EXILE
I
The journey to Zurich was a risky one. Wagner, the composer of what is
now the most popular of all operas, _Lohengrin_, might indeed pass
unnoticed, for the work had not been heard; but the composer of the
_Dutchman_ and of _Rienzi_, and perhaps of _Tannhäuser_, and above all
the organizer and conductor of the largest musical festival ever held
in Dresden, could not easily slip past unobserved. As a matter of
fact, few or none of the officials seemed very anxious to catch him;
still, thousands of innocent persons were being taken by the
Prussians, "tried," and sent to long terms of penal servitude for
having done nothing--it being argued, apparently, that any one against
whom nothing could be proved must of necessity be guilty of some
crime. Wagner's first idea was simply to keep out of the way until
things had quieted down. It took things more than a couple of years to
quiet down. Meantime a warrant was out for Richard's arrest. His
movements between Dresden, Chemnitz and Freiberg are of no interest
nowadays; but things became a little exciting from the day, May 13
(1849), when he arrived at Liszt's. I have related how for a week or
so all seemed well, and Wagner thought himself safe, being out of
Saxony. He even intended witnessing a representation of _Tannhäuser_,
but the day before, if not sooner, the warrant was circulated in the
German fashion of those days, with a personal description which seems
to have been made purposely vague by some friendly hand, though more
naturally one would assume it to be due to official stupidity. Wagner
heard Liszt rehearsing something of his and was overjoyed, and also he
was so confident of his own security that he still wanted to stay to
hear _Tannhäuser_. Liszt would not hear of it; he packed his friend
off under an assumed name to some other friends; they procured a
passport, and he travelled to Zurich via Jena and Coburg. It should be
put on record that in the meantime he ran the risk of being captured
by lingering to have a last hour with his wife. Towards the end of the
month he reached Zurich, and had no more fear of the Prussian police.
We have already seen how sick he had grown of Dresden, where he
complained of being slowly stifled; but Liszt proposed--nay,
insisted--on something worse than Dresden--Paris. Wagner was now a
penniless, homeless wanderer, as he had been when he set out from Riga
ten years before; and Liszt fondly believed that only by making a hit
in Paris could he command any enduring success in Germany, and thus
gain money to live on, wherever he might happen to be. Liszt was the
good genie who found the funds, and Wagner, having nothing better to
propose, was bound to obey. So he stayed three days in Zurich and set
out; and a deal of good he did! He knew absolutely that such work as
his could scarcely hope to get so much as a bare hearing, and the
event proved him to be right. He submitted scenarios of several operas
to a French poet, and there, for all practical purposes, the business
ended. Here is a fragment from a letter to Theodor Uhlig, dated
Zurich, August 9, '49--
"I am living here, helped in communistic fashion by Liszt, in
good spirits, and I may say prosperously, according to my best
nature; my only and great anxiety is about my poor wife, whom I
am expecting here very shortly. To my very great astonishment, I
find that I am a celebrity here; made so, indeed, by means of
the piano scores of all my operas, out of which whole acts are
repeatedly performed at concerts and at choral unions. At the
beginning of the winter I shall go again to Paris to have
something performed and to put my opera matter into order. You
cannot imagine what joy one finds in frugality if one knows that
thereby the noblest thing, freedom, is assured; you know how
long I was brewing in my blood the Dresden catastrophe, only I
had no presentiment of the exact hurricane which would drive me
thence; but you are thoroughly convinced that all the annuities
and restitutions in the world would not induce me to become
again what, to my greatest sorrow, I was in Dresden. I have just
a last remnant of curiosity, however, and you would give me much
pleasure in letting me know how matters stand with you. My wife
has never found leisure to give me news of Dresden, the
theatre, and the band. Do relieve this last Dresden longing. Do
you happen to know anything definite about the state of the
police inquiry? The fate of Heubner, Roeckel and Bakunin
troubles me much. Anyhow, these persons ought not to be
imprisoned. But don't let me speak of it! In this matter one can
only judge justly and adequately if one looks at the period from
a lofty point of view. Woe to him who acts with sublime purpose,
and then, for his deeds, is judged by the police! It is a grief
and a shame which only our times can show."
He had no real intention of returning to Paris. Earlier in the same
letter he speaks of ending the speculating by his proposed _Jesus of
Nazareth_. Indeed, the slavery of working for the market in Paris was
even more repugnant to him than the liveried bondage in Saxony.
Previous to the writing of this letter Liszt had lent him twelve
pounds, and by the end of July he was back in Zurich, and though, much
against his will, he did go to Paris again, and, in fact, much
farther, Zurich was thenceforth for some years his headquarters. His
host at first was an honest musician Alexander Müller, who, I believe,
had known him in Würzburg long before; but he soon set up an
establishment of his own.
His main purpose at this time was to try to clear in his brain the
confused mass of theories and speculations concerning music, and
especially opera, which had long been seething there. _Lohengrin_, the
reader must have observed, was not a road leading anywhere, but an
impasse; a step towards the attainment of his ideal it was not: it
was, on the whole, a step backwards, although it is a much more
beautiful work than _Tannhäuser_. Wagner's mind, like Thoreau's,
Carlyle's, Brahms', needed filtering--an operation that could only be
performed in perfect peace and loneliness. Thoreau went to Walden;
Carlyle to Craigenputtock; Brahms at any rate retired from public
musical life. They worked out their own salvation. Wagner felt he must
do the same; as we know, he did the same: hence many of those terrible
volumes of prose-writings. His mental condition is indicated in
another few sentences from the letter quoted above--
"Yet I must frankly confess that the freedom which I here inhale
in fresh Alpine draughts is intensely pleasing to me. What is
the ordinary care about the so-called future of citizen life
compared with the feeling that we are not tyrannized over in our
noblest aims? How few men care more for themselves than for
their stomachs? Now I have made my choice, and am spared the
trouble of choosing; so I feel free in my innermost soul, and
can despise what torments me from without; no one can withdraw
himself from the evil influences of the civilized barbarism of
our time, but all can so manage that they do not rule over our
better self."
We may as well note one point at once. When Thoreau, Carlyle and
Brahms went into their respective wildernesses, they maintained
themselves, as they thought merely proper. In this respect Wagner's
views did not coincide with theirs. He exclaims scornfully, "How few
men care more for themselves than for their stomachs!" What he meant
was that he should care for himself while his friends cared for his
stomach. As he cared a very great deal for his stomach, his demands
upon his friends were exorbitant and continuous. True, he offered the
fruits of his brain to the world at large, but all save the faithful
liked not the security. The creator of _Lohengrin_ and _Tannhäuser_
was quite justified in believing that he _ought_ to be supported, and
it may be that the respect we pay to the artists who starve it out is
only a complacent way of saying how pleased we are that no one asks us
to put our hands in our pockets. Nevertheless--!
We must remember, however, that he had no money and no prospects, and
carried the burden of gigantic unfinished, un-begun projects; his
worldly situation was even more desperate than it had been in 1839.
The voyage from Pillau was a voyage into the unknown, undertaken in
the hope of securing something tangible--a performance of _Rienzi_ and
fame and money; the voyage on which he had set out was into an even
stranger unknown, a voyage into the world of ideas, without any
prospects whatever in the worldly sense. He was groping his way
confusedly towards something greater than he had hitherto
accomplished; but he knew neither what subject to select nor how to
treat it. Nature had laid this burden upon him: he took it up only
because he must; and, luckily for us, the giver of the burden had
granted him the arrogance, the courage, the imperviousness to the
estimation in which he might be held by others--if the reader likes it
better, the sheer cheek--to find the means of living while he carried
the burden to the appointed place and so achieved his end. When John
the Baptist went into the wilderness he found camel's hair to clothe
himself and wild honey to feed himself. Even these primitive luxuries
are not to be had for looking in modern Europe, and Wagner asked his
friends to supply a substitute for them.
We find him suggesting to Liszt that a number of German princes might
combine to support him, and in return accept his works as he turned
them out; he suggested also that Liszt might himself guarantee him an
annuity. Liszt was from the beginning, and continued until the
appearance of King Ludwig in 1864, to be the most generous of helpers,
but he had ceased to go concertizing through Europe, and had not too
much money to spare. The Wesendoncks, Ritters, Wagner's own family,
all contributed as they could; but verily the man seemed to be a
bottomless abyss into which all the wealth of the world might be
dropped and still it would gape for more. If all his admirers in 1850
had contributed a penny a month he might have been satisfied--if half
the number of his admirers in 1913 could have contributed a penny a
year he would have had more than even he could have spent. But no such
plan seemed to be feasible; and on Liszt fell the brunt, whilst the
others did what they could or thought fit to do. Wagner may
reasonably be defended against the charge of greed or luxury. He was
in chronic ill-health, and his stupendous exertions made it unlikely
he would ever be better. We can believe even Praeger when he tells us
that Wagner's skin was so sensitive that he could tolerate only the
finest silk next to it; for we know that from babyhood he was tortured
by eczema. Had he not coddled himself he would not have had the
strength and nerve to achieve anything at all. He never knew one day
where next day's food was to come from; he was a homeless exile.
Happiness he never knew: such men as Wagner are not created to be
happy. Publishers and opera-directors alike treated him scurvily. To
show his state of mind I quote a portion of another letter to Uhlig,
dated September, 1850, after the production of _Lohengrin_ at Weimar--
"Liszt spoke to me previously about an honorarium of thirty
louis d'or for _Lohengrin_--instead of which I had altogether
only 130 thalers. Further, he announced to me that I should
receive a commission to write _Siegfried_ for Weimar, and be
paid beforehand enough to keep me alive undisturbed until the
work was finished. Until now they preserve there the most
stubborn silence. Whether I should give _Siegfried_ to Weimar,
intending it to be produced there, is after all a question
which, as matters now stand, I would probably only answer with
an unqualified No! I need not begin to assure you that I really
abandoned _Lohengrin_ when I permitted its production at
Weimar. I certainly received a letter yesterday from Zigesar,
which informed me that the second performance--given, through
somewhat energetic remonstrance on my part, only after most
careful rehearsals, and without cuts--was a wonder of success
and of effect on the public, and that it was perfectly clear
that it was and would remain a "draw". Yet I need not give you
my further reasons when I declare that I should wish to send
_Siegfried_ into the world in different fashion from that which
would be possible to the good people there. With regard to this,
I am busy with wishes and plans which, at first look, seem
chimerical, yet these alone give me the heart to finish
_Siegfried_. To realize the best, the most decisive, the most
important work which, under the present circumstances, I can
produce--in short, the accomplishment of the conscious mission
of my life--needs a matter of perhaps 10,000 thalers. If I could
ever command such a sum I would arrange thus:--here, where I
happen to be, and where many a thing is far from bad--I would
erect, after my own plans, in a beautiful field, near the town,
a rough theatre of planks and beams, and merely furnish it with
the decorations and machinery necessary for the production of
_Siegfried_. Then I would select the best singers to be found
anywhere, and invite them for six weeks to Zurich. I would try
to form a chorus here, consisting, for the most part, of
amateurs; there are splendid voices here, and strong, healthy
people. I should invite in the same way my orchestra. At the new
year announcements and invitations to all the friends of the
musical drama would appear in all the German newspapers, with a
call to visit the proposed dramatic musical festival. Any one
giving notice, and travelling for this purpose to Zurich, would
receive a certain entrée--naturally, like all the entrées,
gratis. Besides, I should invite to a performance the young
people here, the university, the choral unions. When everything
was in order I should arrange, under these circumstances, for
three performances of _Siegfried_ in one week. After the third
the theatre would be pulled down, and my score burnt. To those
persons who had been pleased with the thing I should then say,
'Now do likewise.' But if they wanted to hear something new from
me, I should say, 'You get the money.' Well, do I seem quite mad
to you? It may be so, but I assure you to attain this end is the
hope of my life, the prospect which alone can tempt me to take
in hand a work of art. So--get me 10,000 thalers--that's all!"
His friends, I say, did their best; but Liszt, though his generosity
had no bounds, still clung to the odd idea that Wagner should do
something for himself; also he could not get it out of his head that
the something could only be done in Paris. So, in another of the Uhlig
letters, dated more than six months anterior to the above, we find him
writing, half wearily, half defiantly--
"I have never felt the consciousness of freedom so beneficent
as now, nor have I ever been so convinced that only a loving
communion with others procures freedom. If, through the
assistance of X., I should be enabled to look firmly at the
immediate future without any necessity to earn a living, those
years would be the most decisive of my life, and especially of
my artistic career; for now I could look at Paris with calmness
and dignity; whereas, before, the fear of being compelled by
outward necessity to make concessions, made every step which I
took for Paris a false one. Now it would stand otherwise.
Formerly it was thus: 'Disown thyself, become another, become
Parisian in order to win for yourself Paris.' Now I would say:
'Remain just as thou art, show to the Parisians what thou art
willing and able to produce from within, give them an idea of
it, and in order that they may comprehend thee, speak to them so
that they may understand thee; for thy aim is just this--to be
understood by them as that which thou art,' I hope you agree
with this.
"So on January 16, 1850, I go to Paris; a couple of overtures
will at once be put into practice; and I shall take my completed
opera scheme: it is _Wiland der Schmied_. First of all I attack
the five-act opera form, then the statute according to which in
every great opera there must be a special ballet. If I can only
inspire Gustave Vaez, and impart to him the understanding of my
intention, and the will to carry it through with me, well and
good, if not, I'll seek till I find the right poet. For every
difficulty standing in the way of the understanding I, and the
subject connected with me, are attacked by the Press; if it is
a question of clearing away without mercy the whole rubbish and
cleansing with fresh water--in that matter I am in my right
element, for my aim is to create revolution whithersoever I
come. If I succumb--well the defeat is more honourable than a
triumph in the opposite direction; even without personal victory
I am, in any case, useful to the cause. In this matter victory
will only be really assured by endurance; who holds out wins
absolutely; and holding out with me means--for I am in no way in
doubt about my force of will--to have enough money to strike
hard and without intermission and not to worry about my own
means of living. If I have enough money, I must at once see
about getting my pamphlet on art translated and circulated.
Well, that will be seen when I am on the spot, and I shall
decide according to the means at my disposal. If my money comes
to an end too soon, I confidently hope for help from another
quarter--_i.e._ from the social republic, which sooner or later
must inevitably be established in France. If it comes
about--well, here I am ready for it, and, in the matter of art,
I have solidly prepared the way for it. It will not happen
exactly as my good-natured friends wish, according to their
predilection for the evil present time, but quite otherwise,
and, with good fortune, in a far better way--for, as they wish,
I only serve myself--but as I wish to serve all."
The history of this third Paris episode is distressing enough; but we
to-day, knowing what Paris was and what Wagner was, need not trouble
much about it. I have passed over it quickly; but yet another excerpt
from an Uhlig letter may be given to show how matters did _not_
progress (dated Paris, March 13, 1850)--
"So, my Parisian art-wallowings are given up since I recognized
their profane character. Heavens, how Fischer will rejoice when
he hears I have become a man of order! Everything strengthened
me in my ardent desire for renunciation. After endless waiting,
I at last receive the orchestral parts of my _Tannhäuser_
overture, and pay with pleasure fifteen francs carriage for
them. I then find that the parts have arrived much too soon, for
the Union Musicale has time for everything except for the
rehearsal of my overtures. I am, however, told that there may be
rehearsals at the end of this month, and actually under a
conductor who, in all the performances given under his
direction, carries out the happy idea of indicating _tempi,
nuances_, style in a manner quite different from that intended
by the composer; and with passionate conscientiousness, insists
on studying and conducting himself without ever allowing the
composer to expound his confused views about his own work.
Rocked in blissful dreams, I receive at last a letter of
Heine's, with an enclosure from Wigand--namely, a money-order
for ten louis d'or, which, from your letter, I had unfortunately
expected would come to twenty louis d'or.
"In short, early to-morrow morning (at eight o'clock) I start
off with the intention of being back here at the end of the
month, for the possible rehearsals of my overture.
"I am sorry for Heine and Fischer. Poor fellows! they picture me
floating along on a sea of Parisian hopes; they will be greatly
and painfully undeceived. Salute and console them. When my
cursed ill-humour of to-day has passed away, I will write to
Heine. To his fidelity must I present an earnest face. A
thousand greetings to my dear R----s, from whom I should so
much have liked to receive a line. The merchant M----, of
Dresden, will bring you something from me when he returns from
his great Parisian business trip; a good daguerreotype copy from
an excellent portrait which my friend Rietz has taken of me
here.
"What more shall I write? I am all confusion about my hasty
departure. I have now only to write the verses to my _Wiland_;
otherwise the whole poem is finished--German, German! How my pen
flew along! This _Wiland_ will carry you all away on its wings;
even your friendly Parisian hopes. If K---- does not write soon,
I shall presume that he is raving too madly about Krebs. Krebs
is clever--so is Michalesi--what more do you want? But K----
should restrain himself, and not give himself away so much as he
does, as with me!
"Farewell! Another time you will receive a more sensible letter,
with a list of misprints in my last book. If people do not
comprehend me even after this work, if I am charged with
improprieties, I clearly see the reason; one cannot understand
my writings for the misprints. To my joy some one is playing
the piano overhead; but no melody, only accompaniment, which has
a charm for me, in that I can practice myself in the art of
finding melodies"--
And, finally, these few bitter lines, sent after his return to
Zurich--
"It is impossible for me to conduct my overture myself in Paris,
for this reason, that it will not be performed there at all, as
there was not proper time for rehearsal--perhaps "next year". I
received this answer on the eve of my departure from Paris, and
truly in a very pleasant quarter. I think I never laughed so
loud and so from the bottom of my heart as on that evening and
in that place."
It will be seen that Wagner never ceased to work during all this
dreary time. He drafted his _Wieland the Smith_, made tentative shots
at what at length grew into the _Nibelung's Ring_, and poured forth an
enormous quantity of very prosy prose. Deferring a consideration of
this last, let me tell briefly what his everyday life was. Through a
little money from pamphlets, performing fees, etc., but mainly through
the generosity of friends, he managed to live; though, as I have said,
he never was quite sure about his next meal, a raven always flew in
from somewhere just in the nick of time. Minna came, and her sister,
and his home was made comfortable for him; he had many friends; he
rapidly became recognized as many a cubit taller than any other
musician in the parish. The opera and some orchestral concerts were
placed under his direction; and Hans von Bülow came to serve his
apprenticeship as conductor under him, very largely at the theatre.
Wagner mentions a performance of the _Flying Dutchman_, which afforded
him pleasure; for though, as he himself says somewhere, the band
consisted of players more accustomed to play at dances than in grand
opera, and not a singer of celebrity took part, yet all were
painstaking, enthusiastic and sympathetic, and a fine representation
was the result. This was the work he did outside his own house; his
inside occupations I have mentioned. He lived with almost clockwork
punctuality. Every afternoon he walked, accompanied by his dog,
amongst the mountains, and to these walks may be attributed, I think,
the atmosphere and colour of the _Ring_ and its backgrounds. Wagner
was as great a master as has lived of pictorial music, and the hills
and ravines, the storms amongst the pines, were things he must have
craved to translate into terms of his own art. After all, he found
time also for a good deal of social intercourse, though the enormous
quantity of work he turned out makes this difficult to believe. But
Liszt visited him; Praeger undoubtedly did; Bülow, as said, was with
him for some time; the Wesendoncks, his greatest pecuniary benefactors
after a while, were there; Wille and his wife were there; Alexander
Ritter, son of Frau Ritter, who made Wagner a regular allowance from
1851 to 1856, became his firm friend, and afterwards married one of
his nieces; there were Baumgärtner and Sulzer--in fact, a bare list of
names would fill a few pages. We must not take Wagner's plaints in his
letters too seriously; he was an overworked, nervous man of moods;
like Mr. Micawber, he seems to have come home of an evening weeping
and declaring himself a ruined man, and in a few hours gone to bed
calculating the cost of throwing out bow windows to his house.
Throughout his life his resilience of spirit was one of his most
amazing characteristics: I have no doubt that in the depth of despair
he would write to Liszt swearing that he only wanted solitude; and in
an hour's time he would think it might be pleasant to spend an hour
with the Wesendoncks--and go. In the same way he longed earnestly for
death while spending all his friends' money on baths and cures and
doctors, and seeing to it that Minna provided the best of everything
for his table. The pile of work remains to show his life was one of
incredible industry. Between the end of 1848 and the end of 1854 he
wrote at least a dozen long pamphlets, and as many more that are not
so long; he wrote the words of the _Ring_ and composed and scored the
_Rhinegold_, and began the music of the _Valkyrie_. Further, he
revised the overture to Gluck's _Iphigenia in Aulis_, and
reconstructed his own _Faust_ overture. How on earth he managed his
interminable correspondence is more than I can guess. When we bear in
mind the calls upon his time by his superintendence of opera and
concerts, we cannot wonder that a man who did so much, and was born a
weakling, was rarely quite well, and incessantly complains of his
nerves. Yet these nerves, he wrote, gave him wonderful hours of
insight.
There remains one thing to mention of these first Zurich years: his
operas were gradually spreading through Germany, and, especially,
Liszt had produced _Lohengrin_ at Weimar in 1850. It quickly became so
popular that before long Wagner could complain, or boast, that he was
the only German who had not heard it. His movements during these years
can easily be traced. Zurich remained his headquarters, but he went
hither and thither, mainly in search of health. But the chief cause of
his ill-health he carried with him--his irrepressible activity of
mind. Could some intelligent doctor have given him a dose to stop him
thinking for not less than one month, he would, I verily believe, have
enjoyed ten years of unbroken freedom from sickness. These flittings
are of no great interest in themselves; he never got far until his
famous expedition to London in the summer of 1855. But now it is time
to take a glance at the writings of the period.
II
In the introduction I announced my intention of dealing with Wagner's
prose-writings only in so far as they reveal anything of value
concerning the artist. His theories have been explained and elucidated
to death; hundreds of books have been written about them; never was a
man so much explained; never did a man suffer more from the
explanations. The day when Wagner began, not to theorise, but to
publish his theorisings, was an unlucky one for him. He began with the
intention, and certainly in the hope, of making himself clear to
himself; as I have already remarked, he wanted to find what it was he
wanted to be at and how to get there; and if, having achieved his end,
he had put all his pages of reasoning in the fire, he would have done
himself no ill-service. But he needed money, and in the 'forties and
'fifties there were, strangely enough, numbers of people who would pay
money for such stuff. Anything dull, "philosophic" in tone, anything
full of long words, longer sentences, and meanings too profound to be
understood by mortal--anything of this sort was sure of a paying
audience, if small, in "philosophic" Germany, no matter how fallacious
were the premises, how wrong the history, how perverse the inferences.
Hundreds of people must have risen from reading Wagner's essays
feeling themselves very deeply intellectual. In his first Paris days
Wagner had at once flown to his prose-scribbling pen as an instrument
to procure him bread; now, in Zurich, while writing and arguing mainly
to free his own soul, he had an eye on the publisher and the public,
for he needed bread as much as ever he had needed it; and he needed
other things besides: all the luxuries he had grown accustomed to and
could have done without ten years earlier. He persuaded himself of the
validity of another reason why he should unload his prose-wares on the
world. He had written much at times in various papers with a
wholehearted wish to purify and advance art. Now he determined to be
himself John the Baptist walking, in defiance of the laws of nature,
miles in front of himself in the wilderness, crying out that he who
was to redeem German music and the German folk was coming. He actually
persuaded himself, I say, that by reading these lucubrations German
audiences would prepare themselves to understand his works--as yet in
process of incubation--at a first hearing! Fools we are, and slight;
but surely no man was ever a bigger fool than our poor Richard when he
thought that a great work of art could possibly or should be
understood at the first glance, and that the feat would be easy if
only one had read some theories of art beforehand. The contrary holds
true: if you have seen and felt Wagner's operas, you may understand
what he is talking about in his articles and pamphlets; but to read
these first is merely to bewilder yourself utterly when you go to see
the operas. I will dismiss, therefore, much of the prose with very
brief notice, and some of it without any notice at all. It may be
remarked that of all the commentaries I have waded through (and been
well-nigh choked with), on the prose, there is, to my mind, only one
worth reading, Mr. Ernest Newman's valuable _Study of Wagner_.
The French stories and articles are as good as anything Wagner wrote.
He had not yet fallen into the villainous German philosophic style, or
was restrained by the consciousness that he must write in a lingo that
could be translated into French. These pieces were written for bread
and bread alone in the terrible years of starvation, 1840-41. _An
End_ [of a German Musician] _in Paris_ is full of autobiography, and
intensely interesting on that account; it is interesting, too, because
of its display of the naïve arrogance which leads Germans to believe
the whole world was made for Germans. This German musician, for
instance, arrives in Paris, where scores of French musicians--Berlioz
amongst them--are roughing it, if not actually starving in the
streets; yet he expects the French to find him employment in
preference to their own countrymen, their own flesh and blood. One can
overlook that, however; and the story is pathetic and beautifully
written. _A Pilgrimage to Beethoven_ is, in its way, a masterpiece. It
also is full of self-revelation; some of it conscious, some
unconscious. _A Happy Evening_ is another charming thing; the skit on
how Rossini's _Stabat Mater_ came to be composed is amusing, and is
cruel with a cruelty that was justified. The other articles are of no
particular value, save, perhaps, that on the overture; they are of an
ephemeral character and were evidently concocted when the writer was
fully aware he was writing for French readers, and if he hurt French
feelings or vanity, a French editor wouldn't print, wouldn't publish,
wouldn't pay.
The next production of any importance is his autobiographical sketch,
and of this nothing need be said. So much of it as seemed to me
needful has been utilized in this book. The account of the bringing
home of Weber's remains to Dresden from London has a perennial
interest. We know how Wagner idolized his mighty predecessor, and can
imagine the ardour with which he threw himself into this work.
Seemingly insuperable obstacles, most of them placed in the way
through the native stupidity and perversity of German and English
officialdom, had to be overridden, and Wagner triumphed. The speech
delivered on the occasion of the re-interment is
characteristic--exceptionally so even for Wagner of this period,
1844--in its assertion of the Germanity of Weber and Weber's music;
and his deep joy that at last the German musician's bones should
repose in German earth. This topic of Germanism haunted Wagner for
years, and I may have a little to say about it later. The account of
the 1846 rendering of the Choral Symphony is the most masterly
exposition of the right and the wrong way of playing orchestral music
to be found in any language. Wagner's method was, after all, very
simple: the conductor had to understand and feel the music aright, and
then pains, pains, never-ending pains must be expended on coaxing,
persuading, bullying or in some other way getting the band to
reproduce precisely what he felt.
We now reach the mass of theatrical and philosophical writings on
opera, drama, and, indeed, art generally. I need do nothing more than
give the fundamental basis of them all, the one point which he argues
in a thousand ways through them all. Wagner would have it, then, that
just about the time he came into the world, or a little later,
all--nothing less than all--the arts had gone as far as they could
separately, each alone. Art in ancient days, before there were _arts_,
was a fusion of music, dancing, poetry, statuary and painting--the old
drama. That each form of art might develop its full possibilities,
they separated and each went its own way. Wagner was mainly concerned
with music and with drama (poetic drama). Music reached its apogee
with Beethoven. Regardless of the fact that after Beethoven had
introduced words in the Choral Symphony, he went on composing music of
unequalled depth and splendour without words, Wagner insisted that he
felt the impossibility of doing more without words. We hear, said
Wagner, all these sounds going on, this stream of melody, and it is
very delightful to the ear; but unfortunately the highly organized
brain of modern man steps in and insists on knowing what is the
matter. What is the meaning of it all? asks the inquisitive intellect.
Words are necessary to satisfy the intellect. On the other hand,
poetic drama, in its endeavour to express pure feeling, could go no
further than Goethe and Schiller without becoming mere gush--a sort of
music that was not music. Wherefore music must be added. But this
combination of music and poetry was insufficient; we must have the
thing in visible form before the eye--the acted music-drama. Then the
actors must understand statuesque poses and get into them; they must
understand painting and contrive to form themselves, together with the
scenic background and accessories, into pictures. So once again we
should have the perfect fusion of all the arts, and live happily ever
after.
To me there is almost more lunacy in this than in Wagner's political
tenets. It is a pack of fallacies. Here is my answer--
(i) As to an Art which was a perfect fusion of all the arts, it was
never done and never at any time attempted.
(ii) The finest music yet created has no words to it: the meaning is
perfectly clear without words.
(iii) The highest poetic drama needs no music. Without verging on
gush, it affords expression to the deepest and most intense feeling.
(iv) Fine poetry has been written in the dramatic form, though it will
not bear acting and was not intended to be acted. But we may
cheerfully concede that genuine drama ought to be acted.
(v) The function of scenery is to suggest atmosphere and nothing more.
It cannot be a picture; it can only be an imitation of a picture.
(vi) An actor who tried to look like a statue going through a variety
of poses would only make the audience laugh; or we should think he had
been taken ill.
At every point Wagner's reasoning goes to the ground. His basic facts
are no facts, and his reasoning is absurd. All the essays on music and
on drama and on the music-drama are as much an expression of himself
as his music-dramas. I have in earlier chapters gone so far as even to
labour the point that he could not get on in music without the aid of
drama; and as he could never look beyond himself nor imagine that
what he could not do--_i.e._ compose pure music--some one else--_e.g._
Schumann or Brahms--could do, he went out with absolute confidence to
persuade the world that he was right and all others were wrong. To
those who may be interested in the study of Wagner, the mighty
creative artist, as a cerebral curiosity, I commend Mr. Newman's book
aforementioned. Mr. Newman points out that Wagner was so magnificently
self-centred that he attributed all opposition to "misunderstanding."
To him it was incomprehensible that any one should say, "Yes, I
perfectly understand your argument; but I beg leave not to agree with
you." Any one who said that at once aroused his suspicions; such an
one, thought Wagner, cannot possibly be sincere. Hence the hot
denunciations of all and sundry who differed from him; hence the
nightmare phantom of an organized body of "persecutors." Had he not
been blinded by his wrath, and looked a little closer, he might have
seen that the persecutors, far from being an organized body or
confederacy, were fighting angrily, bitterly, amongst themselves. Many
of them had this in common: they could not understand and did not like
Wagner's music. That is different from the "wilful misunderstanding"
Wagner moaned about. These musicians could not help themselves; as
Sancho Panza remarks, "Man is as God made him, and generally a good
deal worse."
The essay which provoked the widest and fiercest hostility, especially
amongst the Jews, was the _Judaism in Music_. Wagner started from two
premises, (i) That the Jews, being alien in thought and feeling, could
not express themselves in _our (i.e._ German) art; and (2) that had
they thought and felt like Germans, they would have succeeded no
better; for music--that is, song--is idealized speech, and the
gurglings and bubblings which do duty for speech with the Jews cannot
be idealized into anything beautiful. The answer is that very great
music has been written by Jews; that music was an English, a Flemish
and an Italian art before the Germans knew anything about it; that if
music must be idealized German speech, with its guttural chokings, the
less we have of it the better. The Jews paid little attention to
Wagner's arguments, but objected to his "personalities." Now, the
reader must have observed that of all people practical jokers are
those who can least tolerate a practical joke played at their own
expense, and that those whose staple of conversation is banter or
"chaff" become irascible the moment they are flicked with their own
whip. For years Wagner had been the victim of unprovoked personal
attacks in the Jew-controlled press, and some of the worst of these
can be traced to Jew scribblers. Yet on the publication of _Judaism in
Music_ in the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_, a wail went up from these
journalistic descendants of Elijah; and several prominent Jew
musicians signed and presented to the authorities of the Leipzig
conservatoire of music a petition praying that Brendel (the editor who
published the essay) might be dismissed from his post in the
conservatoire. These underhand tactics put the Jews out of court.
Nevertheless, Wagner's essay was a bad mistake. It is bad science, bad
history, bad argument; it did no person, no cause, any good, and it
worked a very great deal of harm.
Wagner was at his best when writing about music or about musicians he
had known. A paper on Spontini, belonging to this period (Spontini
died in 1851), has a pleasant, generous note; and the account of the
pompous old gentleman's visit to Dresden a few years previous is
amusingly lifelike. The _Communication to my Friends_, a trifle
egotistical, is still full of interest. The article on musical
criticism is not so good as it might have been. Wagner had the utmost
contempt for the ordinary press criticism of the day: with that sort
of thing, he wrote Uhlig, one could not tempt the cat from behind the
stove. He knew what criticism should not be, but when he came to what
it should be his view was warped by the obsession that pure music had
reached its boundaries, and the future of music was involved with the
future of the music-drama. When his prejudices were not aroused, he
himself was the greatest critic who has lived: his programmes of the
Choral and Eroica Symphonies are masterpieces in their kind; and his
analysis of the _Iphigenia in Aulis_ overture can never be surpassed.
Stage-managers have found his directions for the performing of
_Tannhäuser_, _Lohengrin_ and the _Dutchman_ invaluable; they are also
sometimes read by conductors, and should be read by singers. They show
how in composing his operas Wagner meant every note he put to paper:
the most minute fibres of the musical growth are alive, a living part
of the organism.
III
"I shall probably never come back to Germany." So wrote Wagner from
Paris on March 2, 1855, to his friend Wilhelm Fischer, stage-manager
and chorus-master at the Dresden opera. Wagner was then on his way to
London to direct a series of Philharmonic concerts. "It was a great
piece of folly for me to come to London...." So wrote Wagner from
London to Fischer a little--perhaps a month--later. It was, says Mr.
J.S. Shedlock in his admirable translation of the _Letters to Dresden
Friends_, "an unfortunate visit." But was it? and, if so, in what
sense? "The public of the Philharmonic concerts is very favourably
disposed towards me." "The orchestra has taken a great liking to me,
and the public approves of me." And as a matter of fact Wagner had no
reason to be dissatisfied with the visit, nor has Mr. Shedlock for
calling it "unfortunate." The whole situation is summed up in another
communication to Fischer, dated London, June 15, 1855--
"... The false reports about my quarrel with the directors of
the Philharmonic Society here and my consequent departure from
London are based upon the following incident--
"When I went into the cloak-room after the fourth concert, I
there met several friends, whom I made acquainted with my
extreme annoyance and ill-humour that I should ever have
consented to conduct concerts of such a kind, as it was not at
all in my line. These endless programmes, with their mass of
instrumental and vocal pieces, wearied me and tormented my
aesthetic sense; I was forced to see that the power of
established custom rendered it impossible to bring about any
reduction or change whatever; I therefore nourished a feeling of
disquietude, which had more to do with the fact that I had again
embarked on a thing of the sort--much less with the conditions
here themselves, which I really knew beforehand--but least of
all with my public, which always received me with friendliness
and approbation, often indeed with great warmth.
"On the other hand, the abuse of the London critics was a matter
of perfect indifference to me, for their hostility only proved
to all the world that I had not bribed them, while it gave me,
on the contrary, much satisfaction to watch how they always left
the door open, so that had I made the least approach they would
have turned to different pitch; but naturally I thought of
nothing of the kind....
"On that evening I was really in a furious rage, that after the
A minor Symphony I should have had to conduct a miserable vocal
piece and a trivial overture of Onslow's; and, as is my way, in
deepest dudgeon I told my friends aloud that I had that day
conducted for the last time; that on the morrow I should send in
my resignation, and journey home. By chance a concert-singer,
R---- (a German-Jew youth) was present; he caught up my words
and conveyed them all hot to a newspaper reporter. Ever since
then rumours have been flying about in the German papers, which
have misled even you. I need scarcely tell you that the
representations of my friends, who escorted me home, succeeded
in making me withdraw the hasty resolution conceived at a moment
of despondency.
"Since then we have had the _Tannhäuser_ overture at the fifth
concert; it was very well played, received by the public in a
quite friendly manner, but not yet properly understood.
"All the more pleased was I, therefore, when the Queen, who had
promised (which is a rare event, and does not happen every year)
to attend the seventh concert, ordered a repetition of the
overture. Now, if in itself it was extremely gratifying that the
Queen should pay no regard to my highly compromised political
position (which had been dragged to light with great malignity
by the _Times_), and without hesitation assist at a public
performance under my direction, then her further behaviour
towards me afforded me at last an affecting compensation for all
the contrarieties and vulgar animosities which I had here
endured.
"She and Prince Albert, who both sat immediately facing the
orchestra, applauded after the _Tannhäuser_ overture--with which
the first part concluded--with graciousness, almost amounting to
a challenge, so that the public broke out into lively and
prolonged applause. During the interval the Queen summoned me to
the _salon_, and received me before her court with the cordial
words, 'I am delighted to make your acquaintance; your
composition has enraptured me!'
"In a long conversation, in which Prince Albert also took part,
she further inquired about my other works, and asked if it would
not be possible to have my operas translated into Italian, so
that she might be able to hear them, too, in London? I was
naturally obliged to give a negative answer, and, moreover, to
explain that my visit was only a flying one, as conducting for a
concert society--the only thing open to me here--was not at all
my affair. At the end of the concert the Queen and the Prince
applauded me again most courteously.
"I relate this to you because it will afford you pleasure; and I
willingly allow you to make further use of this information, as
I see how much mistake and malice touching myself and my stay in
London has to be set right or defeated.
"The last concert is on the 25th, and I leave on the 26th, so as
to resume in my quiet retreat my sadly interrupted work."
Wagner was well paid for his work; he was well received in society;
the band liked him and the audiences liked him--the one cause of all
his grumbling was the character of the bulk of the music he had to
conduct. One might expect even a Wagner to prefer conducting a few
pieces of tedious stuff, even to put up with poor antediluvian Onslow,
rather than to return to his daily task of writing begging letters to
his friends from Zurich. Still, these are matters of taste, and each
to his own.
To those who only know the Philharmonic to-day, in its more or less
repentant and reformed state, it may not seem odd that Wagner should
have conducted its concerts. But to those who remember it from, say,
twenty-five years ago to quite recent times, a certain incongruity is
apparent. Wagner, the sincere, fiery artist, the man devoted to,
swallowed up by, his art; the man who journeyed, with his wife and a
dog, all the way from Russia to Paris with his bare travelling
expenses in his pocket; who had been through a bloody revolution, and
was now a political refugee; who had written part of the _Ring_ and
had _Tristan_ "already planned in his head"; a conductor whose ideal
was nothing lower than perfection--this gentleman came from Zurich to
conduct a society whose membership was compact of trim and prim
mediocrity, and whose directors were mostly duffers. Can we wonder
that both sides were disappointed? These amiable directors never quite
recovered from the honour of having Mendelssohn to conduct for them;
and they undoubtedly looked upon Wagner as scarcely a next-best. The
days of oratorio had by no means finished yet; oratorio was the thing;
an instrumental concert was very well for a change once in a while,
provided there were plenty of Italian opera airs to sugar the nasty
pill; Haydn was the last word in symphony, the homage paid to
Beethoven being the merest lip-worship. The Philharmonic was certainly
no place for Wagner; yet, it must be insisted, there was no real
reason for grumbling on either side. Wagner got his money; the society
had one of the best seasons on its record.
It is a pity that he who might have been the most valuable witness in
the matter should prove at every point to be the least trustworthy.
Ferdinand Praeger had known Wagner in his university days. They seem
to have been barely acquainted; but the moment Praeger found Wagner
was coming he scented advertisement for himself, as is usual with his
kind--the kind being the foreign professor settled in London. He will
have it that he arranged the whole business; but the terrible truth is
that he seems to have done no more than make his compatriot
comfortable in our dreary city. Certainly he did that, and Wagner
repaid it by inviting him to stay in Zurich, and the visit came off
duly. Sainton, who was by way of being a noted violinist, was head and
front of the offending from the directors' point of view--perhaps in
Wagner's view likewise. The directors were, to speak as the vulgar, in
a mortal stew. There was a small audience for orchestral functions in
those days, and Dr. Wylde, a worthy academic gentleman of no musical
distinction whatever, had started a rival series of concerts, and had
in this year, 1855, engaged no less a personage than Berlioz to
conduct. A rival was looked for; and since the directors knew little
or nothing of continental doings, as soon as Sainton told them one
Richard Wagner was their man, they agreed that negotiations should be
opened. Wagner came; and the visit ought to be interesting to English
musicians, for at Portland Terrace he scored part of the _Valkyrie_.
Moreover, he met Berlioz at dinner; but never those twain could meet
in other than a formal way. Neither liked the other; neither liked the
other's music; their rivalry in London mattered not two sous to the
one or one pfennig to the other, but they were both disappointed men
seeking appreciation and approbation on the continent. Wagner had
tried in Paris and Berlioz had tried in Germany. Wagner worked
stubbornly the whole time, and was mightily glad to get back to Zurich
in July. The episode is of small importance in Wagner's life; but the
attitude of the Press naturally filled him with disgust. He said if he
had paid the critics he would have received "favourable notices," and
when I reflect on the smallness of the critics' official salaries and
the splendour in which some of them lived I cannot but think he was
right: the money necessary to keep up big establishments had to be
found somewhere--where?
During the next few years Wagner went many journeys, again mainly in
search of "cures," but never got far. He worked unceasingly at the
_Ring_, with the wildest plans in his head regarding performances. How
wild some of these must have seemed at the time may be judged from the
following paragraphs taken from a letter to Uhlig (Dec. 12, 1851).
This is, of course, earlier than the period we are now dealing with;
but he never departed from the idea, and it eventually took shape at
Bayreuth, a quarter of a century later. Here is the letter--
"For the moment, I can only tell you a little about the
intended completion of the great dramatic poem which I have now
in hand. Just reflect that before I wrote the poem, _Siegfried's
Death_, I sketched out the whole myth in all its gigantic
sequence, and that poem was the attempt--which, with regard to
our theatre, appeared possible to me--to give one chief
catastrophe of the myth, together with an indication of that
sequence.
"Now, when I set to work to write out the music in full, still
keeping our modern theatre firmly in mind, I felt how incomplete
the proposed undertaking would be; the vast train of events,
which first gives to the characters their immense and striking
significance, would be presented to the mind merely by means of
epic narrative.
"So to make _Siegfried's Death_ possible, I wrote _Young
Siegfried_; but the more the whole took shape, the more did I
perceive, while developing the scenes and music of _Young
Siegfried_, that I had only increased the necessity for a
clearer presentation of the whole story to the senses. I now see
that, in order to become intelligible on the stage, I must work
out the whole myth in plastic style. It was not this
consideration alone which impelled me to my new plan, but
especially the overpowering impressiveness of the subject-matter
which I thus acquire for presentation, and which supplies me
with a wealth of material for artistic fashioning which it would
be a sin to leave unused. Think of the contents of the narrative
of Brünnhilde, in the last scene of _Young Siegfried_; the fate
of Siegmund and Sieglind; the struggle of Wotan with his desire
and with custom (Fricka); the noble defiance of the Walküre; the
tragic anger of Wotan in punishing this defiance.
"Think of this from my point of view, with the extraordinary
wealth of situations brought together in one coherent drama, and
you have a tragedy of most moving effect; one which clearly
presents to the senses all that my public needs to have taken
in, in order easily to understand, in their widest meaning,
_Young Siegfried_ and the _Death_. These three dramas will be
preceded by a grand introductory play, which will be produced by
itself on a special opening festival day. It begins with
Alberich, who pursues the three water-witches of the Rhine with
his lust of love, is rejected with merry fooling by one after
the other, and, mad with rage, at last steals the Rhine gold
from them.
"This gold in itself is only a shining ornament in the depth of
the waves (_Siegfried's Death_, Act III, Sc. i), but it
possesses another power, which only he who renounces love can
succeed in drawing from it. (Here you have the plasmic motive up
to _Siegfried's Death_. Think of all its pregnant consequences.)
The capture of Alberich; the dividing of the gold between the
two giant brothers; the speedy fulfilment of Alberich's curse on
these two, the one of whom immediately slays the other--all this
is the theme of this introductory play.
"But I have already chattered too much, and even that is too
little to give you a clear idea of the vast wealth of the
subject-matter....
"But one other thing determined me to develop this plan; viz.
the impossibility which I felt of producing _Young Siegfried_ in
anything like a suitable manner either at Weimar or anywhere
else. I cannot and will not endure any more the martyrdom of
things done by halves. With this my new conception I withdraw
entirely from all connection with our theatre and public of
to-day; I break decisively and for ever with the formal present.
"Do you now ask me what I propose to do with my scheme?--First
of all to carry it out, so far as my poetical and musical powers
will allow. This will occupy me at least three full years. And
so I place my future quite in R----'s hands; God grant that
they may remain unfalteringly true to me!
"I can only think of a performance under quite other conditions.
I shall erect a theatre on the banks of the Rhine, and issue
invitations to a great dramatic festival. After a year's
preparation, I shall produce my complete work in a series of
four days.
"However extravagant this plan may be, it is, nevertheless, the
only one to which I can devote my life and labours. If I live to
see it accomplished, I have lived gloriously; if not, I die for
something grand. Only this can still give me any pleasure."
His creditors from Dresden were everlastingly at his heels; even in
Dresden, with a substantial and regular salary, he could not keep out
of debt--though it must be remembered that older debts pursued him
from the Riga days, and even earlier. By April of 1856 the _Valkyrie_
was scored and _Siegfried_ begun; next year he finished the first act
of the latter. His life, apparently, went on pretty much as before;
but the financial situation was rapidly becoming intolerable--even to
him. The famous invitation to write an opera for Rio de Janeiro
arrived, and he promptly set to work on the subject he had mentioned
in a letter to Liszt a few years before, _Tristan and Isolda_. His
health grew worse than ever, and somehow he found the means to spend
the winter in Venice. Then he settled for a while in Lucerne, and
completed _Tristan_.
Afterwards he removed to Paris, where in 1860 he gave some concerts;
in the same year the score of _Tristan_ was issued; next year came the
_Tannhäuser_ fiasco at the opera, and later he heard _Lohengrin_, in
Vienna, for the first time; next he stayed for a while at Biebrich,
and finally settled in Vienna.
This is all the biography of ten of the fullest years of his life that
we need trouble about at present. His everyday existence is only
diversified and variegated by little anecdotes not worth repetition.
He was everywhere, of course, the musical lion. And, speaking of
animals, he always had a few: it had been a real grief to him some
years before when his parrot died when it had just mastered a passage
of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
When he finished _Tristan_ in August of 1859, his prospects were, so
to speak, as bright as before. It may here be mentioned, by way of
showing how bright that was, that when, four years later, an attempt
was made to give _Tristan_ at Vienna, the work was abandoned after at
least fifty rehearsals.
His letters, first to his faithful servitor Uhlig, who died in 1853 at
the age of thirty-one, and then to Fischer, are full of requests to
get scores copied, to send them here, there and everywhere, and to
collect honorariums. But, as I have said, for years he had hungry
creditors snapping at his heels, and they devoured most of the fruits
of his early genius. It is a fact to be faced that Wagner never in all
his life earned his livelihood. He earned more than average men
require to live comfortably upon; but he was unceasingly extravagant,
and denied himself nothing. He had been hungry in his early Paris
days; for the remainder of his life he bent himself to the task of
making up for that spell of famine. The precariousness of his income,
the insecurity of his position, fostered the habit of self-indulgence;
by nature the reverse of miserly, if he had money to-day he spent it,
reflecting that he might have none to-morrow. His debts, moreover,
were not entirely for what we may call personal extravagances. So
confident and sanguine was he that he had the full scores of his
operas published at his own expense; and the charges had to be met out
of what the operas brought him. And so when he had finished _Tristan_
in 1859 the outlook was of the blackest.
It was not less than a disaster that, during this period, 1849-59,
Wagner got to know the writings of Schopenhauer. In my first chapter I
pointed out how from his youth Wagner was fond of dabbling in
pseudo-philosophy, and this had strengthened rather than weakened its
hold on him as he grew older. For some time Feuerbach was his mentor.
It is idle to ask what he saw in Feuerbach. It has long been a
commonplace that rightly to understand an author you must meet him
half-way. Wagner did more than that: he went the whole way, and often
a long way beyond. What he read was not Feuerbach, but the thousand
ideas that the merest chance sentences of Feuerbach aroused in his
seething brain. Feuerbach, however, was sent about his business as
soon as Schopenhauer entered. Wagner immediately wrote
enthusiastically to Liszt, telling how peace and light had come into
his soul; and one might wonder what particular doctrine of the grumpy
old pseudo-philosopher had this remarkable effect. (This is to assume
it to have had the effect. As a bare matter of fact it hadn't.
Wagner's soul knew no peace until he died.) It was the great gospel of
Renunciation. After reading this, in his own way, Wagner realized, if
you please, that both _Tannhäuser_ and _Lohengrin_ preached the same
doctrine; and one can only retort that, if they preach any doctrine at
all--which they don't, thank heaven!--it is not that. But
Schopenhauerism might easily have ruined _Tristan_--did not ruin it
only because Wagner himself, when writing it, was consumed with a
fervour of passion that is the negation of Schopenhauerism. It is
responsible, however, for many of the _longueurs_ of the _Ring_, as,
for instance, in Act II of the _Valkyrie_, when Wotan stops the action
to give Brünnhilde an elementary lesson in Schopenhauer-cum-Wagner
metaphysics. The funny thing is that Wagner never renounced anything:
to the end he was greedy, avid of life. He might have benefited by a
careful study of Schopenhauer's pungent phrases; but instead of thus
developing his own natural gift in that direction, his sentences
afterwards grew longer and more complicated than ever. His Beethoven
is a splendid essay; how much finer it might have been had he not
wasted so many pages on what he took to be Schopenhauer's science!