Even at this distance the words of that letter of April 21, 1850, are pathetic:

How faithfully Liszt fulfilled the trust imposed upon him may be seen from one of his letters to Wagner in the course of the preparations for the opera's production.

The date chosen for the production was Aug. 28, the birthday of Goethe, when a large number of visitors would be in Weimar to attend the unveiling of a monument to Herder. Wagner was anxious to be present at the performance, but the risk of arrest, if he set foot on German soil, prevented him from going. Liszt was profoundly moved by the work, but he was not satisfied with the performance nor the reception by the public. The singers did not know how to deliver Wagner's music, and the general public found this, the most popular of all Wagner's creations, quite beyond its comprehension. The performance lasted five hours, owing to the singers' treating all the arioso passages as recitatives, and Wagner accordingly wrote to Liszt explaining how this music should be sung. The whole series of letters on the manner of performing "Lohengrin" is full of instruction as to Wagner's dramatic ideas and the proper method of singing his music. Liszt and Genast, the stage manager, however, saw no way out of the difficulty except by making cuts, and these were accordingly made, but under protest from the composer, who authorised only one in the latter part of Lohengrin's narrative.

The production of the most popular of all operas now before the public was accomplished in the absence of its composer. Indeed, it was not until May 15, 1861, in Vienna, that poor Wagner heard this beautiful and touching work. While it was in course of preparation at Weimar he was labouring at Zurich, as we have seen, and was fighting ill-health, too. His low spirits brought on an attack of dyspepsia, and with this came another lifelong enemy, erysipelas. The cheerfulness and devotion of the unhappy Minna helped him through this trying period, and he further solaced himself by long walks into the forest, accompanied by his dog Peps. He declaimed aloud against the density of the public and the machine-made music of some of his contemporaries, and when Peps answered his master's voice with a lively bark, Wagner would pat his head and say, "Thou hast more sense, Peps, than some of these contrapuntists." Liszt continued to push the fortunes of "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin" at Weimar, and although it was three years before the latter was performed elsewhere, it became the fashion to visit Weimar to hear it.

Wagner closed the literary work of this period by writing the "Communication to My Friends," which, with the autobiography, forms the most satisfactory material for the study of his early career. This communication is rather a story of his artistic development than of the incidents of his life, but it is a fascinating piece of self-examination, and throws more light than anything else upon the motives which led to the composition of the most famous of Wagner's dramas.

It was at this time that he entered upon the task of writing his long-cherished "Death of Siegfried," which he had shaped into a drama in three acts and a prologue in the autumn of 1848. It was in June, 1849, that he wrote to Liszt that he would have the drama completed in half a year. In the spring of 1851 Liszt learned that there was to be a prefatory drama called "Young Siegfried," and on June 29 Wagner wrote to him that the poem was finished. On Nov. 20 of the same year Wagner wrote a long letter, in which he set forth the development of the entire plan. He had found that his story was too long and complex to tell in two dramas, and that he would have to make three, with a prologue.

Thus he had finally developed the plan of what was to be his most imposing, if not his greatest, work, a work rivalling in the immensity of its conception and its dramatic seriousness the ancient trilogies of the Greeks. It was altogether fitting that this magnum opus should have acquired its full and definite shape in his mind at a time when his invention was refreshed by abstinence from musical production, and when the appetite for composition was springing up anew. Early in 1853 the poem in its new form was completed, and on Feb. 11 he sent a copy to Liszt. The latter wrote: "You are truly a wonderful man, and your 'Nibelung' poem is surely the most incredible thing which you have ever done." In a letter written in 1871, to Arrigo Boïto, the famous Italian composer and librettist, he said: "During a sleepless night at an inn at Spezzia the music to 'Das Rheingold' occurred to me. Straightway I turned homeward and set to work." He finished the full score of "Das Rheingold" in May, 1854, and in the following month he began that of "Die Walküre." The score of this work was finished in 1856, and part of "Siegfried" was written in the next year.

The sleepless night at the Spezzia inn occurred in the course of a journey into Italy made in 1853. It was a journey made in the vain hope of cheering the drooping spirits of Wagner, who was always fond of travel. His life in Zurich had its pleasant side. He had made friends, some of whom, notably Wille, a former journalist of Hamburg, and his wife, a clever novelist, understood and adored him. But he suffered from dyspepsia, insomnia, and erysipelas, the latter returning with wearing persistency; and he writhed under the restraints of an exile which for artistic reasons he could not but desire to terminate. In some of the cities of Germany his works were performed without understanding and in a way to make him shiver with anguish, yet he was helpless. On all sides he was critically assailed for faults that were not his, and would instantly have disappeared if his operas had been properly interpreted. In Berlin, where he might have reaped at least a decent pecuniary profit from performances, jealousy, intrigue, and Philistinism prevented his works from reaching the stage.

And the demon poverty pursued him to the verge of madness. He suffered from the agonising fear that at length he would be forced to abandon all the splendid imaginations that were burning within him and divert his whole life into the sordid channels of bread-and-butter drudgery. He cried to Liszt and other friends to save him. For this he has been called a beggar; but if we obey Charles Reade's injunction, "Put yourself in his place," the thing wears a different aspect. Wagner was profoundly convinced of the greatness that was within him, and it maddened him to think that he might have to stifle it. He wrote to Liszt: "I am in a miserable condition, and have great difficulty in persuading myself that it must go on like this, and that it would not really be more moral to put an end to this disgraceful kind of life."

In these circumstances, it was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to him that in that sleepless night at Spezzia he was haunted by the thought that the music of "Rheingold" must be written, and went home to chain himself again to the pathetic task of heaping one silent score upon another. The time came when he did not believe that he would live to finish the mighty tetralogy which is now the glory of the lyric stage. But even in the face of despair he could not repress the impulses within him, and back to Zurich he went, and the wonderful measures of the prologue of the "Nibelung" drama sprang into being. Even as he had out of despair forged the links of his first success, "Rienzi," so again the fires of anguish lit the forges of the "Schwarzalben" and the "Wonniges Kind."

CHAPTER IX
A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

The musical activities of this period were about to be interrupted by a voyage so strange that we can hardly conceive it as possible. That Richard Wagner, the reformer, should go to England to conduct the then most stagnant musical organisation in the world, the London Philharmonic, before the most conservative musical public on earth, seems little short of humorous. Yet this thing actually happened. And the musicians of the London orchestra, to their credit, recognised the greatness of their new conductor and played as they had never played before. But this is anticipating. In Zurich he was already known as a conductor before he had set foot on Swiss soil. So it is natural that the musical authorities of the place should have sought his services as soon as he was settled. We have already noted that he conducted some concerts and supervised the operatic performances at the theatre where Von Bülow and Carl Ritter conducted. But the good Swiss were not satisfied with this. They desired the excitement of the production of one of Wagner's works under his own direction. Accordingly, in May, 1852, "The Flying Dutchman" was given, but because the singers treated the work as an old-fashioned opera, it did not make a deep impression. Nevertheless, in February, 1855, "Tannhäuser" was produced in Zurich. It was at this period, too, that Wagner took up the old "Faust" overture and revised it, making changes which drew expressions of delight from Liszt.

At this time the warfare of two musical societies in London was to have an unexpected influence on the movements of Wagner. The London Philharmonic Society had suffered a split, caused by dissensions which need not be discussed here, and a New Philharmonic had been formed. The insurgent forces proceeded to formulate a plan of campaign which threatened disaster to the older army. As a master stroke, they secured as conductor no less a personage than Hector Berlioz, the famous French composer. It now became necessary for the older body to deal a counterblow. But where to turn for a conductor whose name would excite public interest in such a manner as that of Berlioz they knew not. In the midst of their confusion arose Ferdinand Praeger, the London friend and admirer of Wagner, of whom he had first heard through August Roeckel. Praeger knew that there would be opposition to Wagner, but he knew, too, that the name of the composer of the music of the future would arouse public curiosity and that audiences could be got for his concerts. And audiences were what the staid and languishing Old Philharmonic most needed. On the other hand, there was something to be done in London in the way of correcting false impressions of Wagner's works. As Liszt wrote to him on learning that he was to make the visit:

Liszt as usual wrote in an encouraging strain, but it is likely that he really believed that Wagner would profit by some personal contact with the public. For the history of this incident we must turn to the pages of Praeger, who acted as Wagner's private agent in making the engagement, and who first suggested it to Prosper Sainton, the eminent violinist and a director of the Philharmonic. It was an ill-advised visit, but it was made by Wagner chiefly because he hoped through this introduction to the English public to bring out his operas in London. On Jan. 21, 1855, he wrote to Fischer in Dresden:

Mr. Anderson, conductor of the Queen's private band, and an acting director of the Philharmonic, was sent to Zurich to negotiate with Wagner. Some correspondence had already taken place, and the composer had demanded conditions which were waived after conversation with Mr. Anderson. The question of terms was speedily disposed of, the irresponsible Wagner saying that he was too busy to think about them. After Mr. Anderson had returned to London Wagner wrote to Praeger and suggested giving a concert of his own works, but this alarmed the conservative Philharmonic people, and a compromise was effected by the promise of the performance of selections. It was arranged that the composer should stay at Praeger's house, 31 Milton Street, till a quiet and secluded lodging, where he could go on with the scoring of the trilogy, could be found for him. He arrived in London on Sunday, March 5, 1855. The lodging was found at 22 Portland Terrace, Regent's Park. Much of the work of scoring the "Nibelung" dramas was done at this place.

The first meeting between Wagner and Mr. Anderson in London was not encouraging. The Philharmonic director suggested the performance of a prize symphony by Lachner, whereupon Wagner rose excitedly from his chair and exclaimed: "Have I, therefore, left my quiet seclusion in Switzerland to cross the sea to conduct a prize symphony by Lachner? No, never! If that be a condition of the bargain I at once reject it, and will return."[21]

The matter was smoothed over, but it was only one of several similar outbreaks on the part of the impatient artist. Fortunately, as Praeger notes, Wagner had a keen sense of humour, and when there was a ludicrous aspect in the scenes of misunderstanding it sufficed to put him in a pleasant mood once more.

Wagner made only one visit of ceremony in London, and that was a call on Sir Michael Costa. He flatly refused to call on the musical critics of the London papers, and Praeger says that this was to his injury. This state of affairs is not easy to understand in the United States, where visits to critics are looked upon with suspicion, and are discouraged by the critics themselves. Praeger records that Mr. Davison, the editor of The Musical World, then an influential paper, declared that as long as he held the sceptre of musical criticism, Wagner should not acquire any hold in London. In these circumstances it is not at all astonishing that the new conductor received not a little censure. It is only right to mention, however, that some of the London papers viewed his work without prejudice and praised what appeared to them to be its excellences. That Wagner was an uncommonly fine conductor cannot be doubted, and the musicians of the Philharmonic, as soon as they had recovered from the surprise caused by Wagner's spirited and truthful readings of the works under rehearsal and his emphatic insistence on the correct treatment of every passage, together with vigour of style, applauded him and obeyed him with delight.

The first concert took place on March 12. The programme, like that of all the other concerts, was absurdly long, and this was one of the things against which Wagner vainly fought. The list comprised a symphony by Haydn, an operatic trio, a Spohr violin concerto, the Weber aria, "Ocean, thou mighty monster," Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave," overture, Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony, a duet by Marschner, and the overture to "Die Zauberflöte." Wagner amazed the Londoners by giving readings of the orchestral works instead of permitting the orchestra to glide through them in the conventional slovenly way. He even restored the true tempi in the "Eroica," in which London conductors had been playing the first movement slowly and the funeral march quickly. He astonished the great body of Mendelssohnians, which infested London then as it has ever since, by reading the overture with beautiful colour and intelligence. Several of the papers abused him roundly, but The Morning Post discovered in him the ideal conductor.

At the second concert on March 26, Wagner conducted the overture to "Der Freischütz," Beethoven's ninth symphony, and the prelude to "Lohengrin." The Weber overture had to be repeated, which goes to show that the audience was not insensible to Wagner's enthusiastic sympathy with the music of his great predecessor. The dates of the other concerts conducted by Wagner were April 16 and 30, May 14 and 28, and June 11 and 25. In addition to the Beethoven symphonies already mentioned he directed the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth; also the "Leonora" overture, No. 3, and the violin concerto, Mozart's symphonies in B flat and C, Mendelssohn's Scotch and Italian symphonies, Spohr's C minor symphony, Cipriani Potter's symphony in G minor, and some minor works. The overture to "Tannhäuser" was produced at the fifth concert, and was received with acclamations by the audience and derision by the critics. It was repeated at the seventh concert by royal command. The Queen and the Prince Consort attended this concert and had Wagner before them in the salon. There the Prince Consort suggested the desirability of translating some of Wagner's operas into Italian that they might be presented in London, and the Queen said, "I am most happy to make your acquaintance. Your composition has charmed me."

Wagner left London the day after his last concert, and he was heartily glad to shake the dust of the British capital off his feet. Musical criticism in London was stilted, timorous, afraid of new thoughts, unable to grasp any departure from the conventionalities with which it was acquainted, and desperately opposed to musical progress along lines not laid down by Mendelssohn and Handel. It was to be expected that the commentors would oppose the entire Wagner system, but the vituperative strain in the criticisms suggests the probability that the writers felt and writhed under the power of the man. It must be understood that similar criticism was written in Germany, and that the "music of the future," as it was derisively called, was not peacefully permitted to become the music of the day. The younger generation of opera-goers cannot realise the state of mind into which their forerunners were thrown when they were asked to accept the opera as a play, and not as a mere string of pretty vocal pieces, loosely connected by the pretence of a plot. In London, where the opera was the amusement of fashionable society, the music of Wagner was bound at first to meet with opposition. For fashionable society always has been and still is opposed to all that is dignified, serious, or uplifting in life or art.

Aside from some scoring of the Nibelung dramas, Wagner did little productive work in the uncongenial atmosphere of London. Praeger introduced to him Karl Klindworth, who was engaged to make piano scores of the first dramas of the trilogy. This was, perhaps, the most serious musical achievement of the London visit. It should be said, however, that the friends whom Wagner found in London were the nucleus of a substantial support for him in that capital, and when the movement to build the Bayreuth Theatre took shape, the English Wagnerites were among the sturdiest upholders of the plan.

Wagner went home to Zurich by way of Paris, and soon after his arrival took his wife for a short visit to Seelisberg, near the Alps. Just before starting his dog Peps died, and the letter in which he communicates this fact to Praeger is so full of warm feeling that it is a revelation of the richness of the heart of this singular and erratic being. He said in part:

At this period he received an offer to visit America. He mentions it in one of his letters to Praeger and also in other correspondence, especially that with Liszt. He had been told while in London that he would receive this invitation, and he wrote to Liszt: "While here I chew a beggar's crust, I hear from Boston that 'Wagner nights' are given there. Everyone persuades me to come over; they are occupying themselves with me with increasing interest; I might make much money there by concert performances, etc. 'Make much money!' Heavens! I don't want to make money if I can go the way shown me by my longing." Indeed Wagner thought of money only as the means which would enable him to carry out his plans for the production of the Nibelung dramas. He was sorely tempted for a time by the possibility of earning enough in the United States to do as he pleased, but he finally wrote to Liszt, with more than usual penetration, that he was not the kind of man to be successful with a money-making speculation, and that he had decided not to be turned aside from his artistic purposes. And thus ended the attempt to induce Wagner to visit a country, which in its state at that time would have been quite as uncongenial to him as London.

CHAPTER X
A SECOND END IN PARIS

The composer now set to work right gladly on his "Walküre." He was eager to finish it and begin the writing of what was still called "Jung Siegfried." For a time he was impeded by the illness of his wife and afterwards his own, but on October 3, 1855, he was able to send to Liszt the first two acts of "Die Walküre." Liszt and his beloved Countess Wittgenstein went over them together and both wrote to Wagner of the marvellous effect which this music made upon them. The last act was finished in April, 1856, and was also despatched to Liszt. In October of this year Liszt, the Countess Wittgenstein, and her daughter went to Zurich to visit Wagner. Of course the score of "Die Walküre" occupied their attention, and Liszt, Wagner, and the wife of Kapellmeister Heim gave a rehearsal of the work at the Hotel Bauer before a number of personal friends. The rehearsal moved the hearers greatly and, as Mr. Finck notes, they "would have been no doubt greatly surprised had any one foretold that twenty years would elapse before this drama would have its first adequate performance."

Together, too, Liszt and Wagner gave an orchestral concert at St. Gall, on November 3, 1856, when Wagner conducted the "Eroica" symphony and Liszt his "Orphée" and "Les Préludes." But perhaps the greatest concert of the Zurich series was that given by Wagner in May, 1853, when he assembled an orchestra of 72 men from different parts of Germany, and gave selections from "Lohengrin" as they were never given before and have probably not often been given since. Of his visit Liszt wrote in several of his numerous letters. He said to his friend Dr. Adolf Stern, of Dresden, where the name of Wagner was certainly familiar:

These remarks of Liszt admirably sum up the situation in regard to the "Nibelung" dramas. It was long after the date named when they saw the light of publicity, and in the meantime many events of significance were to take place. Not the least of these was to be the temporary abandonment of the beloved Siegfried subject for another work. This was the great "Tristan und Isolde," which many of Wagner's admirers regard as his most inspired creation. This work, like the "Flying Dutchman," the first in which the real Wagner was disclosed, was the fruit of discouragement. Although, through the liberality of Liszt and a few others, including the devoted Mathilde Wesendonck (who is still—August, 1900—living in Berlin), the Wagners were able to live in comfort, and Minna could afford to make Richard a present of silk dressing-gowns and even silk trousers for house wear on his return from London, the composer saw no way to convince the world that he was not a mere bundle of eccentricities, but a master with living embodiments of the true theory of the lyric drama. He was sore at heart, weary of writing a majestic four-night drama which might never see the light of the stage.

In 1854, while he was at work on "Die Walküre," the stories of "Tristan" and "Parsifal" had come to his attention, and the plan of the former work was sketched. In the winter of 1854-55 he wrote to Liszt: "As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated. I have in my head 'Tristan und Isolde,' the simplest, but most full-blooded musical conception. With the black flag which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die." In the midst of a letter of January, 1855, Liszt interrupted the discussion of other matters to exclaim: "Stop! One thing I forgot to write to you: Your 'Tristan' is a splendid idea. It may become a glorious work. Do not abandon it." In the summer of 1856 Wagner wrote again: "I have again two splendid subjects which I must execute. 'Tristan und Isolde' you know, and after that the 'Victory,' the most sacred, the most perfect salvation."

This "Victory"[23] was a Buddhistic subject, which Wagner had in mind for a short time, but which he abandoned for the superior attractions of "Parsifal." The leading theme, that of the renunciation of sexual love by the hero, and the assent to it by the heroine, who had at first passionately loved the unmoved hero, bore a close resemblance to the personal purity of Parsifal and to the negation of the desire to live, pictured in "Tristan" as the highest issue of real love. These thoughts appealed to Wagner, whose mind at this time was deeply under the influence of the philosophy of Schopenhauer. The Buddhistic quietism which prevailed in Schopenhauer's philosophy seemed to offer a solution to the life-problems confronting Wagner, and it was natural that he should seek to embody the emotional essence of this philosophy in his music dramas. In 1854 he sent a copy of the poem of the Nibelung dramas to Schopenhauer as a mark of his esteem.

With all these thoughts active in his mind, the poem of Gottfried von Strassburg on "Tristan und Isolde" offered him an opportunity to embody his ideas in what he called the "simplest and most full-blooded musical conception." He was eager to begin a work which might possibly be produced, and all at once came the needed final incentive. Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, had become interested in the Wagner movement, and he sent an agent to the composer to ask him if he would write an opera for the Italian company in Rio Janeiro. He might name his own terms, provided he would promise to go to Brazil and conduct the work. Wagner was at first touched by this munificent offer, but he soon saw the hopelessness of trying to get Italian opera singers to perform such a music drama as he was about to write. But the Emperor's offer shaped his resolution, and in the latter part of June, 1857, he wrote to Liszt: "I have determined finally to give up my headstrong design of completing the 'Nibelungen.' I have led my young Siegfried to a beautiful forest solitude and there have left him under a linden tree, and taken leave of him with heartfelt tears." And later, in the same letter, he told Liszt that he had decided to write "Tristan und Isolde" and have it performed at Strassburg with Niemann and Mme. Meyer.

On the last day of 1857 the first act of "Tristan" was finished. Wagner now made a trip to Paris, on money borrowed from Liszt, in the hope of being able to arrange a performance of "Rienzi," but nothing came of the journey, except that a waiter in the house in which he lived stole a large part of the advance royalties which Breitkopf and Härtel had paid him on the completion of the first act of the new work. He returned to Zurich and there Liszt sent to him Carl Tausig, the pianist, who became one of his firmest friends and supporters, and who subsequently made the piano arrangement of "Die Meistersinger." Tausig, with all his genius, was only a boy of seventeen at this time, and he could not satisfy the craving of Wagner for sympathetic intellectual companionship. Unfortunately the composer had in previous years sought this in the society of Mrs. Wesendonck, before mentioned, and aroused the jealousy of poor Minna. This jealousy led in 1856 to an open outbreak, for Wagner wrote to Praeger, who was on his way back to London after a visit to the composer, "The devil is loose. I shall leave Zurich at once and come to you in Paris." But a little later he wrote that the matter had been smoothed over. This, however, was one of the evidences that this unhappily assorted union was slowly nearing its dissolution.

In June, 1858, Wagner sketched the second act of "Tristan und Isolde," and then a desire for quiet and the luxurious atmosphere of Italy took possession of him. Venice, not having any German alliance, and there being consequently no danger of his arrest there, seemed to be the desired place, and thither he went. He wrote the music of the second act of the opera in Venice. Then came news that a projected production of "Rienzi" in Munich had been abandoned, and that a new Intendant, who had no artistic feeling, had gone to reign in Weimar and make Liszt powerless. On the heels of these misfortunes came an attempt of the Saxon government to drive him out of Venice. Disheartened, embarrassed, and in debt, he went to Switzerland and secluded himself on the shores of the Lake of Lucerne. There in the summer of 1859 he completed, after four months' work, the third act of "Tristan." The completed score was placed in the hands of Breitkopf and Härtel, and then Wagner set to work to find an opening for its production. Various difficulties arose. In some places where he could have had singers he dared not set foot. In other places he could get no competent performers.

Wagner's final departure from Zurich was undoubtedly due to the action of Mr. Wesendonck. The nature of the attachment between Mrs. Wesendonck and the composer could no longer be concealed. Wagner had dedicated to her a sonata and the prelude to "Die Walküre." He had set words of hers to music. She was his friend, his confidante. According to M. Belart, in whose "Richard Wagner in Zurich," published in Leipsic in 1900, this whole matter was discussed, Wagner left Zurich finally and suddenly on Aug. 17, 1859. Mr. Wesendonck, when questioned about the matter in after years, said flatly that he compelled Wagner to go. He went to Jacob Sulzer, previously mentioned, borrowed some money, and started for Geneva. Minna Wagner went to Dresden. This was the beginning of the end between them. There is some discrepancy in the dates. There is no doubt that Wagner went to Lucerne when he returned from Venice, but he must have gone again to Zurich in the course of the summer. At any rate when he went to Geneva, he was en route for Paris, and the Wesendonck entanglement was at an end. In 1865 Wagner wrote to the injured husband:

It was in September, 1859, that Wagner arrived in the French capital. He settled in the Rue Newton, near the Arc de Triomphe, and there he and Minna, who had rejoined him, received their friends every Wednesday. Among the frequenters of their home were Émile Ollivier, the French statesman and husband of Liszt's daughter Blandine; Frédéric Villot, keeper of the imperial museums; Edmond Roche, afterward the translator of "Tannhäuser"; Hector Berlioz, Carvalho, director of the Théâtre Lyrique; Gustave Doré, Jules Ferry, Charles Baudelaire, and A. de Gasparini, afterward one of the biographers of Wagner.

Later, when the composer had taken a new residence at No. 3, Rue d'Aumale, there was added to this number Cosima, a younger daughter of Liszt, married two years previously to Hans von Bülow. By arrangement with M. Carvalho, Wagner gave three concerts in the Théâtre des Italiens on Jan. 25, and Feb. 1 and 8, 1860. The overture to "Tannhäuser" and the prelude to "Tristan und Isolde" were given at these entertainments. These concerts were pecuniarily disastrous, and so also were two given in Brussels in March. Both press and public were nonplussed by Wagner's music, and it remained for Hector Berlioz to lead, by an article published in the Gazette Musicale, in the subsequent general attack. Meanwhile Wagner was striving to induce M. Carvalho to produce "Tannhäuser" at the Théâtre Lyrique, when suddenly an unexpected power intervened.

According to Wagner's account given to Praeger, the Emperor Napoleon III., in conversation with the Princess Metternich, asked her if she had heard the latest opera of Prince Poniatowski. She answered that she had, and that she did not care for such music. "But is it not good?" asked the Emperor. "No," she responded. "But where is better music to be got, then?" "Why, your Majesty, you have at the present moment the greatest composer that ever lived in your capital." "Who is he?" "Richard Wagner." "Then why do they not give his operas?" "Because he is in earnest, and would require all kinds of concessions and much money." "Very well; he shall have carte blanche." The Emperor accordingly gave orders that "Tannhäuser" should be mounted at the Grand Opéra. This stroke of fortune came like lightning out of a clear sky, yet Wagner was not altogether blind to the difficulties in the way of a satisfactory performance.

With the scenic preparations, which now began, he was delighted, for the resources and skill of the leading opera house of Europe were at his disposal. But the lack of singers trained in the theory of the lyric drama hampered him. He stipulated that Albert Niemann should be engaged for the title rôle, and that he should have time to learn the French text. He asked for Faure to create the rôle of Wolfram for the Parisians, but that new and rising star demanded too large a salary, and Morelli was engaged for the part. With this singer, and Mme. Tedesco, the Venus, Wagner had no end of trouble, as they were Italians and utterly without comprehension of his ideas. Marie Saxe, who had a lovely voice, was wooden in her acting, and Wagner had to drive her to movement and life. Edmond Roche's translation of the text proved to be too rough for use, and finally Charles Nuitter, who translated Bellini's "Roméo et Juliette" for the Opéra, was employed to finish the work.

In his anxiety to make himself and his purposes known to the Parisians Wagner published four of his dramatic poems, prefaced by a letter on music,[24] in which he endeavoured to set forth his ideas. M. Adolphe Jullien says of this letter: "As Wagner had in 1860 already written 'Tristan und Isolde,' and as that poem figured in his book, he instinctively carried the history of his life and of the development of his ideas beyond the point of 'Tristan,' without reflecting that he was thereby exceeding his aim, it being simply a question of preparing people to hear 'Tannhäuser.'" There is no doubt that this letter did much to confuse those Frenchmen who read it and to deepen the spirit of opposition to Wagner's reformatory theories.

But despite all these things the production of "Tannhäuser" might have come to a successful issue but for one difficulty. The gentlemen of the Jockey Club, who were among the most important of the subscribers to the Opéra, and who, of course, did not at any time desire to take the entertainment seriously, were in the habit of arriving after their dinners in time for the ballet. In the original version of "Tannhäuser" there was no attempt at a ballet, and Alphonse Royer, the director of the Grand Opéra, besought Wagner to introduce one in the hall of song, in the second act. This the composer peremptorily refused to do, because it would interfere with the dramatic integrity of the scene. He would consent only to a rearrangement of the first scene, where, in the revels in the Venusberg, a ballet with some significance might be introduced. He therefore rewrote this scene, cutting out the stirring finale of the overture and raising the curtain on the second appearance of the bacchanalian music, which was now extended and elaborated so that a pantomimic ballet might be danced. He also elaborated the scene between Tannhäuser and Venus, after this ballet, according to his later conceptions of music drama. The music of this new scene was written in the style of "Tristan und Isolde," and, at every performance of the Parisian version of "Tannhäuser," obstinately refuses to amalgamate in style with the rest of the score. This whole new scene was beyond the comprehension of the Parisian public of 1861, but might have been tolerated had it not been a direct affront to the subscribers. A further element of danger lay in the fact that the conductor was no other than Dietsch, the musician who had failed with "The Phantom Ship" after Wagner had sold that text to Léon Pillet.

The first performance took place on Wednesday, March 13, 1861. After the first act the gentlemen of the Jockey Club went out and bought all the hunting whistles they could get, and as soon as the second act began they set up a din which gradually drowned out the performance except in the forte passages. In the third act pandemonium reigned, and the thrilling narrative of Tannhäuser was unheard in the chorus of yells from the auditorium. Wagner's friends applauded, and the Emperor on several occasions led the favourable demonstrations, but Wagner was taught that in Paris the coryphée ranked above high art. Before the second performance, March 18, Royer succeeded in inducing Wagner to cut out some of the most familiar parts of the work, a portion of the Venus scene, the plaintive melody of the shepherd's pipe, the hunting horns and the appearance of the dogs at the end of the first act, and other similar things, all now known to every lover of Wagner's work. The gentlemen of the Jockey Club again drowned the latter half of the opera with their whistles, despite the plain protest of a large part of the audience led by the Emperor. The third performance was given on a Sunday in order that the subscribers might not be present. That the general public was interested in the opera is proved by the receipts: First performance, 7,491 francs; second, 8,415; third, 10,764.

Wagner now refused to allow the performances to continue, and as he had borne much of their expense he left Paris burdened with debts. But the shrieks of the Jockey Club whistles had resounded across the Rhine and stirred up a Teutonic indignation, which was eventually to be of much benefit to him. The French public was not unjust to Wagner; he knew that and testified to it; but, as Charles Baudelaire exclaimed in his pamphlet on the episode, "'Tannhäuser' was not even heard."

CHAPTER XI
A MONARCH TO THE RESCUE

Wagner went from Paris to Vienna, where he hoped that a production of "Tristan und Isolde" might be arranged. The manager of the opera house, when he learned that the composer was about to visit the city, prepared a special performance of "Lohengrin." This took place on May 15, 1861, and for the first time Wagner himself heard the work which has touched the hearts of so many thousands of his fellow-creatures. At the end of each act the audience forced him to acknowledge its applause, and at the conclusion of the performance he was called before the curtain three times and compelled to make a brief speech. Many times afterward did he refer to the intoxication of that wondrous May night. Think of it! Thirteen years after it was written, and eleven years after its first performance, the writer of the most popular opera in the world heard it for the first time. And even then this master, who had already written "Rienzi," "The Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," "Lohengrin," "Das Rheingold," "Die Walküre," part of "Siegfried," and "Tristan und Isolde," was a wanderer on the face of the earth, an outcast, and could not make a living from his music.

His early works were now beginning to find their way to the stage, but the royalties paid in the German theatres were too small and the performances too infrequent to bring him in a satisfactory income. His first effort, therefore, was to get "Tristan und Isolde" produced, and to his great joy the manager of the Vienna opera accepted the score. Preparations were at once made for the production. But, alas! that was still far away. The rehearsals began in the fall, but the tenor, Ander, was taken sick, and the whole winter was lost. When the work was resumed, it dragged along at a snail's pace, and finally, after fifty-four rehearsals, the drama was abandoned as impossible. Ander, the Tristan, told Dr. Hanslick that as fast as he learned one act he forgot another. Wagner, on the contrary, asserted in after years that all the singers went through the whole work with him at the piano. However, it is not difficult to conceive that the artists of that day may have found "Tristan und Isolde" impracticable, seeing that the work never was really sung until within the last half-dozen years, when the greatest vocal artists of the world appeared in it.

While the Viennese were floundering, Wagner found it necessary to do something toward earning money, and so he undertook a concert tour. In Carlsruhe, Prague, and Weimar negotiations for the production of Tristan fell through, but in the last-named place Wagner was royally received in the summer by Liszt and the other musicians. The general amnesty which had been granted some years before to the rebels of 1848 made it possible for him to go openly to Germany, except the kingdom of Saxony, and even that was soon opened to him. He planned a tour, and reluctantly prepared to produce excerpts from his own works, as the only means of advertising them. He confesses that dire necessity forced him to this step so inconsistent with his theories, and his enemies did not hesitate to taunt him with the inconsistency. He was alone in his travels, for the winter of 1861 in Paris had been the last straw on the back of the patient Minna. She could no longer endure her life with this "monster of genius," who would not be a faithful husband, who wrote works ridiculed by the world, and could not earn bread and butter. She left him and went back to Leipsic to live with her relatives. She and her husband never came together again, though they occasionally referred to one another with tolerance in their letters to third persons. Minna died in 1866.

The concert tour began in the winter of 1862, and Wagner travelled in Germany and even into Russia. In the latter country alone did his entertainments bring him in any substantial pecuniary returns. He was in Moscow when he learned that the rehearsals of "Tristan und Isolde" had been abandoned at Vienna. He had become indifferent on the subject. He was almost convinced that he ought to give up his attempt to be a composer. Mr. Finck notes that at one time he seriously thought of going to India as a tutor in an English family. Let it be borne in mind that in 1863, while he was still wandering about, giving these concerts, he was fifty years old, and that, with a surging consciousness within him that he had created immortal works, he was stared at by people wherever he went as a freak and a madman, and was caricatured and ridiculed by almost the whole press of Europe. And all this because he had dared to say that an opera was a poetic drama, and should be so written, so performed, and so received by the public.

Yet in these years of hardship, sorrow, and discouragement he wrote the text of his most humorous work. He took up and completed the book of "Die Meistersinger," of which he had made a sketch in 1845, just after the production of "Tannhäuser." This work was done in the course of a temporary residence in Paris in the winter of 1861-62. The text was published, or rather printed for circulation among his friends, in 1862. The version now known to all music lovers shows many changes. The copyright of the drama was sold to Messrs. Schott, of Mainz, and accordingly Wagner went to Biebrich, a little town opposite Mainz, to compose the music. He subsequently continued his labours at Penzing, near Vienna, and there also he published the text of "Der Ring des Nibelungen" as a piece of literature. He declared that he did not expect to finish the music, and that he had no hope of living to see the work performed. It was at this time that Wagner's affairs sank into such a state that he was overwhelmed. He decided to go to Russia and remain there the rest of his life. But first he must finish the score of "Die Meistersinger." So he wrote to his old friend, Mme. Wille, at Zurich, and asked her to receive him for a short time. Like the familiar man in the play, he arrived on the heels of his letter, and Frau Wille had to exert herself to make all ready for the great man. But she realised that all Wagner's doings and sayings would have historical importance, and she made notes from which she afterward published a valuable article.

From this we learn that the great musician while in her home was the prey of conflicting emotions, but was most frequently plunged in despair. He had a deep, a passionate conviction of his own powers. He was inspired with an absolute prevision of the worldwide glorification that would come to his name when once his works were adequately made known. And because of this he suffered agonies of mind and heart while the scores lay silent in his desk. He cried out against the niggardliness of a world which refused him a few luxuries when he was preparing joy for so many thousands. He felt that the time would come when the world would be ready to heap all kinds of honours on his head, but he feared that it would come too late.

Yet in this state of mind the genius of production would not sleep within him. He worked unceasingly at the score of "Die Meistersinger," and, according to Mme. Wille's own account, with a perfect satisfaction as to its greatness. Wagner had what has frequently been called the vanity of men of genius. He spoke with childish naïveté of his works. He spoke of himself without hesitation as a great man, and he had not even the slightest consciousness that a difference of opinion was possible. But such vanity is pardonable in a man who so thoroughly justifies it. Cicero, Napoleon, and Beethoven had a similar sort of vanity. The world has learned to smile indulgently upon it. And whereas in Wagner's lifetime his vanity and love of luxury made him perhaps not an altogether agreeable companion, they detract in no way from his claims to recognition as one of the most remarkable men ever born.

One day, while at the Willes', Wagner received word that his Viennese creditors were on his track, and he resolved to go away. He was at his wits' end, for everywhere "Tristan" was pronounced impossible, and "Die Meistersinger" was refused before the score was seen. He went to Stuttgart with the vain hope that he could arrange for the performance of some of his operas there and thus earn enough to stave off misfortune for a time. And even while he had fled, his fortune was pursuing him. At last to this weary wanderer, this "Flying Dutchman" of musical history, were to come rest and peace and a perfect love. At last one dream of all his years of insatiable longing was to be realised. At last his scores would sound "from off the death-wan paper," and the world would learn the true might of Richard Wagner.

In the preface to the poem of the "Nibelung's Ring," Wagner had described the means and manner of performance—had, in a word, laid down the plan of Bayreuth. But he felt that only a monarch could afford to give the financial support to such a scheme, and he wrote, "Will that king be found?" Now there was a young prince who fed his soul on Wagner's works and who worshipped the master in secret. At fifteen he had heard "Lohengrin," and, like all whose operatic experience began with Wagner, he had become an ardent Wagnerite. He had watched his idol's career of misfortune in helpless pity. And then suddenly the King of Bavaria went to join his fathers and this generous youth seated himself upon the throne. One of his first acts was to send a messenger to bid Wagner come to his capital and complete the majestic labours of his life in peace.

Herr Sauer, the appointed messenger, searched high and low. He delved in Wagner's old haunts at Vienna, but the very memory of the mad composer seemed to have gone. So he went down to Switzerland and hunted in Zurich and Lucerne. But there was no Wagner. Then Baron Hornstein, a minor composer, met him out in a boat on Lake Lucerne and told him that Wagner was in Stuttgart. At any rate this is the story told to Mr. Finck by Heinrich Vogl, the tenor, who said that Wagner confirmed it. Sauer took Wagner to Munich, and there on May 4, 1864, he wrote to Frau Wille that it all seemed like a dream.

"He wants me to be with him always, to work, to rest, to produce my works; he will give me everything I need; I am to finish my Nibelungen and he will have them performed as I wish. I am to be my own unrestricted master; not Kapellmeister—nothing but myself and his friend. All troubles are to be taken from me; I shall have whatever I need, if only I stay with him."

This enthusiastic youth of eighteen, with a royal treasury at his disposal, and the splendid musical traditions of Munich reaching away behind him to the era of Orlando Lasso, was to be the saviour of Wagner's work. He was already a worshipper of the art of the master, and he speedily proved himself to be attached to him by a deep personal affection. On Lake Starnberg, no great distance from Munich, the King gave Wagner a pretty villa, and there he spent the summer of 1864. The King's summer palace was only a mile or two away, and the monarch and composer were much in one another's company. The young King's friendship was of a passionate kind, such as only romantic youths entertain, and, unfortunately, of the sort that was sure in the course of time to lead to scandalous comment in the polite society of a court.

In honour of his new patron Wagner wrote in that summer the "Huldigungs Marsch," which has the romantic character implanted in all Wagner's concert pieces. Here, too, at the wish of his young patron, Wagner wrote his essay on "State and Religion" (Mr. Ellis's translation, Vol. IV.). As in all the other writings of Wagner bearing upon the conduct of a State, in this essay art is held up as the panacea for all ills. He saw the ideal of the State embodied in the person of the King, who by the nature of his position must take life most seriously, and in whose inability to attain ideal justice and humanity there is something tragic. But for these ideals the King is bound to strive and so must lead a life of misery if he does not seek the only solace, namely, religion. Then follows a long definition of religion. How shall the King endure? By refreshing his mind with the pleasing distractions of art. The essay easily convinces the reader that Wagner was not, as he often wished to be, a philosopher, but simply an artist whose reasoning flexibly followed the flow of his ruling instincts.

So passed the first summer under the royal protection, pleasantly, almost idyllically. But now serious work was to begin. In the autumn the two friends returned to Munich. A residence in a quiet part of the city was set apart for the use of Wagner, and he prepared to resume the production of his masterpieces. Hans von Bülow, his former pupil, was summoned with a view to his becoming the conductor of "Tristan und Isolde." This beginning was effected in the summer, for Mme. von Bülow, little dreaming whither she was going, arrived in Munich with her two daughters in June, and Von Bülow followed the next month. The influence of Cosima von Bülow upon Wagner began at once. He had been lonely and depressed ever since his separation from his wife, and the advent of this woman of artistic temperament and commanding intellect, the fruit of the illicit union of Franz Liszt and the brilliant Countess d'Agoult (the "Daniel Stern" of French literature), aroused in him new conceptions of the "eternal woman-soul."

Peter Cornelius, the pupil of Liszt and composer of the admirable "Barber of Bagdad," was also summoned, and not far away lived the young Hans Richter, afterward to be one of the principal conductors of Wagner's music. The ardent young King was all eagerness to begin the work of performance, but Wagner was hampered by the want of singers capable of singing such new music as that of "Tristan und Isolde." In Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld and his wife were found representatives of the hero and heroine, but Wagner foresaw that the method of singing the music drama of the future would need wide study, and so he wrote a long paper on a plan for a school of music in Munich. This paper gave a detailed outline of the operation of a conservatory, and set forth as its purpose the artistic interpretation of the works of the older German masters, and leading thence to the treatment of the modern music drama. The old Munich Conservatory was closed by the King's order in the early summer of 1865. But the plan to reopen it on the lines laid down by Wagner failed through the hostility of the local musicians. It was reopened in 1867 under Hans von Bülow, who was able to carry out Wagner's ideas only to a limited extent.

In October the King decided that "Der Ring des Nibelungen" should be produced, and the date was set for it three years thence. On December 4 "Der Fliegende Holländer" was performed, and on December 11, January 1, and February 1 Wagner conducted concerts. In January Gottfried Semper, the architect, was called to Munich to be consulted about plans for the new theatre for the Nibelung dramas. And meanwhile the preparations for the production of "Tristan" went forward. Wagner's star was at last in the ascendant.

CHAPTER XII
SOME IDEALS REALISED