[396] Three years before this Berlioz had written Eight Scenes from Goethe's Faust—the germ of his Damnation of Faust.

[397] All references to the operas are to the new editions of Breitkopf and Härtel.

[398] Glasenapp, vi. 187.

[399] The opera should be studied in Breitkopf and Härtel's new edition. Former editions have been printed from the curtailed score that was generally used for performances. The Breitkopf edition reproduces the original manuscript.

[400] In Mein Leben he speaks of it being in five acts, but in the form in which we have it, it has only four.

[401] Accounts of most of these experiments will be found in Mein Leben and elsewhere. The libretti and sketches are printed in the new eleventh volume of the G.S.

[402] Mein Leben, p. 220. Wagner always intended that the Flying Dutchman should be given in one Act. It was played in this way for the first time at Bayreuth in 1901. The necessary skips in the ordinary three-act score are indicated in Breitkopf's edition, pp. 76 and 180.

[403] The overture has been altered to correspond with the altered ending of the opera. Our concert audiences need to remember that the electrifying effect of this wood-wind entry in the overture is an after-thought on Wagner's part. At some time or other he added to the score the following stage directions at the point in the final scene where the passage just quoted enters: "A dazzling glory illumines the group in the background; Senta raises the Dutchman, presses him to her breast, and points him towards heaven with hand and glance." This note is given in the Fürstner score, but not in that of Breitkopf and Härtel.

[404] Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde, in G.S., iv. 266.

[405] Ibid., iv. 272.

[406] Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde, in G.S., iv. 295, 297, 298, 301, 302.

[407] Ibid., iv. 328.

[408] It is possible, of course, for any Wagnerian commentator to give another reason for the introduction of the motive here; but the mere fact that more than one explanation can be given is itself a proof that Wagner has miscalculated.

[409] In the Götterdämmerung Wagner sends only one Valkyrie, Waltraute.

[410] The anti-Wagnerians take a malicious delight in pointing to the old-age portrait of Wagner by Renoir (it is reproduced in Emil Ludwig's recent diatribe Wagner, oder die Entzauberten). This shows us a rather flabby and senile face, with a pronounced relaxation of the mouth. But Renoir was an impressionist, and inclined to take the usual impressionist's liberty with his subject. Moreover, the portrait is the product of no more than half-an-hour's sitting, given much against Wagner's will one afternoon after he had tired himself with talking to this new visitor, who saw him on that occasion for the first and, I think, the last time in his life. To ask us to believe that this slap-dash thing is the only veracious portrait of Wagner is making too great a demand on our credulity.