Richard Wagner His Life and His Dramas / A Biographical Study of the Man and an Explanation of His Work

by W. J. Henderson

I.—The Sources of the Poems

The gigantic tetralogy of Wagner must be studied as a single opus, for such indeed it is. A poem in four cantos, a dramatic sequence after the manner of the Greeks, it is the story of a single action, a single crime and its tragic atonement. What that story is we shall presently see. How Wagner conceived and created his new and wonderful version of the Norse mythology, the Volsunga Saga, and the "Nibelungen Lied," is what must first occupy our attention. Wagner's first mention of this work is found in a letter to Liszt, written in June, 1849, when he announces his intention of setting to music his "latest German drama, the 'Death of Siegfried.'" This drama embodied that part of the story now told in "Götterdämmerung," and in the composition of it Wagner found that the necessary explanations of the incidents leading up to the story quickly became too long and complex. He decided that he must write a prefatory drama on the story of the young Siegfried, and in doing this he found himself involved again in explanatory difficulties. Thus he finally decided to make a trilogy with a prologue. In a long letter of Nov. 20, 1851, to Liszt he explains how the completed form of "Der Ring" came into existence.

The books of "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walküre" were finished in the first week of November, 1852. He then set about reconstructing the other two, already written, but now in need of extensive alterations. The story of the completion of the poem in its new form and the beginning of the music has already been told in the biographical part of this work. It is necessary only to recapitulate here that the text was finished in 1853. The music of "Rheingold" was begun in the autumn of 1853 at Spezzia, and finished in January, 1854. He wrote to Liszt on Jan. 14: "I went to this music with so much faith, so much joy; and with a true fury of despair I continued, and have at last finished it." The music of "Die Walküre" was begun in June, 1854, and finished late in the same year. The instrumentation was commenced with the opening of the following year. Then came the visit to London, where the score of the first act was completed in April. The score of the first two acts was sent to Liszt on Oct. 3. Wagner having been delayed in the work by many distractions and by mental depression, it was not till the ensuing year that the score was wholly written.

The music of "Siegfried" was begun in 1857, and the first act was finished in April of that year. The second act was begun, and then came the interruption caused by Wagner's eagerness to return to active touch with the stage, his pressing need of money, and his fear that he would not live to complete his gigantic undertaking. This second act, therefore, was not completed till June 21, 1865, at Munich, "Tristan und Isolde" having been written in the meantime. The third act was finished early in 1869. The music of "Götterdämmerung" was begun at Lucerne in 1870, and completed at Bayreuth in November, 1874. The point at which the work on this tetralogy was suspended for that on "Tristan und Isolde" is designated in a letter to Liszt, dated May 8, 1857. Wagner says: "I have led my young Siegfried to a beautiful forest solitude, and there have left him under a linden tree, and taken leave of him with heartfelt tears. He will be better off there than elsewhere."

Just how Wagner came to take up the subject of Siegfried's death is not known. A recent German writer in one of the Munich newspapers has asserted that the suggestion came from Minna, his first wife. This assertion is in line with the belief of many that Minna was more sinned against than sinning, and that Wagner's complaints of her inability to understand him were intended to divert suspicion from the real causes of the troubles between them. It seems hardly likely, however, that a woman of Minna's simple character would have conceived the availability of the Siegfried legend for Wagner's ideal music drama. The fact that Siegfried had for centuries been the popular mythical hero of the German people and that his deeds and personality had constituted most of the materials of one of the great mediæval German epics, the "Nibelungen Lied," seems sufficient to have attracted the attention of the master to the subject. He himself says in his "Communication" that even while he was at work on "Lohengrin" he was debating which of two subjects, "Friedrich Barbarossa" or "Siegfried," he should take up next. He adds:

"Once again and for the last time did myth and history stand before me with opposing claims; this while as good as forcing me to decide whether it was a musical drama or a spoken play that I had to write."

It was with the decision to utilise only mythical subjects for his serious dramas that he concluded to lay aside "Barbarossa" and work upon "The Death of Siegfried." This poem in its original form is included in the collected writings of Wagner, and is interesting as being the first attempt of Wagner to embody the legendary tragedy in a drama. A reading of it will show clearly why he was obliged to write three other dramas to lead up to this one and make its meaning comprehensible. In working out the plan as a whole he selected and utilised with his customary skill the salient points of the Norse and German forms of the story, and he found more suitable material in the sagas than in the German epic. And out of the Northern mythology, so beautifully stored in the sagas, he evolved those ethical features which raise "Der Ring des Nibelungen" to a position beside the great Greek tragedies of antiquity.

We must study these dramas chiefly by tracing their sources and showing how Wagner utilised his materials. He himself wrote an article entitled "The Nibelungen Myth as Material for a Drama," and in it may be found the germinal form of the entire story as it first took cognisable existence in his mind. In its completed shape, however, it differs from this embryonic outline in many particulars.

First, then, the age of the legends upon which these dramas are founded is not so great as might appear from their mythological nature, and that will explain some of their curiosities. We are prone, when watching the actions of Wagner's gods, to think that these stories date from the antique age of fable, but the truth is that they came into existence in the modern age of fable, the early centuries of the Christian era. Furthermore, although Wagner has used chiefly the Norse forms of the materials, the great Siegfried legend was originally the production of the German people. The Scandinavian bards obtained some of their ideas from Germany, and thus came about the strange mingling of Norse mythology and Teutonic fable.