"Through the happy change in the aspect of my outward lot; through the hopes I cherished of its even still more favourable development in the future; and finally through my personal, and in a sense, intoxicating contact with a new and well-inclined surrounding, a passion for enjoyment had sprung up within me, that led my inner nature, formed among the struggles and impressions of a painful past, astray from its own peculiar path. A general instinct that urges every man to take life as he finds it now pointed me, in my particular relations as artist, to a path which, on the other hand, must soon and bitterly disgust me. This instinct could only have been appeased in life on condition of my seeking as artist to wrest myself renown and pleasure by a complete subordination of my true nature to the demands of the public taste in art. I should have had to submit myself to the mode, and to speculation on its weaknesses; and here, on this point at least, my feeling showed me clearly that, with an actual entry on that path, I must inevitably be engulfed in my own loathing. Thus the pleasures of life presented themselves to my feeling in the shape alone of what our modern world can offer to the senses; and this again appeared attainable by me as artist solely along the direction which I had already learnt to recognise as the exploitation of our public art-morass. In actual life I was at like time confronted—in the person of a woman for whom I had a sincere admiration—with the phenomenon that a longing akin to my own could only imagine itself contented with the paltriest return of trivial love; a delusion so completely threadbare that it could never really mask its nature from the inner need.
"If at last I turned impatiently away and owed the strength of my repugnance to the independence already developed in my nature both as artist and as man, so did that double revolt of man and artist inevitably take on the form of a yearning for appeasement in a higher, nobler element; an element which, in its contrast to the only pleasures that the material present reads in modern life and modern art, could but appear to me in the guise of a pure, chaste, virginal, unseizable and unapproachable ideal of love. What in fine could this love-yearning, the noblest thing my heart could feel, what other could it be than a longing for release from the present, for absorption into an element of endless love, a love denied to earth, and reachable through the gates of death alone? And what again at bottom could such a longing be but the yearning of love; aye, of a real love, seeded in the soil of fullest sentience—yet a love that could never come to fruitage on the loathsome soil of modern sentience? The above is an exact account of the mood in which I was when the unlaid ghost of 'Tannhäuser' returned again and urged me to complete his poem."
In these sentences one can easily find the mind of the Wagner who wrote "Tristan und Isolde," and this statement of the mood of the time explains why "Tannhäuser" stands more closely related to "Tristan" than any other of the master's works. Urged now by his artistic soul and dissuaded by the intuition of Mme. Schroeder-Devrient from yielding to a dangerous impulse, he turned once more to "Tannhäuser" and completed the work in April, 1844. "With this work I penned my death warrant," he says; "before the world of modern art I now could hope no more for life. This I felt; but as yet I knew it not with full distinctness:—that knowledge I was not to gain till later."
Every work that Wagner wrote was, at least in so far as it was related to his own life, epoch-making; and the birth of "Tannhäuser" marks a departure so wide that it must receive special consideration. The great Wagner war began with the production of this drama, and in it the composer's opponents first discovered those "unmusical" traits which they celebrated for half a century, till the applause of the civilised world drowned out their noise. The hint at the dissatisfaction of the man with the "paltriest return of trivial love" shows us that the inability of the good Minna to enter into the lofty aspirations of her husband and her inevitable sympathy with the false impulses urging toward swift pecuniary success had already set at work in the mind of Wagner those dangerous longings which were eventually to lead to their separation.
“How curious I am to hear Liszt about it.”—Wagner
When "Tannhäuser" had been completed Wagner went to Marienbad to spend the summer. While there he made the first drafts of his "Meistersinger" and "Lohengrin." He says: "As with the Athenians a merry satyr-play followed the tragedy, so, during that excursion, I suddenly conceived the idea of a comic play which might follow my minstrel's contest in the Wartburg as a significant satyr-play. This was the Mastersingers of Nuremberg with Hans Sachs at their head. Scarcely had I finished the sketch of this plot when the plan of 'Lohengrin' began to engage my attention, and left me no rest until I had worked it out in detail." Returning to Dresden he devoted himself to the preparations for the production of "Tannhäuser." For, in spite of the failure of "Der Fliegende Holländer," the Intendant had not wholly lost faith in the young man. August Roeckel, who was now always at Wagner's side, urged so eloquently the need of new scenery for this drama that painters were brought from Paris. The best singers available were placed at Wagner's disposal, and they vied with one another in studying this, to them, almost incomprehensible work. Tichatschek had to have the music of "Tannhäuser" lowered for him. Johanna Wagner, the daughter of the composer's brother Albert, was specially engaged for Elizabeth, and Schroeder-Devrient took Venus, while Mitterwurzer was the Wolfram. Wagner wrote an explanation of his poem, and placed it at the head of the libretto, which was sold at the door. On Oct. 19, 1845, the work was performed for the first time. The opening scene went for nothing. Schroeder-Devrient, who did not like the music of Venus, sang it badly, and the audience lost the entire significance of the episode. The ensuing scene went well and the popular septet at the end of the act gained the composer a recall. The march in the second act pleased, but the contest in the hall of song dragged listlessly. The evening star song was liked, but then came the true Wagner, the Wagner of the uncompromising music drama. The return of Tannhäuser and his despairing narrative were wholly lost on the audience. The public was unable to understand the aims of a man who, having a heroic tenor on the stage in a grand situation, would not write a pealing aria for him, but persisted in making him tell a story in a long declamatory recitative. The master's intent to put the dramatic situation before them was not discerned. All that was seen was that he would not write a pretty song when he might have done so. "Tannhäuser" reached its fourth performance on Nov. 2. The following day Wagner wrote to his friend Carl Galliard in Berlin, sending him a copy of the score:
"I have gained a big action with my 'Tannhäuser.' Let me give you a very short account of a few of the facts. Owing to the hoarseness of some of the singers, the second performance was played a week after the first; this was very bad, for in the long interval ignorance and erroneous and absurd views, fostered by my enemies, who exerted themselves vigorously, had full scope for swaggering about; and when the moment of the second performance at length arrived, my opera was on the point of failing; the house was not well filled; opposition! prejudice! Luckily, however, all the singers were as enthusiastic as ever; intelligence made a way for itself, and the third act, somewhat shortened, was especially successful; after the singers had been called out, there was a tumultuous cry for me. I have now formed a nucleus among the public; at the third performance there was a well-filled house and an enthusiastic reception of the work. After every act the singers and the author were tumultuously applauded; in the third act at the words, 'Heinrich, du bist erlöst,' the house resounded with an outbreak of enthusiasm. Yesterday at length the fourth performance took place before a house crammed to suffocation; after every act the singers were called out, and after them on each occasion the author; after the second act there was a regular tumult. Whenever I show myself people greet me enthusiastically. My dear Galliard, this is indeed a rare success, and under the circumstances one for which I scarcely hoped."
But in a short time Wagner realised that all the applause was for the popular numbers in his work, and for the stage pictures and ensembles. The drama as a whole had missed fire. The public did not know what Wagner designed. The ethical meaning of his play was hidden from the people. Its artistic purport was undiscerned. The public still went to the theatre to see the pretty pictures and hear the pretty tunes. Of the conception of an opera as the highest form of poetic drama they were as ignorant as they had ever been. A few years later Wagner, in recalling this, wrote in the "Communication to My Friends":
"The public had shown me plainly by its enthusiastic reception of 'Rienzi' and by the colder treatment of the 'Dutchman,' what I must offer it to win approval. Its expectations I disappointed utterly. Confused and dissatisfied it left the first performance of 'Tannhäuser.' I was overwhelmed by a feeling of complete isolation. The few friends who heartily sympathised with me were themselves so depressed by my painful position that the perception of this sympathetic ill-humour was the only friendly sign about me."
From this time it is possible to trace two features in the career of Wagner. The first was a ceaseless effort to spread by polemical writings the meaning of his doctrines, and the second was a somewhat reckless determination to abide by them, come what might. Wagner has been charged with grave neglect of the practical affairs of life. He was interminably in debt. He borrowed money right and left, and seemed to entertain an idea that the world ought to support such a genius as he while he was pursuing his vast projects. This was not exactly the vein of Wagner's thought, though his reckless methods of expression might easily justify the belief that it was. The man was aflame with the fire of his own genius. He knew what it was in him to produce, and he rebelled bitterly against the constant pressure of his daily needs to turn him aside, to force him to write pot-boilers and abandon his vast conceptions. That a man with such an artistic conscience as Wagner's could not compromise we can easily understand; and the struggle of the ensuing years began with the decision to bring the public to him, and not to descend to the flowery level on which it reposed.
Criticism of Wagner's writings at this time was of the most discouraging sort. In Dresden, for instance, the leading commentator was one Schladebach. This gentleman was, perhaps, a perfectly honest critic, but he was incompetent to discern the importance of a departure from the beaten path. He constituted himself the champion of classicism, for which poor conventionality is so often and so easily mistaken. When a number of famous masters have laid down the plan of opera, it is extremely confusing to a poor critic to have a stranger appear and propose a wholly different method of treating the form. Schladebach was incapable of understanding the theories and aims of Wagner; so he praised whatever was good according to the old models, and condemned what departed from them. He was the correspondent of the leading papers of many German cities, and consequently the belief was spread abroad that, while this man Wagner had some talent, he was unpractical and hopelessly eccentric. The managers paid no attention to him, in many cases they did not even look at the scores which he sent them.
Robert Schumann, who went to live in Dresden in the fall of 1844, wrote to Dorn in 1846, "I wish you could see 'Tannhäuser'; it contains deeper, more original, and altogether an hundredfold better things than his previous operas—at the same time a good deal that is musically trivial. On the whole, Wagner may become of great importance and significance to the stage, and I am sure he is possessed of the needful courage." Unfortunately the pressure of the general opinion of the time proved to be too strong even for Schumann, and a few years later he wrote that Wagner was "not a good musician." Spohr, who produced "Tannhäuser" in 1853, wrote, "The opera contains much that is new and beautiful, also several ugly attacks on one's ears." In another place he complains of the "absence of definite rhythm and the frequent lack of rounded periods." In none of the contemporaneous criticism, except that written by Wagner's intimates, can one find anything to show that the writers had discerned the artistic purpose of the composer. It is not strange that he felt that he stood alone.
Nor is it, on the whole, strange that he was misunderstood. As for the critics, they had formed their standards of opera on the masterpieces of Meyerbeer, Spontini, and Rossini. Even in Mozart they were unable to find justification for Wagner's ideas, for it was his novelty in form that confused them. The public had long placed opera in the category of "amusements." It went to the opera house to hear arias, duos, quartets, sung by great singers, while the story, told chiefly in recitatives, was regarded merely as an excuse for the presentation of certain poetic points of emotion to be set to music. When Wagner came, demanding that the music should be only one means of expression of the whole emotional content of a consistent drama, and that it should not be simply a string of pretty tunes, we can easily understand that he was far beyond the public of his day, and we can picture to ourselves the unhappy Intendant, asking him why it was necessary to be so distressing, and why Tannhäuser could not marry Elizabeth.
In the year 1847 Wagner's musical activity was confined almost wholly to work upon his "Lohengrin." He lived in retirement as much as possible, and gave himself up to the realisation of those artistic projects with which he felt that his entire surroundings were unsympathetic. In the winter of 1845 he had conceived and noted the principal themes. In the fall of 1846 he lived in a villa at Grosgraufen, near Pilnitz, and there he began the music. In the summer of 1847 he secluded himself wholly, and on August 28 he finished the introduction, which for more than half a century has thrilled hearers all over the world. The scoring of the entire opera was completed in the early spring. While Wagner must have realised the artistic value of this new work, he must also have seen how much further he had removed himself from the possibility of public comprehension than he had in his "Tannhäuser." He even doubted the practicability of opera as an art form. The Intendant of the Dresden opera did not feel any sympathy with the composer's experimental mood, and only the finale of the third act of "Lohengrin," performed on September 22, 1848, at the anniversary celebration of the orchestra, was heard in Dresden.
Meanwhile although "Tannhäuser" had been refused a hearing at Berlin, preparations had been made for the production of "Rienzi," and the birthday of the King of Prussia, Oct. 5, 1847, had been chosen as the date for the performance. Wagner went to Berlin to superintend the rehearsals. There he found that anti-Wagnerism was in full bloom. The newspapers began the attack before the work was made known, and every possible rumour that envy and jealousy could invent found ready acceptance. The fate of "Rienzi" was sealed in advance. The manager of the opera discovered that the text of the work breathed a revolutionary spirit quite out of keeping with the temper of a royal fête, and accordingly the production was postponed till Oct. 26. On that evening "Rienzi" was given, but the King was not present, the court did not attend, and Meyerbeer, who was the general director of music, was suddenly called out of town. There was an audience of good size and the applause was of a liberal character; but there was no hope of permanent success in Berlin without the smiles of royalty and the favourable comment of the press. So Wagner saw his dreams of pecuniary aid from this early work fade away, and leave him to struggle with the constantly growing problem of how to live.
The eventful year 1848 was now at hand, a year which was big with incidents in the personal and artistic life of Wagner. It was in this year that the political troubles which harassed the kingdom of Saxony, and Germany in general, made themselves felt in the opera house and afterward in the career of the composer. The work of the opera house was affected by the general unrest. Nothing serious was undertaken. The list of the season was made up chiefly of works of the calibre of Flotow's "Martha," then in the height of its popularity. The orchestra gave three subscription concerts, and at one of these Wagner conducted Bach's eight-part motet, "Singt dem Herrn ein neues Lied." In March he finished the instrumentation of "Lohengrin" and then his mind began to busy itself with a new subject. The first which attracted him was "Jesus of Nazareth." The impulse which led him to the contemplation of this subject was so plainly identical with that which afterward led to the creation of "Parsifal" that it is worth while to note how far he went in its embodiment. He collected a large quantity of material for this projected work, and published it afterward in a volume of a hundred pages.[18]
At this period, too, he seriously contemplated the employment of the story of Barbarossa, or Friedrich Rothbart, as material for a lyric drama. His study of this subject was of inestimable value to him in shaping clearly in his mind the conviction that a mythical subject was more suitable than one historical for the purpose of musical treatment. He discovered that he could not give to the splendid personality of Barbarossa the necessary historical background without overloading his opera with a host of minor details too inflexible for musical treatment. On the other hand to endeavour to sacrifice historical accuracy to dramatic requirements would materially change the true character of his subject. He became convinced that only a mythical subject, in which elementary world-thoughts and emotions were typified, would admit of free musical treatment. His serious study of this whole matter resulted in an essay entitled, "Die Wibelungen.—Weltgeschichte aus der Sage" ("The Wibelungs: world-history from the Saga"). The essay treats of the history of the world according to tradition, showing the agreement of history and mythology in certain elementary facts. It was written in 1848 and was published at Leipsic in 1850. It will be found in Vol. VII. of Mr. Ellis's translation of the prose works.
“Behold Mercury, and his docile handmaid, Modern Art!”—Wagner
The period of Wagner's life which we have now reached was one of much complication and of important results. With the decision to abandon the subject of Barbarossa he made another, namely that the story of the Nibelungen Lied and its original material as found in the Volsunga Saga would provide excellent material for a music drama. His conception was first formulated in an article entitled "The Nibelung Myth as Sketch for a Drama" (Ellis's translation, Vol. VII.). This was followed by the first form of the text of the drama, "Siegfried's Tod," a translation of which will be found in Mr. Ellis's eighth volume. Wagner's first thought was to tell the entire story of the death of Siegfried and the causes leading to it in one opera, but he was not long in discovering that this was impossible. In June, 1849, he wrote to Franz Liszt, with whom he had begun a correspondence[19] in 1841 (though it did not become continuous till 1845) in these words: "Meanwhile I shall employ my time in setting to music my latest German drama, 'The Death of Siegfried.' Within half a year I shall send you the opera completed." In 1851 in a long letter to Liszt he explained how he had found it impossible to condense the whole story into one drama, and afterward even into two, and thus how the work had stretched itself into four separate dramas.
At the time of the writing of the original form of the book Wagner also conceived some of the germs of the music, and in this, too, lay the seed of a new and wonderful development of his genius. His "Lohengrin" marked a wide departure from the style of his "Tannhäuser," but in the dramas based on the Siegfried legend he went much further. He felt in the beginning that he would be forced to do so, and in the fall of 1850 he wrote to Liszt: "Between the musical execution of my 'Lohengrin' and that of my 'Siegfried' there lies for me a stormy, but I feel convinced, a fruitful world." The correspondence between Wagner and Liszt had grown into warmth when the latter undertook the preparation of "Tannhäuser" for production at Weimar, where he was the ruling power in music. No one who desires to be intimately acquainted with the life of Wagner should omit reading this correspondence, which throws more light on the artistic and personal character of the two men than anything else in existence. It is highly creditable to Liszt that he early recognised the full force of the genius of Wagner and bowed to him as a superior. On the other hand Wagner, who was hopelessly improvident and always in the depths of monetary difficulties, came to lean on Liszt as a friend in all needs.
It is possible that through the influence of Liszt Wagner might have gained wide recognition throughout Germany much sooner than he did, but his own sympathy with the revolutionary ideas of the time led him into direct conflict with authority in Saxony and drove him into exile. The story of Wagner's connection with the revolutionary movements of 1848 and 1849 has had several versions, and it has been the subject of acrid dispute between Wagner's devotees and those who are only candid friends. The story of the Saxon uprising need not be repeated here in detail. Suffice it to say that the impetus of the French revolution of 1848 moved the people of Saxony to demand of their king a constitution, a free press, trial by jury, national armies, and representation. The king refused to accede to the demands. A second time through a deputation Leipsic people demanded what they regarded as their rights and threatened to attack Dresden, if these were not conceded. The king adopted conciliatory measures, which served to allay the excitement for a time, but the people soon saw that under the surface oppression was gaining headway.
Wagner and his friend and assistant, August Roeckel, the latter an enthusiastic republican, became members of a society known as the "Fatherland Union," an organisation devoted to the furtherance of reform measures, but not in favour of direct disloyalty to the king. Before this society on June 16 Wagner read a paper entitled "What is the Relation of our Efforts to the Monarchy?" Wagner had previously drawn up for the government a plan for the reorganisation of the Dresden Theatre. In that paper he proposed that the changes in the existing arrangements be made so that the theatre would be brought into closer relations with the higher artistic life of the people. It was at this period, too, that he wrote "Art and Revolution," in which he still further demonstrated that he saw a connection between political and artistic reform, or rather that he believed the latter impossible under the restrictions of extant governmental control. He aimed at a sort of republican representation in art, a plan by which the literary and artistic elements of the community might have voices in the direction of the theatre. He saw no way of bringing this about except by a change in the nature of the government.
Therefore in this paper read before the Vaterlandsverein he demanded general suffrage, abolition of the standing army and the aristocracy, and the conversion of Saxony into a republic. His loyalty to the king was shown by his proposal that he should himself proclaim the republic and remain in office at its head. This speech was published and it caused a good deal of unfavourable comment. Yet it was not taken very seriously, for Wagner was warned that a Court Conductor should not indulge in such talk; he wrote a long letter of extenuation to Lüttichau, the Intendant; asked for a brief leave of absence, and obtained it. And that would have been the end of the matter in all probability, had not open insurrection broken out.
It was in regard to the acts of Wagner in the days of turmoil in May, 1849, that the acrid dispute before mentioned raged in 1892. This dispute was caused chiefly by the statements of Ferdinand Praeger in "Wagner as I Knew Him." Among other things Praeger said, "During the first few of his eleven years of exile his talk was incessantly about the outbreak, and the active aid he rendered at the time, and of his services to the cause by speech and by pen prior to the 1849 May days; and yet in after life, in his talk with me, who held documentary evidence, under his own hand, of his participation, he in petulant tones sought either to minimise the part he played or to explain it away altogether. This change of front I first noticed about 1864 at Munich." With this as his text Praeger set out to show that Wagner was a red-handed revolutionary, and that he fought on the barricades in the streets of Dresden.
It was my fortune to read these assertions of Praeger's before they were published. The manuscript of his book was placed in my hands by his publishers in 1892 to be prepared for the press. The author was dead and no changes could be made in his work. It seemed to me at the time that Praeger had written incautiously of this whole matter, and that at any rate he might fairly have represented Wagner as desirous in after years to bury the memories of an unwise exhibition of his republican tendencies. But of Praeger's honesty I never had a doubt, nor had I any reason to suppose that he was not well informed (through his intimate friendship with Roeckel) of Wagner's actions in the May days of 1849. Pohl, Glasenapp, and Tappert had said but little in regard to the matter, and, as I was not editing, but merely supervising the printing of the book, it would not have been open to me to write so much as a foot-note of warning to the reader to take Praeger's statements with a grain of salt, even if I had been fully informed of the real facts in the case.
But Wagner was not without a champion. Mr. W. Ashton Ellis, editor of "The Meister," and translator of the prose works, published in 1892 a complete answer to Praeger under the title of "1849: a Vindication." In this he showed that Praeger had formed a theory as to Wagner's part in the revolution and had wrested the facts to make them appear as evidence. He also proved that some of the acts attributed to Wagner were those of a young journeyman baker of the same name. The real facts of the case, as I have sifted them from the conflicting testimony, appear to be these:
Wagner's mind was filled with a conviction that freedom and the honesty of art went hand in hand. His reformatory ideas embraced not only the stage, but its relations to governmental control, through which its artistic character must be touched and guided. The stage could never be brought to represent the spirit of the people till the government was. All around him he saw the relics of feudalism, and the innate hostility of these to that freedom of art and public to which he looked forward made him a republican at heart. His paper read before the Fatherland Union was, as we have seen, a plea for free government and representation by the people, but it was filled with a spirit of loyalty to the reigning king.
When the revolutionary movement took shape Wagner, as Mr. Ellis notes, did not hesitate between the dictates of his conscience and the preservation of court favour. He became, as he afterward confessed in a letter to Liszt, openly active in the movement. But the stories of his firing a musket from the barricades and setting fire to public buildings are pure fabrications. Praeger's narrative of his revolutionary activity is misleading, and Mr. Ellis's pamphlet has quite demolished it. Wagner assisted in getting men and stores into Dresden, and he probably carried a musket while engaged in this work. At the Town Hall he publicly embraced one of the revolutionary leaders after the latter had made a speech. On May 1, 1849, the king dissolved the Saxon diet, and the people went to arms. The insurgents were victorious in the beginning, but Prussian troops arrived 36 hours later, and the revolutionaries were put to flight. Wagner escaped from Dresden and hurried to Weimar, where he took refuge under the wing of Liszt, then actively preparing "Tannhäuser" for performance.
Mr. Praeger says: "Future biographers can no longer ignobly treat the patriotism of Wagner by striving to whitewash or gloss over the part he played during these sad days." It is the hope of the present biographer that he will not be accused of any attempt to conceal the truth in regard to this matter, especially as he has not been able to discover in it anything discreditable to Wagner. His action was injudicious, it was impulsive, it was shortsighted; but it was honest. If in after years Wagner saw that the regeneration of the theatre might be accomplished without the overthrow of extant forms of government, and if at the same time he wished ardently to return to his native land, it was not at all surprising that he expressed sorrow for his actions. It was quite natural indeed that in April, 1856, he wrote to Liszt:
"In regard to that riot and its sequels, I am willing to confess that I now consider myself to have been in the wrong at that time, and carried away by my passions, although I am conscious of not having committed any crime that would properly come before the courts, so that it would be difficult for me to confess to any such."
Disheartened as Wagner was at the inartistic conditions surrounding the theatre at Dresden, it was not astonishing that he rejoiced in the excuse for flight, and that he hastened to Weimar with a jubilant spirit. That Liszt was glad to receive him thus unexpectedly goes without saying. It was this meeting which perfected the understanding between these two remarkable men, and which cemented indissolubly the friendship hitherto dependent on their letters for its support. They came to know one another intimately, and from that time onward Liszt was the main prop of Wagner. As Mr. Finck well summarises it in his life of Wagner: "A few letters had passed between the two, and they had met several times, but it was not until this occasion that their hearts were really opened towards each other, and the beginning was made of a friendship unequalled in cordiality and importance in the history of art, and without the existence of which the world would in all probability have never seen the better half of Wagner's music dramas. It was Liszt who helped him with funds when he would otherwise have been compelled to stop composing and earn his bread like the commonest day labourer; Liszt who sustained him with his approval when all the critical world was against him; Liszt who brought out his operas when all other conductors ignored them; Liszt who wrote letters, private and journalistic, about his friend's works and aims, besides three long and enthusiastic essays on 'Tannhäuser,' 'Lohengrin,' and the 'Dutchman,' which were printed in German and French, and with the Weimar performances of these operas, gave the first impulse to 'the Wagner movement.'"
Of the greatest importance to Wagner was Liszt's understanding of his artistic aims. Wagner said that when he saw Liszt conduct a rehearsal of "Tannhäuser," he recognised a second self in the achievement. Discouraged as he had been on leaving Dresden, his spirits now rose again, and he would undoubtedly have settled down in Weimar to pursue his artistic labours under the protection of Liszt, had not news come that he was wanted by the police. A warrant was issued for him as a politically dangerous person and his description was published. As soon as this news was received, Wagner, acting on Liszt's advice, fled.
So hasty was his departure that, as we learn from a letter of Liszt to Carl Reinecke, he left Weimar on the very day of a performance of "Tannhäuser," which he, therefore, did not witness. This was in the latter part of May. He went directly to Zurich, where he remained a few days and obtained a passport for France. He wrote from Zurich to a Weimar friend, O.L.B. Wolff, that Liszt would soon receive a bundle of scores from Minna, his wife.
"The score of my 'Lohengrin,'" he wrote, "I beg him to examine leisurely. It is my latest, ripest work. No artist has seen it yet, and of none have I therefore been able to ascertain what impression it may produce. Now I am anxious to hear what Liszt has to say about it."
From this same letter we learn that Minna had been left in the city from which Wagner had fled. He says:
"That wonderful man must also look after my poor wife. I am particularly anxious to get her out of Saxony, and especially out of that d——d Dresden."
It is necessary only to say that while Liszt at first had doubts of the public success of "Lohengrin," owing to what he called its "superideal character," he immediately recognised its artistic greatness, and was the first to bring it before the public.
In Zurich Wagner contemplated the stern necessity of doing something toward the support of himself and wife, and he saw in the production of an opera in Paris his only hope. Accordingly he set out for the French capital. Liszt had already written to Belloni, an influential person in the musical circles of Paris:
"In the first place, we want to create a success for a grand, heroic, enchanting musical work, the score of which was completed a year ago. Perhaps this could be done in London. Chorley, for instance, might be very helpful to him in this undertaking. If Wagner next winter could go to Paris backed up by this success, the doors of the Opéra would stand open to him, no matter with what he might knock."
Wagner had a consultation with Belloni in Paris, and was convinced that nothing could be done with his extant works. He decided that he must spend a year and a half in the preparation of a new work, and for that purpose he must live in seclusion with his wife. He tells Liszt in a long letter that he has decided on Zurich, and begs Liszt to make arrangements for an income for him from his works so that he can live to write more. He says that he is fit for nothing but to write operas; he must create some genuine art work or perish. He has arranged to send from Zurich to Belloni a sketch of a work for Paris, and Belloni is to get a French version made. Meanwhile Wagner will be working on the "Death of Siegfried." And so, after this brief and futile visit to Paris in June, 1849, we find him back at Zurich early in July. And now it became his fixed idea to get his wife out of Dresden and settled down in some sort of a home in Zurich. But he had no means. Once more, then, he appealed to the unfailing friend Liszt. He tells the great pianist that he has no further resources, and says:
"You, therefore, I implore by all that is dear to you to raise and collect as much as you possibly can, and send it, not to me, but to my wife, so that she may have enough to get away and join me with the assurance of being able to live with me free from care for some time at least. Dearest friend, you care for my welfare, my soul, my art. Once more restore to me my art! I do not cling to a home, but I cling to this poor, good, faithful woman, to whom as yet I have caused nothing but grief, who is of a careful, serious disposition, without enthusiasm, and who feels herself chained forever to such a reckless devil as myself."
These words go far toward revealing the true nature of the relations of Wagner and Minna. They also do credit to his justice, but at the same time show how completely unsettled he was at this period. Liszt hastened to reply in a letter beginning: "In answer to your letter I have remitted one hundred thalers to your wife at Dresden. This sum has been handed to me by an admirer of 'Tannhäuser,' whom you do not know and who has especially asked me not to name him to you."[20]
In due time Minna arrived in Zurich only to begin to combat her husband's artistic inclinations. He was eager to write "The Death of Siegfried." She urged him to abandon his unprofitable ideals, and to write for Paris the sort of opera that Paris would like. For Minna was ashamed of living on the charity of friends, and for that we cannot blame her. Nor can we even yet bring ourselves quite into agreement with Wagner in the belief that the world ought to take care of him while he was creating his immortal works. Yet there was something large and genial in the conception. The man felt the power that was in him, and he refused to stifle it in order that he might discharge the simple duties of a plain citizen and support himself and his family at the sacrifice of his future, and the future of his art.
It was to this struggle between himself and his own desires on the one hand and his wife and Liszt on the other that his inactivity in musical production for a long period was due. His whole mind was in a state of unrest. Yet the period of his exile proved in the end to be the most fruitful of his life, and in Zurich the name of Wagner was made immortal.
“Doch ich bin so allein.”—Siegfried
The first years of Wagner's residence at Zurich were occupied with the writing of works designed to propagate the reformatory ideas which he aimed at introducing into the composition and performance of opera. It has been noted that after the first performances of "Tannhäuser" he felt that the public would have to be educated up to his conception of art, and he now set to work to produce the necessary doctrinary essays. Through the kindness of Otto Wesendonck, a music-lover and admirer of his work, he was able to rent at a low price a pretty châlet overlooking the lake, and there he lived and laboured in retirement. He was too profoundly discouraged at first to undertake composition, and for five years he brought forth no music. The problem of how to live stared him in the face in all its frightful nakedness. He wrote to Liszt in the fall of 1849:
"How and whence shall I get enough to live? Is my finished work 'Lohengrin' worth nothing? Is the opera which I am longing to complete worth nothing? It is true that to the present generation and to publicity as it is these must appear as a useless luxury. But how about the few who love these works? Should not they be allowed to offer to the poor suffering creator—not a remuneration, but the bare possibility of continuing to create?... Tell me; advise me! Hitherto my wife and I have kept ourselves alive by the help of a friend here. By the end of this month of October our last florins will be gone, and a wide, beautiful world lies before me, in which I have nothing to eat, nothing to warm myself with. Think of what you can do for me, dear, princely friend. Let some one buy my 'Lohengrin,' skin and bones; let some one commission my 'Siegfried.'"
And so he went on, begging Liszt to save him and his wife from absolute want. He had not even an overcoat. The score of "Lohengrin" was eventually sold to Breitkopf and Härtel for a few hundred thalers, but the means of subsistence were provided for Wagner by Liszt and other friends. Yet even in this lamentable state of affairs he could not drive himself to compose. He could only write his literary works. In these he embodied what has come to be known as the Wagnerian theory of the music drama, the theory which finds its only full and satisfying illustration in the works of this master, though its elementary principals were recognised and obeyed by earlier writers. He says himself in "The Music of the Future," "My mental state resembled a struggle. I tried to express theoretically that which under the incongruity of my artistic aims as contrasted with the tendencies of public art, especially of the opera, I could not properly put forward by means of direct artistic production."
The principal works written by him in this state of mind were "Art and Revolution," 1849, "The Art-work of the Future," "Art and Climate," "Judaism in Music," 1850, "Recollections of Spontini," 1851, "On the Performance of 'Tannhäuser,'" and "Opera and Drama," 1852. Of these the last is the most important to the student of Wagner's theories, but at the time of publication it was the article on "Judaism in Music" which raised the largest disturbance. The criticisms of Meyerbeer contained in it have been used by Wagner's enemies down to the present day as evidence that he was an ungrateful man. The fact that these censures were wholly for Meyerbeer, the composer, should, however, be borne in mind; for in Wagner the artist always governed the man, and the timely aid given to him by Meyerbeer in the dark days in Paris was bound to take a place in his estimation second to the popular composer's palpable seeking after the applause of the inartistic masses.
The article on "Judaism in Music" was printed in Brendel's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik for Sept. 3 and 6, 1850. Eleven masters at the Leipsic conservatory, where Brendel lectured on the history of music, wrote to him asking him to resign or reveal the name of the author. He refused to do either, thereby leaving the eleven irate masters in a ludicrous position. But the hostility of the press to Wagner was aroused by the article, for his authorship was speedily suspected. In 1869 he issued a revised and enlarged edition of this article and then a host of replies appeared. None of them, however, dealt candidly with the artistic questions. Most of them rested with accusing Wagner of assailing rival composers because they were Jews. The chief points made in Wagner's article were that the Jews were not an artistic people, that they could not be so because they were not sincere, because they had no nation, no home, no language, but lived to please the people of the country in which they chanced to be and whose language they spoke. Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer were quoted as examples.
In "Opera and Drama" Wagner set forth the principles which, according to him, should govern the creation of art work for the stage. These principles we shall have opportunity to examine in detail when we come to the study of the Wagnerian theories. Let it suffice here to quote Muncker's admirable summary of the essay:
"Systematically he examined in what manner all the arts, plastic, mimic, phonetic and oral, had in the antique tragedy combined to the highest mutual purposes, and how thereafter, released from this close and lifelike union, the single arts had in their individual development either stagnated or degenerated. He refused to acknowledge the objections that only the mild atmosphere of Greece had been able to ripen the artistic power of intuition and formation, out of which the Attic tragedy had grown. Only the historical man, the man independent of nature, has awakened art to life; and only he, noble and strong, who through the highest power of love has attained true liberty, can newly create the vanished dramatic work of art, just as he alone, his life and death, is its subject; for this reason there can be only one principal consideration for art, and that is the true nature of the human race. Strictly Wagner weighed the unsuccessful attempts of the last century externally to combine the sister arts (without any of them giving up their egotistic purposes) in the oratorio and particularly in the opera, the trysting place of their most selfish endeavours. He contrasted with these inorganic species the loving union of the single arts in the work of art of the future, in the true drama, that, like the Attic tragedy, employed the same artistic means, only on a greater scale and with a higher technical perfection, in the same manner and for the same purposes. Like the Attic tragedy, it is to be represented by the people, or rather the totality of different artists is to represent it for the people; just, however, as the single arts can here for the first time freely and naturally unfold their innermost nature, so the individuality of the single artist can, just in that community with the whole, significantly develop itself."
In this essay he ruthlessly exposed the musical shallowness of Rossini and Meyerbeer. He saw at the time that his criticism of the latter would expose him to the charge of ingratitude, but the artist in him prevailed, and he spoke his mind freely. It should be added that he praised certain passages in Meyerbeer's works, especially the great duet in the fourth act of "Les Huguenots."
In the early years of his exile he undertook once more the task of writing an opera for Paris. He went so far as to make a prose sketch of a libretto entitled "Wieland the Smith." In after years he offered the book to Liszt, saying that it reminded him of a period of pain. The labour of writing this work was distasteful to him, and he began it only at the earnest solicitation of his wife and Liszt. The sketch, which is an elaborated scenario, is included in Mr. Ellis's translation of the prose works.
The only musical work which Wagner did in the early years at Zurich was the conducting of some orchestral concerts, and the superintending of performances at the city theatre. It was at this time that Wagner's acquaintance with the afterward famous pianist and conductor, Hans von Bülow, began. Von Bülow had abandoned the career planned for him by his father and gone to Zurich literally to throw himself at the feet of Wagner. The master secured him the post of assistant conductor at the opera, where he supported his protégé against the intriguing of the singers and the orchestra. After six months of experience there Von Bülow was sent with a letter of introduction from Wagner to Liszt, whose pupil he became, and whose daughter Cosima he married. Little did either he or Wagner think at the time that he would be conductor of Wagner's greatest works, and that his wife would become the second spouse of the famous composer.
The year 1850 was made a memorable one in Wagner's life by the first performance of "Lohengrin," which had slept in silence for three years. In the "Communication to My Friends" Wagner wrote of the movement toward the production thus: