At the back of Schlesinger’s music shop was a room where artists casually met for conversation. Wagner, owing to the “musical arrangements” for the firm and being writer for Schlesinger’s “Gazette Musicale,” was a frequent visitor. He met many known men and noted their speech. It all tended one way. The French were light-hearted, persiflage was a principal subject of their composition, and for such a public only light dainties were to be provided. They wanted the semblance and not the reality. Amusement first and truth after. His own romances, penned, as he hoped, in a fittingly light manner, were not light enough and as a consequence were not pleasing enough.
WAGNER AND BERLIOZ.
With Berlioz his relations were less happy. The two men met often, but were mutually antagonistic. They admired each other always. Both were serious and earnest, but their friendship was never intimate. In after-life the same strained bearing towards each other was maintained. From close observation of the two men under my roof, at the same table, and under circumstances when they were open heart with each other, I should say however that the constraint arose purely from their antagonistic individualities. Berlioz was reserved, self-possessed, and dignified. His clear, transparent delivery was as the rhythmic cadence of a fountain. Wagner was boisterous, effusive, and his words leaped forth as the rushing of a mountain torrent. Wagner undoubtedly in Paris learned much from Berlioz. The new and refined orchestration taught, or perhaps I should rather say indicated, to Wagner what could be done with the orchestra. Indeed, Wagner has said that the instrumentation of Berlioz influenced him, but disagrees with the use to which the orchestra was put. To Berlioz it was the end: to Wagner, a means. Berlioz expended his ideas in special colouristic effects, whilst Wagner’s pre-eminent desire was truthfulness of situation, the orchestra serving as the medium for the delineation of his ideas. Wagner paid Berlioz a tribute in Paris by declaring that he was distinguished from his Parisian colleagues, that he did not compose for money, and then in the same breath sarcastically asserts that “he lacks all sense of beauty.” This I think unfair, nor do I consider it as representing what Wagner really wished to convey. Berlioz was undoubtedly possessed of ideality, his intentions were noble and earnest, but in their execution he fell short of his conceptions. However, he towers above all French composers for earnestness of purpose and strength of intellect.
Although Wagner often and strongly disagreed with Heine’s judgment in matters of art, yet with one, the poet’s racy notice dated April, 1840, published in “Lutèce,” a miscellaneous collection of letters upon artistic and social life in Paris, he felt that the pungent criticism was not altogether wide of the truth. Wagner kept the notice, and when he and Berlioz were in this country together in 1855, he gave it to me, remarking that though grotesque it was in the main faithful. As it is very interesting I reproduce it:—
We will begin to-day by Berlioz, whose first concert has served as the début of the musical season, as the overture, so to speak. His productions, more or less new, which have been performed, found a just tribute of applause, and even the most indolent present were aroused by the force of his genius, which revels in creations of the “grand master.” There is a flapping of wings, but it is not of an ordinary bird, it is a colossal nightingale, a skylark of the grandeur of the eagle, as it existed, it is said, in the primitive world. Yes, the music of Berlioz, in general, has for me something primitive, if not antediluvian, and it makes me think of extinct gigantic beasts, of mammoths, of fabulous worlds, and of fabulous sins; indeed, of impossibilities piled one upon another. His magic accents recall to us Babylon, the suspended gardens of Semiramis, the marvels of Nineveh, the bold edifices of Mizraim, such as are seen in the pictures of the Englishman, Martin. Indeed, if we seek for analogous productions in the realms of the painter’s art, we find a perfect resemblance with the elective Berlioz and the eccentric Englishman. The same outrageous sentiment of the prodigious, of the excessive, of material immensity. With one brilliant effect of light and darkness, with the other thundery instrumentation: with one little melody, with the other little colour, in both a perfect absence of beauty and of naïveté. Their works are neither antique nor romantic, they recall to us neither the Greek pagan, nor the mediæval catholic, but seem to lift us to the highest point of Assyrico-Babylonio-Egyptian architecture, and bear us back to those poems in stone which trace in the pyramids the passion of humanity, the eternal mystery of the world.
A NATIONAL DRAMA.
Of the other notabilities in the art world with whom Richard Wagner came into contact in Paris, the chief were Halévy, Vieuxtemps, Scribe, and Kietz. For Halévy he had great admiration. His music was honest. It had a national flavour in it. It was of the French, French. There was a visible effort to reflect in tones the mind and sentiment of a people which was highly meritorious. He was the legitimate descendant of Auber, the founder of a really national French opera. If conventionality proved too strong for Auber, Halévy made less effort to throw off the thraldom. The latter was wholly in the hands of opera directors, singers, ballet masters, etc. Had he been a strong man, an artist of determination, governed more with the noble desire to elevate his glorious art than of pleasing popular favourites, he might have done great things. Opera comique represented truly the national taste of the Gauls. Auber and Halévy were the men who, assisted by Boildieu, could have laid a sure foundation, but conventionality proved too powerful for all three.
It is not difficult to understand why Wagner so constantly made a “national music-drama” the subject of discourse. In his judgment a drama reflecting the culture and life of a people was the noblest teacher of men. It appeals direct to the heart and understanding. It is the mirror of themselves, purified, idealized, and as such cannot fail to be the most powerful and effective moral instructor. “National drama” was an undying subject with Wagner. His constant effort was the founding of a national art for his own compatriots. It was the ambition of his life, so that after the first and so grandly successful festival performance of the “Nibelungen” in the Bayreuth theatre, 1876, his address to the spectators began, “My children, you have here a really German art.” No wonder, then, that he spoke in Paris with such earnestness of the absence of a true national opera, and of the destruction of such as there promised to be through the attention lavished on Rossini and Donizetti. Halévy’s “La Juive,” a grand opera, Wagner considered a particularly praiseworthy work, and thought it promised great things. So much did he consider it worthy of notice, that when later on he became conductor of the Dresden Opera House, he devoted great attention to its production and adequate rendering.
Vieuxtemps, Wagner met occasionally, but was on less intimate terms with him. He admired him as a virtuoso on the violin; he had a grand style, but in his conversation and writings he was without any distinguishing or attractive ability, adhering so steadfastly to the rigid classical form that there was little sympathy between them. In Scribe he admired the skill and esprit of his stage works. He saw that the Frenchman most accurately gauged the taste of his public and was dexterous in the manipulation of his matter. Scribe was not then at anything like the zenith of his power, yet was possessed of a finish and delicacy in writing that Wagner admired. Lastly, Kietz, a painter from Germany, of a certain merit, was perhaps one of his most intimate friends. He painted a portrait of Richard Wagner which is now regarded as very excellent. Full of fun, his jocularity harmonized completely with Wagner’s own humour, and, united with Louis, the three were ever at their most comfortable and happy ease.