Richard Wagner, Composer of Operas

by John F. Runciman

In the introduction I announced my intention of dealing with Wagner's prose-writings only in so far as they reveal anything of value concerning the artist. His theories have been explained and elucidated to death; hundreds of books have been written about them; never was a man so much explained; never did a man suffer more from the explanations. The day when Wagner began, not to theorise, but to publish his theorisings, was an unlucky one for him. He began with the intention, and certainly in the hope, of making himself clear to himself; as I have already remarked, he wanted to find what it was he wanted to be at and how to get there; and if, having achieved his end, he had put all his pages of reasoning in the fire, he would have done himself no ill-service. But he needed money, and in the 'forties and 'fifties there were, strangely enough, numbers of people who would pay money for such stuff. Anything dull, "philosophic" in tone, anything full of long words, longer sentences, and meanings too profound to be understood by mortal—anything of this sort was sure of a paying audience, if small, in "philosophic" Germany, no matter how fallacious were the premises, how wrong the history, how perverse the inferences. Hundreds of people must have risen from reading Wagner's essays feeling themselves very deeply intellectual. In his first Paris days Wagner had at once flown to his prose-scribbling pen as an instrument to procure him bread; now, in Zurich, while writing and arguing mainly to free his own soul, he had an eye on the publisher and the public, for he needed bread as much as ever he had needed it; and he needed other things besides: all the luxuries he had grown accustomed to and could have done without ten years earlier. He persuaded himself of the validity of another reason why he should unload his prose-wares on the world. He had written much at times in various papers with a wholehearted wish to purify and advance art. Now he determined to be himself John the Baptist walking, in defiance of the laws of nature, miles in front of himself in the wilderness, crying out that he who was to redeem German music and the German folk was coming. He actually persuaded himself, I say, that by reading these lucubrations German audiences would prepare themselves to understand his works—as yet in process of incubation—at a first hearing! Fools we are, and slight; but surely no man was ever a bigger fool than our poor Richard when he thought that a great work of art could possibly or should be understood at the first glance, and that the feat would be easy if only one had read some theories of art beforehand. The contrary holds true: if you have seen and felt Wagner's operas, you may understand what he is talking about in his articles and pamphlets; but to read these first is merely to bewilder yourself utterly when you go to see the operas. I will dismiss, therefore, much of the prose with very brief notice, and some of it without any notice at all. It may be remarked that of all the commentaries I have waded through (and been well-nigh choked with), on the prose, there is, to my mind, only one worth reading, Mr. Ernest Newman's valuable Study of Wagner.

The French stories and articles are as good as anything Wagner wrote. He had not yet fallen into the villainous German philosophic style, or was restrained by the consciousness that he must write in a lingo that could be translated into French. These pieces were written for bread and bread alone in the terrible years of starvation, 1840-41. An End [of a German Musician] in Paris is full of autobiography, and intensely interesting on that account; it is interesting, too, because of its display of the naïve arrogance which leads Germans to believe the whole world was made for Germans. This German musician, for instance, arrives in Paris, where scores of French musicians—Berlioz amongst them—are roughing it, if not actually starving in the streets; yet he expects the French to find him employment in preference to their own countrymen, their own flesh and blood. One can overlook that, however; and the story is pathetic and beautifully written. A Pilgrimage to Beethoven is, in its way, a masterpiece. It also is full of self-revelation; some of it conscious, some unconscious. A Happy Evening is another charming thing; the skit on how Rossini's Stabat Mater came to be composed is amusing, and is cruel with a cruelty that was justified. The other articles are of no particular value, save, perhaps, that on the overture; they are of an ephemeral character and were evidently concocted when the writer was fully aware he was writing for French readers, and if he hurt French feelings or vanity, a French editor wouldn't print, wouldn't publish, wouldn't pay.

The next production of any importance is his autobiographical sketch, and of this nothing need be said. So much of it as seemed to me needful has been utilized in this book. The account of the bringing home of Weber's remains to Dresden from London has a perennial interest. We know how Wagner idolized his mighty predecessor, and can imagine the ardour with which he threw himself into this work. Seemingly insuperable obstacles, most of them placed in the way through the native stupidity and perversity of German and English officialdom, had to be overridden, and Wagner triumphed. The speech delivered on the occasion of the re-interment is characteristic—exceptionally so even for Wagner of this period, 1844—in its assertion of the Germanity of Weber and Weber's music; and his deep joy that at last the German musician's bones should repose in German earth. This topic of Germanism haunted Wagner for years, and I may have a little to say about it later. The account of the 1846 rendering of the Choral Symphony is the most masterly exposition of the right and the wrong way of playing orchestral music to be found in any language. Wagner's method was, after all, very simple: the conductor had to understand and feel the music aright, and then pains, pains, never-ending pains must be expended on coaxing, persuading, bullying or in some other way getting the band to reproduce precisely what he felt.

We now reach the mass of theatrical and philosophical writings on opera, drama, and, indeed, art generally. I need do nothing more than give the fundamental basis of them all, the one point which he argues in a thousand ways through them all. Wagner would have it, then, that just about the time he came into the world, or a little later, all—nothing less than all—the arts had gone as far as they could separately, each alone. Art in ancient days, before there were arts, was a fusion of music, dancing, poetry, statuary and painting—the old drama. That each form of art might develop its full possibilities, they separated and each went its own way. Wagner was mainly concerned with music and with drama (poetic drama). Music reached its apogee with Beethoven. Regardless of the fact that after Beethoven had introduced words in the Choral Symphony, he went on composing music of unequalled depth and splendour without words, Wagner insisted that he felt the impossibility of doing more without words. We hear, said Wagner, all these sounds going on, this stream of melody, and it is very delightful to the ear; but unfortunately the highly organized brain of modern man steps in and insists on knowing what is the matter. What is the meaning of it all? asks the inquisitive intellect. Words are necessary to satisfy the intellect. On the other hand, poetic drama, in its endeavour to express pure feeling, could go no further than Goethe and Schiller without becoming mere gush—a sort of music that was not music. Wherefore music must be added. But this combination of music and poetry was insufficient; we must have the thing in visible form before the eye—the acted music-drama. Then the actors must understand statuesque poses and get into them; they must understand painting and contrive to form themselves, together with the scenic background and accessories, into pictures. So once again we should have the perfect fusion of all the arts, and live happily ever after.

To me there is almost more lunacy in this than in Wagner's political tenets. It is a pack of fallacies. Here is my answer—

(i) As to an Art which was a perfect fusion of all the arts, it was never done and never at any time attempted.

(ii) The finest music yet created has no words to it: the meaning is perfectly clear without words.

(iii) The highest poetic drama needs no music. Without verging on gush, it affords expression to the deepest and most intense feeling.

(iv) Fine poetry has been written in the dramatic form, though it will not bear acting and was not intended to be acted. But we may cheerfully concede that genuine drama ought to be acted.

(v) The function of scenery is to suggest atmosphere and nothing more. It cannot be a picture; it can only be an imitation of a picture.