An orchestral society in Vienna gave Wolf's Penthesilea a trial reading; and it was rehearsed, in disregard of all good taste, amid shouts of laughter. When it was finished, the conductor said: "Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for having allowed this piece to be played to the end; but I wanted to know what manner of man it is that dares to write such things about the master, Brahms."
Wolf got a little respite from his miseries by going to stay a few weeks in his own country with his brother-in-law, Strasser, an inspector of taxes.[186] He took with him his books, his poets, and began to set them to music.
He was now twenty-seven years old, and had as yet published nothing. The years of 1887 and 1888 were the most critical ones of his life. In 1887 he lost his father whom he loved so much, and that loss, like so many of his other misfortunes, gave fresh impulse to his energies. The same year, a generous friend called Eckstein published his first collection of Lieder. Wolf up to that time had been smothered, but this publication stirred the life in him, and was the means of unloosing his genius. Settled at Perchtoldsdorf, near Vienna, in February, 1888, in absolute peace, he wrote in three months fifty-three Lieder to the words of Eduard Mörike, the pastor-poet of Swabia, who died in 1875, and who, misunderstood and laughed at during his lifetime, is now covered with honour, and universally popular in Germany. Wolf composed his songs in a state of exalted joy and almost fright at the sudden discovery of his creative power.
In a letter to Dr. Heinrich Werner, he says:
"It is now seven o'clock in the evening, and I am so happy—oh, happier than the happiest of kings. Another new Lied! If you could hear what is going on in my heart!... the devil would carry you away with pleasure!...
"Another two new Lieder! There is one that sounds so horribly strange that it frightens me. There is nothing like it in existence. Heaven help the unfortunate people who will one day hear it!...
"If you could only hear the last Lied I have just composed you would only have one desire left—to die.... Your happy, happy Wolf."
He had hardly finished the Mörike-Lieder when he began a series of Lieder on poems of Goethe. In three months (December, 1888, to February, 1889) he had written all the Goethe-Liederbuch—fifty-one Lieder, some of which are, like Prometheus, big dramatic scenes.
The same year, while still at Perchtoldsdorf, after having published a volume of Eichendorff Lieder, he became absorbed in a new cycle—the Spanisches-Liederbuch, on Spanish poems translated by Heyse. He wrote these forty-four songs in the same ecstasy of gladness: