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

by W. J. Henderson

These remarks of Liszt admirably sum up the situation in regard to the "Nibelung" dramas. It was long after the date named when they saw the light of publicity, and in the meantime many events of significance were to take place. Not the least of these was to be the temporary abandonment of the beloved Siegfried subject for another work. This was the great "Tristan und Isolde," which many of Wagner's admirers regard as his most inspired creation. This work, like the "Flying Dutchman," the first in which the real Wagner was disclosed, was the fruit of discouragement. Although, through the liberality of Liszt and a few others, including the devoted Mathilde Wesendonck (who is still—August, 1900—living in Berlin), the Wagners were able to live in comfort, and Minna could afford to make Richard a present of silk dressing-gowns and even silk trousers for house wear on his return from London, the composer saw no way to convince the world that he was not a mere bundle of eccentricities, but a master with living embodiments of the true theory of the lyric drama. He was sore at heart, weary of writing a majestic four-night drama which might never see the light of the stage.

In 1854, while he was at work on "Die Walküre," the stories of "Tristan" and "Parsifal" had come to his attention, and the plan of the former work was sketched. In the winter of 1854-55 he wrote to Liszt: "As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated. I have in my head 'Tristan und Isolde,' the simplest, but most full-blooded musical conception. With the black flag which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die." In the midst of a letter of January, 1855, Liszt interrupted the discussion of other matters to exclaim: "Stop! One thing I forgot to write to you: Your 'Tristan' is a splendid idea. It may become a glorious work. Do not abandon it." In the summer of 1856 Wagner wrote again: "I have again two splendid subjects which I must execute. 'Tristan und Isolde' you know, and after that the 'Victory,' the most sacred, the most perfect salvation."

This "Victory"[23] was a Buddhistic subject, which Wagner had in mind for a short time, but which he abandoned for the superior attractions of "Parsifal." The leading theme, that of the renunciation of sexual love by the hero, and the assent to it by the heroine, who had at first passionately loved the unmoved hero, bore a close resemblance to the personal purity of Parsifal and to the negation of the desire to live, pictured in "Tristan" as the highest issue of real love. These thoughts appealed to Wagner, whose mind at this time was deeply under the influence of the philosophy of Schopenhauer. The Buddhistic quietism which prevailed in Schopenhauer's philosophy seemed to offer a solution to the life-problems confronting Wagner, and it was natural that he should seek to embody the emotional essence of this philosophy in his music dramas. In 1854 he sent a copy of the poem of the Nibelung dramas to Schopenhauer as a mark of his esteem.

With all these thoughts active in his mind, the poem of Gottfried von Strassburg on "Tristan und Isolde" offered him an opportunity to embody his ideas in what he called the "simplest and most full-blooded musical conception." He was eager to begin a work which might possibly be produced, and all at once came the needed final incentive. Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, had become interested in the Wagner movement, and he sent an agent to the composer to ask him if he would write an opera for the Italian company in Rio Janeiro. He might name his own terms, provided he would promise to go to Brazil and conduct the work. Wagner was at first touched by this munificent offer, but he soon saw the hopelessness of trying to get Italian opera singers to perform such a music drama as he was about to write. But the Emperor's offer shaped his resolution, and in the latter part of June, 1857, he wrote to Liszt: "I have determined finally to give up my headstrong design of completing the 'Nibelungen.' 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." And later, in the same letter, he told Liszt that he had decided to write "Tristan und Isolde" and have it performed at Strassburg with Niemann and Mme. Meyer.

On the last day of 1857 the first act of "Tristan" was finished. Wagner now made a trip to Paris, on money borrowed from Liszt, in the hope of being able to arrange a performance of "Rienzi," but nothing came of the journey, except that a waiter in the house in which he lived stole a large part of the advance royalties which Breitkopf and Härtel had paid him on the completion of the first act of the new work. He returned to Zurich and there Liszt sent to him Carl Tausig, the pianist, who became one of his firmest friends and supporters, and who subsequently made the piano arrangement of "Die Meistersinger." Tausig, with all his genius, was only a boy of seventeen at this time, and he could not satisfy the craving of Wagner for sympathetic intellectual companionship. Unfortunately the composer had in previous years sought this in the society of Mrs. Wesendonck, before mentioned, and aroused the jealousy of poor Minna. This jealousy led in 1856 to an open outbreak, for Wagner wrote to Praeger, who was on his way back to London after a visit to the composer, "The devil is loose. I shall leave Zurich at once and come to you in Paris." But a little later he wrote that the matter had been smoothed over. This, however, was one of the evidences that this unhappily assorted union was slowly nearing its dissolution.

In June, 1858, Wagner sketched the second act of "Tristan und Isolde," and then a desire for quiet and the luxurious atmosphere of Italy took possession of him. Venice, not having any German alliance, and there being consequently no danger of his arrest there, seemed to be the desired place, and thither he went. He wrote the music of the second act of the opera in Venice. Then came news that a projected production of "Rienzi" in Munich had been abandoned, and that a new Intendant, who had no artistic feeling, had gone to reign in Weimar and make Liszt powerless. On the heels of these misfortunes came an attempt of the Saxon government to drive him out of Venice. Disheartened, embarrassed, and in debt, he went to Switzerland and secluded himself on the shores of the Lake of Lucerne. There in the summer of 1859 he completed, after four months' work, the third act of "Tristan." The completed score was placed in the hands of Breitkopf and Härtel, and then Wagner set to work to find an opening for its production. Various difficulties arose. In some places where he could have had singers he dared not set foot. In other places he could get no competent performers.

Wagner's final departure from Zurich was undoubtedly due to the action of Mr. Wesendonck. The nature of the attachment between Mrs. Wesendonck and the composer could no longer be concealed. Wagner had dedicated to her a sonata and the prelude to "Die Walküre." He had set words of hers to music. She was his friend, his confidante. According to M. Belart, in whose "Richard Wagner in Zurich," published in Leipsic in 1900, this whole matter was discussed, Wagner left Zurich finally and suddenly on Aug. 17, 1859. Mr. Wesendonck, when questioned about the matter in after years, said flatly that he compelled Wagner to go. He went to Jacob Sulzer, previously mentioned, borrowed some money, and started for Geneva. Minna Wagner went to Dresden. This was the beginning of the end between them. There is some discrepancy in the dates. There is no doubt that Wagner went to Lucerne when he returned from Venice, but he must have gone again to Zurich in the course of the summer. At any rate when he went to Geneva, he was en route for Paris, and the Wesendonck entanglement was at an end. In 1865 Wagner wrote to the injured husband:

"The incident that separated me from you about six years ago should be evaded; it has upset me and my life enough that you recognise me no longer, and that I esteem myself less and less. All this suffering should have earned your forgiveness, and it would have been beautiful, noble, to have forgiven me; but it is useless to demand the impossible, and I was in the wrong."

It was in September, 1859, that Wagner arrived in the French capital. He settled in the Rue Newton, near the Arc de Triomphe, and there he and Minna, who had rejoined him, received their friends every Wednesday. Among the frequenters of their home were Émile Ollivier, the French statesman and husband of Liszt's daughter Blandine; Frédéric Villot, keeper of the imperial museums; Edmond Roche, afterward the translator of "Tannhäuser"; Hector Berlioz, Carvalho, director of the Théâtre Lyrique; Gustave Doré, Jules Ferry, Charles Baudelaire, and A. de Gasparini, afterward one of the biographers of Wagner.