Richard Wagner, Composer of Operas. John F. Runciman
rule; but he is no exception. The theatre was his first love, and to the theatre he ever remained faithful: only through the theatre did his genius manifest itself; apart from the theatre it may be doubted whether he could have developed into the consummate technical musician of Tristan and the Mastersingers. Music was his second love, music associated with drama; and throughout his long career we find him engaged, first, in getting his drama true, poignant and effective, and then in allying it with music. Third in his affections came philosophy; and at this time of day it need scarcely be remarked that he always considered himself a bit of a philosopher, and toyed to the last with philosophy and pseudo-philosophy. Reams of good paper and gallons of good ink have been used in writing about the musician, the composer of the most magnificent operas in the world; weeks, months, years have gone to the writing. But all the paper, all the ink, all the labour, all the mental effort and sympathy and love seem a bagatelle when we look through the bibliographies and realize how much paper, ink, effort—not always to be called mental—sympathy and love have been used up in expounding Wagner's philosophy. The cases of Whitman and Browning make a poor show compared with this case. I believe there are still some human beings who turn for guidance to Wagner the philosopher. Later I shall be compelled to say something about the subject. What Wagner's docile apostles say does not greatly matter—in fact, does not matter at all; what Wagner said does demand a little consideration; and we must bear in mind that philosophy and pseudo-philosophy supplied him with the stuff out of which he wove the word-tissue of his dramas.
II
There is not much, then, to detain us during this period. Rosalie and Albert had their engagements, Rosalie being the mainstay of the family. On May 1, 1824 Clara made her debut. Uncle Adolph, ceaseless in objurgations touching every one who had any connection with the court or trade theatres of the day, had to accept the situation; and, apparently in desperation, or because he found life intolerable with two nagging females in the house where he dwelt, quietly went in 1824 and married Sophie, a sister of his friend Amadeus Wendt. Thenceforward he lived in peace at a house called "The Hut," visiting his two nagging ladies every day, however. One was his sister, Friederike, the other Jeannette Thomä. He was a studious, retiring man, and in the course of time produced some books that are worthless, or all but worthless, now. Of course the Bayreuth worshippers and idolizers of the Wagner family will have it that he, being one of the family, was inevitably a man of superlative gifts; but as I have already indicated, there is nothing to justify such an assumption. A cultivated man of sound sense he must have been; and it is true he was in some slight touch with a few of the stronger artistic and literary spirits in that very dull and disheartening period; it is true that he influenced, wholly for good, Richard a few years afterwards. When that is said all is said.
Richard is said to have studied English, but how much he actually learnt I never could ascertain. I have been told with solemn mysteriousness at Bayreuth that, like the parrot, he could have rattled off our tongue with tremendous volubility had he chosen; but the fact that he never chose lends colour to the supposition that in reality he had no choice. However, in the original or in translations he read Shakespeare; and it may be presumed that he knew Goethe and Schiller almost by heart. Naturally he determined to rival them. In that heyday of the big Romantic movement he just as naturally determined to rival or to beat them by piling terror on terror, horror on horror. At that period the latest word in the theatre was melodrama of the wildest sort, and a play which did not contain a few murders, ghosts, enchanted woods and haunted castles had not the faintest chance of success. According to Wagner's own account he made a handsome bid for success; for nearly all the dramatis-personæ came to an untimely end, and a spectre told one, not yet finished off, that if he moved another step his nose would then and there crumble to powder.
While this masterwork was in process of construction, circumstances so altered that Frau Geyer thought it wisdom to quit Dresden and return to Leipzig. Albert, Rosalie, Louise and Clara were in various towns fulfilling engagements; she was left alone with the younger children. In 1826 Rosalie had gone to Prague; Albert and Clara were in Augsburg; Louise had been in Breslau, had tried Berlin, then finally took a permanent post at the theatre in Leipzig. So a move was determined on, and the family made another migration in 1827. Richard stayed on for some time, in connection with his schooling, I presume; then he followed, incidentally taking the most momentous step in his young life.
These five years had been for him profitable. He got the best part of his education at Dresden, where he had skilful and sympathetic masters; and almost, one may say, without knowing it he had received an informal musical education which was profoundly to affect him as soon as he started writing operas. I mean that he constantly attended the opera while Weber was conductor, and Weber, who had been a friend of Geyer's, used to call at the house to pass the time of day with the widow. Richard looked up to him with awe and worshipped every bar of his music; and this, together with a knowledge of the road Richard was soon to take and of what he was to become, makes one wonder that he had not already decided to compose another Freischütz. But, as I have said, the theatre—that is, the theatre with the spoken drama—was his first love; and evidently it had a wondrous hold on him, for after spending a rapturous evening with Freischütz—first given in Leipzig in 1822—he would return contentedly to his tragedy. It took a stronger spirit even than Weber's to awaken the musical side of his nature. But unconsciously the foundation had been laid, as we shall have ample reason to understand before long. These years at Dresden, too, are noteworthy, inasmuch as they saw the beginning of some friendships, at least one of which was to prove lifelong and invaluable to Richard.
III
When the family settled again in Leipzig one Ludwig van Beethoven died (March 1827), and Wagner heard of this composer, it is said, for the first time. It is all but unimaginable, yet there seems no reason to doubt it. After all, that was not an age of halfpenny morning and evening papers, and if composers were boomed the deed was accomplished tranquilly in the houses of great society leaders, dukes and archbishops, and the general public knew little of what was going on. I dare say even in our newspaper age many a clever boy of fourteen has never heard of Strauss or Josef Holbrooke, and Beethoven did not loom nearly so large before the eyes of the people as these composers do: the names of Salieri, Marschner, Meyerbeer, Spontini, Spohr and Weber would be much more familiar than his; even in Vienna he was regarded mainly as a deaf, surly old crank who had the support of highly placed personages. So there is the amazing fact: Wagner, who worshipped Weber's operas, had not, when fourteen years old, heard of the existence of a musician a thousand times mightier than Weber. The great hour was at hand.
First, however, he had to pass through a period of boyish disgust and disappointment. At Dresden he had been a favourite with his masters, and had worked hard. His own account of the methods, temper, and intellectual qualifications of his masters seems to me eminently reasonable. Their aim was to bring out whatever was best in their pupils. His account of his first masters at Leipzig similarly bears the stamp of truthfulness. They were a set of conceited academics with only two ideas in the world: first, that they were the very finest flower of Teutonic culture; second, that they must so impose their personalities on the boys, so impress them with their ideal, that every pupil would carry to his dying hour the stamp of the culture of the Nicolai school. Utterly unsympathetic, narrow beyond the dreams of the narrowest of modern schoolmasters, they were frankly, virulently hostile to any one in whom they perceived—as they always did perceive with the unerring instinct of stupidity to detect cleverness—the smallest trace of originality of character, thought or outlook on life. As a rule they seem to have been successful in achieving their aim. An old German friend of mine told me he had calculated that the Nicolai school turned out in ten years more complete, complacent blockheads than any other school in Germany had turned out in half-a-century; and my friend gave me many notable instances of men who had soon won the proud distinction of being unmistakable pupils of the Nicolai school. There were rebels, and Wagner makes it clear that he was amongst them. To begin