THE LOST OVERTURE.
His stay at Königsberg is marked by an event ofpeculiar interest to Englishmen. Wagner had heard “Rule Britannia.” He gave me his impressions of it. He thought the whole song wonderfully descriptive of the resolute, self-reliant character of the English people. The opening, ascending passage, which he vigorously shouted in illustration, was, he thought, unequalled for fearless assertiveness. The dauntless expressiveness of its themes seemed admirably adapted for orchestral treatment, and he therefore wrote an overture upon it. This he sent to Sir George Smart, one of the most prominent of English musicians, justly appreciated, among other things, for having introduced Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” to England at the Liverpool festival of 1836. When Wagner related this incident to me in 1855, on his visit to London, he said that, having received no reply, he inquired and ascertained that the score seemed to have been insufficiently prepaid for transmission, and that Sir George Smart had refused to pay the balance, “and for all I know,” continued Wagner, “it must still be lying in the dead-letter office.”
A digest of Wagner’s impressions of the world beyond the footlights, after his intimate connection with the provincial theatres of Würzburg, Magdeburg, and Königsberg, will explain how so serious a thinker could adapt himself to the slipshod existence of thoughtless, light-hearted play-actors. Among modern stage reformers Richard Wagner stands in the front rank. He was earnest. He was practical. He had experienced all evils arising from the shortcomings of the theatre, and he knew where to place his finger on the plague spot. His drawings and prescriptions were those of the practical worker; and he was enabled tomake them so through the knowledge acquired during his early life behind the scenes.
What a curious medley stage life introduces one to! “My first contact with the theatre seems like the fantastic recollection of a masked ball,” was Wagner’s vivid description of his early stage experiences. The stage in Germany has too frequently, for the advance of dramatic art, been the last resort for gaining a livelihood. People of all ranks, highly educated, or with no more than the thinnest smattering of education, as soon as they find themselves without the means of existence, fly to the stage. To one individual endowed by nature for the histrionic vocation who thus adopts the profession, there are ten with absolutely no gifts and whose appearance is due to failure in other walks of life, or to want. All this motley group is, by the restricted stage precincts, broughtnolens volensinto daily contact and cannot avoid constantly elbowing each other. Their private affairs, their friendships, are an open secret. A special jargon is current coin among them. Cant phrases abound and their very occupation familiarizes them with sententious quotations on almost every subject. In no profession is there such an ardent catering for momentary praise. It is the food, the absolute nourishment of the actor; hence jealousy and envy exist stronger here than anywhere else, and Byron does not exaggerate when he speaks of “hate found only on the stage!”
READS BULWER’S “RIENZI.”
To Wagner’s impressionable and pageant-loving nature, the stage possessed fascinating attractions. The free and easy intercourse that existed between all the members of the company, actors, singers, and orchestral performers, the existence of a sort of masonic equality,and the general light-hearted exterior, was in accordance with the jocular temperament of the chorus master. He was familiarly joking and laughing with all his surroundings, a habit he retained to the day of his death. His self-esteem would at all times insist on a certain deference to his opinion, nor would he brook with equanimity any infraction of his ruling as music director. From the age of twenty, when he first ruled the chorus girls at Würzburg, down to the Bayreuth rehearsals for “Parsifal,” at which he would illustrate his intention by gesture, speech, and song, he was eminently the commander of his company. His lively temperament, his love of fun, and remarkable mimetic gifts made him a general favourite. In the supervision of operas, musically distasteful to him, he was earnest and energetic, attending to detail and appropriate gesture in a manner that demanded the respectful admiration of all under his bâton. Respect and submission to his rule he exacted as due to his office, and he rarely had difficulty in securing it.
From Königsberg he paid a flying visit to Dresden, the city of his school-boy days. With his accustomed omnivorous reading, scanning every book within reach, he fell upon Bulwer Lytton’s “Rienzi.” Here was a subject inviting treatment on a large scale. Here was a hero of the style of William Tell and Masaniello. The spirit was revolution and moral regeneration of the people. It was a happy chance which led him to this story, the sentiment of which harmonized so perfectly with his own aspirations. Visions of Paris and its grand opera house had never left him. “Rienzi” offered the very situations calculated to impress an audience accustomedto the gorgeous splendour of the grand opera. Although his eyes were turned towards the French capital, and his immediate hope the conquest of the Parisians, it was not his sole nor ultimate desire. Paris was a means only. He saw that Paris governed German art, and he felt that only through Paris lay his hope of success in his fatherland. It was while under such influences that he began to formulate “Rienzi.”
His stay in Königsberg was cut short owing to the company becoming bankrupt. This was the second experience of the kind he had met with in the provinces, and it helped to intensify his contempt for stage life. He was again in money troubles. Fortunately, his old friend Dorn was well placed at Riga and able to secure for him the post of conductor of the opera there. The company was a good one, and its director, Hotter, an intelligent and well-known playwright, who understood Wagner’s artistic ambition. The young conductor was very exacting in his demands at rehearsals. To appeal to him was useless. He was earnest and inflexible. And yet, notwithstanding his earnestness and the trouble he took in producing uncongenial operas, he became weary of their flimsy material. Within him the sap of the future music-drama was beginning to rise. His own genius and artistic tendencies were in conflict with what was enacted before him. It was the difference between simulated and real feeling. What he was forced to conduct was stage sentiment, what he yearned for was life-blood. And this latter he strove to infuse into his “Rienzi,” which was now assuming definite shape, words and part of the music being written.
STARTS FOR PARIS.
When two acts were finished to his satisfaction, there was no longer any peace for him. Paris was the only fitting place where it could be adequately represented. But how to get to Paris? At Riga, as elsewhere, he lived beyond his means. I have before remarked on his incapability of controlling his expenses and living within a fixed income. Minna was thrifty and anxious, but her will was not strong enough to restrain her self-willed husband. She was in a constant state of nervous worry, but her devotion to Wagner prevented her making serious resistance. Now funds were wanting for the projected Paris trip, he had none. However, such a trivial item was not likely to thwart his ambition and to stand in his way. He borrowed again. He was without any letters of recommendation to Paris, spoke but very little French, and yet was full of buoyancy and hope of the success that awaited him when there. It was a bold, not to say reckless, venture. But it is characteristic of Wagner. At all great junctures of his life he risked the whole of his stakes on one card. His determination to leave Riga, and to turn his back on the irritating miseries of a provincial theatre, led him to embark with his wife and an enormous dog, in a small merchant vesselPillaufor London. Totally unprovided with any convenience for passengers, badly provisioned and undermanned, the frail trading-craft took the surprisingly long period of three weeks and a half to reach London. It encountered severe weather and on two occasions narrowly escaped foundering. The three passengers, Richard Wagner, his wife, and dog, were miserably ill. On one occasion the bark was driven into a Norwegian fiord; the crew and its passengers—there were no others on board beside the Wagner trio—landed at a point where an old mill stood. The poor wretches, snatched from the jaws of death, were hospitably received by 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 the weather had cleared sufficiently the ship set sail for London and arrived without any further mishap.
LONDON IS TOO LARGE.
His first impression of London was not a pleasant one. The day was wretched, raining heavily, and the streets were thick with mud. At the Custom House Wagner was helped through the vexatious passport annoyance by a German Jew—one of those odd men always to be found about the stations and docks ready to perform any service for a trifling consideration. He recommended Wagner to a small, uninviting hotel in Old Compton Street, Soho, much resorted to by needy travellers from the continent. The hotel, considerably improved, still exists. It is situated a dozen doors or so from Wardour Street, and is opposite to a public house known then, as now, as the “King’s Arms.” Wagner would have gone straight away to a first-class hotel, but this time, feeling how very uncertain the immediate future was, he asked to be recommended to a cheap inn. He hired a cab, one of those curious old two-wheeled vehicles, where the driver was perilously perched at the side, and with his big dog, carefully sheltered from the weather under the large apron which protected the forepart of the vehicle, they started for Old Compton Street. Arrived there withoutincident, such of their luggage as they had been able to bring with them at once was carried upstairs, and Wagner and his wife sat down gloomily regarding each other. The room was dingy and poorly furnished, and not of a kind to brighten weary, seasick travellers. Wagner called his dog. No response. He opened the door, rushed down the narrow, dark staircase to the street. Alas! Neither dog nor cab were to be seen. He inquired of every one in broken English, but could learn nothing hopeful or certain about his dumb friend, the companion of his journey, and silent receiver of much of his exuberant talk. Returning to Minna, they came to the conclusion that the dog had leaped down from underneath the covering while the luggage was being transported upstairs. But where was he now? They had not the faintest clue, and knew not in which direction to seek for him. That evening, their first in London, was one of sorrow and discomfort. The next morning Wagner went back to the docks and gleaned tidings sufficient only to dishearten him the more. The dog had been seen the previous evening. Back to Old Compton Street, disconsolate; he had scarcely ascended the first flight of stairs when, his step recognised, loud barks of welcome greeted him from above. The dog was there. It had found its way into the room where his wife had remained during his absence. The poor beast was bespattered with mud, but this did not prevent Wagner affectionately fondling him. To Wagner the return of the dog was wonderful. How a dumb brute, that had seen absolutely nothing during the journey from the docks to Old Compton Street, could find its way back to the old starting-place, and then retraceits steps was a marvellous instance of canine instinct, and one which endeared the race to him deeper than ever, a love that endured to the last.
Wagner remained in London about eight days, time to look round and to arrange for passage to Boulogne, where Meyerbeer was staying, and from whom he hoped to receive introductions to Paris. Although Wagner could read English he was not sufficient master of it to understand it when spoken. This in some degree accounts for the slight interest he felt in his London visit. But he made the best use of his time. He was living within a quarter of an hour’s walk of the house in Great Portland Street where his “adored idol,” Weber, had died. To that shrine he made his first pilgrimage, to reverently gaze upon the hallowed house. He traversed all London, determining to see everything. The vastness of the metropolis with its boundless sea of houses oppressed him. He had strong, decided opinions as to what the dimensions of a town should be, attributing much of the poverty and misery of large towns to their overgrowth, and felt that when a township exceeded certain limits it was beyond the control of a governing body, and that neglect in some form or another would soon make itself felt. No city, he used to argue, should be larger than Dresden then was.
FASCINATED BY SHIPS.
He was amazed and most disagreeably surprised with the bustle of the city. It bewildered him, and, as he expressed it, “fretted his artistic soul out of him.” The great extremes of poverty and riches, dwelling in close proximity to each other, were a sad, unsolvable enigma. His lodgings were perhaps in one of the worst neighbourhoods of London. Old Compton Streetabutted on the Seven Dials. There he saw misery under some of its saddest aspects, and then, but a few minutes’ walk and he found himself amidst the luxury of Oxford Street and Regent Street. The feelings engendered by this glaring inequality in his radical spirit were never effaced. He thought that the English in their character, their institutions, and habits were strangely contradictory, and the impressions of 1839 were confirmed on his subsequent visits to this country. The grand, extensive parks, open to all, delighted him. In Germany he had seen no parks, and where public walks or gardens had been laid out, walking on the grass was prohibited, whilst here no officious guardian attempted to interfere with the free perambulation of the visitor. The bearing of the police, too, equally surprised him. Here they were ready with information, acting as protectors of the public, whereas in Germany at that period they were aggressive and bureaucratic. It is curious, but at no time do I remember Wagner speaking of having visited any of the London theatres in 1839, whilst in 1855, when he was here for the second time, he went to almost every place of amusement then open, even those of third-rate order. But if in London he fell upon “sunny places,” compared with his German home, he also was sorely tried. As I have remarked, his rooms were in a very unaristocratic quarter. The bane of all studious Englishmen, especially musicians—the imported organ-grinder, unknown in Germany—worried the excitable composer out of all patience. The Seven Dials was a favourite haunt of the wandering minstrel, and the man who retired at night, full of wild imaginings as to his “Rienzi,” wasworked into a state of frenzy by two rival organ men grinding away, one at each end of the street.
The immensity of the shipping below London Bridge was a wonderful sight to him. He had come into dock in a tiny, frail sailing craft, the cradle of “The Flying Dutchman,” after a hazardous passage across the North Sea. The size and number of the trading vessels appealed direct to his largely developed imaginative faculty. He pictured the mysterious Vanderdecken in this and that vessel, and was full of strange fancies of the spectral crew. The sea of sail so fascinated him that he took a special river trip to Greenwich, the closer to inspect the shipping, and with the further intent to visit the Naval Pensioners’ hospital.
When it was known at the hotel in Old Compton Street that he was about starting for Greenwich, he was advised to go over theDreadnoughthospital-ship, then lying in the river just above Greenwich. He seized at the suggestion. TheDreadnoughtwas one of the vessels of Nelson’s conquering fleet in the famous battle of Trafalgar, in the year 1805. Wagner was a devoted worshipper of great men. An opportunity now presented itself to inspect one of the wooden walls of England. It is a widely known fact that hero-worship was a salient feature of Wagner’s character. He always referred to Weber as his “adored idol” or “adored master,” and for Beethoven he was equally enthusiastic. The “Dutchman,” that weird story of the sea, had taken possession of him, and a visit to so celebrated a ship as theDreadnoughtwas an occasion of some importance. In his maturer age, when closer acquaintance with the English people had given him the rightto express an opinion as to their nature, he said that in his judgment they were the most poetic of European nations. Poetry, with them, lay not on the surface as with the impetuous Gauls, nor was it sought after and cultivated as with the Germans; but with the English it was deep in their hearts and associated with their national institutions in a manner unknown among any other modern people. No nation has produced such a galaxy of poetic luminaries. The employment of the disabled battle-ship as a refuge for worn-out seamen, men who had fought their country’s battles, was, he thought, an incontestable proof of a poetic sentiment founded in the heart of a nation and fostered by natural love. I am aware how much this is in opposition to the judgment of the English by a man who enjoyed a high social standing and intimate acquaintance with the best of Albion’s intellect, viz. Lord Beaconsfield, whose famous dictum it was that the “English people care for nothing but religion, politics, and commerce,” but the thoughtful opinion of a poet of acknowledged celebrity, Wagner himself, I have deemed it advisable to set forth.
IN POETS’ CORNER.
The visit to theDreadnoughtleft an indelible impression upon Wagner. Arrived at the ship, he was in the act of ascending the pilot ladder put over the side of the vessel, by which passengers came on board, when his snuff-box fell out of his pocket into the water. The snuff-box was the gift of Schroeder-Devrient. He prized it highly and attempted to clutch it in its fall. In so doing, it seems he lost his hold of the ladder and was himself only saved from immersion by his presence of mind and gymnastic ability. The precious snuff-box was lost, but the composer of “Parsifal” was saved.From theDreadnoughthe went with the nervous Minna to the Greenwich hospital. Wagner had the habit of talking loudly in public, and while walking about the building, seeing a pensioner taking snuff, he said to Minna, “Could I speak English, I would ask him for a pinch.” Wagner was an inveterate snuff-taker from early manhood. Imagine Wagner’s surprise and delight when the Greenwich snuff-taker accosted him with, “Here you are, my friend,” in good German. The pensioner proved to be a Saxon by birth, and, delighted to hear his native tongue, was soon at home with his interlocutor. He told him that he was perfectly contented with his lot, but that his companions, the English, were dissatisfied and were “a grumbling lot.”
Wagner was filled with admiration at the generosity and beneficence displayed in the bounteous provision for the comfort of the pensioners. He told me his thoughts sped back to the German sailors on the East Prussian coast, their miserably poor and scanty food, their ill-clothed forms, and the general poverty of their position, when he saw the apparently unlimited supplies of good, wholesome provisions and substantial clothing; and yet, he said, the poor Germans are contented, while the Greenwich pensioners complain.
Wagner had been but two days in London in 1855, when he took me off to Westminster. This was not his first visit to the national mausoleum; he had been there in 1839, and recollections of that occasion induced him at once to revisit the Abbey. We went specially to pay homage to the great men in Poets’ Corner, Shakespeare’s monument being the main attraction. It will be remembered that his first effort in Englishhad been a translation from Shakespeare, and I found that with increasing years such an enthusiasm for the great dramatist had been developed as was only possible in the ardent brain of an earnest poet. While contemplating the Shakespeare monument on his first visit, it seems he was led to a train of thought, the substance of which he related to me in our 1855 visit. At the time I considered it noteworthy as an important psychological feature and now relate it here. In reflecting over the work done by the British genius, and its far-reaching influence in creating a new form, he was carried back to the classic school of ancient Greece and its Roman imitator.
The ancient classic and the modern romantic schools were opposed to each other. The English founder of the modern school had cast aside all the rigid rules of the classical writers, which even the powerful efforts of the three Frenchmen, Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, had been unable to revivify. In these reflections, referring to an antecedent period of sixteen years, I have often thought I could discern the germ of his daring revolution in musical form. Turning from the serious to the gay, as was his wont at all times, he added that his reverie had a commonplace ending. Minna plucked his sleeve, saying, “Komm, Lieber Richard, du standst hier zwanzig minuten wie eine Bildsaule, ohne ein Wort zusprechen” (Come, dear Richard, you have been standing here for twenty minutes like one of these statues, and not uttered a word), and when he repeated to her the substance of his meditations, he found as usual she understood but little the serious import of his speech.
MINNA LIKES LONDON.
Wagner’s anxiety to reach the goal of his ambition left him no peace, and on the eighth day after his arrival in London he left by steamer for Boulogne.
The London visit charmed Minna. The quiet, unobtrusive manner of the English pleased her, but annoyed Wagner. He was irritated by their stolidity, and complained always of a want of expansiveness in them. Their stiff politeness he thought angular, and the impression did not wear off during his second visit. These first eight days were not wholly pleasant to him. He was anxious to get to Paris, and all his thoughts were turned towards the city of the grand opera. Minna carried away pleasant recollections, but Wagner thought his dog was the happiest of all, for in London he had been provided daily with special dog’s fare, an institution unknown in Germany.
MEETING WITH MEYERBEER.
The passage to Boulogne began pleasantly, but a bad sailor at all times, he did not escape the invariable discomforts of a channel journey. His large Newfoundland dog, for whom he had an affection almost parental, was on board, and excited general interest. Two Jewish ladies, named Manson, mother and daughter, hearing Wagner speak German to his wife and dog, soon entered into conversation with him through the medium of the dog. Speaking a vitiated German with a facility which seems to be the heirloom of the tribe of Judah, they discussed music, and with a familiarity also characteristic of the race they told Wagner they were going to spend a few days in Boulogne before proceeding to Paris. Interested in music, they at once blundered into the delusion, common to all the race, that every great composer was a Jew, supporting their assertion by naming Mendelssohn, Halévy, Rossini, and their personal intimate, Meyerbeer, including also Haydn, Mozart, and Weber. Wagner seized with such eagerness at the name of Meyerbeer that he did not stop to disprove the supposed Israelitic descent of Haydn, Mozart, and Weber. As the ladies were going to call on Meyerbeer, they promised to apprise him of Wagner’s intended visit. In this opportune meeting, Wagner thought fate seemedto be stretching out a helping hand to the young German, he who had abandoned in disgust his post of conductor at Riga, to compel the admiration of Paris for his genius. With Meyerbeer at Boulogne and a friendly introduction to the ruler of the Paris Grand Opera, the future seemed promising. Notwithstanding his wife’s misgivings he did not hesitate to accompany his travelling companions to their hotel. The expenses were so great, and out of all proportion to his scanty funds, that in a few days he sought a more humble abode.
He saw Meyerbeer, and though he was received amicably enough, yet were his first impressions not altogether agreeable. The ever-present smile of the composer of the “Huguenots” seemed studied and insincere, as though it was rather the outcome of simulated affability than of natural good feeling. Meyerbeer was a polished courtier, his manners bland and his speech unctuous. Diplomatic, committing himself to nothing, he seemingly promised everything. The impassioned language of the young idealist, his fervid outpourings on art, surprised and startled the worldly-wise Meyerbeer. The earnest expression of honest conviction rarely fails to excite interest even in the shrewd business man of the world. Meyerbeer listened attentively to Wagner’s story of his early struggles, and of his hopes for the future, ending by fixing a meeting for the next day, when the “Rienzi” poem might be read. The subject and treatment pleased Meyerbeer greatly. From all that is known of him, it is clear that his great and only gift lay in the treatment of spectacle. The stage effects which “Rienzi” offered were many, and the situations powerful. Both features were then adjudgedimperative for a successful grand opera in Paris, and in proportion as the “Rienzi” book promised spectacular display, so Meyerbeer grew eulogistic and generous in his promises of help. Wagner was strongly of opinion that Meyerbeer’s first friendly feeling was won entirely by the striking tableaux of the story. Meyerbeer discussed with Wagner kindred scenes and situations in “Les Huguenots,” and such comparison was made between the two books, that Wagner was forced to the conclusion that effect was the chief aim of Meyerbeer, and truth a subordinate consideration.
MEYERBEER HEARS “RIENZI.”
But to have won the unstinted praise of the enormously popular opera composer seemed to promise immediate and certain success. It unduly elated him, so that when he experienced the difficulties of getting his work accepted at the Paris Grand Opera House, the shock was more severe and harder to bear. But in Boulogne everything augured well. 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 making a direct offer. However this may have been, from Wagner’s plain language to me there is no doubt at all in my mind that Meyerbeer did feel his way to purchase the “Rienzi” text for his own purpose. Another meeting was arranged for trying the music. On leaving Meyerbeer, he went direct to relate all to the expectant Minna. As was his wont at all times after an event of unusual import, he made this a causeof festivity. With Minna he went to dine at a restaurant, and with juvenile exultation ordered his favourite beverage, a half bottle of champagne. To Wagner champagne represented the perfection of “terrestrial enjoyment,” as he often phrased it. While sipping their wine they met their newly made acquaintances, the Mansons. Flushed with his recent success, he recounted the whole of the morning episode. The Mansons advised him to stay in Boulogne as long as he could whilst Meyerbeer was there, arguing that he was such an amiable man, and since his good-will had been won was sure to do all he could to promote Wagner’s success; and they added significantly, “He has the power to do all.”
The trying over of the “Rienzi” music with Meyerbeer was as successful as the reading of the book. Two acts only were then completed, but with these Meyerbeer expressed himself perfectly satisfied. It was just the music to be successful in Paris, and he prognosticated for Wagner a triumph with the Parisians. In discussing the incident with me, Wagner said he believed Meyerbeer’s laudation of the music was perfectly 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 to disown.” It means that Meyerbeer committed the unpardonable fault in Wagner’s eyes of praising the careful and neat writing of the composer when the score was opened. On all occasions Wagner would become irritated if his really remarkably neat writing were praised. He would say it was like praising the frame at the expense of the picture, and a slight on the intelligence of the composer.
Wagner took his place at the piano without being asked, and impetuously attacked the score in his own rough-and-ready manner. Meyerbeer was astonished at the rough handling of his piano. He was himself a highly finished performer on the instrument, having begun his public artistic career as a pianist. Wagner supplied as well as he could the vocal parts (with as little technical perfection as his piano-playing), whilst Meyerbeer carefully studied the score over the performer’s shoulder. The opinion of Meyerbeer was most flattering, his admiration for Wagner intensifying greatly when at a subsequent meeting he went through the only complete work Wagner had brought with him to conquer Paris—“Das Liebesverbot.” Before such lavish and warm praise Wagner’s first distrust of Meyerbeer melted as snow before the sun’s rays. Meyerbeer pointed to what he considered many admirable stage effects in the “Das Liebesverbot” libretto, and thought that a man so young who could write that and the “Rienzi” text was sure of future celebrity as a dramatist.
Meyerbeer was profuse in his promises of help, and proposed at once to recommend him to the director of a small Paris theatre and opera house, though he pointed out to Wagner that letters of recommendation were of little avail compared to personal introduction. But buoyed with such testimonials and a letter from the Mansons, he left Boulogne, where he was known as “le petit homme avec le grand chien,” for Paris, again accompanied by his wife and dumb friend.
THATa young artist but six and twenty years of age, with a wife dependent on him for existence, unknown to fame, almost penniless, and even without art works that he could show in evidence of his ability, should boldly assault the stronghold of European musical criticism, confident of success, often flitted before Wagner’s mind in after-life as an act of temerity closely allied to insanity. “And ah!” he has added in tones of bitter pain, “I had to pay for it dearly: my privations and sufferings were as the tortures in Dante’s ‘Purgatorio.’” “But why did you undertake such a seemingly Quixotic expedition?” I asked. “Because at that time Paris was the resort of almost every artist of note, whether painter, sculptor, poet, or musician, and even statesmen, when all Europe clothed itself with the livery of Paris fashion.” He felt within him a power which urged him forward without fear of failure, and so he came to Paris.
Germany offered no encouragement to native talent. Paris was the gate to the fatherland. First achieve success in Paris, and then his German countrymen would receive him with open arms. It is true, that even a short residence in Paris invested an artist with a certain superiority over his confrères.
As Wagner had but a very imperfect acquaintancewith the French language, he at once sought out the relative of the Mansons to whom he had been recommended. I have been unable to recall the surname of Wagner’s new friend, but do remember well that he was spoken of as Louis. This Monsieur Louis was a Jew and a German. He proved an exceedingly faithful and constant companion of Wagner’s during his stay in Paris, indeed played the part of factotum to the Wagner household. He must have been quite an exceptional friend, for on one occasion, when Wagner and I were discussing Judaismper se, he turned to me and with unusual warmth even for him, said, “How can I feel any prejudice against the Jews as men, when I sincerely believe that it was excess of friendship of poor Louis for me that killed him,—running about in all weathers, exerting himself everywhere, undertaking most unpleasant missions to find me work, and all whilst suffering from consumption. He did it too from pure love of me without any thought of self.” Through the aid of Louis he found a modest lodging in a dingy house. The future was so much an uncertainty that with the remembrance of the first days of the Boulogne expensive hotel before him, he yielded to Minna’s persuasiveness and reconciled himself to the new abode. He was told that Molière was born there; indeed, a bust of the great Frenchman did, I believe, adorn the front of the house, and this helped to make him accept his new quarters with a little more contentment than his own ambitious notions would have admitted.
TROUBLES IN PARIS.
Settled in his scantily furnished rooms, with ready business habits, so unusual in a genius, he made it his first duty to call wherever he had been recommended.Difficult as it may be in any European city to gain access to the houses of prominent men, in Paris the troubles are greater, if only on account of that terrible Cerberus, the concierge, who instinctively divines an applicant for favours, and as skilfully throws obstacles in the way while angling for pourboires.
Disappointment upon disappointment met Wagner. Nowhere was he successful. In speech at all times he uttered himselfen prince, and for a man seeking the favour and patronage of others this feature militated against him. Meyerbeer had told him in Boulogne that letters of introduction would avail him little or nothing, and that only by personal introduction could he hope to make headway. But though unsuccessful in every direction, he was not the man to give up without desperate efforts. In a few months his funds were entirely exhausted. Where to turn for the necessary money to provide the daily sustenance was the exciting trouble of the moment. His family in Germany had helped him at first, but material help soon gave place to sage advice. Barren criticism on his “mad” Parisian visit, and admonition on his present mode of existence, Wagner would not brook, and so communications soon ceased between him and Germany. But how to live was the harrowing question. It is with feelings of acute pain that I am forced to recall the deep distress that overwhelmed this mighty genius, and the humiliating acts to which cruel necessity drove him. 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 alreadyso disposed of, Louis having performed the wretched office.
ARRANGING POPULAR MUSIC.
This state of sad absolute poverty lasted for months. He could gain no access to theatres or opera house. He offered himself as chorus master, he would have taken the meanest appointment, but everything failed him. With no prospect of succeeding as a musician, he turned to the press. As he possessed a facile pen and a wide acquaintance with current literature, he sought for existence as a newspaper hack. Here he succeeded, and deemed himself fortunate to obtain even that thankless work. The one man to whom he owed the chief means of existence during this wretched Paris sojourn was a Jew, Maurice Schlesinger, the great music publisher and proprietor of the “Gazette Musicale,” a weekly periodical. It is curious to note how again he finds a kind friend in a Jew. For Schlesinger he wrote critical notices and feuilletons upon art topics, one, now famous in Wagner’s collected writings as “A Pilgrimage to Beethoven.” The pilgrimage is wholly imaginary for as I have already stated Wagner never saw Beethoven. The paper itself contains some remarkable foreshadowings of the matured, thinking Wagner and his revolutionary art principles. He also wrote for other papers, Schumann’s “Die Neue Zeitschrift,” for a Dresden journal, and the “Europa,” a fashionable art publication which occasionally printed original tonal compositions. For this last paper he wrote three romances, “Dors mon enfant,” “Attente,” and “Mignonne.” He hoped by these to gain some entry into the Paris fashionable world, but, though he tried to assimilate his style to the popular drawing-room ballad of the day, hissongs were pronounced “too serious,” and met with no success.
But alas! his literary work was not financially productive enough, and dire necessity drove him to very uncongenial musical drudgery. For the same music-seller, Schlesinger, he made “arrangements” from popular Italian operas, for every kind of instrument. He told me that “La Favorita” had been arranged by him from the first note to the last. The whole of this occupation, to a man as intimate with the orchestra as he, was an easy task, yet very uninteresting and to him humiliating. But though suffering actual privation, he would not give lessons in music. Teaching was an occupation which, even in the darkest days, he would not entertain for a moment.
Such were the means by which Richard Wagner gained an existence during his Paris sojourn. But they were not productive enough. Often he was in absolute want. It was then in this hour of tribulation that the golden qualities of Minna were proved. Sorrow, the touch-stone of man’s worth, tried her and she was not found wanting. The hitherto quiet and gentle housewife was transformed into a heroine. Her placid disposition was healing comfort to the disappointed, wearied musician. The whole of the Paris period is “a gem of purest ray serene” in the diadem of Minna Wagner. Thoughts of what the self-denying, devoted little woman did then has many a time brought tears to Wagner’s eyes. The most menial house duties were performed by her with willing cheerfulness. She cleaned the house, stood at the wash-tub, did the mending and the cooking. She hid from the husband as much of the discomfortsattaching to their poor home as was possible. She 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. The bustle of life and the Parisians diverted him from more anxious thoughts, whilst supplying him with constant food for his ever-ready wit.
In dress Wagner was at all times scrupulously neat. After nearly a year’s residence in Paris, the clothes he had brought with him from Germany were showing sad signs of wear. The year had been fruitless from a money point, and his wardrobe had not been replenished. His sensitiveness on this topic was of course well known to Minna. To give him pleasure she hunted Paris to find, if possible, some German tailor in a small way of business who, swayed by the blandishments of Minna, provided her with a suit of clothes for her husband for his birthday, 22d May, 1840, agreeing to wait for payment until more favourable times. This delicate and thoughtful attention on the part of Minna deeply touched Wagner, and he related the incident to me in illustration of the loving affection she bore him. He said that during those three years of pinching poverty and bitter disappointments his temperament was variable and trying. It was hard to bear with him. Vexed and worn with fruitless trials to secure a hearing for his “Rienzi,” angered at witnessing the lavish expenditure at the opera house upon works inferior to his own, he has admitted that his already passionate nature was intensified, and yet all his outbursts were met by Minna in an uncomplaining, soothing spirit, which, the first fury over,he was not slow to acknowledge. Her sacrifices for him and all she did became only known years after, when their worldly position had changed vastly for the better. He never forgot her devotion, nor did he ever hide his indebtedness and gratitude to her from his friends.
FRIENDSHIP WITH JEWS.
During the three years that Wagner was in Paris, he was brought into communication with several prominent men in the world of art, men eminent in literature, in music, both as composers and as executants, in painting, and other phases of art. Of the dozen or so of men with whom he thus became more intimately acquainted, the greater portion were his own countrymen and about half were Jews. This constant close intimacy of Wagner with the descendants of Judah is a curious feature in his life, and shows that when he wrote as strongly as he did of Jews and their art work, his judgments were based upon close personal knowledge of the question. As may be supposed, the acquaintance of a young man between twenty-six and thirty years of age with these several thinkers and writers, could not fail to influence, more or less, an impressionable and receptive nature.
It was an odd freak of fortune that almost immediately after Wagner had settled in Paris, he should, by accident, meet in the streets an old friend from Leipzic, Heinrich Laube. It was in a paper edited by Laube that Richard Wagner’s first printed article on the non-existence of German opera had appeared. That was when Wagner was about one and twenty. Laube was a political revolutionist who underwent several terms of imprisonment for daring to utter his thoughts about Germany and its government through his paper. But prison confinement never controlled the dauntless courage of the patriot.He was a man of considerable and varied gifts. It is not only as a political demagogue that he will be known in future times, but as a philosopher, novelist, and playwright. In Leipzic he had shown himself very friendly to Wagner, whose sound, vigorous judgment attracted him, and now after hearing of Wagner’s precarious situation, offered to introduce him to Heine. Such an opportunity could not be lost, and so the cultured Hebrew poet and Richard Wagner met.
MEETS HEINRICH HEINE.
A curious trio this: Laube, hard-featured and unpleasant to look upon, with a weirdness begotten possibly of frequent incarcerations,—a strange contrast to the handsome, regular-featured, soft-spoken Heine; and then the pale, slim, young Wagner, short in stature, but with piercing eyes and voluble speech which surprised and amazed the cynical Heine. When Heinrich Heine heard that Meyerbeer had given Wagner introductions, he doubted the abilities of the newcomer. Heine was strongly biassed against Meyerbeer and distrusted his sincerity. Although the meeting with Laube was a delight to Wagner, as it brought back to him all his youthful enthusiasm and hope, yet his appreciation of the accomplished writer, which in Leipzic amounted almost to reverence, had been by time and events considerably lessened. Wagner’s greatest majesty, earnestness, was wanting in Laube. The litterateur in Wagner’s estimation had no fixed purpose, no ideal. He frittered away considerable gifts in innumerable directions. Incongruities the most glaring not unfrequently appeared in his writings. A paragraph of sound philosophical reasoning would be followed by a page of the merest bombastic phraseology. In his dramaticefforts tragedy and farce were placed in amazing juxtaposition. He wrote a large number of novels, but not one proved entirely satisfactory. “Reisenovellen” was an imitation of Heine, but it fell immeasurably below the standard attained by his model. His best literary production was, without doubt, the history of his life in prison, which interests and touches us by its simplicity. However, Wagner could not resist the attraction which Laube’s peculiarities possessed for him. The litterateur’s unprepossessing pedantic exterior contrasted strangely with his voluptuous and imaginative mind. Possessed of a brain specially fitted for the conception of the noblest schemes for the freedom of human thought, he often childishly indulged in a roguishplaisanterie. From a thoughtful disquisition on the philosophy of Hegel he glides into the description of such unworthy topics as a ball-room, love behind the scenes, coffee-room conversation, etc. But, curiously, his revolutionary tendencies in all other matters were in strange contrast to his tenacious clinging to the then existing opera form, and Wagner’s outspoken notions about the regeneration of the opera into that of the musical drama were vehemently opposed by him.
In Heinrich Heine Wagner found a more congenial listener to his advanced theories. Although Heine’s appreciation of music was not based on any more solid ground than that of a general acquaintance with the operas then in vogue, he was far more affected, and was a greater critic on the tonal art than his contemporary, Laube. Heine had resided in Paris since 1830, and was thoroughly acclimatized to Parisian taste. He was accepted as the representative of modern German poetry,and his works, particularly “Les deux Grenadiers,” “Les Polonais de la vraie Pologne,” were popular amongst all classes. Heine was pre-eminently spiritual, a quality exceedingly appreciated by the French; hence his popularity. However serious or painful the topic, Heine could enliven it by his clever Jewish antithetic wit. Heine received Wagner with a certain amount of reserve. His respect for musicians was not great. He had found many who, with the exception of their musical knowledge, were uncultured. Wagner’s thorough acquaintance with literature, especially that of the earlier writers, agreeably surprised him, and the composer’s elevated idea of the sacred mission of music touched the nobler chords of the poet’s nature. His opinion on Wagner, as quoted by Laube, presents an interesting example of Heine’s perspicacity. As a specimen of unaffected appreciation from a critic like Heine, who rarely sat in judgment without giving vent to a vitiated vein of sarcasm, it is most interesting.
“I cannot help feeling a lively interest in Wagner. He is endowed with an inexhaustible, productive mind, kept almost uninterruptedly in activity by a vivacious temperament. From an individuality so replete with modern culture, it is possible to expect the development of a solid and powerful modern music.” Heine could never refrain from employing a degenerated imitation of irony, called persiflage, as a weapon for the purpose of mockery, and for the production of effect. Heine’s imagination is bold, and his language idiosyncratic, though not affected. His sentiment is deep, but his fault is the want of an ideal outside the circle of his own ideas. In his poems, effeminate tenderness is contrastedby a vigorous boldness, the purest sentiment by sensual frivolity, noble thought by the meanest vulgarity, and lofty aspirations by painful indifference. Whilst overturning all existing theories and institutions, he failed to establish any one salutary doctrine.