Wagner’s labours ceased at Venice on the 13th February, 1883. What he has accomplished is beyond the power of any man to destroy. Were Wagner himself to return to us, he could not undo what he has done. In future years, aye, in future centuries, men will come from all parts of the civilized globe to worship at Bayreuth; that is the Mecca of musicians. There is the shrine of the founder of a new religion in art, pure and ennobling to all who have ears to hear and human hearts that can be touched. To use an old metaphor, but accurate and appropriate when applied to Wagner, his work is as the boundless ocean; many will sail their craft upon it, from the majestic ship of tragedy to the winsome bark of comic opera, and then shall they not have navigated all the seas.
HIS EARNESTNESS OF PURPOSE.
The key of Wagner’s success is his truth. Look at his work from whichever side we may, that is it which ever finds its way into all hearts. While the musicians were, and some still are, engaged in the dissecting-room, with a bar here and bar there, with the people, the laymen, he is universally popular. And what is the cause? His truth, his earnestness. At bottom, it is this sincerity which has made him great. Speaking of the laymen, I am forcibly reminded of perhaps the most musically gifted and most devoted of all, one Julius Cyriax, a German merchant of the city of London, whose friendship Wagner contracted here in 1877, and with whom Wagner was in intimate correspondence down to the last.
And if this be the judgment passed upon his work, what shall be said of the character of the man? Without fear, I say earnestness of purpose guided him here too; that he was impatient of incompetence when it sought to pose as the true in art was, and is, natural in a great genius. Autocratic in bearing, and the intimate of a king, though democratic in music and a professed lover of the demos in his earlier career, this is but a seeming contradiction. Democratic describes his music; no domineering there of one voice; and democratic, too, in the last days, when he refused imperial distinctions, preferring to remain one of the people. An opponent in art, he was to be dreaded. Why? Because he fought for his cause with such a whole-heartedness that he drove, as Napoleon used to say, “fear into the enemy’s camp.” His memory, like that of all great men, was extremely retentive. He was a hard worker, as his eleven published volumes of literary matter and fourteen music-dramas abundantly testify. To accomplish such work was only possible to a man of method, and he was methodical and careful withal in what he did. Look at his handwriting and music notation, small but clear, neat and clean. He was not free from blemish or prejudice,—who is?—but
Take him all in all,
We ne’er shall look upon his like again.
Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston.
THE STORY OF MUSIC.
BY W. J. HENDERSON.