"When in the autumn [of 1838] I began the composition of my 'Rienzi,' I allowed naught to influence me except the single purpose to answer to my subject. I set myself no model, but gave myself entirely to the feeling which now consumed me, the feeling that I had already so far progressed that I might claim something significant from the development of my artistic powers, and expect some not insignificant result. The very notion of being consciously weak or trivial—even in a single bar—was appalling to me."
The frequent iteration of such statements shows how anxious Wagner was in subsequent years lest he should be accused of deliberately pandering to that depraved public taste which he decried. In his endeavour to treat the grand-opera form honestly he accepted as his musical models several of his predecessors. In "Die Feen" he believed that he was following the lead of Beethoven, Weber, and Marschner, and in "Das Liebesverbot" he turned for help to Auber and Bellini. In "Rienzi" he utilised elements from all of these, and added to them the pomp of Spontini and the external glare of Meyerbeer. The libretto, as he says, is simply a good opera book. One looks in vain through it for more than traces of the dramatic power and real poetry to be found in the later works. Similarly the music is just good opera music of the most pretentious kind. It glitters, but seldom glows. It astonishes, but seldom moves. The instrumentation shows many of the idiosyncrasies of the later Wagner, but it is generally without inner strength. The whole work is superficial, and calls for precisely the same sort of criticism as the operas of Meyerbeer do. And this result came in spite of the fact that Wagner, according to his own account, was appalled by the very thought of being consciously weak or trivial for a moment. That he was weak and trivial often will be patent to any hearer of the opera. Indeed, one need not go so far as that. The overture is played often in concert and a novice can easily detect the bombastic emptiness of its resounding finale, even at the same time as he notes the resemblance of the sequences of chords in the brass to some afterward heard in "Der Fliegende Holländer." But Wagner himself tells us that before he had completed "Rienzi" he became doubtful as to the possibility of bringing about any real success by the methods which he was employing. He began to foresee the future with its wide departure for him from the traditions of opera. He began to realise that he could not cater to the extant public taste, but must create for himself a new one. But it was not till despair made him withdraw himself from all relations to the outer world that he entered upon the development of the true Wagnerian music drama.
"Rienzi," then, must be viewed simply as a grand opera of the old-fashioned sort. We must regard its libretto as an exemplification of the clever ground-plan of Meyerbeer, its music as the artistic offspring of the "Jewish banker to whom it occurred to write music," of Spontini, Rossini, and other composers of the pseudo-grand style. The story of the opera is substantially that of Bulwer's novel, and needs no review here. In the making of this book Wagner was simply an adapter. He re-created nothing. In his other works we shall find that he added to the literary substance of every subject which he treated. But such was not the case with "Rienzi." The joints are plainly visible. The carpenter work is creditable, but it is not architecture. One might almost say the same thing about the music. It is in the main good, workmanlike music, with inspiration carefully fanned by the breaths of older composers. Occasionally the real Wagner peeps out and there are some passages of fine vigour and even expressiveness. But this is an opera in which one can go through the score and pick out the "good things," just as one could from the old scores of Donizetti and Bellini.
The reader of Bulwer, for instance, will miss from the opera the figure of Nina, the wife of Rienzi, but he will find that her place is well filled by the sister, Irene, of whom Wagner makes a conspicuously noble character. Furthermore Wagner in drawing the character of his hero went to the original historical sources and so made him a stronger personage than Bulwer did. "Un signor valoroso, accorto, e saggio" is this Rienzi, as Petrarch called him. He speaks in broad and commanding accents, as in his address to the nobles and in the prayer. And it is at such points that we find the best music. The prayer is set to one of the finest melodies in all opera. Again we see that in the chorus and solo of the messengers of peace Wagner found material for good writing of both verse and music. The prayer opens the fifth act, when Rienzi, feeling that the end is near, calls on the Lord to preserve the work which he has achieved.
With the second stanza comes the fine melody heard in the overture:
