The journey to Zurich was a risky one. Wagner, the composer of what is now the most popular of all operas, Lohengrin, might indeed pass unnoticed, for the work had not been heard; but the composer of the Dutchman and of Rienzi, and perhaps of Tannh?user, and above all the organizer and conductor of the largest musical festival ever held in Dresden, could not easily slip past unobserved.

As a matter of fact, few or none of the officials seemed very anxious to catch him; still, thousands of innocent persons were being taken by the Prussians, "tried," and sent to long terms of penal servitude for having done nothing-it being argued, apparently, that any one against whom nothing could be proved must of necessity be guilty of some crime. Wagner's first idea was simply to keep out of the way until things had quieted down. It took things more than a couple of years to quiet down. Meantime a warrant was out for Richard's arrest. His movements between Dresden, Chemnitz and Freiberg are of no interest nowadays; but things became a little exciting from the day, May 13 (1849), when he arrived at Liszt's. I have related how for a week or so all seemed well, and Wagner thought himself safe, being out of Saxony. He even intended witnessing a representation of Tannh?user, but the day before, if not sooner, the warrant was circulated in the German fashion of those days, with a personal description which seems to have been made purposely vague by some friendly hand, though more naturally one would assume it to be due to official stupidity. Wagner heard Liszt rehearsing something of his and was overjoyed, and also he was so confident of his own security that he still wanted to stay to hear Tannh?user. Liszt would not hear of it; he packed his friend off under an assumed name to some other friends; they procured a passport, and he travelled to Zurich via Jena and Coburg. It should be put on record that in the meantime he ran the risk of being captured by lingering to have a last hour with his wife. Towards the end of the month he reached Zurich, and had no more fear of the Prussian police.

Liszt

We have already seen how sick he had grown of Dresden, where he complained of being slowly stifled; but Liszt proposed-nay, insisted-on something worse than Dresden-Paris. Wagner was now a penniless, homeless wanderer, as he had been when he set out from Riga ten years before; and Liszt fondly believed that only by making a hit in Paris could he command any enduring success in Germany, and thus gain money to live on, wherever he might happen to be. Liszt was the good genie who found the funds, and Wagner, having nothing better to propose, was bound to obey. So he stayed three days in Zurich and set out; and a deal of good he did! He knew absolutely that such work as his could scarcely hope to get so much as a bare hearing, and the event proved him to be right. He submitted scenarios of several operas to a French poet, and there, for all practical purposes, the business ended. Here is a fragment from a letter to Theodor Uhlig, dated Zurich, August 9, '49-

"I am living here, helped in communistic fashion by Liszt, in good spirits, and I may say prosperously, according to my best nature; my only and great anxiety is about my poor wife, whom I am expecting here very shortly. To my very great astonishment, I find that I am a celebrity here; made so, indeed, by means of the piano scores of all my operas, out of which whole acts are repeatedly performed at concerts and at choral unions. At the beginning of the winter I shall go again to Paris to have something performed and to put my opera matter into order. You cannot imagine what joy one finds in frugality if one knows that thereby the noblest thing, freedom, is assured; you know how long I was brewing in my blood the Dresden catastrophe, only I had no presentiment of the exact hurricane which would drive me thence; but you are thoroughly convinced that all the annuities and restitutions in the world would not induce me to become again what, to my greatest sorrow, I was in Dresden. I have just a last remnant of curiosity, however, and you would give me much pleasure in letting me know how matters stand with you. My wife has never found leisure to give me news of Dresden, the theatre, and the band. Do relieve this last Dresden longing. Do you happen to know anything definite about the state of the police inquiry? The fate of Heubner, Roeckel and Bakunin troubles me much. Anyhow, these persons ought not to be imprisoned. But don't let me speak of it! In this matter one can only judge justly and adequately if one looks at the period from a lofty point of view. Woe to him who acts with sublime purpose, and then, for his deeds, is judged by the police! It is a grief and a shame which only our times can show."

He had no real intention of returning to Paris. Earlier in the same letter he speaks of ending the speculating by his proposed Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, the slavery of working for the market in Paris was even more repugnant to him than the liveried bondage in Saxony. Previous to the writing of this letter Liszt had lent him twelve pounds, and by the end of July he was back in Zurich, and though, much against his will, he did go to Paris again, and, in fact, much farther, Zurich was thenceforth for some years his headquarters. His host at first was an honest musician Alexander Müller, who, I believe, had known him in Würzburg long before; but he soon set up an establishment of his own.

His main purpose at this time was to try to clear in his brain the confused mass of theories and speculations concerning music, and especially opera, which had long been seething there. Lohengrin, the reader must have observed, was not a road leading anywhere, but an impasse; a step towards the attainment of his ideal it was not: it was, on the whole, a step backwards, although it is a much more beautiful work than Tannh?user. Wagner's mind, like Thoreau's, Carlyle's, Brahms', needed filtering-an operation that could only be performed in perfect peace and loneliness. Thoreau went to Walden; Carlyle to Craigenputtock; Brahms at any rate retired from public musical life. They worked out their own salvation. Wagner felt he must do the same; as we know, he did the same: hence many of those terrible volumes of prose-writings. His mental condition is indicated in another few sentences from the letter quoted above-

"Yet I must frankly confess that the freedom which I here inhale in fresh Alpine draughts is intensely pleasing to me. What is the ordinary care about the so-called future of citizen life compared with the feeling that we are not tyrannized over in our noblest aims? How few men care more for themselves than for their stomachs? Now I have made my choice, and am spared the trouble of choosing; so I feel free in my innermost soul, and can despise what torments me from without; no one can withdraw himself from the evil influences of the civilized barbarism of our time, but all can so manage that they do not rule over our better self."

We may as well note one point at once. When Thoreau, Carlyle and Brahms went into their respective wildernesses, they maintained themselves, as they thought merely proper. In this respect Wagner's views did not coincide with theirs. He exclaims scornfully, "How few men care more for themselves than for their stomachs!" What he meant was that he should care for himself while his friends cared for his stomach. As he cared a very great deal for his stomach, his demands upon his friends were exorbitant and continuous. True, he offered the fruits of his brain to the world at large, but all save the faithful liked not the security. The creator of Lohengrin and Tannh?user was quite justified in believing that he ought to be supported, and it may be that the respect we pay to the artists who starve it out is only a complacent way of saying how pleased we are that no one asks us to put our hands in our pockets. Nevertheless-!

We must remember, however, that he had no money and no prospects, and carried the burden of gigantic unfinished, un-begun projects; his worldly situation was even more desperate than it had been in 1839. The voyage from Pillau was a voyage into the unknown, undertaken in the hope of securing something tangible-a performance of Rienzi and fame and money; the voyage on which he had set out was into an even stranger unknown, a voyage into the world of ideas, without any prospects whatever in the worldly sense. He was groping his way confusedly towards something greater than he had hitherto accomplished; but he knew neither what subject to select nor how to treat it. Nature had laid this burden upon him: he took it up only because he must; and, luckily for us, the giver of the burden had granted him the arrogance, the courage, the imperviousness to the estimation in which he might be held by others-if the reader likes it better, the sheer cheek-to find the means of living while he carried the burden to the appointed place and so achieved his end. When John the Baptist went into the wilderness he found camel's hair to clothe himself and wild honey to feed himself. Even these primitive luxuries are not to be had for looking in modern Europe, and Wagner asked his friends to supply a substitute for them.

We find him suggesting to Liszt that a number of German princes might combine to support him, and in return accept his works as he turned them out; he suggested also that Liszt might himself guarantee him an annuity. Liszt was from the beginning, and continued until the appearance of King Ludwig in 1864, to be the most generous of helpers, but he had ceased to go concertizing through Europe, and had not too much money to spare. The Wesendoncks, Ritters, Wagner's own family, all contributed as they could; but verily the man seemed to be a bottomless abyss into which all the wealth of the world might be dropped and still it would gape for more. If all his admirers in 1850 had contributed a penny a month he might have been satisfied-if half the number of his admirers in 1913 could have contributed a penny a year he would have had more than even he could have spent. But no such plan seemed to be feasible; and on Liszt fell the brunt, whilst the others did what they could or thought fit to do. Wagner may reasonably be defended against the charge of greed or luxury. He was in chronic ill-health, and his stupendous exertions made it unlikely he would ever be better. We can believe even Praeger when he tells us that Wagner's skin was so sensitive that he could tolerate only the finest silk next to it; for we know that from babyhood he was tortured by eczema. Had he not coddled himself he would not have had the strength and nerve to achieve anything at all. He never knew one day where next day's food was to come from; he was a homeless exile. Happiness he never knew: such men as Wagner are not created to be happy. Publishers and opera-directors alike treated him scurvily. To show his state of mind I quote a portion of another letter to Uhlig, dated September, 1850, after the production of Lohengrin at Weimar-

"Liszt spoke to me previously about an honorarium of thirty louis d'or for Lohengrin-instead of which I had altogether only 130 thalers. Further, he announced to me that I should receive a commission to write Siegfried for Weimar, and be paid beforehand enough to keep me alive undisturbed until the work was finished. Until now they preserve there the most stubborn silence. Whether I should give Siegfried to Weimar, intending it to be produced there, is after all a question which, as matters now stand, I would probably only answer with an unqualified No! I need not begin to assure you that I really abandoned Lohengrin when I permitted its production at Weimar. I certainly received a letter yesterday from Zigesar, which informed me that the second performance-given, through somewhat energetic remonstrance on my part, only after most careful rehearsals, and without cuts-was a wonder of success and of effect on the public, and that it was perfectly clear that it was and would remain a "draw". Yet I need not give you my further reasons when I declare that I should wish to send Siegfried into the world in different fashion from that which would be possible to the good people there. With regard to this, I am busy with wishes and plans which, at first look, seem chimerical, yet these alone give me the heart to finish Siegfried. To realize the best, the most decisive, the most important work which, under the present circumstances, I can produce-in short, the accomplishment of the conscious mission of my life-needs a matter of perhaps 10,000 thalers. If I could ever command such a sum I would arrange thus:-here, where I happen to be, and where many a thing is far from bad-I would erect, after my own plans, in a beautiful field, near the town, a rough theatre of planks and beams, and merely furnish it with the decorations and machinery necessary for the production of Siegfried. Then I would select the best singers to be found anywhere, and invite them for six weeks to Zurich. I would try to form a chorus here, consisting, for the most part, of amateurs; there are splendid voices here, and strong, healthy people. I should invite in the same way my orchestra. At the new year announcements and invitations to all the friends of the musical drama would appear in all the German newspapers, with a call to visit the proposed dramatic musical festival. Any one giving notice, and travelling for this purpose to Zurich, would receive a certain entrée-naturally, like all the entrées, gratis. Besides, I should invite to a performance the young people here, the university, the choral unions. When everything was in order I should arrange, under these circumstances, for three performances of Siegfried in one week. After the third the theatre would be pulled down, and my score burnt. To those persons who had been pleased with the thing I should then say, 'Now do likewise.' But if they wanted to hear something new from me, I should say, 'You get the money.' Well, do I seem quite mad to you? It may be so, but I assure you to attain this end is the hope of my life, the prospect which alone can tempt me to take in hand a work of art. So-get me 10,000 thalers-that's all!"

His friends, I say, did their best; but Liszt, though his generosity had no bounds, still clung to the odd idea that Wagner should do something for himself; also he could not get it out of his head that the something could only be done in Paris. So, in another of the Uhlig letters, dated more than six months anterior to the above, we find him writing, half wearily, half defiantly-

"I have never felt the consciousness of freedom so beneficent as now, nor have I ever been so convinced that only a loving communion with others procures freedom. If, through the assistance of X., I should be enabled to look firmly at the immediate future without any necessity to earn a living, those years would be the most decisive of my life, and especially of my artistic career; for now I could look at Paris with calmness and dignity; whereas, before, the fear of being compelled by outward necessity to make concessions, made every step which I took for Paris a false one. Now it would stand otherwise. Formerly it was thus: 'Disown thyself, become another, become Parisian in order to win for yourself Paris.' Now I would say: 'Remain just as thou art, show to the Parisians what thou art willing and able to produce from within, give them an idea of it, and in order that they may comprehend thee, speak to them so that they may understand thee; for thy aim is just this-to be understood by them as that which thou art,' I hope you agree with this.

"So on January 16, 1850, I go to Paris; a couple of overtures will at once be put into practice; and I shall take my completed opera scheme: it is Wiland der Schmied. First of all I attack the five-act opera form, then the statute according to which in every great opera there must be a special ballet. If I can only inspire Gustave Vaez, and impart to him the understanding of my intention, and the will to carry it through with me, well and good, if not, I'll seek till I find the right poet. For every difficulty standing in the way of the understanding I, and the subject connected with me, are attacked by the Press; if it is a question of clearing away without mercy the whole rubbish and cleansing with fresh water-in that matter I am in my right element, for my aim is to create revolution whithersoever I come. If I succumb-well the defeat is more honourable than a triumph in the opposite direction; even without personal victory I am, in any case, useful to the cause. In this matter victory will only be really assured by endurance; who holds out wins absolutely; and holding out with me means-for I am in no way in doubt about my force of will-to have enough money to strike hard and without intermission and not to worry about my own means of living. If I have enough money, I must at once see about getting my pamphlet on art translated and circulated. Well, that will be seen when I am on the spot, and I shall decide according to the means at my disposal. If my money comes to an end too soon, I confidently hope for help from another quarter-i.e. from the social republic, which sooner or later must inevitably be established in France. If it comes about-well, here I am ready for it, and, in the matter of art, I have solidly prepared the way for it. It will not happen exactly as my good-natured friends wish, according to their predilection for the evil present time, but quite otherwise, and, with good fortune, in a far better way-for, as they wish, I only serve myself-but as I wish to serve all."

The history of this third Paris episode is distressing enough; but we to-day, knowing what Paris was and what Wagner was, need not trouble much about it. I have passed over it quickly; but yet another excerpt from an Uhlig letter may be given to show how matters did not progress (dated Paris, March 13, 1850)-

"So, my Parisian art-wallowings are given up since I recognized their profane character. Heavens, how Fischer will rejoice when he hears I have become a man of order! Everything strengthened me in my ardent desire for renunciation. After endless waiting, I at last receive the orchestral parts of my Tannh?user overture, and pay with pleasure fifteen francs carriage for them. I then find that the parts have arrived much too soon, for the Union Musicale has time for everything except for the rehearsal of my overtures. I am, however, told that there may be rehearsals at the end of this month, and actually under a conductor who, in all the performances given under his direction, carries out the happy idea of indicating tempi, nuances, style in a manner quite different from that intended by the composer; and with passionate conscientiousness, insists on studying and conducting himself without ever allowing the composer to expound his confused views about his own work. Rocked in blissful dreams, I receive at last a letter of Heine's, with an enclosure from Wigand-namely, a money-order for ten louis d'or, which, from your letter, I had unfortunately expected would come to twenty louis d'or.

"In short, early to-morrow morning (at eight o'clock) I start off with the intention of being back here at the end of the month, for the possible rehearsals of my overture.

"I am sorry for Heine and Fischer. Poor fellows! they picture me floating along on a sea of Parisian hopes; they will be greatly and painfully undeceived. Salute and console them. When my cursed ill-humour of to-day has passed away, I will write to Heine. To his fidelity must I present an earnest face. A thousand greetings to my dear R--s, from whom I should so much have liked to receive a line. The merchant M--, of Dresden, will bring you something from me when he returns from his great Parisian business trip; a good daguerreotype copy from an excellent portrait which my friend Rietz has taken of me here.

"What more shall I write? I am all confusion about my hasty departure. I have now only to write the verses to my Wiland; otherwise the whole poem is finished-German, German! How my pen flew along! This Wiland will carry you all away on its wings; even your friendly Parisian hopes. If K-- does not write soon, I shall presume that he is raving too madly about Krebs. Krebs is clever-so is Michalesi-what more do you want? But K-- should restrain himself, and not give himself away so much as he does, as with me!

"Farewell! Another time you will receive a more sensible letter, with a list of misprints in my last book. If people do not comprehend me even after this work, if I am charged with improprieties, I clearly see the reason; one cannot understand my writings for the misprints. To my joy some one is playing the piano overhead; but no melody, only accompaniment, which has a charm for me, in that I can practice myself in the art of finding melodies"-

And, finally, these few bitter lines, sent after his return to Zurich-

"It is impossible for me to conduct my overture myself in Paris, for this reason, that it will not be performed there at all, as there was not proper time for rehearsal-perhaps "next year". I received this answer on the eve of my departure from Paris, and truly in a very pleasant quarter. I think I never laughed so loud and so from the bottom of my heart as on that evening and in that place."

It will be seen that Wagner never ceased to work during all this dreary time. He drafted his Wieland the Smith, made tentative shots at what at length grew into the Nibelung's Ring, and poured forth an enormous quantity of very prosy prose. Deferring a consideration of this last, let me tell briefly what his everyday life was. Through a little money from pamphlets, performing fees, etc., but mainly through the generosity of friends, he managed to live; though, as I have said, he never was quite sure about his next meal, a raven always flew in from somewhere just in the nick of time. Minna came, and her sister, and his home was made comfortable for him; he had many friends; he rapidly became recognized as many a cubit taller than any other musician in the parish. The opera and some orchestral concerts were placed under his direction; and Hans von Bülow came to serve his apprenticeship as conductor under him, very largely at the theatre. Wagner mentions a performance of the Flying Dutchman, which afforded him pleasure; for though, as he himself says somewhere, the band consisted of players more accustomed to play at dances than in grand opera, and not a singer of celebrity took part, yet all were painstaking, enthusiastic and sympathetic, and a fine representation was the result. This was the work he did outside his own house; his inside occupations I have mentioned. He lived with almost clockwork punctuality. Every afternoon he walked, accompanied by his dog, amongst the mountains, and to these walks may be attributed, I think, the atmosphere and colour of the Ring and its backgrounds. Wagner was as great a master as has lived of pictorial music, and the hills and ravines, the storms amongst the pines, were things he must have craved to translate into terms of his own art. After all, he found time also for a good deal of social intercourse, though the enormous quantity of work he turned out makes this difficult to believe. But Liszt visited him; Praeger undoubtedly did; Bülow, as said, was with him for some time; the Wesendoncks, his greatest pecuniary benefactors after a while, were there; Wille and his wife were there; Alexander Ritter, son of Frau Ritter, who made Wagner a regular allowance from 1851 to 1856, became his firm friend, and afterwards married one of his nieces; there were Baumg?rtner and Sulzer-in fact, a bare list of names would fill a few pages. We must not take Wagner's plaints in his letters too seriously; he was an overworked, nervous man of moods; like Mr. Micawber, he seems to have come home of an evening weeping and declaring himself a ruined man, and in a few hours gone to bed calculating the cost of throwing out bow windows to his house. Throughout his life his resilience of spirit was one of his most amazing characteristics: I have no doubt that in the depth of despair he would write to Liszt swearing that he only wanted solitude; and in an hour's time he would think it might be pleasant to spend an hour with the Wesendoncks-and go. In the same way he longed earnestly for death while spending all his friends' money on baths and cures and doctors, and seeing to it that Minna provided the best of everything for his table. The pile of work remains to show his life was one of incredible industry. Between the end of 1848 and the end of 1854 he wrote at least a dozen long pamphlets, and as many more that are not so long; he wrote the words of the Ring and composed and scored the Rhinegold, and began the music of the Valkyrie. Further, he revised the overture to Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis, and reconstructed his own Faust overture. How on earth he managed his interminable correspondence is more than I can guess. When we bear in mind the calls upon his time by his superintendence of opera and concerts, we cannot wonder that a man who did so much, and was born a weakling, was rarely quite well, and incessantly complains of his nerves. Yet these nerves, he wrote, gave him wonderful hours of insight.

There remains one thing to mention of these first Zurich years: his operas were gradually spreading through Germany, and, especially, Liszt had produced Lohengrin at Weimar in 1850. It quickly became so popular that before long Wagner could complain, or boast, that he was the only German who had not heard it. His movements during these years can easily be traced. Zurich remained his headquarters, but he went hither and thither, mainly in search of health. But the chief cause of his ill-health he carried with him-his irrepressible activity of mind. Could some intelligent doctor have given him a dose to stop him thinking for not less than one month, he would, I verily believe, have enjoyed ten years of unbroken freedom from sickness. These flittings are of no great interest in themselves; he never got far until his famous expedition to London in the summer of 1855. But now it is time to take a glance at the writings of the period.

Download Book