CHAPTER XXVI
MORE ABOUT RICHARD WAGNER
Time was when a fame-craving young man could earn a reputation for originality by merely going to the market-place and loudly proclaiming his disbelief in a deity. It would seem that modern critics of Richard Wagner, busily engaged in placing the life of the composer under their microscopes, are seeking the laurels of the ambitious chap aforesaid.
Never has the music of Wagner been more popular than now; his name on the opera billboards is bound to crowd a house. And never, paradoxical as it may sound, has there been such a critical hue and cry over his works and personality. The publication of his autobiography has much to do with this renewal of interest. There is some praise, much abuse, to be found in the newly published books on the subject. European critics are building up little islands of theory, coral-like, some with fantastic lagoons, others founded on stern truth, and many doomed to be washed away over-night. Nevertheless, the true Richard Wagner is beginning to emerge from the haze of Nibelheim behind which he contrived to hide his real self.
Wagner the gigantic comedian; Wagner the egotist; Wagner the victim of a tragic love, Wagner tone-poet, mock philosopher, and a wonderful apparition in the world of art till success overtook him; then Wagner become bored, with no more worlds to conquer, deserted by his best friends—whom he had alienated—without the solace of the men he had most loved, the men who had helped him over the thorny path of his life—Liszt, Nietzsche, Von Bülow, Otto Wesendonk, and how many others, even King Ludwig II, whom he had treated with characteristic ingratitude! No, Richard Wagner during the sterile years, so called, from 1866 to 1883, was not a contented man, despite his union with Cosima von Bülow-Liszt and the foundation of a home and family at Baireuth.
I
However, there are exceptions. One is the book of Otto Bournot entitled Ludwig Geyer, the Stepfather of Richard Wagner. I wrote about it in 1913 for the New York Times. In this slender volume of only seventy-two pages the author sifts all the evidence in the Geyer-Wagner question, and he has delved into archives, into the newspapers of Geyer's days, and has had access to hitherto untouched material. It must be admitted that his conclusions are not to be lightly denied. August Böttiger's Necrology has until recently been the chief source of facts in the career of Geyer, but Wagner's Autobiography—which in spots Bournot corrects—and the life of Wagner by Mary Burrell, not to mention other books, have furnished Bournot with new weapons.
The Geyers as far back as 1700 were simple pious folk, the first of the family being a certain Benjamin Geyer, who about 1700 was a trombone-player and organist. Indeed, the chief occupation of many Geyers was in some way or other connected with the Evangelical Church. Ludwig Heinrich Christian Geyer was a portraitist of no mean merit, an actor of considerable power—his Franz Moor was a favourite rôle with the public—a dramatist of fair ability (he wrote a tragedy, among others, named The Slaughter of the Innocents), and also a verse-maker. His acquaintance with Weber stimulated his interest in music; Weber discovered his voice, and he sang in opera. Truly a versatile man who displayed in miniature all the qualities of Wagner. The latter was too young at the time of Geyer's death, September, 1821, to have profited much by the precepts of his stepfather, but his example certainly did prove stimulating to the imagination of the budding poet and composer. Geyer married Johanna Wagner-Bertz (Mary Burrell was the first to give the correct spelling of her maiden name), the widow of the police functionary Wagner (to whose memory Richard pays such cynical homage in his obituary), August 14, 1814. She had about two hundred and sixty-one thalern, and eight children. A ninth came later in the person of Cäcile, who afterward married a member of the Avenarius family. Cäcile, or Cicely, was a prime favourite with Richard.
Seven years passed, and again Frau Geyer found herself a widow, with nine children and little money. How the family all tumbled up in the world, owing much to the courage, wit, vivacity, and unshaken will-power of their mother, may be found in the autobiography. Bournot admits that Geyer and his wife may have carried to the grave certain secrets. Richard Wagner until he was nine years old was known as Richard Geyer, and on page thirteen of his book our author prints the following significant sentence: "The possibility of Wagner's descent from Geyer contains in itself nothing detrimental to our judgment of the art-work of Baireuth."