He was unhappy, too, because he could not get his works properly performed. Perhaps he never experienced deep delight at any representation except the first of "Tristan und Isolde," in which the splendid work of Schnorr filled him with joy. But his "Lohengrin" and his "Tannhäuser" were never given to his satisfaction, for there were absolutely no singers who united the ability to declaim the recitative and to deliver the plentiful cantilena also. Not only was there a lack of singers, but there were no stage managers who understood him, and so all over Germany his works were performed in a spirit foreign to their poetic content, and the master was misrepresented to a public which would have found it almost impossible to comprehend him in the most favourable conditions. Mr. Dannreuther says: "The composer of 'Tristan' confronted by the Intendant of some Hoftheater, fresh from a performance of Herr von Flotow's 'Martha'! A comic picture, but unfortunately a typical one, implying untold suffering on Wagner's part."
Wagner was under medium size, but had the appearance of being somewhat taller than he really was. In 1849 the police description of him ran thus: "Wagner is 37 to 38 years old, of middle height, has brown hair, wears glasses; open forehead; eyebrows brown; eyes grey-blue; nose and mouth well proportioned; chin round. Particulars: in speaking and moving he is hasty." Animation marked all his ways, and at times he revelled in the wildest spirits. Periods of deep depression occurred to him, but his nervous energy seldom deserted him.
The study of his personality will always bring one back to the same point. He was entirely dominated by his artistic nature and ambition. His life can be understood only by an analysis of his motives based on this premise. Wagner, the man, was the creature of Wagner, the dreamer of "Siegfried." There has never been a clearer instance of the mastery of genius. He was unceasingly driven by it from boyhood to the grave. It made him selfish, intolerant, dogmatic, dictatorial. But it achieved its ends. The grave at Wahnfried contains only ashes. All that was vital in Richard Wagner lives still in the dramas and the prose works. The forces which were in the man are just as active now as they were when he laughed and stormed in the villa at Bayreuth.
[PART II]
THE ARTISTIC AIMS OF WAGNER
“Every bar of dramatic music is justified only by the fact that it explains something in the action or in the character of the actor.”—Wagner to Liszt, September, 1850.