At the close of this concert he met with applause, hearty from a section, but I cannot say it was universal. He had won many friends and had made many enemies, but on the whole, Wagner was satisfied. That evening our last festive gathering was very jovial. Wagner expressed himself with all the enthusiasm his warm, impulsive nature was capable of; he was deeply sensible of the value of his stay here. He had almost retired from the world, but now Paris and Germany would again be brought to hear of him. He regretted much the spiteful criticism that had fallen upon me, and which I was likely to meet with still more. We remained with Wagner until about three in the morning, helping him to prepare for his departure from London that 26th June.
“NOT A MUSICIAN AT ALL.”
I have refrained from making any quotations about myself. Those who are interested enough to know how a pioneer is treated by his contemporaries will discover many silly, impotent reflections upon me in the musical journals of the period. I will content myself with reproducing a few extracts about Richard Wagner and his music. The principal papers in London, those that directed public opinion in musical matters, were the “Musical World,” “Times,” “Athenæum,” and “Sunday Times.” Four days after Wagner had left, the following sad specimens appeared. The “Musical World,” 30th June, 1855:—
We hold that Herr Richard Wagner is not a musician at all ... this excommunication of pure melody, this utter contempt of time and rhythmic definition, so notorious in Herr Wagner’s compositions (we were about to say Herr Wagner’s music), is also one of the most important points of his system, as developed at great length in the book of “Oper und Drama.” ... It is clear to us that Herr Wagner wants to upset both opera and drama. Let him then avow it without all this mystification of words—this tortuous and sophisticated systematizing.... He is just now cleansing the Augean stables of the musical drama, and meanwhile, with a fierce iconoclasm, is knocking down imaginary images, and levelling temples that are but the creations of his own brain. When he has done this to his own satisfaction, he will have to grope disconsolate among the ruins of his contrivance, like Marius on the crumbled walls of Carthage, and in a brown study begin to reflect, “What next?” For he, Wagner, can build up nothing himself. He can destroy, but not reconstruct. He can kill, but not give life.... What do we find there in the shape of Wagnerian “Art Drama.” So far as music is concerned, nothing better than chaos—“absolute” chaos. The symmetry of form—ignored or else abandoned; the consistency of keys and their relations—overthrown, contemned, demolished; the charm of rhythmic measure, the whole art of phrase and cadence, the true basis of harmony and the indispensable government of modulation, cast away for a reckless, wild, extravagant, and demagogic cacophony, the symbol of profligate libertinage!... Look at “Lohengrin”—that “best piece”; hearken to “Lohengrin”—that “best piece.” Your answer is there written and sung. Cast that book upon the waters; it tastes bitter, as the little volume to the prophet. It is poison—rank poison....
This man, this Wagner, this author of “Tannhäuser,” of “Lohengrin,” and so many other hideous things—and above all, the overture to “Der Fliegende Holländer,” the most hideous and detestable of the whole—this preacher of the “future,” was born to feed spiders with flies, not to make happy the heart of man with beautiful melody and harmony. What is music to him, or he to music?... Who are the men that go about as his apostles? Men like Liszt—the apostle of Weimar and Professor Praeger, madmen, enemies of music to the knife, who, not born for music, and conscious of their impotence, revenge themselves by endeavouring to annihilate it.... Wagner’s theories are impious. No words can be strong enough to condemn them; no arraignment before the judgment-seat of truth too stern and summary; no verdict of condemnation too sweeping and severe.... Not to compare things earthly with things heavenly, has Mendelssohn lived among us in vain?... All we can make out of “Lohengrin,” by the flaming torch of truth, is an incoherent mass of rubbish, with no more real pretension to be called music than the jangling and clashing of gongs and other uneuphonious instruments.... Wagner, on the contrary, who, though a mythical dramatist, is no musician and very little poet.... He cannot write music himself, and for that reason arraigns it. His contempt for Mendelssohn is simply ludicrous; and we would grant him forty years to produce one melodious phrase like any of those so profusely scattered about in the operas of Rossini, Weber, Auber, and Meyerbeer.... Wagner is as unable to invent genuine tune as pure harmony, and he knows it. Hence “the books.” ... Richard Wagner and his followers—sham prophets.... Listen to their wily eloquence, and you find yourself in the coils of rattle-snakes.... There is as much difference between “Guillaume Tell” and “Lohengrin” as between the sun and ashes.
From the “Sunday Times,” May, 1855:—
GEMS OF CRITICISM.
Music is not his special birthgift—is not for him an articulate language or a beautiful form of expression.... Richard Wagner is a desperate charlatan, endowed with worldly skill and vigorous purpose enough to persuade a gaping crowd that the nauseous compound he manufactures has some precious inner virtue, that they must live and ponder yet ere they perceive.... Anything more rambling, incoherent, unmasterly, cannot well be conceived. In composition it would be a scandal to compare him with the men of reputation this country possesses. Scarcely the most ordinary ballad writer but would shame him in the creation of melody, and no English harmonist of more than one year’s growth could be found sufficiently without ears and education to pen such vile things.
The “Athenæum,” upon the fifth concert says:—
The overture to “Tannhäuser” is one of the most curious pieces of patchwork ever passed off by self-delusion for a complete and significant creation.