From a photograph.
]
A more important interruption, however, was to come. In 1851, Arthur
Schopenhauer’s “Parerga und Paralipomena” was published, and created a
sensation which called attention to his earlier philosophical work, “The
World as Will and Representation” (1818), hitherto unnoticed in the
glare of Hegel’s and Schelling’s success. Wagner plunged into
Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy with ardor. At the same time he
was reading Godfrey von Strassburg’s “Tristan,” and conceived the idea
of embodying Schopenhauer’s pessimism in a story of unhappy passion. He
read Strassburg’s poem to Praeger, who was visiting him, and spoke of
its adaptability to operatic treatment. The next morning at breakfast,
in a fit of abstraction, he conceived some of the love music. Now the
desire seized him to write a work which could be completed and produced.
Moreover he needed money. And to end all, a mysterious agent appeared
with a commission for an opera from the Emperor of Brazil. Wagner
hesitated about the commission, but he began “Tristan and Isolde.” He
finished the poem early in 1857, the music of the first act in the
winter, the second act in Venice, March 2, 1859, and the third act in
Lyons, August, 1859.
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