At this period he received an offer to visit America. He mentions it in one of his letters to Praeger and also in other correspondence, especially that with Liszt. He had been told while in London that he would receive this invitation, and he wrote to Liszt: "While here I chew a beggar's crust, I hear from Boston that 'Wagner nights' are given there. Everyone persuades me to come over; they are occupying themselves with me with increasing interest; I might make much money there by concert performances, etc. 'Make much money!' Heavens! I don't want to make money if I can go the way shown me by my longing." Indeed Wagner thought of money only as the means which would enable him to carry out his plans for the production of the Nibelung dramas. He was sorely tempted for a time by the possibility of earning enough in the United States to do as he pleased, but he finally wrote to Liszt, with more than usual penetration, that he was not the kind of man to be successful with a money-making speculation, and that he had decided not to be turned aside from his artistic purposes. And thus ended the attempt to induce Wagner to visit a country, which in its state at that time would have been quite as uncongenial to him as London.
[CHAPTER X]
A SECOND END IN PARIS
“People treat this unfortunate Wagner as a scamp, an impostor, an idiot.”—Hector Berlioz
The composer now set to work right gladly on his "Walküre." He was eager to finish it and begin the writing of what was still called "Jung Siegfried." For a time he was impeded by the illness of his wife and afterwards his own, but on October 3, 1855, he was able to send to Liszt the first two acts of "Die Walküre." Liszt and his beloved Countess Wittgenstein went over them together and both wrote to Wagner of the marvellous effect which this music made upon them. The last act was finished in April, 1856, and was also despatched to Liszt. In October of this year Liszt, the Countess Wittgenstein, and her daughter went to Zurich to visit Wagner. Of course the score of "Die Walküre" occupied their attention, and Liszt, Wagner, and the wife of Kapellmeister Heim gave a rehearsal of the work at the Hotel Bauer before a number of personal friends. The rehearsal moved the hearers greatly and, as Mr. Finck notes, they "would have been no doubt greatly surprised had any one foretold that twenty years would elapse before this drama would have its first adequate performance."
Together, too, Liszt and Wagner gave an orchestral concert at St. Gall, on November 3, 1856, when Wagner conducted the "Eroica" symphony and Liszt his "Orphée" and "Les Préludes." But perhaps the greatest concert of the Zurich series was that given by Wagner in May, 1853, when he assembled an orchestra of 72 men from different parts of Germany, and gave selections from "Lohengrin" as they were never given before and have probably not often been given since. Of his visit Liszt wrote in several of his numerous letters. He said to his friend Dr. Adolf Stern, of Dresden, where the name of Wagner was certainly familiar:
"In spite of my illness I am spending glorious days with Wagner, and am satiating myself with his 'Nibelungen' world, of which our business musicians and chaff-threshing critics have as yet no suspicion. It is to be hoped that this tremendous work may succeed in being performed in the year 1859, and I, on my side, will not neglect anything to forward this performance as soon as possible—a performance which certainly implies many difficulties and exertions. Wagner requires for this purpose a special theatre built for himself, and a not ordinary acting and orchestral staff. It goes without saying that the work can only appear before the world under his own conducting; and if, as is much to be wished, this should take place in Germany, his pardon must be obtained before everything."