"Had it not been for Meyerbeer, my wife and I would have starved in
Paris," Wagner once told a friend, in speaking of his dark days, and he
always esteemed the composer as a man, though his honesty in art
matters forced him to condemn Meyerbeer's music.
Wagner wandered over Europe for many years. Born in Leipsic and dying
in Venice, he lived in many cities during the years between. His youth
was spent at Leipsic and Dresden; then he was choir-master at Wurzburg;
next musical director at the Magdeburg theatre, conductor at Königsberg
and at Riga. Proceeding thence by way of London to Paris, in 1839, he
remained in the French capital until the spring of 1842, thence going
to Dresden, where he served as court conductor for seven years. Forced
to fly from Dresden because of his part in the uprising of 1849, he at
first went to Liszt at Weimar, and then to Zurich by way of Paris. At
Zurich he stayed, with some intermission, until 1861, when he received
permission to return to Germany. The misfortunes he met there decided
him, after three years, to return to Switzerland, and he was on his way
thither when Ludwig II. ascended the throne of Bavaria, and invited him
to go to Munich and work. The end of 1865 found Wagner at the lovely
Villa Triebschen, on Lake Lucerne, where he composed the
"Meistersinger," and worked on the "Nibelungen." In 1872, Wagner
settled in Bayreuth, where, soon after, the house which he called
"Wahnfried" was built for him.
At last the great composer's wanderings were coming to an end, but, as
we have said, he died in Venice, and not at his own home. He was,
however, buried there, in the garden of the villa.
It is at "Wahnfried" that the artist has drawn Wagner discussing some
musical question with Liszt, Frau Wagner seated near by.
[Illustration: Wagner at Home. From painting by W. Beckmann.]
Wagner's first wife was a beautiful and talented actress and singer, by
name Wilhelmina Planer, whom he married at Riga in 1834. She was a
faithful helpmate for years, sacrificing to him her own career, but did
not comprehend his genius, and as years went by they drifted apart.
The composer's professional intercourse with Hans von Bülow led to an
intimacy with the latter's wife, Cosima von Bülow, who was an
illegitimate daughter of Liszt by the Countess d'Agoult. In 1861
Richard and Wilhelmina Wagner separated, and in 1866 she died. Four
years later, Cosima, then divorced from Von Bülow, was married to
Wagner, whom she both worshipped and well understood. Their union was
a very happy one, blest with one son named Siegfried, and Madame Wagner
long survived her illustrious husband, and laboured indefatigably to
carry on his work and increase his fame.
Wagner owed much to Cosima, born Liszt, and still more to her father,
who was a never-failing friend. In a work published in 1851, Wagner
says: "I was thoroughly disheartened from undertaking any artistic
scheme. Only recently I had proofs of the impossibility of making my
art intelligible to the public, and all this deterred me from beginning
new dramatic works. Indeed, I thought that everything was at an end
with artistic creativeness. From this state of mental dejection I was
raised by a friend. By most evident and undeniable proofs, he made me
feel that I was not deserted, but, on the contrary, understood deeply
by those even who were otherwise most distant from me; in this way he
gave me back my full artistic confidence.
"This wonderful friend, Franz Liszt has been to me. I must enter a
little more deeply into the character of this friendship, which to many
has seemed paradoxical; indeed, I have been compelled to appear
repellent and hostile on so many sides, that I almost feel the want of
disclosing all that relates to this sympathetic intercourse.
"I met Liszt for the first time in Paris, and at a period when I had
renounced the hope, nay, even the wish, of a Parisian reputation; and,
indeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the artistic life I
found there. At our meeting Liszt appeared the most perfect contrast
to my own being and situation. In the Parisian society, to which it
had been my desire to fly from my narrow circumstances, Liszt had grown
up from his earliest age, so as to be the object of general love and
admiration, at a time when I was repulsed by general coldness and want
of sympathy. In consequence, I looked upon him with suspicion. I had
no opportunity of disclosing my being and work to him, and therefore
the reception I met with on his part was altogether of a superficial
kind, as indeed was quite natural in a man to whom every day the most
divergent impressions claimed access. But I was not in a mood to look
with unprejudiced eyes for the natural cause of his behaviour, which,
friendly and obliging in itself, could not but hurt me in that state of
my mind. I never repeated my first call on Liszt, and, without knowing
or even wishing to know him, I was prone to look upon him as strange
and adverse to my nature.
"My repeated expression of this feeling was afterward reported to
Liszt, just at the time when the performance of my 'Rienzi,' at
Dresden, attracted general attention. He was surprised to find himself
misunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had scarcely known,
and whose acquaintance now seemed not without value to him. I am still
touched at recollecting the repeated and eager attempts he made to
change my opinion of him, even before he knew any of my works. He
acted not from any artistic sympathy, but led by the purely human wish
of discontinuing a casual disharmony between himself and a fellow
creature; perhaps he also felt an infinitely tender misgiving of having
hurt me unconsciously. He who knows the terrible selfishness and
insensibility in our social life, and especially in the relations of
modern artists to each other, cannot but be struck with wonder, nay,
delight, by the treatment I experienced from this extraordinary man.
"Liszt soon afterward witnessed a performance of 'Rienzi,' at Dresden,
on which he had almost to insist, and after that I heard from all the
different corners of the world, where he had been on his artistic
excursions, how he had everywhere expressed his delight with my music,
and indeed had--I would rather believe unintentionally--canvassed
people's opinions in my favour.
"This happened at a time when it became more and more evident that my
dramatic works would have no outward success. But just when the case
seemed desperate, Liszt succeeded by his own energy in opening a
hopeful refuge to my art. He ceased his wanderings, settled down in
the small and modest Weimar, and took up the conductor's _bâton_, after
having been at home so long in the splendour of the greatest cities of
Europe. At Weimar I saw him for the last time, when I rested a few
days in Thuringia, not yet certain whether my threatening prosecution
would compel me to continue my flight from Germany. The very day when
my personal danger became a certainty, I saw Liszt conducting a
rehearsal of my 'Tannhäuser,' and was astonished at recognising my
second self in his achievements. What I had felt in inventing the
music, he felt in performing it; what I wanted to express in writing it
down, he proclaimed in making it sound. Strange to say, through the
love of this rarest friend, I gained, at the moment of becoming
homeless, a real home for my art, which I had longed and sought for
always in the wrong place.
"At the end of my last stay at Paris, when ill, broken down, and
despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eyes fell on the score of
my 'Lohengrin,' totally forgotten by me. Suddenly I felt something
like compassion that this music should never sound from off the
death-pale paper. I wrote two lines to Liszt; his answer was the news
that preparations for the performance were being made on the largest
scale the limited means of Weimar would permit. Everything that men
and circumstances could do was done in order to make the work
understood. . . . Errors and misconceptions impeded the desired
success. What was to be done to supply what was wanted, so as to
further the true understanding on all sides, and with it the ultimate
success of the work? Liszt saw it at once and did it. He gave to the
public his own impression of the work in a manner the convincing
eloquence and overpowering efficacy of which remain unequalled.
Success was his reward, and with this success he now approaches me,
saying: 'Behold, we have come so far, now create us a new work that we
may go still further.'"