Wagner as Man & Artist

by Ernest Newman

I have given this episode in such detail because, as Ferdinand von Hornstein caustically remarks, it enables us to test the value of Wagner's claim for the "unadorned veracity" of his memoirs. He is plainly guilty of serious sins both of omission and of commission in his account of his dealings with Hornstein. What guarantee have we that he was any more scrupulous in his record of other matters in which his reputation or his amour propre were concerned? Let us check him in one or two other cases.

How unreliable the autobiography is, with what caution we have to accept Wagner's opinions of men in the absence of confirmatory testimony, may be seen from a survey of his dealings with Franz Lachner.[19]

The first reference to Lachner in Mein Leben is under the date 1842. Wagner had written two articles in Paris à propos of Halévy's opera, La Reine de Chypre.[20] In the article published in the Dresden Abendzeitung, he says, "I made particularly merry over a mischance that had befallen Kapellmeister Lachner." Küstner, the Munich director, had commissioned a libretto for Lachner from St. Georges, of Paris (the librettist of La Reine de Chypre). After the production of the latter opera, it turned out that this book and that of the Lachner opera were virtually identical. In reply to Küstner's angry protests, St. Georges "expressed his astonishment that the former should have imagined that for the paltry price offered in the German commission he would supply a text intended only for the German stage. As I had already formed my own opinion as to this French opera-text-business, and nothing in the world would have induced me to set to music even the most effective piece of Scribe or St. Georges, I was greatly delighted at this occurrence, and in the best of spirits I let myself go on the subject for the benefit of the readers of the Abendzeitung, who, it is to be hoped, did not include my future 'friend' Lachner."[21] Evidently he did not love Lachner.

The next reference to him in Mein Leben is in 1855. Wagner had returned to Zürich after his London concerts. There he learned that Dingelstedt, at that time Intendant of the Munich Court Theatre, wished to give Tannhäuser there, "although," says Wagner, "thanks to Lachner's influence," the place was not particularly well disposed towards him.[22]

The third reference to Lachner is in 1858, just before Wagner's departure from the "Asyl"; there was a "national vocal festival" at Zürich that seems to have irritated Wagner a good deal, depressed as he was at that time by the Minna-Mathilde catastrophe. Lachner was taking part in the festival. Wagner gave him the cold shoulder, and refused to return his call.[23]

Now let us see, from documents of the time, how matters really stood as regards Lachner. In 1854 Wagner was hoping to get Tannhäuser produced at Munich, where, as we have seen, Dingelstedt was Intendant and Lachner Kapellmeister. Lachner was a conductor and composer of the old school. Wagner had a poor opinion of him, and apparently thought him incompetent to do justice to Tannhäuser. "I don't at all know," he writes to Liszt on May 2, 1854,[24] "how to get Lachner out of the way. He is an utter ass and knave." In the summer of 1852 there had been some talk of giving Tannhäuser at Munich. Lachner thought it advisable first to familiarise the public with the style of the work by giving the overture at a concert on 1st November. The success was doubtful. Wagner had previously sent Lachner a copy of the explanatory programme of the overture that he had written in the preceding March for the Zürich orchestra. Perhaps this was thought too long for the Munich programme; in any case a much shorter "explanation" was given, that aroused Wagner's ire.[25] With his customary blind suspicion of people he did not like, he assumed that the concert production of the overture was a deliberate attempt to prejudice the public against the opera. This suspicion, as Sebastian Röckl says,[26] finds no support in the external facts. A fortnight after the Munich performance of the overture, Tannhäuser was given at Wiesbaden with great success, and soon became one of the favourite pieces in the repertory of the theatre there. Dingelstedt at once sent his theatre inspector, Wilhelm Schmitt, to Zürich to arrange with Wagner for a production at Munich. Unexpected difficulties arose, however; an outcry was raised against the proposed performance of a work by "the Red Republican, Richard Wagner"; and there was opposition on the part of the Bavarian Minister, von der Pforten. By the spring of 1854 all obstacles had been removed, and, as we have already seen, Dingelstedt now arranged with Wagner for the production, although the composer thought Munich "not particularly well-disposed towards him, thanks to Lachner's influence." Having heard that the singer destined for the part of Tannhäuser was incompetent, Wagner asked Dr. Härtinger, of the Munich Opera, to undertake it. Härtinger came to Zürich in May to study the rôle with the composer, and seems to have deepened Wagner's mistrust of and contempt for Lachner. The performance did not take place, as was intended, in the summer of 1854, but, as Röckl says, the cause of the postponement was not Lachner but the cholera.

Later on, Dingelstedt found himself unable to fulfil his promises to Wagner with regard to the honorarium. "Thereupon," says Röckl, "Lachner, fearing that he might be looked upon as answerable for the production having fallen through a second time, wrote to his friend Kapellmeister G. Schmidt, of Frankfort, asking him to arrange with the composer for more favourable conditions."[27] In the end this was done. "And now," says Röckl,[28] "Lachner, although in his innermost conscience an opponent of the 'musician of the future,' did all he could in order to produce the work as excellently as was possible to him. Rehearsal after rehearsal was held, though the musicians were always moaning over the extraordinary efforts they were called upon to make"—as is shown by reference to a Munich comic paper of the time. As the tenor was unmistakably incompetent, a singer who was already familiar with the work was engaged from another opera house. Tannhäuser was given on 12th August 1855 with extraordinary success. Lachner was called on the stage, whence he thanked the audience in Wagner's name. He communicated the evening's result to the composer, and received a letter, dated 17th August 1855, warmly thanking him for the trouble he had taken over the work and the sympathy he felt with it, and for the friendliness of his feelings towards Wagner; and he was asked to thank the singers and orchestra in the composer's name. "Finally accept the assurance of my great gratification at having been brought by this circumstance closer to yourself. I sincerely hope for a continuance of this approach to an understanding that is necessary for the artist and possible to him alone."[29]

The success of Tannhäuser emboldened Dingelstedt to venture upon Lohengrin for the winter of 1856, but various events conspired against the production. In February 1857 Dingelstedt resigned the Intendantship. Lohengrin was put in rehearsal by his successor, von Frays, in November 1857, and produced on 28th February 1858, under Lachner. It was well received on the whole, but the opera found more antagonists than Tannhäuser had done.

From 21st July to 2nd August there was held at Zürich the vocal festival at which, as we have seen, Wagner refused to receive Lachner. What Röckl rightly calls the ambiguous words of Wagner in this connection in Mein Leben are explained by the following letter from the composer to Lachner, that is published for the first time in Röckl's book: