"THE END OF A MUSICIAN IN PARIS"
"I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my
fatherland."--WAGNER
On arriving in Paris Wagner took a furnished apartment in the Rue de
la Tonnelerie. This was in an unfrequented quarter, but the house
was said to have been occupied once by Molière. The apartment was
cheap, a matter of much moment to Wagner. The young man at once
started out with his letters from Meyerbeer. They not only secured
him an offer for the immediate performance of one of his operas,
but they also opened many doors to him and insured him a pleasant
welcome. It is quite true, as Jullien[11] notes, that he owed all he
ever accomplished in Paris to Meyerbeer and the men to whom he had
Meyerbeer's letters. In the beginning everything was most promising.
The director of the Renaissance agreed to accept "Das Liebesverbot,"
and Dumersan, a maker of vaudevilles, was set to work translating
it. Schlesinger, the publisher, induced Habeneck, the conductor of
the Conservatoire concerts, to promise to try a new overture, which
Wagner had just completed. This was the work afterward known as
"Eine Faust Ouvertüre." Wagner, delighted with his prospects, moved
to No. 25, Rue du Helder, in the "heart of elegant and artistic
Paris."
[Footnote 11: "Richard Wagner, His Life and Works," by Adolphe
Jullien; translated by Florence Percival Hall. 2 vols. Boston, the
J.B. Millet Co.]
But suddenly the horizon became overclouded. The Conservatory
orchestra did, indeed, try the overture, and Schlesinger inserted in
his paper, the _Gazette Musicale_, a paragraph saying, "An overture
by a young German composer of very remarkable talent, M. Wagner,
has just been rehearsed by the orchestra of the Conservatoire, and
has won unanimous applause. We hope to hear it immediately and we
will render an account of it." As a matter of fact, the Conservatory
orchestra had not been able to make head or tail of the overture,
and the Théâtre de la Renaissance, instead of producing the
"Liebesverbot," suddenly failed and the manager closed its doors.
Quite disheartened by these reverses Wagner laid aside the "Faust"
music, which he had intended to make the first movement of a "Faust"
symphony. In 1855, when he was living at Zurich, he altered this
familiar and admired overture to its present form.
Adolphe Jullien in his life of Wagner says that "If we have only an
overture instead of a complete score of 'Faust,' we are indebted for
this loss to the gold-laced musicians of the Conservatoire in 1840."
Jullien appears to have supposed that Wagner contemplated an opera,
but this is certainly an error. On Jan. 1, 1855, Franz Liszt wrote
to Wagner and told of the completion of his "Faust" symphony. In his
reply to this letter Wagner said:
"It is an absurd coincidence that just at this time I have been taken
with a desire to remodel my old 'Faust' overture. I have made an
entirely new score, have rewritten the instrumentation throughout,
have made many changes, and have given more expansion and importance
to the middle portion (second motive). I shall give it in a few days
at a concert here under the title of 'A Faust Overture.' The motto
will be:
'Der Gott, der mir im Busen wohnt,
Kann tief mein Innerstes erregen;
Der über allen meinen Kräften thront,
Er kann nach aussen nichts bewegen;
Und so ist mir das Dasein eine Last,
Der Tod erwünscht, das Leben mir verhasst!'[12]
But I shall not publish it in any case."
[Footnote 12:
The God that in my breast is owned
Can deeply stir the inner sources;
The God above my powers enthroned,
He cannot change external forces,
So, by the burden of my days oppressed,
Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest!
Goethe's "_Faust_," Act I, Scene 4.
Bayard Taylor's translation.]
In December of the same year, nevertheless, he wrote to Liszt
confessing that the fiasco of the work was "a purifying and wholesome
punishment" for having published it in spite of his better judgment.
Another failure of the unfortunate Paris period was in connection
with a grand entertainment which Parisians were organising in aid of
the Poles. The entertainment was to consist of the performance of an
opera, on the subject of the Duc de Guise, the libretto written by "a
noble amateur and set to music by the young Flotow." Wagner took the
score of his overture, "Polonia," to M. Duvinage, the director of the
orchestra, but this gentleman had no time to examine it. It may as
well be recorded here that this overture was lost for forty years,
and after passing through various hands came to rest in 1881 in the
possession of M. Pasdeloup, the famous Parisian conductor, from whom
Wagner recovered it. He had it played in that year to celebrate his
wife's birthday.
Wagner was now in dire distress. He had expended all his resources,
and he could not pay for the furniture of his apartment, which he
had bought on credit. Schlesinger came to his aid once more, and
took from him several articles for the _Gazette Musicale_. The
first of these, "On German Music," appeared on July 12 and 26,
1840. A translation of it will be found in Vol. VII. of W. Ashton
Ellis's edition of Wagner's prose works. Schlesinger had also at
this time bought the score of Donizetti's "La Favorita," and Wagner
was set to work making a piano arrangement of the music. Through
the help of M. Dumersan, who had begun the abandoned translation of
"Das Liebesverbot" into French, he obtained a commission to write
music to a vaudeville, entitled "La Déscente de la Courtille,"
which Dumersan and Dupeuty had written. Gasparini[13] says that
the bouffe singers of that time were incapable of singing anything
more difficult than the music of "La Belle Hélène" and they quickly
decided that the score "of the young German was quite impossible of
execution." Gasparini also notes that there was one chanson, "Allons
à la Courtille," which had "its hour of celebrity." M. Jullien is
probably right in saying that this song was not the work of Wagner,
and Mr. Edward Dannreuther in his excellent article in Grove's
"Dictionary of Music" says that it has not been traced. He next
endeavoured to earn a few francs by writing songs. He made a setting
of a translation of Heinrich Heine's "Two Grenadiers," but it was not
so good as that made by Schumann in the previous year, and singers
did not take to it kindly. He composed also at this time "L'Attente"
by Victor Hugo, "Mignonne" by Ronsard, and "Dors, mon enfant." Much
as we like these songs now, at the time of their composition Wagner
could not get them sung or published. "Mignonne" was printed in the
_Gazette Musicale_, and with two others was afterward reprinted in
Lewald's _Europa_. Wagner wrote the editor a letter begging that he
might be paid for them at once. They brought him in from $2 to $3.75
each.
[Footnote 13: R. Wagner, par A. de Gasparini, Paris, 1866.]
It was in the midst of these trials that Wagner wrote his famous
story entitled "A Pilgrimage to Beethoven," which attracted the
attention of Hector Berlioz. In a review of a concert organised by
the _Gazette Musicale_ the distinguished Frenchman spoke of the
articles in that paper, and said: "For a long time to come will be
read one by M. Wagner, entitled 'A Pilgrimage to Beethoven.'" As
M. Jullien says, "Little did Berlioz know how truly he spoke." In
the intervals of his labours at breadwinning Wagner worked at his
"Rienzi." But he sank deeper and deeper into the mire of poverty.
His few friends, Laube, Heine, and Schlesinger, could do little to
cheer him, though the last named furnished him with the means of
life. Berlioz, whom he had met, was not sympathetic to him, though he
always cherished a high regard for the Frenchman's talent.
Schlesinger again came to the rescue and decided to produce at one
of the _Gazette Musicale_ concerts a composition by Wagner. The
"Columbus" overture was accordingly thus performed on Feb. 4, 1841.
Schumann made a note of the performance in his paper, and Wagner,
encouraged by this remembrance of him in Germany, sent the score to
London to Jullien. But the manuscript, postage unpaid, came home
to its maker, and he was too poor to take it from the postman.
Accordingly that official put it back into his bag and walked off
with it. And that was the last that was seen of this overture.
Wagner's cup of misery seemed now to be brimming over. He abandoned
all hope of success in the volatile French capital. He fled from his
accustomed haunts, shunned the society of musicians, all mercenary
and insincere as they seemed, and sought that of scholars and
literary men, who at least had artistic ideals. He gave up all hope
of having "Rienzi" produced at the Grand Opéra, and turned his weary
eyes toward Dresden. There was an opera with an inspiring history; a
theatre with a long established routine; and a company which included
such artists as Tichatschek and Schroeder-Devrient.
Meyerbeer was master of the operatic world in Paris, and Wagner, who
found him amiable as a man, could not sympathise with the blatant
theatricalism of his "Les Huguenots" and "Robert le Diable." Halévy,
he felt, had suffered his pristine enthusiasm to fade before the easy
temptation of monetary success. Auber, whom he had once loved for his
"Muette," he now despised for his unblushing search after popular
approval. Only Berlioz pleased him, and he not fully. "He differs
by the whole breadth of heaven," he says in the autobiography,
"from his Parisian colleagues, for he makes no music for gold. But
he cannot write for the sake of purest art; he lacks all sense of
beauty. He stands completely isolated upon his own position; by his
side he has nothing but a troupe of devotees, who, shallow, and
without the smallest spark of judgment, greet in him the creator
of a brand new musical system and completely turn his head;--the
rest of the world avoids him as a madman." In Paris he met Liszt,
who was afterward his best friend, but at first was not pleasing to
him. He heard him play a fantasia on airs from "Robert le Diable"
at a concert in honour of Beethoven, and his sincere German heart
was outraged at such desecration. He felt that the virtuoso was
dependent on the public fancy and shallowness, and he compared his
own independence with this state in an article entitled "Du Métier de
Virtuose et de l'Indépendence des Compositeurs: Fantasie Esthétique
d'un Musicien," which he published in the _Gazette Musicale_ of Oct.
18, 1840.
On Nov. 19 of the same year the score of "Rienzi" was completed, and
on Dec. 4 he sent it to Von Lüttichau, the director of the opera at
Dresden, accompanied by two letters, one to the director himself and
the other to Friedrich August II, King of Saxony. Neither of these
letters seems to have effected anything, and Wagner then applied to
Meyerbeer, who on returning to Paris in the summer of 1840 had found
his young friend in dire distress. Meyerbeer wrote to the intendant,
Von Lüttichau. "Herr Richard Wagner of Leipsic," he said, "is a young
composer who has not only a thorough musical education, but who
possesses much imagination, as well as general literary culture,
and whose predicament certainly merits in every way sympathy in his
native land." Three months after the writing of this letter Wagner
received word that his opera had been accepted at Dresden, but it
was sixteen months later when it was produced. Although he knew
that in Fischer, the chorusmaster, Reissiger, the conductor, and
Tichatschek, the tenor, who saw golden opportunities in the title
rôle, he had friends at court, yet he suffered intense anxiety during
the period between the acceptance and the production of the work.
The correspondence with Fischer and Heine well shows the extent of
this.[14]
[Footnote 14: R. Wagner: Letters to Uhlig, Fischer, and Heine.
London, 1890.]
Meanwhile Meyerbeer, wishing to do something to give immediate help
to the unfortunate young man, placed him in communication with Léon
Pillet, the director of the Grand Opéra. "I had already," says Wagner
in the autobiography, "provided myself for this emergency with an
outline plot. The 'Flying Dutchman,' whose acquaintance I had made
upon the ocean, had never ceased to fascinate my phantasy; I had also
made the acquaintance of H. Heine's remarkable version of this legend
in a number of his 'Salon'; and it was especially his treatment of
the redemption of this Ahasuerus of the seas--borrowed from a Dutch
play under the same title--that placed within my hands all the
material for turning the legend into an opera subject." Wagner rushed
to Pillet with this sketch for the book of the "Flying Dutchman," and
the suggestion that a French text-book be prepared for him to set to
music.
Pillet accepted the sketch and there was much talk about the choice
of a person to make a suitable French arrangement. Suddenly Meyerbeer
left Paris again, and no sooner was his back turned than Pillet told
the young German that he liked "Le Vaisseau-Fantôme" so well that
he would be glad to sell it to a composer to whom he had long ago
promised a libretto. Wagner naturally declined to accede to such a
proposition and asked for the return of his manuscript. But Pillet
was unwilling to part with it. Wagner left the manuscript in his
hands, hoping that Meyerbeer would return and straighten out the
affair. Pursued by creditors and harassed by want, he now left Paris
and went to reside in the suburb of Meudon. Here he heard by chance
that his sketches for "Der Fliegende Holländer" had been placed in
the hands of M. Paul Foucher for arrangement, and that he was in a
fair way to be cheated out of his book. So in the end he accepted
$100 for it, and was thankful to get that.
"Le Vaisseau-Fantôme," libretto by Foucher and Revoil, music by
Pierre Louis Phillipe Dietsch, chorusmaster and afterward conductor
at the opera, was produced Nov. 9, 1842. It was a distinguished
failure and was speedily consigned to oblivion. Meanwhile Wagner,
who was not forbidden by the terms of his agreement with Pillet to
write a German book of his own after his sketches, sat down to pen
the text of "Der Fliegende Holländer," which still lives. In seven
weeks he had written the whole work except the overture, and then his
$100 were gone, and he had to revert to hack work to earn bread. He
returned to Paris and lived most humbly at No. 10 Rue Jacob, where
he made piano scores of Halévy's "Guitarréro" and "La Reine de
Chypre."
It was at this time, too, in the beginning of the year 1841, that he
wrote his pathetic sketch, "The End of a Musician in Paris," in which
he delineated his own hopes and disappointments, and made the poor
man die with the words, "I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven."
When the score of the "Dutchman" was completed, he hastened to send
it to his fatherland, but from Munich and Leipsic came the answer
that it was not suitable to Germany. "Fool that I was!" he says;
"I had fancied it was fitted for Germany alone, since it is struck
on chords that can only vibrate in the German breast." Once more
he turned for help to the musical dictator, Meyerbeer, who was in
Berlin. He sent the new work to him with a request that he get it
taken up by the opera in that city. The opera was accepted speedily,
but there was no prospect of immediate production. Nor did Wagner see
any prospects of any kind, except starvation, in Paris.
All through the winter of 1841-42 he hoarded his money in the hope
of going to Germany for the production of his "Rienzi." In the same
winter began the voluminous correspondence with his Dresden friends,
Wilhelm Fischer and Ferdinand Heine. The former was addressed
ceremoniously in the first letters as a new acquaintance. The latter
was an old friend of the Wagner family. In his letters to these
two men the poet-composer poured out the tortured anxiety of his
soul over the promised production of "Rienzi." He gave invaluable
suggestions as to the cast and the performance. He besought first one
and then the other of the friends to let him know how and when the
work would at length be given. He wrote to the artists, Tichatschek
and Schroeder-Devrient. They paid no attention to him. Who was he,
this unknown young composer, to trouble the darlings of the public?
He grovelled before them and they spurned him. Reissiger's "Adèle de
Foix" must be given before "Rienzi," for Reissiger was the conductor
at Dresden. Then came Halévy's "Guitarréro," which Wagner knew well
indeed. And finally when "Rienzi" seemed likely to get a hearing,
Mme. Schroeder-Devrient decided that she needed a revival of Gluck's
"Armida." Poor Wagner! He wrote of Schroeder-Devrient to Heine:
"I believe I have already written her a dozen letters:
that she has not sent me a single word in reply does not
surprise me very much, because I know how some people
detest letter-writing; but that she has never sent me
indirectly a word or a hint disquiets me greatly. Great
Heavens! so very much depends upon her; it would be
truly humane on her part if she would only send me this
message--perhaps by her chambermaid--'Calm yourself! I am
interested in your cause!'"
At length patience became impossible. He was eager to be on the spot
and to exert his personal influence. Furthermore he wished his wife
to take the baths at Teplitz. So on April 7, 1842, he was able to
turn his face from Paris, the scene of so much achievement, so much
disappointment, and move toward his native land. "For the first
time," he says at the end of the autobiographic sketch, "I saw the
Rhine. With hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal
fidelity to my German fatherland." But a little later the poor
artist's name was on every tongue, in every print; and the great
Wagner war broke over Germany. For genius always arouses opposition,
and there are few who can follow the seven league strides of a
creative mind.