Musical Studies

by Ernest Newman

Hueffer's translation of it as follows:—

"Believe me, I love Berlioz, although he keeps apart from me in his distrust and obstinacy; he does not know me, but I know him. If I have expectations of any one it is of Berlioz, but not in the direction in which he has arrived at the absurdities of his Faust. If he proceeds further in that direction he must become perfectly ridiculous. If ever a musician wanted the poet it is Berlioz, and his misfortune is that he always prepares this poet for himself, according to his musical whim, arbitrarily handling now Shakespeare, now Goethe. He wants a poet who would completely penetrate him," &c.

Mr. Ellis, in his "Life" (vol. iii. pp. 336, 337), deals with the passage thus:—

"Believe me,—I love Berlioz, however mistrustfully and obstinately he holds aloof from me; he does not know me,—but I know him. If there is one man I expect something of, it is Berlioz.... But he needs a poet who shall fill him through and through," &c.

Mr. Ellis, it will be observed, is not using Hueffer's translation; and as the passage does not occur in Glasenapp's "Life of Wagner" at all (which puts out of the question any translation from a mutilated version), it is clear that Mr. Ellis has translated direct from the German original. When he tells us that he had no design of concealment in omitting the phrases about the "Faust Symphony" we are, of course, bound to believe him. But it is unfortunate that in his sudden and most unusual passion for economy of space he should stop just short of the word that is so awkward for Wagner. And one would rather he had not given a factitious air of sequence to the clauses of his quotation by removing the "but" from its proper position (after "If there is one man I expect something of, it is Berlioz"), endowing it with a capital letter, and making it the commencement of a new sentence. The English reader will see what has happened by looking at Hueffer's version: everything from "not in the direction" to "now Goethe" has been omitted, and the "but" carried down from its proper place after "it is of Berlioz," and improperly made to begin another sentence. The German reader will see that the "nicht aber" (not however) of the sentence "nicht aber auf dem Wege, auf dem er bis zu den Geschmacklosigkeiten seiner Faust-symphonie gelangte" has been shelved, and a fresh "Aber" called from the void and made to preface the sentence "Er gebraucht den Dichter," &c.

Let us now examine the Benvenuto Cellini case. The passage in Wagner's letters to Liszt of 13th April and 8th September 1852 run thus (Hueffer's translation):—

"What is this you have heard about me in connection with your performance of Cellini? You seem to suppose that I am hostile to it. Of this error I want you to get rid.... In the consequences which, as I am told, you expect from the performance of Cellini I cannot believe, that is all."—"B. (Bülow) has shewn quite correctly where the failure of Cellini lies, viz., in the poem and in the unnatural position in which the musician was forcibly placed by being expected to disguise by purely musical intentions a want which the poet alone could have made good."

Unable to give a jot of evidence that Wagner could possibly have known Cellini, Mr. Ellis guesses that he was condemning the work not on the score of the music, but on the basis of "a libretto or second-hand report." Even if this were so, it would not justify Wagner's remarks. What would he have said of any one who ran down Tristan without knowing any more of it than "a libretto or a second-hand report," and on the strength of this threw cold water on a theatrical manager's scheme for performing it? But there is no reason to believe that Wagner had even so much as a libretto. Liszt's tone to Wagner throughout the correspondence is that of a man fully acquainted with Cellini at first hand to a man who is only repeating current tittle-tattle about it. The reason Wagner gave for objecting to the revival of the opera was that he had heard that Berlioz was "recasting" it, and that it would become him much better to write a new work than to touch-up an old one. On the 7th October 1852 Liszt, after agreeing that "the weakness of Berlioz's mode of working" comes from his poem, goes on to say, "but you have been erroneously led to believe that Berlioz is writing his Cellini. This is not the case; the question at issue is simply as to a very considerable cut—nearly a whole tableau—which I have proposed to Berlioz, and which he has approved of.... If it interests you I will send you the new libretto together with the old one, and I think you will approve of the change...." Is it not clear that Liszt assumes as a matter of fact Wagner's complete ignorance of the work? In an earlier letter, dated 23rd August, Liszt tells him that in November he is expecting Berlioz, "whose Cellini (with a considerable cut) must not be shelved, for in spite of all the stupid things that have been set going about it, 'Cellini' is and remains a remarkable and highly estimable work. I am sure you would like many things in it." The latter of the two passages I have here italicised shows once more that Liszt speaks to Wagner as to a man who does not know the opera; and the former passage indicates that there was a good deal of stupid and malevolent gossip afloat concerning it among people who also were ignorant of it. Moreover, on the 31st October 1853, Liszt again assumes Wagner's ignorance: "For this work I retain my great predilection, which you will not think uncalled for when you know it better." Mr. Ellis, indeed, practically admits that all Wagner had to go upon was a report of Bülow's in the Neue Zeitschrift of April 1852. (See, above, Wagner's letter to Liszt of 8th September 1852: "B. (i.e. Bülow) has shewn quite correctly where the failure of 'Cellini' lies, viz., in the poem," &c. It will be noticed that the letter in which Wagner first sniffs at Cellini is dated the 13th of this same month of April.) What would Mr. Ellis say of any anti-Wagnerian who should criticise Tristan not even from the libretto, but from the second-hand idea of it derived from some one else's article on it?

Mr. Ellis's plea that Wagner was talking of Cellini not publicly, but in a private letter, is irrelevant. A public article would have been read by a few curious people and forgotten; in throwing cold water on Liszt's revival of the opera, Wagner was in danger of doing Berlioz a serious injury. For about fourteen years after its first failure Cellini had not had a performance anywhere. There was only one man in Europe who combined the qualifications of knowing the opera, admiring it, being able to conduct it, and having at his own disposal an opera house where the work could be given. That man was Liszt; upon him, and him alone, it depended whether Berlioz should have a chance of showing that Cellini had been unjustly condemned in 1838. Had Liszt been weak enough to have been privately influenced by Wagner, Berlioz would have undoubtedly suffered far more than he could have done from a public article.