AT SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY.
His entrance to the St. Nicolas school in 1827, wherehe remained three years, was as the passing through a dark cloud. The whole training here differed vitally from that at the Kreuzschule. The masters and their mode of tuition was unsympathetic to him. I did not wonder at this when he told me. I had been at the school, too, and experienced similar feelings of resentment. The Martinet system of discipline was irksome to high-spirited boys. No attempt was made to develop individuality of character. This was unfortunate for Wagner. He was just then at an age when personal interest and sympathetic guidance would have been invaluable. Filled with wild dreams of a glorious future that was to follow his self-dedication to the drama, he threw himself with ardour into the completion of a play he had begun to work at. Ambition had prompted him to base it on the model of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The plot was as wild and impossible as the unrestricted exuberance of so extravagant a fancy might suggest. It occupied him for upwards of two years, and greatly interfered with his legitimate school work. When in later life he surveyed this period he describes himself as “wild, negligent, and idle,” absorbed with one thought, his great drama.
HIS ARTISTIC CRISIS.
From the St. Nicolas school he passed to St. Thomas’s school, where he stayed but a few months, leaving it for the University. At the University he attended occasional lectures only, showing none of that assiduity which distinguished him at the Kreuzschule. His University days were marked by a profligacy to which he afterwards referred with regret and even disgust. He was young and wild, and had determined with his insatiable nature to drain to the dregs the cup of dissolutedfrivolity. I should not be performing the duty of an honest biographer were I to omit an incident which occurred at this period, regrettable as it might seem. His mother still received her modest pension. On one occasion Richard was commissioned to receive it for her. Returning home with the money in his pocket he chanced to pass a public gambling house.Therewas one sensation he had not yet experienced. At that moment he felt that in the throw of the fascinating dice lay the fateful omen of his future. The money was not his, yet he entered and risked the hazard of the dice. He was unfortunate; lost all but a small sum he had kept back. Yet he could not resist the alluring excitement. He staked this too. Fortune, happily for the wide world of art, befriended him, and he left the debasing den with more than he had entered, “But,” inquired I, “what would you have done had you lost all?” “Lord!” he replied, “before going into the house I had firmly resolved that should I lose I would accept the omen and seek my end in the river.” A man in years calmly telling me this so long after the incident had occurred urged me again to ask, “Would you really have done that?” “I would,” was the short determined answer. He was unable to keep the story back from his mother, and at once on his return told her all. “Instead of upbraiding me,” Wagner said, “she fell with passionate love around my neck, exclaiming, ‘You are saved. Your free confession tells me that never again will you commit so wicked a wrong.’” This Wagner related to me when I was staying with him at Zurich in 1856. This hazardous throw of the dice was not the only occasion on whichhe had boldly defied fate. He was ever buoyed up with an implicit faith in his destiny, which sustained him through many trials, though at the same time it urged him to act in a manner where more thoughtful minds would have hesitated.
I now come to what was undoubtedly the crisis of Wagner’s artistic career. It was the practice at German theatres, between the acts, for the orchestra to play movements of Haydn’s symphonies or similar excerpts by other masters. The rule was to hurry through them in the most indifferent manner. Not the slightest attention was paid to expression, and if it happened that the manager’s bell rang while the “playing” was going on, the performance would terminate with a jerk, each artist seemingly anxious not to play a note more, and heedless of finishing the “phrase” together.
At Leipzic, the entire music was particularly slovenly, played under the cynical Matthey. And yet the very men who played so reprehensibly in the stage orchestra, when performing at the famous Gewandhaus concerts seemed to be moved by feelings of reverence for their work, unknown to them in the theatre. It would be an interesting investigation to discover why this was. The symphonies of Beethoven in the concert-room compelled their whole worship; the symphonies of Haydn in the theatre were treated like “dinner” music. Perhaps the explanation is, that the symphonic movements played in the theatre bore no relation to the drama enacted, whereas music played for itself went with a verve and spirit, and attention to its meaning quite unknown to the stop-gap-music-scrambling of the theatre.
RESOLVE TO BECOME A MUSICIAN.
From the unsatisfying scrambling performances of the theatre, Wagner, fifteen years old, went to the Gewandhaus concerts. There he heard Beethoven’s symphonies. What a revelation were they to him, played with the artistic perfection for which that orchestra was so justly celebrated, although there was room for improvement. They forced open in him the floodgates of a torrent of emotion. A new world dawned upon him. Music that had hitherto lain dormant, suddenly awakened into a vigorous existence truly electrifying. His future career was decided. Henceforth he, too, would be a musician. And what was there in Beethoven that should so startle him into new life? He had heard Haydn, Mozart, and earlier masters without being so completely awed and fascinated. What was there in these symphonies that should exercise such a determining influence over him? It was the overpowering earnestness of the unhappy composer. Beethoven dealt with life problems according to the spirit of his age—the demand for freedom of thought and liberty of the person. Beethoven had been baptized in that mighty wave, the struggle for freedom, which rolled over Germany at the beginning of this century. He could not help being eloquently earnest. He was the creature of his time, and when called upon to declare himself, was not found wanting in rugged, bold earnestness. Yet although Haydn and Mozart, I too, were earnest, their utterances were of a subjective character. The world to them presented none of the doubts and philosophic speculations which convulsed Beethoven’s period. Their view of life was pure optimism. A vein of bright joyousness runs through alltheir works, aye, even their most serious. But Beethoven was a pessimist, and his works betray him. When he has a sunshiny moment it serves only to show how deep is his prevailing gloom. Wagner at fifteen was a poet, and the energetic, suggestive music of Beethoven was mentally transformed into living personalities. He has said that he felt as if Beethoven addressed him “personally.” Every movement formed itself into a story, glowed with life, and assumed a clear, distinct shape. I do not forget the earlier influence of Weber over him, but then that was more due to emotion than to reason. The novelty of “Der Freischütz,” the freshness of its melodic stream, and the wild imaginative treatment of the romantic story captivated his first affection and enchained it to the last. The whole of his impressions of Beethoven (whom, by the way, Wagner never saw) were embodied by him in a sketch written for a periodical and entitled, “A Pilgrimage to Beethoven.” Although the incidents painted there are not to be taken as having happened to the pilgrim, Wagner, yet the story is clear on one point—the unbounded spell Beethoven exercised over him.
As he was now determined to become a musician, and seeing the necessity of acquiring some theoretical knowledge of his new art, with his usual perseverance he began studying alone. His progress was so disappointing that he made arrangements with a local organist, with whom, too, he advanced but little. However, he was resolved. Music he wanted for his own play; without music he felt it was incomplete, and although he worked assiduously, theory seemed a long, dreary road which, instead of helping him to the goalhe yearned to reach, presented innumerable obstacles in the path. He wanted to compose, yet all the grammarian’s rules were so many caution-boards, warning him against doing this or that, impediments that prevented him accomplishing what he strove to perform. It was always what shouldnotbe done instead of what should be done. With youthful impetuosity he then revolted against all grammarianism, and to the end of his life maintained an attitude of derisive defiance towards all who fought behind the shield inscribed fugue, canon and counterpoint.
Although conscious of how unsatisfactory his theoretical progress had been, ambition prompted him to write an overture for the orchestra. The young composer was seventeen. The overture is characterized by Wagner’s besetting sin—extravagance of means. Through his sister’s connection with the stage he became acquainted with the music director of the Leipzic theatre, a young man, Heinrich Dorn, a few years older than Wagner. I knew Dorn as a friendly, easy-going, good-tempered fellow. Impressed with the unusual enthusiasm of the youth, Dorn kindly offered to perform his overture at the theatre. It was performed. The audience laughed at it, and Wagner was not slow to admit the justice of its reception.
A PUPIL OF CANTOR WEINLIG.
Of the caligraphy displayed in this work I must say a few words. The score was written in different-coloured inks, the groups of strings, wood, and brass, being distinguished by special colours. His extreme neatness and care at all times of his life, when using the pen, was wonderful. Before putting word or note to paper every thought had been so fully digested that therewas never any need of erasure or correction. In strange contrast with Richard Wagner’s clean, neat, distinct writing, stand Beethoven’s hieroglyphics, whole lines of which were sometimes smudged out with the finger.
Wagner accepted the judgment upon his overture, though not without a painful feeling of disappointment. But as he was determined to be a musician, his family now encouraged him, and for that purpose placed him under Cantor Weinlig of Leipzic. The Cantor was on intimate terms with my father, and therefore was well known to me. He had a great name as a skilled contrapuntist. Gentle and persuasive in demeanour, he soon won the affection of his pupil, and although his tuition lasted for about six months only, it was sufficient to cause Wagner to refer with affection to this, his only real master.
The immediate result of Weinlig’s tuition was the production of a sonata for the pianoforte. It is in strict form, but Wagner’s conscientious adherence to the dogmatic principles he had learned seem to have dried up all sources of inspiration. He was evidently in a straight jacket, for the sonata does not contain one original idea, not one phrase of more than common interest. It is just the kind of music that any average pupil without gift might have written. Time was wanting before the careful, orthodox training of Weinlig could thoroughly assimilate itself to the peculiarity of Wagner’s genius.
It is curious that he should have produced such a very inferior work as regards ideas and development while he was at the same time a most ardent student of Beethoven. It can only be explained by regarding the period as one of transition and receptivity. He was notfull grown nor strong enough to wing himself to independent flight.
Beethoven was his daily study. He was carefully storing up all the grand thoughts of the great master, but his fiery enthusiasm had not yet come to that burning-point when it should ignite his own latent powers. His acquaintance with the scores of Beethoven has never been equalled. It was extraordinary. He had them so much by heart that he could play on the piano, with his own awkward fingering, whole movements. Indeed, beyond Weber, the idol of his boyhood, and Beethoven, there was no master whose works interested him at that period. His family considered him Beethoven-mad. His eldest brother, Albert, then engaged actively in the profession, and more of a practical business man, particularly condemned the exclusive hero-worship of a master not then understood or acknowledged by the general public. But Richard persevered with his study, and as a testimony of his affection for Beethoven it may be mentioned that, at eighteen, he produced a pianoforte arrangement of the whole of the “Ninth Symphony.”
WEBER AND BEETHOVEN HIS MODELS.
In the school of Weber and Beethoven did Wagner form himself. The musical utterances of both his models were in harmony with their time. Weber was romantic, Beethoven pessimistic. The cry for liberty which ran throughout Europe at the end of the eighteenth century affected the republic of letters sooner than the world of music. It was Wagner’s “idol,” his “adored” master, who first musically portrayed the revolutionary spirit of the dawn of this century. It was he who founded the romantic school of musicians. His ideality, his “romantic” genius, taking that word inits highest and noblest sense, place him in an entirely separate niche of the temple of art. His inventive faculty, the irresistible charm of his melody, his entirely new delineation and orchestral colouring of character, are immeasurably superior to anything of the kind which preceded him. He was the basis, the starting-point of a new phase in the art of music. And yet, with it all, the great Weber fell short in one important feature of his art—the consequential development of his themes. All his chamber music testifies to this. Even in his three great overtures, “Der Freischütz,” “Euryanthe,” and “Oberon,” the “working-out” of the subjects is feeble and unskilful, and only compensated for by the ever gushing forth of new and potent ideas. Weber had not passed through the crucible of a serious study of the classical school. In his early period he had treated music more as an amateur than as an earnest-thinking musician. Nor was he gifted with the brain power of Beethoven. It was the latter master’s causal strength of brain, combined with his deep, serious studies and his incessant striving to express exactly what he felt, which have secured for him that exceptional position in modern tonal art.
STUDY OF INSTRUMENTATION.
Coming now to Wagner, we find him possessing, to a truly remarkable degree, the special powers of both. His wondrous inventive genius was controlled by a brain power as solid as rare. It enabled him to fuse in his own work the gifts of the idealist, Weber, and of the thinker, Beethoven. The latter’s mastery of workmanship, his reasoned sequence of ideas, are vastly surpassed in Wagner’s dialectic treatment. As an instrumental colourist Weber was superior to Beethoven. The deafnessof the latter sometimes led him to mark the wrong instrument in his scores. He could not hear, and therefore was not fully able to comprehend the qualities of every instrument, like Weber. The greatness of his power as an orchestral writer is undeniable, yet many instances could be quoted where he has misapplied a particular instrument of whose character, through his deafness, he had lost the exact knowledge. Wagner based his instrumentation on that of Weber. In spite of an almost unlimited admiration of Beethoven, Wagner has not refrained from pointing to certain defects of scoring in him. He shows that whilst Beethoven modelled his orchestra after Haydn and Mozart, his conceptions went immeasurably beyond them and clashed with the somewhat inadequate means of their orchestra. Beethoven had neither the modern keyed brass instruments to support the wood-wind against the doubled and trebled strings, nor did he dare to venture beyond the then supposed range of the wood, brass, and string instruments. Often when reaching what was thought to be the topmost note on either, he suddenly jumps in an almost childishly anxious manner to an octave below, interrupting the melody and producing an irritating effect. Wagner has asserted that had Beethoven heard the tonal effect of portions of his marking, he would unquestionably have rewritten them or altered the instruments. But whilst deploring his great predecessor’s deafness as the cause of certain defective instrumentation he renders unstinted homage to the general orchestration of the symphonies. The enormous amplification of deeply reasoned detail in those nine grand works demands from each individual of the orchestra an attentionand refinement of expression to be expected only from an orchestra composed of virtuosi.
It was shortly after his return to Leipzic that Wagner began to study instrumentation. The Gewandhaus concerts and Beethoven’s symphonies had stirred him. He thumped the piano, was conscious of his lack of skill, but nevertheless bought the scores of the symphonies and studied them with heart and soul. The magnificent colouring charmed him. To work the score at the piano, and see where the secret lay, was his careful study, and then, when he found it, he saw how necessary was individual excellence of performance. Even the Gewandhaus performances failed to completely satisfy him. The members of the orchestra were familiar with the works, yet was the performance far from conveying that lasting impression which the delineation of the intensely grand ideas were capable of, and which from his piano-reading he expected. The dissatisfaction he experienced induced him to seek further for the explanation, and after careful thought he fixed the blame on the shortcomings of the conductor. The head of an orchestra, he asserted, should study the work to be played under him until every phrase, its meaning, and bearing to the whole composition were thoroughly assimilated by him. He should, further, have a perfect acquaintance with the capabilities of every instrument, and an excellent memory. Works performed under conductors not possessing these qualifications never produce their legitimate effect. “It was only when I had conducted Mozart’s works myself,” says Wagner, “and had made the orchestra execute every detail as I felt it, that I took real pleasure in their performance.”
THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
Had Wagner’s youthful enthusiasm been fired at the Dresden Kreuzschule with love for Germany and hatred of the French oppressor, a feeling which flew through the land like lightning, had the songs of Körner’s “Lyre and Sword,” set to vigorous music by Weber, inspired him, his patriotism was intensified tenfold when, returning to his native city, he came into the midst of a population that had suffered all the horrors and privations of actual war. His study of modern literature, assimilated with surprising facility in a brain where all was order and consecutiveness, gave him an insight into the deplorable state of his beloved country, whilst indicating the direction in which future efforts should be directed. He found that the revolutionary spasm of the end of the eighteenth century had shattered time-honoured traditions, roughly shaken the creeds of the past, and indeed had left nothing untouched, infiltrating itself into every great and small item of human existence. The impetus of the time was “revolution!” To throw down the trammels of moral and physical slavery, to free man and raise him to the throne of humanity, was the desire of all European peoples. All worked towards one common goal; there was not one movement of importance then that was notinfluenced by the revolution. In literature the tendency was to make letters a concrete part of the national mind, just as the great French revolution called into existence the first notion of national life by investing the people with the controlling power of their country’s interests. All the master-minds of the time of Louis the Fourteenth were an some measure connected with the king; but with the nineteenth century revolution a third state was developed, which enriched national life, and, acting upon literature, drove the hitherto secluded savants and their works into the vortex of popular life. Before this upheaval, literature had been the exclusive property of the professional savant and his high-born protector. The tendency of modern social life was to enthrone mind and genius. The third state was actually breaking down social barriers, the line of demarcation between them and so-called “good society,” the monarch and aristocracy. That such a violent change at the beginning of the century should have unsettled and bewildered some otherwise remarkably gifted men is not surprising. The turbulent state of society, and the confused investigation and awkward handling of important moral questions, led to doubt and despair. Men like the brothers Schlegel became Roman Catholics, hoping by so doing to cast the responsibility of their life on a religion which closes every aperture to the reasoning powers. Ludwig Tieck, another German savant, followed their example, whilst men like Zacharias Werner, after having given proofs of the highest capability, destroyed their mental being by pursuing a most dissolute and reprehensible course; or, like Hoffman, by an over-indulgence in wine, helpedto create an unæsthetic phase in German literature which, alas, serves only to show how sadly distorted gifted brains can become. Kleist was driven to commit suicide. I could cite more unhappy victims of that troublous epoch, existences blighted by the powerful wave of romanticism and freedom that swept over the land. The only man who remained unaffected by the movement was Goethe. In his striving for plastic beauty and classicism, he never became enthusiastic for the romantic school. He even stood somewhat aloof from Shakespeare; nor would he, in his cold simplicity and placid grandeur, see in all the romantic movement aught but a remnant of revolution against his “legitimate” supremacy.
Those early years of Wagner were passed in a scene of unusual activity and excitement. His native city a great battle-field the year of his birth, people hardly recovered from the shock of the 1793 revolution, when again they are startled by its reverberation in July, 1830. Then Wagner was seventeen, of an age and thoughtful enough to be impressed by the struggle carried on around him, or, to quote his own words, “all that acted more and more on my mind, on my imagination and reason.” This was the spirit which he brought to bear on his study of orchestration,—ideality controlled by strong reasoning power. He had studied under the first professor of Leipzic, had had an overture performed in public, and now, in 1832, he essayed a grand symphony for orchestra, which ever remained a pleasing work to him, and to which he would refer with evident satisfaction. Its history is a curious one.
HIS ONLY SYMPHONY.
Though not twenty, he, with his usual self-reliance,boldly took the score and parts to Vienna. He wanted his work to be heard. His daring ambition was not satisfied with a lesser centre than the Austrian capital. Vienna was then, as it is now, the city of pleasure and light Italian music. As Beethoven himself could command but a small section of adherents among the pleasure-seeking Viennese, it is not surprising that the untried and unknown young composer was ignored. But undaunted, he took his treasure to Prague, where Dionys Weber, conductor of the Conservatorium, performed it to Wagner’s unbounded delight. Returning home, he had the proud satisfaction of hearing it played at the classical Gewandhaus concerts and also at its rival but lesser institution, the “Euterpe.” This was a promising augury, and to Wagner amply sufficient for assuming that later his work would be repeated. Therefore, when in 1834 Mendelssohn was appointed conductor at the Gewandhaus, Wagner unhesitatingly took the symphony to him. For a long time nothing was heard of it. Wagner became anxious, and applied to Mendelssohn, when to his indignation he was informed that the score had unfortunately been lost. Wagner never alluded to this incident without indulging in one of those bitter ironical attacks upon Mendelssohn in which he was such an adept. The incident rankled in the memory of the over-sensitive composer, and no amount of external amiability at a later period from Mendelssohn was ever able to efface it. This symphony was Wagner’s first acknowledged work and acknowledged, too, by men of weight, whose commendation had, not unnaturally, elated him. “My first symphony!” How often have I heard that phrase? and spoken with such satisfactionthat on several occasions I tried to induce Wagner to play some reminiscences of it to me. He could not; he had lost all remembrance of it. Accident or fate willed it that shortly before his death the orchestral parts were discovered at Dresden. A score was arranged and the fifty-year-old work performeden famillein 1882, under the revered old man’s bâton at Venice.
DIRECTOR OF A CHORUS.
Though proud of his success as a musician, the poetic side of his nature was not repressed. He was a poet as well as musician. Suddenly the poesy within him leaped forth and impelled him to write words already wedded in his own heart to sounds. Its appearance was as a revelation disclosing an allied power which was to exalt him to a pinnacle to which no other composer in the whole history of art could possibly lay claim. He wrote a libretto to “The Wedding.” This was to be his first opera, and the same year, 1833, in which he wrote the words he also began the music. However, he composed but three numbers, still in existence, the introduction, a chorus, a sextet, and then was dissuaded by his sister from proceeding further with it. The story and its treatment were both pronounced ill-adapted for stage representation. The book was the veriest hyper-romantic scum, a mixture of the gloomy fatalist Werner and the wildly extravagant Hoffman. The opera was abandoned with regret, and a living was sought in any form of musical drudgery. He was willing to “arrange,” to “correct proofs,” or do anything but teaching, to which he always had the strongest antipathy. To my knowledge, he never gave a lesson in his life. When, therefore, the post of chorus master at the Würzburg theatre was offered to him, he readily accepted it. His eldestbrother, Albert, was then engaged at Würzburg as singer, actor, and stage manager. It was the practice of Albert all through life to assume the rôle of mentor to his younger brother, but against this Richard strongly rebelled, though at the same time readily admitting his brother’s abilities as a manager and singer. Possessed of a remarkably high tenor voice, Albert was unfortunately subject to intermittent attacks of total loss of vocal power. But the singer’s loss was the actor’s gain, for to compensate for this defect he exerted himself and succeeded in shining as an actor.
This Würzburg engagement was Richard Wagner’s first real active participation in stage life. He had entered upon his new duties but a short time when an opportunity presented itself wherein he could exhibit his practical skill as a musician. Albert was cast for the tenor part in Marschner’s “Vampyre.” According to his notion, his chief solo finished unsatisfactorily. Richard’s aid was invoked, and the result was additional words, some forty lines and music, too, which enabled Albert to display his unusually fine high tones.
The life to Wagner was novel, attractive, and full of bright promise. The friendly relations that existed between the chorus and their director, the habitual banter of the players, their studied posing, their concealing home miseries beneath a simulated gaiety, attracted and charmed the inexperienced neophyte. He was yet blind to all the wiles, trickeries, and petty infamies that seem inseparable from stage life. In the theatre the meannesses and jealousies that clog human existence under all forms are focused and exposed to the glare of publicity, whereas in the wide world theyare lost among the crowd. It was not long before Wagner began to hate the shams and petty meannesses of the stage with ten-fold the intensity he had at first been bewitched by it.
During his stay at Würzburg, urged by his brother he again thought of composing an opera. Casting about for a fitting subject, he alighted upon a volume of legends by Gozzi. One, “La Donna Serpente,” attracted him, and seemed to invite operatic treatment. He resolved to write his own text, and within the year produced what was his first complete opera, which he called “The Fairies.” The musical treatment was entirely in the romantic style of Weber and Marschner, but Wagner frankly confesses it did not realize his expectations. He had thought himself capable of greater things than his powers were yet equal to. Nevertheless, he strove to obtain a hearing for it, but without success. French and Italian opera ruled the German stage, and native productions were not encouraged. However, an ardent aspirant for fame like Wagner was not to be discouraged by the cold slights offered to his first stage work. He returned to Leipzic, 1834, again energetically endeavouring to get it accepted, but only to be disappointed once more.
“DAS LIEBESVERBOT.”
It was during this visit to Leipzic that an event occurred which was destined to strongly influence his future career. He heard that great dramatic artist, Schroeder-Devrient. The effect of her performance upon him was startling, although the operas in which she appeared, “Romeo” and “Norma” of Bellini, were of the weakest. He saw what a striking impression could be produced by careful attention to dramaticdetail. The poorest work was elevated into the realms of high art by the grand style of the inspired artist. For the first time he realized the immense value of perfection of “style.” The lesson was not lost, and the high point to which Wagner artists have subsequently carried it by the master’s imperative insistence upon the most thorough and exhaustive attention to every detail of art, has formed the undying Wagner school.
Fired by enthusiasm, he began the composition of a new opera, in which he ambitiously hoped the great actress would perform the principal rôle. This was his second music-dramatic work, “Das Liebesverbot” (“The Novice of Palermo”), founded upon Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure.” It took him about two years to write it. To Wagner this period was one of transition, alternately dominated by the serious Beethoven, the “romantic” Weber, Auber, and even the popular Italian school. He was as a tree through whose branches the winds rushed from all quarters, only the more firmly to consolidate the roots. He, too, was young, and a not unnatural desire to acquire some of the world’s riches induced him to write his new work in a “popular” vein. The “Novice of Palermo” has but very faint indications of the Wagner of after-life, and in the composer’s own judgment was but an indifferent work, although comparing favourably with the operas of its day.
ART AND NATIONALITY.
After the termination of his Würzburg engagement Wagner went to Magdeburg, 1834, where he was appointed music director, a post he held for nearly two years, steadily working, meanwhile, at the “Novice of Palermo.” The Magdeburg company was above theusual level of provincial troupes. The conductor was young and energetic, and soon secured the good will of his subordinates. But the Magdeburghers were apathetic in musical matters, and in the spring of 1836 the theatre announced its final performances. The “Novice of Palermo” was not then completed. After some discussion it was decided to perform it. Wagner hurried on his work, battling with innumerable difficulties which presented themselves thick and fast. First the theatre was threatened with bankruptcy. To escape this it was arranged to close the building a month earlier than the time originally announced. It left Wagner ten days for rehearsals. His book had not been submitted to the censor, and as it was now the Lenten season, there was a dread that the title might subject the libretto to vexatious pruning. The opera was given out as founded on one of the serious plays of Shakespeare, and by this means escaped all maltreatment. But what could be done in ten days? Little even where friendly will was engaged. However, after rehearsal upon rehearsal, the work was performed. Its reception was moderate. The tenor singer had been unable to learn his part in the short time and resorted to unlimited “gag.” Perhaps hardly one was perfect in his rôle, and the whole work went badly enough. In after-life Wagner could afford to laugh at this makeshift performance, but at that time it was terribly real. He once gave me a representation of the tenor singer and other impersonators in a manner so ludicrous and mirth-provoking that he said, “You laugh now, but listen! A second performance was promised for my benefit. We were assembled and about to begin, when suddenly ahand-to-hand fight sprung up between two of the characters, and the performance had to be given up.” This put him in sad straits. He had hoped to receive such a sum of money from this “benefit” as would free him from all monetary difficulties, but no performance taking place he was worried in a most uncomfortable manner.
I suppose that if there be any feature in Wagner’s character about which there is no difference of opinion it is his love for his native land. At critical junctures, he has not hesitated, by speech or action, to declare his pronounced feelings. At present, however, my purpose is not to illustrate this point, but to emphasize a phase of thought in Wagner’s early manhood, which, boldly proclaimed at the time, gathered strength with increasing years, and forms one of the most important factors in his art-workings. He contended that the national life of a people was intimately entwined with their art productions. “The stage,” said Wagner, “is the noblest arena of a nation’s mind.” This was a very favourite theme of his. He would descant on it unceasingly. The stage was the mirror of a people. Shakespeare he worshipped, and gloried that such an intellect was counted in the republic of letters. England should be proud of her great man. He thought Carlyle right when he said Shakespeare was worth more to a nation than ten Indias. But poor Germany! What could she show? Where was her race of literary giants? The war of liberation had fired every German heart with the intensest patriotism. Young Germany had fought with unexampled ardour, and the hateful Napoleonic yoke was victoriously cast off. Liberty, patriotism, and fraternitywere the watchwords of every German, and they found their art expression in the inspiriting strains of the soldier-poet, Körner, and the vigorous melodies of the patriotic Weber. And German potentates looked on bewildered. Where would this torrent of enthusiasm end? Were they themselves secure on their thrones? Would it not sap the foundations of their own rule? And, as history too sadly shows, fear developed into despotism. The princes turned, and with the iron heel trampled upon the very men who had valiantly defended them against the ruthless invader. They were fearful of the German mind awakening to a sense of its political and social shortcomings. They argued that this uncontrolled enthusiasm for liberty of speech and person was a menace to their thrones; therefore they strove to crush it out. Their conduct Wagner later stigmatized as “replete with the blackest ingratitude,” and their treatment of national art as dictated by “cold, calculating cruelty.” For the stage, alien productions were imported. French frivolity reigned supreme. Rossini’s operas, licentious ballets, were patronized to the exclusion of Beethoven’s works, and now, though half a century has elapsed, the baneful influence is still discernible. Such feelings greatly agitated Wagner’s early manhood. By 1840 they had assumed definite shape, and we find him through the public journals deploring the want of a German national drama. It was his effort to supply this want. He went to work with a fixed purpose. How far he has succeeded posterity will judge.
FORnine months, from the Easter of 1836 to the opening of the new year, 1837, Wagner was without engagement. It was a period of hardship and suffering. In a most miserable plight he went to Leipzic and Berlin, energetically exerting himself to get his opera, “The Novice of Palermo” accepted. He met with plenty of promises but no performances. His needs became more pressing. Debts had been incurred and the prospect of paying them was of the gloomiest. An ordinary mortal would have sunk under such overwhelming trouble, but Wagner was made of sterner stuff. His indomitable self-reliance and pluck, based upon an abnormal self-esteem, ever kept alight the lamp of hope within him, and sustained him through sadder times than this. True, he had not proved to the world that he was a genius, but he, himself, was fully convinced of it. He had written two operas, a symphony, and other works, and though they did not surpass or even equal what had been accomplished by other artists, yet for all that he was strongly imbued with a consciousness of the greatness of his own power in the tonal and poetic arts. He was convinced that he had a mission to fulfil, a new art gospel to preach, and, too, that he would succeed. The death-bed prediction of his step-father that he would be “something” would be fulfilled.
As far as his art creations show, this was a period of non-productivity. But it is impossible to suppose that Wagner was idle. Genius is never inactive. If not visibly at work the reflective faculties are certain to be actively employed. Though beset with every conceivable worldly trouble, depending for daily wants on what he could borrow, he, with alarming temerity, married.
It was on the 24th November, 1836; the bride, Fräulein Wilhelmina Planer, leading actress of the Magdeburg company. She was the daughter of a working spindle-maker. It was not the known possession of any histrionic gift that caused her to become a professional actress, but a very natural desire, as the eldest of the family, to increase the resources of the household. Spindle-making was not a profitable calling, and with a family, other help was gladly welcomed. But, as necessity has oft discovered and forced to the front many a talent that would have lain hidden from the world, so now was Magdeburg astonished by the presence of an unquestionably gifted artist. Minna Planer played the leading characters in tragedy and comedy. When off the stage her bearing was quiet and unobtrusive. No theatrical trick or display indicated the actress. And, after she had finally quitted stage life, it had been impossible to suppose that the soft-spoken, retiring, shy little woman had ever successfully impersonated important tragic rôles.
MINNA A HOUSE-WIFE.
Minna was handsome, but not strikingly so. Of medium height, slim figure, she had a pair of soft gazelle-like eyes which were a faithful index of a tender heart. Her look seemed to bespeak your clemency, and hergentle speech secured at once your good-will. Her movements in the house were devoid of everything approaching bustle. Quick to anticipate your thoughts, your wish was complied with before it had been expressed. Her bearing was that of the gentle nurse in the sick-chamber. It was joy to be tended by her. She was full of heart’s affection, and Wagner let himself be loved. Her nature was the opposite of his. He was passionate, strong-willed, and ambitious: she was gentle, docile, and contented. He yearned for conquest, to have the world at his feet: she was happy in her German home, and desired no more than permission to minister to him. From the first she followed him with bowed head. To his exuberant speech, his constant discourses on art, and his position in the future, she lent a willing, attentive ear. She could not follow him, she was not able to reason his incipient revolutionary art notions, to combat his seemingly extravagant theories; but to all she was sympathetic, sanguine, and consoling,—“a perfect woman, nobly planned,” as Wordsworth sweetly sings. As years rolled by and the genius of Wagner assumed more definite shape and grew in strength, she was less able to comprehend the might of his intellect. To have written “The Novice of Palermo” at twenty-three, and to have been received so cordially was to her unambitious heart the zenith of success. More than that she could not understand, nor did she ever realize the extent of the wondrous gifts of her husband. After twenty years of wedded life it was much the same. We were sitting at lunch in the trimly kept Swiss chalet at Zurich in the summer of 1856, waiting for the composer of the then completed “Rienzi,” “Dutchman,” “Tannhäuser,”and “Lohengrin” to come down from his scoring of the “Nibelungen,” when in full innocence she asked me, “Now, honestly, is Richard such a great genius?” On another occasion, when he was bitterly animadverting on his treatment by the public, she said, “Well, Richard, why don’t you write something for the gallery?” And yet, notwithstanding her inaptitude, Wagner was ever considerate, tender, and affectionate towards her. He was not long in discovering her inability to understand him, but her many good qualities and domestic virtues endeared her greatly to him. She had one quality of surpassing value in any household presided over by a man of Wagner’s thoughtless extravagance. She was thrifty and economical. At all periods of his life Wagner could not control his expenditure. He was heedless, relying always upon good fortune. But Minna was a skilled financier, and he knew this. For years their lot was uphill, sometimes a hard struggle for bare existence, and through all the devotion and homely love of the woman soothed and cheered the nervous, irritable Wagner. When their means enabled them to enjoy the comforts of life without first anxiously counting the cost, Minna was possessed of one thought, her husband and his happiness. And Wagner knew it and gratefully appreciated the heart’s devotion of the worshipping woman. Home was her paradise, her husband the king. Love, simple, trusting love, was her religion, and no greater testimony to the noble work of a genuine woman could be offered than that of the poet Milton in his “Paradise Lost”:—
Nothing lovelier can be foundIn woman, than to study household good.
Nothing lovelier can be foundIn woman, than to study household good.
DIRECTOR AT KÖNIGSBERG.
Throughout his career Wagner shook off the troubles of daily life with an elasticity truly remarkable. But now he must do something. He had incurred the most sacred of all obligations, to provide for his wife, and employment of some description was a pressing necessity. Viewed from an artistic point, his lost appointment had been a success. He had acquired all the skill of an efficient conductor and had familiarized himself with a large number of opera scores. But what had he done with his own gifts? The miserable finale of the Magdeburg episode, and his increased responsibilities, made him seriously reflect on this past year and a half. True he had composed an entire opera. But of what material was it made? He had regretfully to acknowledge that it was not as he would wish it. He had thrown over his household gods to worship Baal. He had rejected Weber and Beethoven, “his adored idols,” to dress his thoughts in attractive, showy, French attire. He had forsaken heartfelt truth for a graceful exterior. And what had he gained by imitating Auber and Rossini? Not even the satisfaction of public success. And why? His models spoke as they felt, whilst he clothed his thoughts in a borrowed garb. He was now conscious that he had but to express himself in his own language to convince others of the truth of his art gospel.
Some such similar post as at Magdeburg was what he now desired. There he would be Wagner himself. But in these early years smiling fortune was not always his happy companion. Nearly a year elapses before he again finds himself directing an operatic company. This time it is at Königsberg.
CONDUCTS ORCHESTRAL CONCERTS.
But before accompanying the weary artist to his newhome some mature reflections of Wagner on his Magdeburg period are worthy of notice. His elevation to the post of music director of the Magdeburg theatre was a joyful moment. For the first time he would be sole controller of operatic performances. When a youth he had been revolted by the slatternly manner in which theatre conductors had led the performances. Even the Gewandhaus concerts had not been altogether satisfactory. Something then was lacking in the ensemble. Now was his opportunity. The mechanical time-beating prevalent among conductors of opera houses would find no place with the ardent youthful composer. He first secured the affection of the singers by evincing a personal interest in their public success. His born actor’s skill enabled him to illustrate how such a character should move, whilst with the orchestra he would sing passages and rehearse one phrase incessantly until he was satisfied. He was indefatigable. The secret of his success was his earnestness. He knew what he wanted, which was half-way to securing it. The company seems to have been fairly intelligent and to have responded freely to his wishes, but the audiences were phlegmatic. Magdeburg was a garrison city, and the audiences were domineered by the cold reserve observed by the military. Wagner thought of all publics the worst was a military one. Effusive exhibitions of joy they regard as indecorous and unseemly, and the absence of spontaneous enthusiasm exercises a depressing effect on artists. Among the operas he conducted were Auber’s “Masaniello” and Rossini’s “William Tell.” Both of them were favourites of his. At that period, 1836, they stood out in bold relief from modern and ancient operas.Their melodies were fresh and graceful, and a dramatic truthfulness pervaded them which to the embryo imitator of the Greek tragedy was a strong recommendation. Further, the revolutionary subjects were congenial to the outlaw of 1848. But Auber and Rossini were soon to be eclipsed by the clever Hebrew, Meyerbeer, and it is this last writer who in a couple of years impels Wagner to leave his fatherland for Paris. It is Meyerbeer’s works that he is now about to conduct at Königsberg, where we shall at once follow him.
The time he spent in Königsberg was a prolongation of the miserable existence which had followed the breaking up of the Magdeburg company, intensified now, alas, by anxiety for his young wife. It was unenlivened by any gleam of even passing sunlight. The time dragged heavily, and was never referred to without a shudder. In later years, in the presence of his first wife, he has compassionately remarked, “Yes, poor Minna had a hard time of it then, and after the first few months of drudgery no doubt repented of her bargain.” To which the gentle Minna would reply by a look full of tender affection. Wagner’s references to the devotion and untiring energy of his wife during the Königsberg year of distress always affected him.
He began his public life at Königsberg by conducting orchestral concerts in the town theatre. This led to his appointment as music director of the theatre. The operatic stage was then governed almost entirely by Meyerbeer, “Robert le Diable” and “Le Prophète,” both recent novelties, being the great attraction. They met with an enormous success everywhere. Meyerbeer was in Paris, the idol of the populace. A man possessedof undeniable genuine merit, he bartered it away for gold. The real merit was over-laden with a thick coat of meretricious glitter. Attractive and dazzling show was what he set before the light-hearted public of the French capital, and they mistook the tinsel for pure gold. But, for all that, Meyerbeer was the hero of the hour, and what was fashionable in Paris was immediately reproduced in the fatherland towns and cities. In matters of art Paris was the acknowledged leader of Germany. From afar, the young ambitious music director of Königsberg heard of the fabulous sums which Meyerbeer received for his works. He was in the direst distress. The troubles of Magdeburg had followed him to his new home, and he looked with longing eyes towards Paris, the El Dorado of his dreams. He became haunted with visions of luxurious independence, startling in their contrast to his present penurious position. He looked about him and bestirred himself. With his accustomed boldness, not to say audacity, he promptly wrote to Scribe, hoping by one effort to emerge from all his trouble. What he sent to the famous French librettist was a plan he had sketched of a grand five-act opera based on a novel by König, “Die Hohe Braut” (“The Noble Bride”). He was anxious for the collaboration of Scribe, since in that he saw theopen sesameof the Grand Opera House, Paris. The French writer did not reply. Wagner felt the slight. This was the second time the assistance of an acknowledged litterateur had been solicited, and it was the last. Laube did not satisfy him. Scribe did not notice him. Henceforth he would rely on himself.