THE story of the composition of “TannhÄuser,” poem and music, is a forcible illustration of the proverb, that the life of a man is reflected in his works. Of the music and the performance of “TannhÄuser” in October, 1845, at Dresden, I wrote a notice for a London periodical, called the “English Gentleman.” This was the first time, I believe, that Wagner’s name was mentioned in England. They were exciting times, and it is of exceptional interest at this epoch to reflect upon the judgment of the composer at the birth of “TannhÄuser.”

When the legend first engaged Wagner’s attention, with a view to its composition, he was not thirty years old. It will be remembered that the transformation from Paris poverty to a comparative Dresden luxury infused new life into him. He tells me, “I resolved to throw myself into a world of excitement, to enjoy life, and taste fully its pleasures.” And he did. It was in this mood of feverish excitation that the Venus love invaded him. His state was one of intense nervous tension. The poem was worked out, but not in the shape we now have it. The end was subsequently changed. The poetry and music simmered in his brain for three years. He began elated, filled with sensations of ecstasy. He ended dejected, fearing that death would intervene before the last notes were written.

Now wherein lies the explanation of this? Let me recount briefly his life during these three years, and the reason will at once be perceived. He had opened his Dresden career with brilliancy. “Rienzi” had proved a great success; he had been appointed conductor to the court, a competence of 1500 thalers or £ 225 yearly was guaranteed him, and his horizon seemed brighter;—but the reverse soon began to show itself. The “Dutchman,” by which he had hoped to increase his reputation, proved a failure; even “Rienzi” was refused outside Dresden, and the press was violently inimical. His excited sanguine temperament had received a grievous shock. At Berlin, the “Dutchman” proved so abortive, that he took counsel with himself, and resolved that this “TannhÄuser” should not be written for the world, but for those who had shown themselves in sympathy with him. As “TannhÄuser” neared its completion, his state grew more morbid and desponding. His only solace, outside Roeckel, was his dog. It was a common saying with Wagner that his dog helped him to compose “TannhÄuser.” It seems that when at the piano, at which he always composed, singing with his accustomed boisterousness, the dog, whose constant place was at his master’s feet, would occasionally leap to the table, peer into his face, and howl piteously. Then Wagner would address his “eloquent critic” with, “What? it does not suit you?” and shaking the animal’s paw, would say, quoting Puck, “Well, I will do thy bidding gently.”

During the composition Tichatschek, who was to impersonate the hero, practised such portions as were already written. His enthusiasm was unbounded, and with Roeckel, he urged the Dresden management to provide special scenery. The appeal was responded to, and painters were even brought from Paris. On the 19th October, 1845, the opera was performed, Johanna Wagner, aged nineteen, the daughter of his brother Albert, singing the part of Elizabeth. As an illustration of Richard Wagner’s thoroughness and attention to detail, I would mention that for this performance he wrote a prefatory notice to the book of words, in which he explained the purport of the story, with the object of ensuring a better understanding of the drama by the public. The performance, alas, was only a partial success, nor was a second representation, given within a fortnight, any more successful. The music was unlike anything heard before. It was noised abroad that passages had been written for the first violins which were unplayable, and the audience listened expectantly for the “scramble.” No doubt there were violin passages as difficult as original, but the heart of the leader, Lipenski, was in his work, and he set himself so earnestly to teach individually each violinist difficult phrases, even carefully noting the fingering, that the performance was anything but a “scramble.” Then the critics ridiculed the hundred and forty-two bars of repetition in the overture for the violins. This confession of superficial intellect was not confined to Dresden critics; a dozen years later, that sound musician, Lindpaintner, expressed the opinion to me that the first eight bars of the overture were “sublime,” but that the remainder was all “erratic fiddling.” Such were the criticisms (?) passed upon the work. Wagner saw there was no hope of its acceptation elsewhere, and thinking to bring it prominently before Germany, wrote in the following year for permission to dedicate the work to the king of Prussia. The reply was to the effect that if he would arrange portions of it for military performance, it might in that manner be brought to the notice of the king, and perhaps his request complied with. It is needless to say Wagner did nothing of the kind, and “TannhÄuser” sank temporarily into oblivion.

As the part which Richard Wagner played in the Revolution of 1848-49 is of absorbing interest, the incidents which led up to it are of importance to be carefully noted. The first sign of the coming opposition to the government appeared in 1845. In itself it was slight, when we think of the terrible struggle that was shortly to be carried on with such desperation, but it shows the embers of revolt in Wagner, which were later fanned into a glowing flame by the patriot, August Roeckel. Wagner’s heart, as that of all men, revolted at the cause, but had it not been for the “companion of my solitude,” as Wagner calls Roeckel, he would never have taken so active a part in the struggle for liberty. Upon this part, I cannot lay too much stress.

Throughout Saxony, a feeling had been growing against the restraint of the Roman Catholic ritual. One Wronger, a Roman Catholic priest, proposed certain revisions and modifications. To this the Dresden court, steadfastly ultramontane, offered violent opposition, and Duke Johann, brother of the king, showed himself a prominent defender of the faith.

The struggle was precipitated by the following incident. In his capacity as general commandant of the Communal guard, the Duke entered Leipzic one day in August, to review the troops. He and his staff were received, on the parade ground, by a large concourse of spectators with such chilling silence that, losing command of himself, the Duke at once broke off the projected review. Later in the day, while at an hotel on the city boulevard, some street urchins marched up and down singing, “Long live Wronger.” In a moment a tumult arose, upon which the royal guard stationed outside the hotel, by whose order is not known, fired upon the citizens promenading in the town. “The street,” writes Roeckel, “was bathed in blood.” This caused a tremendous stir throughout Saxony. This wanton act of butchery was openly denounced by Roeckel and Wagner, in terms so emphatic that they were called upon to offer some sort of apology to the court. The two friends arranged a meeting with Reissiger, Fisher, and Semper, when the subject was discussed, with the result that it was deemed advisable, while holding service under the court, to express regret at the exuberance of the language, and the matter was allowed to drop. But it rankled in Wagner. His position of a servitor was irksome; he became restive in his royal harness, and vented his annoyance in anonymous letters to the papers. From this time his interest in the political situation increased; continually stimulated by Roeckel, his sympathies were always with the people, his pen ready to support his feelings. And so the time wore on till the outbreak of 1848.

In the spring of 1846 an event occurred which had a great deal to do with my subsequent introduction of Wagner to the London public. It was his conducting of the “Ninth Symphony.” A custom existed in Dresden, of giving annual performances on Palm Sunday for the benefit of the pension fund of the musicians of the royal opera. Two works were usually produced, one a symphony, the two conductors dividing the office of conductor. This year the symphony fell to Wagner, and he elected to perform the “Choral.” When a youth he had copied it entirely at Leipzic, knew it almost by heart, and regarded it as the greatest of Beethoven’s works, the one in which the great master had felt the inadequacy of instrumental music to express what he wished to convey, and that the accents of the human voice were imperatively necessary for its full and complete realization. When it became known what symphony had been selected the orchestra revolted. They implored Wagner to produce another. The ninth had been done under Reissiger and proved a failure, in which verdict Reissiger had agreed, himself going so far as to describe that sublime work as “pure nonsense.” But Wagner was inexorable. The band, fearing poor receipts, sought the aid of Intendant Luttichorn: to no purpose, however. Wagner’s mind was made up, and he set to work with his usual thoroughness and earnestness. To avoid expense he borrowed the orchestral parts from Leipzic, learned the symphony by heart, and went through all the band parts himself, marking the nuances and tempi. As to rehearsals, he was unrelenting. For the double basses he had special meetings, would sing and scream the parts at them. He increased the chorus by choir-boys from neighbouring churches, and worked for the success of the performance with an energy hitherto unknown. To Roeckel he detailed the practice of the best portion of the band, whilst he persisted with the less skilful. The result was a performance as successful financially as artistically. More money was taken than at any previous concert, and the fame of Richard Wagner increased mightily. This performance brings out prominently certain features in Wagner’s character which enable us to see how, through subsequent reverses, he was able to achieve success. First, witness his courage and indomitable will in overcoming the obstacles of Luttichorn’s opposition and the ill-will of the orchestra, the want of funds; then his earnestness and care in committing the score to memory, his energy at rehearsals, his forethought and wondrous grasp of detail evident in the programme he wrote explaining the symphony, and his untiring efforts to succeed. Such points of character show of what material the man was made, how in all he did he was thorough, and how firmly impressed with the conviction that he must succeed.

The analytical remarks he appended to the symphony were not those that the musical world now know as Richard Wagner’s programme, but a shorter and more discursive exposition. The year was 1846, but two from the revolution. The spirit of the brotherhood of nations was in the air, and the references of Schiller to this world’s bond of union were seized by Wagner as presenting the means of contemplating Beethoven’s work from a more exalted elevation than that of an ordinary symphony. It was currently known that the poet had originally addressed his “Ode to Liberty! the beautiful spark of heaven,” but that the censor of the press had struck out “Freiheit” (liberty), and Schiller had substituted “Freude” (joy). The sentiment, then, was one shared by all, and there can be no question that the success of the final chorus was as much owing to the inspiriting language as to the tonal interpretation.

Of recent years much has been said of Wagner’s attitude towards the opinions upon Italian opera. The years he served at the conductor’s desk at Dresden, at the period when the sap of his art ambition was rising rapidly, truly brought him into intimate acquaintance enough with the fashionable works of French and Italian masters, but his resentment, I can vouch, was not directed against the composer. He often and often pointed out to me what, in his opinion, were passages which seemed to betoken the presence of real gift. What he did regret was that their faithful adherence to an illogical structure should have crippled their natural spontaneity. That the talent of the orchestra, too, should be thrown away on puerile productions annoyed him. But Wagner was nothing if not practical, and after a season of light opera, the conducting of which was shared by Reissiger and Roeckel, he writes, “After all, the management are wise in providing just that commodity for which there is demand.” When his own “TannhÄuser” was produced with its new ending, he was charged in the press with being governed too much by reflection, that his work lacked natural flow, that he was domineered by reasoning at the expense of feeling. To this Wagner replied in very weighty words, significant of the thought which always governed the earnest artist, “The period of an unconscious productivity has long passed: an art work to endure the process of time, and to satisfy the high culture which is around us, must be solidly rooted in reason and reflection.” Such utterances are clearly traceable to his elevated appreciation of poetry and keen reasoning faculties.

“Lohengrin,” beyond contradiction the most popular of all Wagner’s operas, or music-dramas, for it should be well remembered that Wagner in all his literary works up to the last persistently applies the term “opera” to “Lohengrin,” and its two immediate predecessors, whilst music-drama was not employed until 1851, and then only for compositions subsequent to that period. The popularity of “Lohengrin” is not confined to its native soil, Germany, but all Europe, England, Russia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark (shameful to add, France alone excepted), and America and Australia, have received it with acclamations. And why? The secret of it? For learned musicians too, anti-Wagnerians though they be, accepted it. From notes in my possession, I think the explanation becomes clear. Wagner writes at that time, “Music is love, and in my projected opera melody shall stream from one end to the other.” The form, too, does not break from traditions. It is the border between the old and new. When “Lohengrin” was composed, not one of his theoretical works had been penned. He was untrammelled then. The principles upon which his subsequent works were based can only be applied, he says, to the first three operas “with very extensive limitations.” Hence he satisfies the orthodox in their two fundamental principles, “form and melody.” “Lohengrin” is a love-poem; to Wagner, then, music was love, and he was intent on writing melody as then understood throughout the new work.

The network of connection that exists between Wagner’s opera texts, is but one of the many examples which might be adduced of the sequential thought characteristic of the composer. Each was suggested by its predecessor. The contest of the Minnesingers’ “TannhÄuser” was naturally followed by the story of the Mastersingers, first sketched in 1845, the year of the “TannhÄuser” performance, and then Elsa the love-pendant of innocence and purity to the material, voluptuous Venus.

In this story of “Lohengrin,” Wagner wavered for a time whether the hero should not remain on earth with Elsa. This ending he was going to adopt, Roeckel informs me, out of deference to friends and critics, but Wagner told me that Roeckel argued so eloquently for the return of Lohengrin to his state of semi-divinity, that to permit the hero to lead the life of a citizen would clash harshly with the poetic aspect, and so Wagner, strengthened in his original intention, reverted to his first conception. Allusion is made to this by Wagner in “A Commutation to my Friends,” written in Switzerland, 1851; the friend there referred to is August Roeckel.

During the composition of “Lohengrin” Wagner was at deadly strife with the world. He flattered where he despised. He borrowed money where he could. Just then the world was all black to Wagner. Of no period of his life can it be said that Wagner managed his finances with even ordinary care. He always lived beyond his means. Though he was in receipt of £225 a year from the Dresden theatre, a respectable income for that period be it remembered, he did not restrict his expenses. And so his naturally irritable temperament was intensified and he resolutely threw himself into the “Lohengrin” work, determined not to write for a public whose taste was vitiated by “theatres having no other purpose but amusement,” but to pour his soul out in the love-strains with which his heart was bursting. The original score shows that the order of composition was Act III, I, II, and the prelude last, the whole covering a period of eleven months, from September, 1846, to August, 1847. It was unusual for Wagner to compose in this manner; indeed, as far as I am aware, it was the only work so written.

At the time Wagner was meditating upon the “Lohengrin” music, when it was beginning to assume a definite shape in his mind, weighed down with the feeling of being “rejected” by his countrymen and depressed in general circumstances, the following letter, written to his mother, throws a charming sidelight upon Wagner, the man. The deep filial tenderness and poetic sentiment that breathe throughout it, touch and enchant us.

It was well for Wagner that his mind was occupied with the composition of “Lohengrin” during 1846-47, for by the summer of the latter year the pressure of circumstances had become so acute that notwithstanding his exceptional elasticity of spirits the mental worry must have resulted in a more distressing depression than that which we know did take hold of him. This exuberance of youthful frolic is an important characteristic of Wagner. It was his sheet anchor, a refuge from annoyances that would have incisively irritated or crushed another. True, he would burst into a passion at first,—there is no denying his passionate nature,—but it was of short duration and once over the boisterous merriment of a high-spirited school-boy succeeded. Though deeply wounded, as only finely strung sensitive natures can be, he was quick to recover, and whilst animadverting upon the denseness of those who slighted his art, he distorted the incident and treated it as worthy of affording fun only. Wagner identified himself with his art body and soul, his breath of life was art, his pulse throbbed for art, and to wound him was insulting art. His success was the triumph of art, and the sacrifices his friends made of mental energy, wealth, and time were regarded by him but as votive offerings to the altar of the divine art, honouring the donor. Then when his scores of “Rienzi,” the “Dutchman,” and “TannhÄuser” were returned unopened by managers, he turned with undiminished ardour upon “Lohengrin,” doubting his capacity to realize in tones his feelings, but with dauntless fortitude to write his “love-music” for the glory of art, conscious that its scenic interpretation was, for the present at least, a very improbable circumstance.

What, in Wagner’s character at all times, inspires our admiration is his courage. “He never knew when he was beaten.” Weighed down with monetary difficulties,—though his poor means were made rich by the wealth of love and ready invention of Minna, whose patience and self-denial he was always ready to extol,—with a cloudy art horizon, he sought to approach the great public in a more direct manner than by stage representations, by publishing the three operas already composed. It was not a difficult matter; he was a local celebrity, and on the strength of his reputation he entered into an engagement with a Dresden firm, Messrs. Meser and Co. The large initial cost was borne by the firm, but the liability was Wagner’s. Messrs. Meser and Co. predicted a success, and risking nothing, or comparatively nothing, urged the issue of “Rienzi,” “Dutchman,” and “TannhÄuser.” The contract was signed, the works were produced, but alas, the forecast was pleasant to the ear but breaking in the hope. There was absolutely no sale, and claims were soon preferred on the luckless composer for the cost of production. Of course they could not be met. Wagner had no available funds, his income was insufficient for his daily needs, and so he borrowed, borrowed where he could, sufficient to temporarily appease the publishers. This debt, paid by instalments, hung over him as a black cloud for years, always breaking when he was least equal to meet it. How he has stormed at his folly, and regretted his heedlessness of the future, but the demand met, his tribulation was immediately forgotten. A brother of mine, passing through Dresden in 1847, wrote to me of his surprise at the state of Wagner’s finances, and of the sum that was necessary to keep him afloat, which under my direction was immediately supplied.

It was then that Wagner wrote to me: “Try and negotiate for the sale of my opera ‘TannhÄuser’ in London. If there be no possibility of concluding a bargain, and gaining a tangible remuneration for me, arrange that some firm shall take it so as to secure the English copyright.” I went off at once to my friend Frederick Beale, the head of the house Cramer, Beale and Co., now Cramer and Co. Though Frederick Beale was an enthusiast in art, with a sense beyond that of the ordinary speculator in other men’s talent, yet “he could not see his way to publishing ‘TannhÄuser.’” I knew Beale would have done much for me, our relations being of so intimate a character, but the times “were out of joint,” his geniality had just then led him to accept much that proved a financial loss to the firm, and so the work which, as time now shows, would have produced a future, was rejected, yes, rejected, though on behalf of Wagner I offered it for nothing. It is the old, old story; Carlyle offering his “Sartor Resartus” for nothing, Schubert his songs, etc., etc., and rejected as valueless by the purblind publisher. The publisher invariably is the man of his period; he is incapable of seeing beyond his age, and thrusts aside the genius who writes for futurity. “Wouldst thou plant for eternity?” asks Carlyle, “then plant into the deep, infinite faculties of man, his fantasy and heart; wouldst thou plant for a year and a day? then plant into his shallow, superficial faculties, his self-love and arithmetical understanding.”