini than in a
Wagner biography. " When I lieard your Rienzi, " Spon-
tini remarked one day, " I said, this is a man of genius,
but he has already done more than he can do." Being
urged to explain this oracular utterance, Spontini
frankly expounded at considerable length, how he had
exhausted all operatic possibilities, so that it was useless
and foolish to try to write any more operas. — In spite
of this advice Wagner continued recklessly to write
operas, and if Spontini could come to life to-day, he would
be the most astonished man in the world on seeing how
his own works have almost entirely vanished, while to
Wagner the opera-houses devote about one-fourth of all
their performances! It must be said, however, that
Spontini does not deserve such entire neglect. With all
his faults he was at least an honest artist, of whom
Wagner wrote — in his usual abusive manner — that
" with him died a grand, most estimable, and noble art-
period. . . . Let us bow deeply and reverently before
the grave of the creator of La Vestale, Cortez, and
Qlympia J "
TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
Eventful aud busy years were the seven that Wagner
spent in Dresden; for in this short period three of liis
operas liad their first performance, wliile two — Tann-
hduser and Lohengrin — were also composed during this
time. It has already been stated that the sketch of
Tannhduser was made even before the Rienzi rehearsals
began, in 1842; but there were so many interruptions,
and so much of Wagner's time was taken up with his
duties as royal conductor, that the score of the opera was
not completed till three years later. Concerning his
state of mind during its composition, he has made this
interesting revelation : —
" Into this work I had precipitated myself with my whole soul,
and with such consuming ardor that, the nearer I approached its
end, the more I was haunted by an idea that a sudden death would
prevent me from completing it ; so that after writing the last note
I had a feeling of joyous elation, as if I had escaped a mortal
danger."
To a friend in Berlin, to whom he sent a copy of the
score, he wrote, in a similar vein: —
"Here is my Tannhauser, body and soul: a German from top
to toe. May he be able to win tlie hearts of my Orerman country-
men in a larger measure than my other works have succeeded in
doing so far ! This opera must be good, or else I never shall be
103
164 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
able to do anything that is good. It acted on me like real magic ;
whenever and wherever I took up my subject I was all aglow and
trembling with excitement ; after the various long interruptions
from work, the first breath always transported me back into the
fragrant atmosphere that had intoxicated me at its first conception.
The first performance is to be in September. At the end of this
month I shall go to Marienbad, and in August I shall return to
Dresden to rehearse Tannhdiiser. Piano scores, etc., are all com-
pleted, so that, on the day after the performance, I shall be per-
fectly free and at leisure. ' '
THE STORY OF TANNHAUSER
It is no wonder that Wagner was so bewitched by his
new work : he couhl not have found a more fascinating
subject, or one more admirably suited for a musical set-
ting than the story of Tannhauser and the Vocal Contest
in the Wartburg. It takes us back to the early part of
the thirteenth century, the time when Christian doctrines
had not yet succeeded in driving from the popular mind
various superstitions about heathen deities. One of these
deities, Holda, had become identified with the Venus of
ancient classical mythology, and instead of being, as
formerly, the simple goddess of beauty and the charms
of nature, was now looked upon as a wicked temptress
to lust and sensual depravity. This mediaeval Venus of
the North inhabited the interior of mountains, with
nymphs and sirens and other seductive attendants, whose
duty was to decoy victims into her grottoes, where they
found resistance impossible and soon were given up to
eternal perdition. One of these subterranean courts of
Venus was in the Horselberg, near the Wartburg, in
Thuringia, and it is this romantic locality that forms
the scenic background of Wagner's opera.
THE STOEY OF TANNHAUSER 165
Act I. Scene: a vast grotto, extending indefinitely.
On one side a green waterfall plunges tumultuously over
the rocks, A brook carries this water to the background,
where it forms a lake in which Naiads are seen bathing,
while Sirens are reclining on the banks. The rocks
which form the sides of the cave are covered with curi-
ous, coral-like tropical growths. In a branch of the
grotto, to the left, suffused with a rosy light, Venus is
seen reclining on a couch, while Tannhauser kneels at
her side, his head resting in her lap, and his harp lying
at his side. Youths and nymphs are dancing and frolick-
ing about the foaming pool formed by the waterfall;
and from the background a train of Bacchantes comes
running in, urging the dancers to wild revelry. Satyrs
and Fauns emerge from side grottoes, mix with the lov-
ing couples, chase the nymphs, and raise the confusion
and excitement to its highest pitch. Horrified, the three
Graces now rise from their place behind the couch of
Venus and attempt to check the revelry. They awake
the sleeping Amorettes and drive them from their lair.
Like a flock of birds the Amorettes fly upwards, place
themselves as in battle array, and shoot a continuous
shower of arrows into the confused groups below. The
wounded ones, seized by the pangs of love, sink down in
languorous exhaustion, and are driven towards the back-
ground by the Graces. The other actors in this amorous
pantomime also disappear in various directions, and the
Graces return to Venus, as if to report their victory over
the wild passions of her subjects. The seductive song of
the Sirens is now wafted from the lake, inviting way-
farers into the cave. A dissolving view shows the
abduction of Europa, who is seen seated on the back of
166 TANNHAUSEB IN DRESDEN
the white bull, decked with flowers. Another view
shows Leda reclining by a lake, in the woods, in soft
moonlight. The swan swims up to her and rests his neck
caressingly on her bosom. As this picture vanishes, the
Graces also disappear, and Venus and Tannhauser are
left alone.
Tannhauser starts, as if waking from a dream. All
these lascivious scenes, which Venus has evoked for the
gratification of his senses, delight him no more. Long
has he tarried and dallied with the joys that Venus
has lavished on him; but suddenly the remembrance of
the upper world, with its blue sky and sunlight, its
flowers and birds and forests, has come over him, and
eagerly he begs Venus to let him depart. Always, he
promises, shall his praise be only of her charms and her
love; ever will he be her champion: but he is not a god,
cannot always enjoy; his human heart longs for the
human sorrows which alone make the joys alternating
with them real joys. Venus is indignant at this change
in her favored lover. She coaxes and threatens in turn;
predicts that he will soon long eagerly to return to these
divine pleasures, when it will be too late. But Tann-
hauser remains obdurate. " Not in you, goddess of joy,
rests my salvation, but in the Virgin Mary!" he ex-
claims; and the moment he utters the word Mary
there is a terrible detonation, as of an earthquake, and
Venus with her grotto has vanished instantaneously.
Tannhauser stands alone in a beautiful green valley,
the blue sky overhead, to the right the stately Wart-
burg, while on an eminence to the left a young shepherd
accompanies with his pipe and song the tinkling of the
bells in his herds. He sings of Frau Holda and the
THE STORY OF TANNHAUSER lt)7
pleasures of spring till he is interrupted by a chorus of
pilgrims who are on their way to Rome, Their solemn
chant is first heard faintly in the distance, then becomes
nearer and louder as the pilgrims cross the stage, and
finally dies away again in the distance. Tannhauser,
deeply affected, sinks on his knees. The burden of his
sins weighs him down, and he vows to atone for them by
seeking toil and torture without rest.
The sound of distant church-bells accompanies his
prayer, and when it ceases, hunting-horns are heard com-
ing nearer and nearer. The Landgrave of Thuringia,
accompanied by the Knights and Minnesingers, Wolfram
von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide, Biterolf,
and others, comes on the stage. They recognize the
long-lost Tannhauser, greet him cordially, and invite him
to return with them to the Wartburg. But as this does
not agree with his resolution to do penance, he holds
back, until Wolfram touches a responsive chord by beg-
ging him to stay for the sake of Elisabeth. He does not
hesitate to tell him the open secret that he won the
heart of the Landgrave's niece at one of the Minne-
singer contests. Elisabeth herself did not keep the
secret, for ever since Tannhauser's mysterious disappear-
ance, soon after that event, she had avoided the Knights
and their contests, and pined away in solitude. " Return
to us with your song, so that she too may grace our festi-
vals again," Wolfram concludes. "To her, to her,"
Tannhauser sings with sudden enthusiasm and rapture,
in which he is joined by the other Knights and the
Landgrave in a glorious septet. Hunting-horns again
resound, echoed by the companions in the woods ; and as
the hunters crowd on the stage with their horses, dogs.
168 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
and deer, the curtain falls on the grandest operatic act
created up to the year of its production.
Act II. The Landgrave has summoned the nobles of
his land to witness a prize contest of the Minnesingers,
at which the subject (as at the mediaeval "Courts of
Love") is to be the nature of Love.^ After the nobles
and their ladies have assembled in the large banqueting-
hall, the Landgrave makes an address in which he an-
nounces that the winner of the vocal prize may ask of
the queen of the festival any reward, even should it be
her hand and heart. Elisabeth hears this without
alarm, for she has just met Tannhiiuser and confessed
her love to him. Nor does she fear that he will be
beaten in the contest, even by Wolfram, although he
too is an excellent bard and also loves her — but with a
different love from Tannliiiuser's, as the sequel soon
shows. It is Wolfram who opens the contest, and he
sings of love in the manner of the Minnesingers, as a
kind of unselfish adoration and self-sacrifice, free from
all material alloy. Against this ascetic, one-sided view
of love Tannhiluser protests. The fountain of love
should, indeed, be pure, he sings, but if we never drank
from it to quench our thirst, the race would soon come
to an end. Elisabeth, with the correct instincts of youth
and beauty, makes a sign of approval, but stops short
on noticing that the spectators, taught by hypocritic cus-
1 This contest in all probability took place at the Wartburg in 1207,
although some historians pronounce it a myth (see, e.ff., Elson's History
of German Sonc/, pp. 17-25). "Minnesingers" means "love-singers,"
and these minstrels had a special goddessof love, Fran Minne, who typi-
fied the pure, super-sensual aspect of love, which alone interested these
bards (in their songs). One feature of the contest which one would
like to see revived at certain performances of Wagner's opera was that,
while the best singer received a prize, " the worst was to be at once
taken out and hung."
THE STOEY OF TANNHAUSER 169
torn to assume a higher ideal than man can — or should
— live up to, remain sternly silent. And when the other
singers join in Wolfram's strain, exaggerating the meta-
physical side of love and censuring Tannhiiuser, the
latter is driven by a feeling of opposition into the other
extreme. Has he not promised Venus to sing of love
as she has taught it to him ? Forgetting everything
else in the excitement of the angry contest, he finally
bursts out into a passionate song of praise to the heathen
goddess, declaring that he alone can knoAV real love who
has dwelt in the Venusberg
1
Horror and consternation are the result of his out-
burst. All the ladies leave in haste and disorder, Elisa-
beth alone remaining, pale as death. " He has been in
the Venusberg, the sinner, by his own confession! he
must die," the Knights shout, and crowd around Tann-
hauser with drawn swords. At this moment Elisabeth
utters a piercing scream and throws herself between
him and his assailants with the words : —
«♦ Away from him ! Not ye may be his judges !
Shame on you ! Cast away the angry sword !
And mark the words that come from maiden's lips ;
Learn ye through me of God's all-gracious will !
"The wretched one, whom grim temptation
In fearful folds has so enfurl'd ;
How ! Shall not he obtain salvation,
Through rue and penance in this world ?
" Ye who are strong in your believing,
Would ye deny God's holy will ?
"Why of all hope him thus bereaving ?
So say hath he e'er wrought you ill ?
1 See Wagner's interesting comments on this scene, Vol. V. pp. 195-
199.
170 TAN Nil AU SEE IN DRESDEN
" See me, the maid whose life is bliglited
By him, witli one dread, fearful stroke ;
Whose soul by love was sweetly lighted,
Till cruelly her heart he broke.
" I plead for him ; I plead his life ; ye spare him ;
I pray his steps in penitence ye guide ;
The gentle message of liedemption bear him, —
That for him, too, once our good Saviour died."
Tannhauser is saved. In deep coutrition he ex-
claims : —
" When from the path of grace I wandered
An angel came my steps to guide ;
But ah, to wild desire I pandered, —
And gazed on her in lustful pride.
" O thou who rulest in the Heavens above me,
Who sent the angel of thy love to me ;
Have mercy on me, though vile sin could move me,
To once deny thy messenger and Thee."
The Landgrave informs him that a band of pilgrims
has just formed to go to Rome. His only way to escape
eternal damnation is to join them and seek the Pope's
absolution. At this moment the chorus of the pilgrims
is heard in the valley, and Tannhauser, his face illu-
mined with a sudden ray of hope, shouts "To Rome! "
and rushes out to join them. Not for his own sake does
he hope for pardon, but to dry the tears of Elisabeth,
who, by sharing his sorrows, has suddenly revealed to
him a higher love than that of Venus, who only shared
his joys.
Act III. The scene represents the valley of the Wart-
burg, as in the first act, but in autumnal coloring and
THE STORY OF TANNHAUSER 171
twilight. Elisabeth is seen kneeling before a wayside
shrine of the Virgin, praying for Tannhiiuser. Sud-
denly the song of the returning pilgrims is heard. They
come nearer and uncover their heads as they pass the
shrine; but Elisabeth's anxious gaze fails to find Tann-
hauser among them. After they have all disappeared,
"Wolfram approaches and begs permission to escort
Elisabeth to the castle; but she only shakes her head
sorrowfully, with a significant gesture implying that she
has no more need of earthly assistance or companion-
ship. Wolfram, thus left alone, sings his pathetic song
to the Evening Star, ending with the lines : —
" thou beloved Evening Star,
I greet thee gladly from afar ;
From heart that hers could ne'er betray,
Greet, when she pass on her heavenward way,
When she has left this vale of sorrow,
For realms of light and endless morrow."
Meanwhile the twilight has deepened into night, Avhen
Wolfram suddenly notices a pilgrim tottering along with
the aid of his staff, his garments torn, his face pale and
convulsed. Recognizing Tannhiiuser by his voice, he
asks whether he has dared to set foot on that soil again
before obtaining absolution. "Fear not," Tannhiiuser
replies ; " it is not you nor your companions that I
seek; it is that road which once I found so easily — the
road to the Venusberg. Can you tell me the way to
it ? " " Madman ! " Wolfram retorts ; " is that your goal ?
Say, have you not been in Home ? " " Speak not of
Rome!" Tannhiiuser shouts angrily; but at last Wolf-
ram succeeds in calming him, and he relates the pathetic
adventures which have brought him to the present pass.
172 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
He had gone to Rome, in deep contrition to obtain the
Pope's forgiveness, like the other pilgrims; but to him
alone it was refused. The Pope hurled at him the crush-
ing message that if he has dwelt in the Venusberg, there
is no more hope of securing forgiveness for his sins than
there is that the dry staff in his hand shall bring forth
green leaves.
Before he has concluded this narrative, a light mist
has covered the background; presently a rosy light suf-
fuses it, and Venus is seen reclining on her couch,
surrounded by dancing nymphs. In seductive tones
interwoven with the weird orchestral sounds that viv-
idly recall the seductive scenes of the first act, she wel-
comes back to her grotto the faithless lover. Wolfram
tries to hold him back; but is fast losing ground, when
by a sudden inspiration, he once more utters the magic
word Elisabeth. At the same instant a chorus of monks
is heard singing her funeral dirge. " Woe! he is lost to
me," is the lament of Venus, as she suddenly disappears
with her magic surroundings. The rising sun casts its
first rays on the valley, from which the funeral proces-
sion, comprising the Landgrave, the knights and singers,
and the older pilgrims, approaches slowly with the body
of Elisabeth in an open bier. As it reaches the fore-
ground, Tannhauser falls dead on the coffin with the
words, "Saint Elisabeth, pray for me." At the same
moment tlie younger pilgrims arrive on the scene, bear-
ing aloft the Pope's staff covered with fresh green,
betokening the salvation of Tannhauser through a mir-
acle. Once more the sublime choral theme of the
pardoned pilgrims is intoned by all the vocal and instru-
mental forces combined, thus bringing the opera to a
thrilling final climax.
TEE POEM AND THE MUSIC 173
THE POEISI AND THE MUSIC
With the legend on which this opera is based Wagner
had become familiar as a boy, i n T leek's version, wliich,
however, was not of such a nature as to suggest its oper-
atic possibilities to him. It was not till he came across
the story in its simple popular form that it began to
fascinate his artistic imagination, which also eagerly
seized on the dramatic significance of its casual connec-
tion with the story of the Vocal Contest in the Wartburg.
Heine's Tannhauser poem and other sources may have
suggested some details, but as a drama, the plot and
poetry are as much his own as are the dramas or epics
of the great " literary " poets that are based on legends,
and the number of which is legion. The fact that so
many great poets, from ^schylus to the present day,
have found their favorite subjects in the mythical world,
shows that Wagner was guided by a correct instinct
when he abandoned history in favor of legend; and the
music drama, still more than the literary drama or epic,
craves a mythical atmosphere, because the primitive
myths of a great nation are, like its folk-songs and prov-
erbs, the gems of feeling, thought, and fancy, freed from
all alloy and dross by the friction of time, and, like
music itself, they are not concerned with the accidents
of time and space. Even the brief and imperfect synop-
sis of Wagner's dramatic poem given above will enable
the reader to form some idea of the wonderful variety
and striking contrasts — emotional and scenic — which
abound in this opera. Think of the wild orgies of the
bacchanal on the stage, with tlie rising tide of voluptu-
174 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
ous sounds in the orchestra; of the passionate scene
between Tannhaiiser and Venus, now threatening, now
pleading; the startling suddenness of the change from
the fantastic grotto to the sunlit Wartburg valley ; the
shepherd singing and blowing his simple quaint melody;
the appearance of the pilgrims chanting their solemn
chorus, crossing the stage and disappearing; the greeting
of Tannhauser, and the joyous septet ; the arrival of the
hunting party, — and think that in the following acts the
contrasts are hardly less striking, and you will begin
to realize Wagner's unprecedented genius for dramatic
effects suitable for musical illustration. And these
effects are not dragged on by the hair, for their own
sake, — as often in Myerbeer and others, — but are the
natural and legitimate outcome of the dramatic situation.
In the second act we have the stirring march, which,
with the overture, has perhaps done more to make Wag-
ner popular with the masses than anything else he has
written; Elisabeth's greeting; the vocal contest, in
which, however, Wagner's melodic fount does not flow as
freely as in other parts of the opera ;^ and the magnificent
ensemble near the close. The lover of stage pageantry
is gratified by the entrance of the nobles and their ladies
in mediaeval attire. But the climax of this act is at the
1 Richard Pohl, in his brief biography of Wagner (pp. 154-157),
makes some extremely interesting revelations and remarks regarding
this much-discussed contest. Weber's son told him that his father had
once intended to write an opera on the Tannhauser legend, but gave it
up chiefly on account of the difficulty presented by this vocal contest.
He felt, no doubt, that this contest was not a musical tournament for
showing off pretty melodies and fine voices, but a iwetic, rivalry to ex-
plain the nature of love. Wagner, being a poet as well as a musician,
was able to overcome the difficulty by placing the chief interest in the
verse and giving the vocal music the character of an improvisation, in
harmony with the situation.
TEE POEM AND THE MUSIC 175
moment when Elisabeth throws herself with a piercing
cry between her lover and the swords of his assailants.
This scene, well acted, is comparable to anything in
Shakespeare. And what a variety of dramatic detail
is inherent in Tannhiluser's role, from the moment
when he startles his hearers with his Venusberg song
until his determination to go to Eorae — the bewilder-
ment, humiliation, remorse, admiration of the heroine,
gratitude and dawning hope as the thought of securing
salvation for his sins occurs to' him — can be realized by
those only who have seen Albert ISTiemann enacting this
part — a part of which Wagner himself has declared
" without hesitation, that a thoroughly successful inter-
pretation of it is the highest achievement a tenor can
reach in his art."
Tannhiluser's narrative of his Roman pilgrimage was
voted the most tedious thing in the whole opera by the
Dresdeners in 1845, and by the " critics " ! To-day this
superb "drama within a drama," as Liszt has aptly
called it, is rated as the finest episode in the opera,
even by non-Germans. The distinguished Italian critic,
Filippo Filippi, wrote in 1870 that "this narrative is
the most perfect piece in the opera, in which musical
expressiveness reaches its climax"; while, ten years
before, the French Gasperini wrote that it is " a master-
work of realism, passion, and invention. The melody
— I speak of the true, the divine — rises in waves and
without effort. Every incident of this sad pilgrimage
is told with striking eloquence." But to do justice to
this musical narrative the tenor must have qualities of
which lyric singers rarely dream — genuine passion, his-
trionic talent, and a voice which modulates its clang-
176 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
tints as well as its dramatic accents in harmony with the
import of every word. Recited by such a tenor, the
Pope's words —
•' If thou hast shared the joys of hell,
If thou unholy flames hast nursed,
That m the Hill of Venus dwell,
Thou art forevermore accursed! "
strike terror to the hearts of the hearers and proclaim
Wagner one of the world's greatest dramatists.
^ IS TANNHAUSER A MUSIC-DRAMA?
After the foregoing remarks this question may seem
superfluous; but when we find Wagner insisting (VII.
175) that Tristan represents a longer step from Tann-
hauser than that which he made in getting to Tannhduser
from Bienzi and the typical modern opera, we feel called
upon to draw the distinction between an opera and a
•music-drama more finely. Wagner's ideal of a music-
drama is a stage play in which scenery, action, words,
and music co-operate so minutely in every bar that they
are absolutely inseparable, and lose half their beauty and
significance if separated from each other. Tristan is
such a music-drama: none of its music is as effective in
the concert hall as in connection with the drama which
completes it, and which it completes. Tannhduser is
not: the overture, the march, the choruses, Elisabeth's
prayer, the song to the evening star, the septet, etc.,
are pieces which are not seriously marred by being torn
from the operatic stage and placed in the concert hall.
In so far as this is the case, Tannhduser is, therefore,
not a music-drama, but an opera — though infinitely
IS TAyy HAULER A MUSIC-BBAMA? 177
removed from the old-fasliioned Italian opera which
Wagner has called a "concert in costume," and which is
little but a string of arias, with an orchestra playing a
simple accompaniment — like a "huge guitar."
In other respects, however, Tannhduser is a genuine
music-drama. Even in the pieces which are found suit-
able for concert performance the emotional character ox
the music is always the same as that of the poetry — a.*
witness the festive march, the solemn pilgrims' chorus,
the pathetic prayer, etc. Nor is there anything in this
score comparable to the cheap operatic apotheosis which
closes the Flying Dutchman. -Wagner himself points out
that the chief difference between Tannhduser and preced-
ing operas — by himself and others — is that in it there
are no concessions to the gallery. Even Weber — who
would have liked to be Wagner had he dared — liad his
"gallery," as he called his Avife (an experienced singer),
to whom he appealed whenever he was afraid that his
artistic ideals were conflicting too much with ])opular
taste and usage. But when Wagner wrote Tannhduser,
he had given up all consideration for the gallery. When
the Flying Dutchman had failed to please the gallery,
he had made up his mind to write no longer with an eye
to immediate popular appreciation, but solely with a
view t o following his own i ni])ulses and to winning th e
a pjorov al of his own consoipnr-e nnd that^of a few frieiid s
A vho ap pre ciated his ideals^_ _
I cannot sufficiently urge the reader to study the Guide
to the Performance of Tannhduser (v. 161-204), which
Wagner wrote about ten years after the production of the
opera, and which is one of the most instructive dramatur-
gic essays ever written. Being concerned with concrete
178 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
illustrations, it makes his aims and ideals clearer than
his more elaborate and abstruse theoretical writings.
In it he shows why this opera, if performed by mere
singing puppets, loses all its best points. He declares
that even the shallowest Italian opera would gain in
effect if the singers would try to bring out such connec-
tion as may exist between the play and the music, but
insists that his own operas are absolutely ruined unless
this is done and the artists act as well as sing. He care-
fully analyzes the principal roles with the acute insight
of a Salvini ; explains to the stage-manager the illustra-
tive character of the music and the necessity of his fol-
lowing carefully not only the scenic directions printed in
the libretto, but the more minute ones written in the
orchestral score; and also gives many valuable hints to
the conductor regarding tempi and other matters; in a
word, he does all he can to emphasize the fact that Tann-
hduser is not merely an opera but a music-dz-ama, wliich,
like an ordinary play, should first be read to the assem-
bled singers, and its action made clear, before they take
their musical roles home to study. To bring about the
closest possible correspondence between the singers and
the players, he insists that the words should be written
over every orchestral part, as was done by him in Dres-
den. The forty-first letter in the correspondence with
Liszt contains a passage which may be cited, as it shows
how unwonted Wagner's demands were — and how little
the reformer was heeded at the time : —
" I had taken pains in Dresden to have all the directions which
threw any light on the situations and dramatic action copied with
the greatest minuteness into the parts of the singers ; but when it
came to the performance, I was horrified to see that none of them
IS TANNHAUSEE A MUSIC-DRAMA? 179
had been heeded. You can imagine my amazement when I saw,
for instance, tliat Taunhauser, in the vocal contest, when he sings
his hymn to Venus,
' He only who has clasped you in his arms
Kuows what it is to love,'
addressed it, in the face of the wliole assembly, to Elisabeth, the
insist innocent of maidens ! How could the public help being puz-
zled and left in ignorance ? In truth, I discovered in Dresden at
the time that it was only through the text-book that the audience
could discover the dramatic contents of my opera, and only in that
way learn to understand the performance ! ' '
The same letter — which is dated Sept. 8, 1850, and
has almost as great practical value for the performers
and critics of Wagner's operas as the Tannhauser Guide
just referred to — has another specific example which
may be cited for the light it throws on Wagner's views
as to the function and treatment of the orchestra in a
music-drama : —
" " At a rehearsal of Tannhauser in Weimar I had occasion to call
the attention of some of the artists to their neglect of the scenic
directions. The score, for instance, directs Elisabeth, after the
duet with Tannhauser in the second act, to justify the reappearance
of the tender theme of the clarinet in a slower tempo, by gazing
after Tannhauser into the court below, and nodding a farewell.
Now, if she fails to do this, the result is an insufferable delay of
the action ; every bar of dramatic music can justify its existence
only by expressing something relating to the action or the character
of the actor : that reminiscence in the theme of the clarinet, there-
fore, does not exist for its own sake, — say, to i^roduce a musical
effect which Elisabeth may or may not accompany by her action, —
but the greeting she sends after Tannhauser is the main thing that
I had in mind in composing this scene, and that reminiscence was
therefore chosen by me solely for the sake of illustrating this action
of Elisabeth. This example shows what a topsy-turvy result fol-
180 TANNHAUSEB IN BRESBEN
lows if the principal point — the dramatic action — is overlooked,
and only a secondary factor — the accompaniment of that action
— remains. ' '
How far away all this takes us from the typical
"opera," which Wagner, in his essay on Art and Revo-
lution (III. 26) defines as "a chaos of sensuous allure-
ments fluttering about without union or connection, from
which everybody can choose what best suits his taste,
here the graceful skip of a dancer, tliere the audacious
runs of a singer, here a dazzling scenic effect, there the
stunning outbreak of an orchestral volcano " — all intro-
duced in the opera for their own sake, without any
connection with the plot.
/ There is one more important respect in which Tann-
hduser differs from the typical opera; namely, by the
frequent use that is made in it of those reminiscent n ielo-
difs-whi c^ are assoc iated with a particular person, inci-
dent, or dramatic emotion, and which recur in the music
whenever the person or idea recurs in the play. These
are known as typical or leading motives, and they form
such an important addition to the anatomy of the music-
drama — its very backbone, in fact — that a special
chapter must be devoted to them later on, after consid-
ering the dramas in which they have reached their full
development. In Tannhduser they are not yet used
systematically throughout the play, which therefore can-
not be called a full-fledged music-drama. It is the above-
mentioned " concert numbers " (the march, s_ong_i£L-the
evening stax . Elisabeth' s prayer, etc.) that — however
beautiful they may be in themselves — are objectionable
from this higher dramatic point of view, because they
are not organically connected with the rest of the music.
THE FIRST PERFORMANCES 181
But, after all, these are only episodes (not undramatic in
themselves either), and the rest of the score is welded
together by real "leading motives." A German, Arthur
Smolian, has analyzed the score and found as many as
thirty-three of these leading motives which he cites and
discusses in a special pamphlet.^ The method followed
is that originated by Hans von Wolzogen for the Nibe-
lung''s Ring ; and the names chosen for these Tannliduser
motives may be quoted for their suggestiveness : —
Theme of the pardoned pilgi-inis ; the penitent call for succor ;
the feast of divine grace ; the bacchanalian dance ; strains of mad-
dening revelry ; the riotous shout ; bold yearning ; the wild cry of
delight ; sin's desire ; hymn to Venus ; the temptation melody ;
the intoxicated gestures ; the senses' mastering spell ; the decoy-
call of the sirens ; the theme of peace ; love's embraces ; the witch-
ing glance ; Venus' s curse ; pilgrimage theme ; avowal of belief ;
theme of thanksgiving ; hunting call ; wondering question and
embarrassed answer ; summons to return ; song of joyous trans-
port ; the gracious greeting ; love of minstrelsy ; the praise of pure
love ; the intercession ; the command to penance ; bitter remorse ;
the hymn of promise ; the papal ban. These themes are less broad
and song-like than the " concert numbers," but are " condensed to
the pregnant terseness of the later leading motives," as Herr Smo-
lian aptly puts it.
THE FIRST PERFORMANCES
Although Wagner's second Dresden opera had failed
to please the^ public, the royal director was willing
enougli to give him "another show," probably in the
belief that the brilliant success of Rienzi and the failure
of the Dutchman had opened his eyes as to what kind of
1 An English version, by W. A. Ellis, is published by Chappell & Co.,
London.
182 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
an opera was expected of him. So lie took pains to put
on the new work in the best style. Schroeder-Devrient,
Johanna Wagner (the composer's niece), Tichatschek, and
Mitterwurzer — all of them famous names in operatic
annals — had the roles of Venus, Elisabeth, Tannhauser,
and Wolfram; while the scenery was specially ordered
in Paris, and concerning its promised splendors the
papers had many preliminary notices; so that, although
prices had been almost doubled, the house was crowded
by an audience full of curiosity, including many who
had come from Leipzig and other cities.
The first performance took place on Oct. 19, 1845, the
fourth on Nov. 2. On Nov. 3 Wagner sent this interest-
ing letter to his friend, Gaillard, in Berlin : ^ —
" My Dear and Valued Friend, — I have gained a big action
with my Tannhauser. Let me give you a very short account of a
few of the facts. Owing to the hoarseness of some of the singers,
the second performance was played a week after the first ; this
was very bad, for, in the long interval, ignorance, and erroneous
and absurd views, fostered by my enemies, who exerted themselves
vigorously, had full scope for swaggering about ; and when the
moment of the second performance at length arrived, my opera
was on the point of failing ; the house was not well filled ; oppo-
sition ! prejudice! Luckily, however, all the singers were as
enthusiastic as ever ; intelligence made a way for itself, and the
third act, somewhat shortened, was especially successful ; after
the singers had been called out, there was a tumultuous cry for me.
I have now formed a nucleus among the public ; at the third per-
formance there was a well-filled house and an enthusiastic recep-
tion of the work. After every act the singers and the author were
tumultuously applauded ; in the third act, at the words, ' Heinrich,
du bist erloest ! ' the house resovmded with an outburst of enthusi-
asm. Yesterday, at length, the fourth performance took place
1 See Musikalisches Wochenblatt, 1877, p. 411.
THE FIRST PERFORMANCES 183
before a house crammed to suffocation ; after every act the singers
were called out, and after them, on each occasion, the author ; after
the second act there was a regular tumult ! Wherever I show my-
self people greet me enthusiastically. My dear Gaillard, this is,
indeed, a rare success, and, under the circumstances, one for which
I scarcely hoped. My servant girl, who was in the fourth tier,
assures me that people round about her thought this opera was
better than Rienzi. What more can I want ?
" I felt compelled to tell you this in the joy of my heart. When
I think of you, a deep feeling of thorough melancholy steals over
me, and springs from my regret at bringing you here for the first
performance; for in the following performances Tichatschek was
much better, nay, frequently most splendid. How wretchedly I
received you ! in what a humdrum, wearisome fashion I returned
your great sacrifice ! It quite oppresses me whenever I think of it.
These last days I felt as though I was stunned. How can I make
up for this ? can you tell me ? Farewell, my dear and noble friend.
" Always your truly devoted
"Richard Wagner."
This exuberant joy did not, however, last long, and
Wagner soon awoke from his dream to find that Tann-
hduser was even less understood, and destined to attract
less attention outside of Dresden, than the Dutchman.
Six years later, in reviewing these occurrences in his
autobiographic Communication to my Friends (IV. 357)
he accordingly summed up the situation as follows : —
" The public had shown me plainly, by its enthusiastic reception
of Rienzi, and by the colder treatment of the Dutchman, what I
must offer it to win approval. Its expectations I disappointed
utterly ; confused and dissatisfied it left the first performance of
Tannhuuser. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of complete isola-
tion. The few friends who heartily sympathized with me were
themselves so depressed by my painful position, that the percep-
tion of this sympathetic ill-humor was the only friendly sign about
me. A week passed before we could give a second performance,
184 TANNHAUSEB IN DRESDEN
which was so much needed to clear up erroneous notions. This
week contained a whole life's experience for me. Not wounded
pride, but the calamity of an utterly annihilated illusion, over-
whelmed me. I saw clearly that my Tannhduser had appealed
only to a few intimate friends, but not to the public. . . . Thanks
to the good will of the director, and above all to the zeal and
talents of the artists, my opera gradually succeeded in making its
way (it had seven performances in nine weeks and was resumed
the next season). But this success could not deceive me any
more ; I now k7iew how I stood with the public, and if any doubts
had remained, my subsequent experiences would have soon removed
them."
But what was the matter with the public that Wagner
should have been so disappoiuted witli it? What more
could it do than attend his opera twenty times? An
excellent answer to this is contained in the sixty-seventh
letter to Uhlig : —
"If I express dissatisfaction with the success of my operas, I
naturally do not mean outward success (for could I have demanded
more than to be called before the curtain at every performance of
Tannhduser?), but merely the character of the success, which made
me see that the essential in my work had not been grasped."
In one word, the public cared only for the operatic fea-
tures — the lyric parts — in Tannhduser, and failed to
appreciate its great significance as a music-drama. To
some extent, as we have already seen, the singers were
to blame for this; for although they were the best in
Germany, Wagner's dramatic style of vocalism was so
new to them that they did not feel at home in it, as
present-day dramatic singers do. Hence he was obliged
to make several cuts in the parts of Tannhiiuser and
Elisabeth — cuts which destroyed the unity of the score
and obscured some of its most important points. The
THE FIRST PERFORMANCES 185
Tannhiiuser Guide (^^ol. V.) gives all the instructive de-
tails ; and here, too, Wagner exclaims : —
" Any intelligent person may judge what must have been my
attitude toward the external success of my work in Dresden, and
whether twenty performances, each with a ' recall ' of the author,
could compensate me for the gnawing conviction that a great share
of the applause was based on a misconception of my artistic aims."
All of which may seem eccentric to some persons ; but
if Wagner had not been "eccentric," he would not have
become the creator of the modern music-drama.
One of the most regrettable consequences of these
omissions was that, although most of them were based
on purely local causes, they were afterwards ignorantly
adopted in other opera-houses as having been "sanc-
tioned by the author." An interesting case in point is
the chorus of the younger pilgrims with the green staff,
at the close of the opera. In the thirty-sixth letter to
Uhlig Wagner directs that this miracle scene must be
completely restored : —
' ' The reason for leaving out the announcement of the miracle
in the Dresden change was quite a local one: the chorus was
always poor, flat, and uninteresting ; moreover, an imposing scenic
effect — a splendid, gradual sunrise — was wanting. But here,
where I wish to express my idea to the full, that consideration has
no longer any weight with me."
All these things — the mutilations, misconceptions,
and misinterpretations — finally combined to make him
exclaim in another letter to Uhlig (1852), " The remem-
brances of the Dresden TannJiduser are a torture to me."
And a few months later : —
" Do you know that the revival of Tannhduser at Dresden has
had quite an uncomfortable effect on me ? From all my informa-
186 TANNHAUSEB IN DRESDEN
tion, I am convinced that even now Tannhauser has won no right
to genuine success in Dresden. . . . The chief blame for this, I
maintain, lies in the defects of the performance. The real Tann-
hauser is not made manifest at all, no sympathy is aroused for it.
. . . This Dresden, had I remained in it, would have become the
grave of my art."
WHY THE ENDING WAS CHANGED
From all these citations we can see that every cut
which Wagner reluctantly made in his score at Dresden
in order to facilitate its performance must have been a
suicidal stab at his own heart, because it made it the
more diflficult for the public to realize his intentions.
On the other hand, he saw his own shortcomings quite as
clearly as those of his singers. There were several places
in the score that did not satisfy him when he heard
them on the stage ; these he immediately went to work
to improve. One of these was the introduction to the
last act, concerning which he wrote to Liszt, some years
later {Correspondence, No. 72) that
" in Tannhauser's narrative (Act III.) the trombones, in the
reminiscence of Rome, do not at all produce the right impression
unless this theme has been heard before in its fullest splendor,
as I give it in the (revised) instrumental instruction to the third
act."
Of greater importance was the improvement which he
made in the last scene of the opera. In the first version,
Venus with her attendants did not actually appear to
the vision again, but was only hinted at by a red glow
on the neighboring Venusberg, nor was Elisabeth's body
brought on the stage, the funeral being only announced
by distant bell-ringing. Why Wagner altered this is
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PROPHETS 187
most vividly brought out in two passages from his let-
ters to Uhlig (No. 32) and to Liszt (No. 72). To Uhlig
he wrote: —
"You have not grasped the right meaning of the ending of
Tannhiiiiser. This ending is no alteration, but a rectification,
which, unfortunately, I could only make after seeing the work on
the stage, when I became convinced that the former ending only
gave a hint of what had to be actually communicated to the senses.
I understand that slaves of custom prefer the first (because accus-
tomed) ending — and all the more as the rectification in Dresden
was insufficiently carried out so far as stage management was con-
cerned. But in a certain sense I am ashamed of the first version
of the end which, in truth, is only a sketch : it should therefore
cease to be known, and of course disappear entirely from the piano-
forte score."
"The mere illumination of the Venusberg" (he wrote to Liszt)
" was only a hint : to make the magic real, Venus has to come and
show herself. How true this is you may see from the fact that this
very added scene suggested to me a wealth of new musical mate-
rial. Examine the scene with Venus in the last act, and you will
agree with me that the first version compares to it as an engraving
does to an oil-painting. So it is also with the appearance of Elisa-
beth's body : when Tannhauser sinks down before that itself and
sings, ' Sainted Elisabeth, pray for me,' we have the full present-
ment of what before was only hinted at. " ^
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PROPHETS
So far as the public and the enlightened critics of that
time were concerned, Wagner might have spared him-
self the trouble of improving his score. One of the crit-
ics declared that the new ending was " quite as bad as
the first," and that was the keynote of almost all the
1 The still more important chan.ixes which he made fifteen years later
in the " Paris version " of Tannliuuser will be considered iu the chap-
ter ou " Tannhauser iu Paris."
188 TANNIIAUSER IN DRESDEN
criticisms. Schroeder-Devrient herself, who was not a
particularly successful Venus, told Wagner: "You are
a man of genius, but you write such eccentric stuff, it is
hardly possible to sing it " ; while the royal director, von
Liittichau, tried to make clear to him that in one thing,
at any rate, Weber was his superior, inasmuch as he
knew how to give his operas a happy ending.^
The Dresden correspondent of the JSfeue Zeitschrift fur
Musik analyzes Tannhauser at some length to prove " its
utter lack of character-drawing," which, in view of the
highly intellectual and dramatic character of the opera
librettos produced up to that date, gives us a delightful
insight into German critical judgment. The same writer
fortifies his position by adding that "nothing is proved
by the fact that the author was called before the curtain,
for the same distinction was conferred last year on the
composer of two operas which disappeared from the
repertory after the fourth performance." A distin-
guished musical pedagogue of the time, Moritz Haupt-
mann, heard the Tamiliciuser overture in 1846 and
pronovmced it "quite atrocious, incredibly awkward in
construction, long and tedious for such a sensible per-
son. . . . He is no longer young and inexperienced, and
it seems to me that a man who will not only write such
a thing, but actually have it engraved, has little call for
1 An amusing illustration of this popular craving for " happy end-
ings" is to be found in the theatrical chronicles of Hamburg. The
*nerves of some of the spectators were so nuich affected by the first
performance of Shakespeare's Othello that the city fathers ordered the
manager to alter the end of the play. So Othello and Desdemona " kiss
and make up," and everybody leaves the theatre happy ! By a curious
coincidence another Tannhauser, with a happy ending, was written
about the same time as Wagner's, and independently of it, by Mangold ;
but its happy ending did not keep it above water.
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PROPHETS 189
an artistic career."^ This is the same overture which
Mendelssohn is said to have once conducted at a Ge-
wandhaus concert as "a warning example"; the same
overture concerning which the London Times of May 14,
1855, {ten years after the Dresden premiere,) wrote:
" Nothing is known in this country excepting the overture
of Tannhduser, which was heard with equal indifference
by the public in the concerts of the New Philharmonic
and Mr. Jullien, and is, at the best, but a commonplace
display of noise and extravagance"; the same overture
of which the distinguished French critic Fetis wrote that
it begins with "a poor choral, badly harmonized. . . .
This choral is the only spark of melody in the whole
piece, and what a melody ! "
If the overture fared so badly at the hands of the
critics, one can imagine what became of the opera itself
under their treatment — a treatment which varied but
little in the different cities and remained unchanged for
two or three decades. A correspondent at Frankfurt
wrote in 1853 (Feb. 15) that "the last performance was
^ One can imagine how sarcastically this amiahle old pedant (who
called Weber, as well as Gluck and Wagner, au "amateur") would
have smiled had any one predicted to him that long before the end of
the century the profits on the sales of this overture in the various ar-
rangements would alone suffice to snpport a publisher with a pretty
large family. How great the popularity of this overture is to-day even
in England, which has not exactly kept in the van in the growing appre-
ciation of Wagner, may be inferred from the account given in the Lon-
don Saturday Revietc a few years ago of one of Mr. Manns's Crystal
Palace Concerts, at wliich the audience was allowed to vote for the
instrumental pieces on the programme. "Of symphonies the choice
fell on Beethoven's Pastoral. ... In tlie overtures, however, Wagner
scored a great triumph, that to Tannh'duser being accepted with .'517
votes, while Mendelssolin's Midsummer Nir/ht's Dream and Rossini's
William Tell secured second and third places, with 253 and 13G respec-
tively."
190 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
given before an alarmingly small audience. Conductor
and director are undecided whether they should con-
tinue giving Wagner's operas! " Somewhat later it was
announced that " Tannhduser, so far as the public is
concerned, may be considered a thing of the past, where-
as Flotow's Indra has become a drawing card [A'assen-
oper']." A Berlin critic declared that "Wagner's music
is a great musical sin, which the public will no more
pardon than the Pope pardoned Tannhauser's sins." ^
"An opera without song" is what Dr. Schliiter in his
History of Music (1865) calls Tannhduser. Otto Jahn,
the biographer of Mozart, published a savage attack on
Tannhduser in the Grenzboten (1853). He admits that
the text is greatly superior to the ordinary librettos, and
then goes on to devote six pages to what he considers its
faults, while not a line is given to its merits! The
music fares quite as badly, if not worse, its merits
being nowhere alluded to except in the last sentence,
where they are summed up in two condescending words
einiges gelungen — "A few successful details." So far
from being music of the future, he concludes, " it is not
even good enough for the present" (1853). We shall
meet this eminent Mozart biographer again in the chap-
ter on Lohengrin.
The English critics, as soon as they got a chance at
1 These three choice specimens are translated from Tappert, who, in
his Wagner biograpliy, and especially in his Wagner Lexicon, has gath-
ered many other amusing "criticisms " on Wagner and his music. This
Lexicon is simply a collection of coarse and insulting epithets hurled
against Wagner. Although it is a pamphlet of forty-eight pages, it is
very far from being complete, as I have in my own note and scrap
books material enough for another pamphlet of the same size. Some
of the most edifying of these are quoted in this chapter and following
ones as a sort of releve between the aesthetic and biographic courses.
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PROPHETS 191
AYagner, were determined not to be outdone by their
German colleagues. The historian, John Hullah, wrote :
" I find in the pieces of which Tannhduser is composed
an entire absence of musical construction and coiie-
rence (!); little melody, and that of the most mesquin
kind; and harmony chiefly remarkable for its restless,
purposeless, and seemingly helpless modulation." Much
more spicy are the remarks of the eminent critic H. F.
Chorley : " I have never been so blanked, pained, wearied,
insulted even (the word is not too strong), by a work of
pretension as by this same Tannhduser," the music of
which is " in entire discordance with its subject " ( !) ;
"when a tune (!) had presented itself he used it without
caring for its fitness." (Did Chorley get his notes of a
Wagner and a Donizetti opera mixed up ?) Of the
great narrative in the third act he says : " I remember
the howling, whining, bawling of Herr Tichatschek —
to sing or vocally declaim this scene is impossible."
"The instrumentation is singularly unpleasant " (!).
Finally, the opera is summed up as "shrill noise, and
abundance of what a wit with so happy a disrespect
designated 'broken crockery effects' — things easy
enough to be produced by those whose audacity is equal
to their eccentricity."
But it is in their favorite role of Prophets that Wag-
ner's critics become most amusing. To the unconverted ^
or to those unfamiliar with the opera, the humor of the
foregoing "criticisms" may not be as obvious, or at
1 That there are such still, even in the musical centre known as Bos-
ton, is shown by the fact that the critic of the Home Journal of that
(tity not lonu ago summed up his opinion of Tannhauser in these words:
"Dramatically, it is slow and devoid of interest; musically, it is bru-
tal." His name is Philip Hale ; he signed it ! Date : April 12, 1890.
192 TANNEAUSER IN DRESDEN
least not so vivid, as it might be ; but when it comes to
the prophesies we deal with jokes which are vivified for
everybody by what is usually a most dry subject ; namely,
statistics. Official statistics show that in the operatic
year for July 1, 1889, to July 1, 1890, Tannhtiuser was
performed 189 times in German theatres alone, and 247
times in 1890-91. It has had over three hundred per-
formances in Berlin and over two hundred in several
other German cities.
Half a dozen of these prophecies may serve as sam-
ples. Let us take them chronologically.
1846: The author of a book called Dresden und die
Dresdener writes : " Wagner is no artist, either in taste
or in creativeness. Time will judge! "
1847 : Moritz Hauptmann writes : " I do not believe
that of Wagner's compositions a single one will survive
him."
1852 : Fetis (pere) has three articles on Wagner in the
Gazette Musicale, concerning which Wagner writes to
Uhlig {Letters, No. 67) : " He claims ' exact information, '
and asserts, for example, that my Tannhtiuser in Dresden
had by the third performance become such a failure that
it could never, by any possibility, be revived." (Tann-
hduser had its hundredth performance in Dresden in
1872.)
1856: Dr. E. Schmidt (Berlin) calls Tannhduser a Dis-
sonanz-Musik which will disappear after the second per-
formance.
1862: A Paris correspondent of the Signale, review-
ing the Tannhduser performances, writes : " We are hap-
pily done with this nonsense, which in Germany, too,
will not continue much longer to excite angry debates.''
LISZT, SPOHR, AND SCHUMANN 193
1875: Fdtis writes in his Biograxihie des Musiciens:
" The ridicule with which the Parisians covered his Tann-
hduser has not been without its influence on public opin-
ion, for since 1861 there has been a noticeable decline in
the Wagner movement in Germany." (The first Bay-
reuth festival was in 1876!)
And so on, up to the present day; for, as I said in the
chapter on the Dutchman, some of the Prophets are still
at their trade, or, if they have given up the early operas
as hopelessly popular, they now make all the more dire
predictions about Tristan and the Nihelung^s Ring. All
of which reminds one of Artemus Ward's kangaroo,
which was "an amoosin' but onprincipled cuss." ^
LISZT, SPOHR, AND SCHUMANN
As TannJidnser is now accepted everywhere as a mas-
terwork, it is hardly worth while to try to offset the fore-
going criticisms by quoting the opinions of real critics.
It is of interest to see, however, what three of Wagner's
greatest colleagues thought of this opera.
Liszt, who was the first Kapellmeister to bring out
Tannhduser, which had been universally ignored for four
years after its 2^'>'6'>ni^i'& in Dresden, also wrote an admi-
rable critical analysis of it in which occur these sen-
tences : —
" As the text of Tannhauser is written with deep poetic feeling,
and constitutes in itseli an affecting drama, full of the most subtle
1 The manaf^ers were determined not to be outdone by the newspaper
critics. Thus, while a Dresden critic (hic'larccl tliat tlie oi)era was too
" firamatic," a Leipzif^ critic said it was too " lyric," and Manaj^er von
Kiistuer of Berlin refused the score on the ground tliat it was "too
epic" (Tappert in Musikal. Wochenblalt, Jnly 20, 1877).
194 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
shades of sentiment and passion ; as its plot is original and boldly-
conceived, the verses beautiful, often very beautiful, full of sudden
flashes of sublime and powerful emotion, — so the music likewise
is new, and demands special consideration."
' ' However great as a poet he may be, it is nevertheless only in
the music that he finds the means for the complete expression of
his feelings, — so complete, in fact, that he alone can tell us whether
he adapts his words to his melodies, or seeks melodies for his
words." 1
Spohr, who had been the first to adopt the Dutchman
for his theatre at Cassel, would have also anticipated
Liszt with Tannhduser if he coiild have had his own
way. He wanted to bring it out at the birthday of the
Kurprinz, but could not get permission, which led him to
write a letter to Wagner expressing his great disappoint-
ment. Some time later he wrote again, proposing a
rendezvous at Leipzig, which Wagner joyously accepted.
The following letter, printed in Spohr' s Autobiography,
is of special interest, as it gives us a glimpse of Wagner's
personality, and social life at this time. It refers to a
dinner at the house of Wagner's brother-in-law, the pub-
lisher Brockhaus, at which Laube also was present : —
" Best of all we liked Wagner, who appears to me more amiable
every time I meet him, and whose liberal culture and universal
knowledge compel us to admire him more and more. Among
other things he gave us his views on political matters with a warm
enthusiasm which truly surprised us, and pleased us all the more
as his views were of a very liberal kind. The evening we passed
most pleasantly at the Mendelssohns', who did everything they
could to make themselves agreeable to Spohr, whose last quartet
was played, Mendelssohn and Wagner following it in the score
with an expression of delight."
^ As a matter of fact, he did neither, but generally conceived them
simultaneously, as we shall see in a later chapter.
LISZT, SPOHE, AND SCHUMANN 195
In 1853, Spohr at last succeeded in producing Taini
hciuser at Cassel. He was then seventy-nine ^years of
age, but not too old to be humble and learn to like what
at first seemed eccentric (as works of genius that create
a new epoch always do) : —
'• The ojiera contains much that is new and beautiful," he wrote,
"also several ugly attacks on one's ears." Concerning these,
however, he adds : "A good deal that I disliked at first I have
got accustomed to on repeated hearing ; only the absence of defi-
nite rhythms and the frequent lack of rounded periods continue to
disturb me."
Among the great musicians whom Wagner knew per-
sonally was Robert Schumann, equally famous as com-
poser and as critic — a critic who made a sort of specialty
of the "discovery" of new geniuses (Chopin, Berlioz,
Brahms, Franz, etc.), and whose opinion of Wagner must
therefore be of especial interest. This opinion, however,
underwent such extraordinary fluctuations that it was
obviously influenced somewhat by non-musical considera-
tions. Thus in 1845 he wrote to Mendelssohn concern-
ing Tannhiiuser : —
" Wagner has just finished a new opera : no doubt a clever fel-
low, full of eccentric notions, and bold beyond measure. The
aristocracy is still in raptures over him on account of his Bienzi,
but in reality he cannot conceive or write four consecutive bars of
good or even correct music. What all these composers lack is the
art of writing pure harmonies and four-part choruses. The music
is not a straw better than that of liicnzi, — rather weaker, more
artificial ! But if I wrote this I should be accused of envy ; hence
I say it oidy to you, as I am aware that you have known all this a
long time."
Three weeks later, hoAvever, he writes again : —
196 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
"I must take back much of what I wrote regarding Tannhduser,
after reading tlie score ; on the stage the effect is quite different.
I was deeply moved by many parts."
To another friend, Heinrich Dorn, he writes a few
weeks later still : — '
" I wish you could see Wagner's Tannhduser. It contains pro-
found and original ideas, and is a hundred times better than his
previous operas, though some of the music is trivial. In a word,
he may become of great importance to the stage, and, so far as I
know him, he has the requisite courage. The technical part, the
instrumentation, I find excellent, incomparably more masterly
than formerly."
So the same opera which, on imperfect acquaintance,
strikes Schumann as being "not a straw better" than
Rienzi, turns out, at the performance, to be " a hundred
times better " ! Eight years later he once more returned
to the subject and delivered this extraordinary criti-
cism : —
" Wagner is, if I may express myself briefly, not a good musi.
cian ; he lacks the sense of form and euphony (!). But you must
not judge him by piano-scores. There are many places in his
operas which, if you could hear them on the stage, would certainly
move you deeply. And though it be not the clear sunlight that
emanates from genius, still it is a secret magic that takes possession
of our senses. But, as I have said, the music, apart from the rep-
resentation, is weak, often simply amateurish, empty and disagree-
able ; and it is a sad proof of corrupt taste that in the face of the
many dramatic masterworks which Germany has produced, some
persons have the presumption to belittle these in favor of Wag-
ner's. Yet enough of this. The future will pronounce judgment
in this matter, too."
It has pronounced judgment — as witness the thousand
and more performances of Wagner's operas now given
annually, four decades after Schumann's prophecy. The
LISZT, SPOHR, AND SCHUMANN 197
most extraordinary thing in the above criticism is the
charge that Wagner has no sense of euphony — Wagner,
who has charmed into existence a whole tropical garden
of gorgeous, fragrant flowers of undreamt-of beauty and
colors !
But the cause of Schumann's aversion to Wagner lies
deeper. It is the same old story of the lyric composer con-
demning the dramatic, and vice versa, with which readers
of the biographies of Weber, Schubert, Mendelssohn,
Handel, Gluck, etc., are familiar. In Schumann's case
this attitude was aggravated by professional jealousy; for
he too had written an opera, Genoveva, which, being un-
dramatic, was an utter failure, while Wagner's operas
became more and more popular year by year. On this sub-
ject Wagner himself has given us some interesting reve-
lations in one of his last essays (Vol. X. pp. 222, 223) : —
" My successes at the Dresden Court Theatre attracted, among
others, F. Hiller and R. Schumann into my neighborhood, prima-
rily, perhaps, only to find out how it happened that a hitherto
unknown German composer could persistently attract the public at
one of the most important German opera-houses. That I was not
much of a musician these two friends soon believed to have dis-
covered ; hence they fancied that my success must be attributed
to the text-books written by myself. I, too, was, indeed, of the
opinion that they, since both were planning the composition of an
opera, should be advised, above all things, to provide themselves
with good poems. My assistance was asked for, but when it came
to the decisive moment, it was declined, presumably from fear that.
I might play mean tricks on them. Concerning my Lohengrin
text Schumann declared that it was not suitable for operatic compo-
sition, ^ wherein he differed from Conductor-in-chief Taubert, in
1 Schumann liiniself was meditatin}^ an opera on the same subject,
and was tlierofore unpleasantly surprised when Wagner one day showed
him his completed Lohnni/rin poem, — another source of critical
" tears" (see letter to Meudelssolm, Nov. 18, 1845).
198 TANNHAUSER IN DRESDEN
Berlin, who later on, when my music to this opera had also been
completed and performed, declared that he felt like composing the
text once more, for himself. When Schumann was arranging his
own Genoveva text I found it impossible to persuade him to give
up the unfortunate and silly third act as he had conceived it ; he
became angry, and obviously believed that I intended by my inter-
ference to spoil his most brilliant effects. For effects were what
he was after," etc.
Elsewhere Wagner speaks of Schumann's '"shallow
bombast," his "obscurity," his "limited faculties"; and
in a conversation ^ he once exclaimed : " Schumann was,
after all, a dear good German fellow with a certain
tendency to greatness ! " — whence we see that there was
not much love lost — more's the pity ! — between these
two composers. Yet, on the other side, Wagner (VIII.
317) admits Schumann to have been "the most gifted
and poetic " musician of the period following Beethoven;
and, finally, it must be remembered that here, as in the
case of Mendelssohn, it was not Wagner ivho threw the
first stone.
1 Reported by Wolzogen, Erinnerungen an Wagner, p. 34.
REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND
POLITICAL
CREATION OF LOHENGRIN
Genius has been defined as " an infinite capacity for
taking pains." One of Wagner's most striking traits
certainly was an extraordinary restlessness and love of
work. Hardly had he completed Tannhauser when the
sketches for Lohengrin and Die Meistersinyer were put on
paper, within a few weeks, during an excursion to the
mountains "/or rest." Hear his own story (IV. 349) : —
"Immediately after the composition of Tannhauser I had an
opportunity to make an excursion, for my recreation, to a Bohe-
mian bathing-resort. Here, as always when I escaped the atmos-
phere of the footlights and my official 'duties,' I soon felt relieved
and happy ; for the first time a kind of humor [Heiterkeit, gayety]
peculiar to my character assumed an artistic form. With almost
arbitrary deliberateness I had been gradually making up my mind
to choose a cumic subject for my next opera ; I remember that I
was assisted in this intention by the well-meant advice of good
friends, who wished me to compose an opera of a 'lighter genre,'
which might help to introduce me in the German theatres, and
thus lead up to a financial success, the need of which had begun to
assume a threatening importance. As with the Athenians a merry
satyr-play followed the tragedy, so, during that excursion, I sud-
denly ccmceived the idea of a comic play which niiglit follow my
Minstrels' Contest in the Wartburg as a significant satyr-play.
199
200 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
This was the Mastersingers of Nuremberg, with Hans Sachs at
their head. . . .
"Scarcely had I finished the sketch of this plot when the plan
of Lohengrin began to engage my attention, and left me no rest
luitil I had worked it out in detail. This was done during the same
short sunnner excursion, in disobedience to my physician's orders
not to busy myself with such things."
The subject of Lohengrin, being more in harmony with
his mood, occupied him first, and it is one of the greatest
marvels in the history of art that the music of this opera,
so rich, so melodious, so novel in every way, was com-
posed in less than a year. In the first sketch of the
score Wagner has written the exact dates with his own
hand. The third act was written first, between Sept.
9, 1846, and March 5, 1847. Then came the first act,
May 12 to June 8 ; and, last of all, the second act, June
18 to Aug. 2, 1847. The instrumentation was completed
the following winter and spring.
WHY WAGNER BECAME A REBEL
A masterwork had been created, but the world did not
want it. Although Wagner remained royal conductor in
Dresden for two years after the completion of Lohengrin,
and although the Opera there had an almost ideal cast
for it, — Schroeder-Devrient, Johanna Wagner, Tich-
atschek, and Mitterwurzer, — he did not succeed in* get-
ting it accepted for performance. Not till three years
later did it have its first performance — at Weimar;
while the Dresdeners did not hear it till 1859 — twelve
years after its creation ; and Wagner himself had to wait
two further years till he could hear Loliengrin for the
first time — at Vienna.
WHY WAGNER BECAME A REBEL 201
Yet he knew in 1847, as well as the whole world
knows to-day, that he had coniposed an immortal music-
drama. Evidently things were not going with him
as they should, — there was something rotten in Den-
mark, and time was out of joint. True, the new score
appeared very difficult, and its author insisted on hav-
ing for it increased orchestral forces; but had he not a
right, after the evidence he had given of his genius in
Tannhciuser, to ask for special consideration? Nor was
the neglect of Lohengrin by any means the only cause
of dissatisfaction. Once more, after a short period of
prosperity, everything and everybody seemed to turn
against him. Although Tannldiuser had been revived the
year after its first production, with increased success, all
efforts to get it accepted in other cities failed, and for
four years Tannldiuser remained unknown outside Dres-
den, till Liszt brought it out at Weimar. From Berlin
the score had been returned with the verdict that the
opera was "too epic," and when Wagner, relying on the
King's love of music, tried to make a more direct appeal
to him, the authorities advised him to make his music
known to his Majesty by arranging portions of it for
the military band. "More deeply I surely could not
have been humiliated and forced to appreciate my real
position."
The Flying Dutchman, too, after a brief career in Dres-
den, Cassel, Kiga, and Berlin, liad disappeared entirely,
and for nine years was not again sung. Even the sensa-
tional Rienzi failed at Berlin and at Hamburg.^ Wagner
^ At Ilanibur}^ this opera had only been accepted at the urgent solic-
itation of tenor Tichatscliek, who stipulated that the manager should
give him an opportunity to sing six times in Rienzi, or forfeit 200<t
202 REVOLUTION — AttTtSTIC AND POLITICAL
sent out all his scores to various managers : some returned
them with a note saying they were too dilficult, while
others returned them without even opening the packages
(IV. 344). To him this was a most serious disappoint-
ment, for more than one reason : not only was his artistic
ambition ungratified, but he found himself involved in
grave financial trouble. An author, in the first and
most impetuous years of his career, is naturally sanguine
as to the brilliant future of his works, and Wagner's
confidence in his own future had been strengthened by
the success of Rienzi. This led him into the rash ven-
ture of publishing his operatic scores, partly on his own
responsibility; and when the operas failed to "make the
round " of the theatres, this venture naturally proved a
financial failure. How far his confidence in his works
went, may be inferred from this passage in one of Moritz
Hauptmann's letters (1847) : " Wagner has had the scores
of his operas, in his own handwriting, engraved at once
on stone, and thus published in a lithographic edition ;
Tannhiiuser even before the first rehearsal."
The fifth letter in the correspondence with Liszt throws
such an interesting light on Wagner's situation that it
must be cited entire : —
"You informed me lately that you had closed your piano for
some time to come : so I presume that you have become a banker.
My aifairs are in a bad way, and the thought has flashed on me
that you might perhaps help me. — The publication of my three
operas was undertaken on my own responsibility : the capital I
borrowed of several parties ; now I have received notice on all
sides, and I cannot subsist another week, for every attempt to sell
thalers. The Si(/7iale, which prints this item, adds maliciously that
" Manager Cornet, having now heard the opera, is said to be in a state
of consternatiou over this agreement " (Tappert, p. 22).
WHY WAGNER BECAME A REBEL 203
this peculiar business, even for cost price, has in the present hard
times resulted in failure. Various complications have made the
matter very dangerous to me, and I ask myself secretly what is to
become of me. The sum at stake is 5000 thalers [almost $4000] :
after deducting returns, and waiving all profit, this is the sum
invested in the publication of my operas. — Can you provide the
money ? Have you got it, or do you know any one who would
advance it for your sake? Would it not be interesting if you
became the publisher of my works ? Friend Meser would con-
tinue the business on your account as honestly as on mine : a law-
yer would arrange matters. And do you know what would be the
result ? I would again be a man, — a man whose existence has
been rendered possible, — an artist who never again in all his life
will have anything to do with money affairs, but only work on joy-
fully. Dear Liszt, with this money you ransom me from slavery !
Do I seem worth that sum as a serf '? "
The " Friend Meser " alluded to in this letter was of
course the publisher of the three scores ; and about him
the local wits had their little joke. Before issuing
Rienzi, they said, he lived in the first story; the Dutch-
vian and Tannhauser took him up to the second and
third, and Lohengrin would drive him up to the garret.
But Meser refused to have anything to do with the fourth
score, and thus escaped the garret; while Wagner was
more than ever convinced that time was out of joint.
His duties as conductor were irksome because the reper-
tory consisted chiefly of the works of Donizetti, Flotow,
and others of tliat kind. Creative work alone gave him
true satisfaction and pleasure, and so, after the comple-
tion of Lohengrin, we find him again in the midst of
operatic projects. One of these was the plan of a music-
drama on the subject of Jesus of Nazareth, which, how-
ever, iie soon gave up ~ as impracticable; doubtless not
without a pang of regret, as the material wliich he col-
204 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
lected for this drama was so extensive tliat it forms a
volume of one hundred pages which has been issued
separately.^ It is of interest as containing some of the
germs of Parsifal; and in Vol. IV. (402-405) Wagner
discourses on his intentions, and on the mood in which
he conceived this plan, which was a thoroughly pessimis-
tic one.
Another dramatic project of this period which he never
completed was based on the story of "Friedrich Roth-
bart." He soon realized that it could be used only as a
literary drama, and on this occasion he became more
convinced than ever that the only proper subject for a
music-drama was a mythical one. The legend of Sieg-
fried occupied his mind more and more, and ended by
routing the historic plan — the last time, as he says, that
history and mythology conflicted in his mind. The
result of his historic studies in connection with Friedrich
are printed in Vol. II. (151-199), under the title " Die
Wibelungen. Weltgeschichte aus der Sage." And im-
mediately after this essay comes the " Nibelung Myth, a
Sketch for a Drama" — which foreshadows the whole
story of the Nihelung^s Rwg, and is followed by " Sieg-
fried's Death," a complete drama which he afterwards
remodelled and converted into Die Gotterddmmerung,
Concerning this drama, he says (IV. 402) : —
" My poem, ' Siegfried's Death,' I had sketched and versified
solely in order to satisfy an inner craving, and by no means with
the idea of getting it performed in our theatres and with the means
at hand in them, which I had to pronounce inadequate in every
sense. ... At that time, in 1848, 1 did not think of the possibility
1 Jes%is von Nazareth, von R. Wagner. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Hartel,
1887.
REFORM OR REVOLUTION ? 205
of its performance, but looked upon its execution in verse, and the
addition of a few musical fragments, only as a personal gratifica-
tion with wliich I was anxious to refresh myself in this period,
when I loathed public affairs and lived in retirement from them,"
REFORM OR REVOLUTION?
Reasons enough liave now been given to show why-
Wagner rebelled against the existing order of things;
but he made one more great effort before throwing him-
self entirely into the revolutionary movement which had
made France a republic, and was spreading over the
Continent. The air was full of reform projects ; and one
of these projected "reforms" excited Wagner's alarm
and satisfaction at the same time. He heard that there
was a movement to abolish the annual subvention granted
to the Court Theatre, on the ground that it was merely
" a place of luxurious entertainment." Now this view of
the Dresden Theatre coincided exactly with his own,
that the theatre, in Dresden as elsewdiere, had gradu-
ally been degraded into a mere commercial speculation,
the function of which w^as to supply the public with
amusement and opportunity to pass away time — as a
surrogate for cards and billiards. But should the theatre
for that reason be given up as lost, and eventually
deprived of state assistance and patronage? That, surely,
would be as unreasonable as it would have been for the
church authorities, two centuries before, to banish all
music from the church because sacred music had degen-
erated; and, just as Palestrina had saved church music
l)y slioAving that masses could be composed that were
dignified and interesting at the same time, so Wagner —
who, of course, does not use this comparison — proposed
206 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
a plan which would make the Opera House a real art-
institute, worthy of state support, and keeping up to
Emperor Joseph's maxim : —
" The theatre should have no other object
THAN to assist IN THE REFINEMENT OF TASTE AND
MORALS."
Wagner himself prints this in large type; for the
theatre was his hobby, his idol; that is, the ideal thea-
tre, not the actual theatre in which not even his Lohen-
grin could be performed. Accordingly he set to work
and drew up an elaborate scheme for the organization of
an ideal National Theatre, which was to be managed on
artistic principles, and not as a commercial speculation
dependent on the whims and tastes of the vulgar crowd.
This scheme, which takes up no less than fifty pages of
fine print (Vol. II. pp. 309-359), gives an excellent in-
sight into the practical side of Wagner's genius: no
detail is neglected, from the function of manager and
conductor down to the humblest fiddler and chorus-
singer; and the financial side also is carefully taken into
consideration. Some of his suggestions (for each of
which convincing reasons are given) are that the weekly
performances should be limited to a number consistent
with ohe possibility of proper rehearsals; that entr'acte
music should be abolished; that the managers should be
specialists no less than the conductors and singers; that
newspaper critics should be abolished (fact! see p. 315);
travelling companies suppressed; dramatic and musical
schools established for fresh supplies of artists; the
Leipzig conservatory transferred to Dresden (this idea
made Wagner many enemies in Leipzig); the opera
orchestra relieved of service in church, where pure vocal
REFORM OR REVOLUTION ? 207
music d, la Palestrina was to be restored, and women
admitted as singers; the whole organization to be placed
under the authority of the Minister of Public Worship;
and so on.
In the preface to this scheme (written many years
later) Wagner remarks that the reader of his literary
works will find him for a number of years constantly
resuming this idea of elevating the theatre to the dignity
of an art-institute : " he will perhaps be surprised at the
persistence with which I endeavored in each case to
adapt the plan to local circumstances.^ That it never
received any attention will perhaps also surprise him."
In 1849 it certainly received no attention, and when
he got back the manuscript, he even found derisive
marginal notes on it — the only reward for all his
thought and labor! Reform was obviously impossible;
what Avas there left but revolution? So he became a
revolutionist and a member of secret societies.
In one of these societies, the Vaterlandsverein, Wagner
delivered, on June 14, 1848, a fiery address which was
printed as a newspaper extra ^ and contains some remark-
ably bold statements. In it Wagner demanded, besides
general suffrage, nothing less than the complete abolish-
ment of the aristocracy as well as of the standing army,
and the proclamation of Saxony as a republic by the King
liimself, wlio was to remain its president! This speech
was printed anonymously, but everybody knew who was
its author, and, strange to say, he did not get into trouble
on account of it. " A two weeks' leave of absence, which
'He alludes to the essays on "A Theatre in Zurich" and "The
Vienna Opera House," in Vols. V. and VII.
2 Reprinted by Tappert, 33-42. English in Praeger, 157-164.
208 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
Wagner requested, a few interviews and letters, — and
the matter was dropped," says Tappert,
But the red republican flame continued to burn in
Wagner's mind, and when, a year later (May, 1849), the
insurrection broke out in Dresden, he joined hands with
the rioters. The streets were barricaded by the rebels,
the royal troops repulsed, and the King himself hastily
left the city. The triumph, however, was brief, for on
the following day Prussian troops arrived to succor the
King of Saxony, and Wagner, with his friends. Semper
and Kinkel, had to seek safety in flight, while others of
the revolutionaries, including his friend Koeckel and the
Russian Bakunin, were captured, imprisoned, and con-
demned to be shot.
Apart from the general incidents of the revolution,
which belong to military history, this meagre outline of
the facts is about all that the biographers of Wagner
(with the exception of Praeger) have been able to tell
their readers up to date. The testimony of witnesses as
to details did not agree. Some declared that Wagner
had been seen fighting on the barricades, in such and
such a street; others spread the report that he himself
had set fire to the old opera-house, which was consumed
by flames during the insvirrection. On the other hand,
one of the insurgents, Stephan Born, wrote after Wag-
ner's death that the composer was not even in Dresden
at the time of the uprising, but at Chemnitz ; and that
on his return to that city, after a revolutionary errand to
Freiberg, he and his companions were warned not to stop
at the hotel ; that the two companions paid no heed to
this warning, and were arrested, while Wagner, who was
staying with his brother-in-law, escaped. Mr. Dann-
REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 209
reuther, an intimate friend of the composer, writes
(Grove, IV. 357) that "the tale of his having carried a
red flag and fought on the barricades, is not corroborated
by the 'acts of accusation ' preserved in the Saxon Police
Records." Another biographer, R. Pohl, whom the
"Meister" himself used to call "the oldest Wagnerite,"
says that " Richard Wagner did not stand on the barri-
cades, as has been asserted, but he had undertaken the
'musical direction ' of the revolution; he led the signals,
the alarm bells; he also organized the convoys coming
in from outside, and by his words encouraged them to
fight" (p. 42). A similar account was given by Wag-
ner's Avife to the novelist Frau Eliza Wille (Deutsche
Rundschau, May, 1887, p. 263): "My husband did not
incur any guilt. He only looked out from the tower for
the convoys from the villages, which were to come to
assist the citizens. He did not stand on the barricades,
as was related of him; he had shouldered no musket, had
only been able to save himself by flight wlien the Prus-
sian military entered Dresden."
Wagner himself did not satisfactorily elucidate this
episode in any of his copious writings, and it is not likely
that all the facts will be authoritatively known until his
three-volume autobiography (which his widow is still
guarding as jealously as Fafner guarded his treasure) is
given to the world. In the letters to Liszt tliere are
several references to this revolutionary episode in his
life, but as Wagner's object, in writing about tliem to
Liszt, was to enlist his aid in securing amnesty and per-
mission to return to Germany, it was inevitable that he
should present the facts as an advocate, in as favorable a
light as possible, and not as an impartial witness. As
210 liEVOLUriON — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
letters were frequently opened at that time, it would
have been rash and dangerous for him to write to Liszt
the details of occurrences that might have been used
as evidence against him. A few passages from the
letters to Liszt may, however, be quoted, as presenting
Wagner's side of the case. On April 13, 1856, he
wrote : —
"In regard to that riot and its sequels, I am willing to confess
that I now consider myself to have been in the wrong at that time,
and carried away by my passions, although I am conscious of not
having committed any crime that would properly come before the
courts, so that it would be difficult for me to confess to any such."
It worried him particularly to be accused of ingratitude
toward the King of Saxony, who had given him a posi-
tion, and had always been kind to him.^ Thus he wrote
to Liszt shortly after his flight, under date July 19,
1849: —
"One thing annoys me very much and pains me to the bone:
the frequent reproach of ingratitude toward the King. . . . That
he paid me 1500 thalers for conducting a number of poor operas
for him every year, at the Intendant's order, was indeed too
much : yet I foimd herein less cause for gratitude than for dissat-
isfaction with my whole position. That for the best I could do he
did not pay me anything, is a circumstance that did not call for
gratitude : that, on the occasion when I gave him a real opportu-
nity to help me radically, he did not — or could not — help me, but
calmly discussed with his Intendant the advisability of my dis-
missal — is a matter which quieted my conscience regarding my
1 For example, the Berliner Musikalische Zeitung, No. 31, 1844, has
this item : " Under the direction of Reissiger & Rich. Wagner, 106 in-
strumentalists and 200 vocalists went to Pillnitz to serenade the King
with a patriotic song composed by Wagner. The King spoke in the
most appreciative terms of the excellent piece." Wagner is also said
to have been under special obligations to the King's sister.
EEFORM OR REVOLUTION f 211
dependence on royal favors. Finally, I am conscious of the fact
that, even if I had had special grounds for gratitude toward the
King of Saxony, I did not, to my knowledge, commit any act of
ingratitude toward him : of this 1 could bring the proofs."
Four weeks before this he had written to Liszt to
assure him that his undisguised sympathy with the
Dresden revolt was
" far removed from that ludicrous fanaticism which sees in every
royal personage an object to be persecuted. . . . You know the
bitter spring of dissatisfaction which came to me from my practical
connection with my dear art — a spring which, growing in volume,
finally overflowed into that sphere (politics) the connection of
which with the bottom of my deep displeasure I could not fail to
fathom. Hence arose a violent impulse which is expressed in the
words, ' There must be a change ; it cannot continue like this.' "
In Vol. IV. (308) of his Collected Writings he brings
out still more clearly what precipitated him into the
revolution : —
"From my artistic point of view, especially with reference to a
reorganization of the Theatre, I had thus got to the point of recog-
nizing the unavoidable necessity of the revolution of 1848." And
in a footnote he adds defiantly : "I give especial prominence to
this fact here, regardless of the impression it may make on those
who poke fun at me as 'a revolutionist in behalf of the theatre.' "
No doubt there is something funny in the idea of join-
ing in a political revolution for the sake of theatrical
reform. Wagner was a fanatic for tlie theatre, if you
choose. If there were more such fanatics, there would be
more immortal dramas and music-dramas.
How little Wagner cared for politics as such, and
tlierefore for the political side of the revolution, may
also be inferred from this line in the tenth letter to
Fischer : —
212 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
" In my book, Oper iind Drama, which will appear shortly, you
will read, to your comfort, that I do not consider true art possible
until politics cease to exist f^
The view here presented, that Wagner was not natu-
rally a politician, and that he was driven into the revolu-
tion, not by hatred of his king, but by purely artistic
considerations, and by despair at the sorry state of his
personal prospects, is fully borne out by the interesting
and important revelations made by the late Ferdinand
Praeger in his Wagner as I Knew Him (1892), which
help to explain why Wagner temporarily abandoned
music for politics. What the insurgents were fighting
for were freedom of the press, trial by jury, national
armies, and political representatives. These boons must
have appeared as desirable to Wagner as to any other
high-spirited and freedom-loving man; yet there can be
no doubt that if he could have had his own way in regard
to operatic reforyns, he would have left political revolu-
tions to the care of others. Praeger's testimony on this
point bears out this view: "Wagner's heart," he says,
" as that of all men, revolted at the cause, but had it not
been for the ' companion of my solitude,' as Wagner calls
Roeckel, he would never have taken so active a part in the
struggle for liberty. Upon this point I cannot lay too
much stress."
Who was this Eoeckel? He was assistant-conductor at
the Dresden Opera. He was a nephew of Hummel, the
famous composer and pianist, and his father was the im-
presario who first introduced a complete German opera
troupe to London ; and who, at one time, was tutored by
Beethoven for the part of Florestan in Fidelia. August
Roeckel inherited a good share of the family talent for
REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 213
music. It was the display of this talent in his opera
Farinelli that led to his appointment as assistant-director
at the Dresden Opera. But when he became familiar
with Wagner's operatic music, the conviction of his own
inferiority became so strong in him that he voluntarily
took back that opera and refused to allow its perform-
ance. Henceforth he became Wagner's "shadow," as
Praeger calls him, his constant companion at home and
in the theatre. When Wagner — disgusted at the fate
of TannJiduser and the Dutchman ; overwhelmed with
debts by their failure to make their way in other cities,
and the accumulation of the scores he had had printed at
his own expense; harassed by ignorant critics, pedants
and Philistines on all sides — withdrew from the world
to compose his Lohengrin, Eoeckel was his only intimate,
and he was, with Uhlig, the first mortal who saw its
immortal pages.
Eoeckel, fortunately, had another intimate friend of
his youth, Ferdinand Praeger, who at that time lived in
London. Eoeckel was a good correspondent, and to this
circumstance we owe some pleasant glimpses of Wagner
as he was at Dresden during the Tannhiiuser and Lohen-
grin epoch.
From these letters a few passages may here be quoted.
The first is dated March, 1843.
" Henceforth I drop myself into a well, because I am going to
speak of the man whose greatness overshadows that of all other
men I have met, either in France or England, — our new friend,
Richard Wagner. I say advisedly, our friend, for he knows you
from my description as well as I do. You cannot imagine how the
daily intercourse with him develojjs my admiration for liis genius.
His earnestness in art is religiou.s; he looks upon the drama as the
214 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
pulpit from which the people should be taught, and his views on
the combination of the different arts for that purpose open up an
exciting theory as new as it is ideal. You would love him, aye,
worship him as I do, for to gigantic powers of intellect he unites the
sportive playfulness of a child. I have a great advantage over him
in piano-playing. It seems strange, but his playing is ludicrously
defective ; so much so, that when anything is to be tried I take the
piano, and my sight-reading seems to please him vastly. ' '
In another letter he writes that he has refused an offer
to go as first conductor to Bamberg, because he prefers
to be second conductor under Richard Wagner.
*'o'
"Such a man as Eichard Wagner I never yet met, and you
know I am not inclined to Caesar's maxim, that it were better to
be the first in a village than the second in Rome. I have begun to
rescore my opera under Wagner's supervision ; his frank criticism
has opened my eyes to some very important instrumental defects.
His notions of scoring are most novel, most daring, and altogether
marvellous, but not more so than his elevated notions about the
high purpose of the dramatic art ; indeed, they foreshadow a new
era in the history of art. ' '
In several other interesting letters, Roeckel speaks of
the Berliners who posed as profound art critics but were
too stupid to see any merit in the Flying Dutchman ; of
Wagner's admirable conducting of works by Gluck and
Marschner and by Mendelssohn; of the hubbub that was
raised by the conservatives when Wagner, for the best
of reasons, Avished to rearrange the seating of the orches-
tra; of Spontiui's visit, and the transfer of Weber's ashes ;
of the Intendant's preference of the third-rate Keissiger
to Wagner, because Reissiger knew how to bow to his
aristocratic acumen, while Wagner preached his own gos-
pel. One more passage may be quoted : —
BEFORM OR REVOLUTION? 2l5
" The only ready ear beside myself is Semper, who, however,
agrees with Wagner's outbursts only so far as they are applicable
to his own art, architecture, as in music he is but a dilettante.
Much of Wagner's earnestness in his demands for improvement in
art matters is attributed by the opposition to self-glorification.
At the head of it stands Reissiger, who cannot and will not accept
the success of Riensi as bona fide. He is forever hinting at some
nefarious means, and cannot understand why his own operas should
fail with the same public, miless, indeed, he stupidly adds, it is be-
cause he neglected to surround himself with a ' lifeguard of clac-
queurs ' ; but he was a true German, and against such malpractices.
You can imagine how such things annoy Wagner; and although
he eventually laughs, it is not until they have left a scar somewhere.
For myself, I wonder how he can mind such stuff. I keep it always
from him, but nevertheless it always seems to reach him; and
Minna is not capable of withholding either praise or blame from
him, although I have tried hard to prove to her that it deeply
affects her husband, whose health is none of the strongest. Another
annoyance is the Leipzig clique, with Mendelssohn at the head, or,
to put the matter into the right light, as the ruling spirit. He gives
the watchword to the clique, and then sneaks out of sight, as if he
lived in regions too refined and sublime to bother himself about
terrestrial affairs."
These letters of Eoeckel's might give the impression
that he had effaced himself completely to become Wag-
ner's "shadow." But this is only true of Roeckel the
musician. In politics Roeckel was the leading spirit, and
Wagner — unfortunately for his future — the shadow.
Now a man of Wagner's strong individuality would not
have been likely to play the role of shadow to any one
but a hero : and that Roeckel had in him the material of
which heroes are made is shown by what Count von Beust
relates of him in his Memoirs.^ Tlie Count was desirous
1 Aus drei Viertel Jahrhunderten, Vol. I. Chap. VII. pp. 77-80.
216 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
of pardoning Roeckel after he had been confined in
prison almost thirteen years ; but, he says : —
"King Johann firmly insisted that a pardon should be granted
to those only who had petitioned for it. Roeckel, whose death-
sentence had been commuted to imprisonment for life, was the
only one who refused to submit to this condition, and his resistance
at last became a real source of perplexity. One day I succeeded in
obtaining from the King his pardon without the petition. It cannot
be denied, I took the liberty of saying, that there is an antique
trait in this persistence, and where, I added, is the reactionary who
would remain in prison twelve years without being willing at last
to speak a humble word ? The King had to laugh, and yielded."
Von Beust adds that Roeckel requited this service
with ingratitude by writing a brochure on the Waldheini
prison,^ in which the Count is represented as a tyrant.
The Count also relates how he one day visited Roeckel
in prison. He found him standing at a desk and writ-
ing:—
"When he noticed me he made a stiff, ceremonious bow, and
then continued to write, with his back toward me, and without
paying me any attention. There was nothing to prevent him from
using the occasion of my presence for bringing forward his com-
plaints. But the same Spartan trait which prevented him from
handing in a petition for pardon may have incited frequent acts
of insubordination on his part, followed by corresponding acts of
discipline."
Such was the character of the " Spartan " friend who
made a politician pro tempore of Richard Wagner, greatly
to the latter 's disadvantage. He was the editor of the
Dresden Volksblatt, the people's organ, and Wagner con-
J Sachsen's Erhehung und das Waldheimer Zuchthavs, which con-
tains a vivid narrative of the revolutionary incidents iu which Wagner
took part.
REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 217
tributed to its columns, a fact which told against him
when Eoeckel's house was searched after his imprison-
ment. And now the question remains, on what precise
grounds was Wagner prosecuted by the Saxon govern-
ment and kept in exile for more than a decade? In other
words, what role did Wagner play in the insurrection?
We have seen why, in his letters to Liszt, he seeks to
minimize his share in the revolt. On the other hand, in
a letter (dated March 15, 1851) written to Eduard Eoeckel
(August's brother) in England, where there was no dan-
ger of correspondence being opened by the police, he
speaks more freely of his share in those transactions : —
"Although I had not accepted a special role, yet I was present
everywhere, actively superintending the bringing in of convoys, and,
indeed, I only returned with one from the Erzgebirge to the town-
hall, Dresden, on the eve of the last day. Then I was immediately
asked on all sides afte. August, of whom since Monday evening no
tidings had been received, and so, to our distress, we were forced
to conclude that he had either been taken prisoner or shot.
"I was actively engaged in the revolutionary movement up to
its final struggle, and it was a pure accident that I, too, was not
taken prisoner in company with Heubner and Bakunin, as I had
but taken leave of them for the night to meet in consultation again
the next morning " (Praeger, 188-191).
If Wagner, by his own admission, was "actively en-
gaged in the revolutionary movement up to its final
struggle, " it does not seem to me to make much difference
wliether he shouldered a musket, as Max Maria von
Weber (the great composer's son) told Praeger he had
seen him doing, or whether he only fired rockets, rang
alarm bells, and made speeches. If his actions were rash
and foolish, his motives were at any rate noble: he
fought for a higher degree of political freedom, and for
218 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
a higher art-life. If all the men who have taken part
in revolts on such grounds are to be condemned, Wagner
will find himself in a multitudinous crowd of heroes. At
the same time, it is as well to have the facts straight.
Praeger's book contains several stories of Wagner's par-
ticipation in the revolt which Mr. Ashton Ellis has
shown, in a vigorous pamphlet,^ to be unreliable, Eichard
Wagner having been mixed up with a journeyman-baker
named Wagner, on which point documentary evidence is
given by Mr. Ellis.
On one feature of his affair Mr. Ellis has thrown a
flood of light which will interest politicians as well as
musicians. It is well known that Count von Beust in his
Memoirs gave an account of an interview he had with
Wagner, in which he states, among other things, that
Wagner had been condemned to death in contumaciam;
that is, in his absence from court. He says also that
it was through the intercession of the family of the
tenor Tichatschek that he was induced to secure the
King's pardon for Wagner. Then he describes the inter-
view: —
' ' I greeted him with the words, ' I am glad to have been able
to be of service to you ; but I certainly hope you -will not, in con-
sequence, do anything disagreeable to me, therefore I beg you : no
demonstrations.' — 'I do not understand you,' was his answer.
' Well,' I continued, ' you surely remember the events of 1849 ? ' —
' Oh, that was an unfortunate misunderstanding ! ' — 'A misunder-
standing ? Perhaps you do not know that there is in the archives
a sheet in your handwriting in which you boast of having set fire,
fortunately without serious consequences, to the Prince's palace.' "
11849. A Vindication. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibuer &
Co., 1892. Mr. Ellis is the editor of the London Meister and the trans-
lator of Wagner's Prose Writings.
EEFOBM OR REVOLUTION? 219
Count von Beust evidently fancied that sucli a sublime
being as a statesman need not behave like a gentleman
in speaking to a mere man of genius. But leaving the
question of manners aside, it is certainly suspicious that,
as Mr. Ellis remarks, "the report of the interview is
absolutely broken off icithout a loord of Wagner'' s reply!"
Kegarding the statement that Wagner had been con-
demned to death in contumaciam, Mr. Ellis remarks : —
"However much von Beust might have approved of this sum-
mary method of dealing with distasteful absentees, even the Saxon
authorities did not dare go so far, at least in the middle of this
century, as to condemn a man to death unheard. . . . And now
I would ask my readers to refer back to page 10, where they will
see a reference to a jonrneyman-baker, Wagner; this young man
teas condemned to death for various acts of sedition, and is accused
by Montbe of incendiarism (p. 209, Der Mai Aufstand). Surely,
here is the key to the whole incident ! "
It is now known, moreover, that it Avas the Grand Duke
of Baden, and not the family of Tiehatschek and Von
Beust, who was responsible for Wagner's pardon. Von
Beust disliked Wagner's music, and there can be no
doubt that he, and not the King, was responsible for his
long banishment; his attempt to make out that he was
the real benefactor and liberator of the' man he detested
and persecuted, is what he probably considered " diplo-
matic " ; others would choose a different word for such
conduct. But we must now return to our narrative, the
thread of which was dropped at the point when Wagner
found that he must immediately leave Saxony if he would
save his life or his liberty.
220 BEVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
FLIGHT TO WEIMAR
Disguised as a coachman on a wagon brought to him
by his sister-in-law, Wagner fled from Saxony. But
where should he find an asylum? His mind was doubt-
less made up in a moment. Where else should he go but
to Weimar? Here Franz Liszt, surrounded by geniuses
and would-be geniuses, had made his home, which was
destined to transform that city once more into the haunt
of the Muses, as it had been when Goethe, Schiller,
Herder, and other literary lions dwelt there. Liszt had
determined to give up his career as pianist, and chosen
the much less remunerative and more laborious path of
conductor and orchestral composer. He had accepted
the post of conductor of the Weimar opera, and one of
his first acts (four months after his installation) was the
production of Tatmhduser, which, although four years
had passed since its first production in Dresden, had not
been brought out in any other opera-house. And not
only had Liszt produced it, but he had brought it out
well, with an honest effort to follow out the composer's
intentions, for which purpose the stage-manager Genast
had been specially sent to Dresden to get Wagner's
instructions regarding the scenery and other matters.
Numbers 10 to 16 of the Correspondence with Liszt con-
tain interesting details about this performance, on which
we cannot dwell here further than to quote one line of
Liszt's : " Herr von Zigesar has already written to you
with what zeal and constantly growing admiration and
sympathy we are studying your work"; and one line
from Wagner's effusive and pathetic letter of thanks : " It
FLIGHT TO WEIMAR 221
comes from the deptli of my heart, and my eyes are full
of tears as I write."
There could be no mistake, therefore, in going to
Weimar, where Liszt would be sure to welcome him with
open arms. Liszt had urgently invited him to attend
the opening performance, but Wagner had been unable
to obtain leave of absence : —
"In the same week," he writes, "in which you produced my
Tannhauser in Weimar, I was so grossly insulted by our Intendant
that I struggled with myself several days whether I should continue,
for the sake of the bread which my work here gives me, to expose
myself to the most insulting treatment, and whether I should not
give up art entirely, and earn my living by manual labor, rather
than continue to be subjected to a malicious and ignorant des-
potism."
This was the culmination of a series of disappoint-
ments and annoyances which began shortly after his
arrival in Dresden and had already, in 1847, reached such
a point that he wrote to his friend F. Heine the follow-
ing sentence, which deserves to be printed in italics, as
it contains the key to Wagner's artistic character and, in
fact, to the whole " Wagner Question " : —
'■'■ I am so filled icith the deepest contempt for our contemporary
theatric affairs, that, as I feel poicerless to effect any reform, my
most ardent desire is to get away from these things entirely ; and I
must consider it a real curse that all my creative impulses urge me
to the production of dramatic works, since the icretched state of our
theatres necessarily appears to me in the light of a holloio mockery
of all my efforts.''''
Under such circumstances Wagner could hardly con-
sider the necessity of his flight and the loss of his situa-
tion as a calamity, and we can understand the enthusiasm
with which, in reviewing the situation two years later
222 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
(IV. 406), he exclaims that it was impossible to describe
the sense of voluptuous delight which he felt at getting
away from all these petty annoyances and blasted hopes :
" for the first time in my life I felt absolutely free and
happy, though I could not know where I should hide
myself the next day in order to be allowed to breathe
heaven's fresh air."
Liszt was no less delighted than surprised at this unex-
pected arrival of a man whom he had recognized through
the score of Tannliduser as one of the greatest living
geniuses. A few letters had passed between the two,
and they had met several times, but it was not till this
occasion that their hearts were really opened towards
each other, and the beginning was made of a friendship
unequalled in cordiality and importance in the history of
art, and without the existence of which the world would
in all probability have never seen the better half of Wag-
ner's music-dramas. It was Liszt who helped him with
funds when he would otherwise have been compelled to
stop composing and earn his bread like the commonest
day-laborer; Liszt who sustained him with his approval
when all the critical world was against him ; Liszt who
brought out his operas when all other conductors ignored
them; Liszt who wrote letters — private and journalistic
— -about his friend's works and aims, besides three long
enthusiastic essays on Tannliduser, Lohengrin, and the
Dutchman, which were printed in German and French,
and, with the Weimar performances of these operas, gave
the first impulse to the "Wagner movement." Nor did
it take Wagner long to divine his luck.
' ' On the day when I discovered that I would have to fly from
Germany altogether," he writes, " I saw Liszt conduct a rehearsal
FLIGHT TO WEIMAR 223
of my Tannhauser, and was astonished to recognize my second self
in this achievement. What I felt in composing this music he felt
in performing it ; what I intended to say in writing it down he
said in making it sound. Wonderful ! Through the love of thi«
rarest of friends I found, at the moment when I lost my home., a
reaJ home for my art, which I had so long sought in vain and
always at the wrong place. When I was sent away to wander
about the world, he, who had so long been a wanderer, retired to
a small town to create a home for me."
The historic friendship between Liszt and Wagner is
the more remarkable in view of the fact that at first there
had seemed to be a slight antipathy rather than sym-
pathy between them. They had met casually for the
lirst time during Wagner's first visit to Paris — he being
a poor, neglected composer, Liszt a popular performer,
who astonished all society with his brilliant feats of vir-
tuosity, fantasias on operatic melodies, and the like.
This prejudiced Wagner against him, and on his return
to Germany he took no special pains to conceal his feel-
ings. Liszt, the most cordial and genial of artists, was
distressed on discovering that his slight acquaintance
wdth Wagner had left a dissonant impression; and even
before he knew any of Wagner's music, he made various
efforts to meet him and reveal to him his real character,
artistic and personal. He heard Rienzi, and Wagner
discovered that he was going about everywhere, praising
its beauties.^ Then came the final test — the perform-
ance of Tannhauser at Weimar; and now Wagner knew
that his feelings had deceived him. Yet this was only
the beginning of Liszt's services.
1 This is Wagner's own account of his first acquaintance with Liszt.
IV. 41(M15.
224 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
WANTED BY THE POLICE
While Wagner was enjoying the rehearsal of Tann-
hauser by Liszt, news was brought to him that he had
better continue his flight immediately beyond the German
boundary, as the Saxon police were on his track. There
was no time to be lost. His portrait was to be placed in
the gallery of " politically dangerous individuals " (poor
Richard!), and the following warrant was issued by the
Dresden police : —
" The royal Kapellmeister, Richard Wagner, of this city, de-
scribed below, is to be placed under trial for active participation
in the riots which have taken place here, but has not been found
so far.
"All police districts are accordingly notified, and requested to
arrest Wagner on sight and notify us immediately.
" Dresden, May 16, 1849.
" The City Police Deputation
V. Oppel.
" Wagner is thirty-seven to thirty-eight years of age, of medium
stature, has brown hair, an open forehead ; eyebrows, brown ;
eyes, grayish blue ; nose and mouth, proportioned ; chin, round,
and wears spectacles (sic /) . Special characteristics : rapid in
movements and speech. Dress : coat of dark green buckskin,
trousers of black cloth, velvet vest, silk neckerchief, ordinary felt
hat and boots." ^
It may seem strange that the police did not succeed in
capturing a " politically dangerous person" whose " round
chin wore spectacles." The secret is revealed by the
contents of a letter addressed by Wagner to Herr 0.
L. B. Wolff, which forms No. 17 in the Liszt Correspon-
1 Translated from the original in Kastner's Wagner Kataloy, Ap-
pendix B, 8.
WANTED BY THE POLICE 226
dence, and is dated Ziirich, May 29, 1849. From tl)is
we gather that "Wagner travelled on the pass of a Dr.
Widmann, whom he must have resembled in personal
appearance — a resemblance which he doubtless increased
by discontinuing to wear his spectacles on his chin.
In the letter to Eduard Eoeckel quoted on a preceding
page, Wagner tells us how he came to Weimar and left
it again: "When all was lost, I fled first to Weimar,
where, after a few days, I was informed that a warrant
of apprehension was to be put in motion after me. I con-
sulted Liszt about my next movements. He took me to
a house to make inquiries on my behalf. ... On Liszt
returning, he told me that not a moment was to be lost,
the warrant of apprehension had been received, and I
must leave Weimar at once." He made straight for
Ziirich and arrived there after four days' travel, his pass
being demanded only once, at Lindau. At Zurich he
remained a few days to rest and to secure a passport for
France. He begs Herr Wolff to give the kindest greet-
ings and warmest thanks to Liszt and the others who had
assisted him in his flight, including Herr Wolff himself,
who had supplied some of the shekels for the trip.
Also, to tell Liszt that the trip had given him renewed
pleasure in life and in his artistic projects: "I know
that my latest experiences have taken me into a path on
which I must produce the most important and valuable
work of which I am capable." Especially interesting
also are these lines about Loliengrin : —
"Liszt will ere long receive a bundle of scores, etc., from my
wife ; let him open it! The score of Lohengrin I beg him to ex-
amine leisurely ; it is my latest, ripest work ; no artist has seen it
yet, and of none have I therefore been able to ascertain what
226 EEVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
impression it may produce. Now I am anxious to hear what Liszt
has to say about it. When he is through with it, I beg him to send
it to Paris as soon as possible with the other scores and text-books,"
IN PARIS AGAIN
The last line leads to the inference that Wagner in-
tended to get some of his operas — perhaps even Lohen-
grin — performed in Paris. Vain hope — as we can see
now: Tannhdtiser was not performed there till twelve
years later, and Lohengrin had to wait at the door of the
Grand Opera forty -two years! The time of his arrival
was not a favorable one, any way, for serious operatic
projects. Nor was his heart in the business : his former
experiences in that city had left a bitter taste in his mouth,
and it was only at Liszt's advice that he had gone there.
Now, by a curious coincidence, it had happened that
Liszt — who at that time could have had, of course, no
idea that Wagner was to go to Paris — again had sent to
the Journal des Debats an enthusiastic article on Tannhdu-
ser, which had appeared shortly before Wagner's arrival.
Suspicion was at once aroused that he had had his own
finger in the pie, and Meyerbeer, especially, was disposed
to take as dark a view as possible of the situation. His
conduct on this occasion appears, indeed, to have greatly
exasperated Wagner, who writes to Liszt (No. 18) that
he cannot understand how there can be any friendship
between him and Meyerbeer — Liszt all magnanimity,
Meyerbeer all cunning and shrewd calculation of per-
sonal advantage: "Meyerbeer is petty, through and
through, and I regret to say I cannot meet any one who
feels the least inclination to deny this."
Liszt, knowing that Wagner was not a good hand at
IN PARIS AGAIN 227
intrigues, and out of place in an ante-cliamber, had
placed at his disposal his own agent, Belloni, a shrewd
and clever man of the "vvoiid. Belloni frankly told him
that to win success in Paris he must have a great deal
of money, like Meyerbeer, or else make himself feared.
'• N'ery well, money I have none," Wagner accordingly writes
lo J.Lszt, " but an immense desire to create an artistic terrorisimis.
I Give me your blessing, or, better still, your assistance ! Come
hither and lead the great hunt ; let us shoot till the rabbits lie
right and left." To Uhlig (No. 5) he writes in a similar vein:
" My business is to create a revolution wherever I go. If I suc-
cumb, my defeat will be more honorable to me than success in the
opposite way ; even without a personal triumph I shall certainly
benefit the cause."
It soon became clear that there was no chance to pro-
duce one of his operas, and as he felt a great aversion to
setting to mtisic a "Scribe or Dumas libretto," there was
nothing left but to elaborate a new operatic plan of his
own and get some French poet to put it into verse, in
pursuance of Liszt's advice. He had, besides Siegfried,
no fewer than two comic and three tragic subjects in
his mind (Uhlig, No. 1). One of these was Jesus of
Nazareth : —
"This subject I intend to offer to the French poet, whereby I
hope to get rid of the whole affair, for it will be fun to see the dis-
may which this drama will create in my associe; if he has the
courage to undergo with me all the thousand fights which will
necessarily follow the attempt to put such a subject on the stage,
I shall regard it as a matter of fate to go ahead ; but if he forsakes
me, 80 much the better : I shall be freed from the temptation of
working in this hateful, jabbering language."
He succeeded in finding a French author who was
willing to collaborate with him, but none of his subjects
228 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
seemed quite suited for the French stage ; and as it would
in any case have taken him about a year and a half to
arrange the poetic outlines and compose the music, he
determined to turn his back on the hated Paris, — dieses
grdxdicJie Paris, — which weighed on him like a night-
mare, and go back to Zurich.
MINNA WAGNER JOINS HER HUSBAND
All this time Wagner's wife had been left in Dresden,
whence she reported to him "a thousand disagreeable
things " that made him appear a much more active party
in the revolution than he really had been. On his return
to Zurich his first thought was to get her to join him in
exile ; nor was she unwilling : —
" To-day I have received a letter from my wife, as touching as
anything in the world could be. She is willing to come to me,
and remain to share anew all the privations that are before us.
A return to Germany, as you know, I cannot for some time think
of ; hence we must be reunited in a foreign country."
But poor Minna had no money to travel: she even
needed sixty-two thalers to help out her parents, who had
been hitherto supported by Wagner. What was there to
do but to ask the generous Liszt to furnish the means?
It was hard to do so, especially as, in the preceding
letter, Wagner had been obliged to confess that, artist-
like, he had used up part of the money that Liszt had
given him to take along on his flight, by assisting some
poor Saxon fugitives he had met in Paris ! Liszt was far
too generous and reckless himself to take offence at this,
and opened his purse again. But there was some delay
in Minna's coming, and Wagner feared she might have
MINNA WAGNER JOINS HER HUSBAND 229
changed her mind. So he writes to Fischer (No. 7,
Aug. 10) : —
"I am waiting from day to day, and fear that something may
liave happened to her. Dear Fischer, would you be so very kind
as to see if my wife is still in Dresden, and let me know at once
in case she should be ill ? If you find her still there, tell her that
I have not vrritten lately because I expected daily to hear of her
arrival ; otherwise I would have told her that my outlook is im-
proving, that I have good news from Weimar, while here the near
future is provided for, so that she need have no anxiety ; 300
florins have been advanced to me by a friend who took the Lohen-
grin score in pawn for it ; besides, I have been asked by several
admirers to read my latest opera-poems in the autumn, before a
private audience and for a good price ; also, to give a concert of
my own compositions. ... In short, let her take courage and
come at once."
To judge by the letters of these few months of separa-
tion, Wagner was much attached to his wife. There are
a dozen passages in which he writes as if he could not
work before he had a cosy home again and his wife to
preside over it. His appeals to Liszt are touching: —
" As soon as I have my wife I shall go to work again joyfully.
Restore me to my art ! You see that I am attached to no home,
but I cling to this poor, good, faithful woman, for whom I have
provided little but grief, who is serious, solicitous, and without
expectation, and who nevertheless feels eternally chained to this
unruly devil that I am. Restore her to me ! Thus will you do
me all the good that you could ever wish me ; and see, for this I
shall be yrateful to you ! yes, grateful ! . . . See that she is made
happy and can soon return to me ! alas ! which, in our sweet nine-
teenth-century language, means, send her as much money as you
possibly can ! Yes, that is the kind of a man I am ! I can beg, I
could steal, to make my wife happy, if only for a short time. You
dear, good Liszt I do see what you can do 1 Help me 1 help me,
dear Liszt 1 "
230 REVOL UTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
Minna came at last, and Wagner's happiness overflowed
into a letter to Heine (No. 11) : —
" My wife has happily arrived ; I went as far as Korschach on
Lake Constanz to meet her. The bird and the dog are also here,
and a small home we are now engaged in furnishing ; the delicious
Swiss air, the grand, inspiring Alpine views, some excellent friends
I have made here, a feeling of freedom, unimpeded activity, energy,
and the mood to work, — all this combined makes me, and my
dear wife, too, cheerful, and I think that this good humor will
bring forth some valuable fruits."
^o
The one thing that troubles him is that opera which
he is to compose for Paris. He writes as if he would
almost sooner emigrate to America than work with French
tools. Unfortunately, his wife, as well as Liszt, is a
Philistine in this matter. Both want him to do what he
cannot do — make concessions, write a French opera to
a French text, when he feels that he cannot possibly do
anything but write a German opera on a German subject.
Liszt urges him to be diplomatic; to leave politics, per-
sonalities, and revolutionary ideas alone ; to pay court to
Roger and Madame Viardot, to critics and managers, for
the sake of his musical outlook; while Minna is a Philis-
tine for domestic reasons. She cannot understand why
her husband, whom she knows to be a clever fellow,
should not provide pot-boilers by writing for the art-
market what the market-people happened to want at the
moment. Here he was actually burning with the desire
to waste his time in writing his Siegfried's Death, when,
by his own confession, he had no hope that a manager
could be found during his lifetime who would produce
it, or artists who could sing and act it!
Had it not been for his wife — and his Dresden credi-
MINNA WAGNER JOINS HER HUSBAND 231
tors — Wagner would have given up the Paris opera busi-
ness at once. That Minna, with all her beauty and
domestic qualities, was not the right sort of a wife for
a genius and a reformer, is most convincingly shown in
this passage from a letter to Uhlig (No. 2) : —
" She is really somewhat hectoring in this matter, and I shall
DO doubt have a hard tussle with her practical sense if I tell her
bluntly that I do not wish to write an opera for Paris. True, she
would shake her head and accept that decision too, were it not so
closely related to our means of subsistence ; there lies the critical
knot, which it will be painful to cut. Already my wife is ashamed
of our presence in Zurich, and thinks we ought to make everybody
believe that we are in Paris,"
because the news had got abroad that he was writing an
opera for that city. She was also distressed by his
readiness to borrow money, and even to accept gifts of
money. He tried to convince her that, " whoever helps
me, only helps my art through me, and the sacred cause
for which I am lighting." Womanlike,^ Minna could
see only the personal side of the question; the point of
view indicated in the last quotation escaped her compre-
hension. To her it seemed vastly more important that
he should preserve his social " respectability " by writing
pot-boilers, and not accepting money-presents, than that
he should create unremunerative Avorks of genius for the
edification of future generations. In a word, she was a
Philistine.
1 Critic-like, perhaps I should have said ; for to jud^e by the tone of
the reviews of the Wagner-Lizst letters a few years ago, most of the
critics had got just about as far as Minna in their appreciation of
Wagner's character.
232 REVOLUTION — AUTISTIC AND POLITICAL
WIELAND THE SMITH
Once more Wagner yielded to the urgency of the occa-
sion, however hard it went against the grain of his con-
science. On his return to Zurich he had been "as happy
as a dog who has just got through with his whipping,"
in the belief that he was free at last to work and act in
accordance with his exalted ideals: and now his best
friends were nagging him once more to go to Paris, to
seek to prostitute his muse. Read his own vivid descrip-
tion of the result (Letters to Heine, No. 14) : —
" I saw that my wife, too, had nothing but the Paris bee in her
bonnet, so I resolved, ill, very ill as I was, to go to Paris, in the
devil's name, and, as you can fancy, in the most deliglitful mood.
This visit to Paris [Feb., 1850] forms of all my experiences one
of the most detestable. Everything that I knew before, and
expected, happened literally. My sketch for an operatic poem
quite justly seemed ludicrous to all who were familiar with French
and the Paris Opera; the condition of this Opgra, the Prophet,
No. 5, and all the impressions therewith connected, made me look
on myself as a madman : finally, not even to succeed in getting
one of my overtures performed, — all my enormous loathing of the
Banquier-Musik, from which every respectable person in Paris
itself turns away, — all this, combined with my nervous prostra-
tion, put me into a condition which did not tempt me, as you
can imagine, to write apologetic explanations to my friends who
expected to get triumphant reports of success from me. On the
contrary, I had got to such a point that I felt a more and more
urgent desire to give up heaven and earth. It seemed as if there
had been a conspiracy of all who were near me to nag me on to
the utmost limit — and the utmost limit I had indeed reached, for
anything seemed to me preferable to a continuance of life with
people who considered the very thing that is the most repulsive to
me as the most beneficial, and who agree that theoretically one
should be an honest man, but in practice an unprincipled fellow."
WIELAND THE SMITH 233
The subject which Wagner liad finally chosen for his
Paris plan, and which was voted " ridiculous " there, is
Wieland the Smith. Even in this project he was thus
guided by his sympathy with mythical subjects. It
is, moreover, amusingly characteristic of the reformer
that even here, where he was to make "concessions,"
he writes to Uhlig (No. 5) about his plan for Wieland:
"first of all I attack the five-act opera form, then the
statute according to which in every grand opera there
must be a ballet " ; and in the same letter he suggests
the necessity of starting a special musical journal which
is to attack one tower after another, "the bombarding
to continue as long as the ammunition lasts ! "
Wieland was actually put into the form of a libretto
in prose, which only needed versifying to make it ready
for the composer; and as such it is printed in Vol. III.
of the Gesammelte Shriften. Though it contains some
striking operatic situations and is an interesting story
in itself, it is not equal to his other dramas; his heart
was not in it (Uhlig, No. 10) : —
" Just as I am fresh and eager for all undertakings into which I
can throw my whole soul, so was I sad and slow when Paris was
the subject. Nothing would succeed with me. "With endless trou-
ble I forced myself to my Wieland ; it always sounded to me like
'■comment vous portez-vous ? '' — the ink wouldn't flow, the pen
scratched: without was dull, bad weather."
He never came back to this dramatic sketch, but on his
return from Paris he offered it to Liszt, giving as reason
why he himself did not want it, that it had been written
in a painful mood, which he was loatli to recall by set-
ting it to music. He even offered to do the versifying
for him, but Liszt had no wish to compose an opera ; and
234 REVOLUTION — ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL
two years later the thought occurred to Wagner that it
might be offered to Berlioz, whose ill-success he attrib-
uted largely to his want of skill in preparing his own
texts. This offer, however, was never made, so far as
the epistolary record shows.-'
1 Further details of the Wielard episode in Paris may be found in
No. 10 of the letters to Uhlig.
LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR--
DOUBT AND DARING
It was on the twenty -eighth of August, 1847, that
Wagner had put the last touches to the Lohengrin Prel-
ude, thereby completing the whole opera. ^ On Sept. 22
of the following year the finale of tlie first act was given
at a concert in celebration of the three-hundredth anni-
versary of the formation of the Dresden orchestra: this
was the only thing in his opera that Wagner had been
able to get a hearing of before his flight from Dresden.
On Aug. 9, 1849, he wrote to Uhlig from Zurich : —
"Yesterday, at last, I received my scores ! I played over a few
things in Lohengrin at the piano, and I cannot tell you what
a vyonderfully deep impression this, my own work, made on me."
On April 21, 1850, he wrote to Liszt : —
" My dear friend, I have just read a little in the score of Lohen-
grin ; it is not my custom to read my own works. It aroused a
burning desire in me to have this opera performed. I beg you
herewith to take my wish to heart. Bring out my Lohengrin !
You are the only one to whom I would put this request ; to no one
but you would I entrust the creation of this opera ; but to you I
surrender it with the fullest, most joyous confidence. ... In
Dresden there is a correct score ; Herr von Liittichau bought it of
1 It is a general rule among composers, as among authors, to write
their " prefaces " last.
236
236 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
me for the copying price of thirty-six thalers ; as he does not wish
to produce it (whicli, in fact, I would not permit under tlie present
musical direcr.r.ship), you may succeed in getting that copy for
thirty -six thalers, or at any rate have another one made from it."
etc.
This is tlie letter to which reference is made in the
oft-quoted passage from the Mitthe'duvg (IV. 414) : —
" At the close of my last Paris sojourn, when I was ill, unhappy,
and in despair, my eye fell on the score of my Lohengrin, which
I had almost forgotten. A pitiful feeling overcame me that these
tones would never resound from the deathly-pale paper ; two words
I wrote to Liszt, the answer to whicii was nothing else than the
information that, as far as the resources of the Weimar Opera per-
mitted, the most elaborate preparations were being made for the
production of Lohengrin.''''
Liszt had arranged his programme with the wisdom of
a man of the world. In the week of Goethe's birthday
(Aug. 28,) there was to be a great concourse of people at
Weimar to celebrate the unveiling of the Herder monu-
ment.^ As this was out of the regular opera season,
Liszt decided to make a special event of the Lohengrin
premiere, as its importance deserved, the singers being
recalled from their vacation for the rehearsals and two
public performances, whereupon the house was to be
closed again till the opening of the regular season.
"Your Lohengrin'''' (he wrote, Wagner-Liszt Correspondence,
No. 34) "will be given under conditions that are most unusual
and most favorable for its success. The direction will spend on
this occasion almost 2000 thalers [$1500], — a sum unprecedented
1 By a happy coincidence, of which neither Liszt nor Wagner seem
to have been aware, Aug. 28 was also the third birthday of the com-
pleted Lohengrin.
DOUBT AND DARING 237
at Weimar within memory of man.^ The press shall not be for-
gotten, and dignified, serious articles will appear in succession in
different papers. The artists will be all fire and flame. The num-
ber of violins will be somewhat increased (from sixteen to eigh-
teen) ; the bass clarinet has been bought ; no essential detail will
be omitted from the musical web and its sketch. I shall personally
undertake all the piano, choral, and orchestral rehearsals, while
Genast will zealousy follow your indications regarding the staging.
It is a matter of course that we shall not omit a note nor a comma
of your work, but that we will give it, as far as in our power lies,
in all its immaculate beauty."
To make quite sure of following out his friend's inten-
tion, Liszt begs him for some metronomic marks and
other directions, supplementary to those contained in the
text and the full score. Wagner complies willingly and
eagerly in a long series of letters, — Nos. 31 to 53, —
which accordingly form an invaluable Guide to the per-
formance of Lohengrin — a Guide which perhaps throws
more light on his principles of composition and on his
new style of dramatic vocalism than his elaborate theo-
retical treatises, in which concrete cases are only intro-
duced by way of illustration, while here everything is so
direct that the reader may imagine himself a student
1 To-day we know that ten times that sum does not suffice to put
Lohengrin on the stage according to Wagner's sumptuous intentions.
A {jood part of tliis " unprecedented sum " of S'lSOO came from the pri-
vate purse of tlie Grand Duchess, and among the extra expenses were
the hiring of l)ass-clarinet and harp players, which tlie operatic orches-
tra did not include, and extra trombones. Richard Pohl relates tliat
the tenor, Herr Beck, was entirely unable to do justice to tlie title role,
and as lie sofni tliereaftcr retired fi'oni the stage, it was whispered tliat
Wagner's music liad ruined his voice ! Fold also relates that among
the violins in the orchestra there was no less a virtuoso tlian Joseph
Joacliim, then only nineteen years old. Liszt was the first who dis-
covered his value, and he brouglit him from the Gewandhaus orches-
tra in Leipzig to be his Concertmeister in Weimar.
238 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
standing on the stage and receiving from Wagner a viva
voce lesson in the principles and practice of the modern
mnsic-drama.'^
In Liszt's replies to Wagner, there is nothing so
remarkable as his growing admiration of the score, mixed
with serious apprehensions as to whether Lohengrin could
be really made a success ! Before there was any question
as to its performance at Weimar, Liszt had written
(No. 24) : —
"I found it difficult to separate myself from your Lohengrin
score. The more deeply I entered into its plan and the masterly
execution of it, the higher rose my enthusiasm for this extraordi-
nary work. You will, however, pardon my petty timidity if I still
entertain some doubts regarding the completely satisfactory results
of a performance of it."
A few weeks before this he had written : —
"The wonderful score of Lohengrin has made a deep impres-
sion on me; for a performance, however, I would feel some appre-
hensions on account of the highly ideal coloring which you have
retained throughout. You will consider me a sordid business man,
but my true friendship for you justifies me in saying . . ." ^
1 Vocal teachers, in and out of conservatories, cannot be too seri-
ously urged to place these letters in the hands of their pupils. They
will correct many prevalent notions regarding Wagner's vocal style,
and will do much to help their pupils to success in the modern style of
dramatic vocalism, which at present has the highest market value. It
must be borne in mind, however, that while what Wagner says (in No.
41) regarding German and Italian vocalists was true in 1850, since then
a new school of dramatic vocalism has been formed, which in the higher
aspects of the art (emotional accent, and expression) makes the great
German singers of to-day safer guides and models than those of the Ital-
ian school. See the chapter on Wagner's vocal style in this volume.
2 The sentence is not completed, either because the manuscript was
torn or because Wagner's widow (Liszt's daughter) in editing these
letters saw fit to suppress what followed.
DOUBT AND DARING 239
Wagner's reply (TSTo. 26) is so characteristic that I
must italicize part of it : —
" Your doubts regarding the satisfactory effect of a performance
of this opera have often risen in me too : I believe, however, that
if the performance itself harmonizes with my coloring, the business
(even the close) will come out all right ! What we need here is to
dare!''
He himself was never afraid to " dare " anything. Al-
though he was aware that not a few of his fellow-revolu-
tionists were now shut up in the Saxon prisons, he was
eager to risk a trip in disguise to AVeimar to attend the
first performance of Lohengrin; and he would no doubt
have gone, if Liszt had given him the slightest encour-
agement. He admits that it would be a desperate move,
especially as he was no longer indiiferent, as some time
before, to being locked up in prison; but perhaps the
Grand Duchess or the Duke of Coburg could help him
in this plan. He promised to be very careful to preserve
his incognito. "See what you can do! At any rate I,
poor devil, would once more look forward to a pleasant
experience — perhaps also receive a new stimulus and
much needed encouragement to work."
But Liszt was too practical to be softened by his
friend's pleading, and he replied, in italics, that the
projected incognito visit was an absohite impossibility.
He writes, however, that he and the artists are floating
in the ether of Lohengrin and confident of being able to
give a correct performance: "Adieu, dear friend; I find
your work sublime."
While the rehearsals are going on, let us cast a glance
at this opera of which Liszt was the first to discover the
sublimity.
240 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
THE STORY OF LOHENGRIN
Act I. The rising curtain reveals a meadow near
Antwerp, on which King Heinrich der Vogler (tenth
century) has assembled the nobles of Brabant to prepare
for defence against the Hungarian invaders, and also,
according to the custom of the period, to sit in judgment
over their own disputes. Count Telramund, who has
the reputation of a most valiant soldier and nobleman,
being called upon for an explanation of the troubles
which have come to the King's ears, steps forward to
relate that the Duke of Brabant, on his deathbed,
entrusted to his care his two children, Elsa and Gott-
fried. He guarded them like the apple of his eye ; but
one day Elsa took a walk in the forest with her brother
and returned without him. No trace of him could ever
be found, and from Elsa's strange conduct no doubt could
remain that she had murdered him in order to become
herself mistress of Brabant, and share the rule with a
secret lover, whom she was suspected of favoring. He
had therefore voluntarily renounced the right to her
hand, which her father had given him, and had married
Ortrud, a descendant of the former rulers of the country,
the Dukes of Friesland. He being the nearest relative of
the Duke of Brabant, Telramund accordingly claims the
rule over his country for himself, and demands that Elsa
be punished for fratricide.
The King is loath to believe in such a horrible crime,
but his duty is to summon Elsa and hear her answer to
the charge, and then proceed to his judgment. Elsa
appears in simple white attire, accompanied by her
TUE STORY OF LOUENGRIN 241
female retinue in similar dress. To the King's ques-
tion whether she confessed her guilt, she replies with
the words, "My poor brother"; and after a pause she
relates, as one in a trance, how, one day, as she was
pouring out her grief in prayer, she fell into a sweet
sleep, and in her dreams she saw a knight in silver armor
and with a golden horn at his side who came to her and
spoke words of consolation. The King is touched by
her innocent appearance and demeanor, but Telramund
declares that her " dream " only proves his insinuations
regarding her secret lover. He, is ready to submit the
matter to a trial by combat, and the King asks Elsa who
is to be her champion. "The Knight of my vision," is
her answer; "he shall wear my father's crown, and call
me wife too, so he will." Four trumpeters now blow
their signal to the four quarters of the compass, and the
Herald, in loud voice, summons whatever Kniglit will
do battle in Elsa's cause. Painful silence — no answer.
Elsa begs the King to repeat the summons, and once
more the trumpeters and the Herald are heard. Silence
again. Elsa falls on her knees, in fervent prayer, when
suddenly there is a great commotion among the soldiers
and attendants in the background. A boat, draAvn by a
swan, is seen coming down the river, and on it stands a
Knight in silver uniform and helmet, with a golden horn
at his side. After the joyous acclamations with which
his arrival is greeted by the chorus have subsided, Lohen-
grin steps off his boat and in tones that are surrounded
by a halo of harmonies, dismisses the swan, and proclaims
that he has come to defend the innocent maid. Tlien
turning to Elsa, who has thrown herself at his feet, he
asks if she will place her cause in his hands and accept
242 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
him as her spouse if he wins, Elsa promises to be his.
body and soul; but there is one more thing which he
makes her promise : she must never ask him who he is
or whence he came. "Never," she replies, "shall this
question cross my lips." The combat follows, in which
Telramund is floored; but Lohengrin generously spares
his life, and the act comes to a close in a grand finale in
which the rage and disappointment of Telramund and
Ortrud are mingled with and overpowered by the joyous
exclamations of the King and his retinue, and the love
duo of Elsa and Lohengrin.
Act II. Telramund and Ortrud, disgraced by the issue
of the combat which established Elsa's innocence in the
eyes of the law, are seen sitting in the gloom of niglit on
the steps of the palace at Antwerp, which is brilliantly
illuminated inside. The sounds of festive music proceed-
ing from within help to deepen the gloom of the figures
without. Telramund reproaches Ortrud bitterly for what
she has done; for he now sees clearly that she lied to
him when she told him that she had with her own eyes
seen Elsa drown her brother. It was with this false-
hood, combined with her prophecy that the old Frisian
dynasty, of which she was the last representative, was
about to return to power, that she had led him to give
up Elsa and marry her, with the consequence of losing
his all. Even the sword has been taken from the dis-
honored, else it would have fared ill with his wife. But
Ortrud attempts to pacify him by disclosing her plan of
revenge. She has inherited the gift of sorcery from her
heathen ancestors, and Lohengrin's secret is therefore no
secret for her. She knows and tells Telramund that if
Elsa can be induced to ask her lover the forbidden ques-
THE STORY OF LOHENGRIN 243
tion, — who he is and whence he came, — he will have to
leave her immediately and return to his home. She also
tells him that if but the smallest limb — if only a joint
of his lingers — betaken from Lohengrin, he will become
})o\verless as any mortal. This, then, is to be their cam-
paign : she herself Avill infuse the poison of doubt and
curiosity in Elsa's heart, while Telramund is to attempt
to convince the King that Lohengrin is a sorcerer, who
has won his battle through witchcraft; or, failing that,
to make an attempt on his life.
Elsa appears in the balcony to the left, and on hearing
her voice Ortrud urges Telramund to go away and leave
her to carry out her plan. Elsa, too happy to bear a
grudge against any one, comes down to admit Ortrud, who
thus gets the coveted opportunity to poison the trusting
girl's mind with fatal suspicions. The day breaks, and
the place before the palace gradually fills up with nobles
and their followers, all in the gayest mood. A Herald
announces that the King has proclaimed Telramund an
outlaw, and that Lohengrin is to be ruler of Brabant and
to lead the forces to battle against the Hungarians. The
bridal procession of Elsa now marches across the stage.
Among the women is Ortrud, richly dressed; and just as
the procession reaches the cathedral steps, she rushes
forward and claims precedence over Elsa, whose bride-
groom she pronounces a sorcerer who vanquished her
husband by evil arts — the reason why he forbade all
questions as to liis name and home. The opportune arrival
of the King, followed by Lohengrin and the nobles, puts
an end to this painful scene; but hardly has the proces-
sion begun to move again, when there is a second inter-
ruption. Telramund has suddenly mounted the steps
244 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
and turns to hurl against Lohengrin the same accusations
as those just heard from Ortrud's lips. He does not
succeed, however, in shaking the confidence of the wed-
ding guests, who, on tlie contrary, crowd around Lohen-
grin to pledge their trust by a hand-shake. This gives
Telramund an opportunity to get near Elsa and to
whisper into her ear that she is in danger of losing
Lohengrin; but if she will only give him an opportunity
to cut off one of his finger tips, he will never be able to
leave her. This evidently makes an impression on Elsa,
but when Lohengrin comes to her side a moment later,
she sinks confidingly in his arms, and the procession
enters the cathedral, to the solemn sounds of the organ.
Act III. When the curtain rises again, after a brilliant
orchestral introduction which depicts the bustle and joy
of the wedding day, we see the bridal chamber, into
which Elsa with her companions enters on one side, while
Lohengrin, with the King and nobles, enters on the
other, to the strains of the wedding march and chorus.
The King embraces Lohengrin and Elsa and then departs
with the guests. The lovers are left to their caresses,
but not long does their bliss last. Elsa is more and
more overcome by the curiosity to know the name and
origin of her husband. It is not ordinary feminine curi-
osity that prompts her; nor is it the rankling of Ortrud's
accusation that Lohengrin had won the battle and her
through witchcraft; it is the suspicion instilled in her
mind by Telramund that she is in danger of losing
Lohengrin unless she resorts to magic means to retain
him. At first she uses the subtle arts of her sex : " It is
so sweet to hear you say Elsa ; shall I not also have the
pleasure of hearing the sound of your name?" Lohen-
THE STORY OF LOUENGEIN 245
orin tries to calm her — lie did not doubt her innocence
— why should she doubt him? But Elsa becomes more
and more excited: the sudden change from a maiden
accused of fratricide to that of a happy wife wedded to
the lover of her dream, has unstrung her nerves, and the
terrible thought of losing Lohengrin finally assumes in
her mind the form of a sense-illusion — she fancies she
hears the swan approaching to take her lover back to
that region of eternal bliss whence he had just told her
he had come. Losing all control of herself, she breaks
her promise and asks the fatal question. Hardly have
the words escaped her lips when she sees Telramund and
four nobles with drawn swords enter by the door to which
Lohengrin's back is turned. Uttering a terrible shriek,
she seizes his sword, hands it to him, and Telramund
falls pierced to the heart. Lohengrin commands his
accomplices to carry the body before the King. Elsa
has recovered from her morbid excitement and is now
all tears and contrition. But it is too late. The mis-
chief has been done, and her lover must leave her forever.
He rings the bell, and places Elsa in the hands of her
attendants, bidding them bring her before the King,
where he will reveal his name and rank.
The scene changes back to the meadow by the river
Scheldt. The sun is about to rise, and the nobles and
warriors assemble to prepare for their campaign and to
hear the King's admonitions. A bier with the covered
body of Telramund is brought on the stage, and shortly
afterwards Elsa and Lohengrin arrive separately. The
men acclaim Lohengrin with deliglit as their head; but
to their dismay he replies that he cannot be their leader.
Xot only that, but he has come as a complainant. He
246 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
lifts the shroud from Telramund's body: "This man
attempted my life at night — did I do right to slay
him?" — "Heaven will punish him as you have done on
earth," the King and the nobles reply. "But there is
another one," Lohengrin continues, "as whose accuser I
stand here — Elsa, my wife. She promised, before you
all, not to ask my name and condition, but she has broken
her promise, and I must therefore leave her and you at
once ; for hear who I am : In a distant land lies the burg
Montserrat where is preserved the cup known as the
Holy Grail. Its guardians and knights are endowed
with supernatural power, and one of their missions is to
champion the rights of the innocent in all countries ; but
they can retain their power only by preserving the secret
of their origin. If that is discovered, they are obliged
to return to Montserrat : —
" Now know how I must pimish broken faith!
The Grail obeying here to you I came :
My father Parzival as King is crowned;
His knight am I — and Lohengrin my name."
During his accusation of his wife and the narrative of
the Grail, Lohengrin has preserved a terrible sternness;
but now he turns to Elsa, and the demi-god's severity
melts before the human grief at the thought that he must
break his OAvn heart and hers whom he so deeply loves,
by leaving her forever. She implores him frantically to
remain, and the King and all the nobles support her
prayer ; but he declares he has already tarried too long :
should he remain, his disobedience to the Grail's laws
would deprive him of all his knightly power. As he
speaks, there is a great commotion in the background:
" The swan ! the swan ! " the men and women exclaim,
THE FIRST PERFOBMANCE 247
and, "Horrible, ha, the swan! the swan!" Elsa repeats.
Lohengrin sadly greets his bird and then once more turns
to Elsa and tells her that could he have remained at her'
side but one year, her brother, whom she considered
dead, but who had been changed into a swan, would have
returned to them, released through the Grail's power
from the sorcerer's enchantment. He kisses Elsa, who
has clung to him desperately till her strength leaves her,
and approaches the swan, when Ortrud suddenly rushes
forward with an expression of wild joy and exclaims :
"Earewell. proud hero; depart that I may tell this fool
who it was that drew her knight's boat! I recognize the
chain with which I changed the child into a swan. It
was the heir of Brabant. 'Tis well that you drove away
the knight, for had he remained a year he would have
freed your brother. Thus do the ancient gods avenge
themselves on their Christian enemy! " In her malicious
joy Ortrud has revealed her secret about the magic chain.
Lohengrin has heard it; after a brief prayer he loosens
the chain from the swan, which immediately dives,
while a dove flutters down and takes its place; and in
the spot where the swan disappeared emerges in a
moment Gottfried. But Elsa's joy at the recovery of
her brother is but brief. Looking up from him, she sees
Lohengrin disappearing on the boat. " My husband, my
husband ! " she wails, and with a cry she sinks lifeless
into Gottfried's arms.
THE FIRST PERFORMANCE
It was on Aug. 28, 1850, that this beautiful and
pathetic drama, which at the present day is the most
pO})ular work in the wliole operatic repertory, lirst saw
248 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
the light of the stage ; and a few days later Liszt wrote
to Wagner : —
" Your Lohengrin is from beginning to end a sublime work. At
very many places tears well to my eyes from the heart. As the
whole opera is a single, indivisible wonder, it is impossible for me
to specify this or that trait, this or that combination or effect.
Following the example of the pious priest who underscored the
whole Imitation of Christ, word for word, you might find me
underscoring the whole of Lohengrin, note for note. The begin-
ning I should feel inclined to make at the duet between Elsa and
Lohengrin in the third act, which to me is the culmination of all
that is true and beautiful in art.
" Our first performance was comparatively satisfactoiy. . . .
The court, as well as some intelligent Weimar people, are full of
sympathy and admiration for your work. And as far as the pub-
lic is concerned, it will doubtless consider it an honor to applaud
and pronounce that beautiful which it cannot understand."
It is easy to read between these lines that Liszt was
not satisfied with either the performance of the opera or
its reception by the public. That Wagner himself would
have been still less pleased is a matter of course: if
Tannhduser at Dresden, with the scenic resources of a
Court Theatre, and several of the greatest living dramatic
singers, had left his mind stored with " tormenting mem-
ories," what would have been his experiences at the small
Weimar theatre, where there were no great singers at all,
and the stage resources far from adequate for an opera
which calls for such sumptuous scenery and costumes
and grand processions as this one does! The general
impression which he received from various sources is
reflected in this passage from a letter to Heine (No. 14) : —
"The performance is said to have been quite good in all subor-
dinate points ; but in the principal point — the artists on the stage
THE FIRST PERFORMANCE 249
— it is pronounced weak and altogether inadequate. "Well, that
was perhaps inevitable ; I cannot expect the Lord to work private
miracles in my behalf by letting singers of the kind I need grow
on trees."
And to Liszt he writes (No. 41) : —
" What pleases me most is to see that you have not lost cour-
age, but intend — notwithstanding a certain atmosphere of disap-
pointment about you — to devote all your energies to the task of
keeping the opera afloat."
He was especially disturbed by the information that
Lohengrin had lasted almost five hours : —
" I had gone through the whole opera, soon after its completion,
to ascertain its duration, and had calculated that the first act
should take up not much over an hour, the second 1^ hours, the
last again something over an hour, so that altogether, including
intermissions, I reckoned it would last from 6 to 9.45 at the
latest."
He comes to the conclusion that the chief trouble lies
in the fact that the singers treat a portion of their roles
as ordinary recitatives which they can sing as slowly as
they please; whereas in Lohengrin there are no such
recitatives at all, but everything must be sung in time,
modified only by the emotional changes and nuances
called for by the words of the text. Accordingly he
implores Liszt : ^ —
1 The ten-paj^e letter in which this passage occurs (No. 41) should be
copied and committed to memory by evciry student of dramatic sinj^iufj.
It will be worth more to him than a luuidred ordinary " music lessons."
I may remark, in connection witli this, that if students of music would
give more time to the reading of good musical books, and a trifle
less to technical exercises with vocal teachers, there would be fewer
failures when singers come before the public. Brains are now calbnl
for in music as in other professions, and tlie days of singing marion-
ettes are over.
250 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
"Be firm and decisive in compelling the vocalists to sing what
they take for recitatives in a determined, brisk tempo. It is espe-
cially by this tx'eatment of the recitatives that the duration of the
opera can be reduced, as I know by experience, by almost an
hour." 1
Of course, as the Weimar singers liad not miraculously
"grown on trees," they could not be expected to master
at once that new style of brisk dramatic utterance on
which the life of Wagnerian song depends ; so there was
nothing left but to follow the usual expedient of con-
ductors in face of incompetent singers — omitting parts
of the score. Both Liszt and the stage-manager G-enast
wrote about the necessity of this procedure to the com-
poser, who at first complained bitterly of this " capitula-
tion" to lazy singers and easily fatigued opera-goers,
threatened to "go into no more battles," to "give up the
whole opera," to look on Weimar as on all other theatres,
and to " write no more operas." He had to yield, finally,
but would have nothing to do with the cuts, and begged
his Weimar friends, if they must make them, to ask no
advice of him, but leave him in ignorance as to how and
where his opera was mutilated.
One omission, however, he counselled himself ; namely,
the second part of the Grail narrative in the last act,
where Lohengrin relates how one day a mournful sound
had been borne on the air to the Grail Temple telling of
a maiden in distress; how a swan arrived with a boat
and brought him, the chosen protector of the maiden,
to the scene of the combat.
The Weimar tenor had found the first part of the uar-
1 He might have said by more than an hour. Under Mr. Anton
Seidl's baton, a performance of Lohengrin lasts only three hours and
twenty minutes, excluding intermissions.
WAGIfERS OPINION OF LOHENGRIN 251
rative so exhausting that he was unable to sing the
second; and Wagner, judging that this would probably
be the case with most tenors, cancelled this passage alto-
gether.^
"WAGNER's opinion of LOHENGRIN
I have already remarked on Wagner's accurate self-
judgment : he found each new opera, as it left his work-
shop, better than its predecessors ; not from that paternal
feeling which makes an author usually like his youngest
child best, but from a deep conviction that it really was
the best, because his creative imagination was maturing,
and his artistic instinct and experience enabled him to
attain a more finished style and a more organic form.
Thus, as in 1846 he had written to Liszt, on sending
him the scores of Rienzi and Tannliuxiser : " I wish and
hope that the latter may please you more than the
former"; so, in 1853, he wrote to his friend: "I cer-
tainly share your preference for Lohengrin : it is the best
thing I have done so far." In another letter (No. 32),
in which he begs Liszt to give Lohengrin without cuts, he
says: "I have in this opera taken pains to establish such
a close, plastic relation between the music, the poem,
and the action, that I believe I am quite sure of my
cause in this instance." So little faith had he, however,
in the singers and audiences of this period, that he
frankly confessed to the Hartels, when he tried to make
arrangements for printing the score, that he did not
1 It is printed in the original full score, but not in the vocal score, nor
in the text-books. The omitted lines are reprinted in Pohl's Warner
Studien, p. 74. The whole narrative was sung at the Munich perform-
ances in 1869.
252 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
believe that the opera would come much into vogue, at
least during his lifetime, — which, by the way, was not
a wise way to talk to hesitating publishers.
Works of genius often have a peculiar biographic col-
oring, derived from the circumstances under which they
were composed. In his Communication to My Friends
Wagner himself points out this biographic element in
his operas, at considerable length. Of especial interest
are his remarks on Lohengrin (Vol. IV. pp. 351-366), in
which occurs this poetic passage, following some remarks
on the sense of isolation which had overcome him when
he found no sympathy for the honest and lofty artistic
ideals which he had aimed at in his preceding two
operas : —
"By the might of my ardent desire I had now climbed to the
longed-for height of the pure, the chaste: I felt myself outside
of the modern world, in a clarified, sacred, ethereal atmosphere,
which, in the ecstasy of my sense of isolation, filled me with vo-
luptuous thrills such as we experience on a lofty alpine summit,
when, with our head in the blue ocean of air, we look down on the
mountain ridges and valleys below. Such summits the thinker
climbs in order to fancy himself ' laurified ' at this height of all
that is 'earthly,' and thus placed at the extreme limit of human
potentiality : here at last he can enjoy his own self, and amid this
enjoyment, under the influence of the colder alpine atmosphere,
at last congeal to a monumental ice-figure, which, as philosopher
and critic, with frosty self-contentment, contemplates the warm
world of living things below. — The longing which had driven me
to that height was artistic, sensuously human : what I wished to
escape was not the warmth of life., but the miasmatic, sultry at-
mosphere of the trivial sensuality of a certain phase of life — that
of the actual present."
It is related of Dickens and other famous authors that
the characters drawn by their fancy became after a time
WAGNEB'S OPINION OF LOHENGRIN 253
SO real to them that they laughed their laughs and wept
their tears. It was just so with Wagner ; he confesses
(IV. 369) regarding Elsa and Lohengrin: "I suffered
actual deep grief — which often found vent in scalding
tears — when I realized the inevitable tragic necessity
of the separation, the destruction, of the two lovers."
Some of his friends, accustomed to operas Avith happy
endings, prevailed upon him so far that at one time he
seriously contemplated a change of the plot, permitting
Lohengrin to remain with Elsa; further reflection, how-
ever, convinced him that such a change would mar his
tragedy completely, and it was allowed to remain
unaltered.^
Many further interesting utterances of "Wagner on
Lohengrin might be quoted, but the limits of space per-
mit the insertion of only one more — the following
admirable analysis (in a letter to Liszt, No. 72) of the
character of Ortrud, which shows how deeply he entered
into the spirit of his characters, and at the same time
reveals his opinion of political women : —
"Ortrud is a woman who does not knoio love. This expresses
everything, even the most terrible. Her sphere is politics. A polit-
ical man is detestable, but a political woman is an atrocity : such
an atrocity I had to portray. There is one kind of love in this
woman, the love of the past, of generations that have perished,
the terrible, insane pride of ancestry, which can only utter itself
as hatred of all that actually exists at present. In a man such
love becomes ridiculous, but in a woman it is terrible, because
woman, with her strong natural need of love, must love something,
1 Fortunately; for the scene of Lohengrin's farewell is one of the
most pathetic, in all literature, and I am sure tliat many of my readers,
like myself, shed tears when they first read tliis scene. To this day I
cannot read or hear it with dry eyes.
254 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
and her pride of ancestry, her adherence to the past, consequently
becomes a murderous fanaticism. History shows us no characters
more cruel than political women. It is therefore not jealousy of
Elsa (in reference to Friedrich) that sways Ortrud, but her whole
passion is revealed solely in that scene of the second act where,
after Elsa's disappearance from the balcony, she starts up from the
cathedral step and invokes her old long-forgotten gods.i She is
reactionary, thinks only of the old, and is therefore hostile to all
that is new, in the most ferocious sense of the word : she would
like to exterminate the world and nature, merely to bring her de-
cayed gods back to life. And this is not a mere stubborn, morbid
whim of Ortrud's, but her infatuation takes hold of her with the
full force of a feminine love-longing which has had no food, no
growth, no object : and it is for this reason that she is terribly
grand. Not a trace of pettiness must therefore appear in her per-
sonation : never must she seem simply malicious or offended ; every
utterance of her scorn, her treachery, must reveal the whole might
of that terrible madness which can only be gratified by the destruc-
tion of others or of herself."
What critic, what commentator, has ever analyzed one
of Wagner's characters as incisively as Ortrud's soul is
here dissected and laid bare? And if it is true that the
highest achievement of criticism is to give the reader
impressions and emotions similar to those, inspired by
the art-work itself, where can you find a more perfect
critic than Wagner showed himself when he wrote his
poetic analysis of the Lohengrin prelude (V. 233), in
which he puts into words what the orchestra tells in
glowing tones and colors — how the ecstatic vision
1 This answers (by anticipation) Dr. Hueffer's objection that "the
introduction in a by-the-way manner of the two great religious prin-
ciples [Christian and pagan] appears not particularly happy, and it
cannot be denied that the character of Ortrud, although grand in its
conception, has suffered through this unnecessary complication of mo-
tives." According to Wagner, it is the very key to Ortrud's character.
LISZT ON LOHENGRIN 255
beholds the rarefied ether of the blue sky gradually
condensing into the definite lines and forms of a group
of angels who slowly sink down to the earth, bearing in
their midst the Grail, in which the Saviour's blood had
been received ; and when at last the growing radiance of
the music has reached its climax, and the holy vessel is
uncovered and revealed to sight, the spectator's senses
are dazed, and he sinks down unconsciously, in rap-
turous worship. Having diffused the heavenly bless-
ing with the visible radiance of the Grail, the angels
slowly ascend with it skywards and disappear again in
the blue ether as the music dies away.
LISZT ON LOHENGRIN
Well might Wagner write to Liszt : *' Your friendship
is the most important and significant occurrence in my
life " ; for Liszt not only gave life to Lohengrin, and
provided an asylum for his exiled friend's other operas
wlien it seemed as if all other doors were being shut
against them, but he worked with- his pen as industriously
as with his baton to promote Wagner's affairs. He
wrote a long analytical essay on Lohengrin which, com-
ing from such a world-famed musician, could not but
create a sensation and attract general attention to the
opera which he praised so higlily. It remains to this
day the best essay ever written on Lohengrin ; but we
who read it to-day, and who find its enthusiastic praise
the most natural thing in the world, should try to bear
in niind what insight and what courage it took to write
as Liszt did about Lohengrin and Wagner's other operas
at a time when the whole musical world was disposed to
look upon them as the ephemeral works of an eccentric
256 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAB
iconoclast and an enemy of all that is true and beauti-
ful in music. Liszt boldly declared that Wagner was
equally great as poet and musician and the greatest of
all dramatic composers ; that the text of Lohengrin, even
apart from the music, had the originality of style, the
beauty of versification, the clever arrangement of the
dramatic intrigue, and the eloquent language of passion
which raised it to the rank of a great literary tragedy.
" Its literary merits suffice, " he adds, '' to place its author
among the most genuinely endowed dramatists of the
world." He also pointed out how mediaeval local color
is given to the verses by the use of an occasional old
German word and turn of style, by following Wolfram
von Eschenbach's example of not beginning a verse with
a capital letter unless it opens a sentence, etc. " This
opera must doubtless be regarded as an event in German
music, as the expression of a new system in dramatic
art." He explains the ingenious use of Leading Motives
(for which no term had as yet been coined), and compares
this new principle of musical form to a new style of
architecture, which could not be altered without modify-
ing its whole character — a most admirable and sugges-
tive comparison, which the reader will appreciate more
fully after perusing the chapter on Leading Motives in
the present volume.
"This opera," he continues, "is a true blending of
poetry and music," and a combination of all these effects
suffices to make "the imaginative part of the audience
leave the opera-house convinced of the actual existence
of the holy Grail, its temple, its knights, and its end-
less beatitude." Lohengrin's declaration of love, " Elsa,
ich liebe dich," "recalls by its eloquent brevity the
LISZT ON LOHENGRIN 557
solemn simplicity of the ancient tragedians, and is one
of the most thrilling moments in modern dramatic art."
''' Ortrud seems destined to be placed by the side of Lady
Macbeth, and Margaret of Anjou, as Elsa by the side of
Milton's Eve and the antique Psyche." The more
closely we examine the score, the more we are astounded
to see how minutely not only the vocal melodies and
accents follow the poem, but how the orchestra also
throbs in sympathy at every moment : —
"To it he entrusts the function of revealing to us the soul, the
passions, the feelings, even the most transient emotions of his
characters. His orchestra becomes the echo, the transparent veil,
through which we note all their heart-beats. ... In it we hear
the angry cry of hatred, the raving of revenge, the whisperings of
love, the ecstasy of adoration."
Liszt also points out some of the technical means with
which Wagner produces such novel and delightful orches-
tral effects, such as the division of the violins into sev-
eral groups playing different harmonic parts but all of
the same tone-color; and the use of three flutes, three
oboes, three clarinets (including a bass-clarinet), three
bassoons, three trombones, and a tuba,
"which triple-system has this advantage, among others, that the
whole chord can be given with the same tone-color, which throws
on liis instrumentation bright lights and shades that he distributes
with excjuisite art, and now mixes, now brings into harmony, with
the vocal declamation in a manner which is as novel as it is ex-
pressive."
Liszt's essay is brimful of such uper^us, but we can
quote only one more : —
" Wagner's heart is devoured by the noble and secret wound of
art-fanaticLsm. ... He felt a proud contempt for traditional
258 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
usage. . . , He has solemnly renounced all consideration for the
customary claims of the prima donna assoluta and the basso can-
tante. In his eyes there are no singers, but only roles. Conse-
quently he finds it quite natural to let the leading singer remain
silent during a whole act, and simply act, if her presence adds to
the realism and probability of the action — a method of procedure
scorned by every Italian diva and inexecutable by her."
This essay Liszt wrote in French, in which language
he felt more at ease than in German,^ and on Sept. 25,
1850, he addressed a letter to Wagner telling him that
in a week he would send him a manuscript which he
intended to print in a Paris journal in October; adding
that he was anxious to have it appear also in a German
version, either in a newspaper or as a pamphlet, and that
he would be delighted if Wagner himself would under-
take the task of translating it, with variations and cor-
rections, in order that he himself might thus feel free
from all responsibility in regard to translator's errors,
etc.
Wagner's reply is couched in terms of profuse grati-
tude for his friend's generous sacrifice of his own time
and work in order to aid him. Six weeks, however,
elapsed before Liszt received a copy of the translation,
and the reasons for this delay are given at length in the
fifty-second letter : —
" I was so deeply moved by your essay, that I became immedi-
ately convinced of one thing ; namely, that I could not be a collab-
orator in a thing which encouraged, inspired, and moved me so
profoundly. It made me feel indelicate and embarrassed to think
of writing down with my own hand the praise which you dictated
in your incomparably brilliant paper. I hesitated, delayed, and
1 Some of his letters to Wagner were also written in French, and are
printed in that language as an appendix to the German edition.
ROBERT FRANZ ON LOHENGRIN 259
knew not what to do. Finally my friend Ritter came to my aid
and offered to make the translation : I agreed, reserving the privi-
lege of revising it, less with an eye to your eulogies than to the
preservation of your admirable style."
He goes on to add that all tlie critical remarks on the
work and its author were translated as literally as possi-
ble, and with the greatest effort to preserve " the eloquent,
novel, and highly poetic language of the original," while
in the explanatory portions and the quotations from the
text the translation was made more freely and with
additions. Then he adds the follow^ing significant lines,
doubly underscored : —
" Were I to tell you what my feelings were on carefully perus-
ing and reperusing this essay, I could hardly find terms to express
myself. Let this suffice : I feel more than fully rewarded for my
trials, my sacrifices, and artistic struggles, on noting the impression
I have made on you in particular. To be thus completely under-
stood was my only ambition ; and to have been understood is the
most ravishing gratification of my longing,"
ROBERT FRANZ ON LOHENGRIN
Liszt was not the only man of genius who recognized
Lohengrin as a masterwork, a decade or tw^o before the
critics. Among the eminent musicians who were invited
by Liszt, or came of their own accord to hear Wagner's
operas at Weimar, was one of the great trio of German
song-composers, Robert Franz, who was then only in his
thirty-seventh year, but who w^as destined to bring the
German Lied to its highest perfection along the lines
marked out by Schubert and Schumann. Franz heard
Lohengrin as interpreted by Liszt, and was moved thereby
to write a private letter which w^as subsequently printed
260 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
in the Neue Zeitschrift far Musik (1852). It is too long
to be translated entire, but the following extracts will
give an idea of its sentiments.
Before going to Weimar, Franz writes, he had known
Wagner's writings only through the Tannhauser score,
which, detached from the action and other stage acces-
sories, had not made a specially favorable impression on
him : —
" Consequently I shared the aversion which almost all my musi-
cal colleagues felt toward the twofold rebel, and fancied that I was
rendering full justice to my conscience if on the mention of Wag-
ner's name I made the sign of a cross, contorted my features, and
thought by myself, like the Pharisees, 'Lord, I thank thee,' etc."
He then relates, how, being as fond of poetry as of
music, he had been hostile on principle to everything
that had borne the name of opera : —
" I could find no unity in it. . . . Not only Meyerbeer and
Flotow were the objects of my aversion, but my heresy extended
to Mozart (N.B. on the stage) as well as to the others. . . . The
opera mars the poetry, and by its dialogue and other pretty things
mangles the music."
But Lohengrin changed all his views in a moment : —
" From the first bar on I was in the midst of it, and soon found
myself in such complete sympathy with what was going on on the
stage and in the orchestra that I actually felt during the whole per-
formance as if I was singing and playing along."
Mozart's operatic music, he continues, ''unfolds its
full significance to me only in the concert hall." Not so
with Wagner : —
' ' In my prejudice against all things operatic I had not consid-
ered it possible that music could to such a degree be moulded and
subordinated to the action without losing its independence."
BOBERT FRANZ ON LOHENGBIN 261
-Of the orchestra, Franz says that it is
"a real fairy world, a true rainbow of tone-colors. Unheard-of
combinations of sounds there are, but always of a beauty incom-
parable. The whole introduction to Lohengrin is a Feerie, and
even with the critical spectacles on the nose one cannot escape a
state of ecstatic gratification."
Concerning the vocal style of Lohengrin, which to-day
seems so simple and melodious, Franz says: "It is diffi-
cult to understand how the singers can memorize melodic
phrases like these, apparently written so much against
the grain [widerhaarig'] ; and yet they assert that every
note, once fixed in the memory, remains as if chiselled
into the head." He then goes on to speak of Wagner's
constant violation of traditional rules and forms: "yet,
despite these abnormalities and monstrosities, he always
hits the nail on the head, and gives us such music as was
absolutely called for by the situation" — which reminds
one of Beethoven's remarks on Weber's Freischutz, quoted
in a previous chapter. Summing up his impressions,
Franz concludes : —
" Whether it was the charnf of the unheard, absolutely new, or
something else, I cannot tell ; I only know that very few musical
works have ever so completely overwhelmed me, made such a
' demonic ' impression on me, as Lohengrin. Wagner, thanks to
his double endowment, is the only man who could write an opera
which is a work of art in its fundamental conception."
In this last sentence Robert Franz states implicitly
what editor Brendel of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Mnsik
did not hesitate to utter explicitly — that the operas of
Mozart, Weber, and Beethoven are inferior to Wagner's.
To-day it seems funny tliat any one could have ovci-
262 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
doubted this, after hearing Lohengrin and Tannhduser;
but in 1853 it called for great courage on Brendel's part
to give public expression to such an opinion — courage
which Liszt alone shared.
Wagner had not met Franz at this time, but subse-
quently the two became good friends. Frequent men-
tion is made of Franz in Wagner's letters, and there was
also some personal correspondence between the two.
When the score of Lohengrin was printed by Hartels,
Wagner wrote to Uhlig that he was to receive one of the
three presentation copies which he had reserved j add-
ing:—
' ' A second I think of presenting to Robert Franz, and will send
it to you to see that he gets it. I have really been intending for a
long time to write to Franz. Heaven knows how one always puts
off a thing of the sort, however agreeable it may be. Kind greet-
ings to him, and assure him that I place great value on the fact that
he — next to you and Liszt — was the first musician who showed
me any friendship." ^
On Nov. 10, 1852, he writes : —
"Franz has sent me his Lieder ; as yet I have not looked at
them, but I am promising myself great pleasure when I do. Please
give him best greetings from me when you write."
And five years later (Oct. 29, 1857) : —
" I have had German visitors. Ed. Devrient, Prager, and Rockel
(from England), Robert Franz, etc., were this summer with me for
a longer or shorter period, and we had a lot of music, — Bheingold,
Walkilre^ and the two finished acts of Yoting Siegfried.''^
At this period Wagner had learned to esteem Franz's
songs so highly that they formed, with Bach's music, his
1 He forgets Spohr and Meyerbeer, but of course effusions of this sort
are not to be taken too literally.
FURTHER COMMENTS 263
daily food. That there was a natural artistic affinity
between these two composers need hardly be pointed
out: so far as the difference between lyric-song and
music-drama permitted, Franz did for the vocal style of
the Lied what Wagner did for the dramatic opera, by
making the vocal melody coalesce with the poetry as the
color of a rose does with its form.
FURTHER COMMENTS
In a preceding chapter brief reference was made to
the circumstances under which the poem and music of
Lohengrin were created. In writing the poem he took
even greater pains than in TannJiduser to preserve the
local color of the historico-mythic subject as regards the
scenic background and the poetic style. With the legend
of Lohengrin he had become familiar as early as 1842,
in Paris, in connection with the Tannhauser subject;
but the form of the legend as presented by an old Bava-
rian poet did not specially interest him at that time,
and it was not till some years later, when he became
familiar with the original and simpler form of the
legend, that it aroused his musical imagination.
Like Shakespeare, and the great dramatists of Greece,
he obtained the materials of his drama from various
sources,^ but welded tliem together and concentrated the
action with an ingenuity which betrayed the born drama-
tist. A French critic, Anatole France, commends Wag-
ner for freeing the old Lohengrin legend from its
1 Those who are curious as regards the known and possible sources
of Wiif^ner's j)oem may consult Muiicker's hricf Wagner biography, or,
for a more detailed acrcouut, an article l)y tlie same author iu the Mu
nich Allyemeine Zcituny (supplement) for May 30, 1891.
2G4 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
unsympathetic Gothic form, and presenting it in a
modern spirit. As a matter of fact, the essence of the
legend — the story of a bride who is punished for her
curiosity in violation of a promise — is as old as litera-
ture, having its prototype in the tale of Cupid and
Psyche, Jupiter and Semele, Pururavas and Urvasi in
the Rig-Veda.^ Those who like to exercise their fancy
by giving stories an allegoric and biographic significance,
may find food for thought by looking on Lohengrin as
representing Genius. He seeks a wife who will believe
in him, love him as a man, not as a god, i.e. a creative
artist; and understand him through this love: but his
higher nature does not escape detection; envy, doubt,
and jealousy poison the heart of even that woman for
whose succor he left his retreat. He finds he has only
been worshipped, not loved and understood, and sorrow-
fully returns to his solitude.^
The admirers of Wagner, following his example, are
much given to deriving his musical descent directly from
Beethoven. His extraordinary admiration of Beethoven,
which amounted almost to fanaticism,^ might easily lead
to the inference that he regarded himself as Beethoven's
successor. But, apart from the suggestive use of poetry
to assist instrumental music, in the Ninth Symphony,
the composer in whom Wagner's music really has its
roots is not Beethoven, but Weber. Weber was his first
love, and to Weber he returned. He himself remarks in
his essay on Zukunflsmusik (1860) : —
1 See Mr. Andrew Lang's article on Mythology, in Encyclopxdia
Britannica, p. 158.
2 This is Wagner's own version (IV. 362).
3 The index of Glasenapp's War/ner Encyclopsedie has thirteen col-
umns of references to Beethoven found in Wagner's literary writings I
FURTHER COMMENTS 265
♦' Should the satisfaction be granted me of seeing my Tajmhiiu-
ser well received bj- the Paris public too, I feel certain that I should
owe this success in a large measure to the still very noticeable con-
nection of this opera with those of my predecessors, among whom
I call your attention especially to Weber."
Eve n more than Tann hduser, Lohengrin recalls the
influence of Weber, in this case particularly EuryantJie,
which in many ways Wagner seems to have taken as his
model. Pohl and other writers have dwelt on the paral-
lel between Euryanthe and Elsa, Eglantine and Ortrud,
Lysiart and Telramund, in both their poetic and musical
characterization. But Wagner's poem is of course infi-
nitely superior to that of Weber's librettist, and if the
difference in the music is much less great, the advantage
is nevertheless on Wagner's side; and we can realize
here, especially, the truth of Cornelius's remark, that
"Weber died of the longing to become Wagner." On
reading Weber's biography, we become convinced that
he would have done almost what even the later Wagner
did, had he had the daring, the energy, and the iron will
of that reformer. But his life was too short, and his
health too poor, to allow him to take up such a struggle ;
and so, contrary to his convictions, he had his "gallery,"
as he called his wife, whose duty was to warn him when
lie was in danger of forgetting the " public " while fol-
lowing his own ideal of a music-drama. That this ideal
was the same as Wagner's in the most essential point is
proved by these words of Weber's : —
^^ Euryanthe is a purely dramatic work, which depends for its
success solely on the co-operation of the united sister-arts, and is
certain to lose its effect if deprived of their assistance."
How far Weber succeeded in reaching this ideal is a
266 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
question which Wagner repeatedly discussed at consid-
erable length.^ To note only two interesting points.
He admits tliat in the last scenes of EuryantJie " we are
indebted to this delightful tone-poet for a complete
realization of the ideal dramatic art," because here the
orchestra does not simply accompany the dialogue, but
" interpenetrates the recitatives as the blood does the
veins of the body," and constantly keeps alive our inter-
est by its use of characteristic motives appropriate to the
situation. On the other hand, the chorus is not properly
treated by Weber : —
^^In Euryanthe the dialogue of the actors is repeatedly inter-
rupted and retarded by the song of the chorus, and unfortunately
it sings here independently, after the manner of four-part male
choruses, without the vitalizing accompaniment of a characterizing,
animated orchestra, just as if the composer had intended these
choruses to be available also as detached pieces for the programmes
of the vocal societies."
In Lohengrin, on the other hand, the choruses are an
organic, inseparable part of the score. In Wagner's
operas the function of the Greek chorus of commenting
on the action is assigned to the orchestra, which, through
the use of Leading Motives, has received the faculty of
definite speech; the chorus thus wins the freedom of
taking part in the dramatic action. There is nothing
more effective in Lohengrin (when properly done, which
is not often the case) than the actions and the short
exclamations of the chorus on the arrival of the swan,
or on the appearance of Elsa. It miglit be argued, and
justly, that the final choruses of the first two acts prove
very effective in the concert hall too; but this does not
1 See III. 358-361 ; IX. 57, 251 ; X. 216-220, etc.
FURTHER COMMENTS 267
make them any the less perfect on the stage, provided
they are a natural outgro^\i;h of the dramatic situation
and appropriate to it, as they unquestionably are. From
a purely musical point of view there are no grander
choruses in existence than these, unless it be the conclud-
ing one in Bach's Passion Music or in the Meistersincjer.
Even the popular bridal chorus (which is now so often
used as a wedding march), although it is the weakest
thing in Lohengrin, is not really inconsistent with the
spirit of a music-drama; for the melody beautifully fits
the words, and the chorus is not an interloper, but grows
naturally out of the situation.
Wagner was fond of comparing poetry to a husband
and musicrEo^aTwife, and he did not believe in "women's
rights," his theory being that, in the music-drama at any
rate, the masculine poetry should be "boss," and not the
feminine music. In the individual roles this principle
is still more consistently carried out than in the choruses ;
how consistently is shown most graphically in the fol-
lowing passage from a letter to Liszt (Xov. 16, 1853),
whence the reader will see clearly what is meant by say-
ing that in Lohengrin " continuous melody " takes the
place of the detached " numbers " of the old-fashioned
opera, which were complete in themselves and could be
taken out without alteration, while in Lohengrin the
melody flows on without interruption or artiticial close
till the end of each act. To make Lohengrin more profit-
able from a publisher's point of view, Wagner had agreed
to bring out a collection of single pieces from it for song
and for piano : —
" We know that the so-called morceanx detaches really form the
chief source of profit in the issue of operas : but such pieces it is
268 LOHENGEIN AT WEIMAR
impossible to publish from Lohengrin on account of the peculiar
circumstance tliat there are in this opera no single vocal pieces that
can be detached just as they are. Only / myself, the composer,
could undertake to detach a few of the most suitable vocal pieces
from the score, completing them by recasting and rearranging, by
adding a beginning and a close, etc. Nine of these pieces, short,
easy, and even popular, I sent you some time ago with the request
to forward them to Hartel after receiving word from me: they
may appear as arranged by me."
Besides the continuous melody which, like a model
wife, scorns to be " independent," but is inseparable from
the " masculine " words, there is another respect in which
we find Wagner's genius already at its best in Lohengrin;
namely, in the marvellous homogeneity of coloring and
general musical phraseology, which gives a unity to the
whole opera and makes it an organic work of art. Play
a dozen bars from Lohengrin, and any musical expert will
tell you which of his operas it is from, even if he should
not distinctly remember that particular phrase. The
same could not be said of Mozart's Don Juan and Figaro,
or two operas by any other composer; and herein lies
one of the most profound evidences of Wagner's supreme
dramatic genius.
Why, then, if Lohengrin is such a genuine work of
art, should it be classed with the "operas" of Wag-
ner's second period, instead of with the mature music-
dramas ?
Chiefly because, although the characteristic themes
called Leading Motives are already used to a consider-
able extent in this opera, they do not yet make up the
entire web of the score, as in the dramas that followed.
The King, Elsa, Lohengrin, the Grail, and the swan,
Ortrud, etc., have their musical correlatives or Doppel-
FURTHER COMMENTS 269
■ '
ganger in the score ■which recur again and again witli
deep dramatic significance (especially in the second act) :
but besides those there are also melodies that occur only
once and have no typical dramatic meaning. One of the
most exquisite of these is the eight bars which the
orchestra plays in the bridal chamber while the King
embraces the newly married couple and gives them his
blessing.^
As distinguished from the typical or leading motives
such passages might be called incidental or passing
melodies, and there are many of them in this opera.
The wealth of musical ideas in Lohengrin is, indeed,
positively astounding, and makes one stand amazed at
the lavish exuberance of the composer's imagination, as
no other stage-work ever written except Die Meistersinger
does. The second act alone has musical ideas enough to
furnish forth a dozen ordinary operas of German, Italian,
or French manufacture.
That^ihis second act was the last to be appreciated by
the public has its good reason in the fact that it was
composed"4ast of all, and marks the transition to Wag-
ner's^" third style," which begins with Rheingold. What
especially distressed the old-fashioned opera-goers, who
were accustomed to expect nothing but "sweet" music
and " pretty " tunes in their operas, was the free use
which Wagner made here of sombre colors and of dis-
cords, to express the emotion of hate. But here, as
1 This beautiful passage is usually marred by bein^ taken too fast,
at niarcli pace. Wagner knew what a good thing it was, and wrote to
Liszt in IH.').'} that he had forgotten to note down a tempo mark in the
score: " Here the tempo must become considerably alower still than at
the first entrance of the D major; the passage must make a very cor-
dial, solemn impression, or else the intention is lost."
270 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAB
usual, the very thing was found fault with which indi-
cates the greatest progress and perfection. li_is_iiot only
the prerogative but the duty of dramatic music to express
all the emotions of the soul, those of hatred as well as
th_ose of love. In the second act of Lohengrin, the tragic
elements of a drama are musically illustrated and intensi-
fied as never before on the musical stage; and these
scenes more than foreshadow the dramatic perfection
reached in Siegfried and Tristan. With an incompetent
Ortrud and Telramund this episode is indeed dreary;
but that is not Wagner's fault. When the vocalists
are actors too, and can express hatred as well as love
by their singing, then this part of the opera arouses
more enthusiasm than any other, as I have often wit-
nessed.
The composer Felix Draeseke has well described^ how
Wagner uses the orchestra to help in characterizing and
individualizing his dramatis personcB : —
"Just as he makes use of special melodies to sketch the princi-
pal persons, so he also has attempted to secure the same end by
means of the various clang-tints. Accordingly he uses — although,
of course, not exclusively — the brass chiefly to accompany the
King and the martial choruses ; the high wood-wind to paint Elsa ;
the English horn and bass-clarinet to sketch Ortrud ; the violins
(especially in high ' harmonic ' positions) to indicate the Grail and
its representative knight. Yes, even the choice of keys appears to
have been made with artistic deliberation. Or is it unintentional
that Ortrud's appearance is almost always indicated musically in
the key of F-sharp minor ? is it unintentional that the four buglers
always blow in C-major, and also greet the King's arrival always
in C ? Is it accidental that the key of A, which is the purest for
strings and the most magic in effect on account of the greater ease
^ Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik, April 4, 1856.
PROGRESS OF LOHENGRIN 271
of producing ' harmonic ' tones, always annoiuices the approach of
Lohengrin and the Grail's intervention in the action ? " ^
The original and unconventional character of Wagner's
instrumentation is illustrated by these remarks from the
pen of L. C. Elson concerning the prelude to Lohengrin : —
" Wagner alone, of all the great masters, does not use the harp
for celestial tone-coloring, but violins and wood-wind in prolonged
niites, in the highest positions. Schumann, Berlioz, Saint^Saens,
in fact all the modern tone-colorists who have given celestial
pictures, use the harp in them, purelj' because of the association
of ideas which comes to us from the Scriptures, and this very-
association of the harp with heaven and the angels only came
about because the instrument was the most developed possessed
by man at the time that the sacred book was written. Wagner's
tone-coloring is intrinsically the more ecstatic, and one cannot but
agree with the sarcasm of Theophile Gautier, that a ' harp concert
lasting ten thousand years nmst end by becoming tiresome.' Wag-
ner is the first who has broken through this harp conventionality."
PKOGRESS OF LOHENGRIN
About two months after the first performance of Lohen-
grin Wagner wrote to Uhlig, after mentioning the Lohen-
grin essay : —
" I am deeply touched by Liszt's untiring efforts to fan the
flame of my fame with diabolic persistence. My Weimar friends
imagine they can pave my way to the public at large by their
wise measures : three performances of Lohengrin have now been
given, and the result leads the local manager triumphantly to
express the conviction that this opera is assured the same popu-
larity in Weimar that Tannhixuser has won. So they all believe
tliat nothing is needed except a few trifling concessions on my
1 Compare with this Wagner's own extremely interesting remarks on
tlie sequence of keys in the vocal contest in Tannhduser (Liszt Letters,
Iso. lb).
272 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
part, and zealous efforts on their part, to soon place the whole
German operatic public at my disposition. I suppose I must
appear crazy to them if, in answer to these messages, I persist in
stubbornly maintaining that they are mistaken, and that such a
thing is impossible."
Liszt had written him, after the second repetition, that
Lohengrin was being more and more appreciated and
understood, and that it was a work which woukl " con-
fer more honor on an audience that showed itself capable
of understanding and enjoying it, than the audience could
confer on it, by aj)plauding and making it a popular
success." In May, 1851, the opera had reached its fifth
performance, and Liszt wrote : —
" The house was filled, largely, it is true, by visitors brought by
curiosity from Erfurt, Naumburg, and other neighboring towns ;
for, to be frank, the Weimar people, with the exception of about
two dozen, are not so advanced yet as to be able to take a decisive
interest in so extraordinary a work."
This custom of making a musical pilgrimage to Weimar
for the sake of hearing Wagner's operas, came more and
more into vogue, so that the Grand-Ducal town became
a sort of preliminary Bayreuth for the Dutchman, Tann-
hduser, and Lohengrin. Special opera-trains were occa-
sionally run, and in January, 1853, Liszt wrote to assure
his friend that the public interest in Lohengrin was
increasing rapidly, and "you are already very popular
at the various Weimar hotels, where it is not easy to get
a room on the days when your operas are given." And
again, a year later: " Tannhduser, as usual, drew a full
house, and when Lohengrin was performed, many stran-
gers who arrived in the afternoon could get no more
tickets."
PEOGEESS OF LOHENGBIN 278
Wagner himself has best summed up the importance
of Liszt's activity in Weimar, as conductor and essayist,
in two letters to him (Xos. 52, 67), from which I must
cite the following passages : —
" Truly, my friend, you have made of this small "Weimar a real
furnace of fame for me ; when I look at the numerous detailed and
often very clever articles on Lohengrin which now come from
Weimar, and recall, in comparison, the envious hostility with which,
e.g., the Dresden critics fell on me, and with what melancholy perse-
verance they labored as if to create a systematic confusion regard-
ing me in the public mind, Weimar appears to me as a blessed
asylum in which at last I can breathe freely and relieve my op-
pressed heart."
" What you, but you alone, have succeeded in doing for me at
Weimar so far is astounding, and has contributed still more to
my success ; without you I icoidd now be completely forgotten ;
instead of which I have been brought to the public notice of art-
friends by all the means which are at your disposal only, and which
you have utilized with an energy and a success that alone make it
possible for me even to think of carrying out such plans as I have
just told you about \_Tlie Xibeluru/s Ring']. This plan is perfectly
clear in my mind, and I declare you without hesitation the creator
of my present position, which is perhaps not unpromising as re-
gards the future."
When, in 1852, the score of Lohengrin appeared in
print, Wagner immortalized his gratitude to Liszt in
this cordial dedication : —
" It was you who awakened the mute notes of this score to the
living world of sounds ; without your rare devotion, my work
would still sleep silently — forgotten perhaps even by myself — in
some drawer among my furniture ; no ear would have heard that
which moved my heart and ravished my imagination when, always
dreaming of a vivid execution, I composed this work five years ago.
May it now resound and be heard in the world at large. That will
be one consolation for me — for me who probably will never hear
il."
274 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
Liszt had done his work and done it well. But it will
always remain one of the most extraordinary facts in the
history of music that, notAvithstanding his Herculean
labors, musical and literary, uo^ other opera-house touched
Lohengrin till three years after its first j)erformance
at Weimar. While Meyerbeer's ProjiMte was exciting
unbounded enthusiasm all over Germany, not one of
Wagner's four operas was performed during 1850 and
1851, except at Weimar ! Wiesbaden and Dresden took
up Tannhduser in 1852, and in Dresden, also, this opera
was resumed on Oct. 26, while in the following year no
fewer than twenty-six other German cities^ produced it;
but Lohengrin had to wait till July 2, 1853, before Wies-
baden honored itself by being the first city after Weimar
to bring out this magnificent work.
The next year Leipzig, Schwerin, Frankfurt, Darm-
stadt, Breslau, and Stettin followed the lead of Weimar
and Wiesbaden, and in 1855, eight more cities — Co-
logne, Hamburg, Riga, Prague, Augsburg, Bonn, Diis-
seldorff, and Hanover — were added to the list; while,
strange to say, some of the leading opera-houses waited
longest before they oj)ened their portals to Lohengrin —
Munich and Vienna till 1858, Berlin till 1859, and Stutt-
gart even till 1869. That Berlin quarantined Wagner's
opera nine years is strange, but not so strange as the fact
that the same city (and the same Litendant) repeated the
same farce with the Nibelung Tetralogy after 1876.
That Leipzig was one of the first to produce Lohengrin
was an unfortunate circumstance, owing to the poor
equipment of the opera-house at that time, and the
Mendelssohnian atmosphere, which was hostile to Wag-
1 See the list in Glasenapp, I. 347.
PBOGBESS OF LOHENGRIN 275
nerian interests. The conductor, Julins Rietz, was a
personal friend of Mendelssohn, and had no sympathy
with "Wagner. Nor did Wagner have any confidence in
liini, but insisted that Liszt should supervise the produc-
tion of his opera. In a letter to Heine, dated Jan. 19,
1S.")4, he says: —
" I only consented to the performance in Leipzig on condition
that Liszt should represent me, if not as conductor, still as super-
intendent of the whole production ; and he was to have the right
to stop it if he saw there was no reasonable expectation of a favor-
able residt. Now first do I learn that R. quite set up his back
against this, and that the whole thing would long ago have come to
a rupture had it not been that tlie Hjirtcls [publishers of the score]
effected a prudent compromise through Liszt's complaisance,
whereby the latter was only to drop in at the last rehearsal, and
perhaps give a few friendly' hints to R. Now it appears that Liszt
did not even receive notice of the date of these rehearsals, and he
has had the somewhat too diplomatic weakness of leaving the affair
to take its own course, for good or bad. But that was certainly
not my intention, and so the performance has taken place entirely
against my will. I shall take other precautions for the future."
The result of this performance was what might have
been anticipated. It was such a wretched affair that
Wagner could justly refer to it (in the same letter) as
"the latest Leipzig outrage on my Lohengrin." Liszt
wrote him a full account of it (No. 143 of the Corre-
spondence), from which it appears that the performance
actually broke down in several places; and although he
adds once more " your Lohengrin is the most magnificent
work of art the world at present possesses," this could
liardly console Wagner for the fiasco of his favorite opera
in one of the leading German cities. A good share of
this failure was of course due to the " big head " of Con-
276 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
ductor Eietz, who fancied he knew more about bringing
out the new opera than Wagner himself or his alter ego
Liszt. Wagner ran against many such " big heads " in
his career, and these pleasant experiences account for his
frequent severe or sarcastic references to Kapellmeisters
and Kapellmeister musik. The critics, to be sure, pro-
nounced these references improper and impertinent —
for ought he not to have been grateful to have his operas
performed at all?
One unfortunate result of the Leipzig experiment with
Lohengrin was that an intending purchaser in Berlin of
Wagner's rights to his scores was intimidated. "My
agent writes me," he says in a letter to Liszt (No. 144),
" that after such a success he found it impossible to clinch
the bargain with the man, who had already seemed most
willing to accept it," and who had been advised to await
the results at Leipzig. Another unfortunate circum-
stance was that the extensive and injudicious cuts which
Rietz had made in the score were thenceforth for many
years looked on as authoritative, and copied at most other
German theatres, when Lohengrin was first produced.
However, in spite of wretched performances at Leip-
zig and elsewhere, — the reports of which kept the exiled
Wagner on pins and needles, — Lohengrin gradually and
triumphantly made its way in Germany and outside of
Germany. True, the opera was twenty-one years old
when it entered England and Eussia (London in June
1868, and St. Petersburg in October of the same year) ;
twenty-three when it entered Belgium (Brussels, March
22, 1870) ; twenty-four when first heard in Italy (Bologna,
1871), and twenty-three when it crossed the ocean to
A-merica (New York, 1870), while Paris did not hear it
CRITICAL PHILISTiyES AND PROPHETS 277
till it was forty-four years old. But iu most of these
countries it became, in course of the following two dec-
ades, the most popular of all operas. In London, at
present, it draws larger audiences than any other opera,
German, Italian, or French; it was given ten times in
the season of 1890-1891. In Brussels, during the same
season it had twenty-seven performances, or six more
than the next popular opera. In Italy Wagner's operas
(mostly Lohengrin) had seventy performances during the
season 1889-1890. At the Grand Opera in Paris ten of
the sixteen performances given in November, 1891, were
devoted to Lohengrin, while the total number from Sept.
16, 1891, to Sept. 16, 1892, Avas sixty-one. But it is in
Germany, the home of modern opera, that the trivimph
of Lohengrin is most empliatically revealed by statistics.
In the season 1890-1891, Lohengrin was heard 263 times
(as against 248 in the preceding season) in seventy Ger-
man and Austrian cities, the opera next in popularity
being Tannhduser with 247 performances (as against 189
in 1889-1890). In Berlin Lohengrin had its three hun-
dredth performance on Oct. 16, 1892.
CRITICAL PHILISTIKES AND PROPHETS
Statistics are usually considered dry reading, but the
figures in the preceding paragraph can hardly be called — .
uninteresting, for they reveal an important fact r— the
fact that Lohengrin is to-day the most popular work in
the world's operatic repertory. It is accepted, without a
dissentient voice, as a classical masterwork, and most
persons will find it difficult to believe that it should have
ever been regarded otherwise. Indeed, there is a general
impression that tliis opera was received with approval
278 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
from the beginning, and that the critical opposition to
Wagner did not begin till he brought out the works of
his later style — especially Triston- and the Nibehmg's
Ring. |No less a personage than J. Weber, one of the
leading French critics, wrote in the Paris Temps, as late
as May 10, 1887, that ^^ Lohengrin is the only one of
Wagner's works which was never attacked, which made
its way and was received everywhere without opposi-
tion." When so well-informed a man could make such
a grievous error, it is hardly to be wondered at that the
general public should be misinformed. The following
anthology of Lohengrin criticisms will therefore prove as
surprising to most of my readers as it is certainly amus-
ing, and as it ought to be instructive and a warning to
those who persist in decrying Wagner's later works as
"unintelligible and cacophonous," while admitting that
they like the earlier ones — ignorant of the fact that
these earlier ones were once equally denounced as being
"unintelligible and cacophonous." The operas have
not changed, but the hearers' mental powers have changed
and grown; and if they will listen to the later works
attentively, their minds will grow still more.
Shortly after the Weimar performance of Lohengrin,
Lobe wrote in the Leipzig Signale : —
" Shall future generations laugh at our time, so boastful of the
spirit of progress, as we now laugh at Schaul and other opponents
of Mozart in former days ? Are we men of progress ? Yes, as
far as words go ! In reality we are creatures of habit who dread
every effort and spend our time criticising, ridiculing, and persecut-
ing the few energetic individuals whom the Zeitgeist has thrown
among us, and passing over their vigorous doings with a yawn."
In plain English, Lobe asked his critical colleagues
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PEOPHETS 279
if they would once more make fools of themselves and
discredit their profession in re Wagner; and this is the
way they answered his question : —
Moritz Hauptmann (whose letters on music have been
lately translated into English) wrote in 1859 of a Lohen-
grin performance : " We found it difficult to stay to the
end, and made up our minds never again to attend an
opera of this sort." Apparently this was not the first
time that the eminent Hauptmann had heard this opera,
for on March 7, 1854, he wrote from Leipzig : — _
" The third performance of Lohengrin was given before an
empty house, and so was the fourth, at reduced prices, for which
so many had waited. . . . Now it would be easy to forgive a man
for not having the ability to do this or that. But the silly, stupid
vanity which brmgs forth and would force on people such a very
defective work as the only true thing — that is the aggravating and
really contemptible part of this affair." ^
Twelve years later, when Lohengrin was revived in
Berlin, one of the leading local critics. Otto Gumprecht,
lamented "the cruel necessity imposed on him by his
duty " to attend a performance of this opera and " allow
his ears to be assaulted for three hours by the most piti-
less of all composers." He declared the music "a dis-
agreeable precipitate of nebulous theories, a frosty,
sense - and - soul - congealing tone- whining." ("Frosty
whining" is good.) Thirteen years later, the same critic
still found this score to be "an abyss of enmii," and its
1 Perhaps it was not so strange that Hauptmann could not under-
stand Wagner's music, inasmuch as he had not yet caught up with
\Vel)er, or even with Gluck. On page U:? of his Letters ((iernian edi-
tion) he says: " Tliere is always sonietliing amateurish about Weber,
wlierefore it is silly to place him in the front rank of conii)nsers, where
Gluck also does not belong, on account of liis lack of skill in artistic
elaboration " !
280 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
principal characteristic, " garrulous triviality " ! Another
Berlin critic wrote that "nine-tenths of the score con-
sist of miserable, utterly inane phrases." "The whole
instrumentation . , . breathes an impure atmosphere."
"Every sentiment for what is noble and dignified in art
protests against such an insult to the very essence of
music." And the only Berlin critic who spoke for Lohen-
grin, Ernst Kossak, did so, as he confessed, "at the risk
of being stigmatized as a barbarian by the believers in
classical dogmatism."^ Kossmaly (Echo, 1873) called
Lohengrin "a caricature of music," while another Ger-
man critic, Gustav Engel, admitted in 1859 that this
opera " has the value of a curiosity, and that is something
for the critics at any rate." Seven years later Engel
wrote that " the music of Lohengrin is blubbering baby-
talk" (eine kindlich stammelnde Sprache), and his friend
Gumprecht opined that it was " formlessness reduced to
a system."
The eminent Viennese critic. Dr. Hanslick, declared
(1858) the composer of Lohengrin "an anti-melodious
fanatic." The opera, he says, "lacks specific dramatic
power, and only shows a lyric gift and uncommon theatric
cleverness." In 1869 Hanslick wrote : " I was sanguine
enough to believe that Wagner would, in his later operas,
avoid the unmusical, the morbid, the spiritually masked
triviality of his earlier ones. The reverse has happened;
every new opera (following Tannh&user) has become more
unmelodious, tedious, noisy, and abstruse." And as late
as 1875 this wonderful critic expressed his sympathy
for the tenor Herr Miiller by advising him not to rviin
1 Tappert, Richard Wagner, p. 60, and his Wagner Lexicon, Wdrter-
huch der Unhoflichkeit.
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PROPHETS 281
his artistic career by persisting in impersonating the
knight of the swan (he " wittily " advises him " den gefie-
derten Einspiinner so bald als moglich wieder abzudan-
ken").
"When Germans could write such rubbish about one
of the greatest works of art ever written in their country,
it was hardly to be expected that foreigners would show
better sense. An Italian critic wrote after the perform-
ance of Lohengrin at Milan (1873), " Such algebraic har-
monies may at most succeed in Germany, and only in
Germany; here we ask for melody and song, not for
declaiming vocalists." The most eminent Italian critic
of this country, Filippo Filippi, gives (in the first pages
of his Viaggio nelle Regione del Avenire) an amusing
account of the way in which Wagner was up to that date
(1870) spoken of in Italy, where he was chiefly known
through Lohengrin : —
" Not only do people assert that this music (which they do not
know) is the negation of art, of melody, of common sense, but
the mere hearing of it has been decried as a re&\ jeltatura, as harm-
ful, and even serious journals have asserted that attendance at a
Wagner opera is followed by jaundice, smallpox, cholera, and
heaven only knows what other calamities ! And of tlie poor tenor
who died while he sang in one of Wagner's operas, they say that
he succumbed to the noxious influences of the music of the future.
To the most malicious criticisms of these works are added attacks
on the personality of their composer, on his exclusiveness and his
immeasurable vanity, which latter is after all a trait common to
all great men."
In France there is almost as extensive a Wagner litera-
ture as in Germany, and two books have appeared there
especially devoted to a consideration of the ojjinions on
Wagner passed by a multitude of writers, while a third
282 LOUENGRIN AT WEIMAR
contains a collection of Wagner caricatures.^ Among the
opponents, the fiercest and most formidable, because of
his authority and influence, was Fetis pere — the same
who had the audacity to " correct " the harmonies in Bee-
thoven's Ninth Symphony, and the same who, as we saw
in the chapter on Tannhduser, found that Wagnerism was
on the wane in Germany — the year before the first Bay-
reuth festival.
Fetis wrote (1852) that "Wagner's efforts tend to
transform art by means of a system, not through
inspiration. And why this? Because he lacks inspira-
tion, because he has no ideas, because he is conscious of
his weakness in this respect and seeks to disguise it."
Fetis also discovered that Wagner " suppresses melody
and rhythm " — which is surely an offence that ought to
have called for police interference.
In the last volume of Fetis 's BiograpJiie des Musidens
(1875), in the course of some remarks on the Dutchman,
Tannhduser, and Lohengrin, we come across this profound
solution of the question why people take an interest in
Wagner : —
"A few spectators honestly admired this music, which they did
not understand ; others were greatly bored by it ; but the Germans
have a wonderful faculty for allowing themselves to be patiently
bored in the theatre without leaving their places. There was much
talk about Tannhduser and Lohengrin, and that sufficed to make
everybody want to hear them. To-day [1875] this curiosity is
gratified, and indifference has followed. This music, which was to
be that of the future, is already that of the past."
After this crushing blow at Wagnerism, it seems
1 George Servieres, R. Wat/ner Jug^ en France ; Les Ennemis de
Wagner (of this I have not been able to get a copy) ; J. Grand-Carteret,
Wagner en Caricatures.
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PEOPHETS 283
hardly worth while to quote other French criticisms.
Two more choice samples may, however, be added ; Felix
Clement says in his Dictionnaire des Opiras concerning
Lohengrin, that the score is "above all, wearisome"; and
of the Prelude he says : —
" In spite of the enthusiasm of the German colony," — note the
sly insinuation, — "the hearers of this symplionie, wliich is too
elaborate to merit the name of prelude, could not see in it anything
but a sequence of acoustic effects, a crescendo cleverly managed,
a persistent tremolo on the first string and leading up to a sonorous
entry of the brass instruments — and all this loithotit the. shadoiv
of an idea ; it is an audacious defiance of everything that people
have hitherto agreed to call music."
The eminent Parisian critic, Scudo, heard some Wag-
ner selections in 1860. He found the Tarmhduser march
satisfactory, but this same Lohengrin prelude proved too
much for him, and he described it as " strange sounds,
curious harmonies which do not keep together and lead
to no tangible idea. One might compare it to an organist
trying a new instrument, and running Ids fingers at ran-
dom over the keyboard to note the sound of the different
stops." 'iSTuff said. And yet this chaotic thing con-
tinues to haunt our concert-halls and opera-houses to the
present day!
England and America have had their Lohengrin critics
and prophets, second to none. But there is room here
for only two specimens. In 1856 tlie New York Times^s
critic wrote about Wagner : " It seems to us extremely
improbable that he will excite any enthusiasm as a com-
poser . . . The entire opera of Lohengrin, from begin-
ning to end, does not contain a dozen bars of melody. It
is the wildest kind of rambling, utterly destitute of form
284 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
or sequence," etc. The eminent English musical his-
torian and teacher, Dr. John Hullah, heard Lohengrin as
late as 1875 and wrote that he found it dull. " It will
attract for a time," he prophesies; "but that works after
the manner of Lohengrin, which — accepting the word
'music ' in the sense for some centuries past given to it
— may be described as operas without music, should take
any permanent hold on the human soul, is to us simply
inconceivable." (The italics are Hullah's.)
For the climax of the case against Lohengrin we must
return for a moment to Germany. To Otto Jahn, the
well-known biographer of Mozart, belongs the distinction
of having perpetrated the most virulent of all the attacks
on Wagner's early operas. Some of his remarks on
Tannhduser have already been quoted. Lohengrin he
belabors even more sa,vagely, in an essay of more than
fifty pages, at the end of which the thought that princi-
pally forces itself on the reader's mind is, " Why should
so great a man as Otto Jahn have wasted so much time
and space in demolishing so contemptible and pitiable a
freak as Lohengrin ? " According to Jahn, there is hardly
a redeeming feature, poetic or musical, in the whole
opera. What he considers its faults may be inferred
from one or two specimens. He objects to Elsa as
being merely "a girl with weak nerves." But why on
earth should not Elsa be a girl with weak nerves? Must
every character in an opera or play be a model of perfec-
tion, moral and physical? What a bungler Shakespeare
was, for instance, when he created such characters as
Cordelia's sisters! Jahn, like so many German critics,
seems to have derived his ideas of what a drama should
be from Sunday-school books, in which there are only
CRITICAL PHILISTINES AND PBOPUETS 285
angels and devils and no characters with merely human
weaknesses.
Of one of the gems of the opera, "Athmest du nieht
mit mir " (Breathest thou not with me), Jahn says that
" the hearer is tortured and dragged through a saccharine
bombast of harmonies that make one's hair stand on end,
and that are as anti-natural and untrue as the romantic
rhetoric of the text-words." Let any reader of this book
look up this passage, in the third act of the opera, and
then marvel at German criticism of forty years ago!
Filippo Filippi says of this same passage that " it is
exquisite, one might almost say d. la Gounod, were it
not that "Wagner wrote it before Gounod." The same
Italian critic was delighted with Wagner's novel use of
Leading Motives. Towards the close of the last act, when
Lohengrin leaves Elsa, he sa,js, "the mvisic of the first
act with the theme of the Holy Grail recurs again ; we
hear the melodies which had announced the mysterious
swan-boat and which now accompany it back. This
musical repetition produces a magic effect; even unbe-
lieving sceptics and atheists feel themselves surrounded
by a mystic atmosphere of religious exaltation." And
what does the German Jahn say about this same device
of the Leading Motive? He calls it "the crude materi-
alism of superficial signs " !
Even in Wagner's harmonies there is notliing new,
according to Jahn. He admits, however, tliat they are
often "striking," and, as he wittily adds, they are like a
man going about in a social gathering and boxing every-
body's ears — "mitunter liagelt es formlich Piiffe —
sometimes it actually hails blows." The chorus, too,
falls under Jahn's ban. " There is not a trace of dra-
286 LOHENGRIN AT WEIMAR
matic individuality in the clioruses," he says, adding that
" the chorus takes no part in the action and almost every
time might as well sing behind the scenes." The con-
clusion is that Lohengrin is an ephemeral work, "although
it may deceive the public awhile because it meets the
faults and weaknesses of its time."
jSTow it might be urged in defence of Jahn and his
venomous colleagues that their astounding verdict may
have been due in part to imperfect performances, which
failed to do justice to the composer's intentions. The
imputation that "the chorus does not act," for instance,
may have been, and probably was, true in the slipshod
Leipzig performance of 1854 on which Jahn's article
(which appeared first in the periodical Die Grenzboten)
was based; and the same might be said of other details.
But Jahn cannot lay this flattering unction to his soul,
for he reprinted this essay many years later in book
form, unaltered. And have not as distinguished critics
as he repeated betises like his after the excellent Nibelmig
and Parsifal performances at Bayreuth? No! It was
stupidity pure and simple; stupidity alone accounts for
such criticisms as have been quoted in the preceding
pages — a mental opaqueness which has not only a musi-
cal and aesthetic, but a psychological and Darwinian
interest.
But halt! Perhaps, after all, we are doing Wagner's
enemies a gross injustice. One of the Archphilistines
in the realm of music, Mr. Joseph Bennett, wrote this
remarkable confession in the London Musical Times of
April, 1884: —
"It is best for music when some divinely gifted singer, like
Beethoven, or Schubert, or Schumann, lives a life of heavy bur-
CBITICAL PHILISTINES AND PROPHETS 287
dens, sore discouragements, and heavy trials. Tliis is the true
scliool for one who has to speak from lieart to heart, and from the
fulness of his own experience, to touch the chords of feeling in
others. ' '
Can it be that we have here the revealed secret of a
Imge international conspiracy of critics such as the world
has never seen before? Yes, it must be so! Did not
Rossini spend the last thirty-nine years of his life in
idleness, simply because he had become rich and famous
too soon? And did not everybody lament the loss of half
a dozen or a dozen more operas like William Tell which
Mossini might have given to the world had he not become
rich and famous too soon? Did not Meyerbeer, also,
rich and famous, become excessively unproductive in
his later years? Should Wagner — who, after Rienzi,
seemed likely to be the successor of Rossini and Meyer-
beer — be allowed to degenerate in the same way, to the
eternal loss of the musical world? Should all experience
be thrown to the winds? No and never! So they put
their lieads together, these wise and benevolent critics
did, and resolved to do everything they could to pre-
vent Wagner from sharing the fate of Rossini and Meyer-
l)eer. And they succeeded. Wagner did not become
rich and famous too soon, he did not cease creating to
liis last years, and — his fame has gone on increasing
from year to year, while that of the other two masters,
the proteges of all the critics, is as rapidly decreasing.
And for this result, paradoxical as it may seem, the
admirers of Wagner have to thank his enemies I
LITERARY PERIOD
SIX YEARS LOST TO MUSIC
Critics, critics, everywhere, and not a word of praise ;
was it a wonder that, after such treatment at the hands
of the musical "experts," mostly old men of the old
school, Wagner should have written to his friend Uhlig:
''Halten wir uns an die Jugend, — das Alter lasst ver-
recken, an dem ist nichts zu holen — let us cling to the
young generation and let the old ones rot, — there is
nothing to hope for from them."
Had the musical judges possessed the insight of Liszt,
had they understood that the highest function of criti-
cism is the discovery of genius and the proclaiming of
its merits to the world at large, Wagner would perhaps
have never joined the revolutionary movement ; he would
have avoided his ten years' exile, and probably contin-
ued to write a new opera every year or two for immediate
performance at the Dresden theatre. But the calamity
had now happened, he was an outcast from his father-
land, unable further to superintend the production of his
works. The hostility of the press, combined with the
incompetence of singers and conductors, and the rarity
with which even tolerably correct performances of his
operas were given, convinced him, moreover, of the use-
lessness of writing any more operas until the old ones
288
SIX YEARS LOST TO MUSIC 289
had had at least partial justice done them. He was
determined, however, to make the world understand and
appreciate him, one way or another, and, in his enforced
absence from the theatrical playground his only resource
was the essayist's pen. So he sat down and wrote a
number of theoretical treatises which were to help pave
the way for his operas. And thus it happened that he
could write to Liszt, on Dec. 17, 1853, " For live years
I have not written any music."
Five years — nay, six years, six of the best years of
his life, immediately following the completion of Lohen-
grin — the greatest dramatic composer the world has ever
seen did not write a note! Do you realize what that
means? It means that the world lost two or three
immortal operas, which he might have, and probably
would have, written in these six years had not an un-
sympathetic world forced him into the role of an aggres-
sive reformer and revolutionist.
It is true, the theoretical works Avhich we owe to this
period have their value too; but two extra AVagner
operas would be infinitely greater treasures to the world
than the essays and books entitled Art and Revohc-
tion (1849), Art and Climate, Art-Work of the Future
(1850), Opera and Drama (1851), Judaism in Music
(1852), and even than the autobiographic Communication
to My Friends (1851), whicli these years brought forth.
With the exception of the last part of Opera and Drama,
these writings are not among Wagner's best literary pro-
ductions, and some of them are so dry, abstruse, and
uninteresting that only an enthusiast for his operas could
ever be expected to work his way through them from
beginning to end. In some of his earlier and later
290 LITERARY PERIOD
essays, where lie writes more specifically about theatric
and musical affairs, he is one of the most direct and
forcible writers of Germany: there are pages which by
their vivid, concise, and incisive style equal the best of
Heine and Schopenhauer. But at this time Wagner had
not yet come under the literary and philosophical influ-
ence of Schopenhauer, It was a vastly inferior philoso-
pher whose style and thought he then copied — Ludwig
Feuerbach, to whom, in fact, TJie Art-Work of the Future
is dedicated by his "grateful admirer," the author.^ In
his letters there are frequent references to Feuerbach.
In one of them he asks Uhlig to send him a complete
set of that writer's works, and in another he relates that
Feuerbach had written to him " that he failed to under-
stand how there could be two opinions about my book;
that he had read it with enthusiasm, with rapture, and
must assure me of his deepest sympathy and warmest
thanks." Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery,
Feuerbach could not but feel flattereci; but it is to be
regretted that Wagner ever came under the influence of
this nebulous writer on social and religious topics, as it
led him to speculate and write on various abstruse sub-
jects in the old-fashioned German metaphysical style,
which is anything but entertaining or instructive, as it
deals chiefly with conjectures, theories, and random
assertions, concrete facts being scornfully ignored. There
is also, in these essays, a certain sophomoric bombast
which in music the composer had got rid of with Rienzi,
but which in the newer field of literature still oppresses
him — and the reader. Yet there are, even in these
essays, some delightfully luminous pages, while parts of
1 In the reprint, this dedication is significantly omitted.
ART AND JiEVOLUTION 291
Opera and Drama are, in form aud substance, among the
most fascinating and important contributions ever made
to musical history, criticism, and aesthetics.
ART AND REVOLUTION
Concerning the first of these theoretical works Liszt
frankly wrote to Wagner, after the latter had informed
him that his Opera and Drama was completed: "I shall
he very glad to receive your new work; perhaps I shall
(111 this occasion grasp your ideas definitely, which I did
not quite succeed in doing with your Art and Revolution ;
in that case I may dish it up with a French sauce." If
even high-priest Liszt could not perceive the drift of Art
and Revolution, we may feel assured that a "French
sauce " was needed in its case too, to make it palatable.
"^The gist of the essay lies in a comparison of modern art
(1850) with ancient Greek art. The Greek artist was
conservative, because his art was part of the national life ;
theatres were temples, and tragic performances religious
ceremonies in which the whole populace took part.
Modern art, on the contrary, has degenerated into the
luxury of a few; instead of the thirty thousand Greeks
who witnessed the ancient tragedies of the great poets, we
liave a few hundred bankers and merchants who lounge
into the theatre of an evening, all tired out with the
day's hard labor, and therefore unwilling to apply their
mind to anytliing serious, but ready to accept siich friv-
olity and frippery as the Italian opera; with here a pretty
tune, there a graceful skip of a dancer, here a gaudy
scenic effect, there a volcanic outburst of the orchestra,
and the whole without any artistic coherence. In face
of such a state of aifairs, a real artist cannot be conserva-
292 LITERARY PERIOD
tive, but must be revolutionary. To use Wagner's own
words : " With us true art is revolutionary because it can
exist only in opposition to current practices." Greek
practices were aesthetic; modern life is utilitarian. We
are not even superior to the Greeks in the matter of
slavery : in reality the slave has not become free, but all
the free have become slaves — slaves to incessant toil in
shops and factories, which finally drives all but utili-
tarian thoughts and principles out of private minds and
public institutions.
Commercialism has been the ruin of art; art itself has
become commercial : —
" What made the architect revolt when he had to waste his genius
on barracks and flats? Why did the painter grieve when he was
compelled to portray the hideous physiognomy of the milUonnaire?
Why the musician when he had to compose music for the dining-
room ? Why the poet when he had to write novels for the circulat-
ing library ? Because he had to waste his creative power to earn
his bread and butter, because he had to make a trade of his art !
But what must the dramatist suffer when he wishes to unite all the
arts into the highest art-work, the drama? All the tortures of the
other artists combined."
It is such reflections as these that led Wagner to write
to F. Heine ''that our whole public art is no art, but
only art-journeymanship, — that it, with all the founda-
tions on which it is built, must go unpitied to the devil."
What is to be done to remedy this state of affairs?
Wagner's suggestion is eminently characteristic, but in
this case entirely utopian. H«^ calls ujwn statesmen to
free the arts from the yoke of commercialism, to enable
artists to create once more for art and not for money, and
to begin with the theatre, because of its great influence.
THE ART-WORK OF THE FUTURE 293
The state should support the theatre and those who con-
tribute to its Tvork, and admission should be free to all.
Wagner here obviously speaks pro domo, but he forgets
that statesmen are powerless to do such a thing unless
they are backed up by public sentiment ; and public sen-
timent to-day, in art matters, is unfortunately not Avhat
it was in the Greece of Pericles, when public funds were
voted for other than utilitarian purposes, and when, as
Aristotle expresses it, every citizen was a judge of art.
Wagner's plan, at the same time, reveals his colossal
egotism : for it is easy to read between the lines that the
chief object of his revolutionary ideal — political, social,
and artistic — was to pave the way for correct perform-
ances and general appreciation of his own music-dramas.
Liszt and Uhlig could not understand such a mammoth
egotism, hence they found the drift of his essay obscure.
But we who know how Wagner succeeded, twenty-seven
years later, in reproducing at Bayreuth a sort of Greek
Olympic Festival, have no difficulty in interpreting his
vague utterances in Art and Revolution as a sort of pre-
liminary heralding of the Bayreuth plan, which, indeed,
took clear shape in his mind two years later.
THE ART-WORK OF THE FUTURE
When a man writes an essay, especially a revolu-
tionary essay, he is naturally anxious that it should
attract some attention. It was Uhlig's self-assumed
duty to see that Ids exiled friend's writings should
receive some notice. "Only one thing is important,"
Wagner wrote to him: "that they be read as mucli as
possi])le; and whatever will tend to this pleases me.
That they should be attacked is quite natural, and a
294 LITERARY PERIOD
matter of indifference to me. I bring no reconciliation
to worthlessness, but war to the knife." This "war to
the knife " was continued in a new essay which he wrote
as soon as Art and Revolution was olf his hands. When-
ever Wagner undertook a new task, — musical or literary,
— he concentrated all his powers on it, and everything
else, for the moment, dwindled into insignificance. "I
have been seized with a furious desire to produce a new
literary composition," he wrote to Uhlig, on Oct. 26;
and on the same date Heine received a letter containing
this characteristic information : —
' ' Now that I have at last got into a quiet home here, my fingers
are absokitely burning to write my pamphlet, The Art- Work of the
Future, the composing and issuing of which have become to me a
veritable heart-need. The work is instinctively expanding itself
under my hands to the full — and, as I now see, to its necessary —
proportions ; and — I think you know me — when I have anything
of this kind on my mind, I curse the time which I must spend on
eating, sleeping, and necessary recreation, and for which I must
twitch off a corner from my appetite for work. For nothing in
the world, then, could I force myself to devote a morning to letter-
writing."
In due course of time the new essay was sent to Uhlig
for discussion. But again his poor apostle seems to
have had difficulty in grasping its drift, and Wagner was
quite right in conjecturing that he " must have expounded
it badly." Though full of interesting ideas it is not a
model of lucid exposition. But we get its gist in this
explanation : —
"But if I wish to show that pla.stic art, being artificial — only
an art abstracted from true art — must cease entirely in the future ;
if to this plastic art — painting and sculpture — claiming nowa-
days to be principal art, I deny life in the future, you will allow
^^^ c
THE ART- WORK OF THE FUTURE 296
that this should not, and could not, be done with two strokes of the
pen."
Quite so. He devotes no less than 167 pages to this
astounding task. He tries to show how the arts went to
the devil, because, after the days of Greek tragedy, each
one tried to go its own way; and that the only way to
/recreate the true art-work — the " art-work of the future "
f — isTo reunite these arts in the music-drama. There is
something almost sublime in the egotism which makes
Wagner argue at such length that lifeless sculpture should
disappear in the living, moving actor ; that the only true
painter is the landscape artist who provides scenery for
the theatre ; that the chief and highest function of the
architect is to build temples of art; and that the poet
should be merged in the musician. Liszt was right in
saying that Wagner was inspired by fanaticism for his
art. We smile at the thought that a man of thirty-six
should have boiled over with such youthful enthusiasm
for his own profession that everything else must be
brushed aside to make way for it ; but we also see that
this ebullition of destructive lava is the normal state of
a young volcano ; and after reflecting on these points we
pardon the bad style of the essay, and gratefully note the
numerous admirable aphorisms and aperqus on all the
arts, especially on music, wliich are scattered throughout
The Art-Work of the Future.
After this essay had been disposed of, its author
declared that " this will have been my last literary work, "
and to Liszt he wrote : " I am now free from all inclina-
tion to theorize, and have got so far as to feel a desire
to devote myself to artistic creation alone." But three
weeks later the wind blows from another quarter : *' After
296 LITERARY PERIOD
this piece of writing I was so determined to do no more
literary work of that kind that now I must laugh at
myself; from all sides necessity urges me to put pen to
paper again." An essay would at any rate put a few
florins in his empty pocket. Accordingly, the editor of
the Stuttgart Deutsche Monatshefte soon received one of
those ponderous metaphysical disquisitions which seem
to flourish on German soil, atid which express abstrusely
in sixteen pages what might have been put concretely in
six. It was entitled Art and Climate, and was written,
as the author explained, " to expose the lazy, cowardly,
preposterous objection of ' climate, ' in all its empti-
ness"; that is, in answer to objections which had been
made to his first theoretic essay, that climatic conditions
would prevent a recurrence of the phenomena of Greek
national art-culture in a more northern latitude. On
the contrary, Wagner argues, it is not in tropieal coun-
tries that art-culture, like other forms of civilization,
flourishes best, but in regions where a constant fight
with the elements develops man's powers.
"Not in the rank tropics, not in the voluptuous flower land
India, was trtie art born, but in the naked sea-girt rocks of Greece ;
on the stony soil and under the scant shade of the olive tree stood
its cradle ; for here Hercules suffered and fought amidst priva-
tions, and here true man was first born."
OPERA AND DRAINIA
We come now to the longest and by far the most
important of these early theoretical treatises, a work of
407 pages entitled Oper und Drama. The reception given
to the preceding literary efforts had hardly been of a
nature to encourage his persevering in that direction.
OPERA AND DRAMA 297
" I anticipated, " he writes, " that, in general, no further
notice would be taken of them ; but, only with a deep
sigh do I at last perceive that even by the few of our
own party who took notice of them, they were quite
misunderstood. Prejudice has such a firm hold that
only life itself can break it." Nevertheless, he perse-
vered; for what else should he do? He needed money
badly, and these essays brought him at least enough to
pay his household expenses for a few weeks. To Avrite
any more operas was useless, since the last one he had
composed had been neglected for three years and was
being neglected three more after its Weimar jiTonidre.
"So now," he writes to Uhlig, "the choice as to what to
do next tortured me : was it to be a poem, a book, or an
essay? I seemed to myself so capricious, and all my
doings so unprofitable and unnecessary." Various pro-
jects were in his mind. Liszt wanted him to compose
Siegfried'' s Death ; then he thought of writing a poem on
the subject of Achilles, or essays on the Redemption of
Genius or the Unbeauty of Civilization.
To Liszt he wrote about the same time : " To do liter-
ary Avork I have no longer a strong inclination : I preach
after all to deaf ears." Nevertheless he took his pen
again and devoted four months of incessant labor to the
most elaborate of all his literary productions. In tliis,
he says, he spared no pains to be exact and complete;
for which reason he at once made up his mind not to
hurry, so as not to be superficial. When he first entered
on his task, he intended to call the new essay The Nature
of the Opera (Das Wesen der Oper), but as it gradually
expanded, he chose the title of Opera and Drama. As
usual, he worked at this "with fanatic diligence," to use
298 LITERARY PERIOD
his own words ; and, as usual, he made a " tidy copy " of it,
revised and corrected, for Uhlig, who was to find a pub-
lisher for it in Germany. In February, jl^^lj he wishes
the " hateful manuscript " out of his hands, and writes
that he expects to finish the whole about March. In
June he gave some private lectures at Zurich to a number
of friends and acquaintances, in wliich he read parts of
his essay. Selections from it also aj)peared in periodi-
cals, as that would "attract attention" to them; and it
was not till September that the whole appeared in book
form. The success of tliis book appears to have been
greater than that of the preceding ventures; for, six
months later, Wagner reports the sales as "highly satis-
factory, " and adds that the publisher gives him hopes of
the possibility of a second edition. He had intended to
ask sixty louis d'or (= f 240) for Oper und Drama. What
he finally received, after applying to several publishers,
was twenty louis d'or at once, and the promise of the
same sum after the sale of the first edition of fiv6 hun-
dred copies. Only $80 for four months' hard labor.
Five dollars a week! Well might he exclaim, after nar-
rating his good fortune in at last finding a publisher:
"But, — if I were compelled to live by my pen! "
While he was at work on Oper und Drama, he pro-
nounced it of " the most extraordinary imjjortance " to
himself, and hoped that to others, also, it would prove
not unimportant. "The first part," he wrote to Uhlig,
" is the shortest and easiest, perhaps also the most inter-
esting; the second goes deeper, and the third ... is a
work which . . . goes to the bottom of the matter."
This " bottom " was obviously too deep for the musical
writers of that period. They could not fathom the pur-
OPERA AND DBAMA 299
port of his new art-tlieories, nor — so far as tliey did not
maliciously and intentionally misrepresent tliem — as
was done very often, and is still done occasionally —
were they entirely to blame for this. For, apart from
the occasional obscurity and frequent abstruseness of his
literary style, both reader and writer were hampered by
the fact that no concrete illustrations could be taken
from existing works of art to elucidate some of his new
principles.
At the beginning Wagner points out that heretofore ^d
operatic composers had committed the fundamental mis-
take of making the Music their principal object and the
Drama merely a means, whereas, in truth, the Drama
should be the principal object and the Music a means
toward its complete realization. Consequently he
devotes only the first part of his treatise to the subject of
operatic music ("The Opera and the Xature of JNIusic "),
while the second considers "The Drama and the Kature
of Dramatic Poetry " ; and in the third he discusses
"Poetry and Music in the Drama of the Future."
The least important of these three sections is the
second, in which the author, after expressing his aver-
sion to mere literary or book dramas (which are not
intended for stage-representation), goes on to describe
the origin of the modern drama from the romance, and
then discusses the plays and principles of Shakespeare,
Goethe, Schiller, Eacine, etc. In Part III. (which is
l)erhaps the most original and valuable musico-aesthetic
treatise in existence) he considers the problem of mythi-
cal versus historic subjects of opera; alliteration versus
rhyme; the use of Leading Motives; the question, should
poet and musician be two persons or one? the value of
300 LITERARY PERIOD
the German, French, and Italian languages for operatic
purposes (tlie preference being given to German) ; the
relation of the operatic singer to the orcliestra; sym-
phonic form compared with operatic form; harmonic
melody versus dance melody; gesture and pantomime;
instrumentation ; the function of the chorus in the music-
drama, etc.
EVOLUTION OF THE OPEEA
The first part of Opera and Drama, which treats of the
evolution of the opera, was chiefly responsible for the fact
that this essay attracted so much more attention than its
predecessors. Most readers prefer personal criticisms
to abstract discussion, and the first part of the essay
appealed to this taste by being a sketch of operatic his-
tory with special reference to the composers who are
most conspicuous therein. Wagner did not hesitate to
handle some of the popular idols quite roughly, for which
he was decried as an iconoclast and a heretic. Many of
his opinions seemed, indeed, bold and paradoxical; but
in the forty years which have elapsed since they were
expressed, time has justified them in almost every detail.
He attacked the aria as being merely " a means for the
singer to display the agility of his vocal cords, " ^ at the
expense of drama and music, of librettist and composer,
— and does not the whole world now agree with him?
Have not the "prima-donna operas," with their insipid
1 In the Art-Work of the Future he inveighs against the aria as " a
disgusting parody of folksong, . . . which, in defiance of all natural-
ness, and dissolved from all human feeling and verhal, poetic con-
nection, tickles the ears of our idiotic operatic audiences." Strong
language, this, but think of the countless provocations to formulate
such language he must have had in his career as conductor of the nu-
merous vulgar prima-donna operas {hen current.
EVOLUTION OF THE OPERA 301
and \T.ilgar florid arias, fled to South America as their
hist refuge? Have not the Italian, French, and German
composers ceased to write such operas for the especial
benelit of singers, because there is no longer any demand
for them?
Again, does any one deny to-day that these florid
operas were an artificial, hothouse product for fashion-
able entertainment? It was natural that Italy, ^'the only
large civilized country in Europe in which the drama has
never risen to any importayice," should have been the
birthplace of such a hybrid monstrosity as the opera,
with its female Ronieos, fortissimo conspirators' cho-
ruses, and constant prevalence of dawce-rhythms, even in
serious and tragic situations — the opera, in which music
is associated with poetry without being amalgamated
with it. But if Italian audiences are to this day so
indifferent to the drama that they have been known to
"encore" Lohengrin's entry on the swan boat, Italian
composers, at any rate, have learned a lesson from Wag-
ner. They no longer convert opera into a mere " variety
show," with singers and dancers as soloists, at the expense
of all dramatic propriety. Verdi himself has, in his old
days, changed his attitude so much that Hans von Biilow
was justified in calling him the Italian Wagner; Boito
has followed the same example, and as for the younger
composers of Italy, they have even begun, like AVagner,
to discard the very name of "opera," using, instead, such
terms as "drama," or "lyric comedy," to emphasize the
new spirit.
Wagner acknowledges, and clearly points out in this
essay, all tliat his predecessors had contributed toward
the gradual transformation of the prima-douna opera into
302 LITERARY PERIOD
the music-drama. Gluck's famous reform consisted in
this, that he adopted, consciously, and as a matter of prin-
ciple, the doctrine thatjoperatic melody should correspond
in expression with the sense of the words wedded to it.
This produced a change in the relative position of the
operatic factors : the singer is no longer a despot, to
whose vanity everything must be sacrificed, but he
becomes the interpreter of the composer^s intention^
But that is as far as Gluck went; and those critics who
have asserted that he practically anticipated Wagner in
all his innovations forgot (or, more probably, did not
know) that, to use Wagner's own words, "in Gluck's
opera, aria, recitative, and ballet, each complete in itself,
stand as unconnected side by side, as they did before him,
and still do, almost always, to the present day" (1850).
In other words, there is as yet no real amalgamation of
music and drama, no form organically connecting each
part of. the opera with every other.
If Gluck insisted on the claims of the composer as
against the singer, he did not, on the other hand, alter
the relations of poet and composer. Such a thing as
allowing/f/ie drama to condition the form of music nevGT
occurred to him any more than it did to his predecessors
or followers. Progress was made after him, simply in
enlarging or broadening the old operatic forms (Cheru-
bini, Mehul, Spontini) ; and in France, especially, by
paying more attention to the libretto. In Germany
Mozart carried on Gluck's efforts to make the music
correspond emotionally Avith the words. Head how Wag-
ner expresses his " contempt " for Mozart : " This glorious
composer, by simply following his instincts, discovered
the power of music to attain truthfulness of dramatic
EVOLUTION OF THE OPERA 303
expression by an endless variety of means, in a much
greater degree than Gluck and all his followers." So
true was his musical instinct, that the value of his music
is always determined by the excellence of its poetic sub-
stratum. "0 how I love and worship Mozart," he
exclaims, " because it was 710^ possible for him to write
as good music for Titus as for Don Juan, for Gosi fan
Tutte as for Figaro : how shamefully that would have dis-
honored music!" Had Mozart been more careful in the
choice of librettos, had he met the right poet, it would
liave been he, the most absolute of all composers, who
would have solved the operatic problem for us long ago,
by helping to create the truest, most beautiful, and per-
fect drama. But as he accepted, almost without choice,
anything that was placed in his hands, the beauty and
value of his music lies in individual points and traits;
and although his best music is operatic, he did not aban-
don tlie old, worn-out operatic forms, and therefore did
not help to solve the formal problem of the music-drama.
After Mozart, Italy once more came to the front with
an epoch in which absolute melody (tune) ran riot, at the
expense of every other element of music, and to the total
eclipse of the drama. This tendency culminated in
Kossini, whose florid tunes Wagner happily compares to
the chemical perfumes which fashionable people accept
as the equivalent of the natural fragrance of wild flowers
(folksongs). For singers, players, and librettists, he
made everything as easy and as effective as possible; and
tor the audiences he wrote just what the fashion of the
iiKjment called for. Hence he was the idol of singers,
players, and audiences.
He showed, in his William Tell, that he was capable
304 LITERARY PERIOD
of mucli better things tlian he had done almost all his
life ; but he deliberately sacrificed his artistic conscience,
his genius, to the desire for immediate popularity. To
reach such a goal, his method was no doubt the right
one ; for many years his operas almost monopolized the
European theatres : indeed, it is on record that one year,
in Vienna, the whole operatic season was devoted to
Kossini. Donizetti followed his method, with similar
results; his principal aim, like Rossini's, was to tickle
the ears of a frivolous public with vocal frippery. And
what has Time, that inexorable judge in aesthetic mat-
ters, said about this method? To-day, of Rossini's forty
operas, only two or three are sung, at long intervals;
and the same is true of Donizetti's sixty operas. Their
vocal fashion has "gone out," like crinolines and far-
dingales, although only eighty and sixty years respec-
tively have elapsed since these two composers produced
their first successful operas.^ Compare this with the
method and the fate of Wagner.
1 Here is some food for thought: When, a few days before the hun-
dredth anniversary of Rossini's birth (Feb. 29, 1892), a call was issued
in the New York papers for a meeting of his admirers, to arrange for a
fitting celebration of this great event, three liersons, carefully counted,
came, beside the journalist, Mr. P. G. Hubert, who chronicled this fact.
Mr. Damrosch did, indeed, conduct the Stabat Mater, but the Italian
Opera at the Metropolitan Opera House took no notice of the event
whatever. Mr. Seidl celebrated it with a — Wagner concert ! In Lon-
don, too, the Rossini centenary passed without any celebration except
the performance of a few of his overtures at a Crystal Palace concert.
The London World's critic justly remarked on this occasion : " We are
apt to wonder nowadays why the public should have been so impressed
at first by the apparent originality, dramatic genius, depth, and daring
of Meyerbeer as to be mystified and scandalized when Mendelssohn,
Schumann, and Wagner treated him with no more respect tlian if he
had been an old clo' man from Houndsditch. But the explanation is
very simple. We compare Meyerbeer with Wagner ; amateurs of 1840
compared him with Rossini, and that made aU the difference."
EVOLUTION OF THE OPERA 305
Xever again, after the composition of Rienzi, did lie
for a moment consider what effect his music wouhl have
on the public; not once did he stoop to conquer audiences
with cheap vocal or instrumental tricks; he wrote for
himself, and for an ideal audience of Liszts. And what
has been the result? The result has been that the public,
to whose vitiated taste he refused to stoop, has risen up
to his level. Although his first success came but thirty
years later than Eossini's, but ten years later than Don-
izetti's, not one of his eleven operas has lost its vitality;
they are all, with the exception of Rienzi, becoming
more alive, more frequently performed, to the extent of
about a thousand evenings, in German cities alone, every
year. The lesson should not be lost on future composers.
It may pay to supply the world with fashionable frip-
pery; but the glory is transient, the reaction disastrous
and humiliating.
To return to Wagner's argument. The branch of the
opera represented by Rossini — the branch which makes
its essence to consist in bare melody, and nothing but
melody — came to an end with that composer. But there
was another branch — the romantic — which began with
Weber and led to nobler results, although it also failed
to solve the problem of the true relation between poet
and composer. Weber, displeased with the artificial
flowers and perfiimes of Kossini, made an effort to trans-
plant the wild flower of folksong itself to the theatre.
He succeeded in part, — for Weber was a great and noble
artist, — yet the theatric atmosphere was not the proper
soil for these wild flowers. Weber's example, however,
was eagerly followed by other composers, who now began
to hunt for wild flowers in all possible countries. Local
306 LITERARY PERIOD
color became the fashion, and thus arose the national and
historic schools of opera. Auber wrote his Neapolitan
Masaniello. Eossini himself, feeling that the old school
was "played out," followed with the Swiss Williain Tell;
and all parts of the world were now searched for some-
thing novel and piquant to adorn operas with. The
climax of this tendency is reached in Meyerbeer, the
Jew, who gathered his wares in all countries, and brought
them to market in Paris, where they created an enormous
sensation. " Thus Meyerbeer composed operas in Italy
d la Kossini only till the wind changed in Paris, and
Auber and Rossini, with Masaniello and Tell, blew up
the new wind to a storm. . . . His shrill cry suddenly
made Auber and Rossini inaudible: the wicked Robert
the Devil took them all."
The argument concludes with a severe criticism of
Meyerbeer, the secret of whose oj)eratic music Wagner
declares to be effect, or, more precisely, " effect without a
cause." Everything that can possibly tickle the ears or
please the sight of the spectators is dragged in by the
hair, whether there is any justification for it in the
drama or not ; as a striking instance of which he cites
the sunrise in the ProphUe, which is not a dramatic but
a purely mechanical effect.
A COIMlVIIIIsnCATION TO ]Vnr FRIENDS
The historic sketch of the Opera, in Oper und Drama,
comes to a somewhat abrupt end.'' We know from a
letter to Uhlig (Oct. 22, 1850) that Wagner intended at
first to bring the sketch up to date by passing therein
judgment on his own operas. He reserved this task,
however, for his Communication to My Friends, which
A COMMUNICATION TO MY FRIENDS 307
also belongs to this literary period (1851). It is a paper
of 131 pages, with many autobiographic details, which
have been used in their proper place in the preceding
chapters. The self-criticisms on his operas will be more
conveniently considered in the chapter on "Leading
]\Iotives," so that only a few general remarks remain to
be made here. At first there was some trouble with the
publishers, who wanted some sentences of the Communi-
cation omitted. The author was willing enough, "if
the fools would only send me what I am to alter " ; for,
as he states, " to people of that kind, in constant fear of
the censorship, it is mere secondary matters, single
expressions, and strong figures of speech, that give
offence."^ The Communication was originally published
as a preface to the three opera-poems Dutchman, Tann-
hduser, and Lohengrin ; and one of its claims to historic
notice is that in it the first public announcement is made
of his plan for a Nibelung Festival.
After completing the Communication he wrote to
Fischer that he was going to a neighboring hydropathic
establishment : " there will I wash out my body, as now
by my literaiy work I have washed clean my intellect."
He needed a rest, for his brain was tired, and dyspepsia
troubled him. Prose literary work seems to have ex-
hausted him much more than musical and poetic composi-
tion (doubtless because it gave him less pleasure), and at
a later date he implored Uhlig : " You must not discuss
theory with me any more; it drives me clean crazy to
have to do with such matters. The nerves of my brain!
1 Wagner's copy was usually the better for such "editing"; for ho
was apt to write " Carlylese " in moments of irritation, and to regret it
afterwards. Even his essay on Liszt's Symphouic Poems was " edited "
by Liszt himself.
308 LITERARY PERIOD
— there's the bother! I have cruelly taxed them; it is
possible I may yet one day go mad ! "
WAGNER 'S OPINIONS OF OTHER COMPOSERS
The enemies of Wagner, in their fanatic eagerness to
damage his reputation and diminish his popularity, found
one of the most effective weapons in the continually
repeated assertion that he despised and attacked all the
classical masters who preceded him. This accusation
was made, not ten times, but ten thousand times. He
himself refers to it in a letter ^ to Dr. L. Pohl, whom he
thanks for having dedicated to him an edition of Bee-
thoven's letters (1865).
" What you did in dedicating this book to me, you must know :
you must know that you tliereby offend all those who continue
with the utmost persistence in the attempt to make the public
believe that I despise our musical classics. For what reason they
wish to keep up this silly belief must also be known to you. I
assume, therefore, that your dedication amounts to a definite dec-
laration ; I thank you for it cordially."
These falsehoods about Wagner's opinions were put'
into circulation soon after the appearance of his theoreti-
cal essays, the critics vying with one another in their
eagerness to follow the example of Fetis, whom Wagner
accuses (1852) of misquoting his opinions in the most
contemptible way and basing thereon a "complete cari-
cature" of himself, for the edification of the French
public. "What an ass " is his comment on this proceed-
ing. But Fetis hardly deserved this epithet; he was too
sly and malicious to be called an ass; and so were the
1 Kiirschner's Wagner Jahrbuch, 1886, p. 8.
OPINIONS ON OTHER COMPOSERS 309
other critics, who found an easy way to combat Wagner
in dishonestly quoting detached sentences from his criti-
cal writings as proof that he "disparaged" the great
masters. There was no lack of opportunity for such a
proceeding, for "Wagner differed from most musicians and
" critics " in really being a a-itic : he did not follow the
fashion cultivated by most professionals and amateurs, of
finding nothing but perfection in one composer (espe-
cially after his death) and nothing but imperfection in
another; but, while cordially praising each master for
what was great in him, he also put his finger on the
weak spots, sometimes in mild, at other times in sar-
castic or violent, terms, according to his mood or provo-
cation.
Italian Coiwposers. — Enough has been said in preced-
ing chapters to convince the reader that no musician has
ever spoken more cordially, more enthusiastically, of the
great masters than Wagner, and that he proved his devo-
tion not only by words but by conscientious performances
of their works during his conductorship at the Royal
Opera in Dresden. j\Iany equally convincing facts will
be given in later chapters; but it is worth Avhile to tarry
here a moment by way of throwing some light on the
literary morality of the musical critics who were Wag-
ner's antagonists. In the first i)lace, it need not be
stated that the question of nationality never for a moment
entered into Wagner's estimate of other composers. If
he found fault with Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti
(regarding Verdi he is silent), it was not because they
were Italians, but because they had degraded the opera,
in his opinion, into a circus ring for the exhibition of
vocal acrobatics. The nationality of Palestrina did not
310 LITERARY PERIOD
prevent him from worshipping his creations and pro-
nouncing them "incomparable masterworks."
" With the appearance of opera in Italy," he says, "begins the
decline of Italian music ; an assertion which will meet with the
approval of those who have had opportunity to realize the sublimity,
the wealth, and the profound expressiveness of Italian church
music of former centuries, and who, after hearing, e.g., the Stabat
Mater of Palestrina, will not possibly be able to sustain the opin-
ion that Italian opera is a legitimate daughter of this wonderful
mother." ^
It must always be borne in mind that if Wagner con-
demned the composers of Italian opera, it was not their
musical gifts that he questioned, but their misuse of
them. He frankly acknowledged the beauty of their mel-
odies, — or, rather, the prettiness of their tunes, — but
insisted that they were out of place in a music-drama;
a point on which the whole musical world has now come
to agree with him. If he had no liking for Donizetti in
general, he nevertheless wrote (1841) regarding La Fa-
vorita: "In this music of Donizetti we find, besides the
acknowledged merits of the Italian school, that superior
refinement and dignity which we miss in the numberless
other operas of this inexhaustible maestro." If he found
the score of Bellini's Borneo and Juliet "shallow and
inane," he nevertheless wrote: "Since I learned of the
impression made on Bellini late in his life by Beetho-
1 It is interesting to compare with this the opinion of Verdi, as ex-
pressed in a letter to Hans von BUlow (1892) : "Happy indeed are you
in being able to call yourselves the sons of Johann Sebastiau Bacli. As
for ourselves, we also, who are the sons of Palestrina, have had once a
grand school wliioh was truly our own. Nowadays it has become de-
generate, and threatens to come to grief altogether. Ah, if we could
only begin over again ! "
OPINIONS ON OTHER COMPOSERS 311
ven's music, of which he had never heard any before his
arrival in Paris, I have taken occasion to observe the
qualities of Italian art-lovers from this point of view,
and gained therefrom the most favorable opinion of their
leading trait; namely, an open and delicate artistic recep-
tivity in every direction." If he found fault with Ros-
sini on account of his artistic insincerity and frivolity,
lie nevertheless noted the agreeable impression made on
liim by the Barber of Seville when he heard a correct
performance of it at a suburban theatre in Turin. And
he even offers this apology for Rossini's musical sins
(1860) : " What detracts from his value and dignity
would have to be charged not to his endowments or
artistic conscience, but solely to his public and his
environment, which made it specially difficult for him to
rise above his time, and thereby participate in the great-
ness of the true heroes of art."
French Composers. — For French opera Wagner natu-
rally had much more appreciation than for Italian opera,
because the French composers paid more attention to
the drama and never went so far in cultivating the
instrumental (florid) style of vocalism as the Italians
did. One of the oddest episodes of his life was his at-
tempt, in 1841, to do missionary work for Auber in Paris.
He wrote an article, in the course of whicli he dwelt on
the superiority of Auber's Masaniello and other Frencli
operas to those of the Italian invaders, including Rossini.
When the article appeared (Gazette Musicale), he found
tliat tliis passage had been omitted. On com})laining to
the editor (Ed. JNIonnaie, who was also inspector of all the
royal theatres in France), he received the re])ly that it
was impossible to permit the appearance of a passage in
312 LITERARY PERIOD
which Kossini was found fault with in favor of Auber.
It would have been very funny if the article had
appeared anonymously, with the omitted passage, and
its author accused of chauvinism. Wagner as a French
chauvinist! The anecdote has its lesson, for it shows
how superior a great genius like Wagner is to " patriotic "
considerations. He simply preferred Auber to Kossini
because he considered him a greater composer, and it
aroused his indignation to see a great native genius
ignored in favor of a less gifted foreigner.
He had not met Auber at this time, but his admiration
for Masaniello was unbounded, and he pronounced it " a
national work such as any country can produce only
once," "an opera hot enough to scorch, and entertaining to
the point of enchantment." This opera, indeed, had a con-
siderable effect on the evolution of his own style, espe-
cially in two features — the conduct of the chorus, which
here, almost for the first time in opera, is made to take
a real, active part in the plot; and secondly the panto-
mimic music which Auber wrote to express the thoughts
of the dumb heroine of his opera. In the absence of artic-
ulate speech and song, the orchestra alone can speak to
the audience and explain the progress of the drama: this
was a novel task, which excited the composer's creative
fancy and urged him to do liis best; and how much Wag-
ner benefited by the brilliant result here attained, is
shown in the numerous eloquent orchestral passages in
his operas and music-dramas, which are not mere musical
interludes, but pantomimic music, illustrating dumb
action on the stage. There is even a grain of truth in
the suggestion which has been made, that Wagner's later
music-dramas are a higher evolution from pantomimic
OPINIONS ON OTHER COMPOSERS 313
music, — Avith speech restored and made melodious, —
rather tlian a direct offspring of Italian opera.
As regards other French opera-composers whose works
were known to Wagner, we cannot stop to consider them
in detail. He has good words as well as censure for the
two " French " composers of Italian descent, Spontini and
Cherubini; but what he especially admired was the old
school of French opera comique — a form of art which
he considers to have been more congenial to the French
than the Grand Opera.
" Wliither has the grace of M6hul, Isouard, Boieldieu, and the
young Auber fled before the vulgar quadrille- rhythms which to-day
prevail in the Ope'ra Comique ?
" Among the very few tone-poets related to Gluck and Mozart,
whom we meet on the desolate ocean of operatic music as lonely
guiding-stars, we must especially mention the masters of the
French school of the beginning of this century. Independent,
and sympathizing with the nation, these masters created the most
excellent works that the history of a nation can show. In their
operas is embodied the virtue and character of their nation."
Perhaps in no other passage is Wagner's habitual
attitude toward other composers — a disposition to praise
what is good and censure what is bad — more notably-
shown than in the following concerning one master of
the French school : —
" In the summer of 1838, while I was engaged on the subject of
liitnzi, I rehearsed with great devotion and enthusiasm M6hul's
Jacob and his Sons with my Riga company. The peculiar, gnaw-
ing melancholy which habitually overpowered me when I conducted
one of our ordinary operas was interrupted by an inexpressible,
enthusiastic delight when, here and there, during the performance
of nobler works, I became conscious of the incomparable effects
that could be produced by musico-dramatic combinations on the
314 LITERARY PERIOD
stage — effects of a depth, sincerity, and direct realistic vivacity
sucli as no other art can produce. I felt quite elated and enno-
bled during the time that I was rehearsing MeTiul's enchanting
Joseph with my little opera company. That such impressions,
which like flashes of lightning revealed to me unsuspected possi-
bilities, continued to recur, accounted for the fact that I remained
attached to the theatre no matter how violently, on the other hand,
the typical spirit of our operatic performances evoked in me feel-
ings of loathing."
German Composers. — For the greatest of all musical
thinkers, Sebastian Bach, Wagner had an unbounded
admiration, and, as Hans von Wolzogen relates in his
Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner (p. 26), it was his music,
beside Beethoven's, that chiefly engaged him in the last
years of his life. The following are some of his utter-
ances noted by Wolzogen : " Bach works only for himself,
has no public in mind; only occasionally does it seem
as if he were playing something for his wife : there we
have a glimpse of the future which is already contained
entirely in his works." "Without any modern senti-
ment, how warm, how healthy and natural, is his music,
how full of feeling, what strange cries in it occasionally."
On another occasion he expressed his delight over the
Preludes, whose melodies "we cannot sing afterwards,"
adding, "such things are always new." Similar com-
ments may be found in his literary essays in abundance.
His admiration for Gluck was perhaps more intellectual
than emotional. In his remarks on this composer we
nowhere find those ecstatic exclamations of delight with
which he speaks so often of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart,
Weber, and other German composers, as well as of some
of the French school, as we have just seen. But every-
where he takes occasion to point out the instructive side
OPINIONS ON OTHER COMPOSERS 315
of Gluck's achievements, and his great services in restor-
ing respect for the poetry in operatic composition and in
bridling the extravagances of singers. The difference
between Gluck and Mozart he indicates in these words :
"Gluck endeavored consciously to speak correctly 'c.nd
intelligibly in declamatory recitative as well as in the
melodious aria : Mozart could not, in consequence oi his
healthy instincts, speak otherwise than correc<ly."
Neither of the two abolished the worn-out forms of 'Ital-
ian opera, but Mozart was the more spontaneous musician
of the two. Figaro leads him to speak of "the incom-
parable dramatic talent of the glorious master." And
of his masterwork : " Look at his Don Juan ! Wlx-^re else
has music acquired such infinitely diverse individuality,
and learned to characterize so surely and defhiitely,
with the greatest variety and exuberance of means?"
Of the 3Iagic Flute Wagner says : " What celestial magic
prevails in this work from the most popular melody to
the most sublime hymn! What variety, what many-
sidedness! The quintessence of all the noblest art blos-
soms appear here united and blended into one flower.
What spontaneous and at the same time noble popularity
in every melody, from the simplest to the most impos-
ing! — In truth, genius has here made &,imost too great a
giant-step ; for in creating German opera, Mozart at the
same time gave us the most perfect masterwork of its
kind, which cannot possibly be surpai^sed, nay, whose
genre cannot even be enlarged and developed."
Thus did Wagner "despise" Mozart. At the same
time he is not blind to Mozart's shortcomings, and does
not hesitate to lament tlie occasional triviality of his
themes and superficiality of workmanship (caused by the
316 LITERARY PERIOD
necessity of working rapidly to earn his bread) ; or to
regret the empty cadences in Mozart's symphonies which
often suggested to him the clatter of dishes in a dining-
room, as if these pieces were still intended for table-
music; or to deplore his carelessness in the choice of
librettos. He also realized that, great as was Mozart's
achievement, his promise was still greater : " We know
how he went to meet his too early death with the bitter
consciousness that he had just arrived at the point of
showing the world what he could really do in music."
" Mozart died when he approached the secret (of music).
Beethoven was the first to enter it." This is a later form
of Wagner's early credo (written in the Paris period) :
"I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven." His wor-
ship of Beethoven was almost fanatical. I have related
how, in his early youth, he knew Beethoven's quartets
and sonatas by heart; how Heine, in his usual witty
manner, declared that, in Paris, Wagner always had
" friend of Beethoven " printed on his visiting-card; how
he did missionary work for the symphonies, writing ex-
planatory programmes for them, and proving to the aston-
ished Dresdeners, by a remarkable performance, that the
Ninth Symphony, previously neglected, was a master-
work. In Paris he had a plan of writing a Beethoven
biography, and this was partially realized in 1870 by his
seventy -three-page essay on Beethoven — a eulogistic
tribute such as has never been paid by one musician to
another. In view of all this it is hardly necessary to
quote any of his remarks on Beethoven. A single one
will suffice : —
"The great, much-promising heritage of the two masters,
Haydn and Mozart, was made by Beethoven ; he developed the
OPINIONS ON OTHER COMPOSERS 317
symphony to such a fascinating fuhiess of form, and filled this
form with such an unheard-of wealth of enchanting melody, that
we stand to-day before the Beethoven Symphony as before a
boundary stone of an entirely new epoch in the history of art ;
for with them a phenomenon has appeared in the world, with
which the art of no time and no nation has had anything to com-
pare even remotely."
To get a good idea of this Beethoven worship, the
reader should secure a copy of Glasenapp's Wagner Ency-
cloj)cedie, in which his scattered utterances regarding the
various composers and other celebrities, as well as his
remarks on his own operas, and on a multitude of mis-
cellaneous subjects,^ are collated alphabetically. There
are, besides, remarks on his life, elaborate analyses of
almost all his symphonies, especially the Ninth, obser-
vations on the sonatas, quartets, overtures, the opera
Fldelio, etc. Yet, even in this case, Wagner's worship
is not entirely blind. Though he idolizes Beethoven, he
knows that nothing human is perfect. He notes that
Beethoven's innovations are to be found much more in
1 What an endless variety of topics are discussed in Wagner's liter-
ary works may be seen from the list of topics here collected under
letter A: Aachen music-festival, Abel, Abt, Achilleus, Adam and Eve,
Adolphe Adam, ^gypten, jEneas, Africa, Agamemnon, Agesilaos,
Ahasver, Ahriman, Aischylos, Albericus, Alemaunen, Alexander, Alex-
andrinism, Alkibiades, Alps, America, Amphion, Amsterdam, Anacker,
Andalusia, Anschiitz, Antiios, Antigone, Antique tragedy, Antillen,
Antoninen, Apel, Apelles, Aphrodite, etc. Glasenapp has also compiled
a Wdf/ner Lexicon, in which that composer's utterances on abstract
topics are brought together; such as absolute music, adagio, aria, an-
them, civilization, drama, feeling, music, harmony, concerts, tone-color,
instrumentation, love, literary dramas, opera, press, singing, pliiloso-
pby, i)olitics, morality, romauce, genius, vegetarianism, vivisection,
folksongs, slaves, sonata, music-schools, etc., etc. Tliese two books
will be found extremely useful by those who possess Wagner's works,
as an index, and by those who do not possess them as containing the
cream of his literary writings in short excerpts.
318 LITERARY PERIOD
the sphere of rhythmic elaboration than in that of har-
monic modulation. He found his instrumentation defec-
tive in some instances and shows how it should be
improved. Beethoven, moreover, did not advance music
by creating new forms; his greatness consisted in the
astounding wealth of ideas with which he filled up the
old forms, enlarged to their utmost capacity.
On reading Wagner's remarks on Beethoven, especially
d propos of the Ninth Symphony, one might fancy that he
considered himself a lineal descendant of that master. In
truth, however, his points of resemblance to Beethoven
are not nearly so remarkable as those which affiliate him
with Weber, in whose works (especially Euryanthe) the
root of Wagnerism must be sought. It is not surprising,
therefore, that, next to the composer of Fidelio, no other
musician should receive so much attention in Wagner's
writings as Weber, except perhaps Mozart. The Frei-
schiitz was his firSt love, Euryanthe inspired Lohengrin,
and if at one time, in his youth, he had foolishly cen-
sured this opera, he made up for his error subsequently
by declaring it to be "worth more than all the opera
seria of Italy, Prance, and Judaea." But he also notes
Weber's faults, — his occasional concessions to the gal-
lery; his misapplication of folksong to dramatic uses;
the sacrifice here and there of word-accent to melody;
the undramatic use of the chorus, etc. By quoting
such censures apart from the context, Wagner's enemies
could easily make it appear as if he " despised " a com-
poser who really was one of the idols of his youth and
manhood.
Modern Composers. — While thus defending Wagner
against the misrepresentations of dishonest and menda-
OPINIONS ON OTHER COMPOSERS 319
cious critics, I would, not by any means take the stand
that he was always a safe and infallible critic. He
judged almost everything from the standpoint of the
music-drama, and whatever is one-sided and exaggerated
in his verdicts must be placed to this account. Some of
the greatest and most original composers are, moreover,
not mentioned at all in his writings, or only incidentally,
— for example, Chopin and Schubert, whom Rubinstein
very properly classes among the five greatest masters the
musical world has seen. Concerning Chopin, the only
utterance of his I have been able to find, occurs in the
report of a conversation witli Mr. Dannreuther (Grove,
IV. 369) : " Mozart's music and Mozart's orchestra are
a perfect match: an equally perfect balance exists be-
tween Palestrina's choir and Palestrina's counterpoint;
and I find a similar correspondence between Chopin's
piano and some of his Etudes and Preludes. — I do not
care for the Ladies' Chopin; there is too much of the
Parisian salon in that ; but he has given us many things
which are above the salon."
Nothing could be more surprising than Wagner's
neglect of Schubert, to whom there are only one or two
brief references in all his writings. AVolzogen, however,
says that he was to his last days very fond of some of
Schubert's songs, especially Set mir gegrilsst. and often
had them sung for him; while Dannreuther relates that
Wagner remarked : " Schubert has produced model songs,
but that is no reason for us to accept his pianoforte
sonatas or his ensemble pieces as really solid work. . . .
Schumann's enthusiasm for Schubert's trios and the like
was a mystery to ]\Iendolssohn. . . . Curiously enough,
Liszt still likes to play Schubert. I cannot account for
320 LITERARY PERIOD
it." Here Sclmmann and Liszt doubtless had a keener
scent for genius than Wagner and Mendelssohn.
"It was Schubert's mission," says Liszt, "to do dra-
matic music an immense service indirectly. He applied
and developed harmonic declamation in a still more effec-
tive manner than Gluck had done, elevated it to an
energy and power that had previously been considered
impossible in song, and adorned poetic masterpieces with
its expression; and in tliis way he exerted on operatic
style a perhaps greater influence than has hitherto been
clearly understood." To which we may add a sentence
from Sir George Grove's masterful remarks on Schubert
and his songs : ^ " The music changes with the words as a
landscape does when sun and cloud pass over it. And
in this Schubert has anticipated Wagner, since the words
to which he writes are as much the absolute basis of liis
songs as Wagner's librettos are of his operas."
That Wagner "despised the classical masters" is, as
we have now seen, absurdly untrue. That he did not
think very much of most of his contemporaries is, how-
ever, true; but nobody ever reproached him on this
score, because all the hostile critics were conservatives,
who themselves could not find much to praise in recent
musical productions. He was annoyed at the way in
which many modern composers stole his thunder. After
all, the radical Wagner perhaps never uttered such a
sweeping condemnation of all contemporary musicians
as the conservative Rubinstein did in his recent work
entitled Die Musik und Hire Meister, in which he declares
that music came to an end with Chopin (pp. 112 and 152) !
Brahms fares ill at Wagner's hands. There are several
1 Dictionary of Music and Musicians, III. 365.
OPINIONS ON OTHER COMPOSERS 321
uncomplimentary allusions to him in the essays, and he
seems to have offended Wagner especially by writing
symphonies after he had said that Beethoven had written
the last great works that coidd be composed in that form.
Yet it seems that there was no personal prejudice or ill-
feeling between these two composers. Brahms was one
of those who, after Wagner's death, sent a wreath for
his coffin ; and according to Wolzogen (Erinnerungen, p.
28) Wagner repeatedly had some of Brahms's pieces
played for him with the express purpose of cultivating
a taste for them. But he did not succeed : the " academic
mask" over them repelled him. "I should be really
delighted if I could once more meet with something great
and true in our music," he would sigh; and in a more
playful mood he exclaimed: "Yes, if Brahms sounded
as well as Beethoven, he would be a great composer
too!"
For another musician of the present Viennese school,
Anton Bruckner, he had more sympathy, although one
might have expected him to dislike that composer be-
cause, like many others of the present, he steals his thun-
der. Wagner's admiration for Eobert Franz was re-
ferred to in a preceding chapter. That he could also
admire a master in the humble sphere of dance music is
shown by this sentence (VII. 393): "A single Strauss
waltz surpasses in grace, refinement, and real musical
substance most of the products of foreign manufacture
which we often import at such great cost."
The opinions on Liszt and Berlioz will be more oppor-
tunely presented in later chapters; while the Jewish
composers, Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, must be consid-
ered in connection with an essay and a subject which
322 LITERARY PERIOD
played a great role in Wagner's life, and to which we
must now turn.
JUDAISM IN MUSIC
In the same year that Ai't and Revolution, Art and
Climate, and Wieland der Schmid appeared, Wagner wrote
an essay entitled Judaism in Music which was first printed
in tlie Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik for Sept. 3 and 6, 1850,
The first intimation we have of it is in a letter dated
Aug. 24, 1850, printed in the Uhlig correspondence as
"addressed to a mutual friend." Herein Wagner ex-
presses doubts whether Editor Brendel will have the
courage of printing such an article ; is very anxious to
have it appear in one number, or at most in two; and if
that is impossible, he wants it to be printed as an extra
supplement at his own expense.^ In case Brendel refused
it, it was to come out as a pamphlet. The article is
signed with the pseudonym "R. Freigedank" (Free
Thought), and he adds concerning it these significant
lines (in which, as in one or two places later on, I have
taken the liberty to italicize a sentence) : —
" That all the world will guess I have written the article does
not matter ; yet by an assumed name I avoid useless scandal,
which would inevitably occur if I put my own name as signature.
If the Jews should happen unfortunately to treat it as a personal
matter, they would come very badly off ; for I am not in the least
afraid, even if M. [Meyerbeer] should get me upbraided with his
former favors, which, in such a case, I should expose in their true
light. But, as I said, I do not wish to bring about a scandal."
1 His usual recklessness where the issuing of his own works is con-
cerned ; for he had no money, and only a few weeks later writes, after
hearing that Brendel has accepted the article : " Will he pay me a fee
for Das Judenthum.? Forgive me this Jewish question, but it is the
very fault of the Jews that I have to think of every farthing profit."
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 323
He begins his essay by stating that in a recent article
printed in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (written by
Uhlig), a reference was nia(U> to a " Hebrew taste in art,"
and this leads to a discussion of the reasons why there
exists among the people an inner aversion to the Jews.
Tlie Jew can no longer complain of persecution (in Ger-
many) : he has had his emancipation, religious and politi-
cal, and now " itisj(^ej,_xather, who have to light the Jews
for our emancipation. In the present condition of affairs
the Jew is already more than emancipated : he rules, and
will rule, as long as money remains the power before
which all our doings and efforts must confess their
impotence." Art as- well as life has passed under the
control of the Jcavs, and this is what principally pro-
vokes Wagner, and leads him to repeat the question why
the Jews are disliked in life, and why we ought to dislike
their art and jeek to become emancipated from it.
In the first place, he asserts, the Hebrews are not great
artists by nature. In none of the arts have they produced
creators of the first rank. They have no national art :
the fragments of old Hebrew music preserved in syna-
gogues are a mere caricature, and they show by their
noisy conduct during their presentation that they have
no respect for them. They have not even a common
toiigue, for Hebrew is even to them only a dead language.
And here we come upon the weak point of tlie Semitic
mind. The_ Jews liave no country, no language, no home.
They are to be found everywhere, but always as stran-
gers. They adopt the laiiguage of tlie country they live
in, but never speak it as the natives do: their idiom
remains as foreign as their physiognomy. Now it is
well known that no one has ever been able to be a poet
324 LITERARY PERIOD
in a language which is not his idiomatically. How then
could we expect the Jews to be great artists? Having
no country of their own, and no true sympathy with their
adopted country, how could they help in the creation of
a national art? How can we expect one who cannot even
speak idiomaticall y to ex press passion correctly and
touchingly? ■■/~~'
And yet, he continues, "the Jew, who by himself is
incapable of making an artistic impression on us, either
by his appearance, or his language, or, least of all, by his
song, has nevertheless s.ucceeded in becoming arbiter of
public taste in music, the most widely cultivated of
modern arts," and the very language of passion. How
are we to account for this mystery? Will the theory of
the music-drama explain this too? No doubt whatever.
The music-drama, with Wagner, explains everything in
this world, if not beyond. The Jews have been able to
succeed in jnusic because music has become a degenerate
art. That is the whole secret. And why is music a
degenerated art ? Because, with Beethoven it reached the
limit of what it could achieve as a separate art; thereafter
further progre_ss_was_only possible in the music-drama.
But the misgiiided composers persisted in writing music
for music's sake alone, and this paved the way for the
J^w§. After Beethoven, Wagner insists, with ludicrous
exaggeration, music, as a separate art, is no longer a
living organism, but only such multiple life as we see in
a corpse devoured by worms. In such a condition of
affairs anything is acceptable; accordingly Mendelssohn
and Meyerbeer appear on the scene : —
"Mendelssohn has shown us that a Jew can have the highest
specific talent, possess the most refined and varied culture, the
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 325
most exalted and delicate sense of honor, and yet be unable, with
all those qualities, to make on us even once such soul-stirring
impressions as we expect of art, knowing that it is capable of
them, because we have often experienced such impressions, when-
ever a true hero of our art merely opened his mouth, as it were,
to address us."
Mendelssohn's art, he continues, does not succeed in
reproducing true passion ; it merely pleases our ears by
its smooth, delicate figurations, as a kaleidoscope pleases
our eyes. It lacks unity of style, is unidiomatic, like
Jewish speech, borrows from heterogeneous sources, from
Bach to Beethoven, who have no more in common than
an Egyptian sphynx and a Greek statue ; hence it is not
the highest art ; and least of all can it be regarded as a
further evolution of music, beyond Beethoven, as some
critics would have us believe.
But Mendelssohn, he continues, has moments when he
is really characte^istrie-arrd-^^ue in feeling; the outcome,
perhaps, of an occasional constriDusness of the tragedy of
his Semitic position. At such times he inspires sym-
pathy, which no other Jewish composer does in a similar
degree. Meyerbeer is a composer whose function was
not so much to corrupt popular taste, as to take advan-
tage of a taste already corrvipted for his benefit. His
mission is to drive away ennui, and for his purpose he
resorts to everything that is piquant and tickles an audi-
ence, going from trivialities to volcanic outburst of
feeling, and gathering his wares and styles from all parts
of the Avorld.
Such, in brief, is the substance of Wagner's notorious
little essay. There is no doubt some truth in all his
points, and about an equal amount of error: certainly
y> everything is exaggerated, and the inevitable iutroduc-
326 LITERARY PERIOD
tion (between the lines) of the monopolistic theory of
bhe music-drama as the only salviition for music gives
it a touch of the ludicrous. That the fanatical omni-
presence of this idea should have led him implicitly to
compare not only Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, but all
composers since Beethoven, to worms infesting the corpse
of absolute music, is as deplorable and farcical as his
assertion that the Jews have produced no really great
artists is absurd. True, they have given the world none
of the very highest rank — no Shakespeare, Bach,
Phidias, or Titian; but in the second rank they have
contributed more than their share, in proportion to their
numbers. To mention only the one to whom Wagner also
alludes : Heine is not only the greatest lyric poet who
has used the German language, but he writes both in prose
and verse more artistically and idiomatically (except
where idiomatic is equivalent to clumsy and inelegant,
as it often is in German) than any other native writer
except Goethe and Schopenhauer.
That the prejudice against the Jews, of which Wagner
speaks, existed, and still exists, is, of course, undeniable.
Only a year or two ago, one of the leading Jewish peri-
odicals of New York, the American Hebrew, devoted a
special issue to a discussion of the reasons for this preju-
dice, to which scores of well-known writers contributed,
by editorial invitation. Mr. Carl Sc hurz p ert inently
gave as one reason tliat whenever a Jew behaves vulgarly
he is specially noted as "a Jew," whereas whenever a
Christian misbehaves in public he is simply referred
to as a vulgar person, and not as "a Christian."
Where did Wagner first get his prejudice against Jews?
In his childhood, at a time when impressions received
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 327
are apt to make an indelible, life-long impression. Hes
w as born at 88 Briilil, the Jewish quarter of Leipzig, to
which he often referred as " Jerusalem " : —
"The Polish Jews of that quarter," says Praeger, "traded
principally iii furs, from the cheapest fur-liued SchJafrock to the
finest and most costly furs used by royalty. Their strange appear-
ance, with their all-covering gabardine, high boots, and large fur
caps, worn over long curls, their enormous beards, struck Wagner,
as it did every one, and does still, as something very unpleasant
and disagreeable. Their peculiarly strange pronunciation of the
German language, their extravagantly wild gesticulations when
speaking, seemed to his aesthetic mind like the repulsive move-
ments of a galvanized corpse ; . . . crying babes were speedily
silenced by the threat ' The Polish Jew is coming ! ' . . . Strange
to say, Wagner had imbibed some intuitive dislike to the Egyptian
type of Hebrew, and never entirely overcame that feeling. No
amount of reasoning could obliterate it at any period of his life,
although he counted among his most devoted friends and admirers
a great many of the oppressed race."
The irony of fate ordained, moreover, that Wagner
was to be indebted to the Jewish race for no less an
experience than his first love. Although he has made
love as much the ruling passion in his dramas as most
poets, there are few love affairs to record in his life,
the chief reason perhaps being that he married at the
early age of twenty -three. Some years before tliis^ when
he was still in Leipzig, he had met a lovely young
Jewess, a friend of his sister Louisa, named Leah David,
a black-eyed beauty of the true Oriental type. It was a
case of love at first sight, and Kichard was happy to bo
allowed to visit her at her house, fondle her dog, and
play on her piano. One evening he Avas disgusted to
find a cousin of his love, a young Dutchman, in the par-
328 LITERARY PERIOD
lor. He proved to be a clever pianist, whose brilliant
execution won him applause and flattery. This evoked
the jealous anger of Wagner, who criticised his playing
as being deficient in expression. Being challenged to
do better, he seated himself at the piano; but as he had
never mastered the technique of that instrument, the
result was a failure, and was received with a titter.
The rest of the story may be told in the words of Prae-
ger, who had it from Richard himself: —
" Wagner lost his temper. Stung in his tenderest feelings before
the Hebrew maiden, with the headlong impetuosity of an unthink-
ing youth, he replied in such violent, rude language, that a dead
silence fell upon the guests. Then Wagner rushed out of the
room, sought his cap, took leave of lago, and vowed vengeance.
He waited two days, upon which, having received no communica-
tion, he returned to the scene of the quarrel. To his indignation,
he was refused admittance. The next morning he received a note
in the handwriting of the young Jewess. He opened it feverishly.
It was as a death blow. Fraulein Leah was shortly going to be
married to the hated young Dutchman, Herr Meyers, and hence-
forth she and Eichard were to be strangers. ' It was my first love-
sorrow, and I thought I should never forget it, but after all,' said
Wagner, with his wonted audacity, ' I think I cared more for the
dog than for the Jewess.' "
It would of course be absurd to suppose that this
disappointment had anything to do with his later anti-
Semitic sentiments. But the early impressions in " Jeru-
salem," and the use of Polish Jews as bugaboos in his
childhood, doubtless continued to color his thoughts and
to account partly for the fact that uncomplimentary
references to the Jews continue to appear in his writings
up to the last years of his life. But^the motives^ which
prompted the essay on Judaism in 1850 were purely
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 329
musisaJ- It has been often asserted tliat they were per-
sonal — that he was jealous of the success of Mendelssohn
and Meyerbeer, and therefore abused them in the guise
of a general attack on Hebrew art and character. But
this is an unjust criticism. No doubt there was a per-
sonal element in Wagner's wrath, — no artist could pos-
sibly feel indifferent to the excessive popularity of his
rivals, whom he knew, in his innermost consciousness, to
be his inferiors, while his own works were ignored or
abused, and his daily bread as well as his artistic ideals
were involved in the question ; — but there were other
and nobler motives whicli prompted his misguided action
— patriotic and artistic motives. It made his heart bleed
to see how two exotic Jewish composers, not of the first
rank, were almost monopolizing concert-halls and opera-
houses, to the exclusion of the German classical masters;
and it caused his soul the deepest anguish to see how his
own works, more inspired, written on a higher level, and
purely German, were neglected by his countrymen. Can
we blame him for having taken up the cudgel in behalf
of German classical art and his own music-drama? We
all know now that Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer were
esteemed beyond their merits at that time; that their
unparalleled popularity was partly a fad, partly a delu-
sion, partly the result of superficial taste. And shall we
blame Wagner, and call him an egotist, because, with
the superior insight and foresight of genius, he knew all
this forty years ago, and had the courage to say it,
regardless of consequences?
What these consequences were, we must now consider.
In the first place, Editor Brendel, wlio published tlie arti-
cle on Judaism in his Neue Zeitschrift, came near having
330 LITERARY PERIOD
his head chopped off for this bold act. He was professor
of musical history in the conservatory of Leipzig, at
that time Germany's leading music school, and entirely
under the control of Mendelssohn's followers. Natu-
rally an attack on the music of their chief created a great
commotion among the professors of that institution,
including Joachim, David, Becker, Bohme, Plaidy, Rietz,
Klengel, Wenzel, Hauptmann, and Moscheles. A docu-
ment drawn up by Rietz (the same who subsequently
curtailed and maltreated the Lohengrin score so unmerci-
fully) was signed by these professors, asking the imme-
diate dismissal of Editor Brendel from his professorial
chair. The conservatory directors refused to comply
with this request, and Brendel retained his post. The
secret of the authorship of the objectionable article also
appears to have been maintained for some time ; rumor,
however, connected Wagner's name with it, and six
months later (April 9, 1851) Liszt writes to him : " Can
you answer me, under the seal of absolute secrecy, the
question : was the famous article on Judaism in Music in
Brendel's paper written by you?" To which Wagner
replies promptly : —
" Why do you ask me in regard to Judaism? You must cer-
tainly know tliat I wrote it : wliy this question ? I used a pseu-
donym not from fear of consequences, but to avoid having the
Jews make a purely personal matter of it. I had long harbored a
repressed wrath against this Jew business, and this wrath is as
necessary to my nature as gall is to blood. One occasion came on
which their accursed scribbling provoked me excessively, and so at
last I exploded : it appears to have struck in terribly, and I am
glad of it, for such a shock was what I intended to give them.
That they will remain masters of the situation all the same is as
certain as the fact that not our princes but the bankers and Philis-
tines are our rulers."
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 331
I have already stated that Wagner kept up a running
fire of comment on the Jews, and their relations to music
and society, in his writings up to his last days. But it
was in 1869, more than eighteen years after his first
article on this topic, that matters were brought to a
climax by the publication of Judaism in Music in pam-
phlet form, together with a new and more elaborate essay
entitled Elucidations regarding Judaism in Music. This
interesting document is dated Lucern, New Year's, 1869,
and appeared first in the form of an open letter to
Madame Maria INIuehanoff, nee Countess Nesselrode, who
had written to the composer for an explanation of the ex-
traordinary circumstance that the press of that time, in
France and England, as well as in Germany, was so
savagely disposed towards all liis artistic enterprises
and works. Wagner's reply is ingenious and seems at
first sight plausible. He traces the whole trouble back
to his essay on Judaisyn in Mtisic. He repeats that his
reason for the adoption of a pseudonym was simply a
desire to avoid having the article miss its intended effect
by having it regarded merely as a personal attack on
Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer by a jealous rival : —
" For this reason I had signed tlie article with the words ' Free
Thought,' an obvious pseudonym. To Brendel I had communicated
my intentions in this regard ; lie was courageous enougli to let the
storm descend on his own head instead of saving himself at once
by letting it descend on mine. Soon thereafter there were signs
and unmistakable evidence that I had been recognized as the au-
thor: I never met a (juestion in regard to this with a denial. This
was enough to cause a complete change in the tactics."
Up to this time, he continues, only coarse artillery
had been brought to bear against the article, but now tlie
I
i
332 LITERARY PERIOD
educated Jews took hold of the matter and managed it
with their peculiar, practical shrewdness. The edu-
cated Jews dislike all discussions in which their nation-
ality is involved and emphasized. Their object was,
therefore, to get the offensive article out of the way as
quickly as possible. But the insult to their race rankled
fiercely in their breasts, and their vengeance took an
indirect form: ignoring the real casus belli, — the essay,
— they forthwith began to attack its author's other
writings, especially his operas, systematically and per-
sistently. The whole German press being practically in
the hands of the Jews, the result was a formal conspiracy
against a composer who was not only maliciously
attacked, but actually found it impossible, on one occa-
sion, to get his remarks on the Jew Offenbach into a
newspaper. Even Liszt was made to suffer for his
friendship with Wagner, who traces to the same essay
on Judaism the reason why, up to 1869, it had been
almost impossible to get a friendly notice of Liszt's
compositions into a German paper. In Paris, the Meyer-
beer faction saw to it that no favorable notice of Wagner
or his friend could get into the press. Li London, the
press demolished him because he would not worship the
English idol, Mendelssohn. In Vienna, a jurist of (con-
cealed) Jewish descent, Dr. Hanslick, elaborated a system
of aesthetics in Avhich Mendelssohn is recognized as the
heir of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven — the climax of
the series, in fact, and a sort of corrector of the " aberra-
tions " in the later Beethoven. This man, as critic of
the leading Vienna paper, became the head of the oppo-
sition, declared Wagner's works utterly worthless, and
set the fashion in this direction for German newspapers
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 333
in general. "Nothing more was talked about than my
contempt for all great composers, my enmity to melody,
and my horrible compositions — in short, the ' music of
the future ' ; but that article on JudaLsm in Mxisic was
never again mentioned."
This " Elucidation " is, as I have said, ingenious, and
some truth there is no doubt in it; yet I believe that
Wagner was mistaken in attributing the opposition to
his works entirely, or even largely, to the hostile feeling
stirred up by his attacks on the Jews, especially by the
first attack, which attracted but little attention at the
time of its publication. The opposition to his works had
various sources, prominent among which were the inabil-
ity of conductors and singers to interpret them correctly,
and the slowness of hearers (especially critics) in assim-
ilating not only new music, but — what is much more
difficult (and to some people impossible) — mudc in a new
form. In regard to the virulence of the attacks on him,
however, Wagner was partly right in liis argument. He
was attacked by the critics because ne had criticised or
attacked their favorites — especially Meyerbeer and Men-
delssohn. But these composers were thus savagely
defended and avenged because they were fashionable
idols, and not because they were Jews ; for among their
fanatic worshippers there were more Christians than
Jews. That tliis explanation is the correct one is, I
think, proved by the fact that so many of Wagner's most
ardent friends and patrons were and are Jews. His
attacks on their race are generally condoned as a freak
of genius.^ But attacks on a favorite and fashionable
1 CatuUe Mendes tells an amusing story of a rich Jewish banker at
Pesth who hated Wagner for his essay, but worshipped him as a com-
334 LITERARY PERIOD
composer could not but be resented by Jews and Chris-
tians alike. Next to religious comment nothing inflames
the passions so much as musical discussion. Now that
the Mendelssohn-Meyerbeer cult has died out (and, in
fact, given place to almost as undeserved neglect, as far,
at least, as the nobler of the two, Mendelssohn, is con-
cerned), Jews and Christians both are flocking to the
Wagner standard. It is an incontestable fact that New
York could not have enjoyed seven such brilliant and
successful seasons of German opera as it did from 1884-
1891, had it not been for the liberal patronage of the
wealthy Jews of that city. In Berlin the leading Wag-
ner organ has for many years been the Jewish Boer sen-
Courier. The originator of the Patronatsverein for
defraying the expenses of the flrst Bayreuth festival was
the enthusiastic Jewish Wagnerite and pianist, Carl
Tausig; and among AYagner's other personal friends
there were many Jews — men and women who were
intelligent enough to see that his tirades were directed
against certain disagreeable general traits of their na-
tion, and therefore not applicable to individuals who
were free from those traits. And this is a point on
which too much emphasis cannot be laid. Again and
again Wagner dwells on the fact that nothing could have
been farther from his intentions than a desire to hurt
any one's feelings. His great enthusiasm for his idea
(to use his own words, V, 3) caused him to " forget all
regard for personal considerations'* — a characteristic of
men of genius, by the way, which ordinary individuals,
who are never guided by other than personal motives,
poser. By way of expressing his mixed feelings he had a statue of him
in his parlor, with a laurel wreath on his head and a rope around his
neck.
JUDAISM 7iV MUSIC 335
find it very difficult to comprehend. In a letter dated
iSIarch 10, 1851, Wagner, apprehensive of the personal
interpretation that might be given to his Opera and
Drama, begs Uhlig to cancel certain sentences, adding: —
" It would be terrible if the book should come to be looked upon
simply as an attack on Meyerbeer. I wish I could withdraw still
much of this kind. When I read it, the mockery never sounds
venomous ; but if others read it, I may often seem to them an ill-
tempered, sour-minded uidividual, and this I would not appear to
be, even to my enemies."
It was this treatise — the first part of Oj)er U7id Drama
— that was, in my opinion, responsible for the flood of
hostile newspaper criticism that overwhelmed Wagner
from this time on, and which he erroneously attributed
to the Judaism essay. In Oj^er iind Drama he " scored "
not only Mej^erbeer, but another popular idol of the hour,
Eossini, and pointed out weaknesses in others still, who
had (since their death) been considered exalted above criti-
cism: hinc iilai lacrymoi — that was the cause of the row.
Meyerbeer. — Critics Avhose minds are too philistine to
rise above personal considerations have accused Wagner
innumerable times of " gross ingratitude " toward Meyer-
beer, becatise, after receiving favors from him, he
attacked his works. The charge is an old story in the
record of human thought, and has been answered delight-
fully for all times in the words ''Amicus Plato, Amicus
Socrates, sed magis amica Veritas." Dr. Hanslick is one
of the critics just referred to. In his book Musikalisches
und Liter arisches, 1892, he puts the " ingratitude " objec-
tion in this form : —
" Hesitating, nervous individuals like Meyerbeer are usually
very sensitive. The creator of the Huguenots felt every sting of
336 LITERARY PERIOD
criticism acutely. Most of all was he hurt by the contemptuous
verdict of Richard Wagner, whom he had protected and assisted in
his days of need. The question of personal gratitude need not be,
considered here at all, and we may even admit that one may receive
benefits from a friend and yet consider his works bad. But I be-
lieve that the consciousness of favors received should of its own
accord impose resti-aint and measure in the public expression of
censure on any not entirely hardened mind. All the more when it
is not a question of defence, but an a,ttiiGk provoked by no necessity.''^
In spite of Dr. Hauslick's waiving the question of
"personal gratitude," the personal aspect of this objec-
tion has never been so nakedly exposed as here. The
substance of his argument is : " Meyerbeer did not attack
Wagner personally, therefore it was mean for Wagner to
attack him ; there was no necessity for it." That there can
be such a thing as an ideal, artistic necessity, springing
from no personal grudge, but a desire to reform abuses,
is a thing which a mind of Dr. Hanslick's calibre cannot
grasp. If he could have grasped it, he would have seen
that Wagner completely and most eloquently answered
his objection more than forty years ago, in this passage
from the preface to Opera and Drama : —
" I do not deny that I struggled long with myself, before I made
up my mind to what I did, and the way in which I did it. Every-
thing contained in this attack [on Meyerbeer] I have read over
again calmly, considering every phrase, and weighing carefully if I
should give it to the public, until I finally convinced myself that,
in consideration of my extremely decided and incisive opinions on
this important matter, I would merely show cowardice and an
unworthy regard for possible consequences to myself, if I did not
express myself just as I have done in regard to that most dazzling
phenomenon in the modern operatic world. What I say about it
is a point on which most honest artists have long ceased to enter-
tain any doubt ; but the thing that bears fruit is not concealed
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 337
wrath, but an open declaration and definite motivation of hostility ;
for that produces the necessary explosion which purifies the ele-
ments, separates the pure from the impure, and sifts what there is
to sift. It was not my intention to create this enmity for its own
sake, but I was compelled to create it, because, after expressing
my views abstractly, I felt the necessity of giving them a particular
application to individual cases ; my aim is not merely to suggest
truth, but also to make myself clearly understood. To make myself
thus understood I was obliged to point a finger at the most illustra-
tive phenomena in our art ; but this finger I could not withdraw
and put with the fist in my pocket as soon as I came upon the par-
ticular phenomenon which most clearly illustrates the error in art
which we must combat, and which, the more brilliant it appears,
dazzles all the more the eyes which mu,st see with perfect clearness,
if they are not to become blind altogether. Consequently, if I had
observed a reticent regard for this one person, I could either not at
all have undertaken this work, to which my convictions impelled
me, or I would have been obliged to weaken its effect intention-
ally ; for I would have had to consciously conceal the most evident
and most significant points."
Wagner did not entirely condemn Meyerbeer. True,
he says (V. 376): "Meyerbeer's music is characterized
by such frightful hollowness, shallowness, and artistic
emptiness, that we feel inclined to place his specific
musical endowment — especially as compared with the
majority of contemporary composers — on the zero line."
But that this was not a sober criticism, but merely a
momentary ebullition of artistic indignation, is shown
on the very next page of Oper und Drama, where he pays
this enthusiastic tribute to Meyerbeer's genius, pointing
out how, in certain instances,
"he can readily find the richest, noblest, and most soul-stirring
musical expression. I recall here especially some passages in the
well-known scene of love and anguish in the fourth act of the IIu-
338 LITERARY PERIOD
guenots, and above all, the wonderfully touching melody in G flat
major, which, sprouting like a flower from a dramatic situation
that makes every tibre of the human heart vibrate with a voluptu-
ous thrill, is a passage to which few things in music, and only the
most perfect, are comparable. I emphasize this pomt with the
sincerest joy, and genuine enthusiasm, ^ because it shows," etc.
When Wagner says that "most honest artists have
long ceased to entertain any donbt " regarding the vicious
features of Meyerbeer's art which he exposes, he speaks
the absolute truth: one of the most suggestive differ-
ences between Meyerbeer and Wagner is that whereas
Wagner^ s genius was recognized first by other men of genius,
it was other men of genius ivho first condemned Meyer-
beer. After Meyerbeer had returned from Italy, where
he had learned to copy the cheap tricks of Rossini,
Weber, after conducting his latest opera, the product of
this new schooling, at Dresden, wrote : —
"My heart bleeds when I see how a German artist, endowed
with creative power of his own, degrades himself to the level of an
imitator, merely for the sake of applause. Is it then so very diffi-
cult, I will not say to despise the applause of the moment, but at
least not to make it one's highest aim ? "
Rossini himself, as well as Spontini, disliked Meyer-
beer, the former perhaps because Meyerbeer surpassed
him in his own line, by not only picking up in Italy what-
ever was most likely to tickle audiences for a moment,
but gathering his ear-ticklers also in German and French
1 It is characteristic of the tactics and the literary ethics of Wag-
ner's enemies that Dr. Hanslick, in the essay just referred to, cites
Wagner's words about Meyerbeer's endowment being equal to zero, but
preserves absolute silence regarding the modifying passage just quoted,
thus giving his readers, as usual, a totally distorted view of Wagner's
real opinions.
JUDAISM IN AIUSIC 339
markets — Italian florid song, instrumental solos, Ger-
man counterpoint (occasionally, for eiiect), French dances,
and scenic titbits, etc., — making a musical variety show,
or what Wagner wittily called a musical " Mosaic." The
amiable Schumann abused Meyerbeer more venomously
than ever Wagner did, and even Mendelssohn, a Jew him-
self, expressed his dislike of Meyerbeer's operas. Liszt,
in speaking of some of Meyerbeer's cheap effects, uses
the expression gold-dust, which admirably characterizes
them. The public is gradually learning to distinguish
between Meyerbeer's gilded wood and Wagner's solid
gold, and statistics reveal the significant fact that every-
where Meyerbeer's popularity wanes in the same propor-
tion as Wagner's groAvs.
The more we reflect on this whole question of Meyer-
beer and Judaism, the more we become convinced that
while Wagner cannot be acquitted of the charge of
exaggeration, partial error, and imprudence, he only
showed the true nobility of his artistic character by not
allowing a feeling of " gratitude " to override his judg-
ment and his love of art. Nor is this all: Wagner's
indebtedness to Meyerbeer has been greatly overesti-
mated. Although we have alluded to this matter in an
earlier chapter, we must return to it here because it is
of such great importance in forming a just estimate of
Wagner's character. His own oi)inion was that Meyer-
beer had not helped liim on in his artistic career. He
failed to do anything for him in Paris, although he
was the most influential musician there; he commended
Rienzi to the Dresden intendant, but it was not accepted
till long thereafter, and even then chiefly owing to
the intercession of Chorus-conductor Fischer, and the
340 LITERARY PERIOD
famous tenor Tichatscliek ; while Berlin, where Meyer-
beer's influence was as great as in Paris, was one of the
last cities in Germany to encourage Wagner as an opera-
composer. There is a passage in one of Wagner's letters
to Liszt (No. 59) in which he says that he does not hate
Meyerbeer, but feels a boundless aversion to him, and
speaks of "the time when he still made a pretence of
protecting me," and of "the intentional impotence of
his kindness to me " ; which letter I advise the reader to
peruse here, as it is too long to quote. ^
One more important point remains to be considered —
important because it involves the question of Wagner's
honesty. Dr. Hanslick in the article referred to above,
tries, with his usual "method," to convey to his readers
the impression that Wagner was dishonestly inconsistent
in his treatment of Meyerbeer. He bases this accusation
on a recently discovered manuscript of Wagner's, dated
1842, in which Meyerbeer is lauded to the skies as a true
German, a genuine successor of Handel, Gluck, and
Mozart, an artist with immaculate conscience, who beat
the Italians on their own ground, and whose style rises
to real classical dignity. Upon this Dr. Hanslick com-
1 Compare with this what Wagner's friend Praeger says (p. 216) :
" I frankly admit, ^\nth an intimate acquaintance of Wagner's feelings
regarding Meyerbeer, that he despised the 'mountebank,' hating cor-
dially the thousand commercial incidents Meyerbeer associated with
the production of his works. Schlesinger told me indeed of well-
authenticated instances where Meyerbeer had gone so far as to con-
ciliate the mistresses of critics to secure a favorable verdict." It is
also well known that he asked the advice of the chief of the clacque
regarding the probable effectiveness of certain passages in his operas.
With this compare the policy of Wagner, who was willing to wait
flfteen years after Lohengrin before bringing out a new opera, rather
than make the slightest concession to fashionable "taste " and " criti-
cism " — and then judge for yourself whether he was not right in claim-
ing that he was the " opposite " of Meyerbeer as an artist and a man.
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 341
ments : " We stand here before a riddle, and not a pleas-
ant one." "The possessor of this precious autograph,
Herr Leo Lipmannssohn in Berlin, has wisely had it
printed before its sale at public auction, lest it might be
secretly bought by a friend and destroyed unnoticed."
The change from these early sentiments on Meyerbeer to
the later severe opinions, Hanslick intimates, was caused
by the fact that " Wagner wished to be considered not
only the greatest but the only tone-poet of the time."
Now Dr. Hanslick is so thorough ly famili ar with the
facls of Wagner's life that he even knows aiidTi-ecords the
minute c hanges in his early essays when they were
reprinted in later years. Iti§_noti likely therefore tha t
he was ignor ant of the facts here to be p resented. Tt
has been shown in preceding pages that Wagner's opin -
ions on music — especially on operatic music — under-
went a gradual change and evolution. In his first Paris
period he still placed instrumental music above the
opera (I. 193). I n 1834 lie wrote an article on Oerm an
Opera, m which he denies that there is such a thing a s
G^l'mu.li opera; a buses Weber ; says the Ger mans do not
know how t o write for the vo ice, and that f or genuinely
spontaneous operatic music we must go to Bellini! In
1837 he wrote an article on Bellini,^ in which he promul-
gated similar views. In the same year he wrote a letter
to Meyerbeer in which he says that he was induced to
devote himself to music about the age of eighteen: —
" A passionate adoration of Beethoven impelled me to this step —
a devotion which gave my first productive efforts an extremely one-
sided direction. In the meantime, and especially since I have
entered practical life, my views on the present condition of music,
1 See these articles iu Kiirschuer's Wagner Jahrhuch, 1886, pp. 376-9,
3«l-2, 478.
34-2 LITERARY PERIOD
csijecially dramatic music, have undergone a considerable change,
and shall I deny that it was your works above all which indicated
to me this new direction ? "
That this statement was made in perfect sincerity (imi-
tation is the sincerest form of flattery) is proved by the
fact that in the following year (1838) he commenced the
composition of Rienzi, which, by his own admission (VII.
159), is modelled after the grand opera of Meyerbeer,
Auber, and Halevy. This opera was not completed till
1840, and its first performance was in 1842, the year in
which was written (but not printed) the favorable notice
on Meyerbeer concerning which Dr. Hanslick makes his
contemptible insinuations. Wagner's articles against
Meyerbeer were not written till seven years later; in
1842 he had some indirect reason to feel " grateful " to
Meyerbeer, his model for Rienzi, his first success. In
such a moment of grateful feeling he probably wrote
that article ; but the fact that he did not print it speaks
for itself. His mind was then growing in a new direc-
tion with giant strides, and he soon, therefore, began to
harbor doubts regarding the solidity of Meyerbeer's art,
which in course of the next seven years grew into such
a strong conviction in his mind. These are the simple
facts of the case, fortified in each detail by documents
and dates ; and with these facts before him, I leave it to
the reader to decide whether it is Wagner or his venom-
ous critic who is disgraced by this early laudatory manu-
script on Meyerbeer.^ "We stand here before a riddle,
and not a pleasant one."
1 What did Meyerbeer think of "Wagner? Dr. Hanslick (I.e.) states
that in 184G he put the question to Meyerljeer, who replied simply, " His
operas find much /«for," and immediately changed the subject. In a
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 34S
Mendelssohn. — In the same year when this essay on
Meyerbeer was written, Wagner one day entered the
house of JNIendelssohUj who was just trying over a new
sonata with the distinguished violoncellist, Servais.
Wagner stood in a corner for a while, and then departed
without having said a word. " that's an Original —
but he will make the world talk of him," exclaimed
Mendelssohn.^ The world soon did talk about Wagner,
more than Mendelssohn perhaps had expected. Mendels-
sohn, the pet child of fashion, could not brook a rival.
"Personally he was very amiable; at social gatherings,
however, he demanded, with noticeable vanity, that
everything should centre in him, and he was in a bad
humor if any one else attracted attention" (JahrbucJi,
1886, p. 76). In a letter to Schubring (1835) he com-
plains that "there are so few musicians whom I could
and would like to call friends; this often makes me sad."
This self -diagnosis was correct. He did not care for any
one of his really great contemporaries; his friends were
his imitators and worshippers — second and third rate
musicians. He sneered at Chopin (Chopinetto), detested
Liszt and Berlioz (whom he calls " a perfect caricature
without one spark of talent"), never had a kind word
even for Schumann, who often wrote about Jmn so appre-
ciatively. Small Avonder that he did not like Wagner;
that he refused to produce his early symphony ; that he
footnote to Warjner Juf/^ en France (p. 33) we read: " M. Blaze de
Bury relates that a sinr/le name had the privilege of exasperating
Meyerbeer, that of R. Wur/ner : ' he could not hear it pronounced with-
out immediately expto'icncing a disagreeable sensation, which, l)esidcs,
he did not jiive liimscll tlic trouble to conceal, — he who was usually so
discerning, so clever in discovering with a microscope any oue's quali-
ties ' (Meyerbeer et son Temps)."
1 Kastner Wayner-Kutalog, p. 14.
344 LITERARY PERIOD
conducted the Tannhduser overture as a " warning exam-
ple, " and consoled Wagner ct projjos of the Dutchman in
Dresden, with the remark that he ought to be satisfied,
since, after all, it hadn't been a " complete fiasco ! "
Time has shown that Mendelssohn was a poor judge
of musical genius, while Wagner's verdict on other com-
posers has been borne out in almost every detail. He
said that Mendelssohn had been able to gain such great
popularity largely because the masters preceding him
had so thoroughly developed the materials of music that
it had been made easy for any one to talk agreeably in
that language. To-day we all know that most of Men-
delssohn's works are musical "small-talk," and that it
was his pleasant way of saying nothing that made peo-
ple think these nothings so "beautiful in form," Wag-
ner censured him for his wrong way of conducting
Beethoven and other composers: to-day the greatest
conductors — Dr. Hans von Biilow, Hans Richter, Anton
Seidl, Arthur Nikisch, etc. — conduct Beethoven A la
Wagner. And so on. On the other hand, it must be
distinctly remembered that Wagner did not entirely
condemn Mendelssohn. He admitted, as we have seen,
that he had "a specific musical endowment equalled by
few other musicians before him. " While condemning his
Antigone music as undramatic and utterly incongruous
to its subject ("c'est de la Bevliner Liedertafel,'' Spon-
tini said of it), he calls the Hebrides overture "one of
the most beautiful pieces we possess " (X. 197). To Mr.
Dannreuther he remarked ^ concerning this overture : —
" Wonderful imagination and delicate feeling are here presented
with consummate art. Note the extraordinary beauty of the pas-
1 Grove's Dictionary, IV. 369.
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 346
sage where the oboes rise above the other instruments with a plain-
tive wail, like sea- winds over the seas. Calm Sea and Prosperous
Voyage is also beautiful ; and I am very fond of the first move-
ment of the Scotch symphony. No one can blame a composer for
using national melodies when he treats them so artistically as
Mendelssohn has done in the Scherzo of this symphony. His
second themes, his slow movements generally, where the human
element comes in, are weaker. As regards the overture to A Mid-
summer XighVs Dream, it must be taken into account that he
wrote it at seventeen ; and how finished the form is already ! " etc.
Rubinstein. — There is another famous Jewish com-
poser concerning whom it would have been interesting
to have Wagner's opinion; but it is not on record, so far
as I know, and it is doubtful if Wagner had opportunity
to form a just estimate of Rubinstein's symphonies and
operas. Rubinstein, on his part, has not failed to give
the world his opinion of Wagner, which is contained in
his little book Die Musik und ihre Meister (1891), pp.
95-104. He begins by stating that in 1845-6 he was at
Mendelssohn's house one day and found the Tannhduser
score open on the piano. To the question what he
thought of that opera, Mendelssohn replied: "A man
who writes both the text and the music of his operas is
at any rate not an ordinary man." Upon which Rubin-
stein comments, " Yes, not an ordinary man . . . highly
interesting, very valuable, but beautiful or great, deep
or high, in a specific musical sense, he is not." Where-
upon lie proceeds to make mincemeat of all his works
(except Lohengrin, Die Meistersincjer, and the Faust over-
ture, which he likes) in very much the same style that
the great Jahn brought to bear, half a century ago, on
Lohengrin! All this time, according to Rubinstein,
mankind has admitted Wagner's genius merely because
346 LITERARY PERIOD
it has so often been reproached with having ignored con-
temporary men of genius that it was afraid to make the
same mistake again, and so it idolized Wagner!!! Poor
Rubinstein! The world has treated him so badly as a
composer, that he can hardly be expected to have pre-
served his sense of humor if he ever had any. But the
Eussian lion is at least bold. In spite of ^schylus and
the other Greek dramatists, he asserts that a myth can
be " an interesting and poetic theatre-piece, but never a
drama " (96) ! Wagner's use of Leading Motives is " such
a naive proceeding that it produces a comic effect and
can claim no serious meaning " I The exclusion of arias
is a mistake, he continues. Even the orchestra is all
wrong, because it diminishes the interest in the vocal
part! An invisible orchestra is "simply unendurable"!
A darkened auditorium benefits only the manager, whose
gas bill it reduces ! The persons in Wagner's dramas are
never dramatic (p. 102). " His melody never characterizes
the musical thought or person " ! His orchestration is
"deficient in economy and variety of shading"! And
besides, Wagner isn't nearly as interesting as Berlioz,
anyhow, because the latter appeared at once as an
innovator, and did not become one, like Wagner !
If Wagner had lived to read these unintentionally
comic lucubrations of Rubinstein, he would have doubt-
less smiled and pointed at them as an interesting and
amusing confirmation of the views promulgated in his
essay on Judaism in Music. And Rubinstein is as
undramatic in his operas as in his opinions; which is
the reason why all of his operas — full of delicious mel-
ody though they are — have failed to win a permanent
success. Had he had genuine dramatic instincts, he
JUDAISM IN MUSIC 347
■would have learned from Wagner, as Wagner learned
from Weber and other great predecessors, and his fate
would have been different. To have written as many
operas as Wagner, to see all of Wagner's regularly on
every repertory and none of his own on any (outside of
Russia, where one or two have become popular), is
enough to sour any man. But the public exhibition of
this sour face, distorted by impotent, jealous rage, is a
melancholy close to the career of a great artist; a musi-
cian whose compositions deserve very much more atten-
tion than his contemporaries have given them, and whose
"Dramatic" and "Ocean" symphonies — like the works
of Dvorak, Grieg, and Tchaikovsky — go far to disprove
Wagner's absurd assertion that pure instrumental music
had reached its highest possible development in Beetho-
ven, and come to an end with him. Unfortunately for
Rubinstein, his supremely silly " criticisms " on Wagner
have injured himself a thousand times more than his
intended victim; they have shown him to possess a
petty, jealous character; and they have alienated from
him the sympathy of many who had previously worked
hard for the popularization of his music.
WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
HOW THE POEM WAS WKITTEN
The first three years following his flight from Dresden,
Wagner devoted chiefly to the writing of the literary
works considered in the preceding chapter, and a few
minor essays, amid some interruptions which we shall
narrate later on. Three more full years were to elapse
before he began to compose again ; but these last literary
years were at any rate largely devoted to creative art-
work instead of art-criticism ; namely, to the conception
and execution of the Nibelung poem, in its four parts.
The curious circumstance has long been known that
while the music of Rheingold, Walkiire, Siegfried, and
Gotterddmmerung was composed in the proper order here
given, the poems were written in inverse order. The
last-named drama was written first, under the name of
/Siegfried's Death and in a somewhat different shape;
then came Siegfried (originally Young Siegfried, and dif-
fering in details from the later drama), followed by the
Walkiire and finally Rheingold. The details of this liter-
ary performance were not known till the appearance of
the Correspondence with Liszt, and with Uhlig, Fischer,
and Heine, in 1887-1888; and even from that it is not
easy to unravel the tangle, since we read, for instance,
under date of June 18, 1851: "I commenced Young
348
HOW THE POEM WAS WRITTEN 349
Siegfried on the 3d June, and I shall have finished it in
a week " ; and again in July : " I have just written the
poem of Young Siegfried " ; while more than a year later
(November, 1852) we come across this: "I am now work-
ing at Young Siegfried; I shall soon have finished it.
Then I attack Siegfried's Death — this will take me
longer." The apparent inconsistency is explained by the
fact that the last reference to Young Siegfried is to the
revised and remodelled version of it. Concerning Sieg-
fried's Death he adds : " I have two scenes in it to write
afresh (the Norns and the scene of Briinnhilde with the
Valkyries), and above all the close; besides these, every-
thing needs most important revision. The whole will
then be — out with it ! I am impudent enough to say it
— the greatest poem ever written! "
It is interesting to compare the changes he here refers
to with the original Siegfried's Death, which, as the
reader will remember, was written as early as 1848,
immediately after Lohengrin.^ Leaving that task to the
reader himself (with the hint just quoted from Wagner's
letter), let us now examine the motives which led him to
abandon his plan of composing Siegfried's Death, and to
evolve from it instead a complete Tetralogy, or cycle of
four dramas.
Had it not been for the revolution in Dresden and
Wagner's share in it, it is probable that Lohengrin would
liave been given there in due course of time, and that,
with sucli a fine cast as was available there, and tl e
composer himself to conduct, it would have proved a
success. Encouraged by this, he would have at once
1 The original Siec/fried's Tod is printed in Vol. II., the revised
Gdtterdiimmerung in Vol VI., of the Gesammelte Schriften.
350 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
set to work and composed his Siegfried's Death. In
that case we should have had no Tetralogy, and it is not
likely that tliat drama would have compensated even for
Gotterdammerung alone. After Lohengrin had been pro-
duced at last in Weimar, its exiled composer for a time
thought seriously of setting Siegfried's Death to music
and sending it to Liszt for the Weimar stage. In June,
1849, he wrote to him : " I shall at last devote my time to
composing my last German poem, Siegfried's Death; in
half a year I shall send you the complete opera." In
September, 1850, he wrote to Uhlig: —
" Liszt informs me that there is some talk, should Lohengrin
succeed, of commissioning me to compose ray Siegfried for Wei-
mar ; for which purpose an honorarium would be paid to me in
advance, sufficiently large to enable me to live undisturbed until
the completion of the work. Thereupon I have answered that I
would never have composed Siegfried as a castle in the air ; but if
Lohengrin tm-ned out thoroughly satisfactory, I presumed that
actors would thereby be trained for me at Weimar who, with
proper zeal and earnestness, would be able to bring Siegfried to
life in the best possible way. For the Weimar company I would
therefore specially get the Siegfried music ready for performance.
Already I have procured music-paper and a Dresden music-pen,
but whether I can still compose, God only knows ! Perhaps I can
get into the way again."
A month before this he had written to Liszt that the
Siegfried music was already haunting him in all his limbs
{spukt mir bereits in alien Gliedern). About the same
time he sent the poem to the publisher Wigand in Leip-
zig, who, however, refused to print it, and Uhlig kept
the manuscript.
Thus matters stood before the first performance of
Lohengrin at Weimar, which we have already described.
HOW THE POEM WAS WRITTEN 351
That performance made Wagner change his mind. No
doubt, considering all the circumstances, it was a credit-
able performance ; but no one need be told that Lohen-
(jrin cannot be put on the stage, as Wagner intended it,
with an expenditure of only about f 1500 for scenery,
and Avith artists who, had they been first-class, would
not have sung for a pittance in so small a town as Wei-
mar. Bear this in mind, and you will understand what
he meant when he wrote to Uhlig (Sept. 20, 1850) : " I
need not begin to assure you that I really abandoned Lo-
hengrin when I permitted its production at Weimar."
The situation made him think; and the result of his
meditations is hinted at in two extraordinary epistolary
l)assages which show that he had the germs of a so7't of
Bayreuth-Festival plan in his mind twenty-six years be-
fore it was realized. It seems that it was Heine who
received the first inkling of this plan in these mysteri-
ous lines, dated Sept. 14 : "I am now thinking of writ-
ing the music to Siegfried. In order one day to be able
to produce it properly, I am cherishing all sorts of bold
and out-of-the-way plans, to the realization of which
nothing further is necessary than that some old uncle or
other should take it into his head to die." To Uhlig he
wrote more seriously and explicitly, a week later : —
" I need not give you my further reasons when I declare that I
should like to send Siegfried into the world in different fashion
from that which would be possible to the good people there. With
regard to this, I am busy with wishes and plans which at first look
seem chimerical ; yet these alone give me the heart to finish Sieg-
fried. To realize the best, the most decisive, the most important
work which, under the present circumstances, I can produce, — in
short, the accomplishment of the conscious mission of my life, —
needs a matter of perhaps 10,000 thalers. If I could ever command
352 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
such a sum, I would arrange thus : here, where I happen to be, —
and where many a thing is far from bad, — I would erect, after my
own plans, in a beautiful field near the town, a rough theatre of
planks and beams, and merely furnish it with the decorations and
machinery necessary for the production of Siegfried. Then I would
select the best singers to be found anywhere, and invite them for
six weeks to Zurich. I would try to form a chorus here consisting,
for the most part, of amateurs ; there are splendid voices here, and
strong, healthy people. I would invite in the same way my or-
chestra. At the New Year, announcements and invitations to all
the friends of the musical drama would appear in all the German
newspapers, with a call to visit the proposed dramatic musical fes-
tival. Any one giving notice, and travelling for this purpose to
Ziirich, would receive a certain entree — naturally, like all the
entrees^ gratis. Besides, I should invite to a performance the
young people here, the university, the choral unions. When every-
thing was in order, I should arrange, under these circumstances,
for three performances of Siegfried in one week. After the third
the theatre would be pulled down, and my score burnt. To those
persons who had been pleased with the thing, I should then say,
'Now do likewise.' But if they wanted to hear something new
from me, I should say, ' You get the money ! ' Well, do I seem
quite mad to you ? It may be so, but I assure you to attain this
end is the hope of my life, the prospect which alone can tempt me
to take in hand a work of art. So — get me 10,000 thalers —
that's all ! "
It is quite remarkable to note how many features of
the later Bayreuth Festivals are here foreshadowed.
And so firm a hold did this plan at once take on his
mind that he determined to give up the Weimar offer of
500 thalers, which were to be paid to him in the interim,
in case he should deliver the Siegfried score by July 1,
1852. But besides the Festival idea there was another
important consideration which induced him to modify his
operatic plans. He had been haunted for some months
HOW THE POEM WAS WRITTEN 353
by the thought of the youth who sets out "'in order to
learn fear,' and who is so stupid that he is never able to
learn it. Think of my alarm when I suddenly discover
that this youth is no other than the young Siegfried, who
wins the hoard and awakes Briiunhilde. The scheme
is now ready" (May 10, 1851). In other words, his
Nibelung scheme had now advanced to two dramas, Sieg-
fried's Death preceded by Young Siegfried. Concerning
these two Siegfried dramas his intention is that "each
shall in itself be an independent piece. They are only
to be presented to the public in succession for the first
time; afterwards each, according to taste or means, can
be given quite by itself."
So Siegfried's Death was put aside for a moment, and
Yoking Siegfried became the hero of the hour : " A thou-
sand greetings to R's from me! Say to them that to-day
my Young Siegfried came into the world ready and well-
rhymed" (June 24, 1851). And what is of special inter-
est, is to find that some of the Young Siegfried music
also dates back as far as only four years after the com-
pletion of Lohengrin : —
" You perhaps cannot imagine it, but everything comes quite
naturally. The musical phrases fit themselves on to the verses
and periods without any trouble on my part ; everj'thing grows as
if wild from the ground. I have already the beginning in my
head ; also some plastic motives, like the Fafner one. I am de-
lighted at the thought of giving myself up wholly to it."
■Wlien Liszt heard of the new project, he wrote : " So
we are to liave a young Siegfried! You are really a
perfectly incredible fellow, before whom one must take
off hat and cap three times ! " In his reply Wagner
states that he is only wishing for a fine day to begin
354 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
writing tlie poem, which, he says, is already completed
in his head. Five weeks later comes the news that the
poem is finished: "It has given me great pleasure, and
at any rate it is such a thing as I was obliged to make
now, and the best thing I have done so far." He is, in
fact, so enthusiastic over his new project that he volun-
tarily renounces Breitkopf and Hartel's generous offer
to print the full score of Lohengrin on condition that, in
place of that, they preserve their good will and intentions
for the forthcoming Siegfried score. For it seemed to
him " fabulous " that any firm should be willing to print
an opera like Lohengrin, which was only being performed
in one city! He feared that this score might be an
unprofitable investment, and then the Leipzig publishers
would be unwilling to undertake his beloved Siegfried.
Great as was his confidence in his alter ego, Liszt, he
was not going to have any more cuts and concessions,
and performances lasting an hour too long. So, although
Young Siegfried is now, in turn, intended for Weimar,
he writes to Uhlig that he does not intend to have it
produced there unless he can be there himself But very
soon the Yoxmg Siegfried also became altogether prob-
lematic for Weimar, and this was due to the maturing
of the complete Nibelung plan — the Walkiire-Siegfried-
Gotterddmmerung trilogy, with the introductory play of
Rheingold. This complete scheme is first communicated
to Uhlig under date of Nov. 12, 1851. A week later
Liszt is informed of the Nibelung and the Festival plans
at the same time.
One of the most curious and suggestive things about
this Nibelung scheme is that Wagner, guided by an
unconscious dramatic instinct, sketched out the complete
HOW THE POEM WAS WRITTEN 356
plot of the four dramas as early as 1848, before he wrote
the poem of Sie(jfrle(.r.s Death. This sketch is printed in
Vol. II. of the Collected AVurks, and although some of its
details were altered or omitted when the dramas were
written, it remains to this day the most lucid and logical
synopsis that has ever been made of his great work.
And now note the sequel. When the author of Sieg-
frUtVs Death made his preparations for setting his poem
to music, he found that the subject was too big for one
drama. To one who had read his preliminary sketch of
the whole Nibelung Myth there would have been no
difficulty in understanding the full significance of Sieg-
fried' s Death. But a stage drama should not need any
preliminary essays and footnotes; it should present
everything directly to the eyes and ears, should explain
itself at every moment. A literary poet may address
himself to the imagination, but a dramatist should appeal
to the senses. It was this consideration that had induced
him to alter the close of Tannhduser in such a way as to
bring the apparition of Venus and the body of Elizabeth
actually on the stage, instead of merely hinting at tliem.
And it was this consideration that now made him give up
Siegfried's Death and evolve the gigantic Tetralogy, in
the separate dramas of which he could bring before the
eyes events which had in that drama been presented
merely in the shape of ejnc narrative : —
" So, to make Siegfried'' s Death possible, I wrote Young Sieg-
fried ; but the more the whole took shape, the more did I perceive,
while developing the scenes and music of Young Siegfried, that I
had only increasoil the necessity for a clearer presentation of the
whole story to the senses. I now see that, in order to become
intelligible on the stage, I must work out the whole myth in plastic
style. It was not this consideration alone which inip( Ikd me to
356 WELDING TUE NIBELVNG'S RING
my new plan, but especially the overpowering impressiveness of
the subject-matter which I thus acquire for presentation, and
which supplies me with a wealth of material for artistic fashioning
which it would be a sin to leave unused."
He then proceeds to give the first intimation of the
Walkilre and Rheingold plans.
So here we have the great work of his life laid out
clearly and irrevocably. He also tells his friends that
he feels the impossibility of producing such a work satis-
factorily at any existing theatre, and that he is tired of
doing things hy halves: "With this my new conception
I withdraw entirely from all connection with our theatre
and public of to-day; I break decisively and forever with
the formal present." "The performance of the Nibelung
dramas must take place at a gre at Festival, specially
arranged for this purpose." The f our dramas mus t first
be given m proper order, whereupon they may be repeated
separately ad libitum. He adds that it will take hira at
least three full years to comj)lete this work, — little
dreaming that it would occupy him, with interruptions,
for the next twenty-three years ! ,
One more short extract from a letter to Uhlig (No. 35)
may be given here by way of mirroring his mind at this
time. It precedes the one just quoted from, by a few
weeks : —
" I want a small house, with meadow and a little garden ! To
work with zest and joy, — but not for the present generation. . , .
If all German theatres tumble down, I will erect a new one on the
banks of the Rhine, gather every one together, and produce the
whole [Trilogy] in the course of a week. — Rest! rest! rest!
Country ! country ! a cow, a goat, etc. Then — health — happi-
ness — hope ! Else, everything lost. I care no more. You must
come here ! "
HOW THE POEM WAS WRITTEN 357
Wagner had reason to fear that his plan would, as he
says, " on account of its almost bottomless mad audacity,
be comprehended by no one"; and he was therefore
greatly delighted to have Liszt — although it deprived
that friend of the prospective pleasure of bringing out
Siegfried at Weimar — approve of it cordially. Sieg-
frietVs Death and Young Siegfried were already versified;
the next poem which he undertook was the Walkwe. Of
this there can be no doubt; for he says explicitly in a
letter to Uhlig (Oct. 14, 1852) : " The introductory even-
ing is really a complete drama, quite rich in action : I
have finished fully half of it. The Walkilre,^ entirely.
The two Siegfrieds, however, must still be thoroughly
revised, especially Siegfried'' s Death. But then — it will
he something ! "
On July 2, 1852, he imparts the information that he
expects to finish the whole Nibelung poem by September
or October and that he rejoices greatly at the thought of
the music. It was not till December, however, that he
wrote to Heine : " I have just finished my great Nibelung
poem, and I mean to make a clean copy of the stuff, so
that my friends, too, may be able to taste as much as
possible of it. This will take up a full month of my
time, for at present I can at most spend three hours on
such work." While he was still busy with the poem,
the desire to communicate it to his friends, before he set
to work on the nnisic, overcame him. He therefore pur-
posed to have twentyrfive or thirty copies of the whole
poem made in fac-simile reprint. But who was to pay
for this ? He had no money, and it could be done only
by means of a subscription among his friends. But as
1 It was finished on July 1, 1852. See Letters to Uhlig, No. G7.
358 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
such a subscription was not forthcoming, he at last had
the poems printed in the ordinary way at his own
expense, — a few copies only for private distribution to
his friends, and secretly, to avoid admonitions. ''Those
who know my situation," he writes to Liszt (Feb. 11,
1853), on sending him a few copies (for himself, the
Grand Duchess, and the Princess of Prussia), " will, in
face of this considerable expense, again have occasion to
consider me a spendthrift: be it so! I must confess the
world at large behaves towards me in such a miserly way
that I feel no desire whatever to imitate it."
Liszt's enthusiasm over the Nibelung scheme is almost
as great as Wagner's, and it leads him to hope that the
work may be completed in less than three years. Should
its author by that time still be debarred return to his
country, Liszt offers to take upon himself the function of
conductor, adding: "I hope, however, I shall have the
pleasure of being able to enjoy your Nibelung Trilogy
more quietly from parquet or balcony, and in that case,
I invite you after each of the four performances to supper
at the Hotel de Saxe [Dresden] or Hotel de Kussie [Ber-
lin], provided you will still be able to eat and drink after
your exertions." The Princess von Wittgenstein read the
whole of the Tetralogy on the day of its receipt, as Liszt
informs his friend; it aroused her enthusiasm, and there-
after almost daily she quoted from it in conversing with
Liszt. But of his other friends, only two (Franz Miiller
and Karl Ritter) as much as replied to acknowledge
receipt of the copy to the author who was so thirsty for
a little sympathy and encouragement in his audacious
and unprecedented undertaking. While waiting for such
a sign of sympathy, he describes himself as living solely
LIFE IN ZURICH 359
through the post: "With the most violent impatience
I must await the postman every morning at 11 o'clock;
if he brings me nothing at all, or nothing satisfactory,
my whole day is one of resignation. That is my life !
Why do I continue to live?"
LIFE IN ZURICH
We must now cast a partly retrospective glance at
Wagner's life in Zurich during these years of literary
and poetic work. A careless perusal of the correspond-
ence with Liszt might give the impression that Wagner
was dissatisfied with his situation in Zurich : for utter-
ances of despair like the one just quoted abound in it;
but on closer examination it will be seen that these
expressions of despair and suicidal anguish almost inva-
riably have their origin in disappointed artistic hopes,
operatic misrepresentations and failures in Germany, or
attacks of erysipelas or dysj^epsia. With his life in
Zurich as such, and with his friends there, he was
highly pleased, as he points out over and over again.
He informs Fischer on Nov. 9, 1850 : —
" I shall now in any case remain in Ziirich, where I have found
a circle of very dear friends ; when the time comes for you to retire
from active life, you should by all means be so sensible as to come
here. I can find no words to describe the agreeableness of life
here ; in Paris I had the genuine Swiss homesickness ! The sturdy,
honest folk here will be to your taste, and one can manage a house-
hold cheaply."
He playfully advises the royal chorus master of the
Dresden opera to do his work badly so that he may the
sooner be pensioned off, and then join him in Zurich.
He appreciates the freedom with which he can give ex-
3G0 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
pression to his thoughts in Switzerland: "In Dresden I
shoukl have soured as Kapellmeister loci, because always
maliciously attacked, pulled to pieces, and therefore
rendered powerless." In Zurich, "I live protected by
the true and genuine love of men who know me as I am,
and who would not have me a jot otherwise. I am only
to be envied." Again, in 1850, to Uhlig: —
"I feel very well again, back in Ziirich, and I would choose to
live here rather than anywhere else in the whole wide world. We
have a most delightful dwelling by the lake, with the most magnifi-
cent views, garden, etc. In my house-coat I go down to the lake
to bathe ; a boat is there which we row ourselves. Besides, an
excellent race of men, and whichever way we turn, sympathy,
politeness, and the most touching readiness to do service : yes,
more, and more trusty, friends than I could ever find in beautiful,
big Dresden. All are glad to see me ; of Philistines here I know
only the Saxon exiles. Oh, how unfortunate and worthy of pity
you seem to me in Dresden ! "
In 1851, to Heine : —
" Ah, if no one would pity me any more on account of my loss
of my Dresden position ! How little they know me who look upon
this loss as my misfortune ! Were I aiiniestied to-day, and were
I again appointed chief Kapellmeister at Dresden, you would see
how calmly I should remain in my Switzerland, and perhaps
scarcely even put my feet on the blessed soil of the German con-
federacy I Yes, that is how I feel."
And once more, to Liszt (March 4, 1853) : —
" Should you ever succeed, in the gigantic perseverance of your
friendship, in again making Germany accessible to me, be assured
that I would make no other use of this privilege than occasionally
to visit Weimar, take part in your doings for a little while, and
here and there attend some decisive fir.st performance of my
operas. This I must have — this is a necessity of my life, and this
is what I miss at present so dreadfully and so painfully ! "
LIFE IN ZURICH 361
He felt instinctively tliat he conld work best in the
Swiss solitude, where he could have plenty of tonic
mountain air as brain food, without having to dissipate
his energies in rehearsals and other practical work, which
always exhausted him for the time being. Here, too,
he is safe from all danger of political molestation. To
the Swiss authorities he was no exile; his expulsion
would have had to be specially demanded by the Holy
Alliance, and in that case he could have saved himself
by immediately becoming a citizen of the Swiss repub-
lic. Hence he remains indifferent to the renewal, in
1853, of the warrant against him, in consequence of the
rumor that he was about to visit Germany. All police
authorities were again admonished to keep their eyes
open, and, in case of his capture, to forward him at once
to Dresden. There was also, at one time, a rumor that
he had been pardoned. The postmaster of Hansen came
running breathlessly to his house with the newspaper
containing the (false) report; but, to his astonishment,
the exiled composer remained " terribly indifferent " to
this bit of news.
To avoid police interference with his letters, he had
them sent at first to the address of his sister-in-law,
Natalie Planer, at Zurich. Swiss postal arrangements
were rather primitive in those days, and his letters
contain constant references, which now seem quaint, to
expensive postage, to forwarding newspapers and scores
by freight-wagon in order to save expense, and the like.
Occasionally lie is short of stamps, and then he begs his
correspondent to get even with him by not prepaying
postage on Ids next letter, in turn.
During his ten years' sojourn at Ziiri(!li, he repeatedly
362 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
changed his residence. His ideal of a home for a work-
ing artist was a little villa overlooking the lake, with
flower-garden, animals, and rooms for visiting friends.
For a time he lived in Zurich; then (in 1850 and 1851)
in a house by the lake, known to his friends as " Villa
Rienzi." Among these Ziirich friends were Baumgartner
and Alex. Miiller, musicians; Sulzer, Hagenbusch, can-
tonal officials; Wille, a Hamburg journalist who had
gone back to live in Switzerland, the home of his
ancestors; Herwegh, the well-known poet; and Wesen-
donck, a retired merchant of wealth, who was fond of
music, and whose wife was one of the first and most
ardent Wagner enthusiasts. The Willes, at their charm-
ing villa at the neighboring Mariafeld, were often visited
by Wagner in company of Herwegh or of Liszt, when
the great pianist happened to be at Zurich; and for a
time he lived with the Willes altogether as their guest.
Frau Wille was a novelist of some note, and she has
contributed valuable material to the personal side of
Wagner's biography by publishing,^ with a running com-
mentary, fifteen letters of his. Fran Wille had first met
him at Dresden in 1843, and his appearance had made an
indelible impression on her memory : —
"the delicate mobile figure, the head witli the mighty forehead,
the keen eyes, and the energetic traits about his small, firmly
closed mouth. An artist who sat next to me, called my attention
to the straight, projecting chin, which, as if cut from stone, gave
the face a peculiar character. Wagner's wife was of pleasing
appearance ; she was gay and talkative, and appeared to be
especially happy in society. He himself was very animated, self-
conscious, but amiable and free from affectation."
1 In the Deutsche Rundschau, May and June, 1887.
LIFE IN ZURICH 363
Neither Wille nor Herwegli was musical, but that
made no difference to Wagner, who, as his writings at-
test, and unlike musicians of the old type, took a deep
interest in many tilings not connected with his own art.
To Wille he said one day: "You are not musical; you
say that you create nothing! But what of that? You
have life. When you are present, original ideas come
into one's head."
It was about this time that he was first introduced
to the works of Schopenhauer, by Herwegh, who had
brought them to Marienfeld : " Wagner, with incredible
rapidity of conception, soon had sped through the phi-
losopher's works. He and Herwegh Avere astounded at
finding the world's riddle solved. Resignation and
asceticism — that was to be the goal of mankind. " And
now followed long discussions on this system of pessi-
mism, which Wagner could lay as an unction on his many
wounds.
Herwegh was a great linguist, and an enthusiast for
foreign poets, and it was probably the contagion of this
enthusiasm that inspired such passages as the following
in Wagner's letters to his friend Uhlig: —
"To you and K. I recommend my new friend, the English poet
Shelley. There i.s but one German version of him, that by Seybt,
which you must get. He and his friend Byron together make a
perfectly delightful man." "Get the poems of Hafis. . . . This
Persian Hafis is the gbeatest poet that ever lived and wrote. —
If you do not immediately buy him, I shall despise you beyond
measure: charge the costs to the 2\innhduser account."
Besides thus widening Wagner's literary horizon, Her-
wegh was a friend who offered to translate Tarmhduser
for him into French prose; who accompanied him on
364 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S BING
excursions and to hydropathic establishments ; gave him
hygienic advice (" for the present Herwegh is my physi-
cian; his physical and physiological knowledge is great,
and in every respect he is more sympathetic to me than
any doctor ") ; and one of Herwegh' s most important
achievements was that he helped in securing a good por-
trait of Wagner of that period. As the latter relates to
Uhlig (April 9, 1852) : —
"I wrote to you about a painting animal who wanted to catch
me : it is done. The first portrait was bad, because the idiot did
not understand me. Then Herwegh came to the sittings, and
under his minutest guidance — with his intellect and practised
eye — a really good portrait has been obtained, which will soon
appear here ; and yesterday I offered it to Breitkopf and Hartel
for publication."
While Herwegh and Wille were not interested in music,
Frau Wille was, and thus it happened that Wagner occa-
sionally showed himself in his element at her house.
He would sit at her piano and play from Tannhduser and
Lohengrin, from memory.
"At the same time he explained the events on the stage, and
hinted at the plot, singing the text softly. It was a remarkable
and unique way of making us realize what we could not see with
our eyes and hear interpreted by an orchestra. Of the work on
which he was engaged Wagner did not speak, but he did dwell
on the pleasures of idling. In his amiable mood he expressed sat-
isfaction with the progress of his work."
On another occasion, when Herwegh and Wille were
discussing philology and natural science, Wagner came
to the ladies with the remark, " the other two are digging
roots again; that will take up some time." He laughed
and opened the piano.
A MODERN PROMETHEUS 365
"I shall never forget," continues Frau Wille, "how, before
he began to play, he explained to us the character of the Ninth
Symphony, and proved the necessity of the chorus and the Hymn
to Joy for the completion of the great tone-poem. ... I have
often since heard the Ninth Symphony, but this allegro vivace alia
marcia I have heard only once. . . . Wagner looked serious, dig-
nified, yet amiable. An old Zurich lady, our neighbor, usually
most sedate and hard to move, was electrified when subsequently
he played with great enthusiasm and in all its grandeur the chorus,
' Seid umschlungen, Millionen.' In the midst of it he stopped. ' I
cannot play the piano, you know,' he exclaimed. 'You do not
applaud. Now finish it yourselves ! ' "
About Christmas, 1852, Wagner read his Nibelung
Trilogy to his friends at Mariafeld, in three evenings.
Subsequently he read them, with Rheingold, to a larger
circle at the Hotel Bauer in Zurich. On the former occa-
sion, "I spoiled Wagner's humor," Frau Wille relates,
" by leaving the room on the last evening while he was still read-
ing. My little boy had fever and wanted me. When I appeared
the next morning, Wagner said that the boy was not dangerously
ill ; that it was a disagreeable criticism on an author, to leave in
that way ; and he called me 'Fricka.' That settled it ; I did not
protest against the name."
A MODERN PROMETHEUS
The charming glimpses of Wagner's life during the
first five or six years at Zurich thus given by Frau Wille,
and corroborated by the composer's own letters, show
that if he had been an ordinary man, such as nature
produces by the dozen {Duzend-Waare der Natm; as
Schoi)C'nhauer calls them), he Avould have had reason to
be contented and happy, liut he was neither contented
nor happy — excejjt when he was hard at work on his
366 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
Trilogy. There were indeed moments when he looked
at the world in a cheerful spirit. In one of these —
during a spell of unusually good health — he writes to
Uhlig : —
" I now take a childlike interest in things to which I had already
become indifferent — e.g. about our new house, which is certainly-
small, but cosy and quiet. With true childlike joy every day
I bring in something to make our exile-home more complete and
comfortable. So now I have had my ' complete works ' bound in
red : there are already five volumes ; the three opera poems will
make the sixth. These trifles exercise a beneficent and diverting
effect on my over-excited mind, just as a hip-bath soothes the head ;
and, like this, I intend those to form part of my regime. Besides,
my artistic plans are spreading out before me, and ever becoming
richer, more pleasurable, and more decided ; and it is with quite a
thrill of delight that I think of soon working them out." (Nov. 28,
1851.)
Similar moments of delight came to him when — as
rarely happened — he received news of a good and suc-
cessful performance of one of his operas, as for instance
at Breslau, in October, 1852 ; an event which gave rise to
this outpouring : —
" The postman has just interrupted me by bringing me a letter
from the Breslau Kapellmeister, about the extraordinary success of
the first performance of Tannhauser : the man writes quite beside
himself with joy and ecstasy, and I myself am so delighted with it,
that I cannot continue my letter to-day, because my peace has
been completely taken from me, and this time in such an agreeable
manner ! ' '
But these moments of rapture the reader of the three
volumes of Wagner's Correspondence will find quite
exceptional. Usually the wind blows from the opposite
quarter : —
A MODERN PROMETHEUS 367
"I lead here entirely a dream-life: if I awake, it is to suffer,"
he ^vrites to Liszt. " How foolish it is in you to still make efforts
to help me. . . . AVhat could help me? My nights are mostly
sleepless — weary and miserable I leave my bed to see a day before
me which is destined to bring me not one joy. Surroundings which
only torture me and from which I withdraw only to torture myself
in turn ! Whatever I touch I loathe. — This cannot continue thus !
I care no longer to live."
Again, on Jan. 15, 1854 : —
" Dear Franz ! None of the past years has gone by without
having at least once driven me to the very verge of suicide. . . .
I cannot live like a dog, cannot sleep on straw and drink fusel :
I must have some kind of sympathy, if my mind is to succeed in
the toilsome work of creating a new world."
Many pages might be filled with such bitter outpour-
ings into the hearts of Liszt and Uhlig. Wagner w^as
not a cold-blooded military hero, or a stolid, soulless
Philistine: he was a man of genius, an imaginative
artist whose nature and mission was the expression of
emotion. Ordinary people cannot conceive how intense
must be real and 23e7'sonal emotions to a genius who can
give such powerful expression to imagined woes as he
has done in his tragedies. His feelings, his moods, were
too vivid to be repressed: "I cry out when I feel pain,"
he exclaimed; and his moods and desires changed as
suddenly and as violently as those of a child. One
moment he rails at the idea of the "future," rails at
fame, and at all his ideals; the next moment he curses
the whole world because he hears that somewhere one of
liis operas has been performed without regard to those
ideals ! One day he avers that he is already completely
indifferent to praise and recognition; the next day he
368 WELDING THE NIBELUN&S RING
declares he can live no longer without some signs of
appreciation; and coddles himself with the thought that
women, at any rate, favor him. Let not Philistines
judge such a man from their own unemotional point of
view. Rather, let them read his Correspondence and
learn therefrom how they would feel and act under his
circumstances if they were men of genius.
To one of the most heart-rending effusions received
by him, Liszt replied: —
" Your letters are sad — and your life sadder still. You want to
go out into the wide world, live, enjoy, revel ! Ah ! how cordially
I wish you could ! but do you not feel, after all, that the thorn and
the wound which you have in your heart will leave you nowhere,
and can never be healed ? — Your greatness constitutes also your
misery — the two are inseparably united, and must ever annoy and
torture you."
Liszt here puts his finger on the wound : Wagner was
a modern Prometheus, whose vital organs were daily
gnawed at by critics and other Philistines because he had
had the audacity to steal from heaven the fire of genius
— a blaze which showed their own lights to be mere
tallow candles.
Wagner compares himself to his idol : —
" Strange that my fate should be like Beethoven's ! he could not
hear his music because he was deaf. ... I cannot hear mine be-
cause I am more than deaf, because I do not live in my time at all,
because I move among you as one who is dead, because the world
is full of — fellows ! . . . Oh that I should not arise from my bed
to-morrow, awake no more to this loathsome life ! "
The chief torture lay not in his exile, not in his inabil-
ity to return to Germany; it lay in the fact that, on
considering the real state of affairs, he could not tvish to
A MODERN PROMETHEUS 369
return to Germany: "I am glad that the royal Saxon
police makes it impossible for me to attend the perform-
ances of my operas, which, after all, would only annoy
me." "I am glad not to hear all the wretched perform-
ances of my operas in Germany, which would probably
only break my heart." This is the key to his unhappi-
ness in Zurich. He had composed three operas, with
a pen dipped into his heart-blood, and these were now
being mutilated by conductors, misinterpreted by singers,
misrepresented by critics, misunderstood by the public;
while he, the exiled father, had to witness from a dis-
tance this prostitution of his noble offspring — a Prome-
theus Bound, unable to help himself.
Let us look at the situation fairly and squarely. He
had composed the Flying Dutchman, Tannhiiuser, and
Lohengrin, and knew that they were three of the best
operas then in existence, while the world at large did
not know this. You might say therefore that the musi-
cal world was not to be blamed for not receiving these
operas as we now think they ought to have been received
— with open arms. True: we may absolve the public
from blame, but we cannot absolve the musicians and the
critics. It was their duty, on meeting with a new form
of operatic art, to study, learn, investigate, before they
misperformed and then condemned. But had they any
opportunity to learn, when the composer was an exile,
unable to come and teach them? Plenty of it. Wagner
had confidence in Liszt as in his alter ego; Liszt was
willing and glad to accede to his wishes that he should
superintend the performances of liis operas in Berlin and
Leipzig, in order to see that tliey were correctly inter-
preted and their success made possible: but the foolish
370 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
managers and jealous condvietoi-s refused to accept Ids ser-
vices, though offered free! The details of this extraor-
dinary proceeding may be found in the Wagner-Liszt
Correspondence, and they constitute one of the most
astounding chapters in the history of music.
More than that : they weened they knew better than
Wagner himself. At least, they and their singers took
no pains whatever to learn his intentions from his writ-
ings. Take, for instance, the TannMiuser Guide, to
which we referred in the chapter on that opera. That
essay was at first intended as a contribution to Brendel's
Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik. But after he had finished it
he concluded that it would accomplish its mission much
more thoroughly if it were published as a pamphlet.
Accordingly he had it so printed at his own expense,
poor as he was. Then he sent copies to the leading opera-
houses, and a large number also to Uhlig, with the
request to give one gratis with every copy of the score
that was sold. A few conductors, like Liszt at Weimar,
and Schindelmeisser at Wiesbaden, paid attention to it;
but these were exceptional cases. In Munich the six
copies provided by Wagner were found, many years later,
uncut, in the library of the opera-house ! In Leipzig the
result was still more peculiar. On Oct. 1, 1852, Wagner
wrote to Uhlig: "To-day I have received W.'s letter,
containing the announcement that after taking cognizance
of my guide to the performance of TannJiciuser, the Leip-
zig theatre was obliged to give up this opera, and that
the score was sent back to you."
Please note that this was Leipzig, only forty years ago
— Leipzig, which, as all the histories of music tell us,
had been raised by the efforts of Mendelssohn to the rank
A MODERN PROMETHEUS 371
of the musical centre of Germany ! Do you wonder that
Wagner was subsequently so anxious not to have Lohen-
grin produced in that city, when they wanted it there?
He refused permission at first, but finally yielded, because
he needed the honorarium for his bread and butter; but
Liszt's aid had been refused, and the result, as the reader
knows, was a failure as miserable as that of Tannhiiuser
had been in the same city a year before.
The fact is so extraordinary that it must be repeated,
in order to impress it on the memory — Lohengrin, forty
years ago, was at first considered *' impossible " at the
musical centre of Germany, then "tried" and "exe-
cuted" mercilessly! And Leipzig Avas far from being
alone in this matter : it marked the rule to which there
were few exceptions. The German theatres in general
considered Lohengrin almost impossible of performance.
To quote only one witness on this point — the most
reliable of all — Hartel, Wagner's publisher, wrote to
him " in great distress " (Letter to Uhlig, Nov. 10, 1852)
that " the director, etc., declared that my operas contained
insuperable difficulties, ''and from most of the theatres
(so W. said) the same complaints come in.' — Nice fellows
those!" Did Wagner, then, exaggerate in speaking to
Liszt of " the wretched state of artistic affairs " in Ger-
many? Or can we wonder that, instead of welcoming a
performance of Lohengrin at Dresden in the same year,
he protested against it ?
Protest against the production of his own opera? The
absurd man ! Should he not, in his poverty, have wel-
comed any and every performance, under any conditions?
Many will think so, and at that time everybody but Liszt
seemed to take that view. Wagner was of a different
372 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
mind. "How few men," he exclaims in one of his first
letters to Uhlig — " how few men like themselves better
than their stomachs!" He liked his own stomach very
much indeed; he was a born epicure, and no one ever
craved comfort and luxury more than he did : but not an
inch did this make him budge from what he considered
his duty to his ideals. He would have received the
same sum of money whether the opera was to be poorly
performed or well; yet he preferred no performance
at all to a poor one. It was not eccentricity, bvit the
nobility of his artistic character, that made him write
such sentences as these : " I will not allow Lohengrin to
be given at Leipzig, even if I provoke public scandal over
the matter. I am going to see if these people will be
able to avoid knowing who I am ! " " I have withdrawn
Lohengrin everywhere for this winter" (1852). Think
of an artist being compelled by his conscience to take
such measures against his own favorite work, five years
after its completion, — a work which on the other side he
was yearning with all his soul to send out into the world,
— and you will comprehend the melancholy moods and
mixed emotions expressed in his letters of this period.
And when, in the following year, he nevertheless yielded
to importunities and ceded his early operas to the
theatres, you will understand why those emotions became
still more mixed and painful.
" And this torture, trouble, and care for a life which I hate, which
I curse ! — and for this to make myself ridiculous in the eyes of my
visitors, — and to enjoy at the same time the ecstasy of having given
up the noblest work of my life to the foreknown bungling incompe-
tence of our theatre-rabble and to the derision of the Philistine ! "
He regrets bitterly having *' prostituted " Tannhdtiser
A MODERN PEOMETIIEUS 373
and Lohengrin by giving them up to " the devil, that is,
the theatres " : " Oh, how proud and free was I when I
still reserved these works for you alone at Weimar!
Now I am a slave and utterly helpless." But there is
still one hope and consolation — the Nibelnng's Ming.
That shall have a better fate, or perish! "If I die
without having produced that work, I leave it to you;
and if you die without having had opportunity to per-
form it in a worthy manner, you — will burn it : — let that
be agreed upon ! "
What annoyed him beyond measure was that — apart
from Liszt — most of his intimate friends, even, were
too obtuse and too philistine to comprehend his attitude
toward his own operas. It was bad enough to have his
publishers complain that he was too fussy.
" Hartel wrote to me (recently in answer to my offer of Iplii-
genia and the Faust overture for publication) in a most caterwaul-
ing and discouraged tone about my conduct, declaring that I made
it so difficult, and almost impossible, to all the theatres to give my
operas : that my treatment of Leipzig was too discouraging, my
demands for mise-en-scene too reckless, etc."
Wagner, of course, insisted on these conditions be-
cause he knew that only if the operas were correctly
performed, would a permanent success be possible. It
was more discouraging still to have even his bosom friend
Fischer consider the Tannhcmser Guide a rather foolish
thing on the whole, he being of the opinion that the way
for his operas should be made as smooth as possible.
On this ])oint Wagner expresses himself to Heine (De-
cember, 1852) in clear and forcible language : —
"The small attention which G[enast at Weimar] paid to all my
hints and directions, appears to have made your hair stand on end.
374 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S EING
And yet Papa Fischer blames me so much for my Guide to Tann-
hduser — he always imagines it to be my sole concern to see my
operas performed, and that it is therefore ' unwise ' to make so
many out-of-the-way demands ! I have indeed good ground for
shame to have been misunderstood on the most important points
even by you and him. I care absolittely nothing about my
things BEING GIVEN ; I am only anxious that they should be so
GIVEN as I intended ; he who will not and cannot do that, let him
leave them alone. That is my whole meaning — and has Fischer
not yet found that out ? O you hardened sinner ! Na, greet him
heartily."
It is not strange that, ever since the days of Plato,
Philistines have regarded men of genius as madmen.
Wagner surely was a madman ; for does he not confess
that after the Loliei\grin fiasco at Leipzig he was on the
point of risking his liberty by going to Germany to set
things right? And did he not brood over the wrongs
done to his operas, until they became the cause of a
persistent nightmare?
"For a long time," he writes to Fischer, "I have been con-
stantly dreaming that I was back in Dresden, but secretly hidden
in your house ; and just as secretly you brought me into the
theatre, and there I heard one of my operas, but all wrong and out
of time, so that I became wild, and wanted to shout out loud, from
which you, in great alarm, were trying to stop me."
THE "circus HULSEN"iN BERLIN
How wise he was in insisting on correct performances
of his works (as music-dra???as not as mere lyric operas),
is shown by the simple fact that when TannJiduser, in
1890-91, was put on the stage anew at Dresden, Berlin,
and Hamburg in exact accordance with his intentions,
the number of performances of that opera was raised
THE " CIRCUS HULSEN " IN BERLIN 376
from nine, thirteen, and six in the preceding season, to
eighteen, twenty -nine, and eighteen respectively; that
is, it was doubled in Dresden, more than doubled in Ber-
lin, and trebled in Hamburg, although in this last case
they did not even use the Paris version, with its scenic
splendors.
Yet it was at Berlin — which, in the season of 1890-91
led all Germany with eighty-one Wagner performances,
and which, in the same season, celebrated its three hun-
dredth performance of Tannhduser — that the most as-
tounding farce was enacted over this opera — a farce so
long drawn out that Tannhduser was not heard there till
more than ten years after its premib'e at Dresden, and
until after forty other cities had heard and applauded it.
The story of this farce is such an interesting chapter in
the history of musical Philistinism, and illustrates so
vividly what practical difficulties and what kind of man-
agers and conductors Wagner had to contend with all his
life, that it may here be told in some detail.'' Although
Tannhduser was first produced in Dresden in 1845, the
Berlin authorities do not appear to have ever seriously
meditated its performance till about seven years later.
In August, 1852, Wagner writes : —
"I do not yet know how matters stand with Berlin: I have
demanded a honorarium of 1000 tlialers, assigning good reasons for
my demand, and have given them clearly to understand that I will
not prostitute myself again for Berlin at such a cheap rate." (His
Rienzi and IlolUhulcr had been cruelly treated there.) " Probably
they will decline : I must risk it. If I accomplish anything, it can
bo only by terrorism."
1 The facts are gathered from about fifty of the letters that passed
between Wagner and his correspondents.
876 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
To Liszt he wrote about the same time, begging him,
if he could sacrifice the time, to go to Berlin and ensure
a correct performance by supervising the rehearsals.
Liszt replied that he approved of his " exceptionally high
terms," under the circumstances, and that he was quite
willing to go to Berlin, provided he received an invita-
tion from the Intendant to assist at the preparations.
But the Intendant, Botho von Hiilsen — mark his name ;
it will often recur in the remaining pages of this
biography — was more of a Tartar than Wagner and
Liszt knew when they began dealing with him. In the
first place, he put his foot down on the one thousand
thaler honorarium. The composer yielded, in part,
accepting, instead, a tantieme, or percentage, of the box
office receipts. By this arrangement, he consoled him-
self, he might "with luck, gain more than a thousand
thalers." In the second place, the great Botho von
Hiilsen was offended by the proposal that Liszt should
attend the rehearsals of the opera. He seemed to look
on this as a personal insult to his conductors.
By September the outlook had become discouraging.
It had been " discovered suddenly that Tannhliuser could
not be produced on any one of the royal birthdays."
The opera could not, according to Wagner's calculations,
be given before January, and as his niece Johanna was
to leave Berlin in February, he felt compelled to make
the condition that ten performances for that winter be
guaranteed him, "to avoid the risk of having this opera
also put aside after the third or fourth performance, like
the Dutchman and Bienzi, which had been declared fail-
ures for that very reason." If this guarantee were
refused, he was determined to take back the score. This
TEE '' CIRCUS HULSEN'' IN BERLIN 377
time, von Hiilsen was more tractable. Johanna was to
remain in Berlin longer, and Hiilsen assured him by
letter that he hoped to give the opera more than ten
times and would undertake to arrange for six perform-
ances in the first month. "In short," thought Wagner,
"the matter is in order." He even heard that they were
thinking in Berlin of soon following up this opera with
Lohengrin : " The Princess of Prussia has heard it again
lately (October 2d) at Weimar, and has probably made
things hot for Hiilsen.''
A few weeks later the tide had turned again, and the
composer poured out his sorrows into Liszt's heart in a
letter dated Nov. 9 : —
"Hiilsen has declined [to accept your services]. I enclose his
letter. He has no conception of what is in question here, and I
shall never be able to make him understand. This Hiilsen is per-
sonally an amiable man, but he has not the slightest knowledge of
the business over which he is called to preside : about Tminhduser
he treats with me as with Flotow about Martha. It is most disgust-
ing ! . . . From all the reports by Hiilsen and my brother I had
meanwhile seen clearly that these people are entirely without un-
derstanding of what is essential and important to me in this affair ;
tliat all their views are so hopelessly bounded by matters of rou-
tine, as to make nie fear that they would not at all comprehend my
wish to have you called to Berlin. I confess that for this reason I
went about it with some feelings of apprehension 1 At last I wrote
to Hiilsen himself, taking great pains to be as explanatory, thor-
ough, cordial, and persuasive as possible : I called his attention in
advance to the fact that the possible hostile feeling that might be
aroused in the (most insignificant) Berlin conductors, was null
and void compared with the favorable influence in my behalf which
you would exert in every direction ; in short, I wrote in sucli a
way that I considered an unfavorable reply quite Impossible. —
Now read the enclosed answer and convince yourself that I have
once more suffered my usual fate of crying out with my whole
80ul.' and striking against walls of leather."
378 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
Hiilsen had promised that after the Queen's birthday
(Nov. 13, 1852) Tannhduser should be forthwith put into
rehearsal. But he did not keep his promise. In the
following January Wagner heard from his niece at Berlin
that Flotow's Indra and Auber's Lac des Fees were to be
given before his opera. This was too much for his
irascible temper. He wrote to Berlin that he considered
such treatment in the light of an insult, and demanded
back his score.
Liszt approved of this movement, adding: "But
whether they will comply with your demand is a differ-
ent question. " Wagner replies promptly : " You fancied
they would not return the score I had demanded back
from Berlin : this time you erred ! The score was sent
back at once, and neither Hiilsen nor any one else wrote
me a word about it."
One thing was gained by this : all previous negotia-
tions and concessions were now annulled, and could be
renewed in a different form. Liszt, relying on his
diplomatic skill, advises his friend to put the matter
henceforth in his own hands, and Wagner wisely accepts
his suggestion: "Twice I have produced an opera of
mine in Berlin and on both occasions I was unfortunate ;
this time I should therefore prefer to leave the undertak-
ing entirely in your hands." This was written in
March. In the following month the question entered
into an entirely new phase. There was a project of
giving Tannhduser at a non-royal theatre in Berlin, —
Kroll's, — which both Wagner and Liszt approved of.
Another offer was to take the Leipzig company over to
give a performance at another subordinate Berlin theatre ;
this Liszt declined; and as for the project at Kroll's,
THE ''CIRCUS HiJLSEN'' IN BERLIN 379
that was frustrated by the sly machinations of Hiilsen,
who secured an order forbidding the performance oi
operas like Tannhduser at the smaller theatres! The
next step was an attempt to give Tannhduser at Kroll's
as an operatic concert (without scenery and action), in
Avhich form it would not have clashed with the new law;
but this scheme was wisely frustrated by Liszt; and
when still another project appeared, — a desire on the
part of the Konigsberg troupe to give the opera in Ber-
lin, — Wagner himself sent in his veto.
More than a year after the Tannhduser score had been
returned to its author without an answer, the courteous
Herr von Hiilsen endeavored to reopen negotiations by
writing a short note to Liszt, asking under what condi-
tions he would grant permission to produce Tannhdxiser
in the following winter. In his reply Liszt dwelt on the
facts that if Wagner imposed special conditions on Ber-
lin, it was because he attached special importance to a
successful performance in that city, and its consequences ;
that these conditions were solely made in order to insure
an effective performance, and therefore a popular success ;
that the author's pecuniary demands Avould not be exces-
sive ; and that he himself, though he would have to give
up a month of his time, would not ask for any compen-
sation. But Hiilsen did not approve of this letter. He
declared he was " unwilling to agree to any conditions
which would reflect on the dignity of the Institute and
its capability, or affect the authority of its Intendant " ;
adding, "I demand the composer's confidence in me and
the royal stage." To which Liszt replies with a final
eloquent effort to convince Hiilsen of the reasonableness
of Wagner's conditions : Surely he must know, as an
380 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
expert, how greatly the success of dramatic works
depended on the manner of their performance; must
know, for instance, how largely the popularity and
impressiveness of Spontini's and Meyerbeer's operas in
Berlin were due to the co-operation of their composers at
their production; to which Liszt adds his ultimatum that
if Hiilsen does not agree to his co-operation in Wagner's
place, matters must be left in statu quo.
And what did Hiilsen reply to this? Here is the con-
clusion of his letter : " That, after two vain attempts to
secure this work for the royal theatre, the management
can undertake no third, as long as I have the honor to
stand at its head, is self-evident. I regret this." But
it was not the last time; for in March, 1855, Wagner
informed Liszt that Hiilsen had applied to him again
through Fromman (for the last time, as he said!); he
promised him all imaginable things ; the opera was to be
given in the autumn. Tired of the whole business, and
feeling greatly in need of money (he was in London at
that time), he gave his consent — a proceeding which for
a moment piqued Liszt, in whose hands the whole matter
had been placed. But the great pianist adored his friend
too much to bear any resentment against him for this
slight business irregularity. On the contrary, in October
he took extra pains with a performance of Tannhduser
which was given at Weimar for the special edification of
the Berliners, — Intendant Hiilsen, Conductor Dorn,
Tenor Formes, tlie regisseur, etc. And when, on Jan. 7,
1856, Tannhduser was at last produced in Berlin, Liszt
sent this telegram : " Yesterday Tannhduser. Excellent
performance. Wonderful scenery. Decided popular suc-
cess. Good luck to you."
THE " CIECUS uilLSEN'' IN BERLIN 381
A letter followed, with details. The diplomatic Liszt
had succeeded where his brusque, free-spoken friend had
failed. It need hardly be said that the visit of the Ber-
liners to "Weimar had been a ruse arranged by Liszt for
dodging the difficulty of his giving any direct instruc-
tions to Conductor Doru — which would have offended
that dignitary's pride. Nay, the wily Liszt even suc-
ceeded in making the Berliners — Hiilsen and Dorn —
invite his co-operation at the preparations in their city,
— not at the orchestral rehearsals; that would have hurt
Dorn's feelings, — but at the preliminary piano-forte
rehearsals. Of course there could be no objection to that,
even on the part of the most conceited of conductors;
for was not Liszt the greatest pianist in the world,
and would not any opera-house be glad to accept his ser-
vices at the piano rehearsals of an opera, especially when
they were given free of charge? Dorn took great pains
with the orchestra, Johanna Wagner and Formes were
excellent, and so Liszt was able to write on the whole a
favorable criticism of the performance (Correspondence,
No. 209). There is reason to believe that the Princess
of Prussia had, as Wagner suspected, " made things hot
for Hiilsen " ; for the King himself had suddenly taken
such an interest in the matter that he had ordered the
scene of the second act to be a faithful copy of the
restoration plan of the Wartburg, and for this purpose
had specially sent Gropius to Eisenach. The result of
these measures was that Liszt could write that he had
"never and nowhere seen anything comparable to the
splendor of this scenic outfit."
Such, in brief, is tlie story of the ten years' struggle to
force one of the most beautiful and popular operas ever
382 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
written, on the Intendant of the Berlin opera-house.
And if this tale does not explain to the reader why-
Hans von Biilow once referred to that institution as the
"Circus Hulsen," the fact that the same Intendant
repeated exactly the same farce, equally prolonged, with
the Nibelung^s Ring, twenty years later, will make the
matter clear, apart from Billow's personal provocation.
Hiilsen's folly, moreover, was emphasized by the results.
He had refused $750 for all the rights to Tannhduser,
but this opera became at once so popular that he had to
pay the composer over $1300 in tantiemes the first year.
This we know from a letter^ addressed to Director J.
Hoffmann of the Josefstadter Theatre in Vienna, a short
extract from which will also show how recklessly
Wagner sometimes bartered away the copyright of his
works : —
" Ziirich, March 14, 1857. Dear Friend ! Let us cut the matter
short ! You pay me for every performance of Tannhduser §20,
sending me $400, or the receipts for the first twenty performances,
in advance. For the following thirty performances you will pay
me the tantiemes every quarter ; after the fiftieth all my claims
shall cease. My terms are based on my Berlin experiences ; there,
where the performance is not at all according to my desires, every
performance brings me an average of $60 or more. In course of
the first year there were twenty- two repetitions.'
n
Subsequently, however, Hulsen deliberately neglected
this opera, and the composer's income dwindled.
MONEY TROUBLES
Some of the most despondent pessimistic moods
recorded in Wagner's Correspondence were brought on
1 Manuscript, in Oesterlein's Wagner-Museum in Vienna.
MONEY TROUBLES 383
by the prolonged Berlin squabble, and his despair of
ever gaining foothold in the Prussian capital. The mat-
ter was a most serious one to him. When Tannhduser
made its tardy entrance in Berlin, he had already fin-
ished the composition of Rheingold and half of the Walk-
lire, — works of his third style, — and Berlin was still
a stranger to his second style ! Moreover, it would have
been a great boon to him if he could have had an income
in Berlin from his early operas, while he was composing
his Trilogy in Switzerland. There was hardly a day
when he was not harassed by petty money matters,
which took up a good part of the little energy which his
poor health usually left him for work. When his Cor-
respondence with Liszt appeared, most of the German
reviewers, with a malice equalled only by their obtuse-
ness, derided him for his "impudence" and "shameless-
ness " in constantly borrowing money and accepting
presents from Liszt and other friends. But the melan-
choly fact is that he had no choice whatever in the
matter: either he had to do what he did, or else give up
music altogether; which, for a man with his instincts,
was as impossible as for a fish to stop swimming.
His pecuniary embarrassments would have never
assumed quite so serious an aspect had not a few
indiscretions, at the beginning of his professional career,
plunged him up to the ears in debts, which weighed him
down for many years. These indiscretions were the
outcome of his belief in his genius and its financial
value — a belief which to-day we all share, but in which
he was unluckily too far ahead of the world. I refer to
the incidents related in the preceding pages of his bor-
rowing money to bring out his Novice of Palermo (an
38-1 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S EING
opera no worse than hundreds that have succeeded for a
time, and which failed only from a curious combination
of untoward circumstances) ; and more especially to his
rash act in assuming the publication of his own Rienzi,
Dutchvian, and Tannhduser, for which undertaking he
borrowed several thousand dollars. As his Rienzi had
been a sensational success in Dresden, and the other two
works far from financial failures, what could have been
more natural than the sanguine belief of the young com-
poser that his operas would soon enable him to repay the
borrowed sum, and enrich him besides? Publishers have
since made hundreds of thousands out of those operas ;
to the composer himself they were only a source of daily
mortification. We have seen, too, how unsuccessful he
was in all his efforts to make a living, even by the hum-
blest sort of drudgery, such as he offered to do during
his three years at Paris ; what wonder that he left debts
everywhere, and that when for the time he had some
humble employment, or a small salary, he almost always
had to ask for part of it in advance? He had an advance
of salary at Riga when he fled to Paris ; an advance at
Dresden when he had to leave that city ; when he left
Paris for Dresden, Sohlesinger had paid him in advance
for some arrangements he was to make of the scores of
Meyerbeer's Robert and Halevy's Reine de Chypre; and
Weimar, thanks to Liszt, paid him in advance for the
projected Young Siegfried to enable him to devote his
time to its composition.
He was anxious to pay off his debts, and for this
purpose he had put aside all the income from his scores.
But here, as in everything else, ill luck pursued him.
When his early operas began to make their way, a brisk
MONEY TROUBLES 385
demand soon sprang up for these scores, and if the busi-
ness had been properly managed, it would soon have
proved remunerative; but he himself, being an exile,
could not look after it, and all his appeals to the pub-
lisher Meser — and ultimately to the creditors themselves
to take the matter in their hands for their own benefit —
were futile. When one edition was exhausted, Meser
had made no preparations for a new one; when an
arrangement of Tannhduser for piano alone was in great
demand, none was provided; managers, singers, and
amateurs frequently had to write repeatedly, and wait
weeks, before they got an answer to their demands for
scores; and so things went on year after year, from bad
to worse, and in the meantime the creditors worried the
poor composer to death.
Besides having these debts, he was handicapped by
being called on to support not only himself and wife,
but his wife's parents. Sometimes it would take the last
penny in the house to make up the twenty or more thalers
which Minna sent to pay the expenses of her parents in
Dresden. Let the following, from a letter to Uhlig
(Oct. 1, 1852), be an illustration of the sorry plight to
which the household was often reduced. Money was
greatly needed, but a small sum was soon expected from
Leipzig, where Tannhduser was to be produced, when
the news came that the project of giving the opera had
been abandoned : —
" Whereupon my wife suddenly begins her lamentation, that to-
day was the first of October, and that she was disconsolate at not
being able to pay the rent for her parents ! That is indeed the
cruellest part of it ; 7 have momentarily no money at all, and if
Frankfurt does not send some soon, I shall be in a sorry plight.
386 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
Now you spoke to me lately of the savings bank of your children,
of a father-in-law who might help in a moment of need. Tell me,
could you expend ten thalers for me till November (when you will
again receive R.'s money for me) and give them in my ncme to my
mother-in-law ?"
Imagine the composer of Lohengrin having to rack his
brain with such far-fetched, positively ludicrous plans
to meet his self-assumed obligations! The author of
operas whose mere interpreters often receive a thousand
dollars for one evening^ s work! Who does not feel how
pathetically Wagner was right when he exclaimed in
reference to an offer to go to America, some years later :
"Great Heavens! such sums as I could earn (??) in
America people ought to give me for a present, without
asking anything else in return than w^hat I am now
doing, and which is the best I can do." And who does
not realize the gross injustice in the world's relative
treatment of creative men of genius and mere inter-
preters which is brought out by the following passage in
a letter from Liszt : " Dawison told me the other day that
his recent series of performances in Berlin paid for the
purchase of a villa near Dresden. — At this rate you
ought to be able to buy with your scores all Zurich,
besides the seven Churfursten and the lake ! " ^
Not only was he denied his liberty, and often the com-
1 The Vienna Neue Freie Presse of Oct. 28, 1892, contained the in-
formation that " the Vienna Court Opera alone pays the annual sum of
7000 to 8000 florins in tantiemes for Wagner's operas." Now the num-
ber of performances of these operas in Vienna is about fifty a year, and
almost a thousand in the cities of Germany and Austria. The receipts
in Berlin, Municli, Dresden, Hambur.i;, average at least as high as those
in Vienna. Allowing for operas on which copyright has expired and
for smaller receipts in smaller cities, the annual profits on Wagner's
operas (Bayreuth included) must amount to ful.'y $50,000. A thousand
MONEY TROUBLES 387
nion necessities of life, while lie was creating these
profitable works ; his detractors continued even after his
death to misrepresent his character and his actions. To
take one example out of many. In the preposterous
parody of Wagner's life perpetrated a few years ago by
Mr. Joseph Bennett (London Musical Times) we read in
regard to the period at which Ave have now arrived: " But
of practical work, like that by which Mozart, Beethoven,
and Schubert honestly earned their bread, there is not a
syllable, nor apparently a thought. To beg, AYagner was
not ashamed." A short recapitulation of facts will enable
the reader to judge INIr. Bennett's competence as a vera-
cious biographer. During his conductorship at Madge-
burg, Konigsberg, Riga, and Dresden, Wagner worked as
few Kapellmeisters ever work. In Paris, during his first
sojourn, he had tried almost everything but boot-black-
ing or street-sweeping to make his living; he had been
there again recently, trying to find an opening for work,
or performances that would help him. He had within a
few years written three immortal operas which to-day
support thousands of musicians, and which he had reason
to hope would support him. He had now in his mind
no fewer than^ve projects for new operas, one of which
he intended to work out for Paris immediately ; he had
commenced his Nibelung Trilogy, to which he was soon
to devote all his time; he tried to make a little money
dollars a week for the heirs, and ten times that amount for the opera-
houses and their employees, while the creator of all this wealth could
not even scrape up enough to permit him to compose without being
interrupted by the pettiest pecuniary cares. I may add here the signili-
cant fact tliat not one of the malicious reviewers of Wagner's Corre-
spondence, who dwelt so long on his obligations to Liszt, alluded to the
fact tliat he was, on his part, supporting Minna's parents. A curious
phenomenon, this hatred of genius by the Philistines !
388 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
with concerts and operatic performances in Zurich; he
wrote articles for periodicals, and essays, which he sent
from publisher to publisher, trying to get respectable
terms for them; was it Ids fault that he received only
$80 for an essay on which he had been hard at work for
four months {i.e. at the rate of five dollars a week)?
Could he be expected to accept the conductorship of the
Zurich Opera for ten dollars a week "at hard labor"?
Was he not right in exclaiming (Aug. 7, 1849): "Ali,
children, if you only gave me the income of a middling
mechanic, you would truly feel joy in the outcome of my
undisturbed work, which should belong to you all"?
Details regarding the efforts to support himself at this
period are given in the letters to Liszt (Nos. 20, 23, 25,
etc.) ; at the same time he confesses frankly that he is
good for nothing except composing operas. If he had
been less of an egotist, if he had thought of the greatest
good of the greatest number, he would of course have
given up music and become a farmer, a merchant, or a
hod-carrier. The world would then have lost its greatest
music-dramas ; but think how the Philistines would have
been pleased! and are not the Philistines in the majority?
Do not thousands of Philistines make their living by
writing essays and articles for periodicals, by the col-
umn, which Wagner considered "humiliating" in his
own case, even though he got five dollars a week for it?
What a contemptible character — to have done nothing
but write the Dxdcliman, Tannliduser, and Lohengrin, and
then to cry out like a child because he "cannot have
everything his own way" (as Mr. Bennett says); i.e.
because he cannot get money enough for his daily bread
while he is anxious to write more operas like them !
MONEY TROUBLES 389
The only source of income on which, he could count
during these years at Zurich was from the sale of the
performing rights of his operas to the German theatres
— usually a mere pittance.
The large cities, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Stiittgart,
where he might have asked larger sums, were, as we
have seen, the last to accept his operas. He knew the
reason for this very well: it was because those large
cities employed opera-composing conductors, who were not
pleased at the idea of encountering such a formidable
rival on their own premises, and who, Avhen at last com-
pelled by the popularity of these operas in smaller cities
to accept them, often did their best to kill them off by
means of wretched performances. Poor fellows ! They
found each of these operas a hydra-headed monster,
against whom all mutilations were unavailing.
"What princely sums he obtained for the performing
rights of his operas may be inferred from the fact that
Berlin was scandalized at the very thought of $750 for
Tannhiinser, and Munich would not listen to such a sum
as $500. Hamburg refused to pay $250, while Leipzig
found $140 "exorbitant"! Breslau paid about $80;
Wiirzburg gave $37 ; Cologne could not, for a time, raise
$50; and the smaller cities ranged from that sum down
to about $25 ! These payments, of course, were made but
once, and in many cases he found it so difficult to get
even this one payment that he finally had to invent a
scheme for compelling payment in advance by means
of a postal arrangement which he called a Ztvangspass.
Bremen tried to dodge all payment by bringing out one
of the operas without notifying liim at all. Moreover,
tlie operatic " gold-mine " was soon exhausted. In April,
390 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
1852, he writes: "The receipts I can count upon are
becoming fewer and fewer, — to judge by Leipzig, — and
I must deem myself lucky if during this whole year I
get something from Weimar for the Flying Dutchman.^'
And in February, 1853, after Berlin had returned his
score : —
"Kassel, too, has now demanded the score of Tannhduser :
that, I think, ends the matter, and I count on no further theatre.
So that I now can overlook my profits from this glorious business :
most meagre it is, and I must thank God that the family R. con-
tinues to assist me, else I would — after procuring a few very
necessary supplies for the house and for personal wear — again be
reduced to absolute destitution — thanks to the noble assistance of
glorious Germany."
FRIENDS IN NEED
The friend he referred to as R. was Frau Julie Ritter
in Dresden, who supplied him every year with a small but
regular sum, till the end of 1856, when he dispensed with
it. Had it not been for the generosity of this woman
and of Franz Liszt, it is quite probable that destitution
would have driven him to suicide, which frequently
suggested itself to him : at any rate, he would not have
been able to write the poem and music of the Nibelung^s
Ring ; perhaps he would have followed the plan, which
repeatedly suggested itself to him, of going to America
to make his fortune. Whether he would have succeeded
is doubtful ; he certainly did not succeed when he tried,
in 1855 and 1860, to make his way in London and Paris.
His day had not yet come.
When the contribution from Frau Ritter was ex-
hausted, and nothing else in sight, he appealed to the
FRIENDS IN NEED 391
large-hearted Liszt, and hardly ever in vain. Unfortu-
nately Liszt had at this time given up his remunerative
career as pianist, which had yielded him thousands in
one evening, and commenced writing compositions for
orchestra, which not only brought him no profit, but
actually entailed on him the expense of printing them for
the benefit of a world which did not want them. He had
accepted the post of conductor at the Weimar Opera,
with an annual salary of less than $1000, and was called
upon to support his tliree children and his mother. Yet
he usually managed to find something to help out his
needy friend, either in his own pocket, or by appeal-
ing to some one in Weimar, Vienna, or elsewhere. A
few concerts, one might think, would have helped radi-
cally; but Liszt was unwilling to play any more, appar-
ently for social reasons connected with his relations
to the Weimar Court and his intended marriage. *' The
concert-career," he writes, "has been closed for me more
than two years, and I cannot incautiously enter it again
without seriously prejudicing my present position, and
especially my future."
Like Eubinstein and other great virtuosi, Liszt threw
his money out of the window with both hands while he
had plenty of it. During his first triumphal tour through
Europe, his mother sent her friend Belloni especially to
Paris to see that he did not squander all his earnings.
He was the most prodigal of the prodigal race of artists,
and at the same time the most generous. One of liis
historic achievements was his doing the lion's share in
earning a sum sufficient to support the deaf and hel[)-
less song-comjioser, Kobert Franz, through life; another,
the building of the Beethoven Monument at Bonn; and
392 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
everybody knows how lie devoted several hours almost
daily during the last thirty years of his life to teaching
pupils, talented and untalented, without ever asking a
penny in payment. Yet when the Wagner-Liszt Corre-
spondence appeared, the Philistines raised a tremendous
outcry over the revelation that Wagner, when he had no
other resource open to him, asked Liszt, a dozen times or
so, to send him money. ^
As a matter of fact, it was the bitterest grief of Liszt's
life that he could not send his friend v^ore than he did,
and the deepest joy of his existence that Wagner had
chosen him as his bosom friend and protector.
" It is the task of my life to prove worthy of your friendship,"
he exclaims in one letter; and in another: "I have declared our
maxim to be : that our iirst and principal duty at Weimar is to
give Wagner's operas selon le ban plaisir de Vauteur.'''' Again:
" My sympathy for you, and my admiration of your divine genius,
are truly too serious and too sincere to allow me ever to take
offence at any opinion you may express." " On reading your last
letter I wept bitter tears over your tortures and wounds." "Of
the close of the Preface to the three opera poems I do not speak.
1 There is nothing in the history of German journalism more revolt-
ing than the tone of many of the criticisms that were written on the
appearance of tlie Wagner-Liszt Correspondence. The same nation that
had ignored its Bach, that had kept its Schubert in such poverty that
his brother had to pay for his funeral, that had buried its Mozart with
half-a-dozen other paupers, in one grave, without even marking it, —
this same nation sat and quietly endured the spectacle of journalistic
harpies defiling the memory of Richard Wagner with their scurrilous
comments. Will the decent Germans ever rise in revolt at this inde-
cent treatment of their men of genius ? I fear not. To realize how
incredibly brutal German Philistinism is, we should recall the fact that
when the government had voted a pension to the poor deaf Robert
Franz for his masterly edition of Bach and Handel, a clique was formed
against him, which succeeded in getting the pension revoked ! Fortu-
nately, the two Hunf/arians, Liszt and Joachim, provided him with the
means for keeping the wolf from the door.
FRIENDS IN NEED 393
It touched me in my heart of hearts, and I wept a manly tear over
it." "I cannot say anything else to you than that I am constantly
thinking of you, and that I love you with my inmost heart."
^Vlaen affairs at Weimar began to take an nnfavorable
turn for Liszt, owing to petty and vulgar intrigues, lie
wrote that only his interest in Wagner kept him there;
in short, he looked on the promotion of Wagner's cause
as the chief mission of his life, to which he subordinated
even his own creative activity. " How good, how wise,
how tender, and patient he is, I know," says the Princess
von Wittgenstein in one of the cordial letters to Wagner
which are printed with those of her friend Liszt. Dr.
Hanslick says of Wagner's letters: —
"There is something positively unmanly, indecorous, in the
voluptuous eagerness with which Wagner nurses his own dejection
and despair ; still more in the way in which he thrusts every
despondent mood, every momentary gi'ief, with a thousand thorns
into his friend's heart."
This is the Philistine view of the matter. What the
genius, Liszt, thought of it, has been shown in the cita-
tions just made, and is summed up by the Princess in
these words to Wagner : " Your letters afford us such a
joy as gold pieces would bring to sufferers accustomed
only to blows or to common copper coin. We implore
you to bestow this alms on us often, since it does not
impoverish you."
We may go a step farther and assert that Liszt's let-
ters in this Correspondence are less interesting than his
friend's, chiefly for the very reason that he is less
egotistic, and but rarely pours out his griefs and joys
into the other's heart. Egotism, in common mortals a
394 WELDING THE NIBELUNCVS RING
vice, is ill the works and letters of luen of genius tlie
supreme virtue. Psychology is enriched by every scrap
of ejiistolary information imparted by genius in moments
of confidence or excitement. Wagner repeatedly implored
Liszt to be less reserved in his personal coimuunications,
but Liszt seemed to prefer to make his letters little more
than echoes — answers to his questions and commissions,
encouragement to work, advice to be diplomatic, to avoid
politics, to be courteous to Philistines, etc. ; and it is only
in the later period that he has also some interesting com-
munications regarding his own compositions. But in
one respect Liszt's letters are unique and marvellous:
they are a monument to his kindness of heart and self-
obliteration in the interest of a friend, such as no other
artist has ever reared for himself.
Next to Liszt, Uhlig was the most useful and devoted
friend of the exiled composer. We saw in a preceding
chapter how this gifted musician had been converted
from a scoffer into a friend, and had even given up his
own career as composer in order to place himself com-
pletely at the service of a man who could write such an
opera as Tamilmuser and interpret a Beethoven sym-
phony as he did. Uhlig was the first journalistic cham-
pion of Wagner, the first Wagnerite. He wrote articles
for the Neue Zeitsclirift fur Musik and other papers, of a
decidedly radical and fearless nature, as may be inferred
from his statement that he considered Liszt's Prome-
theus to be worth more than all Mendelssohn! Wag-
ner frequently suggests a topic to him; advises him on
one occasion to drop polemics, on another to treat the
enemy only from a humorous point of view. To him
he sent advance copies or the manuscript of his essays,
FRIENDS ly NEED 395
with a view to a discussion of their contents in the press.
Uhlig not only attended to all this with the zeal of a
convert and enthusiast, but he became Wagner's general
commissioner or agent, tending to the sale of scores, to
negotiations with theatres (so far as Liszt did not look
after that), paying obligations due, raising loans, making
alterations, copying, etc. He also made the excellent
pianoforte score of Lohengrin. Of course, for some of
these services, Uhlig, who was as poor as a church-
mouse, was paid ; but no money could have paid for his
patient work in behalf of his exiled friend. Wagner is
constantly apologizing in his letters for his incessant
calls on Uhlig's good nature; but Uhlig was not only
glad but proud of his position, which he insisted on
retaining even when his last illness had brought him to
death's door. Wagner was persistently urging him to
leave Dresden and come and live with him in Switzer-
land to restore his health. Once Uhlig did scrape up
enough money to visit Zurich; but sliortly after his
return he began to succumb gradually to lung disease.
The last letters to him are full of tender solicitude and
hygienic advice; Wagner wants him to come and share
his home; but on Jan. 3, 1853, he died, and the loss to
the world was as great as Wagner's personal loss ; for had
Uhlig lived ten years longer, we should doubtless have
another volume of letters, full of valuable details regard-
ing the most interesting period in Wagner's life — the..
later years of liis exile, during which lie wrote his great-
est works — most of the Nibelung's Rivg besides Tristan
and Isolde. Uhlig has had his reward for his sacrifice
and devoted friendship. As a composer, he would have
sunk into oblivion lung ago; as Wagner's first i)ress
396 WELDING THE NIBELVNG'S EING
champion and principal correspondent (after Liszt), his
name will live forever in musical literature.
After Uhlig's death Fischer became chief commis-
sioner, till he too died, in 1859, at the ripe age of sixty-
nine, while Uhlig was, like Schubert, carried away at
thirty-one. The personal relations between Wagner and
Fischer were as cordial as those with his other friends ;
but the old chorus-master was something of a Philistine
who did not understand the great reformer's ideas fully,
nor know how to make allowance for his eccentricities
and moods, as Liszt and Uhlig did. Hence Fischer was
constantly taking offence at something or other that
Wagner said or did, — always ready, however, to for-
give, to listen to his explanatory and apologetic pleas.
It must be admitted that there are passages in Wagner's
letters to most of his friends which it must have taxed
their good nature to overlook. He knew this himself
better than any one; and on one occasion he wrote to
Uhlig: —
"Truly, in our intercourse, if one of us two need to make an
apology, it is I once and always. Pay no attention if, now and
then, something in my letters vexes you. Unfortunately, I am
often in such bitter humor, that it almost affords me a cruel relief
to offend some one ; ^ this is a calamity which only makes me
the more deserving of pity."
HYGIENE AND GASTRONOlVrZ
Surely the disappointments and annoyances, domestic
and artistic, pecuniary and operatic, to which Wagner
1 The amiable Schumann, in one of his private letters, uses almost
the same words that I have here italicized, in describing one of his own
occasional moods. George Sand generalizes this trait in the remark
that men of genius " are worse to their friends than to their enemies."
HYGIENE AND GASTRONOMY 397
was subjected almost daily, are sufficient to account for
all the moods discharged in his letters, even those in
which his best friends had to serve as lightning rods.
But there were other clouds to darken his life and occa-
sion electric discharges of temper: the darkest of these
was his ill health, which, as Liszt once suggested to him,
was really the source of much of his misery and pessi-
mism. "Wagner, in fact, is one more name added to the
long list of men of genius who lived to a good old age
and accomplished an enormous amount of Avork although
they seldom enjoyed perfect health. We have seen that
in his infancy he had a mild attack of the typhoid fever
which ravaged Leipzig after the great and decisive battle
with the French: this attack may have weakened his
system permanently.
He was delicate throughout his childhood, and erysip-
elas, a disease which harassed him all his life, made its
appearance during his schooldays. "Every change in
the weather was a trouble to him," says Praeger: —
"As regards the loss of his eyebrows, an affliction which ever
caused him some regret, Wagner attributed it to a violent attack
of St. Anthony's fire, as this painful malady is also called. An
attack would be preceded by depression of spirits and irritability
of temper. Conscious of his growing peevishness, he sought refuge
in .solitude. As soon as the attack was subdued, his bright animal
spirits returned, and none would recognize in the daring little
fellow the previovus taciturn misanthrope. ' '
The annoyance and torture caused by this disease in
later years was sometimes almost past bearing. For
instance, in the winter of 1855-6 he had no fewer than
twelve relapses. "I had foreseen tliis last attack," he
writes to Liszt,
398 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
"and had therefore been subjected to constant anxiety and tor-
ture during Tichatsclieli's twelve-day visit ; this abominable dis-
ease has degraded me deeply : in May alone I had three relapses,
and even now hardly an hour passes by in which I do not dread a
new eruption. Hence I am not fit for any work, and it is evident
that I must seek a radical cure. This calls for a painfully con-
scientious regulation of my diet and habits of life ; the slightest
irregularity in stomach or bowels immediately affects my malady.
Absolute quiet is called for, avoidance of all excitement, all annoy-
ances, etc., further Karlsbad water, certain warm baths, later cold
ones, etc."
What made this pertinacious disease especially unbear-
able to him was the fact that exposure to the air often
brought on a new attack. He was thus compelled to
spend weeks at a time indoors, and this, to a man so
devoted to fresh air and out-door exercise, was torture
indescribable.
Dyspepsia, insomnia, and rheumatic heart-trouble took
turns with erysipelas in lowering his vitality. Both
the insomnia and the heart -trouble were probably mere
sequels of the dyspeptic trouble, which was partly a
result of his starvation period in Paris, while partly he
was himself to blame. Like so many brain- workers, he
maltreated his stomach. He ate too fast, thus making
the stomach do work that should have devolved on the
teeth. Whenever he was in condition to write he worked
too hard, too persistently, and neglected the precaution
of leaving off some time before a meal. He probably did
not know that this is a frequent cause of dyspepsia
among authors; but in a general way he knew that
he was misbehaving, physiologically speaking; for in a
letter to Frau Eitter ^ he says : —
1 Langhans's Geschichte der Musik, p. 492.
HYGIENE AND GASTRONOMY 399
" In composing, I usually work excessively, and also provoke the
just indignation of my wife by being late at meals : so that I
always begin the second half of the day in a most amiable mood."
In a letter to F. Heine he thus sums up the whole matter : " As to
my gloomy days, I can the rather keep silence, as they mostly come
from overwork and nervous exhaustion ; for then I certainly look
with an eye of despair on the wretchedness of the present order of
things."
Liszt — who had an excellent digestion — he apostro-
phizes thus : " Provide yourselves, O ye unfortunate men,
with good digestions, and suddenly life will present an
entirely different aspect from what you, with your gastric
trouble, have been able to see ! " And he proceeds, with
humorous exaggeration, to trace all the evils of politics,
diplomacy, vanity, and science to — disordered abdomens.
Ill health devoured a great deal of valuable time and
energy that otherwise might have been converted into
immortal works of art. Sometimes he could only work
two or three hours a day (in place of his former five or
six), a few hours of sleep being necessary after this exer-
tion, in order to rest his brain. In September, 1852, he
found that even one short hour was all the work he could
endure. Theoretical writing was especially fatiguing to
him, and after such exertion, " a sharp knife often cuts
into my cerebral nerves," he says. So carefully did he
have to husband his strength that he rarely permitted
himself to write — even letters — in the afternoon or
evening. Matters were aggravated whenever that pecu-
liarly disagreeable and depressing warm wind known as
the Fohn blew, as it often does in Switzerland for weeks
at a time. Indeed, Wagner was, like most men of gen-
ius,^ peculiarly susceptible to climatic and atmospheric
1 See Lombroso's The Man of Genius.
400 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
influences. Winter was his abomination, and he usually
postponed the beginning of a new composition till spring
or summer.
The suicidal thoughts which he says visited him fre-
quently were no doubt inspired by a combination of
these physiological disturbances with some depressing
news relating to his operas. In his sober moments
nothing was farther from his thoughts than the notion
of ending his life voluntarily. When not urged into
imprudent excess by the demon of unrest and the deli-
cious craving for creative work, he formulated a set of
hygienic rules which he carefully followed. Unfortu-
nately he had no good medical advice, but tried to diag-
nose his own malady by reading books. This led him
repeatedly to submit to hydropathic treatment; and most
heroically did he carry out for weeks at a time such an
exacting regimen as this : —
"This is how I spend my day: 1. Early, at half- past five,
wrapping up in a wet sheet till seven o'clock ; then cold tub and
a walk. Eight o'clock, breakfast : dry bread and milk, or water.
2. Again a short walk ; then a cold compress. 3. About twelve
o'clock, rubbing down with damp towels ; a short walk ; another
compress. Then dinner in my room, to avoid indigestion. An
hour's idleness ; a stiff walk of two hours — alone. 4. About five
o'clock; rubbing down with a wet cloth, and a short walk. 5. About
six o'clock a hip-bath, lasting a quarter of an hour, followed by
a walk to promote circulation ; another compress ; supper about
seven o'clock ; dry bread and water. 6. Then a w^hist party until
nine, after which another compress, and then about ten o'clock
to bed. I bear this regime very well now ; perhaps I shall still
increase it."
He soon found that this treatment was altogether too
much of a good thing for him, and concluded that — since
HYGIENE AND GASTRONOMY 401
he could not afford to go to Paris and put himself iu
charge of a specialist — careful and long-continued diet-
ing was his best remedy. In July, 1853, he went to St.
Moritz in the Engadine to see what the hot springs
there, noted as a remedy for dyspepsia, would do for
him, combined with an altitude of six thousand feet.
The surroundings were grand, but he felt lonely and
deserted; glacier expeditions did not, in his then physi-
cal condition, agree with him, and the weather was
unfavorable, so that he longed to leave, and seek sunny
Italy. " Whether this cure has done me any good, the
sequel must show, " he writes : " on the whole I have no
desire to repeat it; I am too restless to give up all
activity for so long a time; in short, I am not a man for
'cures' — I can see that now." He was right; had he
better understood the art of loafing (mentally), his health
would have suffered less, and he would have found it
easier to follow Liszt's advice that he should ignore the
critics, drink a bottle of good wine, and work his way
up to life immortal.
It is almost pathetic to note his childish joy on the
occasional days Avhen he felt perfectly well. " My light-
ness of head and general state of bodily well-being open
up to me a new world," he exclaims on one occasion;
and on another : —
" For the last three days my bodily health has so improved, that
I often feel in the highest spirits : it is the light healthy blood which
is now filling my veins. Besides, fine weather has set in with the
new moon. I often feel at times like these as if I were gently and
pleasantly intoxicated. Oh ! what is all wine intoxication com-
pared with this feeling of most joyful ease, which often has no
moral foundation 1 "
402 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
It was one of the maxims of these water-cures that all
stimulants — tea, coffee, wine, tobacco, etc. — must be
given up. For a while he submitted to this patiently,
drinking only water and milk. Before long, however,
he found that milk did not agree with him, as it pro-
duced acidity of stomach, whereupon he launchetl out
into a terrific tirade against the lacteal fluid, declaring
that warm milk is the proper nourishment of infants, but
that no animal drinks cold milk, and that to put such
milk into the stomach of an adult — especially one whose
nerves are in a state of constant activity — simul-
taneously with meat, is an absurdity. Then he gives
this gastronomic formula, which is an excellent one for
brain-workers : —
"The right thing for us is — enjoy everything, but within the
bounds of moderation, as taught by self-observation and experience.
As coffee (generally) is hurtful to my nerves, I take roast meat —
preferably game — early in the day, with a draught or two of good
wine. Your oat meal gruel does not please me: so take game —
hare ! Game, while providing a maximum of nourishment, requires
a minimum of digestive power; and it is imperative for you to
gain strength through nourishment."
As regards the use of wine, he expresses strong disap-
proval of those who are unable to be social without half
intoxicating themselves. One time he relates how he
has resorted to English cookery, — vegetables boiled in
water, and meat roasted on a spit, which his wife had to
procure specially, — and then he continues : —
"Last Monday, in honor of our wedding anniversary, my Swiss
confederates spent the evening at my house. They boozed, as is
their wont ; and my disgust at this hard drinking, without which
these unfortunate fellows have not a spark of mirth or wit, com-
HYGIENE AND GASTRONOMY 403
pletely convinced me of my real cure. I can no longer conceive
that anything could happen, or that I could fall into any misfortune,
which would make me again have recourse to wine, beer, etc. So
I revel in an enjoyment of health of which — as I now consciously
feel it — I had no conception."
Tliis was iu 1851, but his good health did not last, as
we have seen; neither did his resolution to abjure vv'ine;
and later on he returned to a sensible maxim expressed
on an earlier occasion, that " although it is through water
that we become healthy, we are not really healthy until
we are also able to drink wine in moderation."
Kor could he prevail upon himself to give up the dis-
agreeable habit of taking snuff, to which he was a real
slave. In August, 1853, various things had happened to
inspire him with a tcedium vitce and suicidal thoughts :
" To heal my diseased cerebral nerves, my physician has
persuaded me to give up snuff once for all : I have now-
abstained for six days, and what that implies, none but
as passionate a snuff-taker as myself can imagine. I see
now that snuff was really the only pleasure which I had
'on and off ' : now- I have to let that go too. My present
sufferings are indescribable, but I shall persevere, that's
certain. Therefore — no more snuff-boxes: hereafter 1
shall only accept orders." The playful turn with which
this lamento is closed is almost as characteristic a trait
of Wagner as of Heine.
A few years later we find him again more devoted to
snuff than ever. Praeger describes a scene in London
(1855) when Wagner sat at the piano, playing from bis
own scores and Weber's, when he
"abruptly stopped singing, on finding his snuff-box empty, and
got into a childish, petty fit of anger. He turned to us in deepest
404 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
concern with ' Kein Schnupftabak mehr, also Kein Gesang mehr'
(no more snuff, so no more songs) ; and though we had reached
the small houi's of early morn, would have some one sent in search
of this necessary adjunct."
Praeger says that Wagner did not really care for snuff,
but this, as a preceding quotation shows, is absurd. It
may be, however, that he " allowed the indelicacy of the
habit " and knew that it aggravated his dyspepsia. He
was, in a word, a slave to snuff. For smoking he cared
less.
LOVE OF NATURE AND TRAVEL
Keaders of musical biographies are aware that most of
the great composers were passionate lovers of Nature —
of the beautiful scenes and the inspiring solitude it offers,
far away from the haunts of men. Beethoven confessed
that he often preferred the company of a tree to that of
a man ; many of his best musical ideas came to him on
his daily walks, listening to the sounds of Nature, or to
the strains evoked spontaneously in his brain. Mozart
composed (mentally) always and everywhere, in a stage-
coach as easily as in his workroom; but his favorite
abode was an open garden-house : here, he said, he could
compose more in a day than in a closed room in several
days. Weber, like these masters, composed preferably
on his solitary walks, and so did Wagner.^
There were some exceptions to this rule, among whom
Berlioz may be named, who confessed that he could not
" sketch the moon except in looking at its image reflected
in a well." To Wagner, he wrote, in 1855: "So you are
about to melt the glaciers by composing your Nibelungen !
1 Details on these habits of the great composers are collected in my
Chopin, and Other Mvsical Essays ("How Composers Work")-
LOVE OF NATURE AND TRAVEL 405
. . . That must be superb, to write thus in presence of
a grand nature ! "
So Wagner thought, and his great and constant desire
while in Switzerland was to have a house of his own
overlooking a lake, with the mountains beyond. This
desire was not an outcome of mere love of luxury and
elegance, but an instinctive craving for the scenic splen-
dors and cool breezes which stimulate artistic creation.
Not that he did not also have, like most artists, a great
craving for luxury: he was, in fact, inclined to epicurism,
even sybaritism, and the greatest marvel about him is
that, with such a disposition, he should have chosen, in
devotion to his art-ideal, a life of debt and privation,
when he might have revelled in wealth and luxury if he
liad only been willing to write more operas d. la Meyer-
beer, like Rienzi. He speaks, in one of his letters to
Liszt of the Verschwendungsteufel, or demon of extrava-
gance, which took possession of him in furnishing a house
beyond his means. In another, dated Nov. 16, 1853,
he explains that the uncertainty of his operatic income
and the sanguine habit of hoping for more than he actually
gets leads him to spend more than he has ; and he con-
fesses his " doubtless censurable habit of leading a some-
what more comfortable life than in the last few years."
liut these extravagances were confined to very narrow
limits by the smallness of his income; and the only
times when they reached a more considerable sum were on
the occasions when he indulged his passion for travel, to
see the natural beauties of Switzerland and Italy. Surely
it would be most uncharitable to chide the poor, ill, hard-
working composer, whose every fibre craved rest and
recreation, for indulging his taste for domestic comfort
406 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
and once in a while tliat for travel, even if he had to do
so at the expense of the willing Liszt.
" Oh if I only conld for once make a pleasant journey
this Slimmer!" he exclaims in April, 1852: "If I only
knew how to go about it. . . . This yearning for travel
is so intense in me that it has already inspired me Avith
the thought of a burglarious and murderous attack on
Eothschild & Co."^ On another occasion, two months
before his fortieth birthday, when all his schemes seemed
to fail, and he was tormented by sleepless nights, he
wrote that he must have a change in his life :
"I shall try to get money, m every conceivable way: I shall
borrow and — steal — if necessary, in order to get the means to
travel. The more beautiful part of Italy is closed to me (as long
as I am not amnestied) ; hence I shall go to Spain, to Andalusia,
shall seek companions — and try once more to live, as well as
I may. I should like to make a trip around the world ! If I fail
to get money — or — a this trip also fails to put fresh breath into
my life — then — there is an end, and sooner will 1 commit suicide
than continue to live in this way."
From his home in Zurich he made frequent short
excursions into the Alps and among the glaciers; the
brief descrijitions of these trips he gives to his friends
show that mountains were as much a passion to him as to
Byron. In July, 1852, Liszt had sent him |80 as hono-
rarium for the Dutchman at Weimar : " This I am now
spending in travelling. Every day costs me a number
of the oj^era."
^ This sentence and the following one, strange to say, have escaped
the attention of Mr. Joseph Bennett, who might have easily proved from
these self-confessions that Wagner was a potential thief and murderer,
who only needed an opportunity to carry out the black designs of his
villanous soul.
LOVE OF NATURE AND TRAVEL 407
"I have now been travelling for six days: I can count each
day by my treasury, for each one costs me regularly a twenty-franc
piece. It is splendid here, and in thought I have travelled much
with you. Yesterday I descended from the Faulhorn (8261 feet).
There I had a grand and awe-inspiring view of the mountain, ice,
snow, and glacier-world of the Bernese Oberland, which lies
straight before one, as though one could touch it with one's hands."
He adds that he walks well and is sound on his legs ;
but his brain is too excited, and he never has true rest,
but only lassitude. Yet
"no cure in the world is of any avail where only one thing
would help — viz. , if I were different from what I am. The real
cause of my sorrow lies in my exceptional position towards the
world and towards my surroundings, which can no longer give
me any joy; everything for me is martyrdom and pain — and
insufficiency."
A touch of Schopenhauer follows this diagnosis of his
discontent : —
"Again, on this journey, amidst wonderful nature, have the
human rabble annoyed me : I must continually draw back from
them in disgust, and yet — I so long after human beings; — but
this pack of lubbers ! Fie upon them ! There are magnificent
women here in the Oberland, but only so to the eye ; they are all
tainted with rabid vulgarity."
One more short passage may here be quoted by way of
illustrating Wagner's literary art whenever he is not
hampered by motapliysical stilts: an account of a two
days' trip over the Gries glacier from Wallis, through
the Formazza valley, to Domodossola : —
"The Gries is a magnificently wild glacier pass, a very danger-
ous one, and traversed at rare intervals by people from the Hash
Valley or Wallis, who bring southern goods (rice, etc.) from the
Italian valleys. For the first time on my journey there was mist
408 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
on the glacier heights (over 8000 feet), so that my guide had diffi-
culty in finding a path over the cold walls of snow and rock. But
the descent ! leading down gradually from the most gruesome ice-
regions, through many a sloping valley, through all the ranges of
vegetation of northern Europe, into the rank luxuriance of Italy !
I was quite intoxicated, and laughed like a child, as I passed out
of chestnut groves through meadows and even cornfields, com-
pletely covered with vine trellises (for that is how the vine is
generally cultivated in Italy), so that I often wandered under a
covering of vine similar to our verandas, only extended over
whole acres, on which, again, everything grows that the soil can
produce. And then the ever-enchanting variety in the forms of
mountains and valleys, with the most delightful cultivation, charm-
ing stone houses, and — all through the valley — a fine race of men.
Well, I cannot describe it all, but I promise you to go again over
the Gries glacier with you. ... In the evening I drove in a
retour-coach from Domodossola to Baveno on Lago Maggiore : this
trip was the crowning glory ; I was in an ecstatic frame of mind
when at last I passed from wild grandeur to picturesque loveliness. ' '
At this place he sent for his wife, and with her con-
tinued his journey to Chamonix and Geneva. He had,
for years, wished to see Italy, with the longing of a
Goethe — especially Naples, which for political reasons
was inaccessible to him as long as he was an outlaw.
"If I lived in Naples or Andalusia, or on one of the
Antilles," he wrote to Liszt, "I would write much more
poetry and music than in our gray nebulous climate,
which always disposes us only to abstract speculation."
This, of course, was a winter mood; in spring and sum-
mer he knew full well that the Swiss climate is an
unequalled brain-tonic and thought-stimulator, and I am
convinced that if Fate-had~ordered him to live elsewhere
than among the bracing Swiss breezes, there would be
less vigor, originality, and freshness in his Nibelung,
Tristan, and Meistersinger scores. " ^
COMPOSITION OF EHEINGOLB 409
COMPOSITION OF RHEINGOLD
In September, 1853, he made another much less pleas-
ant trip to Xorthern Italy, the account of which he
summed up to Liszt in half-a-dozen lines : —
"In Geneva I became ill, felt with alarm my solitariness,
endeavored, however, to force the Italian trip and went to Spezia ;
the indisposition increased ; enjoyment was out of the question :
so I returned (to Ziirich) — to die or — to compose — one or the
other : nothing else was left for me to do. There you have my
whole travel story — my ' Italian Trip. ' ' '
In a public letter to the Italian composer, Arrigo Boito,
"written in 1871, when Lohengrin was being produced in
Bologna, he again refers to this trip and its connection
with Rheingold.
" Be it a demon or a genius that oft rules us in decisive moments
— enough: one night, when I was lying sleepless in a tavern at
La Spezia, the inspiration to my Eheingold music came over me ;
and forthwith I returned to my melancholy home to begin my
over-long work, the fate of which now, more than anything else,
chains me to Germany."
By this we must not understand that the musical themes
for the Rheingold poem now came to his mind for the first
time ; for, as we shall see in a later chapter, he usually
conceived his musical motives simultaneously with the
writing of his poems. Tlie passage simply means that
he settled in his mind that the composition of Rheingold
was to be his next task. He had hoped that before com-
mencing this score he might have the privilege of hear-
ing his Lohengrin. "I must hear Lohengrin once: I
cannot and will not write any more music before I have
410 WELDING THE NIBELUN&S RING
heard that opera." This sentiment recurs again and
again in his letters. Several times he was on the point
of going to Germany in disguise to realize his wish ; had
projects for settling in Paris in order to get a chance to
hear at least some fragments; and at last succeeded in
getting together an orchestra for a sort of Wagner fes-
tival in Zurich for this special purpose. Bvit that was
all he succeeded in doing in this direction. Had he kept
to his original intention of not composing again before
he had heard Lohengrin, Rheingold would have had to
wait till 1859, when for the hrst time he heard that
opera in Vienna. By that time, however, he had already
completed Rheingold, Walkilre, half of Siegfried, and the
whole of Tristan! In his "Epilogue on the Circum-
stances and Events which Accompanied the Execution of
the Stage-Festival-Play, The Ring of the Nihelung, up to
the Date of the Publication of the Poem " (Vol. V. 377)
he sums up this matter concisely : —
" With great elation of spirit I began, after five years' interrup-
tion of my musical productivity, to carry out the composition of
Rheingold, toward the close of the year 1853. . . . The peculiar
atmospheric freshness of my task, like bracing mountain air,
carried me without fatigue through all the difficulties of my work,
which in the spring of 1857 had got so far advanced as to include
Rheingold, Walk'ure, and a great portion of Siegfried^
It is odd that here, as in his letters, Wagner should
speak of a Jive years' interruption of his composition,
when in fact more than six years elapsed between the
two operas in question. Lohengrin was completed on
Aug. 28, 1847,1 while it was not till October, 1853, that
1 The instrumentation, it is true, was not completed tiU the follow-
ing spring.
COMPOSITION OF EHEINGOLD 411
he wrote to Liszt: "To-day Bheingold coursed through
my veins : if it must be, aud if it caimot be otherwise,
you shall presently have a work of art which will give
you — joy(?)!" Six months before, he had already
expressed his confidence in the Nibelung music in these
words : " Only let me once throw everything else aside
in order to dive once more into the fountain of music,
and there shall be created sounds that will make the
people hear what they cannot see."
On Dec. 17 he writes again : —
" I am spinning myself in like a silk- worm ; but also from within
myself am I spinning. Five years I have written no music. Now
I am in the Nibelheim : to-day Mime tells his woes. Unluckily
I had a bad cold last month, wliich made me interrupt my work
for ten daj's, else I would have finished the sketch of the whole
score before the end of the year. . . . However, it must be finished
by the end of January."
He kept his word; for on Jan. 15, 1854, he writes to
Liszt: —
"Well, Bheingold is done — more so than I expected. With
what faith, with what joy, I began this music ! In a real frenzy of
despair I have at last continued and completed it : alas, how I too
was walled in by the need of gold ! Believe me, no one has ever
composed like this ; I fancy my music is fearful ; it is a pit of ter-
rors and grandeurs. Soon I shall make a clear copy, — black on
white, — and that, in all probability, will be the end of it. Or shall
I perhaps allow it also to be performed at Leipzig for twenty louis
d'or ? . . . You are the only one whom I have told about this.
No one else suspects it, least of all those who are about me."
Shortly afterwards Heine was informed that Rheingold
had been commenced early in November: "I got so en-
thusiastic over it that until it was finished I had neither
412 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
ears nor eyes for anything else." In April he wrote to
Liszt that he was at work on the instrumentation, and
that by May everything would be finished — in pencil
sketches, which would require copying. On May 27, to
Fischer : " In these last days I have once more, after a
long interval, finished a score {Rhelngold) : my fanatic
interest in my work was towards the end so great that I
postponed all letter-writing to its completion."
Hardly was Rheingold completed when Die Walkure was
begun. ^ In August, 1854, he was already hard at work
on the sketch of the score. In October he sent the
Rheingold score to Liszt, with the information that he
had got into the second act of the Walkure ; in December
the sketch was finished, and the following February,
1855, he had about completed the scoring of Act I., when
his work siiffered a long and serious interruption by his
four months' absence to conduct a season of Philhar-
monic Concerts in London. We must therefore postpone
further details regarding that drama till we have
described that event, which forms one of the most inter-
esting episodes in his life. Before passing on to it we
must, however, speak of another important composition
written, or rather rewritten, a few months before the
journey to London, besides considering Wagner's merits
as a conductor, by way of prelude to his London conduc-
torship.
A FAUST OVERTUEE
It will be remembered that he wrote a concert piece,
which he called an Overture to Goethe's Faust, in the
winter of 1839-40, in Paris, in the midst of his struggles
1 He actually postponed the copying of his pencil-sketch of Rhein-
gold in his eagerness to commence the new drama.
A FAUST OVERTURE 413
to earn his bread and to win recognition as a composer.
It had been really intended, as he explained some years
later, to form the first movement of a grand Faust sym-
phony. It was rehearsed for a Conservatoire concert,
but not performed, because the directors concluded after
the rehearsal that it was too enigmatic. In Dresden it
was performed in July and Aiigust, 1844, but met with
a very cold reception by the public and critics. Regard-
ing this result Eoeckel wrote to Praeger : —
" This is not to be wondered at ; for in the judgment of some
here it compares favorably with the grandest efforts of Beethoven.
Such a work ought to be heard several times before its beauties can
be fully appreciated."
In 1852, Liszt brought out this overture at Weimar,
and Wagner wrote to thank him for it, adding: —
"I cannot feel indifferent to this composition, even if there are
many details in it which would not flow from my pen to-day : what
especially suits me no longer is the somewhat too frequent use of
brass. 1 If I knew that Ilartel would give me a handsome sum
for it, I should almost feel inclined to publish the score with a ver-
sion for the pianoforte, only I need to be urged ; for, of my own
impulse, I do not like to luidertake such a thing."
The plan seemed to take hold of his mind; for, not long
after this, he begged Liszt to send him the score with a
view to its revision and publication. Liszt immediately
forwarded it, and, with apologies, made a few sugges-
tions (Letters, No. 86) as to how it might be inaproved,
especially by the addition of a tenchn- (Iretchen melody.
Wagner replied that he was "truly delighted" with his
friend's suggestion, and complimented him on his saga-
1 The overture was written about the time when the brassy Rienzi
was completed.
414 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S BING
city in having felt that there was something mendacious
about a piece wliich pretended to be an overture to
Goethe's Faust and in which woman is absent: —
" But perhaps you would immediately comprehend my tone-
poem if I named it Fanst in Solitude. When I composed it I
intended to write a complete Faust symphony ; the first movement
(actually written) was simply this Solitary Faust, in his longing,
despair, and cursing ; the ' womanly ' only hovers over his fancy
as a figment of his desire, but not in its divine reality : and this
insufiicient image of his longing is precisely what he demolishes in
despair. It was to be left for the second movement to bring for-
ward Gretchen — the woman. I had the theme for it already,
but it remained a mere theme — the matter was dropped. — I
wrote my Flying Dutchman. — There you have the whole explana-
tion. If now — from motives of vanity and weakness — I am
unwilling to let this composition perish entirely, I must indeed
work it over — but only as to the instrumentative Modulation ; the
theme which you desire cannot possibly be introduced now ; that
would make it an entirely new composition, which I have no desire
to undertake. But if I publish it, I shall give it the correct title :
Faust in Solitude, or Solitary Faust, a tone-poem for orchestra."
In his reply Liszt said that Hartels would gladly
undertake the publication of the overture, and once more
suggested that in any case the original manuscript would
gain by further elaboration. '' If you wish to give me
a pleasure," he adds, "make me a present of the manu-
script, when it is no longer needed by the printer. This
overture has been so long with me, and I have become
greatly attached to it ! " This was toward the end of the
year 1852; and there the matter rested till Jan. 19, 1855,
when Wagner again wrote, after hearing that Liszt had
in the meantime written his Faust Symphony : " Absurdly
enough, I have been seized just now by a vivid desire to
work over my old Faust overture again: I have com-
A FAUST OVERTURE 415
posed an entirely new score, have written the instrumen-
tation anew throughout, made some radical changes, also
given more elaboration and significance to the middle
(second motive). In a few days I shall produce it at a
local concert [Zurich] under the name of A Faust Over-
ture.
' MOTTO.
' Der Gott der uiir im Busen wohnt,
Kann tief mein Innerstes erregen ;
Der iiber alien meinen Kraften thront
Er kann nacli aussen niclits bewegen ;
Und so ist mir das Dasein eine Last,
Der Tod erwiiuscht, das Leben mir verhasst ! '
In no case shall I publish it." A few weeks later Liszt
received a copy of the score, which Wagner was afraid
would appear to him very insignificant by the side of his
own Faust Symjihony ; and he explained once more that
of Gretchen there could be no question, but always only
of Faust.
The intention not to publish the score was of course
not kept. Liszt sent it to Hartel, who offered twenty
louis d'or (f 80) for it, which Wagner accepted, as he
happened to be in need of funds in London, and did not
like to ask the directors of the Philharmonic Society to
pay his salary in advance. His request that the pub-
lishers should change their offer from twenty louis d'or
to twenty pounds sterling was not granted. But Liszt
delighted him with this assurance: "The changes which
you have made in the Faust Overture are splendid, and
have decidedly improved the work."
The critics of course did not like the Faust Overture,
which was beyond their comprehension. Some of them
416 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S RING
condemned it as " programme music " d la Berlioz, after
finding in it all sorts of Mephistophelean and Gretchen
motives which the composer had never dreamt of. Dr.
Hanslick, with his usual keen insight and vituperative
vigor, found in it nothing but "an impotence which, in
spite of its boastful extravagance, arouses genuine pity."
Among men of genius, on the other hand, Liszt was not
alone in discerning at once the beauty and grandeur of a
piece which Moscheles praised, and for which in our day
even the conservative and disappointed Kubinstein, with
all his jealous hatred of triumphant Wagner, has con-
fessed his admiration. In 1860, Dr. Hans von Biilow,
who is universally admitted to be the greatest interpreter
of Beethoven and, in general, the greatest living author-
ity as to the intellectual interpretation of the classical
composers, wrote a pamphlet of thirty-one pages ^ con-
taining a poetic and technical analysis of this tone-poem,
some of the most important points in which may here be
noted. He points out that the composition in question
is not a dramatic overture (like Beethoven's Coriolanus)
nor a character-sketch, but an embodiment of a mood —
ein Stimmungsgemdkle, — for which Liszt's happily in-
vented term of "symphonic poem" might be used; and
he proceeds to explain how a piece originally intended
as the first movement of a symphony could be desig-
nated an "overture." Then he notes the fact that "its
subject (poetic content) is suffering, — not the j)ersonal
suffering of a certain Faust, but sorrows of general
human import. The hero therefore is not Goethe's
Faust, but humanity itself." The reader knows that the
1 Ueber Richard Wagner's Faust-Overture. Eine erldnternde Mit-
theilung an die Dirigenten, Spieler und Horer dieses Werkes. Leipzig:
F. Kahnt, 1860.
A FAUST OVERTURE 417
Faust Overture was written in Paris, vuuler the influence
of a magnilicent performance at the Conservatoire of
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Between this work and
Wagner's overture, Biilow discovers an emotional resem-
blance, and he adds this further detail : —
"During his residence in Paris, at the time when the Fatist
Overture originated, Wagner copied for himself the score of the
Ninth Sympliony, which, note for note, remained so indelibly im-
pressed in his memory that he was able, in 1846, when, after a
long pause, the Ninth Symphony was, thanks to his efforts, brought
again before the Dresden public as practically a novelty, to conduct
all the rehearsals from memory.''''
Wlien we consider that in his Nibelung dramas Wagner
opened up to us a new world of orchestral coloring, com-
pared with which even the beauties of Lohengrin lose
some of their lustre; and when we consider that the
Faust Overture was written at the same time as the second
of these dramas, — Die Walkiire, — we find it perfectly
natural that Biilow should have exclaimed that this
overture constitutes "a complete practical course in
instrumentation " ; what we marvel at, and what future
generations will marvel at more and more, is that the
professional critics and other "experts" did not at once
recognize the exquisite orchestral and harmonic novelties
in the Faust Overture, and that its reception at first
almost everywhere amounted to a fiasco.
Doubtless the most ludicrous of all the charges ever
brouglit against Wagner — and it has been brought time
and again — is that he wrote music-dramas because he
was unable to master the symphonic form sufficiently to
write satisfactory concert pieces. Apart from the fact
that in liis early youtli he wrote a symphony of per-
418 WELDING THE NIBELUNG'S EING
fectly correct form, tlie woful ridiculousness of this
charge is brought out by the fact that any talented con-
servatory pupil can be taught to write a " correct " sym-
phony. Third-rate composers like Lachner, Pleyel,
Macfarren, wrote "correct" symphonies by the dozen.
It is interesting to hear what Billow, the great authority
on classical form, has to say on this topic : —
" It is not possible to compose with more perfect organic unity
of form tlian Wagner has done in the Faust Overture. Place any
' classical ' overture with an ' Introduction ' by its side, and see if
Wagner's tone-poem does not throw it into the shade even for-
mally." And as for the content, he exclaims that " not only tonal,
but general emotional life courses through every vein of its form.
Every note is written with a poet's blood."
Finally I will quote a passage from Billow's pamphlet
which cannot be too much commended to critics and
amateurs : —
"The new musical forms of Wagner escaped notice for the
reason that they were new and, as it were, too colossal. We allude
here not so much to the iinished art of the second finale of Tann-
hduser, to which even Professor Bischoff did justice, i as rather, for
example, to the first act of Lohengrin. Is not that a dramatic
symphony cast in one mould, perfect in form? The poet here
imposed upon the composer the necessity of erecting a tonal struc-
ture, to which, IN REGARD TO BROADNESS OF DEVELOPMENT AND
IMMENSITY OF CLIMAX, NO PROTOTYPE EXISTED. If yOU will COn-
scientiously study this part in its main features, you will be unable
to deny that Wagner has created here, specifically in regard to
form, something absolutely new, an artistic whole, built up with-
out any leaning on predecessors."
1 What generous condescension on the part of so great a man ! " Who
wns Professor Bischoff," did you say? Why, he was — well, he is now
known as the man who invented the term "music of the future" in
derision of Wagner's Art-Work of the Future. In his day he was a
rouch-feared musical critic.
A FAUST OVEllTURE 419
When Biilow wrote this, Lohengnu was the latest and
most mature of Wagner's oi)eras. But if the above is
true of Lohengrin, — and to-day no one would be so fool-
ish as to deny it, — what shall we say to the amazing
formal mastery shown in the last act of the Gotterddm-
mrniig?
With that in mind, I, for my part, do not hesitate to
say that this overwhelming climax, in which all the
motives of the whole Tetralogy are woven into a web
of wondrous complexity yet perfect perspicuity, makes
Beethoven's form seem mere child's play in comparison,
and surpasses even the polyphonic ingenuity of Bach's
genius.^
1 It takes some courage to make such an assertion to-day ; but I
have no fear. The history of music has shown, during the last half-
century, that those were always nearest the truth who were most dar-
ing in their admiration of Wagner's genius.
WAS WAGNER A GREAT CONDUCTOR?
The Faust Overture, like the Siegfried Idyl and various
operatic overtures and preludes, shows what Wagner
might have accomplished as a composer for the concert-
hall had not his poetic endowment craved as intensely
for expression as his musical genius, thus urging him
with every fibre into the music-drama. More wisely
than some other composers, he recognized his true sphere
at an early period, and limited his efforts almost exclu-
sively to that. He knew that he was primarily a great
dramatic composer, and it was only when creating music-
dramas that he was thoroughly happy and contented;
here his revolutionary mind could have everything its
own way, and all his mental powers were called into
healthful and pleasurable activity; whereas in writing
concert pieces his poetic faculty would lie dormant; and
if he tried any practical work, — such as conducting, —
the doings of many of the executing artists, and the gen-
eral inadequacy of means, fell so far short of his ideals
that he suffered indescribable tortures — tortures which
were increased if the baton was wielded by another, less
competent conductor, in his presence. Hence, in course
of time, he conceived a great aversion to all practical
connection with the stage, while yet feeling that his pres-
ence was imperatively called for if correct interpretations
were to be obtained.
420
A THOROUGH DRILL-MASTER 421
This sensitiveness in regard to inadequate perform-
ances was of course not a unique trait of Wagner's, but
is characteristic of all great artists. Berlioz, for ex-
ample, wrote: —
" It is excessively painful for me to hear the greater part of my
compositions played under any direction other than my own. I
almost had a fit while listening to my overture to King Lear in
Prague, conducted by a Kapellmeister whose talent is yet un-
doubted. It is conceivable what I suffered from even the involun-
tary blunders of Habeneck during the long assassination i of my
opera Benvenuto Cellini at rehearsals."
Similarly, Beethoven wrote, when they were rehears-
ing his Fidelio in Vienna: —
" Pray try to persuade Sey fried to conduct my opera to-day, as
I wish to see and hear it from a distance ; in this way my patience
will at least not be so severely tried by the rehearsal as when I am
close enough to hear my music so bungled. I really believe it is
done on purpose. Of the wind I will say nothing, but — . AW pp.,
cresc, all deer esc, and all /.,//., may as well be struck out of my
music, since not one of them is attended to. I lose all desire to
write anything more if my music is to be so played."
Judge from such confessions whether Wagner exagger-
ated when he exclaimed that he often suffered " all the
tortures of Dante's inferno " with reference to the per-
formances of his operas.
A THOROUGH DRILL-MASTER
It does not follow by any means that because a com-
poser suffers from poor performances of his works, and
knows exactly how they ought to be interpreted, he will
'But Berlioz had no pity for Wagner at the "assassination" of
Tannhduser by Dietsch at the Opera in 1861.
422 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
for that reason make a first-rate conductor even of his
own works, any more than it follows that a great poet
must necessarily be a good reader of his verses or those
of others. Some of the greatest composers were but
indifferent conductors, nervousness, preoccupation, or
diffidence making them poor commanders of a large
force of obstreperous singers and players. As a rule it
will be found that operatic or dramatic composers are
better conductors than the writers of concert music,
probably because dramatic composition is more directly
allied to action. We should therefore naturally expect
Wagner to have been one of the greatest conductors of
all times, and this supposition is borne out by all the
documents.
Just as there are two classes of pianists, one of which
is perfect in technical execution, but on the side of inter-
pretation and expression is subject to the charge of
monotony, coldness, or arbitrariness, while the other
class is less perfect technically, but appeals more forcibly
to the emotions ; so there are two kinds of conductors,
perfect drill-masters on one side, who appeal primarily
to the intellect by their precision and accuracy, while on
the other hand we have those whose mission is to sway
the emotions. To which of these two classes did Wagner
belong? The accounts given in earlier chapters of his
conducting at Magdeburg, Riga, and Dresden, both in
the opera-house and concert -hall, show that he united the
merits of both classes. As we are now approaching the
period when, for the first and only time in his life, he
accepted a special post as conductor of concerts (in Lon-
don), this is the proper place for considering his fitnees
for such a position more closely.
A THOROUGH LRILL-MASTER 423
That he was a wonderful drill-master, his most rabid
opponents never denied. The great Moritz Hauptmann,
for example, who immortalized himself by the prediction
that "not one note of Wagner's music will survive him,"
calls attention to his talent as a regisseur : " He arranges
everything on the stage, down to the smallest details,
and all with tact and ingenuity. — He seems to me
rather an artist of a thousand faculties ( TausendJciinstler)
than of one."
In accomplishing such results in concert-hall or opera-
houses as have been described in the preceding chapters,
he spared neither singers nor players. But he him-
self worked hardest of all, so hard that whenever, later
in life, he had brought a work on the stage to his satis-
faction, he always suffered from nervous prostration for
weeks. No trouble was considered too great; he would
even take individual members of an orchestra and drill
them till they could play their part with proper expres-
sion. Thus, writing to Ulilig (Xo. 5G) about a concert
in Zurich, he says: "'The Egmont entr^acte I had prac-
tised with the oboist in my own room, as if he were a
singer : the fellow could not contain himself for joy at
what he at last produced." With the singers he was of
course always ready to go through such a performance.
After assigning the parts of a new opera, the first
thing Wagner did — and it seems strange that no one
before him should have thought of such a seemingly
essential thing — was to have all the singers meet for a
"reading rehearsal," each artist reading his or her role,
while he himself (or the stage-manager), score in hand,
pointed out the relation of the verses to the music and
the scenic situation. Then, in rehearsing their roles at
424 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
home, the singers had the initial advantage of seeing
every song in its proper dramatic and scenic relation.
As regards the orchestra, he worked hard not only to
secure mechanical precision, but also to attain proper
acoustic effects by a new arrangement of the players.
Roeckel alludes to this point in one of his Dresden let-
ters to Praeger : —
" He deemed it advisable to rearrange the seating of his band ;
but oh ! the hubbub it has produced is dreadful. ' What ! change
that which has satislied Morlacchi and Reissiger ? ' They charge
Wagner with want of reverence for tradition and with taking
delight in upsetting the established order of things."
That is apt to be a trait of reformers — fortunately for
the cause of progress.
PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION
In one of his letters to Liszt from London, Wagner
exclaims : " Odd was the confession made to me by Men-
delssohnites, that they had never heard such a good per-
formance of the Hebrides overture, or understood it so
well, as when it was given under my direction." This,
however, was rather exceptional. While acknowledging
that he was a good drill-master, and that he had endeav-
ored to bring out the good points of even the flimsiest
Italian or French operas, the pedantic critics insisted
that in his interpretation of the classics he violated the
traditions. To expose the hollowness and hypocritical
offensiveness of this pretence, we need only consider for
a moment the treatment accorded to these great masters
by their contemporaries, who are supposed to have handed
down these "traditions." The contemporaries of Bach
PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION 425
(born 1685) so far from collecting "traditions," had not
a shadow of an idea as to what a giant Avas living among
them. Very few of his pieces were printed during his
lifetime (some by his own hand) ; the greatest of them
were practically unknown till half a century ago, and the
others have been printed for the first time within the
last few years. ''Traditions," indeed! With Mozart, of
course, it was otherwise. So anxious were the Viennese
musicians to preserve all the " traditions " they could pos-
sibly get hold of, that they allowed a coterie of jealous
Italians to maltreat his Figaro so badly that when he had
written his next opera, Don Juan, he took it to Prague
for the first performance, in order to save it from a
similar fate in Vienna. Schubert, the divinest dispenser
of melody the world has ever seen, wrote two symphonies
which have never been excelled in all the essentials of
music — original melody, harmony, rhythm, and instru-
mentation. One of these symphonies the Viennese musi-
cians allowed to lie in a heap of manuscripts for ten years
after Schubert's death, till Schumann came down from
Leipzig and gave it to an astonished world as an absolute
novelty. "Traditions," indeed! Even Beethoven, who
had some recognition Avhile he lived, usually had to put
up with the most shamefully inadequate means for bring-
ing out his great symphonies; and as he was deaf during
the last twenty-five years of his life, he could not prop-
erly interpret his works and thus establish "traditions."
When he still did conduct, — e.g. when he brought out
his Eroica Symphony, — there was no wild demand for
"traditions," as may be inferred from the criticisms
quoted in Thayer's Beethoven biography (II. 275), one
of which concludes with the information that —
426 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
" To the public the symphony seemed too difficult, too long, and
Beethoven himself too impolite, since he did not nod even to
those who did applaud. Beethoven, himself, on the contrary,
found that the applause was insufficient."
Some time after Beethoven's death, when Wagner
returned from his trip to Vienna, he found that so emi-
nent a conductor as Dionys Weber in Prague still re-
garded the Third Symphony as a monstrosity (Unding),
and we have seen how dissatisfied the youthful Richard
was with the German performance of the Ninth Sym-
phony, how he had to actually force it on the Dresdeners,
half a century ago, and how he worked constantly with
pen and baton to elucidate the works of Mozart and Bee-
thoven, Gluck and Weber. But he violated tlie " tra-
ditions " ! The fact that his musical instinct had led him
to scent an error in the current interpretation of Gluck's
IpJnghiia in Ardis overture, which had escaped even
Mozart's genivis,^ alone ought to have opened the eyes of
the critics.
An anecdote related by Wagner himself, in his essay
On Conducting, shows how he " violated the traditions "
in regard to another great master, Weber : —
"Eighteen years after Weber's death, when I conducted his
Freisch'utz for the first time in Dresden, and on this occasion,
regardless of the usage observed by my colleague Reissiger, also
took the tempo of the opening bars of the overture according to
my notions, a veteran of Weber's time, the old violoncellist
Dotzauer, turned to me with a serious mien, and said : ' Yes, that
is the way Weber took it ; I now hear it correctly again, for the
first time.' On the part of Weber's widow, who was still living in
Dresden, this proof of my correct feeling for the music of her long-
1 See the essay on this overture in Vol. V. of the Gesammelte
SchriJ'ten.
PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION 427
deceased husband, gave rise to truly cordial wishes for my pros-
perous continuance in the post of Dresden conductor, because, as
she said, she could now take up again the hope, so long given up,
to her gi'ief, that his music would once more be correctly per-
formed in Dresden. I produce this eloquent and agreeable testi-
mony on this occasion, because in opposition to diverse other ways
of judging my artistic activity as conductor, it affords me a pleasant
reminiscence."
On a later occasion he taught the Viennese orchestra
how to play the Freischiitz overture in his (that is,
Weber's) way; the effect was startling: many declared
they had now for the first time heard this piece which
constant repetition had long ago rendered threadbare.
And altliough such a result was not specially compli-
mentary to tlie conductors who had so long misinterpreted
this piece, Kapellmeister Dessoff had the good sense,
when the opera was given again, to turn to his musicians
and say, with a smile: "Well, gentlemen, let us then
take the overture d, la Wagner." Upon which Wagner
comments: "Yes, yes, d Za Wagner! I believe, gentle-
men, that many other things might be taken d, la Wagner
without harm."^
He held the average operatic and concert-conductor of
his day in supreme contempt, and for very good reasons.
Most of them were simply orchestral players who had
advanced to their important position without having any
other conception of their duty than that of time-beaters.
That a conductor should understand every orchestral
instrument, be well versed in musical history, and in all
styles of music; that he should have travelled, so as to
1 For Wagner's views as to tlie proper reading of tlie Frcisrhiitz over-
ture, the Mtistersinyer prelude, and the Fifth and Eighth syniphouies,
Bee the essay On Conducting.
428 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
be able to put national spirit into liis readings; that,
besides, he should be a man of general culture, — these
were conditions rarely met with at that time. Outside
of their narrow specialty, musicians were mostly ignorant
fellows, and their social position was a low one. In Aus-
tria, Haydn and Mozart were treated little better than
lackeys; in England, when Weber visited London, the
artists were separated from the guests by a cord stretched
across the room. Beethoven was a boor in conduct, yet
this was pardoned in society, as nothing more was ex-
pected of a musician. When the composer Marschner
found Wagner exerting himself in Dresden to give his
musicians a more intellectual interest in their art, he
dissuaded him, remarking that the musicians were abso-
lutely incapable of understanding him (VIII. 383). But
Marschner was mistaken ; for Wagner constantly showed
how the minds of these players could be aroused by his
words ; and we know what marvellous results followed.
The first and most important qualification for a con-
ductor is, according to Wagner, that he should have a
correct sense of tempo : his choice of that shows us at
once whether he has understood the composer or not.
How lamentably his own operas were bungled by incom-
petent time-beaters, may be inferred from two instances
referred to by himself: on one occasion 7^/iem^oZd, which
should last two hours and a half, was dragged out to
three hours; on another, the Tannhdnser overture,
which, under the composer's direction in Dresden, took
twelve minutes, was made to last twenty! Other com-
posers fared no better at the hands of these mechanical
time-beaters. His impatience with them is illustrated
by two anecdotes related by Lesimple. One evening at
PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION 429
Cologne Wagner attended a performance of the Magic
Flute, one of his favorite operas. After the first act he
hastily left the theatre, exclaiming angrily: "Such a
miserable wretch of a conductor I have never come across
in all my life!" On another occasion he related this
incident to Lesimple: "On the Dresden bridge I met
Eeissiger one evening at nine o'clock. Astonished, I asked
him, 'But, my dear colleague, have you no opera to con-
duct to-night? ' ^Have conducted it,' was his reply —
'Masaniello already ended.'" He had, like a barrel-
organ man, ground out the opera as quickly as possible,
the sooner to get to his beer.
When conductors of national reputation behaved in
such a way, what use was there in putting tempo marks
on compositions? Bach was wise, he exclaims, in leaving
his compositions mostly unprovided with such marks:
he probably reasoned that a musician who could not
divine their tempo would not be likely to play them cor-
rectly anyway. In regard to his own operas, Wagner
tells us that he supplied the earlier ones very carefully
and minutely with tempo marks and metronomic figures ;
but this did not prevent them from being bungled, for the
conductors had no conception of what is the very essence
of his music — a constant modification of tempo.
This constant modification of tempo is, in his opinion,
the essence not only of his own music, but of Beethoven's ;
it is, in fact, the " vital principle of our music in gen-
eral"; neglect of it is as fatal as playing the wrong
notes. How much the efficacy of his music depends on
it may be inferred from the fact related by him that
when he himself conducted the Meistersinger overture in
Leipzig, it was redemanded, while at its rep^ition, some
430 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
time later, by the same orchestra, but with a metronomic
conductor, it was hissed.^
Wagner intimates that the metronomic conductors
would have long since killed off Beethoven's symphonies,
if these works were capable of being killed; they con-
tinued to live because amateurs of taste could play them
at home on the piano. That he was right in insisting
that a free modification of tempo is almost as essential in
Beethoven's works as in his own we know, because this
was Beethoven's own way of conducting or playing.
Schindler says : —
"Almost everything that I heard Beethoven interpret was free
from all (metronomic) rigidity of tempo ; it was a tempo rubato in
the properest sense of the words, as conditioned by content and
situation. . . . It was the most distinct and vivid declamation. "
To-day the leading orchestral conductors — such men
as Hans Eichter, Anton Seidl, Felix Mottl, Richard
Strauss, Arthur Nikisch, etc. — follow Wagner's ideas
regarding the frequent modification of tempo. What
these ideas are may be indicated in a few words.
The two typical movements in music are the slow
adagio and the fast allegro. In a certain sense it may
be said that the pure adagio cannot be taken too slowly;
emotional languor is here the source of delight; the
slightest harmonic change is a surprise and gratification.
Opposed to this pure adagio is the pure allegro, as we see
it especially in Mozart's overtures, such as those to Figaro
and Don Juan : —
1 Mr. Seidl related to me that when Ferdinand Hiller, the conserva-
tive opponent of Wagner, heard him (Seidl) conduct the Tannhattser
overture with the correct tempi, he exclaimed, " Ja, so gefallt sie mir
auch! " — " Ah! that way I like it, tool "
PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION 431
"Of these it is known that tliey could not he taken fast
enough to suit Mozart ; after he had succeeded in whipping his
musicians into the desperate frenzy which to their own surprise
at last enabled them to attain the presto he insisted upon, he
exclaimed : ' Very good ! but this evening a trifle faster.' Correct !
Just as I said of the pure adagio that in an ideal sense it cannot be
iaken too slowly, so this unmixed, pure allegro properly cannot
oe taken fast enough."
This, however, is true only of the old-fashioned
Mozartean allegro, which he calls the "naive" type.
The modern type, foreshadowed in Mozart's symphonies,
is fully revealed in Beethoven's Eroica and the sym-
phonies following. This is the "sentimental" allegro,
that is, an allegro in which more than the rhythmic
excitement of a dance-movement is aimed at, and which
is in fact a mixture of the adagio and the old allegro,
corresponding to the complexity of modern emotions.
This is the great and fundamental truth regarding the
Beethoven symphonies, which Wagner's predecessors
had failed to grasp. They conducted them like dance-
music with metronomic regularity; while he treated
them as tone-poems, modifying the tempo according to
the momentary character of the melody. Here lies the
essence of his method: in the search for the melos, the
MELODY, amid all the rhythmic figurations and compli-
cations : whenever that melody has a plaintive or senti-
mental character, if only for two or three bars, then give
those two or three bars a tempo appropriate to a plain-
tive melody, before proceeding with the regular faster
pace. This is the way to teach an orchestra to sing an
allegro as well as an adagio; for in Beethoven there is
''melody in every bar, even in the rests."
432 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
Such, in brief, is the fundamental idea of the superb
essay On Conducting, in which the art of instrumental
expression, of orchestral singing, is for the first time for-
mulated in scientific terms. And this is the essay which
an eminent German critic, Heinrich Ehrlich, called a
Narrenmanifest — a "fools' manifesto." Readers of the
letters to Liszt (especially during the Lohengrin period)
will find many further suggestive hints, such as this, that
the same theme must be played faster or slower accord-
ing to the dramatic situation; the whole aim being to
make operatic music less like dance-music, and more like
the varied emotional flow of the spoken drama. Read
also Letters 55 and 56 to Uhlig, with instructive remarks
on Mendelssohn's way of conducting, culminating in
these two sentences which throw a good deal of light on
the conductors of the old school in general : —
" Mendelssohn's performance of Beethoven's works was always
based only upon their purely musical side, and never upon their
poetic contents. . . . He always held on to the letter with the
finest of musical cleverness, and thus was like our philologists who,
in their exposition of Greek poets, must always point out the
literal characters, the particles, the various readings, etc., but
never the real contents." ^
TESTIMONY OF EXPERTS
The magic of Wagner's poetic method of interpreta-
tion, combined with his almost military drill, was so
great that even some of the leaders of the hostile camp
1 Further useful hints to conductors may be found in the accounts
of the Bayreuth rehearsals given by H. Forges in the Bayreiither Blat-
ter. Also in U Art de Diriger V Orchestra, by M. Kufferath, who noted
the peculiarities and method of Hans Richter, Wagner's pupil and
chosen conductor for the first Bayreuth Festival.
TESTIMONY OF EXPERTS 433
could not withhold their tribute of admiration. Ber-
lioz's testimony that he conducted "with rare precision
and energy " was quoted in an earlier chapter. H. Dorn
testified that
"as conductor, Wagner achieved a notable success as early as
in his Riga days; his drill ensured great precision — as I could
attest best in regard to my own opera, Der Schoffe von Paris —
and when he stood at his desk, his fiery temperament carried away
even the oldest of the orchestral players irresistibly. ' Always
fresh, always lively, always a little fresh ' — these were his favorite
exhortations, wliich never failed of their proper effect."
Orpheus moved stones with his song, but Wagner, with
his conducting, moved Archphilistine Hanslick to ex-
claim almost rapturously : —
"And an excellent conductor is this man, a conductor with
esprit and fire, who at the rehearsals, witli voice, hands, and feet,
carries along his company like a valiant officer and is sure to take
his fort. ... It was a real gratification to hear this Freischutz
overture, which is usually played off at a monotonous, slovenly
pace, for once with a new swing and exceedingly delicate nuances.
The gradual crescendo and decrescendo of the horn passage in the
introduction ; the somewhat retarded pace of the melodious pas-
sage in the allegro ; the broad sustaining of the two fermatas be-
fore the last movement . . . produced a beautiful effect."
This was in 1861. In 1872 Hanslick wrote : ^ —
"Wagner is acknowledged to be a brilliant conductor; he has
poetic intentions, and his great authority over the players enables
him to carry them into execution. Ilis energetic reproduction of
the Eroica symphony, with its fine and peculiar nuances, also gave
us on the whole a genuine pleasure."
Among the prominent German critics who at first
opposed Wagner but gradually succumbed before the
1 Concerte, Componisten und Virtuosen, p. 48.
434 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
might of liis genius, was Louis Ehlert, who delivered
himself of this opinion : ^ —
"But when he wrote his destructive pamphlet On Conducting,
he placed himself, in face of all the world, at the head of the
orchestra, and proved that he was a better conductor than all the
others. The astounding certainty of feeling which he had for
the fundamental tempo of the compositions of other masters, was
excelled only by the freedom with which he understood how to
modify it in the proper place."
By way of still further illustrating Wagner's personal-
ity as a conductor, two more extracts may here find a
place. Praeger (235) writes: —
" Wagner does not beat in the old-fashioned, automato-metro-
nomic manner. He leaves off beating at times — then resumes
again — to lead the orchestra up to a climax, or to let them soften
down to a pianissimo, as if a thousand invisible threads tied them
to his baton. . . . Let it be well understood that Wagner takes
no liberties with the works of the great masters ; but his poetico-
musical genius gives him, as it were, a second sight into their
hidden treasures ; his worship for them, and his intense study, are
amply proved by his conducting them all v?ithout the score."
Dr. Francis Hueffer (of the London Times) whose early
death was so great a loss to the cause of enlightened
musical criticism in England, wrote, in 1872, from Bay-
reuth : —
" One can agree with the good old Emperor William, who, him-
self entirely innocent of musical knowledge, said, after Wagner's
late performance of Beethoven's C minor symphony in Berlin, in
his homely way : ' You see now what a great general can do with
his army ! ' . . .
"Each individual member, from the first violinist to the last
drummer, is equally under the influence of a great personal fas-
1 Aus der Tonwelt, II. 207.
CONCERTS AND OPEBAS IN ZURICH 435
cination, which seems to have much in common witli the effects of
animal magnetism. Every eye is turned towards tlie master, and
it appears as if the musicians derived the notes they play, not from
the books on the desks, but from Wagner's glances and movements.
I remember reading in Heine a description of Paganini's playing
the violin, and how every one in the audience felt as if the virtuoso
was looking at and performing for him or her individually. A gun
aimed in the direction of many different persons is said to produce
a similar illusory effect ; and several artists in Wagner's orchestra
and chorus assured me that they felt the fascinating spell of the
conductor's eye looking at them during the whole performance.
Wagner, in common life, is of a rather reserved and extremely gen-
tlemanly deportment ; but as soon as he faces his band, a kind of
demon seems to take possession of him. He storms, hisses, stamps
his foot on the ground, and performs the most wonderful gyratory
movements with his arms ; and woe to the wretch who wounds his
keen ear with a false note ! At other times, when the musical
waves run smoothly, Wagner ceases almost entirely to beat the
time, and a most winning smile is the doubly appreciated reward
of his musicians for a particularly well executed passage."
CONCERTS AND OPERAS IN ZURICH
I shall now present two pictures of Wagner's activity
as conductor during the years 1850 to 1855 — in Zurich
and in London. I shall ask my readers to look first on
one picture, then on the other: they will then realize
what an energetic man of genius can accomplish, with the
most inadequate means, on virgin soil, where there is a
good will and no organized opposition; and what, on the
other hand, must be the result of his efforts if he is placed
in a field overgrown with the weeds of so called "tradi-
tion " and is hampered by a lot of Philistines and ignor-
ant nobodies in his attempts to pull up the weeds and
sow fresh and fragrant flowers in their place.
436 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
Although Wagner arrived in Zurich before Lohengrin
had been performed, he found that the fame of the royal
Saxon conductor and composer of Rienzi, the Dutchman,
and Tannhduser had preceded him; for in the very lirst
of his letters to Uhlig, dated August 9, 1849, he writes :
** To my great astonishment I have found myself a celeb-
rity here, thanks to the piano-scores of my operas, whole
acts of which have been performed repeatedly at concerts
and at choral unions." He had not been in Zurich many
weeks before these local societies made efforts to secure
his services. He consented to conduct Beethoven's A
major symphony for them, and concluded he would do
something to shame the rich merchants of that city into
opening their purses for the establishment of a regular
orchestra, over which he would call Uhlig to preside.
In the following year he rehearsed a few more sympho-
nies, with an orchestra of mixed professionals and ama-
teurs, and the project was agitated of establishing such
an orchestra as he had in mind. In the winter of 1852
he brought out the Fifth Symphony, quite to his satis-
faction; indeed, he intimates to Uhlig that it went better
than it used to go in Dresden; adding in his playful
way, by way of explanation, that in Dresden he always
had been compelled by his respectful awe of the royal
musicians to suppress half the things he wanted to say
at rehearsals. Among other pieces conducted by him
in Zurich was the Coriolanus overture, which he sup-
plied with a poetic analysis that was printed on the
programme.
To the orchestra he had, as was his wont, explained
the poetic side of this overture at the rehearsals; the
sequel was that when he began to rehearse the Tannhduser
CONCERTS AND OPERAS IN ZURICH 437
overture with the players, they, of their own accord, asked
for a similar explanation, because then they could " play
better." The result was most gratifying. As Wagner
himself says — and he was a very severe judge : —
" Most striking in every case was tlie effect of my method upon
the executants themselves. I have here in ZUrich coached even
the most ordinary dance- musicians up to performances of which
neither the public nor themselves had previously the slightest an-
ticipation. ... I must here note that my chief explanations are
given at the rehearsals by word of mouth, and at the appropriate
passages."
Of the production of his overture he gives this re-
markable account : —
"The performance of the Tannhiiuser overture has now taken
place ; it surpassed all my expectations, for it really went admira-
bly. You can judge of this by its effect, which was terrific. I do
not speak of the burst of applause which immediately followed it,
but of the symptoms of that effect, which only came gradually to
my knowledge. The women, in particular, were turned inside out ;
the impression made on them was so strong that they had to take
refuge in sobs and weeping. Even the rehearsals were crowded,
and marvellous were the accounts given to me of the first effect,
which expressed itself chiefly as profound sorrowfulness ; only
after this had found relief in tears, came the agreeable feeling of
the highest exuberant joy. Certainly this effect was only made
possible by the explanation of the subject-matter of the overture ;
but — though my own work again made a most powerful impres-
sion on me — I was quite astounded at this unusually drastic
operation."
He adds that after this experience he began to set
some store by this piece of music, and that he really
could not think of any other tone-poem capable of exer-
cising a like powerful influence on sensitive, intelligent
438 WAGNEB AS CONDUCTOR
natures: in which he was right; for to-day this overture
is the most popular of all concert pieces ; and in view of
this fact, his further remarks are of special interest : —
"But the concert-hall is its place, and not the theatre, where it
is a mere prelude to the opera. There I should propose to give
only the first tempo of the overture ; the rest — in the fortunate
event of its being understood — is too much in front of the drama ;
in the opposite event, too little." ^
The grandest concerts of the Zurich period took place
a year later (May, 1853). Extraordinary preparations
were made, prompted by Wagner's great and growing
desire to hear at last a few selections from Lohengrin
adequately performed. The orchestra numbered seventy-
two men, many of whom had come on special invitation
from various German cities, and the majority of whom
were concert-masters and musical directors. They all
brought their best instruments. Wagner had had a
special acoustic reflector arranged for the occasion, and
the effect was most brilliant. The expenses amounted
to nine thousand francs.^
With such an orchestra, he at last had the satisfac-
tion of hearing parts of Lohengrin given to perfection,
and he states that their effect on him was so deep that it
1 The Ziirich concerts were in one respect productive of permanent
good, for the " programmatic explanations " made for them have been
reprinted in Vol. V. of Wagner's works.
2 It is worth relating that of tlie Kapelhneisters who were requested
to let some of their men go to Ziirich, the old-fogy Lachiier of Munich
alone refused permission, on the ground that " no passes were given to
artisans." But inasmuch as musicians were, about tlie same time,
wanted at the Ziirich theatre, at SH a mouth, Lachuer nnist have been
mistaken in intimating that orchestral players are not artists. Artisans
would not work for such a sum. Wagner himself, as we have seen,
was offered $40 a month if he would become conductor of the Ziirich
opera. A brick-layer or grave-digger would have felt justly indignant
at such an offer.
CONCERTS AND OPERAS IN ZURICH 439
required great effort to retain his self-control. For the
bridal chorus he had written a new concert ending, and
had himself rehearsed the choral selections with his
amateurs till they "sang as if possessed by the devil." ^
The applause was deafening, and at the close of the con-
cert the composer-conductor was almost buried amid the
flowers that were thrown at him. Twice the concert was
repeated, and it might have been given several times
more, — for the house was crowded each time, — but the
players had to return to their several cities.
This concert 2 had an interesting sequel. The third
performance coincided with his fortieth birthday, and the
Ziu-ichers took this occasion to express their admiration
of the great man whom exile had thrown among them, by
presenting to him a golden cup, through the liands of a
young lady dressed in white. Afterwards there was a
grand torchlight procession, of which he himself gives
this amusing account : —
"It was really pretty and festive, and such a thing had never
happened before. A stand for the orchestra had been erected
before my house (in the Zeltweg) ; I thought at first they were
building a scaffold for me. There was playing and singing —
speeches were exchanged, and hurrahs were given me by a count-
less multitude. I almost wish you could have heard the festal
address ; it was extremely naive and cordial ; I was celebrated as
a genuine Messiah."
Operatic matters ^ naturally interested him more even
than these occasional concerts, but the resources of such
1 Read letter 111 to Liszt.
2 A specimen Watcin-r ])r(>f,'ramme, as arranged by the composer him-
self, may be found in No. 48 of the Ulilig letters.
3 Read his suf^gestive essay, A Theatre in Zurich (Vol. V.), in whicli
he flLscusses the best way of interesting educated people in the theatre,
and the kind of works suitable for a small city.
440 WAG NEE AS CONDUCTOR
a subordinate opera-house as that in Zurich did not afford
any playground for his own difficult works; and so it was
only indirectly, in the interest of his pupils, that he
came at first into contact with the opera-house, Praeger
states repeatedly that Wagner never gave any lessons in
his life. This is incorrect; of course he never gave any
piano lessons, for the simple reason that he could not
play that instrument well enough to do so. But he con-
stantly gave free singing lessons to the vocalists who
were learning his roles — and very valuable lessons they
were; what is more important still, he gave personal
instruction to three of the greatest conductors of our time
— Hans von Biilow, Hans Eichter, and Anton Seidl. At
the time now under consideration he had assumed charge
of two pupils, — Carl Eitter and Biilow. In Eitter, to
whom there are numerous references in the letters, he
had not only a pupil but a sympathetic friend, who,
among other things, spurred him on to Siegfried even
before Liszt had done so, and who knew how to take his
teacher's part, sometimes to the astonishment of the
natives.
Biilow had first learnt to admire Wagner at the age of
sixteen, at the memorable performance of the Ninth
Symphony in Dresden. He also heard his operas in that
city, and had the pleasure of meeting the composer, who
wrote into his album prophetically : —
"K the genuine, pure enthusiasm for art glows within your
breast, it will some day surely burst out as a beautiful flame. But
knowledge is what fans these glowing embers into vigorous flames."
A few years later Biilow was one of those who were
attracted to Weimar by Liszt's operatic performances,
and finally his growing enthusiasm led him directly to
CONCERTS AND OPERAS IN ZURICH 441
Ziiricli, with the intention of placing his future in Wag-
ner's hands.
For the benefit of these two pujjils, Wagner allowed
himself to be persuaded to take a hand in the operatic
enterprises at Zurich. He began with operas by Weber
and Mozart, and by the composers of the older French
school, whom he especially admired, — Boieldieu, Mehul,
Cherubini, etc., — and whose works he considered partic-
ularly well suited for smaller opera-houses, as being cal-
culated to develop the dramatic as well as the musical
faculties of the singers. He carefully attended to the
daily rehearsals, and finally concluded, as there were some
good singers in the cast, not to leave matters in the hands
of his inexperienced pupil Biilow, but to preside over the
first performances himself. He even conducted other
operas, including Norma, which the critics declared
"faultless," but which naturally aroused less entluisiasm
than his productions -of Dame Blanche, Freischiitz, and
Don Juan,^ w\\\c\\ were more to his taste.
The great success of his Tannhdnser overture in the
concert-hall led his admirers to urge him to bring out
one of his own operas, which he finally consented to do,
his choice falling on the Flying Dutchman. The directors
did all they could to make it a success, and he himself,
in his anxiety to have a correct performance, not only
worked at the rehearsals like a beaver, — so that he was
afterwards completely prostrated, and vowed he would
never again engage in practical work of that sort, — but
he even paid, with his own money, for several orchestral
1 On this occasion he used his own edition of Don Jiinn, as revised
by him for Dresden. Tlie principal changes made in this version are
described in a letter to Uhlig dated Feb. 2(j, 1852.
442 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
players, who had to be engaged in other cities.-' The
opera — as an opera — was a brilliant success j so much
so that it was repeated four times in the course of a week,
at specially increased prices, and many more perfor-
mances might have been given had not an engagement at
Geneva called away the company.
And yet (as the Philistines will read to their astonish-
ment in No. 62 of the Uhlig letters), he was not satisfied,
— for the reason already intimated: that is, the singers
interpreted the work simply as a musical score, — an
opera, — its dramatic features being beyond their powers.
But the composer was consoled for this inevitable dis-
appointment by the sympathy of the women. I have
already cited his remarks regarding the impression
made on the women who heard the Tannhduser overture.
So again, in speaking of the Diitchmayi, he says : " The
women were, of course, again in the lead : after the third
performance, they crowned me with laurel, and smoth-
ered me in flowers." Similar references to women are
numerous in his correspondence of this period : —
" Yesterday," lie writes on March 25, 1852, " I received a letter
from a lady of aristocratic birth, who thanks me for my writings ;
' they have been her salvation ' ; she declares herself a thorough-
paced revolutionary. So it is always women who, with regard
to me, have their hearts in the right place, whilst I must almost
entirely give up men." Again he says: "With women's hearts
it has always gone well with my art ; and probably because, amid
the prevailing vulgarity, it is always most difficult for women to
let their souls become as thoroughly hardened as has been so com-
pletely the case with our political men-folk. Women are indeed
1 Read Letter 62 to Uhlig, and see how the Dresden Philistines inter-
preted even this self-sacrifice in behalf of an artistic ideal as " vanity,"
and as a blemish in his character !
FOUR MONTHS IN LONDON 443
the music of life ; they receive everything in a more open and
unlimited manner, that they may enrich it with their sympathy."
In another letter we read, concerning women, that they
alone " now and then help rae to an illusion, for concern-
ing men I can no longer cherish any. " In still another : —
"Again it is always the 'ever-womanly' which fills me with
sweet illusions and warm thrills of life's delight. The moist, shin-
uig eye of a woman often saturates me with fresh hope." And
once more: "Believe me, this maiden is far ahead of you, and
why ? By birth, because she is a woman. She was born human ;
you and every man nowadays are born Philistines, and slowly and
painfully do we, poorest of creatures, succeed in becoming human.
Only women, who have retained what they were at their birth, can
instruct us ; and if they did not exist, we men, in our paper swath-
ings, would go to the ground past praying for."
FOUR MONTHS IN LONDON
Just before the close of the year 1854, he was surprised
by a letter from London asking him if he would assume
the function of conductor of the Philharmonic Society for
the i>ext season. This position had been held by Mendels-
sohn, Sterndale Bennett, Costa, and other noted musi-
cians, and was much coveted. Before answering Yes or
Ko, Wagner, Yankee-like, asked two questions in turn:
(1) Would they have a second conductor for the trivial
pieces? (2) Would he be able to have as many rehearsals
as he considered necessary to secure good performances?
In the meantime he asked the advice of Liszt, wlio urged
him to accept.
What had liappened in London that the directors of the
most conservative musical society in that city sliould seek
the as^'iistance of the most radical and revolutionary musi-
444 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
cian the world has ever seen? It came about in this way.
The conductor, Costa, had resigned, and a new man of at
least equal note was to be found. Praeger claims that
he was the first to suggest Wagner. Dr. Hueffer relates ^
that
" at a meeting of the directors many names were mentioned ;
some suggested Lindpainter, others Berhoz ; others insisted upon
appointing a musician of English birth, or at least one residing in
England. At last Mr. Sainton . . . [leader of the orchestra and
one of the directors] rose to his feet and named Wagner. He
himself had no personal cognizance of his capacity, but, as Mr.
Sainton remarked, a man who had been so much abused must
have something in him. This sentiment was received with accla-
mation, and it was unanimously resolved that a leap in the dark
should be made."
Up to this time Wagner had been practically unknown
in England — a country which does not move with start-
ling velocity in musical matters.
"Only half a year ago," wrote Liszt (Jan. 25, 1855), "people
still shook their heads, yes, some hissed, at the performance of
the Tannhiiuser overture (conducted by Costa) ; Klindworth and
Kemeny were almost the only ones who had the courage to ap-
plaud loudly, and to brave the old-established philistinism of the
Philharmonic ! Well, now the tone will be changed, and you will
infuse new life into Old England and the Old Philharmonic."
A rash prophecy !
The directors followed up the matter promptly, and
actually went so far as to send Mr. Anderson, their treas-
urer, to Zurich, to make the preliminary arrangements.
With the promise of a thousand dollars for four months'
service he succeeded in getting the acceptance of the
1 Half a Century of Music in England, p. 42.
FOUR ilOXTHS IN LONDON 446
unwilling composer — unwilling, because, as he wrote tt)
Liszt, " it is not my mission to go to London to conduct
Philharmonic concerts even if — as is desired — I produce
at them compositions of my own, — for I have written no
concert pieces." The paltry sum offered ("I have sold
myself at a very low price, " he wrote) would have hardly
tempted him to interrupt the composition of the Walkilre
for a task so much less congenial ; what finally persuaded
him to go was the hope of making this undertaking the
entering wedge for a series of performances in German of
his early operas, especially Lohengrin, Avhich he himself
was so anxious to hear. He little dreamt that almost
forty years would have to elapse before English musical
taste would outgrow its absurdly exclusive Handel and
j\Iendelssohn worship sufficiently to make possible a
financially successful series of Wagner performances in
the original language (1892).
Mr. Anderson immediately telegraphed the news of the
successful engagement to London, where it created a great
commotion. The new Philharmonic Society had already
engaged Berlioz for their concerts ; now the Old Philhar-
monic tried to overtrump their rivals in the choice of a
revolutionary musician, — a man, too, who had expressed
his disapproval of Mendelssohn, the English god of music !
This was not to be tolerated. The Philistines immedi-
ately sharpened their quills, preparing to dip them into
gall even before Wagner's arrival. Mr. James Davison,
who enjoyed great influence on account of his vigorous
style and his dual position as the musical editor of the
leading political paper {Times) and the leading musical
paper (Musical World), opened his batteries with an
article in which he made such statements as these : —
446 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
"It is well known that Richard "Wagner has little respect for
any music but his own ; that he holds Beethoven to have been a
child until he wrote the posthumous quartets and the Mass in D,
which he (Wagner) regards as his own starting-points (!)...
and that, finally he is earnestly bent upon upsetting all the
accepted forms and canons of art ... in order the more surely to
establish his doctrine that rhythm is superfluous, counterpoint a
useless bore, and every musician, ancient and modern, himself
excepted, either an impostor or a useless blockhead."
These statements — and they are but samples of what
most of the '' critical " articles of the London papers con-
tained — were, of course, malicious and ridiculous false-
hoods ; but truthfulness is a virtue with which Wagner's
opponents were never on very friendly terms. As for
the public, what else could it do but believe the musical
" experts " ? Wagner was given a bad name even before
he appeared on the scene to plead his own cause : in con-
sequence, the next four months became a period of
misery and constant annoyance conspicuous even in his
wretched life of disappointments.
The most complete and interesting account of this
visit to London was written by the late F. Praeger, who
devotes about fifty pages of his Wagner as I Kneio Him to
this episode. Special value attaches to this account be-
cause Praeger was Wagner's informal agent in arranging
details with the Society, and because several letters from
him to Praeger are printed in these chapters. In one of
these letters, Wagner, still in Zurich, remarks : —
"That the directors of the Philharmonic have no idea whom
they liave engaged, I am perfectly sure ; but they will soon dis-
cover. They might have been more generous, for if these gentle-
men intentionally go abroad to find a celebrity, they ought to have
been inclined to spend a little extra."
FOUR MONTHS IN LONDON 447
He also asks Praeger to sound the directors regarding
his plan of giving a complete Wagner concert, either as
one of the Philharmonic series, or as an extra, on his own
account. Praeger saw the directors and found that they
" feared hazarding the reputation of their concerts by the
devotion of a whole evening to Wagner's works," but
were willing to place some of his pieces on the regular
programmes. To Praeger's invitation to make his home
his own, the composer replied: —
" As you open your hospitable doors to me, I shall avail myself
of your kindness, and if you will let me stay until I have found a
suitable apartment, I shall be grateful to you, and shall heartily
beg pardon of your amiable wife for my intrusion. I shall be in
London in the first days of March. I sincerely repeat to you that
I have no great expectations, for really I do not count any more
upon anything in this world. But I shall be delighted to gain
your closer friendship. The English language I do not know, and
I am totally without gift for modern languages, and at present am
averse to learning any, on account of the strain on my memory.
I must help myself througli with French."
In his next letter he says, in regard to his residence in
Praeger's house, that
" As a number of strangers are likely to call, I hope to escape
them in solitude of unknown regions. You must not think this
strange, as I isolate myself at home the whole morning, and do not
permit a soul to come near me when at work, unless it be Peps
[his dog]. You will remember, too, when I did something similar
to this in Dresden, and left the world, to go into retireuient with
August Roeckel."
He had promised to be in London a week before
the first concert, and kept his promise to the hour by
arriving on March 5. He stayed some time at Praeger's
(31 Milton St., Dorset Square) and afterwards took rooms
i48 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
at 22 Portland Terrace, Regent's Park. On the morning
after his arrival, Praeger had some difficulty in persuad-
ing him to lay aside his " revolutionary " slouched hat,
and wear such headgear as became the leader of London's
most conservative musical society. Then they drove to
tlie residence of Mr. Anderson, where all went well until
a " prize-symphony " by Lachner was mentioned as one
of the pieces selected for performance at the concerts.
At this
" Wagner sprang from his seat, as if shot from a gun, exclaiming
loudly and angrily, ' Have I therefore left my quiet seclusion in
Switzerland to cross the sea to conduct a prize-symphony by
Lachner ? no ; never ! If that be a condition of the bargain, I
at once reject it and return. What brought me away was the
eagerness to hear a far-failied orchestra and to perform worthily
the works of the great masters, but no Kapellmeister music ; and
that of a Lachner — bah ! ' Mr. Anderson sat aghast in his chair,
looking with bewildered surprise on this unexpected outbreak of
passion, delivered with extraordinary volubility, partly in French
and partly in German."
Praeger gave a more tranquillizing translation of it to
Anderson, and peace was restored by the promise that
the offensive symphony would be given up.
It must not be supposed that Wagner's opposition to
this piece was instigated by the remembrance of Lach-
ner' s refusal to let his musicians attend that Zurich
concert referred to in the last chapter. His mind was
entirely above such petty revenge. He honestly and
heartily detested the artificial, shallow, empty, but correct
symphonies which fourth-rate musicians like Lachner
could write by the yard; and, as Hueffer has well re-
marked, " the mere invention of the incomparable term
Kapellmeistermusik for this kind of production would
FOUR MONTHS IN LONDON 449
secure Wagner a place amongst satirical writers." It
was to avoid conducting such trash that he had been
anxious to have an assistant — a point which he had been
obliged to waive. The eight programmes which he had
to conduct are given in full in Praeger's volume; and a
perusal of them shows that his fears regarding their prob-
ably mixed and partly trivial character were realized.
" A Beethoven symphony certainly gives me great pleasure,"
he wrote to Fischer, a few weeks later, "but a whole concert of
this kind, with everything which it includes, deeply disgusts me ;
and with great inner vexation, I see myself compelled to conduct
stuff which I thought I should never have to perform again."
Next to the miscellaneous character of the programmes,
which were utterly inartistic in their arrangement, what
annoyed him was their interminable length. This, com-
bined with the expensiveness of London players, made it
impossible to have more than one rehearsal for eacli piece.
" Perfectly satisfactory performances, which alone could
reward me," he wrote to Liszt, "I cannot give anyAvay;
we have too few rehearsals ^ for that, and everything
proceeds too mechanically." For the second concert
alone, at which the Ninth^Symphony was given, he suc-
ceeded, with mucTT difficulty, in getting two rehearsals
— of the same work of which he had had dozens in Dres-
den, while Habeneck of the Paris Conservatoire had kept
at it for several years ! No wonder that he had to write
to Fischer that " the choruses were miserable. If I only
1 The extraordinarily conservative and immutable character of the
London Philharmonic Society is reveahid in the curious fact tliat Mr.
C'owcii should have resigned from its comluctdrship in lHi)2, l)ecanso he
lio longer tolerate tlie same absurd policy complained of by Wag-
ner in 1855 ! That such a society should have invited Wagner to be its
leader, was more than a miracle — it was a huge joke
450 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
had your Dresden Palm-Sunday choir!" With such
scant rehearsals it was impossible to give performances
of any classical masterworks except in Mendelssohn's
way of passing over everything hurriedly and mechani-
cally, concealing defects as well as possible. With this
the Philharmonic audiences had apparently been con-
tented hitherto, and Wagner's attempts to introduce more
poetic readings, could not possibly be carried out with
such few rehearsals.
To add insult to injury, the directors, intimidated by
the critics, and ignorant of the fact that Wagner was an
infinitely greater genius than Mendelssohn, constantly
irritated him by holding up their Jewish idol as a model
to him; if he chose a faster or slower tempo than the
orchestra had previously taken, or introduced a poetic
miance, he was remonstrated with and requested to take
things in the regular way, since Mendelssohn himself had
taken them so : as he complains to Liszt : —
" ' Sir, we are not used to this ' ; tliat is the eternal echo I hear.
Neither can the orchestra recompense me : it consists almost exclu-
sively of Englishmen, i. e. clever machines which can never be got
into the right swing: handicraft and business kill everything.
Then there is the public, which, I am assured, is very favorably
inclined towards me, but can never be got out of itself, which
accepts the most emotional like the most tedious things, without
ever showing that it has received a real impression. And, in addi-
tion to this, the ridiculous Mendelssohn worship."
He was found fault with for other things. "We have
been informed on the best authority, " writes Dr. Hueffer, ^
" that Wagner, when he had to conduct a work by Mendels-
sohn, deliberately and slowly put on a pair of white kid
1 Half a Century of Music in England, p. 51.
FOUR MONTHS IN LONDON 451
gloves to indicate the formal, or, one might say fasliion-
able, character of the music." This amusing and harm-
less bit of irony on the part of the Mendelssohn-tormented
genius, of course aroused the ire of the press anew.
Then, again, he was found fault with for his "presump-
tion" in conducting Beethoven's scores by heart — a feat
which " even Mendelssohn " had been unable to accom-
plish. He was given to understand that this was consid-
ered a slight on the classical composers; and after a
rehearsal of one of Beethoven's symphonies, he yielded
in so far to the pressure brought to bear on him as to
promise to bring along a score at the public performance.
He did so. After the performance the parties who had
urged him to use a score crowded around him with con-
gratulations on the excellent result of their advice —
until one of them happened to glance at the score on his
desk, which proved to be — Rossini's Barher of Seville ! ^
The Philharmonic orchestra was not a bad one as
orchestras went in that day ; but how far it was from the
modern standard — which alone could have satisfied Wag-
ner — may be inferred from such a fact as this that
Concert-master Sainton had to finger certain passages in
the Tannhduser overture for each one of the first violinists !
Furthermore, the orchestra had been allowed to fall into
slovenly habits by its previous conductors, Mendelssohn
included. On this topic the reader will find some very
instructive remarks in Wagner's essay On Conducting,
from which I will quote a few lines. Referring to the
1 This anec<Jote, if not literally true, is at any rate hen trovuto. Con-
ductin}< symphonies witliout a score is no longer so rare a feat as to
seem an insult or a crime. Eminent Wagnerian conductors like Mr.
Seidl, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Nikisch do it occasionally, and Hans Richter
does it habitually ; nay, he conducts whole Wagner operas without
a score.
452 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
Mendelssohn "traditions," followed by the London or-
chestra, he says : —
"The music poured on like water from a public fountain; to
hold back was impossible, and every allegro ended as a veritable
presto. To interfere with this custom was a painful duty ; for
when the correct and properly-modified tempo was introduced, all
the faults of execution and expression which had been hidden amid
the previous flow of the music-fountain, were suddenly revealed.
The orchestra never played otherwise than mezzo forte ; never was
there a real forte or a real piano."
Praeger relates that "at first the orchestra could not
understand the pianissimo required in the opening of the
Lohengrin prelude; and then the crescendos and dimin-
uendos, which Wagner insisted upon having, surprised
the executants. They turned inquiringly to each other,
seemingly annoyed at his fastidiousness." They were
willing to learn, however, and after the first concert
Wagner testified in a letter to Liszt : —
"The orchestra alone interests me here ; it has learned to love
me and is enthusiastically in my favor." And again, when all was
over, and he was back in Ziirich, he wrote of the orchestra: "I
could see that it was always most willing to follow my intentions,
as far as bad habits and want of time would allow."
Things went on as well as could be expected under
such circumstances, until the fourth concert came along,
on April 30. The programme of this was a characteristic
Philharmonic monstrosity — a batch of pieces, good, bad,
and indifferent — enough to last three or four hours, and
jumbled together without the slightest regard for artistic
sequence or contrast; to wit: (1) symphony by Lucas;
(2) Romanza, Meyerbeer; (3) Nonetto, Spohr; (4) Aria,
Beethoven; (5) Overture, Weber; (6) Symphony, Bee-
FOUR MONTHS IN LONDON 453
thoven; (7) Duetto, Mozart; (8) Overture, Onslow ! ! This
programme came very near sending Wagner precipitately-
back to the Alps.
»'0n that evening," he wrote to Fischer, "I was really in a
furious rage, that after the A major symphony I should have had
to conduct a miserable vocal piece and a trivial overture of Onslow's ;
and, as is my way, in deepest dudgeon, I told my friends aloud
that I had that day conducted for the last time ; that on the morrow
I should send in my resignation, and journey home. By chance a
concert singer, R. — a young German Jew — was present: he
caught up my words and conveyed them all hot to a newspaper
reporter. Ever since then rumors have been flying about in the
German papers, which have misled even you. I need scarcely tell
you that the representations of my friends, who escorted me home,
succeeded in making me withdraw the hasty resolution conceived
in a moment of despondency."
The gunpowder of this explosion came from the grow-
ing feeling of disappointment of all his hopes. A survey
of the situation showed him that what had been practically
his sole motive in accepting the London engagement —
the hope of making it the entering wedge for a series of
performances of his operas in German — was an impos-
sibility. Not even in the inadequate concert-hall was
he able to introduce himself properly, the Tannhduser
overture and a few short selections from Lohengrin being
all that the directors saw fit to place on their eight pro-
grammes. Consequently he was condemned to the fruit-
less and painful task of conducting interminable concerts
of poorly rehearsed music much of which he despised,
while he could not even impose on the performers his
own style of interpretation. Moreover he found it im-
possible, under such circumstances, to continue his work
on the Walkilre. No wonder he wrote to Liszt : —
454 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
" I live here like one of the lost souls in hell.i I never thought
that I could sink again so low. The misery I feel in having to live
in these disgusting surroundings is beyond description, and I now
realise that it was a sin, a crime, to accept this invitation to London,
which in the luckiest case must have led me away from my real
path."
Philistines find it difficult to understand such a state
of mind. Indeed, Mr. Joseph Bennett considers the above
as " language which must strike every reader as ridicu-
lously exaggerated"; and he frankly declares that if
Wagner was not happy it was all his own fault; he was
guilty of "childish petulance," and was a ^' self-tormeyited
man." Mr. Bennett is quite right. Here was a man
" abusing the people whose money he, of his own free will,
was taking." This was certainly outrageous, esiDCcially
when we bear in mind that in Zurich he had been offered
only ten dollars a week for his services as operatic con-
ductor, and that five dollars a week was all he earned
during the four months he devoted to writing his Opera
and Drama; while here in London the ungrateful man
actually received no less than £200 for 102 days, or $9.50
a day ! And what folly to growl because he could have
only one rehearsal for each concert ; for did not that leave
him more time for other things, while he got his $9.50
a day all the same? Why, again, should he have wished
to produce a whole opera of his in London, when the critics
made such mince-meat of the fragments they heard?
What would the critics have said of the whole of Tann-
hduser when their leader wrote in the Times of May 16,
1855 : —
1 He was reading Dante's Inferno at this time, and wrote Liszt a
long letter regarding it, shortly afterwards (No. 190).
FOUR MONTHS IN LONDON 455
"Of the overture to Tannhdiiser we have already spoken, and
the execution last night gave us no cause to modify our first
impression. A more inflated display of extravagance and noise
has rarely been submitted to an audience, and it was a pity to hear
so magnificent an orchestra engaged in almost fruitless attempts at
accomplishing things which, even if readily practicable, would lead
to nothing." And once more, on June 12 : " Even the most won-
derful execution could not make this Taunhauser music acceptable,
and we sincerely hope that no execution, however superb, will
ever make such senseless discord pass, in England, for a manifes-
tation of art and genius."
All this of the Tannhuuser overture, now the most
popular piece in the concert repertory ! Of course, when
Wagner, who was then engaged on the Walkiire, read in
the leading London papers such " criticisms " on an opera
written ten years before, he ought to have smiled and
felt happy. If he did not, he was " self -tormented. "
I have called this general situation the gunpowder
which led to the explosion and the intended resignation
after the fourth concert. But the tiny spark which set
off the explosion was no doubt an incident of that concert
thus related by Praeger.: —
" During the aria from Les Huguenots, the tenor, Herr Reichardt,
after a few bars' rest, did not retake his part at the proper moment,
upon which Wagner turned to him, — of coui'se without stopping
the band, — whereupon the singer made gestures to the audience
indicating that the error lay icith Wayner. . . . Wagner was well
aware of the unfriendliness of a section of the critics, and in all
probability capital would be made out of this. At the end of the
first part of the concert I went to him in the artists' room. His
high-pitched excitement and uncontrolled utterances, it was easy
to foresee, boded no good. And when we reached home after the
concert, there ensued a positive storm of passion. Wagner at his
best was impulsive and vehement ; suffering such a miserable
insinuation as to his incapacity, he grew furious."
456 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
He was determined to return to Zurich at once, and
only for his wife's sake, his three principal friends,
Sainton, Luders, and Praeger, finally persuaded him to
remain.
And now note the characteristic echo of this event in
Germany. Other nations are proud of their great men
— even if they are not so very great. Not so the Ger-
mans. They were at that time engaged in the national
sport of systematically ignoring the greatest philosopher
their country has ever produced, — Arthur Schopenhauer,
— and at the same time they were trying to kill off their
greatest composer — not by ignoring him, which is not so
easy in the case of an opera-composer, but by doing every-
thing in their power to cripple and malign him. Liszt
had written to Wagner that " the English edition of Phil-
istinism is not a bit better than the German, and the
chasm between the public and us remains equally wide
everywhere." But I believe that Liszt was unjust to the
British Philistine. Had Wagner been an Englishman
trying to make his fame in a German city, Liszt could
have hardly written as he did after this " resignation "
incident : " In Diisseldorf I was told that you had already
left London! The envious Philistines were extremely
delighted with this news." So they were with the
Tannliauser fiasco in Paris, five years later; with the
financial failure of the Bayreuth Festival in 1876; and
with all the misfortunes that pursued him to the end of
his life.
Towards the close of his engagement in London, mat-
ters took a more favorable turn, thanks partly to the
kindness of the Queen, and partly to that love of fair-
play and common decency which is one of the noblest
FOUR MONTHS IN LONDON 457
traits of the English mind. The disgraceful hounding of
the poor composer by the London critics had the oppo-
site effect of what they intended. While they, with a
few honorable exceptions, were engaged in mud-throwing,
the public became more and more demonstratively favor-
able to the persecuted master. At the fifth concert, after
the Tannhiiuser overture, tumultuous applause followed,
the audience rising and waving handkerchiefs; indeed,
Mr. Anderson informed Praeger "that he had never
known such a display of excitement at a Philharmonic
concert." But better things still were to follow. At the
seventh concert the Tannhiiuser overture was repeated by
command of the Queen, who attended with the Prince
Consort, although she appeared at such concerts hardly
once a year. Concerning this event, we must quote Wag-
ner's own narrative to Fischer : —
" If in itself it was extremely gratifying that the Queen should
pay no regard to my highly compromised political position (which
had been dragged to light with great malignity by the Times), and
that she should without hesitation assist at a public performance
under my direction, then her further behavior towards me afforded
me at last an affecting compensation for all the contrarieties and
vulgar animosities which I have here endured.
"She and Prince Albert, who both sat immediately facing tlie
orchestra, applauded after the Tannhduser overture — with which
the first part concluded — with graciousness almost amounting to
a challenge, so that the public broke out into lively and prolonged
applause. During the interval the Queen summoned me to the
Salon, and received me before her Court with the cordial words :
' Your composition has enraptured me.' "
He adds that in a long conversation, in which Prince
Albert also took part, the Queen further inquired about
his works, and asked if it would not be possible to give
458 WAGNER AS CONDUCTOR
his operas in an Italian version in London; to which he
was obliged to give a negative answer (for his experi-
ences had shown him that England was not yet ripe for
such a scheme). He concludes : " At the end of the con-
cert the Queen and the Prince applauded me again most
courteously. . . . The last concert is on the twenty-
fifth, and I leave on the twenty-sixth, so as to resume
in my quiet retreat my sadly interrupted work."
Further interesting details regarding this event are
given in a letter to Liszt (No. 191), in which he says of
the Queen and the Prince that " they were really the first
persons in England who dared to come out openly and
without reserve in my favor : if you consider that they
were dealing with a politically notorious individual,
against whom a warrant was out on the charge of high
treason, you will appreciate my sentiment when I say
that I feel the most cordial gratitude towards both for
their actions." He justly looked on the attitude of the
audience as "a demonstration against the critics," and
thus describes the scene at the close of the last concert : —
"The orchestral players arose solemnly and joined with the
large audience that filled the hall in an outburst of applause which
continued so long that it actually caused me some embarrassment.
Then all the players came to have a parting handshake, and after-
wards men and women from the audience gave me their hands,
which I pressed cordially. Thus this — essentially most absurd —
London expedition finally won the aspect of a triumph for me, in
which I was at any rate pleased by the attitude of independence
which the public assumed against the critics. . . . With the Queen
I was truly delighted ; to some friends here I myself gave great
pleasure, and let that suffice. The Neio Philharmonic,'''' he adds
sarcastically, "would like to have me next season: what more
could I want ?"
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