LEIPZIC, 1827-1831.
For some time Rosalie and Louisa, Richard’s two sisters, had been
engaged at the Leipzic theatre, where they were very popular. Madame
Geyer, desirous of being near her daughters and within easy reach of
assistance, returned to Leipzic with the younger children and Richard
with them. For ten years, from about 1818 to 1828, my father held the
post of Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater, under the management of
Küstner, a celebrated director. The period of Küstner’s management is
famous in the annals of the German stage for the high intellectual tone
that pervaded the performances under his direction. The names of some of
the artists who appeared there are now historic. So high was the
standard of excellence reached in these truly model performances, that
the whole character of German stage representations was influenced and
elevated by it. This was the theatre at which Rosalie and Louisa were
engaged. These were the high artistic performances which the youthful
poet Richard witnessed, and which deeply affected the impressionable
embryo dramatist.
[Sidenote: _ROSALIE AND LOUISA WAGNER._]
Of this period, actors, plays, and incidents, I had the most vivid
remembrance from the close connection of my father with the theatre and
the friendly intercourse of my family with the actors. Wagner would
take great delight in discussing the performances and actors. He was
fond, too, of hearing what I, in my boyhood, thought of the acting of
his sisters, and from our frequent and intimate conversations, bearing
on his youthful impressions of the stage, he uttered many striking and
original remarks which will appear later on. A popular piece then was
Weber’s “Sylvana,” in which Louisa performed the part of the forest
child. This part apparently won the youthful admiration of both of us.
Wagner’s remembrance of certain incidents connected with it was
marvellous to me.
On his return to Leipzic, his first impulse drove him to visit the house
in the Brühl in which he was born. Is it not possible that even at that
early stage of his life his extraordinary ambition of “becoming
something great” might have foreshadowed to him that the humble
habitation of his childhood would later on bear the proud inscription,
“Richard Wagner was born here”? What struck him at once as very strange
was the foreign aspect of that part of the town where the Jews
congregated. It was continually recruited by an increasing immigration
of the nomadic Polish Jews, who seemed to have consecrated the Brühl
their “Jerusalem,” as Wagner christened it and ever referred to it when
speaking to me. The Polish Jews of that quarter traded principally in
furs, from the cheapest fur-lined “Schlafrock” to the finest and most
costly furs used by royalty. Their strange appearance with their
all-covering gabardine, high boots, and large fur caps, worn over long
curls, their enormous beards, struck Wagner as it did every one, and
does still, as something very unpleasant and disagreeable. Their
peculiarly strange pronunciation of the German language, their
extravagantly wild gesticulations when speaking, seemed to his aesthetic
mind like the repulsive movements of a galvanized corpse.
[Sidenote: _HIS FIRST ATTACHMENT._]
I was sorry to find that Wagner, although generally averse to acts of
violence and oppression, was but little shocked at the unreasoned hatred
and contempt of the Leipzic populace (especially the lower classes) for
the Jews. Their innate thrift, frugality, and skill in trading, were
regarded as avarice and dishonesty. Tales of unmitigated cruelty and
horror perpetrated by the Jews floated in the brains of the lower
Christian (?) populace. The murder of Christian infants for the sake of
their blood, to be used in sacrifice of Jewish rites, was a commonplace
rejoinder in justification of the suspicion and hatred against this
unfortunate race. Crying babes were speedily silenced by the threat,
“The Polish Jew is coming.” What wonder, then, to see what was almost a
daily occurrence,--a number of Christian boys rush upon an unprotected,
inoffensive Jew boy and mercilessly beat him to revenge the imaginary
wrongs which the Jews were said to have done to Christian infants. Nor,
I am sorry to add, did the fully grown Christian burgher interfere in
such brutal scenes; the poor wretched victim, beaten by overwhelming
numbers and rolled howling in the mud, was but a Jew boy! Strange to
say, Wagner had imbibed some intuitive dislike to the Egyptian type of
Hebrew, and never entirely overcame that feeling. No amount of reasoning
could obliterate it at any period of his life, although he counted among
his most devoted friends and admirers a great many of the oppressed
race. Still considerably more odd is it that Wagner’s first attachment
was for one of the black-eyed daughters of Judah. When passing in review
our earliest impressions of school life, we naturally came to that
never-to-be-forgotten period of the earliest blossoms of first love,
which then revealed to me this remarkably strange episode. Events of
everyday occurrence, which in the lives of ordinary mortals scarcely
deserve mentioning, are invested with a significance in the lives of men
whose destiny points to immortality. When Wagner came to this curious
incident of his school life, amazed, I ejaculated, “a Jewess?” in a tone
of “impossible!”
It was after a discussion of Jew-hating, and my pointing to the many
friends and adherents he had among the Jews, he with his joyous outbreak
of humor said, “After all, it was the dog’s fault,” referring to
“Faust,” where Mephisto, as a large dog, lies “unter dem Ofen.” Then
followed the story.
He had called at his sister Louisa’s house (by the way, he had an
affection for this sister which, in our intimate converse, he likened to
that which Goethe in his case speaks of as having for its basis the
frontier where love of kin ends and love of sex commences), went to her
room, where he found an enormous dog which attracted his attention. Any
one acquainted with Wagner knew of his devoted attachment to dogs, of
which I shall have more to say hereafter. Not many could understand an
affection which included every dog in creation. Wagner would engage in
long conversations with dogs, and in supplying their answers would
infuse into them much of that caustic wit which philosophers of all ages
and countries have so often and powerfully put into the mouth of
animals. Richard Wagner delighted to make dumb pets speak scornfully of
the boasted superiority of man, thinking that after all the animal’s
quiet obedience to the prescribed laws of instinct was a surer guide
than man’s vaunted free will and reasoning power. He was fond, too, of
quoting Weber on such occasions, who, when _his_ dog became disobedient,
used to remark, “If you go on like that, you will at last become as
silly and bad as a human being.”
The dog so wholly engrossed Richard’s attention that he failed to notice
a visitor, Fräulein Leah David, who had come to fetch her dog, left at
her friend’s house whilst paying visits in the neighbourhood. The young
Jewess was of the same age as Richard, tall, and possessed that superior
type of Oriental beauty more frequently found among the Portuguese Jews.
She was on intimate terms with Louisa Wagner, who shortly after married
one of the celebrated book publishers of Germany. Leah David made an
immediate conquest of Richard. “I had never before been so close to so
richly attired and beautiful a girl, nor addressed with such an animated
eastern profusion of polite verbiage. It took me by surprise, and for
the first time in my life I felt that indescribable bursting forth of
first love.”
[Sidenote: _FRÄULEIN LEAH DAVID._]
Wagner was invited to the house of her father, who, like most wealthy
Jews, surrounded himself with artists of every kind. Indeed, it was
there that Richard made many acquaintances which subsequently proved
useful to him. There was an extravagant luxury in the ostentatious house
of Herr David, which made the ambitious young student poignantly feel
the frugal economy practised in his own home. Wagner’s imaginative
brain always made him yearn for all the enjoyments that life could
supply. Unlimited means was the roseate cloud that incessantly hovered
before his longing fancy. In this respect he differs largely from most
other creative great minds, who, by force of inventive genius, have
conjured up worlds of power and riches, and yet have lived contentedly
on the most modest fare and in the lowliest of habitations.
Richard’s new-found friend was an only daughter, and having lost her
mother, she was free to do as she willed; the enthusiastic young
musician was allowed to visit the house and proved a very genial
companion, fond of her dog, and adoring art. Wagner did not declare his
passion, feeling that in the sympathetic, friendly treatment he received
it was divined and accepted. But he was regarded more in the light of a
boy than as a lover, small and slight in stature, dreamy and absorbed as
he was then. If the young lady chanced to be out when he called, he
either went to the piano or occupied himself with the dog, Iago, if at
home. The visits becoming frequent, the attachment ripened into an
intimacy. At such a house, with a daughter fond of music, _soirées
musicales_ were constantly occurring. At one of them a young Dutchman,
nephew of Herr David, was present. He was a pianist, and had just that
gift which Wagner lacked, dexterity of fingering. Flatteringly
applauded, the jealous Wagner intemperately and injudiciously launched
out about absence of soul and similar expressions. Taunted into playing,
his clumsy, defective manipulation provoked a sneer from the Dutchman
and a titter from the assembly. Wagner lost his temper. Stung in his
tenderest feelings before the Hebrew maiden, with the headlong
impetuosity of an unthinking youth he replied in such violent, rude
language that a dead silence fell upon the guests. Then Wagner rushed
out of the room, sought his cap, took leave of Iago, and vowed revenge.
He waited two days, upon which, having received no communication, he
returned to the scene of the quarrel. To his indignation he was refused
admittance. The next morning he received a note in the handwriting of
the young Jewess. He opened it feverishly. It was as a death-blow.
Fräulein Leah was shortly going to be married to the hated young
Dutchman, Herr Meyers, and henceforth she and Richard were to be as
strangers.
“It was my first love-sorrow, and I thought I should never forget it,
but after all,” said Wagner, with his wonted audacity, “I think I cared
more for the dog than for the Jewess. Whilst under the love-spell I had
paid little heed to much that soon after, in pondering over the episode,
revolted me. The strange characteristics of the Jews were unpleasant to
me. Then it was that I first perceived that impassable barrier which
must always rise up between Jews and Christians in their dealings with
the world. One cannot help an instinctive feeling of repulsion against
this strange element, which has been gradually creeping into our midst,
growing like mistletoe upon the oak tree, a parasite taking root
wherever it can fasten but the smallest fibre, and clinging with a
tenacity entirely its own, drawing in all nutriment within reach, and
yet remaining, notwithstanding, a parasite. Such is the Jew in the midst
of Christian civilization.”
[Sidenote: _AT SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY._]
His entrance to the St. Nicolas school in 1827, where he remained three
years, was as the passing through a dark cloud. The whole training here
differed vitally from that at the Kreuzschule. The masters and their
mode of tuition was unsympathetic to him. I did not wonder at this when
he told me. I had been at the school, too, and experienced similar
feelings of resentment. The Martinet system of discipline was irksome to
high-spirited boys. No attempt was made to develop individuality of
character. This was unfortunate for Wagner. He was just then at an age
when personal interest and sympathetic guidance would have been
invaluable. Filled with wild dreams of a glorious future that was to
follow his self-dedication to the drama, he threw himself with ardour
into the completion of a play he had begun to work at. Ambition had
prompted him to base it on the model of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The
plot was as wild and impossible as the unrestricted exuberance of so
extravagant a fancy might suggest. It occupied him for upwards of two
years, and greatly interfered with his legitimate school work. When in
later life he surveyed this period he describes himself as “wild,
negligent, and idle,” absorbed with one thought, his great drama.
[Sidenote: _HIS ARTISTIC CRISIS._]
From the St. Nicolas school he passed to St. Thomas’s school, where he
stayed but a few months, leaving it for the University. At the
University he attended occasional lectures only, showing none of that
assiduity which distinguished him at the Kreuzschule. His University
days were marked by a profligacy to which he afterwards referred with
regret and even disgust. He was young and wild, and had determined with
his insatiable nature to drain to the dregs the cup of dissoluted
frivolity. I should not be performing the duty of an honest biographer
were I to omit an incident which occurred at this period, regrettable as
it might seem. His mother still received her modest pension. On one
occasion Richard was commissioned to receive it for her. Returning home
with the money in his pocket he chanced to pass a public gambling house.
_There_ was one sensation he had not yet experienced. At that moment he
felt that in the throw of the fascinating dice lay the fateful omen of
his future. The money was not his, yet he entered and risked the hazard
of the dice. He was unfortunate; lost all but a small sum he had kept
back. Yet he could not resist the alluring excitement. He staked this
too. Fortune, happily for the wide world of art, befriended him, and he
left the debasing den with more than he had entered, “But,” inquired I,
“what would you have done had you lost all?” “Lord!” he replied, “before
going into the house I had firmly resolved that should I lose I would
accept the omen and seek my end in the river.” A man in years calmly
telling me this so long after the incident had occurred urged me again
to ask, “Would you really have done that?” “I would,” was the short
determined answer. He was unable to keep the story back from his mother,
and at once on his return told her all. “Instead of upbraiding me,”
Wagner said, “she fell with passionate love around my neck, exclaiming,
‘You are saved. Your free confession tells me that never again will you
commit so wicked a wrong.’” This Wagner related to me when I was staying
with him at Zurich in 1856. This hazardous throw of the dice was not the
only occasion on which he had boldly defied fate. He was ever buoyed up
with an implicit faith in his destiny, which sustained him through many
trials, though at the same time it urged him to act in a manner where
more thoughtful minds would have hesitated.
I now come to what was undoubtedly the crisis of Wagner’s artistic
career. It was the practice at German theatres, between the acts, for
the orchestra to play movements of Haydn’s symphonies or similar
excerpts by other masters. The rule was to hurry through them in the
most indifferent manner. Not the slightest attention was paid to
expression, and if it happened that the manager’s bell rang while the
“playing” was going on, the performance would terminate with a jerk,
each artist seemingly anxious not to play a note more, and heedless of
finishing the “phrase” together.
At Leipzic, the entire music was particularly slovenly, played under the
cynical Matthey. And yet the very men who played so reprehensibly in the
stage orchestra, when performing at the famous Gewandhaus concerts
seemed to be moved by feelings of reverence for their work, unknown to
them in the theatre. It would be an interesting investigation to
discover why this was. The symphonies of Beethoven in the concert-room
compelled their whole worship; the symphonies of Haydn in the theatre
were treated like “dinner” music. Perhaps the explanation is, that the
symphonic movements played in the theatre bore no relation to the drama
enacted, whereas music played for itself went with a verve and spirit,
and attention to its meaning quite unknown to thestop-gap-music-scrambling
of the theatre.
[Sidenote: _RESOLVE TO BECOME A MUSICIAN._]
From the unsatisfying scrambling performances of the theatre, Wagner,
fifteen years old, went to the Gewandhaus concerts. There he heard
Beethoven’s symphonies. What a revelation were they to him, played with
the artistic perfection for which that orchestra was so justly
celebrated, although there was room for improvement. They forced open in
him the floodgates of a torrent of emotion. A new world dawned upon him.
Music that had hitherto lain dormant, suddenly awakened into a vigorous
existence truly electrifying. His future career was decided. Henceforth
he, too, would be a musician. And what was there in Beethoven that
should so startle him into new life? He had heard Haydn, Mozart, and
earlier masters without being so completely awed and fascinated. What
was there in these symphonies that should exercise such a determining
influence over him? It was the overpowering earnestness of the unhappy
composer. Beethoven dealt with life problems according to the spirit of
his age--the demand for freedom of thought and liberty of the person.
Beethoven had been baptized in that mighty wave, the struggle for
freedom, which rolled over Germany at the beginning of this century. He
could not help being eloquently earnest. He was the creature of his
time, and when called upon to declare himself, was not found wanting in
rugged, bold earnestness. Yet although Haydn and Mozart, I too, were
earnest, their utterances were of a subjective character. The world to
them presented none of the doubts and philosophic speculations which
convulsed Beethoven’s period. Their view of life was pure optimism. A
vein of bright joyousness runs through all their works, aye, even their
most serious. But Beethoven was a pessimist, and his works betray him.
When he has a sunshiny moment it serves only to show how deep is his
prevailing gloom. Wagner at fifteen was a poet, and the energetic,
suggestive music of Beethoven was mentally transformed into living
personalities. He has said that he felt as if Beethoven addressed him
“personally.” Every movement formed itself into a story, glowed with
life, and assumed a clear, distinct shape. I do not forget the earlier
influence of Weber over him, but then that was more due to emotion than
to reason. The novelty of “Der Freischütz,” the freshness of its melodic
stream, and the wild imaginative treatment of the romantic story
captivated his first affection and enchained it to the last. The whole
of his impressions of Beethoven (whom, by the way, Wagner never saw)
were embodied by him in a sketch written for a periodical and entitled,
“A Pilgrimage to Beethoven.” Although the incidents painted there are
not to be taken as having happened to the pilgrim, Wagner, yet the story
is clear on one point--the unbounded spell Beethoven exercised over him.
As he was now determined to become a musician, and seeing the necessity
of acquiring some theoretical knowledge of his new art, with his usual
perseverance he began studying alone. His progress was so disappointing
that he made arrangements with a local organist, with whom, too, he
advanced but little. However, he was resolved. Music he wanted for his
own play; without music he felt it was incomplete, and although he
worked assiduously, theory seemed a long, dreary road which, instead of
helping him to the goal he yearned to reach, presented innumerable
obstacles in the path. He wanted to compose, yet all the grammarian’s
rules were so many caution-boards, warning him against doing this or
that, impediments that prevented him accomplishing what he strove to
perform. It was always what should _not_ be done instead of what should
be done. With youthful impetuosity he then revolted against all
grammarianism, and to the end of his life maintained an attitude of
derisive defiance towards all who fought behind the shield inscribed
fugue, canon and counterpoint.
Although conscious of how unsatisfactory his theoretical progress had
been, ambition prompted him to write an overture for the orchestra. The
young composer was seventeen. The overture is characterized by Wagner’s
besetting sin--extravagance of means. Through his sister’s connection
with the stage he became acquainted with the music director of the
Leipzic theatre, a young man, Heinrich Dorn, a few years older than
Wagner. I knew Dorn as a friendly, easy-going, good-tempered fellow.
Impressed with the unusual enthusiasm of the youth, Dorn kindly offered
to perform his overture at the theatre. It was performed. The audience
laughed at it, and Wagner was not slow to admit the justice of its
reception.
[Sidenote: _A PUPIL OF CANTOR WEINLIG._]
Of the caligraphy displayed in this work I must say a few words. The
score was written in different-coloured inks, the groups of strings,
wood, and brass, being distinguished by special colours. His extreme
neatness and care at all times of his life, when using the pen, was
wonderful. Before putting word or note to paper every thought had been
so fully digested that there was never any need of erasure or
correction. In strange contrast with Richard Wagner’s clean, neat,
distinct writing, stand Beethoven’s hieroglyphics, whole lines of which
were sometimes smudged out with the finger.
Wagner accepted the judgment upon his overture, though not without a
painful feeling of disappointment. But as he was determined to be a
musician, his family now encouraged him, and for that purpose placed him
under Cantor Weinlig of Leipzic. The Cantor was on intimate terms with
my father, and therefore was well known to me. He had a great name as a
skilled contrapuntist. Gentle and persuasive in demeanour, he soon won
the affection of his pupil, and although his tuition lasted for about
six months only, it was sufficient to cause Wagner to refer with
affection to this, his only real master.
The immediate result of Weinlig’s tuition was the production of a sonata
for the pianoforte. It is in strict form, but Wagner’s conscientious
adherence to the dogmatic principles he had learned seem to have dried
up all sources of inspiration. He was evidently in a straight jacket,
for the sonata does not contain one original idea, not one phrase of
more than common interest. It is just the kind of music that any average
pupil without gift might have written. Time was wanting before the
careful, orthodox training of Weinlig could thoroughly assimilate itself
to the peculiarity of Wagner’s genius.
It is curious that he should have produced such a very inferior work as
regards ideas and development while he was at the same time a most
ardent student of Beethoven. It can only be explained by regarding the
period as one of transition and receptivity. He was not full grown nor
strong enough to wing himself to independent flight.
Beethoven was his daily study. He was carefully storing up all the grand
thoughts of the great master, but his fiery enthusiasm had not yet come
to that burning-point when it should ignite his own latent powers. His
acquaintance with the scores of Beethoven has never been equalled. It
was extraordinary. He had them so much by heart that he could play on
the piano, with his own awkward fingering, whole movements. Indeed,
beyond Weber, the idol of his boyhood, and Beethoven, there was no
master whose works interested him at that period. His family considered
him Beethoven-mad. His eldest brother, Albert, then engaged actively in
the profession, and more of a practical business man, particularly
condemned the exclusive hero-worship of a master not then understood or
acknowledged by the general public. But Richard persevered with his
study, and as a testimony of his affection for Beethoven it may be
mentioned that, at eighteen, he produced a pianoforte arrangement of the
whole of the “Ninth Symphony.”
[Sidenote: _WEBER AND BEETHOVEN HIS MODELS._]
In the school of Weber and Beethoven did Wagner form himself. The
musical utterances of both his models were in harmony with their time.
Weber was romantic, Beethoven pessimistic. The cry for liberty which ran
throughout Europe at the end of the eighteenth century affected the
republic of letters sooner than the world of music. It was Wagner’s
“idol,” his “adored” master, who first musically portrayed the
revolutionary spirit of the dawn of this century. It was he who founded
the romantic school of musicians. His ideality, his “romantic” genius,
taking that word in its highest and noblest sense, place him in an
entirely separate niche of the temple of art. His inventive faculty, the
irresistible charm of his melody, his entirely new delineation and
orchestral colouring of character, are immeasurably superior to anything
of the kind which preceded him. He was the basis, the starting-point of
a new phase in the art of music. And yet, with it all, the great Weber
fell short in one important feature of his art--the consequential
development of his themes. All his chamber music testifies to this. Even
in his three great overtures, “Der Freischütz,” “Euryanthe,” and
“Oberon,” the “working-out” of the subjects is feeble and unskilful, and
only compensated for by the ever gushing forth of new and potent ideas.
Weber had not passed through the crucible of a serious study of the
classical school. In his early period he had treated music more as an
amateur than as an earnest-thinking musician. Nor was he gifted with the
brain power of Beethoven. It was the latter master’s causal strength of
brain, combined with his deep, serious studies and his incessant
striving to express exactly what he felt, which have secured for him
that exceptional position in modern tonal art.
[Sidenote: _STUDY OF INSTRUMENTATION._]
Coming now to Wagner, we find him possessing, to a truly remarkable
degree, the special powers of both. His wondrous inventive genius was
controlled by a brain power as solid as rare. It enabled him to fuse in
his own work the gifts of the idealist, Weber, and of the thinker,
Beethoven. The latter’s mastery of workmanship, his reasoned sequence of
ideas, are vastly surpassed in Wagner’s dialectic treatment. As an
instrumental colourist Weber was superior to Beethoven. The deafness of
the latter sometimes led him to mark the wrong instrument in his scores.
He could not hear, and therefore was not fully able to comprehend the
qualities of every instrument, like Weber. The greatness of his power as
an orchestral writer is undeniable, yet many instances could be quoted
where he has misapplied a particular instrument of whose character,
through his deafness, he had lost the exact knowledge. Wagner based his
instrumentation on that of Weber. In spite of an almost unlimited
admiration of Beethoven, Wagner has not refrained from pointing to
certain defects of scoring in him. He shows that whilst Beethoven
modelled his orchestra after Haydn and Mozart, his conceptions went
immeasurably beyond them and clashed with the somewhat inadequate means
of their orchestra. Beethoven had neither the modern keyed brass
instruments to support the wood-wind against the doubled and trebled
strings, nor did he dare to venture beyond the then supposed range of
the wood, brass, and string instruments. Often when reaching what was
thought to be the topmost note on either, he suddenly jumps in an almost
childishly anxious manner to an octave below, interrupting the melody
and producing an irritating effect. Wagner has asserted that had
Beethoven heard the tonal effect of portions of his marking, he would
unquestionably have rewritten them or altered the instruments. But
whilst deploring his great predecessor’s deafness as the cause of
certain defective instrumentation he renders unstinted homage to the
general orchestration of the symphonies. The enormous amplification of
deeply reasoned detail in those nine grand works demands from each
individual of the orchestra an attention and refinement of expression
to be expected only from an orchestra composed of virtuosi.
It was shortly after his return to Leipzic that Wagner began to study
instrumentation. The Gewandhaus concerts and Beethoven’s symphonies had
stirred him. He thumped the piano, was conscious of his lack of skill,
but nevertheless bought the scores of the symphonies and studied them
with heart and soul. The magnificent colouring charmed him. To work the
score at the piano, and see where the secret lay, was his careful study,
and then, when he found it, he saw how necessary was individual
excellence of performance. Even the Gewandhaus performances failed to
completely satisfy him. The members of the orchestra were familiar with
the works, yet was the performance far from conveying that lasting
impression which the delineation of the intensely grand ideas were
capable of, and which from his piano-reading he expected. The
dissatisfaction he experienced induced him to seek further for the
explanation, and after careful thought he fixed the blame on the
shortcomings of the conductor. The head of an orchestra, he asserted,
should study the work to be played under him until every phrase, its
meaning, and bearing to the whole composition were thoroughly
assimilated by him. He should, further, have a perfect acquaintance with
the capabilities of every instrument, and an excellent memory. Works
performed under conductors not possessing these qualifications never
produce their legitimate effect. “It was only when I had conducted
Mozart’s works myself,” says Wagner, “and had made the orchestra execute
every detail as I felt it, that I took real pleasure in their
performance.”