"LOHENGRIN" AND "DIE MEISTERSINGER"
"How curious I am to hear Liszt about it."--WAGNER
When "Tannhäuser" had been completed Wagner went to Marienbad to
spend the summer. While there he made the first drafts of his
"Meistersinger" and "Lohengrin." He says: "As with the Athenians a
merry satyr-play followed the tragedy, so, during that excursion, I
suddenly conceived the idea of a comic play which might follow my
minstrel's contest in the Wartburg as a significant satyr-play. This
was the Mastersingers of Nuremberg with Hans Sachs at their head.
Scarcely had I finished the sketch of this plot when the plan of
'Lohengrin' began to engage my attention, and left me no rest until
I had worked it out in detail." Returning to Dresden he devoted
himself to the preparations for the production of "Tannhäuser."
For, in spite of the failure of "Der Fliegende Holländer," the
Intendant had not wholly lost faith in the young man. August
Roeckel, who was now always at Wagner's side, urged so eloquently
the need of new scenery for this drama that painters were brought
from Paris. The best singers available were placed at Wagner's
disposal, and they vied with one another in studying this, to them,
almost incomprehensible work. Tichatschek had to have the music of
"Tannhäuser" lowered for him. Johanna Wagner, the daughter of the
composer's brother Albert, was specially engaged for Elizabeth, and
Schroeder-Devrient took Venus, while Mitterwurzer was the Wolfram.
Wagner wrote an explanation of his poem, and placed it at the head
of the libretto, which was sold at the door. On Oct. 19, 1845, the
work was performed for the first time. The opening scene went for
nothing. Schroeder-Devrient, who did not like the music of Venus,
sang it badly, and the audience lost the entire significance of the
episode. The ensuing scene went well and the popular septet at the
end of the act gained the composer a recall. The march in the second
act pleased, but the contest in the hall of song dragged listlessly.
The evening star song was liked, but then came the true Wagner, the
Wagner of the uncompromising music drama. The return of Tannhäuser
and his despairing narrative were wholly lost on the audience. The
public was unable to understand the aims of a man who, having a
heroic tenor on the stage in a grand situation, would not write a
pealing aria for him, but persisted in making him tell a story in a
long declamatory recitative. The master's intent to put the dramatic
situation before them was not discerned. All that was seen was
that he would not write a pretty song when he might have done so.
"Tannhäuser" reached its fourth performance on Nov. 2. The following
day Wagner wrote to his friend Carl Galliard in Berlin, sending him a
copy of the score:
"I have gained a big action with my 'Tannhäuser.' Let me
give you a very short account of a few of the facts. Owing
to the hoarseness of some of the singers, the second
performance was played a week after the first; this was
very bad, for in the long interval ignorance and erroneous
and absurd views, fostered by my enemies, who exerted
themselves vigorously, had full scope for swaggering
about; and when the moment of the second performance at
length arrived, my opera was on the point of failing; the
house was not well filled; opposition! prejudice! Luckily,
however, all the singers were as enthusiastic as ever;
intelligence made a way for itself, and the third act,
somewhat shortened, was especially successful; after the
singers had been called out, there was a tumultuous cry
for me. I have now formed a nucleus among the public; at
the third performance there was a well-filled house and an
enthusiastic reception of the work. After every act the
singers and the author were tumultuously applauded; in the
third act at the words, 'Heinrich, du bist erlöst,' the
house resounded with an outbreak of enthusiasm. Yesterday
at length the fourth performance took place before a house
crammed to suffocation; after every act the singers were
called out, and after them on each occasion the author;
after the second act there was a regular tumult. Whenever
I show myself people greet me enthusiastically. My dear
Galliard, this is indeed a rare success, and under the
circumstances one for which I scarcely hoped."
But in a short time Wagner realised that all the applause was for
the popular numbers in his work, and for the stage pictures and
ensembles. The drama as a whole had missed fire. The public did not
know what Wagner designed. The ethical meaning of his play was hidden
from the people. Its artistic purport was undiscerned. The public
still went to the theatre to see the pretty pictures and hear the
pretty tunes. Of the conception of an opera as the highest form of
poetic drama they were as ignorant as they had ever been. A few years
later Wagner, in recalling this, wrote in the "Communication to My
Friends":
"The public had shown me plainly by its enthusiastic
reception of 'Rienzi' and by the colder treatment of
the 'Dutchman,' what I must offer it to win approval.
Its expectations I disappointed utterly. Confused and
dissatisfied it left the first performance of 'Tannhäuser.'
I was overwhelmed by a feeling of complete isolation.
The few friends who heartily sympathised with me were
themselves so depressed by my painful position that the
perception of this sympathetic ill-humour was the only
friendly sign about me."
From this time it is possible to trace two features in the career
of Wagner. The first was a ceaseless effort to spread by polemical
writings the meaning of his doctrines, and the second was a somewhat
reckless determination to abide by them, come what might. Wagner has
been charged with grave neglect of the practical affairs of life.
He was interminably in debt. He borrowed money right and left, and
seemed to entertain an idea that the world ought to support such a
genius as he while he was pursuing his vast projects. This was not
exactly the vein of Wagner's thought, though his reckless methods of
expression might easily justify the belief that it was. The man was
aflame with the fire of his own genius. He knew what it was in him to
produce, and he rebelled bitterly against the constant pressure of
his daily needs to turn him aside, to force him to write pot-boilers
and abandon his vast conceptions. That a man with such an artistic
conscience as Wagner's could not compromise we can easily understand;
and the struggle of the ensuing years began with the decision to
bring the public to him, and not to descend to the flowery level on
which it reposed.
Criticism of Wagner's writings at this time was of the most
discouraging sort. In Dresden, for instance, the leading commentator
was one Schladebach. This gentleman was, perhaps, a perfectly honest
critic, but he was incompetent to discern the importance of a
departure from the beaten path. He constituted himself the champion
of classicism, for which poor conventionality is so often and so
easily mistaken. When a number of famous masters have laid down the
plan of opera, it is extremely confusing to a poor critic to have a
stranger appear and propose a wholly different method of treating
the form. Schladebach was incapable of understanding the theories
and aims of Wagner; so he praised whatever was good according to
the old models, and condemned what departed from them. He was the
correspondent of the leading papers of many German cities, and
consequently the belief was spread abroad that, while this man Wagner
had some talent, he was unpractical and hopelessly eccentric. The
managers paid no attention to him, in many cases they did not even
look at the scores which he sent them.
Robert Schumann, who went to live in Dresden in the fall of 1844,
wrote to Dorn in 1846, "I wish you could see 'Tannhäuser'; it
contains deeper, more original, and altogether an hundredfold
better things than his previous operas--at the same time a good
deal that is musically trivial. On the whole, Wagner may become of
great importance and significance to the stage, and I am sure he
is possessed of the needful courage." Unfortunately the pressure
of the general opinion of the time proved to be too strong even
for Schumann, and a few years later he wrote that Wagner was "not
a good musician." Spohr, who produced "Tannhäuser" in 1853, wrote,
"The opera contains much that is new and beautiful, also several
ugly attacks on one's ears." In another place he complains of
the "absence of definite rhythm and the frequent lack of rounded
periods." In none of the contemporaneous criticism, except that
written by Wagner's intimates, can one find anything to show that the
writers had discerned the artistic purpose of the composer. It is not
strange that he felt that he stood alone.
Nor is it, on the whole, strange that he was misunderstood. As
for the critics, they had formed their standards of opera on the
masterpieces of Meyerbeer, Spontini, and Rossini. Even in Mozart they
were unable to find justification for Wagner's ideas, for it was his
novelty in form that confused them. The public had long placed opera
in the category of "amusements." It went to the opera house to hear
arias, duos, quartets, sung by great singers, while the story, told
chiefly in recitatives, was regarded merely as an excuse for the
presentation of certain poetic points of emotion to be set to music.
When Wagner came, demanding that the music should be only one means
of expression of the whole emotional content of a consistent drama,
and that it should not be simply a string of pretty tunes, we can
easily understand that he was far beyond the public of his day, and
we can picture to ourselves the unhappy Intendant, asking him why
it was necessary to be so distressing, and why Tannhäuser could not
marry Elizabeth.
In the year 1847 Wagner's musical activity was confined almost
wholly to work upon his "Lohengrin." He lived in retirement as
much as possible, and gave himself up to the realisation of those
artistic projects with which he felt that his entire surroundings
were unsympathetic. In the winter of 1845 he had conceived and
noted the principal themes. In the fall of 1846 he lived in a villa
at Grosgraufen, near Pilnitz, and there he began the music. In the
summer of 1847 he secluded himself wholly, and on August 28 he
finished the introduction, which for more than half a century has
thrilled hearers all over the world. The scoring of the entire opera
was completed in the early spring. While Wagner must have realised
the artistic value of this new work, he must also have seen how
much further he had removed himself from the possibility of public
comprehension than he had in his "Tannhäuser." He even doubted the
practicability of opera as an art form. The Intendant of the Dresden
opera did not feel any sympathy with the composer's experimental
mood, and only the finale of the third act of "Lohengrin," performed
on September 22, 1848, at the anniversary celebration of the
orchestra, was heard in Dresden.
Meanwhile although "Tannhäuser" had been refused a hearing at Berlin,
preparations had been made for the production of "Rienzi," and the
birthday of the King of Prussia, Oct. 5, 1847, had been chosen as the
date for the performance. Wagner went to Berlin to superintend the
rehearsals. There he found that anti-Wagnerism was in full bloom.
The newspapers began the attack before the work was made known, and
every possible rumour that envy and jealousy could invent found
ready acceptance. The fate of "Rienzi" was sealed in advance. The
manager of the opera discovered that the text of the work breathed a
revolutionary spirit quite out of keeping with the temper of a royal
fête, and accordingly the production was postponed till Oct. 26. On
that evening "Rienzi" was given, but the King was not present, the
court did not attend, and Meyerbeer, who was the general director
of music, was suddenly called out of town. There was an audience of
good size and the applause was of a liberal character; but there was
no hope of permanent success in Berlin without the smiles of royalty
and the favourable comment of the press. So Wagner saw his dreams
of pecuniary aid from this early work fade away, and leave him to
struggle with the constantly growing problem of how to live.
The eventful year 1848 was now at hand, a year which was big with
incidents in the personal and artistic life of Wagner. It was in
this year that the political troubles which harassed the kingdom of
Saxony, and Germany in general, made themselves felt in the opera
house and afterward in the career of the composer. The work of the
opera house was affected by the general unrest. Nothing serious was
undertaken. The list of the season was made up chiefly of works
of the calibre of Flotow's "Martha," then in the height of its
popularity. The orchestra gave three subscription concerts, and at
one of these Wagner conducted Bach's eight-part motet, "Singt dem
Herrn ein neues Lied." In March he finished the instrumentation
of "Lohengrin" and then his mind began to busy itself with a new
subject. The first which attracted him was "Jesus of Nazareth." The
impulse which led him to the contemplation of this subject was so
plainly identical with that which afterward led to the creation of
"Parsifal" that it is worth while to note how far he went in its
embodiment. He collected a large quantity of material for this
projected work, and published it afterward in a volume of a hundred
pages.[18]
[Footnote 18: "Jesus von Nazareth, von R. Wagner." Leipsic, 1887.
Translation in 8th Vol. of Mr. Ellis's edition of the prose works.]
At this period, too, he seriously contemplated the employment of the
story of Barbarossa, or Friedrich Rothbart, as material for a lyric
drama. His study of this subject was of inestimable value to him in
shaping clearly in his mind the conviction that a mythical subject
was more suitable than one historical for the purpose of musical
treatment. He discovered that he could not give to the splendid
personality of Barbarossa the necessary historical background without
overloading his opera with a host of minor details too inflexible
for musical treatment. On the other hand to endeavour to sacrifice
historical accuracy to dramatic requirements would materially
change the true character of his subject. He became convinced that
only a mythical subject, in which elementary world-thoughts and
emotions were typified, would admit of free musical treatment. His
serious study of this whole matter resulted in an essay entitled,
"Die Wibelungen.--Weltgeschichte aus der Sage" ("The Wibelungs:
world-history from the Saga"). The essay treats of the history of the
world according to tradition, showing the agreement of history and
mythology in certain elementary facts. It was written in 1848 and was
published at Leipsic in 1850. It will be found in Vol. VII. of Mr.
Ellis's translation of the prose works.