Richard Wagner, Composer of Operas

by John F. Runciman

III

Amongst musicians of the first rank stand four commanding, tremendous figures. First comes Handel, by far the greatest personality of them all: him I beg permission to think the greatest man who has yet lived—greater than Cæsar or Napoleon. After him came Gluck, a triumphant bourgeois; then Beethoven, whose domination was the result of his supreme genius and his bad temper; and, last, Wagner, whose supreme genius and indomitable perseverance made him either an idol or a terror to all who came in contact with him. Handel had an easy time; he was of his period, he wrote for it, and only his native pugnacity landed him in bankruptcy, and enabled him finally to win a fortune by oratorio when no one would listen any longer to his operas. Gluck was from the first a popular composer: there were rows, it is true, but they did not concern him; he had always an assured public. Beethoven had throughout his working life an ample pension and the friendship of princes. Wagner had no such friends until he was sixty years old; he had no pension; he offended every opera director in Germany by telling those gentry that they knew nothing of their business; he got mixed up with revolutionists, and, mainly because he was a man of unusual ability, was regarded as dangerous by every bureaucrat. He was fast becoming a popular composer; and he left his successes behind him and went on to change opera in a fashion never attempted by Gluck or any other composer. He was the most consummate contrapuntist of his age: therefore the critics and professors declared he knew nothing about counterpoint. He wrote the loveliest melodies of the nineteenth century: therefore it was generally agreed that the gift of melodic invention had been denied him by a merciful Providence, who reserved that gift for the Jews and their friends. He could hold neither his tongue nor his pen; if a bull may be excused, he replied before he was attacked, he hit back before he was struck. Proud as Satan, and through his pride a beggar; giving the world unheard-of delights, and yet dependent on the world for his bread; quarrelling with his friends, picking quarrels with his supposed enemies, quarrelling with his wife, running away with the wife of his best friend, theorising about his art and promptly throwing his theories overboard, declaring he would never allow excerpts from his operas to be given, nor even one single opera of the Ring to be given, and then allowing single operas to be given and conducting excerpts himself—there never was in the world such a mass of contradictions as this musical apostle of universal peace born during the Napoleonic wars of 1813.

Carl Tausig

All this we may joyfully concede, knowing how much may be said on the other side. Wagner not only was the most stupendous personage born into the nineteenth century: he was also one of the noblest, most generous men that have lived. There is not a mean trait in his character. He endured privation, actual starvation; he was shamefully treated; his wife did not believe in his genius; his simplest actions were misinterpreted; frantic endeavours were made to hound him out of the public life of opera; his publishers took advantage of his poverty to try to rob him; the scores of his masterpieces were returned unopened from theatres—in some cases they were not returned, and he had infinite difficulty to secure them; moreover, he was ill all his life: yet he never lost faith in mankind, and when he became, comparatively, a well-to-do man he went on doing generous deeds as though nothing had happened. With humbugs and pretenders he would have no dealings; but no genuine young artist ever asked his help in vain. He spared even that rancorous decadent Nietzsche; he owned his obligations to that soul of chivalry, Liszt. He spared that mediocre person Meyerbeer; he treated Mendelssohn with almost exaggerated courtesy. He fought a terrific fight with all the forces of reaction and stupidity, and he came through untainted, unstained; if he sorely belaboured the charlatans, he had all the finest musicians, and all other fine artists, on his side. The composer who won and held the friendship and esteem of such men as Liszt, Cornelius, Jensen, Tausig and Bülow, not to mention the admiration of our own Swinburne, is not a man to be dismissed by enumerating his defects. Some of us, I suppose, will admit that we may possibly have our defects: none of us, so far as I know, can possibly claim his great qualities.

He was rather an undersized man with an uncontrollable temper. As he let himself go in his music, so did he let himself go in his daily life. To any but the most patient he must have proved an impossible personage; Madame Cosima Wagner must have possessed the temper of an angel and the understanding of an archangel to put up with him. We see that every one did put up with him; every one who knew him had the same faith in his genius as he himself had; every one who knew him—really knew him—loved him. Those who did not know him belaboured him in the press or by word of mouth, and much honour and profit did they get by it. He stands unsmirched by the mud thrown by his detractors; he stands undamaged even by the adulation of his admirers.

Let us consider for a moment what the man's personal character and momentum enabled him to achieve. Finely endowed personalities like Mozart and Chopin did much: did they write a Ring or a Tristan? The question needs no answer. Did they or the still mightier Beethoven dream of creating a Bayreuth? In the midst of years of privation Richard Wagner planned and partly executed the Ring; he completed Tristan and the Mastersingers; as quite a young man he had dreamed of a Bayreuth; as an old man he turned his dream into a reality. He had his lieutenants—big men always have their lieutenants—but the idea, the purpose, and the force behind were his and nobody else's than his. Bayreuth does not stand for very much to-day; in the 'seventies it stood for a fierce attack on the general sloppiness of opera performances all the world over, for the setting up of an ideal to which there is no parallel in the history of the art of music. Nothing but the personal force of this one man accomplished this thing—personal force accompanied by a wholehearted devotion to his art. I suppose the inventors of steam-engines and the builders of giant dams have an ideal, too, in their crazy craniums, but they invent and work with a very definite idea of personal gain. Wagner hoped for no gain, and he gained little, though, as I have said, as much as he wanted. He was helped by the only noble-hearted king born into the nineteenth century; but he found that king and inspired him. He risked everything for his idea; if his works have grown to be valuable assets since his death, they were not during his lifetime. By unheard-of energy while suffering privation—even of the ordinary necessities of life—he went on and created masterpieces, and then by creating Bayreuth set up a standard of musical execution that no one before him had thought possible. All the great conductors of the last fifty years are, musically, his offspring. Without him we should have been without a Richter, or Richter's introducer to the English, an Alfred Schulz-Curtius; without these two men we should have no Robert Newman or Henry J. Wood. Wagner's influence has been further-reaching than many of us think; and that influence was due not more to the consummate skill of the musician than to the character of the man.

Outside his musicianship the man had interests in everything human—in painting, sculpture, drama, poetry and prose. He made what we consider mistakes, as what man does not who is a product of a period of passionate revivals of human and humanising ideals?—but how few they are! They hardly count. He absorbed all the culture of all the centuries. The Greek and Latin poets were as familiar to him as were the English. Hardly a great book had been written which he did not know familiarly. There is not a great picture or piece of sculpture in Europe he did not know. All came as grist to his mill. I end this book by joyfully hailing him as one of the half-dozen greatest minds the ages have produced—the equal of Shakespeare, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and Michael Angelo: a man it is an honour to have known as it is a disgrace to have scorned—the one man born into the last century that one can absolutely, without reservation, praise.

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INDEX

Abendzeitung (Dresden), [75]
Apel, August, [41], [51]
Auber, D.F.E.,
Masaniello, 47, 89;
compared with Meyerbeer, [67], [68]
Avenarius, Eduard,
marries Cäcilie Geyer, [72]
Bakunin, Michael, [136], [196]
Baumgärtner, Wilhelm, [209]
Bayreuth, [71], [323], [325-329], [400], [407], [409], [410]
Beethoven, Ludwig van, [25], [26], [330], [331], [347], [350], [356], [371], [408], [416];
his influence on Wagner, [33-35], [42], [62];
arrangements of, by Wagner, [37];
Fidelio, [148]
Bellini, Vincenzo, [50], [92], [116], [150], [178]
Bennett, Joseph, [328]
Berlioz, Hector,
Wagner's criticism on, [71];
tragedy of his life, [72];
praises the Flying Dutchman, [128];
in London, [225];
his relations with Wagner, [226];
his "Ride to the Abyss," [370]
Bethmann, Heinrich, [52], [54]
Bispham, David, [277]
Brahms, Johannes, [164]
Brangaena, [245-248]
Brazil,
Wagner receives a commission from, [230], [237]
Brendel, Karl Franz, [50], [218]
Brockhaus, Friedrich,
marries Louise Wagner, [32]
Bülow, Cosima von,
and Wagner, [60], [323-325]
Bülow, Hans von, [71], [250], [418];
serves his apprenticeship under Wagner, [208];
married to Cosima Liszt, [323], [324]
Communication to my Friends, [219]
Cornelius, Peter, [71], [418]
Cusins, W.G., [46], [134]
Dannreuther, Edward, [37], [67]
Davison, J.W., [46]
Dietsch, Pierre, [80]
Dorn, Heinrich, [32], [37], [39], [40], [57]
Dusk of the Gods, The, [178], [188], [325], [356], [373], [398];
analysis and criticism, [400-406]
Dvoràk, Anton,
compared with Wagner, [291], [292]
Elgar, Sir Edward, [291]
End in Paris, An, [212], [213]
Europa, [75]
Feen, Die, [42], [47], [48], [50], [52], [56], [60-63], [72], [86], [93], [137]
Feuerbach, Ludwig, [232], [408]
Fischer, Wilhelm, [76], [126], [205], [206], [220], [231]
Flying Dutchman, The, [65], [66], [80], [81], [127], [128], [137], [170], [187], [219], [243], [356], [385];
analysis and criticism, [94-120];
produced at Zurich, [208]
Gazette Musicale, La, [70], [75]
Gewandhaus Concerts, [33], [45], [46]
Geyer, Cäcilie, [14], [16], [30], [72]
Geyer, Ludwig, [4], [6-14];
marries Frau Wagner, [8]; his death, [14]
Geyer, goldsmith at Eisleben, [11], [17]
Glasenapps Life of Wagner, [8], [16], [19], [39], [66], [167]
Gluck, [416], [417];
his Iphigenia in Aulis overture revised by Wagner, [209], [219]
Goethe, J.W. von, Die Laune des Verliebten, [35]
Götterdämmerung. See Dusk of the Gods
Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, [238]
Gozzi, La Donna Serpente, [60]
Habeneck, F.A., [69], [70]
Hallé, Sir Charles, [64], [73], [327]
Handel, G.F., [11], [330], [331], [390], [416];
the "Horse and his Rider" chorus, 371, 372;
Israel in Egypt, 377
Hanslick, Eduard, [164]
Happy Evening, A, [213]
Harris, Sir Augustus, [346]
Hauser, Franz, [49]
Heine, Heinrich, [64], [66], [70], [76-78], [94], [126], [205], [206]
Heubner, Otto, [196]
Hochzeit Die, [45], [47]
Hoffmann, E.T.A., [30]
Huldigungsmarsch, [59]
Jensen, Adolf, [71], [418]
Jesus of Nazareth, [196]
Jews, Wagner and the, [49], [50], [57], [217-219]
Joly, Anténor, [69], [74]
Judaism in Music, [31], [50], [134], [217-219]
Kaisermarsch, [59]
Kittl, Friedrich, [45]
Laube, Heinrich, [51], [70]
Lehrs, F. Siegfried, [72], [82], [128]
Leitmotiv, discussion of the, [170], [356], [357]
Lewald, August, [75]
Liebesverbot, Das, [51], [53], [56], [72], [74], [86], [137]
Liszt, Cosima. See Wagner, Cosima
Liszt, Franz, [71], [128], [156], [237], [238], [348], [378], [388];
his first acquaintance with Wagner, [82], [83];
helps him to escape to Zurich, [136], [194];
produces Tannhaüser at Weimar, [164];
sends him to Paris, [194];
his generosity and friendship, [195], [196], [199], [202], [208], [418];
produces Lohengrin, [200], [201], [210]
Lohengrin, [72], [82], [128], [137], [196], [197], [219], [332], [341], [358], [375];
analysis and criticism, [165-192];
the leitmotiv first introduced, [170];
produced by Liszt at Weimar, [200], [201], [210]
Love-feast of the Apostles, The, [38], [126]
Ludwig II, King, [239], [319], [321], [322], [327-329], [395], [409], [410], [413]
Lüttichau, von, [76], [77], [79], [80], [122], [123], [125]
Lytton, Bulwer, Rienzi, [55], [84]
Marschner, Heinrich August, [61], [62], [116], [150], [178], [187];
his Adolph von Nassau, [135]
Mastersingers, The, [109], [111], [179], [279], [319-321], [325], [333], [341], [344], [358], [387], [388], [395], [398];
the story, [280], [281];
the influence of Nuremberg, [282], [283];
the overture, [284-288];
analysis and criticism, [288-318];
produced at Munich, [321]
Mendelssohn, Felix, [33], [49], [57], [58], [73], [126], [364], [372], [407], [418];
Midsummer Night's Dream overture, [61];
Hebrides, [112];
his comment on Tannhäuser, [163]
Meyerbeer, Giacomo, [55], [407], [414], [415], [418];
Robert the Devil, [48];
his treatment of Wagner, [67-71], [73], [74], [80];
his influence on Rienzi, [84-86]
Müller, Alexander, [196]
Müller, Gottlieb, [36]

My Life, [67]
Napoleon I, his flight from Leipzig [4], [5], [31]
Newman, Mr. Ernest, [130], [167], [212], [217]
Nibelung's Ring, The. See Ring
Nicolai School, Leipzig, [27]
Nietzsche, Friedrich, [52], [418]
Overtures: "Polonia," [43];
D minor, [45];
C major, [45];
King Enzio, [45];
Faust, [62], [70], [209];
Columbus, [70], [75]
Parsifal, [16], [138-140], [170], [379];
analysis and criticism, [409-416]
Pätz, Johanna Rosina, [3]
Pecht, Friedrich, [70]
Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, commissions an opera from Wagner, [230], [237]
Philharmonic Society, the, [33], [45], [46], [134];
concerts conducted by Wagner, [220-226]
Pilgrimage to Beethoven, A, [213]
Pillet, Léon, [80]
Planer, Minna, marries Wagner, [53], [54],
See Wagner, Minna.
Poe, Edgar Allen, [330]
Poland, Wagner's sympathy with, [41], [43]
Praeger, Ferdinand, [43], [68], [200], [208], [225], [238]
Raymund, his "magic dramas," [44]
Reinecke, Carl, [33], [45], [46]
Reissiger, Gottlieb, [77], [79], [123-125]
Rhinegold, The, [209], [299], [350], [351], [354], [358], [376], [383], [385], [396];
composition of, [332-334];
analysis and criticism, [337-349]
Rienzi, [55], [61], [62], [68], [69], [73], [74], [81], [82], [117], [127], [128];
completed and sent to Dresden, [75-80];
accepted, [80];
Meyerbeer's influence on, [84], [85];
analysis and criticism, [86-93];
its success, [91], [121];
a failure at Weimar, [237]
Rietz, Julius, portrait of Wagner by, [206]
Ring of the Nibelung, The, [105], [111], [137],[176], [207-209], [226-230], [320], [323], [325], [378];
first cycle given at Bayreuth, [327-329];
summary of its growth, [330-334];
analysis of its main dramatic motive, [334-337];
Schopenhauer's criticism, [342],
see also the separate operas
Ritter, Alexander, [208]
Ritter, Frau, [199], [208]
Roeckel, August, [126], [132], [133], [196]
Rossini, G.A., [55], [407];
William Tell, [47];
Stabat Mater, [213]
Sainton, Prof., [225]
Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg, [72], [82], [128]
Saracen Young Woman, [81], [82]
Schlesinger, Maurice, [69], [70], [75], [82], [121]
Schopenhauer,
his influence on Wagner, [231-233], [236], [265], [408];
his criticism on the Ring, [342], [397]
Schröder-Devrient, Wilhelmine, [50], [76-79], [160]
Schubert's Erl-king, [355]
Schumann, Clara, [45]
Schumann, Robert, [51];
on Tannhäuser, [163], [164];
on Lohengrin, [165], [177]
Scribe, Eugène, [74], [85], [97]
Semper, Gottfried, [325]
Shaw, Mr. Bernard, [20]
Shedlock, Mr. J.S., [220]
Siegfried, [200-202], [227-230], [325], [332], [414];
analysis and criticism, [378-399]
Siegfried's Death, [227-230], [332], [334], [383]
Siegfried Idyll, [59], [60]

Spohr, Ludwig, [294], [350];
produces the Flying Dutchman at Cassel, [127];
on Tannhäuser, [149], [272]
Spontini, Gasparo, [62], [116], [150], [178], [187];
Wagner's essay on, [219]
Strauss, Johann, [44]
Sulzer, Jakob, [209]
Symphony in C major, [41], [42], [44], [45], [56-59], [72], [73], [415]
Swinburne, A.C., [415], [418]
Tannhäuser, [30], [60], [72], [82], [92], [128], [137-140], [219], [341], [343], [358],

[376], [384], [385];
analysis and criticism, [140-164];
production and reception, [147], [148];
opinions on, [163], [164];
produced by Liszt at Weimar, [164]
Tausig, Karl, [71], [418]
Thomä, Jeannette, [23]
Tichatschek, [78], [147]
Tieck, Ludwig, Tannhäuser, [30]
Tomaschek, Wenzel, [45]
"Triebschen," [323], [395]
Tristan, [105], [106], [109], [111], [137], [187], [333], [341], [343], [344], [353], [365], [375], [377], [395], [398], [399], [414];
rehearsed at Vienna and abandoned, [231];
folly of commentators on, [234-236], [266];
intended for Rio, [230], [237];
completed, [230], [238];
produced at Munich (1865), [237], [239], [321];
origin of, [237], [238];
preliminaries of the story, [239-241];
analysis and criticism, [241-277]
Uhlig, Theodor, [126], [145], [195], [200], [202], [205], [219], [226], [231], [283], [329], [383]
Vaez, Gustave, [203]
Valkyrie, The, [209], [226], [230], [294], [332], [333], [341], [343], [344], [383], [385], [388], [389], [398];
analysis and criticism, [350-377]
Verdi's Falstaff, [311]
Victoria, Queen, and Wagner, [222], [223]
Villa Wahnfried, [326]
Wagner, Adolph, [2], [3], [10], [13], [15], [16], [17], [22], [23], [28], [29], [30], [32], [41]
Wagner, Albert, [7], [8], [10], [16], [22], [24], [48]
Wagner, Carl Friedrich, father of Richard, [2-5];
his death, [5], [8]
Wagner, Clara, [10], [16], [22], [24]
Wagner, Cosima, second wife of Richard, [60], [323-325], [419]
Wagner, Friederike, [23]
Wagner, Gottlob Friedrich, [3]
Wagner, Johanna, daughter of Albert, [160]
Wagner, Johanna Rosina, mother of Richard, [3], [5], [6], [8], [14],[1]5, [16], [24], [28]
Wagner, Julius, [10], [11], [16]
Wagner, Louise, [7], [10], [24], [30], [31], [32]
Wagner, Minna, first wife of Richard, [53], [54], [65], [121], [122], [126], [127], [128], [133], [168], [169], [195], [207], [323-325]
Wagner, Ottilie, [16], [30]
Wagner, Richard (for Works see under separate headings),
birth and ancestry, [1-3];
absence of precocity, [11] [12];
schooldays at Dresden, [17-24];
early training in theatrical matters, [18-19];
his love of the theatre, [21];
Weber's influence, [25];
at school at Leipzig, [26], [40];
his debt to his uncle, [28-30], [41];
unable to play the piano, [31], [37], [73];
"converted" by Beethoven, [33-35];
early compositions, [35], [36], [45];
studies under Weinlig, [36-38];
his arrangements of Beethoven symphonies, [37];
helped by his family [38], [44], [51];
his egotism, [39];
matriculates, [40];
his revolutionary fervour, [40], [41], [43];
visits Vienna, [44];
at Prague, [45];
works performed at the Gewandhaus concerts, [45];
chorus-master at Würzburg, [48];
returns to Leipzig, [49];
his industry, [52], [53], [209], [298];
his marriage, [53], [54];
obtains conductorships at Magdeburg, [53], Königsberg, and Riga, [54];
sails to London, [55], [64-67];
meets Meyerbeer at Boulogne, [67-69];
disappointments in Paris, [69-75];
goes to Dresden, [82], [83];
first acquaintance with Liszt, [82], [83];
Kapellmeister at Dresden, [122-126], [133-135];
his relations with Minna, [126], [127], [133], [168-169], [323], [324];
his political views, [128-131];
his share in the May insurrection of 1849, [128], [131], [132], [136];
his Germanism, [135], [149], [150], [214];
flees to Zurich, [136], [193], [194];
goes to Paris, [194], [195];
returns to Zurich, [196];
friendship of Liszt, [194], [196], [199];
his demands on his friends, [198-200];
his ill-health, [200];
his scheme for producing Siegfried, [200-202], [227-229];
third visit to Paris, [203-207];
life in Zurich, [207-210];
his prose-writings, [210];
speech at the re-interment of Weber, [214];
his theory on the fusion of the arts, [214-216];
unable to comprehend opposition, [217];
directions for performing his operas, [219];
visit to London, [220-226];
settles in Vienna, [230], [320];
his extravagance, [231];
influence of Schopenhauer, [231-233], [236], [265];
disappointments and failures, [278], [319], [320];
the chief Wagnerite, [287];
invited to Munich by King Ludwig, [319], [321];
ambitious schemes, [321], [322];
obliged to leave Munich, [322], [323];
retires to "Triebschen," [323], [395];
elopes with Cosima von Bülow, [323], [324];
marries Cosima, [325];
Bayreuth, [325-329];
his worship of brute force, [378], [379];
completion of the Ring, [400], [407];
outward success, [407];
his death, [415];
his character and achievement, [416-421]
Wagner, Rosalie, [7], [10], [15], [16], [22], [24], [32], [39]
Wagner, Siegfried, [71]
Wagner, Sophie (Wendt), [23]
Wagnerites, the, [287]
Walther von der Vogelweide, [294]
Weber, Carl Maria von, [13], [55], [350], [372], [390];
his influence on Wagner, [13], [25], [34], [35], [41], [61], [92], [150], [153], [177], [185], [284];
his re-interment at Dresden, [135], [213] [214];
Euryanthe, [13], [38], [305];
Der Freischütz, [13], [25]
Weber, Dionys, [45], [46]
Weinlig, Theodor, [36-38], [57]
Wendt, Sophie, marries Adolph Wagner, [23]
Wesendoncks, the, [199], [208]
Wieck, Clara, see Schumann, Clara
Wigand, Otto, [205]
Wiland der Schmied, [203], [206], [207]
Wilhelmj, August, [328]
Wille, Dr. and Frau, [208]
Wüst, Henriette, [45]
Wylde, Dr. Henry, [225]
Young Siegfried, [227-229]
Zigesar, von, [201]