“If, like a breath, the gods disappear,
Without a pilot the world I leave.
To the world I will give now my holiest wisdom:
Not goods, nor gold, nor god-like pomp,
Not house, nor lands, nor lordly state,
Not wicked plottings of crafty men,
Not base deceits of cunning law,—
But, blest in joy and sorrow let only love exist.”
Such was the “Ring of the Nibelungen” which Wagner created out of the vast collection of German legends and not merely out of the distinctively national Nibelungen epic. The completion of “Siegfried’s death,” now the “Goetterdaemmerung,” led to Siegfried’s “Schwertschmiedung,” (Sword-wielding); “Drachenkampf,” (Dragon-struggle) and “Brautgewinnung,” (Bride-winning) and further investigation of the subject led him in the “Walkuere” to picture Brunhilde’s guilt and punishment, and finally in the “Rheingold” a psychological foundation for the whole. The work took this mental shape as early as 1851. Two years later, the poem, for which he had chosen the alliterative style of the Edda as the only suitable form, was given to his friends, and in 1863 to the world. From that time his sole ambition was to bring this first all-comprehensive German national drama into life by having it performed as a distinct festival-play far from the everyday theatre. Nearly twenty years elapsed between this and the realization of the idea. But why take note of time when great and grand things are to be accomplished?
The following decade brought with it many changes to Wagner, without however at any time diverting his mind from the purpose of his life, which constantly became clearer. Every opportunity was improved to direct attention and approach nearer to it. The death of Spontini gave occasion to a memorial tribute, closing with the words: “Let us bow reverently before the grave of the creator of the ‘Vestalin,’ ‘Cortez,’ and ‘Olympia.’” He sought with operas and concerts to develop the limited musical resources of Zurich, where he had taken up his permanent residence, because he had always met with a most cordial personal reception there. In this he was aided by scholars who came to him from Germany, most prominent among whom was Hans von Buelow, who had been in Weimar with Liszt, and had become enthusiastic over “Lohengrin.” Wagner overcame his own repugnance to the operas of Meyerbeer and his associates, which he hoped his “Lohengrin” was destined to obliterate, and directed their performance. To do the same for his own works, the requisite strength was lacking. “Some of us are old, others are young. Let the older one think not of himself, but let him love the younger for the sake of the inheritance which he places in his heart to cherish anew, for the day will come when the same shall be proclaimed for the welfare of humanity the world over,” are the closing words of his “Opera and Drama.” He found consolation and compensation in performing the symphonies of Beethoven, for two of which he prepared a special program; but as he desired to have the real motives of his work understood by the hospitable little city, he wrote a pamphlet, “A Theatre in Zurich,” wherein he advocated the establishment and maintenance of a theatre by the citizens themselves, as the Greeks had done. It was another evidence of his firm conviction that the stage had a high mission in the culture of our time. He even lectured on the subject of dramatic music, and recited the poem of “Siegfried’s Death,” which made a profound impression.
Very soon thereafter appeared the remarkable “Letter to Liszt in Regard to the Goethe Memorial,” wherein he confidently asserted that painter as well as sculptor would decline to compete with the poet acting in harmony with the musician, and that they would with reverential awe bow before an art-work in comparison with which their own productions would seem but lifeless fragments. For such an art-work there should therefore be prepared a suitable place rather than continue contributions to the support of the individual arts, which the former would invigorate and elevate anew. We see to-day that the plastic arts also strike out in new paths. Liszt and Wagner have inspired their epoch and the sculptor Zumbusch in Vienna has given us their busts. In a similar strain he challenged musical criticism and thereupon began with the gradual spread of “Tannhaeuser,” and soon also of “Lohengrin,” those seemingly endless disputes which, however, at the same time increased the strength of some younger men, among whom were Uhlig, Pohl, Cornelius, Raff and Ambros. These practical performances, as little as they presented an artistic ensemble, yet tended to arouse and shape talents that Wagner could avail himself of later for his own higher purposes. Among them were Milde and his wife, Ander, Schnorr, Formes, Niemann and Beck. Wagner’s niece Johanna, was already familiar with his method from her Dresden experience. He endeavored in a pamphlet discussing the way to perform “Tannhaeuser” to rescue it from banishment and familiarize the artists with its merits but they remained deaf or hostile. He became absorbed the more in his Nibelungen-poem, leaving to his good genius his deliverance from external isolation. And yet the latter became a source of pleasure when, in the manner of von Eschenbach’s Parcival, who also presented the sorrows and deeds of the mythical sun-hero, familiar to him since 1845, he undertook to portray the forest-solitude in which his young Siegfried grew up and gained all the miraculous power of nature, above all, that inner confidence which banishes fear from the human breast.
A brighter future seemed to open when, notwithstanding the doubts of his friends of the ultimate success of his “monstrous undertaking,” the knowledge of which began to spread, the German artists generally accepted his invitation to spend a Wagner week in Zurich, and parts of his masterly works were performed with such effect that “the amiable maestro stood buried in flowers.” For the overture to the “Flying Dutchman,” as well as for the prelude to “Lohengrin,” he composed an explanatory introduction.
In the autumn of the same year he was in Italy, and, lying sleepless in a hotel at La Speccia, he found for the first time those plastic “nature-motives” which in the Nibelungen-trilogy with constantly increasing individuality are made the exponents of the passions and the characters which give expression to them. He immediately returned to his dreary, involuntary home to proceed with the completion of his colossal work, which was to engage his attention for many years. A visit from Liszt, in October, led to a profounder understanding of Beethoven’s last sonatas, so that their language was fully identified with his own. “Rheingold” and the “Walkuere” were soon finished.
His fame meanwhile grew steadily. He received an invitation for the concerts of the Philharmonic society in London, for which Beethoven had written the Ninth Symphony and designed the Tenth, which, according to his Sketches, was to show what all great poetic minds longed for—the union of the tragic spirit of the Greeks with the religious of the modern world. It was the same high goal that Wagner touched in the “Nibelungenring” and attained in “Parcival.” The English at that time were even less disposed to appreciate his efforts than the Germans, and the Jewish spirit of their church inclined them to look with suspicion upon the “Jew Persecutor.” He also found at first some difficulties in the rushing style of execution, which was a tradition from Mendelssohn, who was idolized in England. His untiring energy, however, prevailed everywhere where art was at stake, and the last of the eight concerts, in which Mozart’s C Major Symphony and Beethoven’s Eighth were given, and the “Tannhaeuser Overture,” was encored, brought him, in a storm of applause, compensation for the unworthy calumniations of the press, notably, of the Times. Notwithstanding all this, he could not be induced to re-visit London till twenty years later. The invitations from America he declined at once.
His art-susceptibility at that time was very keen and active. He remarked to a German admirer, in the autumn of 1856, that two new subjects occupied his mind during the Nibelungen-work, which he could with difficulty repress. The one was “Tristan,” with which Gottfried’s brilliant epic had already made him familiar in composing the “Walkuere,” and the other, probably, was “Parcival,” whose Good Friday enchantment had impressed him many years before. In October Liszt visited him again, and heard the “Walkuere” on the piano. A musical journal in Leipzig was emboldened to speak of a forthcoming event that would agitate the whole musical world. With what joyous cheerfulness he composed “Siegfried,” and his Anvil-song is shown in a letter about Liszt’s symphonic poems, which appeared in the following spring. Accident and irresistible impulse, however, led immediately to the completion of “Tristan and Isolde.”
The seeming hopelessness of success in his endeavors at times discouraged him. “When I thus laid down one score after the other, never again to take them up, I seemed to myself like a sleep-walker who is unconscious of his actions,” he states. And yet he had to seek the “daylight” of the German opera, from which he had fled with his Nibelungen, if he would remain familiar with the active life of his art. He proposed therefore to arrange the much simpler Tristan material within the compass of ordinary stage representation. Curiously enough he received just then an offer to compose an opera for the excellent Italian troupe in Rio Janeiro. He thought, however, of Strasbourg, and it was only through Edward Devrient, who visited him in the summer of 1857, that he destined the work for Carlsruhe where Grand Duke Frederick and his wife, Princess Louisa of Prussia, displayed a growing interest in art. It was also the home of an excellent singer, Ludwig Schnorr from Carolsfeld, of whom Tichatschek had already informed him and who was to be the first to assume the role of Tristan.
“Tristan” belongs, like “Siegfried” and “Parcival,” to the circle of the sun-heroes of the primeval myth. He also is forced to use deception and is compelled to deliver his own bride to his friend, then to discern his danger and voluntarily disappear. Thus Wagner remained within his poetic sphere. But while in “Siegfried” the Nibelungen-myth in its historic relations had to be maintained and only the sudden destruction of the hero through the vengeance of the woman who sacrifices herself with him, could be used in “Tristan,” on the other hand the main subject lies in the torture of love. The two lovers become conscious of their mutual love through the drinking of the love-potion that dooms them to death. It is a death preferred to life without each other. What in “Siegfried” is but a moment of decisive vehemence appears here in psychological action of endless variety, wherein Wagner has woven the whole tragic nature of our existence, which he had learned from the great philosopher Schopenhauer, to esteem as a “blessing.” There was however in this similarity, and at the same time difference, a peculiar charm which invested the work. It is supplementary to the Nibelungen-material which in reality embraces human life in all its relations.