[1] "From her [Frau Wesendonck] it was I earliest learnt a truth which added years have simply verified; that in Richard Wagner we have more than a great,—a profoundly good man." Mr. Ashton Ellis's Introduction to his version of the Wagner-Wesendonck Letters, p. xl.

[2] See, for example, the reminiscences of Judith Gautier, Wagner at Home, English translation by Effie D. Massie.

[3] Mein Leben, pp. 829, 830.

[4] In 1835 he was travelling about in search of singers for the Magdeburg Opera. A temporary financial stringency—neither the first nor the last in his life!—forced him to remain a week at Frankfort. "To kill time," he says, "I had recourse, among other things, to a large red pocket-book which I carried about with me in my valise; I wrote down in this, with exact details of dates, some notes for my future biography." (He was twenty-two at the time, and almost unknown outside his own little provincial circle.) "It is the same book that is before me at this moment to refresh my memory, and which I have kept up without any breaks at various periods of my life." Mein Leben, p. 133.

[5] It would be unwise, for example, to believe without further evidence his story (Mein Leben, p. 743) that the Paris press during the Tannhäuser events of 1861 "was entirely in Meyerbeer's hands"; that (p. 723) Meyerbeer had some years before bribed Fétis père to write articles against Wagner; or (p. 708) that Berlioz was influenced against Wagner by his wife, who had received a present of a valuable bracelet from Meyerbeer. Everyone who has mixed much with musicians knows how prone many of them are to believe that their colleagues—and still more their critics—are always "intriguing against them."

[6] Mein Leben, p. 667.

[7] Mein Leben, pp. 795, 796.

[8] Mein Leben, p. 602. On another page (626) he speaks of the "young booby" as being "agreeable [anschmiegend] and intelligent," apparently because he shared Wagner's views upon Schopenhauer.

[9] Mein Leben, p. 627.

[10] He admits, on the same page of Mein Leben (627), that he was very ill at this time, and prone to outbursts of irritability, during which his friends often had to suffer.

[11] Frau Ritter was at this time making an allowance to Wagner.

[12] He was twenty-two at the time. Wagner was forty-two.

[13] Hornstein had told the story to Karl, who was furious, and insisted on sending Wagner at once a hamper of champagne.

[14] There is not a word in Mein Leben as to these borrowings.

[15] He died in 1890, twenty-one years before the publication of Mein Leben.

[16] In connection with the Paris production of Tannhäuser, &c.

[17] This, it will be remembered, had been hinted by Karl Ritter.

[18] See Zwei unveröffentlichte Briefe Richard Wagners an Robert von Hornstein, zur Erklärung der auf Robert von Hornstein bezüglichen Stellen in Wagners "Mein Leben"; herausgegeben von Ferdinand Frh. von Hornstein. Munich, 1911.

[19] Franz Lachner (1803-90) was successively conductor at Vienna, Mannheim (1834), and Munich (1836). From 1852 to 1865 he was General Musical Director at Munich.

[20] One of these appeared in the Dresden Abendzeitung of 26, 27, 28, and 29 January 1842, under the title of Bericht über eine neue Pariser Oper. The other was written for Schlesinger's Gazette Musicale, appearing in the February 27, March 13, April 24, and May 1, 1842, numbers of that journal. A translation of this article is given by Mr. Ellis in volume viii. of his English version of the Prose Works. Wagner tells us in Mein Leben (p. 248), however, that the editor of the Gazette Musicale, Edouard Monnaie, had cut out a number of passages praising Auber and belittling Rossini. The original German text of the first half of the article has been preserved in the Wahnfried archives. It was published for the first time by Julius Kapp in Der junge Wagner, and is now to be had in volume xii. of the G.S. The first two portions of the article are given in German on pp. 129 to 146. A comparison of this with Mr. Ellis's version will show the passages that have been omitted. The remainder of the article exists only in French, as it appeared in the Gazette Musicale of 24th April and 21st May. It is given in G.S., xii. 404-11.

[21] Mein Leben, pp. 248, 249. The word "friend" is put in inverted commas by Wagner himself. The passage to which he refers will be found in the Bericht über eine neue Pariser Oper, in G.S., i. 244. He there mentions 1500 francs as the sum paid by the Munich director for the libretto. In the original article in the Abendzeitung, according to Mr. Ashton Ellis, the amount was given as 3000 francs, and Lachner was referred to not as Kapellmeister Lachner, but "der brave Lachner."

[22] Mein Leben, p. 626.

[23] Mein Leben, p. 675.

[24] Briefwechsel zwischen Wagner und Liszt, ii. 25.

[25] See his letter to Uhlig of November 27, 1852.

[26] See the first chapter of his Ludwig II und Richard Wagner: Erster Teil, die Jahre 1864 und 1865. Munich, 1913.

[27] Yet Glasenapp (Das Leben Richard Wagners, ii. (2), 108) speaks of Wagner having "forced his entry" into Munich with Tannhäuser "in spite of the bitter opposition of Lachner." In dealing with Wagner's Munich days, again, Glasenapp speaks of Lachner as being "from of old an embittered opponent, whom the most obliging and amiable behaviour could not reconcile" (iv. 43).

[28] Op. cit., p. 8.

[29] Röckl, p. 12.

[30] The reader will remember that the Wesendonck catastrophe was just then drawing to a head.

[31] In the light of Wagner's own account of the affair in Mein Leben, we only regard this as a piece of fiction.

[32] Röckl, pp. 17 ff.

[33] Röckl, pp. 21 ff.

[34] Röckl, p. 56.

[35] It is even doubtful whether his conducting was as detrimental to the operas as Wagner seems to have thought. The records show that both Tannhäuser and Lohengrin were very well received under his baton. Liszt heard a performance of Tannhäuser under Lachner at Munich in 1856, and writes thus to Wagner under date 12th December of that year: "Lachner had certainly rehearsed the score with the utmost precision and care, for which we can only thank and praise him." He doubts whether Lachner understood the drama as Wagner meant it to be understood; but granting that, the trouble that Lachner had evidently taken to do justice to the music is all the more creditable to him. That he was pretty free from prejudice towards Wagner is shown by his recommending him for the Maximilian Order in 1864, and again in 1873. The King granted Wagner the Order the second time. See Röckl, pp. 57, 234.

[36] They had met in Dresden in 1845.

[37] Mein Leben, p. 761.

[38] Mein Leben, p. 784.

[39] Mein Leben, pp. 818, 819.

[40] Mein Leben, p. 829. Writing against Hanslick in the Musikalisches Wochenblatt of 1877, Wilhelm Tappert gave an account of these two episodes as he had received it from Wagner himself. Wagner had presumably copied from Mein Leben the two passages I have just cited, for they agree almost word for word with the Wochenblatt article. See Glasenapp, Das Leben Richard Wagners, iii. 352, 405, 483. Hanslick seems to have denied the authenticity of Wagner's version of what happened at Standhartner's.

[41] The "h" is without significance. Wagner often spelt proper names along the line of least resistance.

[42] Postscript to The Wagner Case (English translation), p. 37.

[43] See, for example, Mein Leben, pp. 158, 499, &c.; his letters to Minna of April 17, 1850, January 25, 1859, May 18, 1859, &c. &c.; and his letter of August 20, 1858, to his sister Clara.