PREACHING WHAT HE PRACTISED
"Doch ich bin so allein."--SIEGFRIED
The first years of Wagner's residence at Zurich were occupied with
the writing of works designed to propagate the reformatory ideas
which he aimed at introducing into the composition and performance
of opera. It has been noted that after the first performances of
"Tannhäuser" he felt that the public would have to be educated up
to his conception of art, and he now set to work to produce the
necessary doctrinary essays. Through the kindness of Otto Wesendonck,
a music-lover and admirer of his work, he was able to rent at a low
price a pretty châlet overlooking the lake, and there he lived and
laboured in retirement. He was too profoundly discouraged at first
to undertake composition, and for five years he brought forth no
music. The problem of how to live stared him in the face in all its
frightful nakedness. He wrote to Liszt in the fall of 1849:
"How and whence shall I get enough to live? Is my finished
work 'Lohengrin' worth nothing? Is the opera which I am
longing to complete worth nothing? It is true that to the
present generation and to publicity as it is these must
appear as a useless luxury. But how about the few who love
these works? Should not they be allowed to offer to the
poor suffering creator--not a remuneration, but the bare
possibility of continuing to create?... Tell me; advise me!
Hitherto my wife and I have kept ourselves alive by the
help of a friend here. By the end of this month of October
our last florins will be gone, and a wide, beautiful world
lies before me, in which I have nothing to eat, nothing to
warm myself with. Think of what you can do for me, dear,
princely friend. Let some one buy my 'Lohengrin,' skin and
bones; let some one commission my 'Siegfried.'"
And so he went on, begging Liszt to save him and his wife from
absolute want. He had not even an overcoat. The score of "Lohengrin"
was eventually sold to Breitkopf and Härtel for a few hundred
thalers, but the means of subsistence were provided for Wagner by
Liszt and other friends. Yet even in this lamentable state of affairs
he could not drive himself to compose. He could only write his
literary works. In these he embodied what has come to be known as the
Wagnerian theory of the music drama, the theory which finds its only
full and satisfying illustration in the works of this master, though
its elementary principals were recognised and obeyed by earlier
writers. He says himself in "The Music of the Future," "My mental
state resembled a struggle. I tried to express theoretically that
which under the incongruity of my artistic aims as contrasted with
the tendencies of public art, especially of the opera, I could not
properly put forward by means of direct artistic production."
The principal works written by him in this state of mind were "Art
and Revolution," 1849, "The Art-work of the Future," "Art and
Climate," "Judaism in Music," 1850, "Recollections of Spontini,"
1851, "On the Performance of 'Tannhäuser,'" and "Opera and Drama,"
1852. Of these the last is the most important to the student of
Wagner's theories, but at the time of publication it was the article
on "Judaism in Music" which raised the largest disturbance. The
criticisms of Meyerbeer contained in it have been used by Wagner's
enemies down to the present day as evidence that he was an ungrateful
man. The fact that these censures were wholly for Meyerbeer, the
composer, should, however, be borne in mind; for in Wagner the artist
always governed the man, and the timely aid given to him by Meyerbeer
in the dark days in Paris was bound to take a place in his estimation
second to the popular composer's palpable seeking after the applause
of the inartistic masses.
The article on "Judaism in Music" was printed in Brendel's _Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik_ for Sept. 3 and 6, 1850. Eleven masters at
the Leipsic conservatory, where Brendel lectured on the history of
music, wrote to him asking him to resign or reveal the name of the
author. He refused to do either, thereby leaving the eleven irate
masters in a ludicrous position. But the hostility of the press to
Wagner was aroused by the article, for his authorship was speedily
suspected. In 1869 he issued a revised and enlarged edition of this
article and then a host of replies appeared. None of them, however,
dealt candidly with the artistic questions. Most of them rested with
accusing Wagner of assailing rival composers because they were Jews.
The chief points made in Wagner's article were that the Jews were not
an artistic people, that they could not be so because they were not
sincere, because they had no nation, no home, no language, but lived
to please the people of the country in which they chanced to be and
whose language they spoke. Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer were quoted as
examples.
In "Opera and Drama" Wagner set forth the principles which, according
to him, should govern the creation of art work for the stage. These
principles we shall have opportunity to examine in detail when we
come to the study of the Wagnerian theories. Let it suffice here to
quote Muncker's admirable summary of the essay:
"Systematically he examined in what manner all the arts, plastic,
mimic, phonetic and oral, had in the antique tragedy combined to
the highest mutual purposes, and how thereafter, released from this
close and lifelike union, the single arts had in their individual
development either stagnated or degenerated. He refused to
acknowledge the objections that only the mild atmosphere of Greece
had been able to ripen the artistic power of intuition and formation,
out of which the Attic tragedy had grown. Only the historical man,
the man independent of nature, has awakened art to life; and only he,
noble and strong, who through the highest power of love has attained
true liberty, can newly create the vanished dramatic work of art,
just as he alone, his life and death, is its subject; for this reason
there can be only one principal consideration for art, and that
is the true nature of the human race. Strictly Wagner weighed the
unsuccessful attempts of the last century externally to combine the
sister arts (without any of them giving up their egotistic purposes)
in the oratorio and particularly in the opera, the trysting place of
their most selfish endeavours. He contrasted with these inorganic
species the loving union of the single arts in the work of art of
the future, in the true drama, that, like the Attic tragedy, employed
the same artistic means, only on a greater scale and with a higher
technical perfection, in the same manner and for the same purposes.
Like the Attic tragedy, it is to be represented by the people, or
rather the totality of different artists is to represent it for the
people; just, however, as the single arts can here for the first
time freely and naturally unfold their innermost nature, so the
individuality of the single artist can, just in that community with
the whole, significantly develop itself."
In this essay he ruthlessly exposed the musical shallowness of
Rossini and Meyerbeer. He saw at the time that his criticism of the
latter would expose him to the charge of ingratitude, but the artist
in him prevailed, and he spoke his mind freely. It should be added
that he praised certain passages in Meyerbeer's works, especially the
great duet in the fourth act of "Les Huguenots."
In the early years of his exile he undertook once more the task of
writing an opera for Paris. He went so far as to make a prose sketch
of a libretto entitled "Wieland the Smith." In after years he offered
the book to Liszt, saying that it reminded him of a period of pain.
The labour of writing this work was distasteful to him, and he began
it only at the earnest solicitation of his wife and Liszt. The
sketch, which is an elaborated scenario, is included in Mr. Ellis's
translation of the prose works.
The only musical work which Wagner did in the early years at
Zurich was the conducting of some orchestral concerts, and the
superintending of performances at the city theatre. It was at this
time that Wagner's acquaintance with the afterward famous pianist
and conductor, Hans von Bülow, began. Von Bülow had abandoned the
career planned for him by his father and gone to Zurich literally to
throw himself at the feet of Wagner. The master secured him the post
of assistant conductor at the opera, where he supported his protégé
against the intriguing of the singers and the orchestra. After six
months of experience there Von Bülow was sent with a letter of
introduction from Wagner to Liszt, whose pupil he became, and whose
daughter Cosima he married. Little did either he or Wagner think at
the time that he would be conductor of Wagner's greatest works, and
that his wife would become the second spouse of the famous composer.
The year 1850 was made a memorable one in Wagner's life by the first
performance of "Lohengrin," which had slept in silence for three
years. In the "Communication to My Friends" Wagner wrote of the
movement toward the production thus:
"At the end of my latest stay in Paris, as I lay ill and
wretched, gazing brooding into space, my eye fell on the
score of my already almost quite forgotten 'Lohengrin.'
It filled me with a sudden grief to think that these
notes should never ring from off the death-wan paper. Two
words I wrote to Liszt. His answer was none other than an
announcement of preparations the most sumptuous--for the
modest means of Weimar--for 'Lohengrin's' production."
Even at this distance the words of that letter of April 21, 1850, are
pathetic:
"DEAR FRIEND: I have just been looking through the
score of my 'Lohengrin.' I very seldom read my own works.
An immense desire has sprung up in me to have this work
performed. I address this wish to your heart: Perform my
'Lohengrin'! You are the only one to whom I could address
this prayer; to none but you should I entrust the creation
of this opera; to you I give it with perfect and joyous
confidence."
How faithfully Liszt fulfilled the trust imposed upon him may be seen
from one of his letters to Wagner in the course of the preparations
for the opera's production.
"Your 'Lohengrin' will be given under exceptional
conditions, which are most favourable to its success. The
management for this occasion spends about 2,000 thalers, a
thing that has not been done in Weimar within the memory
of man. The press will not be forgotten, and suitable and
seriously conceived articles will appear successively
in several papers. All the personnel will be put on its
mettle. The number of violins will be slightly increased
(from 16 to 18) and a bass clarinet has been purchased.
Nothing essential will be wanting in the musical material
or design. I undertake all the rehearsals with pianoforte,
chorus, strings and orchestra. Genast will follow your
indications for the mise-en-scène with zeal and energy. It
is understood that we shall not cut a note, not an iota,
of your work, and that we shall give it in its absolute
beauty, as far as is in our power."
The date chosen for the production was Aug. 28, the birthday of
Goethe, when a large number of visitors would be in Weimar to attend
the unveiling of a monument to Herder. Wagner was anxious to be
present at the performance, but the risk of arrest, if he set foot
on German soil, prevented him from going. Liszt was profoundly
moved by the work, but he was not satisfied with the performance
nor the reception by the public. The singers did not know how to
deliver Wagner's music, and the general public found this, the most
popular of all Wagner's creations, quite beyond its comprehension.
The performance lasted five hours, owing to the singers' treating
all the arioso passages as recitatives, and Wagner accordingly
wrote to Liszt explaining how this music should be sung. The whole
series of letters on the manner of performing "Lohengrin" is full of
instruction as to Wagner's dramatic ideas and the proper method of
singing his music. Liszt and Genast, the stage manager, however, saw
no way out of the difficulty except by making cuts, and these were
accordingly made, but under protest from the composer, who authorised
only one in the latter part of Lohengrin's narrative.
The production of the most popular of all operas now before the
public was accomplished in the absence of its composer. Indeed, it
was not until May 15, 1861, in Vienna, that poor Wagner heard this
beautiful and touching work. While it was in course of preparation
at Weimar he was labouring at Zurich, as we have seen, and was
fighting ill-health, too. His low spirits brought on an attack of
dyspepsia, and with this came another lifelong enemy, erysipelas. The
cheerfulness and devotion of the unhappy Minna helped him through
this trying period, and he further solaced himself by long walks into
the forest, accompanied by his dog Peps. He declaimed aloud against
the density of the public and the machine-made music of some of
his contemporaries, and when Peps answered his master's voice with
a lively bark, Wagner would pat his head and say, "Thou hast more
sense, Peps, than some of these contrapuntists." Liszt continued
to push the fortunes of "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin" at Weimar,
and although it was three years before the latter was performed
elsewhere, it became the fashion to visit Weimar to hear it.
Wagner closed the literary work of this period by writing the
"Communication to My Friends," which, with the autobiography, forms
the most satisfactory material for the study of his early career.
This communication is rather a story of his artistic development
than of the incidents of his life, but it is a fascinating piece of
self-examination, and throws more light than anything else upon the
motives which led to the composition of the most famous of Wagner's
dramas.
It was at this time that he entered upon the task of writing his
long-cherished "Death of Siegfried," which he had shaped into a drama
in three acts and a prologue in the autumn of 1848. It was in June,
1849, that he wrote to Liszt that he would have the drama completed
in half a year. In the spring of 1851 Liszt learned that there was to
be a prefatory drama called "Young Siegfried," and on June 29 Wagner
wrote to him that the poem was finished. On Nov. 20 of the same year
Wagner wrote a long letter, in which he set forth the development of
the entire plan. He had found that his story was too long and complex
to tell in two dramas, and that he would have to make three, with a
prologue.
Thus he had finally developed the plan of what was to be his most
imposing, if not his greatest, work, a work rivalling in the
immensity of its conception and its dramatic seriousness the ancient
trilogies of the Greeks. It was altogether fitting that this _magnum
opus_ should have acquired its full and definite shape in his mind at
a time when his invention was refreshed by abstinence from musical
production, and when the appetite for composition was springing up
anew. Early in 1853 the poem in its new form was completed, and
on Feb. 11 he sent a copy to Liszt. The latter wrote: "You are
truly a wonderful man, and your 'Nibelung' poem is surely the most
incredible thing which you have ever done." In a letter written in
1871, to Arrigo Boïto, the famous Italian composer and librettist,
he said: "During a sleepless night at an inn at Spezzia the music to
'Das Rheingold' occurred to me. Straightway I turned homeward and
set to work." He finished the full score of "Das Rheingold" in May,
1854, and in the following month he began that of "Die Walküre." The
score of this work was finished in 1856, and part of "Siegfried" was
written in the next year.
The sleepless night at the Spezzia inn occurred in the course of a
journey into Italy made in 1853. It was a journey made in the vain
hope of cheering the drooping spirits of Wagner, who was always
fond of travel. His life in Zurich had its pleasant side. He had
made friends, some of whom, notably Wille, a former journalist of
Hamburg, and his wife, a clever novelist, understood and adored
him. But he suffered from dyspepsia, insomnia, and erysipelas, the
latter returning with wearing persistency; and he writhed under the
restraints of an exile which for artistic reasons he could not but
desire to terminate. In some of the cities of Germany his works were
performed without understanding and in a way to make him shiver with
anguish, yet he was helpless. On all sides he was critically assailed
for faults that were not his, and would instantly have disappeared if
his operas had been properly interpreted. In Berlin, where he might
have reaped at least a decent pecuniary profit from performances,
jealousy, intrigue, and Philistinism prevented his works from
reaching the stage.
And the demon poverty pursued him to the verge of madness. He
suffered from the agonising fear that at length he would be
forced to abandon all the splendid imaginations that were burning
within him and divert his whole life into the sordid channels of
bread-and-butter drudgery. He cried to Liszt and other friends to
save him. For this he has been called a beggar; but if we obey
Charles Reade's injunction, "Put yourself in his place," the thing
wears a different aspect. Wagner was profoundly convinced of the
greatness that was within him, and it maddened him to think that he
might have to stifle it. He wrote to Liszt: "I am in a miserable
condition, and have great difficulty in persuading myself that it
must go on like this, and that it would not really be more moral to
put an end to this disgraceful kind of life."
In these circumstances, it was perhaps the best thing that could
have happened to him that in that sleepless night at Spezzia he was
haunted by the thought that the music of "Rheingold" must be written,
and went home to chain himself again to the pathetic task of heaping
one silent score upon another. The time came when he did not believe
that he would live to finish the mighty tetralogy which is now the
glory of the lyric stage. But even in the face of despair he could
not repress the impulses within him, and back to Zurich he went, and
the wonderful measures of the prologue of the "Nibelung" drama sprang
into being. Even as he had out of despair forged the links of his
first success, "Rienzi," so again the fires of anguish lit the forges
of the "Schwarzalben" and the "Wonniges Kind."