Wagner met with many reverses in the early portion of his career, but he also, on occasions, enjoyed exceptionally good fortune. Though caged, as he said, like an angry, irritable lion in Zurich, longing to burst his prison door, yet he met everywhere with troops of friends. The personnel of the opera house united to do him honour, and individually he was treated with hearty good will. One of his ardent admirers and intimate friends was Madame Wesendonck, the wife of a wealthy retired merchant who had come, with her husband, to take up her abode in Zurich. Wesendonck was a musical amateur, but not so gifted as his wife, who was enthusiastic for Wagner. Wesendonck had purchased some land overlooking the beautiful lake, and was building himself a house there. For that purpose he had brought architects and upholsterers from Paris. While the building was in course of erection, a very pretty chalêt adjoining the property became untenanted, which it was stated was about to be used as an asylum. Such information was not pleasant to Wesendonck, and at the suggestion and wish of his wife he purchased it and rented it to Wagner for a nominal sum. This really charming villa was an immense delight to Wagner. Hitherto, living in the town, he had grown fractious under the infliction of noises and cries inseparable from the bustle of civic life, and the “Retreat,” as he called the chalêt, afforded him a pleasure, and procured that quiet comfort invaluable to him at that period of thought.
At the house of his friends there were frequent gatherings of musicians from Zurich and neighbouring towns, at which, it seems, he often delivered himself of lengthy harangues on his view of art, to find that one only of those who applauded him comprehended the heart of the thing he spoke of. He said it was with him, just as it had been with the unfortunate Hegel, the philosopher, who with facetious cynicism remarked, that “nobody understands me, except one disciple, and he misunderstands me.” Perhaps the fault was partly his own. His fervid perorations were ambitious, and he spoke above the heads of his hearers. They saw in him only the composer of “Tannhäuser” and “Lohengrin,” whereas he felt within himself the embryo of the colossal tetralogy; and how could they comprehend, then, a man who addressed his inward clamourings rather than his auditors. When I say the embryo of the tetralogy, I include the musical sketch of certain of the leading ideas, for the whole of the Nibelung poem was completed, and a few copies printed in 1853 for his intimate friends, of one copy of which I am the fortunate possessor.
CONDUCTING THE OPERA.
On recalling the occasion, when in 1855 Wagner gave me a bound copy of his “Nibelung lied,” one incident stands out prominently. On studying the poem I had been struck with the keen dramatic insight displayed by Wagner throughout his treatment of the old Norse sagas: the laying out of the ground plan, the sequence of the story, the exclusion of extraneous and subsidiary matter, the many powerful and striking tableaux presented, the crisp dialogue and scholarly retention of the alliterative verse, the merit of these features being increased by the high literary standard attained throughout the work. Now when I congratulated Wagner on the literary skill he had shown, he grew peevish; and indeed he resented at all times praise of his poetic ability, seeming to think that in some measure it was a denial of his musical power.
Some portion of the Nibelung poem Wagner read to his small circle of intimates in London. At that time Richard Wagner was forty-two years of age, and his histrionic powers, at all times great, were perhaps then at their best. With his head well thrown back, he declaimed his poem with a majestic earnestness that cast a spell over all. But of his histrionic and mimetic powers I shall have something to say later on.
At Zurich he interested himself largely in the opera house. He sought to control the local taste, but the directors were governed with one thought and that, that only such works as bore the hall-mark of Paris success could succeed in Zurich. Accepting the state of things, he conducted performances of “Robert le Diable,” “Les Huguenots,” “Guillaume Tell,” Halévy’s “La Juive,” Donizetti’s “La Fille du Regiment,” and other works of similar type. He even conducted the rehearsals, attending and exerting himself at these for the benefit, however, of Hans von Bülow, who had become his pupil. I know he was deeply attached to Bülow; he spoke of him with enthusiasm, praised his wonderful reading at sight, and was much impressed by his general culture. There is no doubt that Bülow merited the high opinion Wagner held of him, as subsequent events have proved.
On Richard Wagner’s fortieth birthday, 22 May, 1853, a grand Wagner festival was held at Zurich, musicians from neighbouring towns being invited. All the principal theatres responded with the exception of Munich, which through its conductor, Lachner, refused to permit orchestral members of the theatre to attend, giving as the flimsy pretext that journeymen, i.e. orchestral performers, could not be granted passports. Lachner as a composer has found his level, and there it is wise to leave him. I will only note the curious fate which later made Wagner supreme at Munich and, further, how odd it was that when Wagner was conducting the Philharmonic concerts in London, Mr. Anderson informed him that it was the wish of the directors he should produce a prize symphony of Lachner. The proposition startled Wagner and perhaps, somewhat contemptuously, he exclaimed, “What! have I come all this way to conduct a prize symphony by Lachner? No! no!” and he would not either, not because the composition was superscribed “Lachner,” but because of the really wretched Kapellmeister music it was.
The Wagner festival at Zurich was very gratifying to him. For a whole week he was fêted, and at the close received an ovation that took all his self-control. He addressed the audience in faltering accents, and on bidding his friends farewell he broke down entirely—that they should return to the fatherland and he an exile. Such a wail of anguish went out from his heart as only those who have known the sensitive character of the man can understand.
LOVE FOR HIS DOG.
From the time Wagner went into exile his health generally gave way. Constant brooding over his enforced isolation from his countrymen induced melancholia, and in its train a malignant attack of his old enemy, dyspepsia. His wife, fortunately, was of a homely nature with a buoyancy of spirits, the value of which cannot be over-estimated, nor, must I add, was Wagner insensible to her worth. But with these terrible fits of dyspepsia which prostrated him for days, there also came, as one ill upon another, attacks of erysipelas. When he had the strength, he fought against them, but more often he succumbed. He sought relief at hydropathic establishments, for which form of prevention and cure he retained a fancy for many years. The bracing air of the mountains, too, he sought as a means of removing the ills under which he suffered. He was fond, too, of taking “Peps” with him in these rambles. “Peps,” it will be remembered, was the dog who, he used to assert, helped him to compose “Tannhäuser.” He was passionately fond of his dog, referred to him in his letters with affection, and ascribed to him feelings and a perceptiveness only possible from a man loving the animal kingdom as he did. All who remember the last sad incidents connected with the interment at Wahnfried will think of the faithful canine creature (a successor of “Peps”), who came to lie on the grave, and could not be induced to quit the spot where his master was buried. As it was there, so it was at Zurich. He loved “Peps” with a human love. Taking his constitutional on the Zurich mountains, “Peps” his companion, reflecting upon his treatment by his fatherland, he would declaim against imaginary enemies, gesticulate, and vent his irascible excitement in loud speeches, when “Peps,” “the human Peps,” as he called him, with the sympathy of the intelligent dumb creation, would rush forward, bark and snap loudly as if aiding Wagner in destroying his enemies, and then return, plainly asking for friendly recognition for the demolition. Such an expression of sympathy delighted Wagner, and he was very pleased to rehearse it all to his friends, calling in “Peps” to go through the performance, and I must say the dog seemed to understand and appreciate it all. Numerous anecdotes of this kind he could tell, and he generally capped them with such a remark as, “‘Peps’ has more sense than your wooden contrapuntists,” pointing his speech by naming the authors of some concocted Kappelmeister music who were specially objectionable to him.