Richard Wagner | Page 2

abroad; his aims and intentions had been so misunderstood, and so stupidly, wickedly, recklessly misrepresented, that he did not believe his music-dramas would ever find acceptance until he had cleared the way by explaining himself. Little good came of it--in fact, the only good result was that some of his writings fell into the hands of Ludwig II of Bavaria, and thus led to the ending of his days of misery, and indirectly to Bayreuth. For the commentators no word of extenuation can be said. Those, perhaps, of the period 1867-77 were justified in pressing their master's claims on the public at large, for the support of the public at large had to be won, and the best way of winning it seemed to lie in advocating those claims, in season and out of season, through the agency of the newspaper-press; but the rest of the herd have proved themselves an unqualified nuisance and a hindrance to a right understanding of Wagner.
This herd I would not willingly join. In the following pages no general theory concerning Wagner will be found. I shall indulge in no theorisings whatever, but stick to the facts, facts which can now be ascertained with certainty. My endeavour will be to tell a plain, unvarnished tale of what Wagner did and of what he suffered, of the environment amidst which he grew up and laboured and struggled: with all that he said and wrote I shall deal as briefly as may be, regarding his endless loquacity of mouth and pen as of interest only when it throws real light on the artist. Least of all shall I waste the reader's patience on the morals that may be drawn from his musical works. The moral to be drawn from his prose works is simply that a man, even a stupendously great man, may write far too much; the moral to be drawn from his musical works every man may find out for himself: for myself, I have found none, any more than I could ever find a moral in a play of ?schylus or Sophocles or Shakespeare.
There are plenty of authorities for the statements now to be made. We have the exhaustive Life by Glasenapp and W. Ashton Ellis; then there is Wagner's own work, My Life, lately translated into English; finally there are the Letters. Many of these are of no interest or value whatever, dealing only with details concerning scores and proof-sheets and petty money matters. Many, on the other hand, notably those to Uhlig, are invaluable to every one who wishes to understand Wagner. Extensive use is made of them in this book, though, as they are easily accessible, I have forborne to quote more than is absolutely necessary. My Life I think but little of, and have not relied greatly on it.
Wagner the reformer will receive no lengthy consideration. He did not "reform" the opera form--the opera form of Mozart and Weber needed no reforming--he simply developed it. He did reform operatic performances by insisting on precision and intelligence in place of slovenliness and stupidity, on enthusiasm for art in place of stolid indifference; and he did as much in the concert-room. I shall not theorize about these matters, but point out what he achieved by making a continuous appeal to indubitable, indisputable facts.
I am indebted to Messrs. H. Grevel & Co. for kind permission to print extracts from Mr. Shedlock's translation of Wagner's Letters, and to Messrs. Novello for similar permission regarding quotations from the libretti of the operas. Two words may be said about the quotations, both words and music, of the operas: in some cases, when I could neither find nor make an adequate translation of verses, I have stuck to the original German; with regard to the music, I have given as little as possible. Both musical and verbal citations are meant for reference--there is only one exception, the Sailors' Song from the opening of Tristan. Catalogues of Wagner's themes have for long been issued by several publishers; but they are of small assistance in helping one to understand Wagner.
J.F.R.

CONTENTS
I EARLY LIFE
II EARLY BOYHOOD
III EARLY LIFE (_continued_)
IV JUVENILE WORKS
V PARIS
VI 'RIENZI' AND 'THE FLYING DUTCHMAN'
VII DRESDEN
VIII 'TANNH?USER'
IX 'LOHENGRIN'
X EXILE
XI 'TRISTAN AND ISOLDA'
XII 'THE MASTERSINGERS OF NUREMBERG'
XIII KING LUDWIG
XIV 'THE NIBELUNG'S RING' AND THE RHINEGOLD'
XV 'THE VALKYRIE'
XVI 'SIEGFRIED'
XVII 'THE DUSK OF THE GODS'
XVIII 'PARSIFAL'; THE END; THE MAN
INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF WAGNER (_Photogravure_)
WAGNER'S BIRTHPLACE: THE SIGN OF THE RED AND WHITE LION, ON THE BR��HL, LEIPZIG
THE WAGNER THEATRE AT BAYREUTH
LISZT (_From life and on stone by N. Hanhart_)
WAGNER (_From the portrait by A.F. Pecht_)
KING LUDWIG OF BAVARIA
WAGNER IN 1877
PALAZZO VENDRAMIN CALERGI, VENICE, WHERE WAGNER DIED, FEB. 13, 1883
CARL TAUSIG
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE
I
As the springtide of 1813 was melting into early summer the poet and musician of spring days and summer nights