His brothers and sisters were distinguished singers or actors; thus love of dramatic art was common to all the family. His father died and his mother married an actor, Ludwig Geyer. The stepfather became very fond of young Richard and intended to make a painter of him, but upon hearing him play some of his sister's piano pieces Geyer wondered if it were possible that he had the gift of music!
Wagner was a poor scholar during his school days, the only thing he especially enjoyed being literature, mainly Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Æschylus; and about the time the dramatic philosophies of these men filled his attention, he wrote a great drama in which there were forty-two characters, every one of whom was killed or died in the course of the play, so that he was compelled to finish his performance with the spectres of his original characters. Later he wished to put music to that remarkable drama, and he did so, much to the distraction of his family. It was actually performed. He thus described his composition:
This was the culmination of my absurdities. What I did, above all things wrong, was a roll fortissimo upon the kettle-drums, which returned regularly every four bars throughout the composition. The surprise which the public experienced changed first to unconcealed ill-humour, and then into laughter, which greatly mortified me.
It was under Theodor Weinlig's teaching that he finally developed a fixed purpose of composition and something like regular study.
When he first wished to marry, he could not for lack of money to provide a home for his wife. In time this difficulty was overcome, and later he started to London with his wife and his dog, which was named Robber. The terrors of that voyage impressed him so much that he was inspired with the idea for "The Flying Dutchman," one of his great operas. He was told the legend of "The Flying Dutchman" by the sailors; but long before he was able to write that splendid opera he was compelled to write music for the variety stage in order to feed his wife and himself. He wrote articles for musical periodicals, and did a great deal of what is known as "hack" work before his great genius found opportunity. One manager liked the dramatic idea of "The Flying Dutchman" so well that he was willing to buy it if Wagner would let him get some one who knew how to write music, to set it.
After the production of "Rienzi" in Dresden, his difficulties were never again so serious, and soon he became Hofkapellmeister (musical director at court), which gave him an income, leaving him free to write operas as he chose.
When "Rienzi" was produced, a great musician said: "This is a man of genius; but he has already done more than he can! Listen to me, and give up dramatic composition!" But he continued to "do more than he could."
When he wrote "Tannhäuser" he was reduced almost to despair, for nobody liked it. Schumann said of it: "It is the empty and unpleasing music of an amateur." But Spohr wrote: "The opera contains certain new and fine things, which at first I did not like, but to which I became accustomed on repeated hearings."
At last, this composer, whose inspirations had come entirely from historical subjects, found his mythological beginnings in the Scandinavian Eddas; and in a poem of the "Nibelung" he found the germ of "Siegfried."